BX 9815 .P36 1885 
 
 Parker, Theodore, 1810-1860 
 
 Views of religion 
 
VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
^>^^ ur ruif/c] 
 
 4 
 
 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 BY 
 
 V 
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 
 
 SEitij an Entrotiuction, 
 By JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION. 
 
 1885. 
 
Copyright, 1885, 
 By F. B. Sanborn. 
 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Introduction v 
 
 The Religious Element in Man. (From " A Discourse 
 of Matters pertaining to Religion." Book I., Chapters I. 
 II. III. and IV.) 1 
 
 Naturalism, Supernaturalism, and Spiritualism. 
 (From "A Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion." 
 Book I., Chapters VI. VII. and VIII.) 29 
 
 Speculative Atheism, regarded as a Theory op the 
 Universe. (From "Theism, Atheism, and the Popular 
 Theology." Sermon I.) 58 
 
 Speculative Theism, regarded as a Theory op the 
 Universe. (From " Theism, Atheism, and the Popular 
 Theology." Sermon V.) 85 
 
 A Sermon of Providence. (From " Theism, Atheism, 
 
 and the Popular Theology." Sermon VIII.) .... 112 
 
 Of Justice and the Conscience. (From "Ten Sermons 
 of Religion, and Prayers." Sermon III.) 138 
 
 Of the Culture of the Religious Powers. (From 
 
 " Ten Sermons of Religion, and Prayers." Sermon VI.) 164 
 
 Of Piety, and the Relation thereof to Manly Life. 
 (From " Ten Sermons of Religion, and Prayers." Ser- 
 mon I.) 194 
 
 Conscious Religion as a Source of Strength. (From 
 " Ten Sermons of Religion, and Prayers." Extracts from 
 Sermon VII.) 216 
 
iv CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Of Communion with God. (From " Ten Sermons of Re- 
 ligion, and Prayei's." Extracts from Sermon X.) . . 236 
 
 The Relation of Jesus to his Age and the Ages. 
 (From "Discourses of Theology." A Sermon preached 
 at the Thursday Lecture, in Boston, December 26, 1844.) 256 
 
 Thoughts about Jesus. (From " Lessons from the World 
 of Matter and the World of Man." Extracts from chap- 
 ter entitled "Jesus of Nazareth.") 273 
 
 A Discourse of the Transient and Permanent in 
 Christianity. (From "Miscellaneous Discourses." 
 Sermon I. Preached at the Ordination of Mr. Ciiarles 
 C. Shackford, in the Hawes Place Church, in Boston, 
 May 19, 1841.) 289 
 
 The Bible. (From " A Discourse of Matters pertaining to 
 
 Religion." Book IV., Chapters L IV. and V.) . ... 326 
 
 A Sermon on Immortal Life. (From "Discourses of 
 Theology." Preached at the Melodeon, Boston, on Sun- 
 day, September 20, 1846.) 343 
 
 An Humble Tribute to the Memory of William Ellery 
 Channing, D. D. (A Sermon preached at West Eoxbury, 
 October 9, 1842, and printed at the time, by request, in 
 pamphlet form.) 369 
 
 Beauty in the World of Matter. (From " Discourses 
 
 of Theology.") 397 
 
 Spring. (From " Lessons from the World of Matter and 
 
 the World of Man.") 419 
 
 Prayer. (From " Ten Sermons of Religion, and Prayers.") 434 
 
 INDEX 439 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 There is no complete Amerioan edition of the works of 
 Theodore Parker, and many of them are ont of print. 
 ■ The American Unitarian Association publishes this vol- 
 ume of selections from his writings by permission of his 
 friends. We hope that his entire works may one day be 
 collected and published in this country, as they have been 
 in England. 
 
 All of these writings, unless we except his translation of 
 De Wette on the Old Testament, consist of occasional ser- 
 mons, speeches, lectures, and essays in periodical works. 
 ■In the pressure of such immediate demands, this most 
 laborious of men never found time to compose an elaborate 
 work. Always hoping to do so, and amply j)repared with 
 stores of thought and learning, the hour never came. In 
 this, he resembled other eminent Americans, such as William 
 Ellery Channing, Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, Wendell 
 Phillips, and Edward Everett. There is both advantage 
 and disadvantage in thus spending one's strength on special 
 occasions. There is greater immediate impression, but less 
 permanent influence. Few care to read a volume of speeches 
 delivered twenty or thirty years ago about matters which 
 have lost their interest. The fame which comes from pop- 
 ular addresses, like that of a great actor, is remembered at 
 last as a tradition ; while, moreover, the style of such ad- 
 dresses tends to diffuseness, repetition, and the broad touches 
 which jjlease an audience. 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 From this tendency to oblivion Parker's writings are 
 relatively saved by their learning and philosophy, and also 
 because he made himself an integral part of two movements 
 which have gone into history, — the antislavery movement 
 in politics, and the broadening out of New England theology. 
 The plan of this volume, as intended by the Publishing 
 Committee, was simply to illustrate Mr. Parker's views of 
 religion and theology. A more comprehensive selection 
 would, of course, include examples of his method of treat- 
 ing public subjects, and show his interest in moral reforms 
 and the practical questions of the hour. 
 
 Theodore Parker, an ardent controversialist, and vehement '■ 
 in expression, was sometimes unfair to his opponents. But 
 he was never intentionally so. He had the magnanimity • 
 which enabled him readily to retract any statement which 
 he saw was unfounded, or which could be misunderstood. 
 He did so in one instance at my suggestion, because I told • 
 him that one of his expressions had been misunderstood by 
 good people. His tremendous philippics against the defend- 
 ers of slavery, and against those who were willing to return 
 fugitives to their owners, though very severe, were caused 
 by his profound sense of the iniquity of the system. 
 
 The theology of Theodore Parker was at first thought ' 
 to be very radical, and was much censured. He returned 
 the condemnation in full measure, using sometimes very 
 bitter language. But with all this acrid speech, his dis- • 
 position was kind and affectionate. He never forgot • 
 a friendly action, for his heart was as large as his 
 brain. 
 
 Time and death soften animosities. The Unitarians have •• 
 forgiven and forgotten his sharp speeches against them, and 
 — what is often harder to forgive — their own sharp speeches 
 against him. To-day, they only remember his loyalty to ■ 
 truth, his devotion to humanity, his scholarship, intelligence, 
 and loving heart. Few persons would subscribe to his ■ 
 
INTROD UC TION. VU 
 
 • theology. To many he still seems only partially to under- 
 stand the work of Jesus, and to ignore some of the deeper 
 experiences of the human soul. On the other hand, the 
 
 • current of what is called '' advanced thought " has carried 
 others far beyond his position. If he were living now, he 
 would be thought by many to be much too conservative. 
 
 The work of Theodore Parker in theology was not essen- 
 tially that of denial. He pulled doAvn in order to build. 
 ■ He believed, with all his mind, heart, soul, and strength, 
 in God, Duty, and Immortality. He could never accept 
 in place of the living God any " stream of tendency," or 
 
 • " power not ourselves making for righteousness." To him 
 God was personal Friend, universal Father, whose worship 
 filled his mind and heart. An impersonal God was to him 
 a contradiction in terms. 
 
 He was, in the profoundest depths of his belief, a tran- 
 
 • scendentalist. He never could suppose the idea of duty 
 to be only a transformed sensation. To him it spoke with 
 commanding voice as an innate idea, binding the soul to 
 the law of universal righteousness. 
 
 Nor could he accept the sad doctrine that all of man ends 
 
 • with the present life. He saw in this life the beginning 
 of perpetual development. He deemed this faith in im- 
 mortality essential as a motive to endeavor, as a spring 
 of progress, and as vital to a true view of the dignity of 
 man. 
 
 The biography of Parker has been frequently written. 
 
 The first and fullest, but without much arrangement, 
 
 ■and poorly put together, is that by Weiss. The best is 
 
 by 0. B. Frothingham. From this last we quote some 
 
 passages : — 
 
 " With him the religious sentiment was supreme. It had roots 
 in his being wholly distinct from its mental or sensible forms 
 of expression, — completely distinguished from theology, which 
 
viii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 claimed to give an account of it in words; and from ceremonies, 
 •wliich claimed to embody it in rites and symbols. Never evapo- 
 rating in mystical dreams, nor entangled in the meshes of cunning 
 speculation, it preserved its freshness and bloom and fragrance in 
 every passage ot his life. His sense of the reality of divine things 
 was as strong as was ever felt by a man of such clear intelligence. 
 His feeling for divine things never lost its glow ; never was damped 
 by misgiving, dimmed by doubt, or clouded by sorrow. The in- 
 tensity of his faith in Providence, and of his assurance of personal 
 immortality, seems almost fanatical to modern men who sympa- 
 thize in general with his philosophy. His confidence in the latter 
 faith particularly, not all theists share. Yet to him it was native, 
 instinctive (in a sense of spontaneous and irresistible), born of 
 reverence, aspiration, trust, affection, which were ineradicable 
 qualities of his being. So far from dreading to submit his faith 
 to tests, he courted tests ; was as eager to hear the arguments 
 against his belief as for it; was as fair in weighing evidence on 
 his opponent's side as on his own. ' Oh that mine adversary had 
 written a book ! ' he was ready to cry, not that he might demolish 
 it, but that he might read it. He knew the writings of Moleschott, 
 and talked with him personally. The books of Carl Vogt were not 
 strange to him. The philosophy of Ludwig Biichner, if philosophy 
 it can be called, was as familiar to him as to any of Buchner's 
 disciples. He was intimate with the thoughts of Feuerbach. He 
 drew into discussion every atheist and materialist he met ; talked 
 with them closely, confidentially ; and rose from the interview 
 more confident in the strength of his own positions than ever. 
 Darwin's first book, ' On the Origin of Species,' which was 
 brought to him in Rome, contained nothing that disturbed him. 
 He thought it unsupported in many of its facts, and hasty in 
 its generalizations; but the doctrine itself was not offensive to 
 him. Science he counted his best friend ; relied on it for con- 
 firmation of his faith ; and was only impatient because it moved 
 no. faster. All the materialists in and out of Christendom had 
 no power to shake his conviction of the infinite God and the 
 immortal existence; nor would have had, had he lived till he 
 was a century old : for, in his view, the convictions were planted 
 deep in human nature, and were demanded by the exigencies of 
 human life." 
 
INTRODUCTION. ix 
 
 In publishing this volume of selections from the writings 
 of Theodore Parker, the Directors of the American Unita- 
 rian Association believe that they are meeting a want. 
 Without professing to indorse or to reject the views ex- 
 pressed in this volume, they are glad to assist in circulating 
 the ideas of one of the most able, earnest, and devout men 
 of our time. The editor laments that he has been unable, 
 from the necessary restriction of space, to give more nu- 
 merous selections, which would have done larger justice to 
 the author. He has sought to present specimens of some 
 of, the thoughts and themes which chiefly occupied the 
 mind of this great thinker and reformer. His works, in 
 the English edition already referred to, edited by Miss 
 Frances Power Cobbe, and used in making this book, are 
 contained in fourteen volumes, besides many reviews and 
 separate publications, which have not been collected. The 
 volumes are : — 
 
 I. A Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion. 
 
 II. Ten Sermons of Religion, and Prayers. 
 
 III. Discourses of Theology. 
 
 IV. Discom'ses of Politics. 
 
 V. Discourses of Slavery. Vol. 1. 
 VI. Discourses of Slavery. Vol. 2. 
 VII. Discourses of Social Scieuce. 
 VIII. Miscellaneous Discourses. 
 IX. Critical Writings. Vol. 1. 
 X. Critical Writings. Vol. 2. 
 XI. Theism, Atheism, and the Popular Theology. 
 XII. Autobiographical and Miscellaneous Pieces. 
 XIII. Historical Americans. 
 . XIV. Lessons from the World of Matter and the World 
 of Man. 
 
 I would express, on behalf of the friends of Theodore 
 Parker, their sense of obligation to Miss Cobbe, for her 
 affectionate zeal and ability shown in making this collec- 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tion. And I may take this opportunity to say how much ■ 
 the friends of good morals owe her for her constant advo- 
 cacy of the highest principles of duty, and her energetic 
 support of rational and spiritual religion. 
 
 I have taken nothing from the volumes of Slavery or 
 of Politics, and little from the discourses of Polemical 
 Theology. It has seemed best to confine the selections in 
 this volume to the religious affirmations of Theodore 
 Parker. 
 
 In closing, I would gratefully acknowledge, in ray own 
 behalf and that of the Association, the kindness of Mr. 
 F. B. Sanborn, literary executor of Theodore Parker, for 
 permission to use, for this book, any of the material under 
 his control, and also that of Mr. Eufus Leighton, for simi- 
 lar liberty in regard to the volumes edited by him. 
 
 I am also indebted to Eev. Joseph Henry Alien for the 
 sermon on Dr. Chanuing, which is not included in any of 
 the volumes. The only copy I could find is in the Library 
 of Harvard University. I hesitated about inserting it, be- 
 cause the author introduces it by expressing his sense of its 
 imperfection ; but it ought to be preserved as his testimony 
 to the character of one whom he greatly revered. 
 
 J. F. C. 
 Boston, November 1, 1885. 
 
VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 THE KELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN MAN. 
 
 As we look on the world which man has added to that 
 which came from the hand of its Maker, we are struck 
 with the variety of its objects and tlie contradiction be- 
 tween them. There are institutions to prevent crime ; 
 institutions that of necessity perpetuate crime. This is 
 built on selfishness, — would stand by the downfall of jus- 
 tice and truth. Side by side therewith is another, whose 
 broad foundation is universal love, — love for all that are 
 of woman born. Thus we see palaces and hovels, jails 
 and asylums for the weak, arsenals and churches, huddled 
 together in the strangest and most intricate confusion. 
 How shall we bring order out of this chaos ; account for 
 the existence of these contradictions ? It is serious work 
 to decompose these phenomena, so various and conflict- 
 ing ; to detect the one cause in the many results. But 
 in doing this, we find the root of all in man himself. In 
 him is the same perplexing antithesis which we meet in 
 all his works. These conflicting things existed as ideas 
 in him before they took their present and concrete shape. 
 Discordant causes have produced effects not harmonious. 
 Out of man these institutions have grown, — out of 
 his passions or his judgment, his senses or his soul. 
 
 1 
 
2 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 Taken together tlie\^ are the exponent which indicates 
 the character and degree of development the race has 
 now attained ; they are both the result of the past and 
 the prophecy of the future. 
 
 From a survey of society and an examination of human 
 nature we come at once to the conclusion, that for every 
 institution out of man except that of religion there is a 
 cause within him, either fleeting or permanent ; that the 
 natural wants of the body — the desire of food and rai- 
 ment, comfort and shelter — have organized themselves, 
 and instituted agriculture and the mechanic arts ; that 
 the more delicate principles of our nature — love of the 
 beautiful, the true, the good — have their oi'ganization also; 
 that the passions have their artillery, and all the gentler 
 emotions somewhat external to represent themselves and 
 reflect their image. Thus the institution of laws, with 
 their concomitants the court-house and the jail, we refer 
 to the moral sense of mankind, combining with the des- 
 potic selfishness of the strong, whose might often usurps 
 the place of justice. Factories and commerce, railroads 
 and banks, schools and shops, armies and newspapers, 
 are quite easily referred to something analogous in the 
 wants of man; to a lasting principle, or a transient 
 desire, which has projected them out of itself. Thus we 
 • see that these institutions out of man are but the exhibi- 
 tions of what is in him, and must be referred either to 
 eternal principles or momentary passions. Society is 
 the work of man. There is nothing in society which 
 is not also in him. 
 
 Now there is one vast institution which extends more 
 widely than human statutes ; claims the larger place in 
 human affairs ; takes a deeper hold on men than the ter- 
 rible pomp of war, the machinery of science, the panoply 
 of comfort. This is the institution of religion, coeval 
 
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN MAN. 3 
 
 and coextensive with the human race. Whence comes 
 this ? Is there an eternal principle in us all which legiti- 
 mately and of necessity leads to this ; or does it come — 
 like piracy, war, the slave-trade, and so much other busi- 
 ness of society — from the abuse, misdirection, and dis- 
 ease of human nature ? Shall we refer this vast institu- 
 tion to a passing passion which the advancing race will 
 outgrow, or does it come from a principle in us deep 
 and lasting as Man ? 
 
 To this question for many ages two answers have been 
 given, — one foolish and one wise. The foolish answer, 
 which may be read in Lucretius and elsewhere, is that 
 religion is not a necessity of man's nature, which comes 
 from the action of eternal demands within him, but is 
 the result of spiritual disease, so to say, — the effect of 
 fear, of ignorance, combining with selfishness ; that 
 hypocritical priests and knavish kings, practising on 
 the ignorance, the credulity, the passions, and the fears 
 of men, invented for their own salve and got up a re- 
 ligion, in which they put no belief and felt no spiritual 
 concern. But judging from a superficial view, it might 
 as well be said that food and comfort were not necessi- 
 ties of our nature, but only cunning devices of butchers, 
 mechanics, and artists, to gain wealth and power. Be- 
 sides, it is not given to hypocrites under the mitre, nor 
 over the throne, to lay hold on the world and move it ; 
 honest conviction and living faith are needed for that 
 work. To move the world of men firm footing is needed. 
 The hypocrite deceives few but himself, as the attempts 
 at pious frauds in ancient and modern times abundantly 
 prove. 
 
 The wise answer is, that this institution of religion — 
 like society, friendship, and marriage — comes out of a 
 principle deep and permanent in the constitution of man ; 
 
4 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 that as humble and transient and partial institutions 
 come out of humble, transient, and partial wants, and are 
 to be traced to the senses and the phenomena of life, — 
 so this sublime, permanent, and universal institution came 
 out from sublime, permanent, and universal wants, and 
 must be referred to the soul, the religious faculty, and 
 so belongs among the unchanging realities of life. Look- 
 ing even superficially, but with earnestness, upon human 
 affairs, we are driven to confess that there is in us a 
 spiritual nature, which directly and legitimately leads to 
 religion ; that as man's body is connected with the world 
 of matter, rooted in it, has bodily wants, bodily senses 
 to minister thereto, and a fund of external materials 
 wherewith to gratify these senses and appease these 
 wants, — so man's soul is connected with the world of 
 Spirit, rooted in God, has spiritual wants and spiritual 
 senses, and a fund of materials wherewith to gratify 
 these spiritual senses and appease these spiritual wants. 
 If this be so, then do not religious institutions come 
 equally from man ? Must it not be that there is nothing 
 in religion, more than in society, which is not implied 
 in him ? 
 
 Now, the existence of a religious element in us is not a 
 matter of hazardous and random conjecture, nor attested 
 only by a superficial glance at the history of man ; but this 
 principle is found out, and its existence demonstrated, in 
 several legitimate ways. 
 
 ■. We see the phenomena of worship and religious ob- 
 servances ; of religious wants, and actions to supply those 
 wants. Work implies a hand that did and a head that 
 planned it. A sound induction from these facts carries 
 us back to a religious principle in man, though the in- 
 duction does not determine the nature of this principle, 
 except that it is the cause of these phenomena. This 
 
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN MAN. 5 
 
 common and notorious fact of religious phenomena being 
 found everywhere, can be explained only on the supposi- 
 tion that man is by the necessity of his nature inclined 
 to religion; that worship in some form, gross or refined, 
 in act or word or thought or life, is natural and quite 
 indispensable to the race. If the opposite view be taken, 
 that there is no religious principle in man, then there are 
 permanent and universal phenomena without a corre- 
 sponding cause ; and the fact remains unexplained and 
 unaccountable. 
 
 Again, we feel conscious of this element within us. 
 We are not sufficient for ourselves ; not self-originated, 
 not self-sustained. A few years ago, and we were not ; 
 a few years hence, and our bodies shall not be. A mys- 
 tery is gathered about our little life. We have but 
 small control over things around us ; are limited and 
 hemmed in on all sides. Our schemes fail ; our plans 
 miscarry. One after another our lights go out ; our 
 realities prove dreams ; our hopes waste away. We are 
 not where we would be, nor what we would be. After 
 much experience, men powerful as Napoleon, victorious 
 as Cfesar, confess what simpler men knew by instinct 
 long before, — that it is not in man that walketh to direct 
 his steps. We find our circumference very near the 
 centre, everywhere. An exceedingly short radius mea- 
 sures all our strength. We can know little of material 
 things ; nothing but their phenomena. As the circle of 
 our knowledge widens its ring, we feel our ignorance on 
 more numerous points, and the unknown seems greater 
 than before. At the end of a toilsome life we confess, with 
 a great man of modern times, that we have wandered 
 on the shore, and gathered here a bright pebble and 
 there a shining shell ; but an ocean of truth, boundless . 
 and unfathomed, lies before us, and all unknown. The 
 
• 6 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 . wisest ancient knew only this, — that he knew nothing. 
 . We feel an irresistible tendency to refer all outward 
 things, and ourselves with them, to a power beyond us, 
 sublime and mysterious, which we cannot measure nor 
 even comprehend. We are filled with reverence at the 
 thought of this power. Outward matters give us the 
 occasion which awakens consciousness, and spontaneous 
 nature leads us to something higher than ourselves and 
 greater than all the eyes behold. We are bowed down 
 at the thought. Thus the sentiment of something super- 
 human comes natural as breath. This primitive spiritual 
 sensation comes over the soul wdien a sudden calamity 
 throws us from our habitual state, when joy fills our 
 cup to its brim, — at " a wedding or a funeral, a mourn- 
 ing or a festival ; " when we stand beside a great work 
 of nature, — a mountain, a waterfall; when the twilight 
 gloom of a primitive forest sends awe into the heart; 
 when we sit alone with ourselves, and turn in the eye 
 and ask. What am I; whence came I; whither shall -I 
 go ? There is no man who has not felt this sensation, 
 this mysterious sentiment of something unbounded. 
 
 Still further, we arrive at the same result from a phi- 
 losophical analysis of man's nature. We set aside the 
 body with its senses as the man's house, having doors 
 and windows ; we examine the understanding, which is his 
 handmaid ; we separate the affections, which unite man 
 with man ; we discover the moral sense, by which we can 
 discern between right and wrong, — as by the body's 
 eye between black and white, or night and day : and be- 
 hind all these, and deeper down, beneath all the shifting 
 phenomena of life, we discover the religious element of man. 
 Looking carefully at this element ; separating this as a 
 cause from its actions, and these from their effects ; strip- 
 ping this faculty of all accidental circumstances peculiar 
 
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN MAN. 1 
 
 to the age, nation, sect, or individual, and pursuing a 
 sharp and final analysis till the subject and predicate can 
 no longer be separated, — we find as the ultimate fact, 
 that the religious element first manifests itself in our 
 consciousness by a feeling of need, of want ; in one word, 
 by a sense of dependence. This primitive feeling does 
 not itself disclose the character, and still less the nature 
 and essence, of the object on which it depends, — no 
 more than the senses disclose the nature of their ob- 
 jects ; no more than the eye or ear discovers the essence 
 of light or sound. Like them, it acts spontaneously and 
 unconsciously, soon as the outward occasion offers, 
 with no effort of will, forethought, or making up the 
 mind. 
 
 Thus, then, it appears that induction from notorious 
 facts, consciousness spontaneously active, and a philo- 
 sophical analysis of our nature, all lead equally to some 
 religious element or principle as an essential part of 
 man's constitution. Now, when it is stated thus nakedly 
 and abstractedly that man has in his nature a permanent 
 religious element, it is not easy to see on what grounds 
 this primary faculty can be denied by any thinking man 
 who will notice the religious phenomena in history, trust 
 his own consciousness, or examine and analyze the com- 
 bined elements of his own being. It is true men do not 
 often say to themselves, " Go to now. Lo, I have a 
 religious element in the bottom of my heart." But 
 neither do they often say, " Behold, I have hands and 
 feet, and am the same being that I was last night or 
 forty years ago." In a natural and healthy state of 
 mind, men rarely speak or think of what is felt uncon- 
 sciously to be most true and the basis of all spiritual 
 action. It is, indeed, most abundantly established that 
 there is a relioious element in man. 
 
8 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 Now, the existence of this religious element, our experi- 
 ence of this sense of dependence, this sentiment of some- 
 thing without bounds, is itself a proof by implication of 
 the existence of its object, — something on which depend- 
 ence rests. A belief in this relation between the feeling 
 in us and its object independent of us, comes unavoida- 
 bly from the laws of man's nature ; there is nothing of 
 which we can be more certain. A natural want in man's 
 constitution implies satisfaction in some quarter, — just 
 as the faculty of seeing implies something to correspond 
 to this faculty ; namely, objects to be seen, and a medium 
 of light to see by. As the tendency to love implies 
 something lovely for its object, so the religious conscious- 
 ness implies its object. If it is regarded as a sense of 
 absolute dependence, it implies the absolute on which 
 this dependence rests, independent of ourselves. 
 
 Spiritual like bodily faculties act jointly, and not one 
 at a time ; and when the occasion is given from without 
 us, the reason spontaneously, independent of our fore- 
 thought and volition, acting by its own laws, gives us by 
 intuition an idea of that on which we depend. To this 
 idea we give the name of God or Gods, as it is repre- 
 sented by one or several separate conceptions. Thus 
 the existence of God is implied by the natural sense of 
 dependence, implied in the religious element itself; it 
 is expressed by the spontaneous intuition of reason. 
 
 Now, men come to this idea early. It is the logical 
 condition of all other ideas ; without this as an element 
 of our consciousness, or lying latent as it were and un- 
 recognized in us, we could have no ideas at all. The 
 senses reveal to us something external to the body, and 
 independent thereof, on which it depends ; they tell not 
 what it is. Consciousness reveals something in like 
 manner, — not the human spirit in me, but its absolute 
 
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN MAN. 9 
 
 ground, on which the spirit depends. Outward circum- 
 stances furnish the occasion by which we approach and 
 discover the idea of God ; but they do not furnish the 
 idea itself: that is a fact given by the nature of man. 
 Hence some philosophers have called it an innate idea ; 
 others, a reminiscence of what the spirit knew in a 
 higher state of life before it took the body. Both 
 opinions may be regarded as rhetorical statements of 
 the truth that the idea of God is a fact given by man's 
 nature, and not an invention or device of ours. The 
 belief in God's existence therefore is natural, not against 
 nature. It comes unavoidably from the legitimate action 
 of the intellectual and the religious faculties, — just as 
 the belief in light comes from using the eyes, and belief 
 in our existence from mere existing. The knowledge of 
 God's existence, therefore, may be called in the language 
 of philosophy an intuitio7i of reason ; or in the mytho- 
 logical language of the elder theology, a revelation from 
 Crod. 
 
 If the above statement be correct, then our belief in 
 God's existence does not depend on the a posteriori argu- 
 ment, — on considerations drawn from the order, fitness, 
 and beauty discovered by observations made in the ma- 
 terial world ; nor yet on the a priori argument, — on con- 
 siderations drawn from the eternal nature of things, and 
 observations made in the spiritual world. It depends 
 primarily on no argument whatever ; not on reasoning, 
 but reason. The fact is given outright as it were, and 
 comes to the man as soon and as naturally as the con- 
 sciousness of his own existence, and is indeed logically 
 inseparable from it, — for we cannot be conscious of our- 
 selves except as dependent beings. 
 
 This intuitive perception of God is afterwards fun- 
 damentally and logically established by the a priori 
 
10 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 argument, and beautifully confirmed by the a posteriori 
 argument ; but we are not left without the idea of God 
 till we become metaphysicians and naturalists, and so 
 can discover it by much thinking. It comes sponta- 
 neously, by a law of whose action we are at first not 
 conscious. The belief always precedes the proof, intui- 
 tion giving the thing to be reasoned about. Unless this 
 intuitive function be performed, it is not possible to 
 attain a knowledge of God ; for all arguments to that 
 end must be addressed to a faculty which cannot origi- 
 nate the idea of God, but only confirm it when given 
 *rom some other quarter. Any argument is vain when 
 the logical condition of all argument has not been com- 
 plied with. If the reasoner, as Dr. Clarke has done, pre- 
 suppose that his opponent has " no transcendent idea of 
 God," all his reasoning could never produce it, howso- 
 ever capable of confirming and legitimating that idea if 
 already existing in the consciousness. As we may speak 
 of sights to the blind and sounds to the deaf, and con- 
 vince them that things called sights and sounds actually 
 exist, but can furnish no idea of those things when there 
 is no corresponding sensation, — so we may convince a 
 man's understanding of the soundness of our argumen- 
 tation, but yet give him no idea of God unless he have 
 previously an intuitive sense thereof. Without the in- 
 tuitive perception, the metaphysical argument gives us 
 only an idea of abstract power and wisdom : the argu- 
 ment from design gives only a limited and imperfect 
 cause for the limited and imperfect effects. Neither 
 reveals to us the infinite God. 
 
 The idea of God, then, transcends all possible external 
 experience, and is given by intuition, or natural revela- 
 tion, which comes of the joint and spontaneous action of 
 reason and the religious element. Now, tlieoretically 
 
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN MAN. 11 
 
 this idea involves no contradiction, and is perfect : that 
 is, when the proper conditions are complied with, and 
 nothing disturbs the free action of the spirit, we receive 
 the idea of a being infinite in power, wisdom, and good- 
 ness, — that is, infinite, or perfect, in all possible rela- 
 tions. But practically, in the majority of cases, these 
 conditions are not observed : men attempt to form a 
 complex and definite conception of God. The primitive 
 idea, eternal in man, is lost sight of. The conception of 
 God, as men express it in their language, is always im- 
 perfect, — sometimes self-contradictory and impossible. 
 Human actions, human thoughts, human feelings, — yes, 
 human passions and all the limitations of mortal men, — 
 are collected about the idea of God. Its primitive sim- 
 plicity and beauty are lost. . It becomes self-destructive ; 
 and the conception of God, as many minds set it forth, 
 like that of a griffin or Centaur, or " men wdiose heads 
 do grow beneath their shoulders," is self-contradictory, 
 — the notion of a being who from the very nature of 
 things could not exist. They for the most part have 
 been called atheists who denied the popular conception 
 of God, showed its inconsistency, and proved that such 
 a being could not be. The early Christians, and all 
 the most distinguished and religious philosophers have 
 borne that name, simply because they were too far before 
 men for their sympathy, too far above them for their 
 comprehension, and because, therefore, their idea of God 
 was sublimer and nearer the truth than that held by 
 their opponents. 
 
 Now, the conception we form of God, under the most 
 perfect circumstances, must from tlie nature of things 
 fall short of the reality. The finite can form no ad- 
 equate conception or imagination of the infinite. All 
 the conceptions of the human mind arc conceived under 
 
12 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 the limitation of time and space, of dependence on a 
 cause exterior to itself; while the Infinite is necessarily 
 free from these limitations. A man can comprehend no 
 form of being- but his own finite form, which answers to 
 the Supreme Being even less than a grain of dust to the 
 world itself. There is no conceivable ratio between finite 
 and infinite. Our human personality gives a false mod- 
 ification to all our conceptions of the infinite. But if 
 not resting in a merely sentimental consciousness of 
 God, — which is vague, and alone leads rather to pan- 
 theistic mysticism than to a reasonable faith, — we take 
 the fact given in our nature, the primitive idea of God 
 as a Being of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness 
 involves no contradiction. This is perhaps the most 
 faithful expression of the idea that words can convey. 
 This language does not define the nature of God, but 
 distinguishes our idea of him from all other ideas and 
 conceptions whatever. Some great religious souls have 
 been content with this native idea ; have found it satis- 
 factory both to faith and reason, and confessed with the 
 ancients that no man by searching could perfectly find 
 out God. Others project their own limitations upon 
 their conception of God, making him to appear such an 
 one as themselves: thus they reverse the saying of 
 Scripture, and creating a phantom in their own image, 
 call it God. Thus while the idea of God as a fact given 
 in man's nature, and affording a consistent representa- 
 tion of its object, is permanent and alike in all ; while 
 a merely sentimental consciousness or feeling of God, 
 though vague and mysterious, is always the same in it- 
 self, — the popular conception of God is of the most vari- 
 ous and evanescent character, and is not the same in any 
 two ages or men. The idea is the substance ; the con- 
 ception is a transient phenomenon, which at best only 
 
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN MAN. 13 
 
 imperfectly represents the substance. To possess the 
 idea of God, though latent in us, is unavoidable ; to feel 
 its comfort is natural ; to dwell in the sentiment of God 
 is delightful : but to frame an adequate conception of 
 deity, and set this forth in words, is not only above 
 human capability, but impossible in the nature of things. 
 The abyss of God is not to be fathomed save by Him 
 who is All-in-all. 
 
 Now, this inborn religious faculty is the basis and 
 cause of all religion. Without this internal religious 
 element, either man could not have any religious notions, 
 nor become religious at all, or else religion would be 
 something foreign to his nature, which he might yet be 
 taught mechanically from without, as bears are taught 
 to dance and parrots to talk ; but which, like this ac- 
 quired and unnatural accomplishment of the beast and 
 the bird, would divert him from his true nature and per- 
 fection, rendering him a monster, but less of a man than 
 he would be without the superfetation of this religion 
 upon him. Without a moral faculty, we could have no 
 duties in respect to men ; without a religious faculty, no 
 duties in respect of God. The foundation of each is in 
 man, not out of him. If man have not a religious ele- 
 ment in his nature, miraculous or other " revelations " 
 can no more render him religious than fragments of ser- 
 mons and leaves of the Bible can make a lamb religious 
 when mixed and eaten with its daily food. The law, the 
 duty, and the destiny of man, as of all God's creatures, 
 are writ in himself, and by the Almighty's hand. The 
 religious element existing within us, and this alone, ren- 
 ders religion the duty, the privilege, and the welfare of 
 mankind. Thus religion is not a superinduction upon 
 the race as some would make it appear, not an after- 
 
14 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 thought of God interpolated in human affairs when the 
 work was otherwise complete ; but it is an original neces- 
 sity of our nature. The religious element is deep and 
 essentially laid in the very constitution of man. 
 
 I. Now, this religious element is universal. This may 
 he proved in several ways. Whatever exists in the fun- 
 damental nature of one man exists likewise in all men, 
 though in different degrees and variously modified by 
 different circumstances. Human nature is the same in 
 the men of all races, ages, and countries. Man remains 
 always identical; only the differing circumstances of 
 climate, condition, culture, race, nation, and individual 
 modify the manifestations of what is at bottom the same. 
 Races, ages, nations, and individuals differ only in the 
 various degrees they possess of po.rticular faculties, and 
 in the development or the neglect of these faculties. 
 When, therefore, it is shown that the religious sentiment 
 exists as a natural principle in any one man, its exist- 
 ence in all other men that are, were, or shall be, follows 
 unavoidably from tlie unity of human nature. 
 
 Again, the universality of the religious element is 
 confirmed by historical arguments, which also have 
 some force. We discover religious phenomena in all 
 lands, wherever man has advanced above the primitive 
 condition of mere animal wildness. Of course there 
 must have been a period in his development when the 
 religious faculties had not come to conscious activity ; 
 but after that state of spiritual infancy is passed by, 
 religious emotions appear in the rudest and most civi- 
 lized state, — among the cannibals of New Zealand and 
 the refined voluptuaries of old Babylon ; in the Esqui- 
 maux fisherman and the Parisian philosopher. The 
 subsequent history of men shows no period in which 
 these phenomena do not appear; man worships, feels 
 
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN MAN. 15 
 
 dependence and acconntabilit}^, religious fear or hope, 
 and gives signs of these spiritual emotions all the world 
 over. No nation with fire and garments has been found 
 so savage that they have not attained this ; none so refined 
 as to outgrow it. The widest observation, therefore, as 
 well as a philosophical deduction from the nature of man, 
 warrants the conclusion that this sentiment is universal. 
 
 But at first glance there are some apparent exceptions 
 to this rule. A few persons from time to time arise and 
 claim the name of atheist. But even these admit they 
 feel this religious tendency ; they acknowledge a sense 
 of dependence, which they refer, not to the sound action 
 of a natural element in their constitution, but to a dis- 
 ease thereof, to the influence of culture or the instruction 
 of their nurses, and count it an obstinate disease of their 
 mind, or else a prejudice early imbibed and not easily 
 removed. Even if some one could be found who denied 
 that he ever felt any religious emotion whatever, how- 
 ever feebly, — this would prove nothing against the uni- 
 versality of its existence, and no more against the general 
 rule of its manifestation than the rare fact of a child 
 born with a single arm proves against the general rule 
 that man by nature has two arms. 
 
 Again, travellers tell us some nations with consider- 
 able civilization have no God, no priests, no worship, 
 and therefore give no sign of the existence of the reli- 
 gious element in them. Admitting they state a fact, we 
 are not to conclude the religious element is wanting in 
 the savages ; only that they, like infants, have not at- 
 tained the proper stage when we could discover signs 
 of its action. But these travellers are often mistaken. 
 Their observations have in such cases been superficial, 
 made with but a slight knowledge of the manners and 
 customs of the nation they treat. And, besides, their 
 
16 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 prejudice blinded their eyes. They looked for a regular 
 worship, doctrines of religion, priests, temples, images, 
 forms, and ceremonies. But there is one stage of relig- 
 ious consciousness in which none of these signs appear, 
 and yet the religious element is at its work. The travel- 
 lers, not finding the usual signs of worship, denied the 
 existence of worship itself, and even of any religious con- 
 sciousness in the nation. But if they had found a people 
 ignorant of cookery and without the implements of that 
 art, it would be quite as wise to conclude from this nega- 
 tive testimony that the nation never ate nor drank. On 
 such evidence, the early Christians were convicted of 
 atheism by the Pagans, and subsequently the Pagans by 
 the Christians. 
 
 There is still one other case of apparent exception to 
 the rule. Some persons have been found who in early 
 childhood were separated from human society, and grew 
 up towards the years of maturity in an isolated state, 
 having no contact with their fellow-mortals. These give 
 no signs of any religious element in their nature. But 
 other universal faculties of the race, the tendency to 
 laugh, and to speak articulate words, give quite as little 
 sign of their existence. Yet when these unfortunate 
 persons are exposed to the ordinary influence of life, the 
 religious, like other faculties, does its work. Hence we 
 may conclude it existed, though dormant until the proper 
 conditions of its development were supplied. 
 
 These three apparent exceptions serve only to confirm 
 the rule that the religious sentiment, like the power of 
 attention, thought, and love, is universal in the race. 
 Yet it is plain that there was a period in which the 
 primitive wild man, without language or self-conscious- 
 ness, gave no sign of any religious faculty at all ; still 
 the original element lay in this baby-man. 
 
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN MAN. 17 
 
 However, like other faculties, tin's is possessed in dif- 
 ferent degrees by different races, nations, and individuals, 
 and at particular epochs of the world's or the individual's 
 history acquires a predominance it has not at other times. 
 It seems God never creates two races, nations, or men, 
 with precisely the same endowments. There is a differ- 
 ence, more or less striking, between the intellectual, 
 aisthctic, and moral develoi)ment of two races or nations, 
 or even between two men of the same race and nation. 
 This difference seems to be the effect, not merely of the 
 different circumstances whereto they are exposed, but 
 also of the different endowments with which they set 
 out. If we watch in history the gradual development 
 and evolution of the human race, we see that one nation 
 takes the lead in the march of mind, pursues science, 
 literature, and the arts ; another in war, and the practi- 
 cal business of political thrift; while a third nation, 
 prominent neither for science nor political skill, takes 
 the lead in religion, and in the comparative strength of 
 its religious consciousness surpasses both. 
 
 Three forms of monotheistic religion have, at various 
 times, come up in the world's history. Two of them at 
 this moment perhaps outnumber the votaries of all other 
 religions, and divide between them the more advanced 
 civilization of mankind. These three are the Mosaic, 
 the Christian, and the Mahometan ; all recognizing the 
 unity of God, the religious nature of man, and the re- 
 lation between God and man. All of these, surprising 
 as it is, came from one family of men, the Shemitic, 
 who spoke in substance the same language, lived in the 
 same country, and had the same customs and political 
 institutions. Even that wide-spread and more monstrous 
 form of religion which our fathers had in the wilds of 
 Europe betrays its likeness to this Oriental stock ; and 
 
 2 
 
18 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 that form, still earlier, which dotted Greece all over with 
 its temples, filling the isles of the Mediterranean with its 
 solemn and mysterious chant, came apparently from the 
 same source. The beautiful spirit of the Greek, modi- 
 fied, enlarged, and embellished what Oriental piety at 
 first called down from the Empyrean. The nations now 
 at the head of modern civilization have not developed 
 independently their power of creative religious genius, 
 so to say ; for each form of worship that has prevailed 
 with them was originally derived from some other race. 
 These nations are more scientific than religious, reflec- 
 tive rather than spontaneous, utilitarian more than rev- 
 erential ; and, so far as history relates, have never yet 
 created a permanent form of religion which has extended 
 to other families of men. Their faith, like their choicer 
 fruits, is an importation from abroad, not an indigenous 
 plant, though now happily naturalized, and rendered pro- 
 ductive in their soil. Of all nations hitherto known, 
 these are the most disposed to reflection, literature, 
 science, and the practical arts ; while the Shemitish 
 tribes in their early age were above all others religious, 
 and have had an influence in religious history entirely 
 disproportionate to their numbers, their art, their science, 
 or their laws. Out of the heart of this ancient family 
 of nations flowed forth that triple stream of pious life 
 which even now gives energy to the pulsations of the 
 world. Egypt and Greece have stirred the intellect of 
 mankind, and spoken to our love of the grand, the beau- 
 tiful, the true, to faculties that lie deep in us. But this 
 Oriental people have touched the soul of men, and awak- 
 ened reverence for the good, the holy, the altogether 
 beautiful which lies in the profoundest deep of all. The 
 religious element appears least conspicuous, it may be, 
 in some nations of Australia, — perhaps the most bar- 
 
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN MAN. 19 
 
 barous of men. With savages in general it is in its 
 infancy, like all the nobler attributes of man ; but as 
 they develop their nature, this faculty becomes more and 
 more apparent. 
 
 II. Again, this element is indestructible in human 
 nature. It is not in the power of caprice within, nor 
 external circumstances, — war or peace, freedom or 
 slavery, ignorance or refinement, — wholly to abolish or 
 destroy it. Its growth may be retarded or quickened, 
 its power misdirected or suffered to flow in its proper 
 channel ; but no violence from within, no violence from 
 without, can ever destroy this element. It were as easy 
 to extirpate hunger and thirst from the sound living 
 body as this element from the spirit. It may sleep, it 
 never dies. Kept down by external force to-day, it 
 flames up to heaven in streams of light to-morrow. 
 When perverted from its natural course, it writes in 
 devastation its chronicles of wrongs, — a horrid page of 
 human history which proves its awful power, as the 
 strength of the human muscle is proved by the distor- 
 tions of the maniac. Sensual men, who hate the 
 restraints of religion, who know nothing of its encour- 
 agements, strive to pluck up by the roots this plant 
 which God has set in the midst of the garden. But 
 there it stands, — the tree of knowledge, the tree of life. 
 Even such as boast the name of infidel and atheist find, 
 unconsciously, repose in its wide shadow, and refresh- 
 ment in its fruit. It blesses obedient men. He who 
 violates the divine law, and thus would wring this feel- 
 ing from his heart, feels it, like a heated iron, in the 
 marrow of his bones. 
 
 III. Still further, this religious element is the strong- 
 est and deepest in human nature. It depends on noth- 
 ing outside, conventional, or artificial. It is identical in 
 
20 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 all men; not a similar thing, but the same. Super- 
 ficially, man differs from man, in the less and more ; 
 but in the nature of the primitive religious element all 
 agree, as in whatever is deepest. Out of the profoundest 
 abyss in man proceed his worship, his prayer, his hymn 
 of praise. The history of the world shows us what a 
 space religion fills. She is the mother of philosophy 
 and the arts ; has presided over the greatest wars. She 
 holds now all nations with her unseen hand ; restrains 
 their passions, more powerful than all the cunning stat- 
 utes of the lawgiver ; awakens their virtue ; allays their 
 sorrows with a mild comfort all her own; brightens 
 their hopes with the purple ray of faith, shed through 
 the sombre curtains of necessity. 
 
 Religious emotion often controls society, inspires the 
 lawgiver and the artist, — is the deep-moving principle ; 
 it has called forth the greatest heroism of past ages; 
 the proudest deeds of daring and endurance have been 
 done in its name. Without religion, all the sages of a 
 kingdom cannot build a city ; but with it, how a rude 
 fanatic sways the mass of men ! The greatest works of 
 human art have risen only at religion's call. The mar- 
 ble is pliant at her magic touch, and seems to breathe a 
 pious life. The chiselled stone is instinct with a living 
 soul, and stands there silent, yet full of hymns and 
 prayers, — an embodied aspiration, a thought with wings 
 that mock at space and time. The temples of the East, 
 the cathedrals of the West, altar and column and statue 
 and image, — these are the tribute Art pays to her. 
 Whence did Michael Angelo, Phidias, Praxiteles, and all 
 the mighty sons of Art who chronicled their awful 
 thoughts in stone, shaping brute matter to a divine form, 
 building up the Pyramid and Parthenon, or forcing the 
 hard elements to swell into the arch, aspire into the 
 
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN MAN. 21 
 
 dome or the fantastic tower, — whence did they draw 
 their inspiration ? All their greatest wonders are 
 wrought in religion's name. In the very dawn of time, 
 Genius looks through the clouds, and lifts up his voice 
 in hymns and songs and stories of the gods ; and the 
 Angel of Music carves out her thanksgiving, her peni- 
 tence, her prayers for man, on the unseen air, as a votive 
 gift for her. Her sweetest note, her most majestic chant, 
 she breathes only at religion's call. Thus it has always 
 been. A thousand men will readily become celibate 
 monks for religion. Would they for gold, or ease, or 
 fame ? 
 
 The greatest sacrifices ever made are offered in the 
 name of religion. For this a man will forego ease, 
 peace, friends, society, wife, and child, — all that mortal 
 flesh holds dearest : no danger is too dangerous, no suf- 
 fering too stern to bear, if Religion say the word. Sim- 
 eon the Stylite will stay years long on his pillar's top, 
 the devotee of Buddha tear off his palpitating flesh to 
 serve his god. The Pagan idolater, bowing down to a 
 false image of stone, renounces his possessions ; submits 
 to barbarous and cruel rites, shameful mutilation of his 
 limbs ; gives the first-born of his body for the sin of 
 his soul ; casts his own person to destruction, because 
 he dreams Baal or Saturn, Jehovah or Moloch, demands 
 the sacrifice. The Christian idolater, doing equal hom- 
 age to a lying thought, gives up common-sense, reason, 
 conscience, love of his brother, at the same fancied man- 
 date ; is ready to credit most obvious absurdities, accept 
 contradictions, do what conflicts with the moral sense, 
 believe dogmas that make life dark, eternity dreadful, 
 man a worm and God a tyrant, — dogmas that make 
 him count as cursed half his brother men, — because 
 told such is his duty, in the name of religion. In this 
 
22 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 name Thomas More, the ablest head of his times, will 
 believe a bit of bread becomes the Almighty God, when 
 a lewd priest but mumbles his juggling Latin and lifts 
 up his hands. In our day, heads as able as Thomas 
 More's believe doctrines quite as absurd, because taught 
 as religion and God's command. In its behalf, the fool- 
 ishest teaching becomes acceptable ; the foulest doc- 
 trines, the grossest conduct, crimes that, like the fabled 
 banquet of Thyestes, might make the sun sicken at the 
 sight and turn back affrighted in his course, — these 
 things are counted as beautiful, superior to reason, 
 acceptable to God. The wicked man may bless his 
 brother in crime, the unrighteous blast the holy with 
 his curse ; and devotees shall shout " Amen " to both 
 the blessing and the ban. 
 
 On what other authority have rites so bloody been 
 accepted ; or doctrines so false to reason, so libellous of 
 God ? For what else has man achieved such works and 
 made such sacrifice ? In what name but this will the 
 man of vast and far out-stretching mind, the counsellor, 
 the chief, the sage, the native king of men, forego the 
 vastness of his thought, put out his spirit's eyes, and 
 bow him to a drivelling wretch who knows nothing but 
 treacherous mummery and juggling tricks ? In religion 
 this has been done from the first false propbet to the 
 last false priest ; and the pride of the understanding is 
 abashed, the supremacy of reason degraded, the majesty 
 of conscience trampled on, the beautifulness of faith 
 and love trodden down into the mire of the streets. 
 The hand, the foot, the eye, the ear, the tongue, the 
 most sacred members of the body ; judgment, imagina- 
 tion, the overmastering faculties of mind ; justice, mercy, 
 and love, the fairest affections of the soul, — all these 
 have been reckoned a poor and paltry sacrifice, and 
 
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN MAN. 23 
 
 lopped off at the shrine of God as things unholy. This 
 has been done, not only by Pagan polytheists and savage 
 idolaters, but by Christian devotees, accomplished schol- 
 ars, the enlightened men of enlightened times. 
 
 These melancholy results, which are but aberrations 
 of the religious element, the disease of the baby, not the 
 soundness of mankind, have often been confounded with 
 religion itself, regarded as the legitimate fruit of the 
 religious faculty. Hence men have said, " Such results 
 prove that religion itself is a popular fury, the foolish- 
 ness of the people, the madness of mankind." They 
 prove a very different thing. They show the depth, 
 the strength, the awful power of that element which 
 thus can overmaster all the rest of man, — passion 
 and conscience, reason and love. Tell a man his inter- 
 est requires a sacrifice, he hesitates ; convince him 
 his religion demands it, and crowds rush at once, and 
 joyful, to a martyr's fiery death. It is the best things 
 that are capable of the worst abuse : the very abuse 
 may test the value. 
 
 The legitimate action of the religious element produces 
 reverence. This reverence may ascend into trust,, hope, 
 and love, which is according to its nature ; or descend 
 into doubt, fear, and hate, which is against its nature : 
 it thus rises or falls, as it coexists in the individual with 
 wisdom and goodness, or with ignorance and vice. How- 
 ever, the legitimate and normal action of the religious 
 element leads ultimately, and of necessity, to reverence, 
 absolute trust, and perfect love of God. These are the 
 result only of its sound and healthy action. 
 
 Now, there can be but one kind of religion, as there 
 can be but one kind of time and space. It may exist in 
 different degrees, weak or powerful ; in combination with 
 
24 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 other emotions, love or hate, with wisdom or folly ; and 
 thus it is superficially modified, just as love, which is 
 always the same thing, is modified by the character of 
 the man who feels it, and by that of the object to which 
 it is directed. Of course, then, there is no difference 
 but of words between revealed religion and natural reli- 
 gion ; for all actual religion is revealed in us, or it could 
 not be felt, and all revealed religion is natural, or it 
 would be of no use. What is of use to a man comes 
 upon the plane of his consciousness, not merely above 
 it, or below it. We may regard religion from differ- 
 ent points of view, and give corresponding names to 
 our partial conceptions, which we have purposely lim- 
 ited ; and so speak of natural and revealed religion, 
 monotheistic, polytheistic, or pantheistic, Pagan, Jewish, 
 Christian, Mahometan religion. But in these cases the 
 distinction indicated by the terms belongs to the think- 
 er's mind, — not to religion itself, the object of thought. 
 Historical phenomena of religion vary in the more and 
 less. Some express it purely and beautifully ; others 
 mingle foreign emotions with it, and but feebly represent 
 the pious feeling. 
 
 To determine the question what is absolute — that is, 
 perfect — religion, religion with no limitation, we are not 
 to gather to a focus the scattered rays of all the various 
 forms under which religion has appeared in history, for 
 we can never collect the absolute from any number of 
 imperfect phenomena ; and, besides, in making the search 
 and forming an eclecticism from all the historical relig- 
 ious phenomena, we presuppose in ourselves the cri- 
 terion by which they are judged, — namely, the absolute 
 itself which we seek to construct, — and thus move only 
 in a circle, and end where we began. To answer the 
 question, we must go back to the primitive facts of 
 
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN MAN. 25 
 
 religious consciousness within us. Then we find religion 
 is voluntary obedience to the laiv of God, inward and out- 
 ivard obedience to that law he has written on our nature, 
 revealed in various ways through instinct, reason, con- 
 science, and the religious emotions. Through it we 
 regard Him as the absolute object of reverence, faith, 
 and love. This obedience may be unconscious, as in 
 little children who have known no contradiction between 
 duty and desire ; and perhaps involuntary in the perfect 
 saint, to whom all duties are desirable, who has ended 
 the contradiction by willing himself God's will, and thus 
 becoming one with God. It may be conscious, as with 
 many men whose strife is not yet over. It seems the 
 highest and completest mode of religion must be self- 
 conscious, — free goodness, free piety, and free, self-con- 
 scious trust in God. 
 
 Now, there are two tendencies connected with religion: 
 one is speculative ; here the man is intellectually em- 
 ployed in matters pertaining to religion, to God, to man's 
 religious nature, and his relation and connection with 
 God. The result of this tendency is theology. This is 
 not religion itself ; it is men's thought about religion, — 
 the philosophy of divine things, the science of religion ; 
 its sphere is the mind of men. Religion and theology 
 are no more to be confounded than the stars with 
 astronomy. 
 
 While the religious element, like the intellectual or 
 the moral, or human nature itself, remains ever the same, 
 the religious consciousness of mankind is continually 
 progressive ; and so theology,, which is the intellectual 
 expression thereof, advances, like all other science, from 
 age to age. The most various theological doctrines exist 
 in connection with religious emotions, helping or hinder- 
 ing man's general development. The highest notion I 
 
26 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 can form of religion is tliis, which I called the absolute 
 religion : conscious service of the infinite God by keeping 
 every law he has enacted into the constitution of the uni- 
 yerse, — service of Him by the normal use, discipline, de- 
 velopment, and delight of every limb of the body, every 
 faculty of the spirit, and so of all the powers we possess. 
 The other tendency is practical ; here the man is em- 
 ployed in acts of obedience to religion. The result of 
 this tendency is morality. This alone is not religion 
 itself, but one part of the life religion demands. There 
 may be morality deep and true with little or no purely 
 religious consciousness ; for a sharp analysis separates 
 between the religious and moral elements in a man. 
 Morality is the harmony between man's action and the 
 natural law of God. It is a part of religion which in- 
 cludes it " as the sea her waves." In its highest form 
 morality doubtless implies religious emotions, but not 
 necessarily the self-consciousness thereof. For though 
 piety, the love of God, and benevolence, the love of man, 
 do logically involve each other, yet experience shows that 
 a man may see and observe the distinction between right 
 and wrong, clearly and disinterestedly, without con- 
 sciously feeling, as such, reverence, or love of God ; that 
 is, he may be truly moral up to a certain point, without 
 being consciously religious, though he cannot be truly 
 religious without at the same time being moral also. 
 But in a harmonious man, the two are practically in- 
 separable as substance and form. The merely moral 
 man, in the actions, thoughts, and feelings which relate 
 to his fellow-mortal, obeys the eternal law of duty re- 
 vealed in his nature, as such, and from love of that law, 
 without regard to its Author. The religious man obeys 
 the same law, but regards it as the will of God. One 
 rests in the law, the other only in its Author. 
 
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN MAN. 27 
 
 Now, in all forms of religion there must be a common 
 element which is the same thing in each man ; not a 
 similar thing, but just the same thing, different only in 
 degree, not in kind, and in its direction towards one or 
 many objects ; in both of which particulars it is influenced 
 in some measure by external circumstances. Then, since 
 men exist under most various conditions and in widely 
 different degrees of civilization, it is plain that the re- 
 ligious consciousness must appear under various forms, 
 accompanied with various doctrines as to the number 
 and nature of its objects, the deities ; with various rites, 
 forms, and ceremonies, as it means to appease, propitiate, 
 and serve these objects ; with various organizations, de- 
 signed to accomplish the purposes which it is supposed 
 to demand ; and, in short, with apparently various and 
 even opposite effects upon life and character. As all 
 men are at bottom the same, but as no two nations or 
 ages are exactly alike in character, circumstances, or 
 development, so, therefore, though the religious element 
 be the same in all, we must expect to find that its mani- 
 festations are never exactly alike in any two ages or 
 nations, though they give the same name to their form 
 of worship. If we look still more minutely, we see that 
 no two men are exactly alike in character, circumstances, 
 and development, and, therefore, that no two men can 
 exhibit their religion in just the same way, though they 
 kneel at the same altar, and pronounce the same creed. 
 From the difference between men, it follows that there 
 must be as many different subjective conceptions of God, 
 and forms of religion, as there are men and women who 
 think about God, and apply their thoughts and feelings 
 to life. Hence, though the religious faculty be always 
 the same in all, the doctrines of religion, or theology ; 
 the forms of religion, or mode of worship ; and the prac- 
 
28 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 tice of religion, which is morality, cannot be the same 
 thing in any two men, though one mother bore them, 
 and they were educated in the same way. The concep- 
 tion we form of God, our notion about man, — of the 
 relation between him and God, of the duties which grow 
 out of that relation, — may be taken as the exponent of all 
 the man's thoughts, feelings, and life. They are there- 
 fore alike the measure and the result of the total de- 
 velopment of a man, an age, or race. If these things 
 are so, then the phenomena of religion — like those of 
 science and art — must vary from land to land, and age 
 to age, with the varying civilization of mankind ; must 
 be one thing in New Zealand, and the first century, and 
 something quite different in New England, and the fifty- 
 ninth century. They must be one thing in the wise man, 
 and another in the foolish man. They must vary also 
 in the same individual, for a man's wisdom, goodness, 
 and general character, affect the phenomena of his 
 religion. The religion of the boy and the man, of Saul 
 the youth, and Paul the aged, how unlike they appear. 
 The boy's prayer will not fill the man's heart ; nor can 
 the stripling son of Zebedee comprehend that devotion 
 and life which he shall enjoy when he becomes the saint 
 mature in years. 
 
NA TURALISM — SPIRITUALISM. 29 
 
 NATURALISM, SUPERNATURALISM, AND 
 SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 Natuealism allows that the original powers of nature, 
 as shown in the inorganic, the vegetaljle, and the animal 
 world, all came from God at the first ; that he is a prin- 
 ciple either material or spiritual, separate from the 
 world, and independent thereof. He made the w^orld 
 and all things, including man, and stamped on them 
 certain laws, which they are to keep. He was but 
 transiently present and active in nature at creation ; is 
 not immanently present and active therein. He has now 
 nothing to do with the world but to see it go. Here, 
 then, is God on the one side ; on the other, man and 
 nature. But there is a great gulf fixed between them, 
 over which there passes neither God nor man. 
 
 This theory teaches that man, in addition to his organs 
 of perception, has certain intellectual faculties by which 
 he can reason from effect to cause ; can discover truth, 
 which is the statement of a fact ; from a number of facts 
 in science can discern a scientific law, the relation of 
 thing to thing ; from a number of facts in morals can 
 learn the relation of man to man, deduce a moral law 
 which shall teach the most expedient and profita])le way 
 of managing affairs. Its statement of both scientific and 
 moral facts rests solely on experience, and never goes 
 beyond the precedents. Still further, it allows that men 
 can find out there is a God by reasoning experimentally 
 from observations in the material world, and metaphysi- 
 
30 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 cally also from the connection of notions in the mind. 
 But this conchision is only to he reached in either case 
 hy a process that is long, complicated, tortuous, and so 
 difficult that hut one man in some thousands has the 
 necessary experhnental knowledge, and hut one in some 
 millions the metaphysical suhtlety requisite to go through 
 it and become certain that there is a God. Its notion of 
 God is this, — a Being who exists as the power, mind, 
 and will that caused the universe. 
 
 The metaphysical philosophy of this system may be 
 briefly stated. In man by nature there is nothing but 
 man ; there is but one channel by which knowledge can 
 come into man ; that is sensation, perception through the 
 senses. That is an assumption, nobody pretends it is 
 proved. This knowledge is modified by reflection, — the 
 mind's process of ruminating upon the knowledge which 
 sensation affords. At any given time, therefore, if we 
 examine what is in man we find nothing which has not 
 first been in the senses. Now, the senses converse only 
 with finite phenomena. Reflection — what can it get 
 out of these ? The absolute ? The premise does not 
 warrant the conclusion. Something " as good as infin- 
 ite " ? Let us see. It makes a scientific law a mere 
 generalization from observed facts which it can never 
 go beyond. Its science, therefore, is in the rear of obser- 
 vation ; we do not know thereby whether the next stone 
 shall fall to the ground or from it. All it can say of the 
 universality of any law of science is this, " So far as we 
 have seen, it is so." It cannot pass from the particular 
 to the universal. It makes a moral law the result of 
 external experience, merely an induction from moral 
 facts, not the affirmation of man's moral nature declar- 
 ing the eternal rule of right. It learns morality by 
 seeing what plan succeeds best in the long run. Its 
 
NA TURALISM— SPIRITUALISM. 31 
 
 morality, therefore, is selfishness verified by experiment. 
 A man in a new case, for which he can find no prece- 
 dents, knows not what to do. He is never certain he is 
 right till he gets the reward. Its moral law at present, 
 like the statute law, is the slowly elaborated product of 
 centuries of experience. It pretends to find out God as 
 a law in science solely by reasoning from effect to cause, 
 from a plan to the designer. Then on what does a man's 
 belief in God depend ? On man's nature acting spon- 
 taneously ? No ; for there is nothing in man but man, 
 and nothing comes in but sensations which do not directly 
 give us God. It depends on reflection, argument, that 
 process of reasoning mentioned before. Now, admitting 
 that sensation affords sufficient premise for the conclu- 
 sion, there is a difficulty in the way. The man must 
 either depend on his own reasoning or that of another. 
 In the one case he may be mistaken, in an argument 
 so long, crooked, and difficult. It is at best an infer- 
 ence. The " hypothesis of a God," as some impiously 
 call it, may thus rest on no better argument than the 
 hypothesis of vortices or epicycles. In the other case, 
 if we trust another man he may be mistaken ; still worse, 
 may design to deceive the inquirer, as we are told the 
 heathen sages did. Where, then, is the certain convic- 
 tion of any God at all ? This theory allows none ; its 
 " proof of the existence of God " is a proof of the pos- 
 sibility of a God, perhaps of his probability, — surely no 
 more. 
 
 But the case is yet worse. In any argumentation 
 there must be no more expressed in the conclusion than 
 is logically and confessedly implied in the premises. 
 When finite phenomena are the only premises, whence 
 comes the idea of infinite God ? It denies that man has 
 any idea of the absolute, infinite, perfect. Instead of 
 
32 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 this, it allows only an accumulative notion, formed from 
 a series of conceptions of what is finite and imperfect. 
 The little we can know of God came from reasoning 
 about objects of sense. Its notion of God is deduced 
 purely from empirical observation ; what notion of a 
 God can rest legitimately on that basis ? Nature is 
 finite ; to infer an infinite author is false logic. We 
 see but in part, and have not grasped up this sum of 
 things, nor seen how seeming evil consists with real 
 good, nor accounted for the great amount of misery, 
 apparently unliquidated, in the world ; therefore nature 
 is imperfect to men's eyes. Why infer a perfect author 
 from an imperfect work ? Injustice and cruelty are 
 allowed in the world. How then can its Maker be re- 
 lied on as just and merciful ? Let there be nothing in 
 the conclusion which is not in the premises. 
 
 This theory gives us only a finite and imperfect God, 
 which is no God at all. He cannot be trusted out of 
 sight; for its faith is only an inference from what is 
 seen. Instead of a religious sentiment in man, which 
 craves all the perfections of the Godhead, reaches out 
 after the infinite '' first good, first perfect, and first fair," 
 it gives us only a tendency to reverence or fear what is 
 superior to ourselves, and above our comprehension, — 
 a tendency which the bat and the owl have in common 
 with Socrates and Fenelon. It makes a man the slave 
 of his organization. Free-will is not possible. His 
 highest aim is self-preservation ; his greatest evil death. 
 It denies the immortality of man, and foolishly asks 
 "proofs" of the fact, — meaning proofs palpable to the 
 senses. Its finite God is not to be trusted, except under 
 his bond and covenant to give us what we ask for. 
 
 It makes no difference between good and evil ; expedi- 
 ent and inexpedient are the better words. These are to 
 
NA TURALISM— SPIRITUALISM. 33 
 
 be learned only by long study and much cunning. All 
 men have not the requisite skill to find out moral and 
 religious doctrines, and no means of proving either in 
 their own heart ; therefore they must take the word of 
 their appointed teachers and philosophers, who " have 
 investigated the matter ; " found there is " an expedient 
 way " for men to follow, and a " God " to punish them if 
 they do not follow it. In moral and religious matters 
 the mass of men must rely on the authority of their 
 teachers. Millions of men, who never made an astro- 
 nomical observation, believe the distance between the 
 earth Und the sun is what Newton or Laplace declares 
 it to be. Why should not men take moral and religious 
 doctrines on the same evidence ? It is true, astronomers 
 have differed a little, — some making the earth the 
 centre, some the sun, — and divines still more. But 
 men must learn the moral law as the statute law. The 
 State is above each man's private notions about good 
 and evil, and controls these, as well as their passions. 
 Man must act always from mean and selfish views, never 
 from love of the good, the beautiful, the true. 
 
 This system would have religious forms and cere- 
 monies to take up the mind of the people ; moral pre- 
 cepts, and religious creeds, " published by authority," to 
 keep men from unprofitable crimes ; an established 
 church, like the jail and the gallows, a piece of State- 
 machinery. It is logical in this, for it fears that without 
 such a provision the sensual nature would overlay the 
 intellectual ; the few religious ideas common men could 
 get, would be so shadowy and uncertain, and men be so 
 blinded by prejudice, superstition, and fancy, or so far 
 misled by passion and ignorant selfishness, that nothing 
 but want and anarchy would ensue. It tells men to 
 pray. None can escape the conviction that prayer, vocal 
 
 3 
 
34 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 or silent, put up as a request, or felt as a sense of suppli- 
 cation, is natural as hunger and thirst, or tears and 
 smiles. Even a self-stjled atheist ^ talks of the important 
 physiological functions of prayer. This theory makes 
 prayer a soliloquy of the man, a thinking with the upper 
 part of the head, a sort of moral gymnastics. Thereby 
 we get nothing from God. He is the other side of the 
 world. " He is a journeying, or pursuing, or peradren- 
 ture he sleepeth." Prayer is useful to the worshipper as 
 the poet's frenzy, when he apostrophizes a mountain or 
 the moon, and works himself into a rapture, but gets 
 nothing from the mountain or the moon except what he 
 carried out. In a word, this theory reduces the idea of 
 God to that of an abstract cause, and excludes this cause 
 both from man and the world. It has only a finite God, 
 which is no God at all, for the two terms cancel each 
 other. It has only a selfish morality, which is no 
 morality at all, for the same reason. It reduces the soul 
 to the aggregate functions of the flesh ; providence to a 
 law of matter ; infinity to a dream ; religion to priest- 
 craft ; prayer to an apostrophe ; morality to making a 
 good bargain ; conscience to cunning ; it denies the 
 possibility of any connection between God and man. 
 Revelation and inspiration it regards as figures of speech, 
 by which we refer to an agency purely ideal what was 
 the result of the senses, and matter acting thereon. Men 
 calling themselves inspired, speaking in the name of 
 God, were deceivers or deceived. Prophets, the religi- 
 ous geniuses of the world, mistook their fancies for 
 revelation, embraced a cloud instead of a goddess, and 
 produced only misshapen dreams. Judged by this sys- 
 tem, Jesus of Nazareth was a pure-minded fanatic, who 
 knew no more about God than Peter Bayle and Pompon- 
 
 1 M. Comte. 
 
NA TURALISM— SPIRITUALISM. 35 
 
 atius, but 3'ct did the world service, by teaching the 
 result of his own or others' experience, as revelations 
 from God accompanied with the promise of another 
 life ; which is reckoned a pleasant delusion, useful to 
 keep men out of crime, — a clever auxiliary of the powers 
 that be. 
 
 This system has perhaps never been held in all its 
 parts by any one man, but each portion has often been 
 defended, and all its parts go together and come unavoid- 
 ably from that notion, that there is nothing in man which 
 was not first in the senses. The best representatives of 
 this school were, it may be, the French materialists of 
 the last century, and some of the English deists. The 
 latter term is applied to men of the most various charac- 
 ter and ways of thinking. Some of them were most 
 excellent men in all respects, — men who did mankind 
 great service by exposing the fanaticism of the super- 
 stitious, and by showing the absurdities embraced by 
 many of the Christians. Some of them were much more 
 religious and heavenly-minded than their opponents, and 
 had a theology much more Christian, which called good- 
 ness by its proj)er name, and worshipped God in lowli- 
 ness of heart, and a divine life. But the spirit of this 
 system takes different forms in different men. It appears 
 in the cold morality and repulsive forms of religion of 
 Dr. Priestley, who was yet one of the Ijcst of men ; in 
 the scepticism of Hume and his followers, which has 
 been a useful medicine to the Church ; in the selfish 
 system of Paley, far more dangerous than the doubts of 
 Hume or the scoffs of Gibbon and Voltaire ; in the 
 coarse, vulgar materialism of Hobbes, who may be taken 
 as one of the best representatives of the system. 
 
 It is obvious enough that this system of naturalism is 
 the philosophy which lies at the foundation of the popular 
 
36 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 theology in New England ; that it is very little under- 
 stood by the men, out of pulpits and in pulpits, who 
 adhere to it ; who, while they hold fast to the theory of 
 the worst of the English deists, though of only the 
 worst, — while they deny the immanence of God in matter 
 and man, and therefore take away the possibility of 
 natural inspiration, and cling to that system of phi- 
 losophy which justifies the doubt of Hume, the selfishness 
 of Paley, the coarse materialism of Hobbes, — are yet 
 ashamed of their descent, and seek to point out others, 
 of a quite different spiritual complexion, as the lineal 
 descendants of that ancient stock. 
 
 This system has one negative merit. It can, as such, 
 never lead to fanaticism. Those sects or individuals 
 who approach most nearly to pure naturalism have 
 never been accused, in religious matters, of going too 
 fast or too far. But it has a positive excellence ; it 
 lays great stress on the human mind, and cultivates the 
 understanding to the last degree. However, its philoso- 
 phy, its theology, its worship, are of the senses, and the 
 senses alone. 
 
 Supernaturalism differs in many respects from the 
 other system ; but its philosophy is at bottom the same. 
 It denies that by natural action there can be anything 
 in man which was not first in the senses ; whatever 
 transcends the senses can come to him only by a miracle. 
 And the miracle is attended with phenomena obvious to 
 the senses. To develop the natural side of the theory, it 
 sets God on the one side and man on the other. How- 
 ever, it admits the immanence of God in matter, and 
 talks very little about the laws of matter, which it thinks 
 require revision, amendment, and even repeal, — as if the 
 nature of things changed, or God grew wiser by experi- 
 
NA TURALISM— SPIRITUALISM. 37 
 
 ment. It does not see that if God is always the same, 
 and immanent in nature, the laws of nature can neither 
 change nor be changed. It limits the power of man still 
 further than the former theory. It denies that he can, 
 of himself, discover the existence of God, or find out 
 that it is better to love his brother than to hate him, — 
 to subject the passions to reason, desire to duty, rather 
 than to subject reason to passion, duty to desire. Man 
 can find out all that is needed for his animal and intel- 
 lectual welfare with no miracle, but can learn nothing 
 that is needed for his moral and religious welfare. He 
 can invent the steam engine, and calculate the orbit of 
 Halley's comet; but cannot tell good from evil, nor 
 determine that there is a God. The unnecessary is 
 given him, the indispensable he cannot get by nature. 
 Man, therefore, is the veriest wretch in creation. His 
 mind forces him to inquire on religious matters, but 
 brings him into doubt, and leaves him in the very slough 
 of despond. He goes up and down sorrowing, seeking 
 rest but finding none. Nay; it goes further still, and 
 declares that, by nature, all men's actions are sin, hate- 
 ful to God. 
 
 On the other hand, it teaches that God works a miracle 
 from time to time, and makes to men a positive revela- 
 tion of moral and religious truth, which they could not 
 otherwise gain. Its history of revelations is this : God 
 revealed his own existence in a visible form to the first 
 man ; taught him religious and moral duties by words 
 orally spoken. The first man communicated this knowl- 
 edge to his descendants, from whom the tradition of the 
 fact has spread over all the world. Men know there is 
 a God, and a distinction between right and wrong, only 
 b}- hearsay, as they know there was a flood in the time 
 of Noah, or Deucalion. The first man sinned, and fell 
 
38 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 from the state of frequent communion with God. Reve- 
 lations have since become rare, — exceptions in the historic 
 of men. However, as man having no connection with 
 the Infinite must soon perish, God continued to make 
 miraculous revelations to one single people. To them 
 he gave laws, religious and civil, made predictions, and 
 accompanied each revelation by some miraculous sign; 
 for without it none could distinguish the truth from a 
 lie. Other nations received reflections of this light 
 which was directly imparted to the favored people. At 
 length he made a revelation of all religious and moral 
 truth,- by means of his Son, a divine and miraculous 
 being, both God and man, and confirmed the tidings by 
 miracles the most surprising. As this revelation is to 
 last for ever, it has been recorded miraculously, and pre- 
 served for all coming time. The persons who received 
 direct communication miraculously from God are of 
 course mediators between Him and the human race. 
 
 Now, to live as religious men, we must have a knowl- 
 edge of religious truth ; for this we must depend alone 
 on these mediators ; without them we have no access 
 to God. They have established a new relation between 
 man and God. But they are mortal, and have deceased. 
 However, their sayings are recorded by miraculous aid. 
 A knowledge of God's will, of morality and religion, 
 therefore, is only to be got at by studying the documents 
 which contain a record of their words and works ; for the 
 word of God has become the letter of Scripture. We 
 can know nothing of God, religion, or morals at first 
 hand. God was but transiently present in a small 
 num1)cr of the race, and has now left it altogether. 
 
 This theory forgets that a verbal revelation can never 
 communicate a simple idea, like that of God, justice, 
 love, religion, more than a word can give a deaf man an 
 
NA TURALISM— SPIRITUALISM. 39 
 
 idea of sound. It makes inspiration a very rare miracle, 
 confined to one nation, and to some scores of men in 
 that nation, who stand between us and God. We cannot 
 pray in our own name, but in that of the mediator, who 
 hears the prayer, and makes intercession for us. It 
 exalts certain miraculous persons, but degrades man. 
 In prophets and saints, in Moses and Jesus, it docs not 
 see the possibility of the race made real, but only tlie 
 miraculous work of God. Our duty is not to inquire 
 into, the truth of their word. Reason is no judge of 
 that. We must put faith in all which all of them tell 
 us, though they contradict each other never so often. 
 Thus it makes an antithesis between faith and knowl- 
 edge, reason and revelation. It denies that common 
 men, in the nineteenth century, can get at truth and 
 God, as Paul and John in the first century. It sacri- 
 fices reason, conscience, and love to the words of the 
 miraculous men, and thus makes its mediator a tyrant, 
 who rules over the soul by external authority, restricting 
 reason, conscience, and love, — not a brother, who acts in 
 the soul, by waking its dormant powers, disclosing truth, 
 and leading others by a divine life to God, the source of 
 light. It says the words of Jesus are true because he 
 spoke them, — not that he spoke them because true. It 
 relics entirely on past times ; does not give us the abso- 
 lute religion, as it exists in man's nature and the ideas 
 of the Almighty, only an historical mode of worship, as 
 lived out here or there. It says the canon of revelation 
 is closed ; God will no longer act on men as heretofore. 
 We have come at the end of the feast ; are born in the 
 latter days and dotage of mankind, and can only get 
 light by raking amid the ashes of the past, and blowing 
 its brands now almost extinct. It denies that God is 
 present and active in all spirit as in all space ; thus it 
 
40 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 denies that he is infinite. In the miraculous documents 
 it gives us an objective standard, " the only infallible rule 
 of religious faith and practice." These mediators are 
 greater than the soul ; the Bible the master of reason, 
 conscience, and the religious sentiment. They stand in 
 the place of God. 
 
 Men ask of this system : How do you know there is in 
 man nothing but the product of sensation, or miraculous 
 tradition ; that he cannot approach God except by mira- 
 cle; that these mediators received truth miraculously, 
 taught all truth, nothing but the truth ; that you have 
 their words pure and unmixed in your scriptures ; that 
 God has no further revelation to make ? The answer 
 is : We find it convenient to assume all this, and accord- 
 ingly have banished reason from the premises, for she 
 asked troublesome questions. We condescend to no 
 proof of the facts. You must take our word for that. 
 Thus the main doctrines of the theory rest on assump- 
 tions, on no-facts. 
 
 This system represents the despair of man groping 
 after God. The religious element acts, but is crippled 
 by a philosophy poor and sensual. Is man nothing but 
 a combination of five senses, and a thinking machine to 
 grind up and bolter sensations, and learn of God only by 
 hearsay ? The God of supernaturalism is a God afar off ; 
 its religion worn out and second-hand. We cannot meet 
 God face to face. In one respect it is worse than natur- 
 alism; that sets great value on the faculties of man, 
 which this depreciates and profanes. But all systems 
 rest on a truth, or they could not be; this on a great 
 truth, or it could not prevail widely. It admits a quali- 
 fied immanence of God in nature, and declares, also, 
 that mankind is dependent on him for religious and 
 moral truth as for all things else, — has a connection with 
 
NA TURALISM— SPIRITUALISM. 41 
 
 God, who really guides, educates, and blesses the race, 
 for he is transiently present therein. The doctrine of 
 miraculous events, births, persons, deaths, and the like, 
 this is the veil of poetry drawn over the face of fact. 
 It has a truth not admitted by naturalism. As only a 
 few " thinking " men even in fancy can be satisfied with- 
 out a connection with God, so naturalism is always 
 confined to a few reflective and cultivated persons ; 
 while the mass of men believe in the supernatural 
 theory, at least, in the truth it covers up. Its truth is 
 of great moment. Its vice is to make God transiently 
 active in man, not immanent in him, — restrict the divine 
 presence and action to times, places, and persons. It 
 overlooks the fact that if religious truth be necessary 
 for all, then it must either have been provided for and 
 put in the reach of all, or else there is a fault in the 
 divine plan. Then again, if God gives a natural supply 
 for the lower wants, it is probable, to say the least, he 
 will not neglect the higher. Now, for the religious con- 
 sciousness of man a knowledge of two great truths is 
 indispensable : namely, a knowledge of the existence of 
 the infinite God, and of the duty we owe to him ; for a 
 knowledge of these two is implied in all religious teach- 
 ing and life. Now one of two things must be admitted, 
 and a third is not possible : either man can discover 
 these two things by the light of nature, or he cannot. If 
 the latter be the case, then is he the most hopeless of all 
 beings. Revelation of these truths is confined to a few ; 
 it is indispensably necessary to all. Accordingly, the 
 first hypothesis is generally admitted by the supernatu- 
 ralists in New England, though in spite of their philoso- 
 phy, — that these two things can be discovered by the 
 light of nature. Then if the two main points, the prem- 
 ises which involve the whole of morals and religion, lie 
 
42 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 within the reach of man's natural powers, how is a mir- 
 acle, or the tradition of a miracle, necessary to reveal the 
 minor doctrines involved in the universal truth ? Does 
 not the faculty to discern the greater include the faculty to 
 discern the less ? What covers an acre will cover a yard. 
 Where, then, is the use of the miraculous interposition ? 
 Neither naturalism nor supernaturalism legitimates 
 the fact of man's religious consciousness. Both fail of 
 satisfying the natural religious wants of the race. Each 
 has merits and vices of its own. Neither gives for the 
 soul's wants a supply analogous to that so bountifully 
 provided for the wants of the body or the mind. 
 
 Spiritualism teaches that there is a natural supply for 
 spiritual as well as for corporeal wants ; that there is a 
 connection between God and the soul, as between light 
 and the eye, sound and the ear, food and the palate, truth 
 and the intellect, beauty and the imagination ; that as 
 we follow an instinctive tendency, obey the body's law, 
 get a natural supply for its wants, attain health and 
 strength, the body's welfare ; as we keep the law of the 
 mind, and get a supply for its wants, attain wisdom and 
 skill, the mind's welfare, — so if, following another in- 
 stinctive tendency, we keep the law of the moral and 
 religious faculties, we get a supply for their wants, moral 
 and religious truth, obtain peace of conscience and rest 
 for the soul, the highest moral and religious welfare. It 
 teaches that the world is not nearer to our bodies than 
 God to the soul ; " for in him we live and move, and 
 have our being." As we have bodily senses to lay hold 
 on matter and supply bodily wants, through which we 
 obtain naturally all needed material things, so we have 
 spiritual faculties to lay hold on God, and supply spiritual 
 wants; through them we obtain all needed spiritual 
 
NA TURALISM— SPIRITUALISM. 43 
 
 things. As we observe the conditions of the body, we 
 have nature on our side ; as we observe the hxw of the 
 soul, we have God on our side. He imparts truth to all 
 men who observe these conditions ; we have direct access 
 to Him, through reason, conscience, and the religious 
 faculty, just as we have direct access to nature, through 
 the eye, the ear, or the hand. Through these channels, 
 and by means of a law, certain, regular, and universal 
 as gravitation, God inspires men, makes revelation of 
 truth ; for is not truth as much a phenomenon of God 
 as motion of matter ? Therefore, if God be omnipresent 
 and omniactive, this inspiration is no miracle, but a 
 regular mode of God's action on conscious spirit, as 
 gravitation on unconscious matter. It is not a rare con- 
 descension of God, but a universal uplifting of man. To 
 obtain a knowledge of duty, a man is not sent away out- 
 side of himself to ancient documents for the only rule of 
 faith and practice ; the word is very nigh him, even in 
 his heart, and by this word he is to try all documents 
 whatever. Inspiration, like God's omnipresence, is not 
 limited to the few writers claimed by the Jews, Chris- 
 tians, or Mahometans, but is co-extensive with the race. 
 As God fills all space, so all spirit ; as he influences and 
 constrains unconscious and necessitated matter, so he 
 inspires and helps free and conscious man. 
 
 This theory does not make God limited, partial, or 
 capricious. It exalts man. While it honors the excel- 
 lence of a religious genius, — of a Moses or a Jesus, — it 
 does not pronounce their character monstrous, as the 
 supernatural, nor fanatical, as the rationalistic theory ; 
 but natural, human, and beautiful, revealing the possi- 
 bility of mankind. Prayer — whether voluntative or spon- 
 taneous, a word or a feeling, felt in gratitude or penitence 
 or joy or resignation — is not a soliloquy of the man, not 
 
44 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 a physiological function, nor an address to a deceased 
 man, but a sally into the infinite spiritual world, whence 
 we bring back light and truth. There are windows 
 towards God, as towards the world. There is no inter- 
 cessor, angel, mediator between man and God ; for man 
 can speak and God hear, each for himself. He requires 
 no advocate to plead for men, who need not pray by 
 attorney. Each man stands close to the omnipresent 
 God ; may feel his beautiful presence, and have familiar 
 access to the All-Father, — get truth at first hand from 
 its Author. Wisdom, righteousness, and love are the 
 spirit of God in the soul of man ; wherever these are, 
 and just in proportion to their power, there is inspira- 
 tion from God. Thus God is not the author of confu- 
 sion, but concord ; faith, and knowledge, and revelation, 
 and reason tell the same tale, and so legitimate and con- 
 firm one another, 
 
 God's action on matter and on man is perhaps the 
 same thing to him, though it appear differently modi- 
 fied to us. But it is plain from the nature of things 
 that there can be but one kind of inspiration, as of 
 truth, faith, or love ; it is the direct and intuitive per- 
 ception of some truth either of thought or of sentiment. 
 There can be but one mode of inspiration ; it is the 
 action of the Highest within the soul, — the divine pres- 
 ence imparting light ; this presence as truth, justice, 
 holiness, love, infusing itself into the soul, giving it new 
 life ; the breathing in of the Deity, the in-come of God 
 to the soul, in the form of truth through the reason, of 
 right through the conscience, of love and faith through 
 the affections and religious element. Is inspiration 
 confined to theological matters alone ? Most surely 
 not. Is Newton less inspired than Simon Peter ? 
 
 Now, if the above views be true, there seems no 
 
NA TURALISM— SPIRITUALISM. 45 
 
 ground for supposing, without historical proof, there are 
 different kinds or modes of inspiration in different per- 
 sons, nations, or ages, — in Minos or Moses, in Gentiles 
 or Jews, in the first century or the last. If God be 
 infinitely perfect, he does not change ; then his modes 
 of action are perfect and unchangeable. The laws of 
 mind, like those of matter, remain immutable and not 
 transcended. As God has left no age nor man destitute 
 by nature, of reason, conscience, affection, soul, so he 
 leaves none destitute of inspiration. It is, therefore, the 
 light of all our being ; the background of all human 
 faculties ; the sole means by which we gain a knowledge 
 of what is not seen and felt ; the logical condition of all 
 sensual knowledge ; our highway to the world of spirit. 
 Man cannot, more than matter, exist without God. In- 
 spiration, then, like vision, must be everywhere the same 
 thing in kind, however it differs in degree, from race to 
 race, from man to man. The degree of inspiration must 
 depend on two things, — first, on the natural ability, the 
 particular intellectual, moral, and religious endowment 
 or genius wherewith each man is furnished by God ; and 
 next, on the use each man makes of this endowment. 
 In one word, it depends on the man's quantity of being 
 and his quantity of obedience. Now, as men differ 
 widely in their natural endowments, and much more 
 widely in the use and development thereof, there must 
 of course be various degrees of inspiration, from tlie 
 lowest sinner up to the highest saint. All men are not 
 by birth capable of the same degree of inspiration ; and 
 by culture and acquired character they are still less 
 capable of it. A man of noble intellect, of deep, rich, 
 benevolent affections, is by his endowments capable of 
 more than one less gifted. He that perfectly keeps the 
 soul's law, thus fulfilling the conditions of inspiration, 
 
46 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 has more than he who keeps it imperfectly : the former 
 must receive all his soul can contain at that stage of his 
 growth. Thus it depends on a man's own will in great 
 measure, to what extent he will be inspired. The man 
 of humble gifts, at first, by faithful obedience may attain 
 a greater degree than one of larger outfit who neglects 
 his talent. The Apostles of the New Testament, and the 
 true saints of all countries, are proofs of this. Inspira- 
 tion, then, is the consequence of a faithful use of our 
 faculties. Each man is its subject, God its source, truth 
 its only test. But as truth appears in various modes to 
 us, higher and lower, and may be superficially divided, 
 according to our faculties, into truths of the senses, of 
 the understanding, of reason, of conscience, of the affec- 
 tions and the soul, — so the perception of truth in the 
 highest mode, that of reason, morals, philanthropy, reli- 
 gion, is the highest inspiration. He, then, that has the 
 most of wisdom, goodness, religion, — the most of truth 
 in the highest modes, — is the most inspired. 
 
 Now, universal, infallible inspiration can of course 
 only be the attendant and result of a perfect fulfilment 
 of all the laws of mind, of the moral, affectional, and 
 religious nature ; and as each man's faculties are lim- 
 ited, it is not possible to men. A foolish man, as such, 
 cannot be inspired to reveal wisdom, nor a wicked man 
 to reveal virtue, nor an impious man to reveal religion. 
 Unto him that hath more is given. The poet reveals 
 poetry, the artist art, the philosopher science, the saint 
 religion. The greater, purer, loftier, more complete the 
 character, so is the inspiration ; for he that is true to 
 conscience, faithful to reason, obedient to religion, has 
 not only the strength of his own virtue, wisdom, and 
 piety, but the whole strength of Omnipotence on his 
 side ; for goodness, truth, and love, as we conceive them, 
 
NATURALISM— SPIRITUALISM. 47 
 
 are not one thing in man and another in God, but the 
 same thing in each. Thus man partakes the divine 
 nature, as the Platonists, Christians, and Mystics call it. 
 By these means the soul of all flows into the man ; 
 what is private, personal, peculiar, ebbs off before that 
 mighty influx from on high. What is universal, abso- 
 lute, true, speaks out of his lips, — in rude, homely utter- 
 ance, it may be, or in words that burn and sparkle like 
 the lightning's fiery flash. 
 
 This inspiration reveals itself in various forms, mod- 
 ified by the country, character, education, peculiarity of 
 him who receives it, just as water takes the form and 
 the color of the cup into which it flows, and must needs 
 mingle with the impurities it chances to meet. Thus 
 Minos and Moses were inspired to make laws ; David to 
 pour out his soul in pious strains, deep and sweet as an 
 angel's psaltery ; Pindar to celebrate virtuous deeds in 
 high, heroic song ; John the Baptist to denounce sin ; 
 Gerson, and Luther, and Bohme, and Fcnelon, and Fox, 
 to do each his peculiar work, and stir the world's heart 
 deep, very deep. Plato and Newton, Milton and Isaiah, 
 Leibnitz and Paul, Mozart, Raphael, Phidias, Praxiteles, 
 Orpheus, receive into their various forms the one spirit 
 from God most high. It appears in action not less than 
 speech. The Spirit inspires Dorcas to make coats and 
 garments for the poor, no less than Paul to preach the 
 gospel. As that bold man himself has said, " There are 
 diversities of gifts, but the same spirit; diversities of 
 operations, but the same God, who worketh all in all." ^ 
 In one man it may appear in the iron hardness of reason- 
 ing, which breaks through sophistry and prejudice, the 
 rubbish and diluvial drift of time. In another it is sub- 
 dued and softened by the flame of affection ; the hard 
 
 ^ 1 Cor. xii. 4, et scq. 
 
48 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 iron of the man is melted, and becomes a stream of per- 
 suasion, sparkling as it runs. 
 
 Inspiration does not destroy the man's freedom ; that 
 is left fetterless by obedience. It does not reduce all to 
 one uniform standard; but Habakkuk speaks in his 
 own way, and Hugh de St. Victor in his. The man can 
 obey or not obey, can quench the spirit or feed it, as he 
 will. Thus Jonah flees from his duty ; Calchas will not 
 tell the truth till out of danger ; Peter dissembles and 
 lies. Each of these men had schemes of his own, which 
 he would carry out, God willing or not willing. But 
 when the sincere man receives the truth of God into his 
 soul, knowing it is God's truth, then it takes such a 
 hold of him as nothing else can do. It makes the weak 
 strong, the timid brave ; men of slow tongue become 
 full of power and persuasion. There is a new soul in 
 the man, which takes him as it were by the hair of his 
 head, and sets him down where the idea he wishes for 
 demands. It takes the man away from the hall of com- 
 fort, the society of his friends, — makes him austere and 
 lonely ; cruel to himself, if need be ; sleepless in his 
 vigilance, unfaltering in his toil ; never resting from his 
 work. It takes the rose out of the cheek, turns the 
 man in on himself, and gives him more of truth. Then, 
 in a poetic fancy, the man sees visions, has wondrous 
 revelations ; every mountain thunders ; God burns in 
 every bush, flames out in the crimson cloud, speaks in 
 the wind, descends with every dove, is All-in-all. The 
 soul, deep-wrought in its intense struggle, gives outness 
 to its thought ; and on the trees and stars, the fields, 
 the floods, the corn ripe for the sickle, on men and 
 women, it sees its burden writ. The spirit within con- 
 strains the man. It is like wine that hath no vent. He 
 is full of the God. While he muses the fire burns ; his 
 
NA TURA LISM — SPIRIT U A LISM. 49 
 
 bosom will scarce hold his heart. He must speak or he 
 dies, though the earth quake at his word.^ Timid flesh 
 may resist, and Moses say, " I am of slow speech." 
 What avails that ? The soul says, " Go, and I will be 
 with thy mouth, to quicken thy tardy tongue." Shrink- 
 ing Jeremiah, effeminate and timid, recoils before the 
 fearful work. " The flesh will quiver when the pincers 
 tear." He says, " I cannot speak ; I am a child." But 
 the great Soul of All flows into him, and says, " Say not 
 ' I am a child,' for I am with thee. Gird up thy loins 
 like a man, and speak all that I command thee. Be not 
 afraid at men's faces, for I will make thee a defenced 
 city, a column of steel and walls of brass. Speak, then, 
 against the whole land of sinners, against the kings 
 thereof, the princes thereof, its people, and its priests. 
 They may fight against thee, but they shall not prevail ; 
 for I am with thee." Devils tempt the man with the 
 terror of defeat and want, with the hopes of selfish 
 ambition. It avails nothing ; a " Get thee behind me, 
 Satan," brings angels to help. Then are the man's lips 
 touched with a live coal from the altar of truth, brought 
 by a seraph's hand. He is baptized with the spirit of 
 fire. His countenance is like lightning. The truth 
 thunders from his tongue, — his words eloquent as per- 
 suasion. No terror is terrible, no fear formidable. The 
 peaceful is satisfied to be a man of strife and contention, 
 — his hand against every man, to root up, and pluck 
 down, and destroy ; to build with the sword in one hand 
 and the trowel in the other. He came to bring peace, 
 but he must set a fire ; and his soul is straitened till his 
 work be done. Elislia must leave his oxen in the fur- 
 row ; Amos desert his summer fruit and his friend ; and 
 Bohme, and Bunyan, and Fox, and a thousand others, — 
 
 ^ See Lucan ix. 564, d seq. 
 4 
 
50 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 stout-hearted and God-inspired, — must go forth of their 
 errand, into the faithless world, to accept the prophet's 
 mission, be stoned, hated, scourged, slain. Resistance 
 is nothing to these men. Over them steel loses its 
 power, and public opprobrium its shame ; deadly things 
 do not harm them. They count loss gain, shame glory, 
 death triumph. These are the men who move the world. 
 They have an eye to see its follies, a heart to weep and 
 bleed for its sin. Filled with a soul wide as yesterday, 
 to-day, and for ever, they pray great prayers for sinful 
 man ; the wild wail of a brother's heart runs through 
 the saddening music of their speech. The destiny of 
 these men is forecast in their birth. They are doomed 
 to fall on evil times and evil tongues, come when they 
 will come. The priest and the Levite war with the 
 prophet and do him to death. They brand his name 
 with infamy, cast his unburied bones into the Gehenna 
 of popular shame. John the Baptist must leave his 
 head in a charger ; Socrates die the death ; Jesus be 
 nailed to his cross ; and Justin, John Huss, and Jerome 
 of Prague, and millions of hearts stout as these, and as 
 full of God, must mix their last prayers, their admoni- 
 tion, and farewell blessing, with the crackling snap of 
 faggots, the hiss of quivering flesh, the impotent tears 
 of wife and child, and the mad roar of the exulting 
 crowd. Every path where mortal feet now tread secure 
 has been beaten out of the hard flint by prophets and 
 holy men, who went before us, with bare and bleeding 
 feet, to smooth the way for our reluctant tread. It is 
 the blood of prophets that softens the Alpine rock. 
 Their bones are scattered in all the high places of man- 
 kind. But God lays his burdens on no \Tilgar men. 
 He never leaves their souls a prey. He paints Elysium 
 on their dungeon wall. In the populous chamber of 
 
NA TURALISM— SPIRl TUALISM. 51 
 
 their heart the hght of faith shines bright, and never 
 dies. For sucli as are on the side of God there is no 
 cause to fear. 
 
 The influence of God in nature, in its mechanical, 
 vital, or instinctive action, is beautiful. The shapely 
 trees ; the leaves that clothe them in loveliness ; the 
 corn and the cattle ; the dew and the flowers ; the bird, 
 the insect, moss and stone, fire and water, and earth and 
 air ; the clear blue sky that folds the world in its soft 
 embrace ; the light which rides on swift pinions, enchant- 
 ing all it touches, reposing.harmless on an infant's eyelid, 
 after its long passage from the other side of the universe, 
 — all these are noble and beautiful ; they admonish while 
 they delight us, these silent counsellors and sovereign 
 aids. But the inspiration of God in man, when faithfully 
 obeyed, is nobler and far more beautiful. It is not the 
 passive elegance of unconscious things which we see re- 
 sulting from man's voluntary obedience. That might 
 well charm us in Nature; in man we look for more. 
 Here the beauty is intellectual, the beauty of thought, 
 which comprehends the world and understands its laws ; 
 it is moral, the beauty of virtue, which overcomes the 
 world and lives by its own laws ; it is religious and 
 affectional, the beauty of holiness and love, which rises 
 above the world and lives by the law of the Spirit of 
 Life. A single good man, at one with God, makes the 
 morning and evening sun seem little and very low. It 
 is a higher mode of the divine power that appears in him, 
 self-conscious and self-restrained. 
 
 Now this it seems is the only kind of inspiration which 
 is possible. It is coextensive with the faithful use of 
 man's natural powers. Men may call it miraculous, but 
 nothing is more natural ; or they may say it is entirely 
 human, for it is the result of man's use of his faculties ; 
 
52- VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 but what is more divine than wisdom, justice, benevo- 
 lence, piety ? Are not these the points in which man 
 and God conjoin ? If He is present and active in spirit, 
 such must be the perfect result of the action. No doubt 
 there is a mystery in it, as in sensation, in all the func- 
 tions of man. But what then ? As a good man has 
 said, " God worketh with us both to will and to do." 
 Mind, conscience, the affections, and the soul mediate 
 between us and God, as the senses between us and mat- 
 ter. Is one more surprising than the other ? Is the one 
 to be condemned as spiritual mysticism or pantheism ? 
 Then so is the other as material mysticism or panthe- 
 ism. Alas, we know but in part ; our knowledge is 
 circumscribed by our ignorance. 
 
 Now, it is the belief of all primitive nations that God 
 inspires the wise, the good, the holy ; yes, that he works 
 with man in every noble work. No doubt their poor 
 conceptions of God degraded the doctrine, and ascribed 
 to the Deity what came from their disobedience of his 
 law. 
 
 The wisest and holiest men have spoken in the name 
 of God. Minos, Moses, Zoroaster, Confucius, Zaleucus, 
 Numa, Mahomet, profess to have received their doctrine 
 straightway from Him. The sacred persons of all na- 
 tions, from the Druid to the Pope, refer back to his direct 
 inspiration. From this source the Sibylline oracles, the 
 responses at Delphi, the sacred books of all nations, the 
 Vedas and the Bible, alike claim to proceed. Pagans 
 tell us no man was ever great without a divine afflatus 
 falling upon him. Much falsity was mingled with the 
 true doctrine, for that was imperfectly understood, and 
 violence and folly and lies were thus ascribed to God. 
 Still, the popular belief shows that the human mind 
 turns naturally in this direction. Each prophet, false 
 
NA TURALISM — SPIRITUALISM. 53 
 
 or true, in Palestine, Nubia, India, Greece, spoke in 
 the name of God. In this name the apostles of Chritit 
 and of Mahomet, the Catholic and the Protestant, went 
 to their work. A good man feels that justice, goodness, 
 truth, are immutable, not dependent on himself ; that 
 certain convictions come by a law over which he has no 
 control. There they stand ; he cannot alter, though he 
 may refuse to obey them. Some have considered them- 
 selves bare tools in the hand of God ; they did and said 
 they knew not what, thus charging their follies and sins 
 on God most high. Others, going to a greater degree of 
 insanity, have confounded God with themselves, declar- 
 ing that they were God. But even if likeness were per- 
 fect, it is not identity. Yet a ray from the primal light 
 falls on man. No doubt there have been men of a high 
 degree of inspiration in all countries, — the founders of 
 the various religions of the world. But they have been 
 limited in their gifts and their use of them. The doc- 
 trine they taught had somewhat national, temporal, even 
 personal, in it, and so was not the absolute religion. No 
 man is so great as liuman nature, nor can one finite 
 being feed forever all his brethren. So their doctrines 
 were limited in extent and duration. 
 
 Now this inspiration is limited to no sect, age, or 
 nation. It is wide as the world, and common as God. 
 It is not given to a few men, in the infancy of mankind, 
 to monopolize inspiration and bar God out of the soul. 
 You and I are not born in the dotage and decay of the 
 world. The stars are beautiful as in their prime ; " the 
 most ancient heavens are fresh and strong ; " the bird 
 merry as ever at its clear heart. God is still everywhere 
 in nature, at the line, the pole, in a mountain or a moss. 
 Wherever a heart beats with love, whore faith and rea- 
 son utter their oracles, there also is God, as formerly in 
 
54 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 the heart of seers and prophets. Neither Gerizim nor 
 Jerusalem, nor the soil that Jesus blessed, so holy as 
 the good man's heart ; nothing so full of God. This 
 inspiration is not given to the learned alone, not to the 
 great and wise, but to every faithful child of God. The 
 world is close to the body ; God closer to the soul, not 
 only without but within, for the all-pervading current 
 flows into each. The clear sky bends over each man, 
 little or great ; let him uncover his head, there is nothing 
 between him and infinite space. So the ocean of God 
 encircles all men ; uncover the soul of its sensuality, 
 selfishness, sin, there is nothing between it and God, 
 who flows into the man as light into the air. Certainly 
 as the open eye drinks in the light, do the pure in heart 
 see God ; and he that lives truly feels him as a presence 
 not to be put by. 
 
 But this is a doctrine of experience as much as of 
 abstract reasoning. Every man who has ever prayed — 
 prayed with the mind, prayed with the heart greatly and 
 strong, knows -the truth of this doctrine, welcomed by 
 pious souls. The-re are hours — and they come to all men 
 — when the hand of destiny seems heavy upon us ; when 
 the thought of time misspent, the pang of affection mis- 
 placed or ill-requited, the experience of man's worse 
 nature and the sense of our own degradation, come over 
 us. In the outward and inward trials we know not 
 which way to turn. The heart faints and is ready to 
 perish. Then in the deep silence of the soul, when the 
 man turns inward to God, light, comfort, peace dawn 
 on him. His troubles — they are but a dew-drop on his 
 sandal. His enmities or jealousies, hopes, fears, honors, 
 disgraces, all the undeserved mishaps of life, are lost to 
 the view, — diminished, and then hid in the mists of the 
 valley he has left behind and below him. Resolution 
 
NA TURALISM— SPIRITUALISM. 55 
 
 comes over him with its vigorous wing; truth is clear as 
 noon ; the soul in faith rushes to its God. The mystery 
 is at an end. 
 
 It is no vulgar superstition to say men are inspired in 
 such times. They are the seed-time of life. Then we 
 live whole years through in a few moments, and after- 
 wards, as we journey on in life, cold and dusty and 
 travel-worn and faint, we look to that moment as a point 
 of light ; the remembrance of it comes over us like the 
 music of our home heard in a distant land. Like Elisha 
 in the fable, we go long years in the strength thereof. 
 It travels with us, a great wakening light, — a pillar of 
 fire in the darkness, to guide us through the lonely pil- 
 grimage of life. These hours of inspiration, like the 
 flower of the aloe-tree, may be rare, but are yet the 
 celestial blossoming of man, — the result of the past, 
 the prophecy of the future. They are not numerous to 
 any man. Happy is he that has ten such in a year, yes, 
 in a lifetime. 
 
 Now, to many men who have but once felt this, — when 
 heaven lay about them in their infancy, before the world 
 was too much with them, and they laid waste their 
 powers, getting and spending, — when they look back 
 upon it, across the dreary gulf, where honor, virtue, 
 religion, have made shipwreck and perished with their 
 youth, it seems visionary, a shadow, dream-like, unreal. 
 They count it a phantom of their inexperience, — the 
 vision of a child's fancy, raw and unused to the world. 
 Now they are wiser. They cease to believe in inspiration. 
 They can only credit the saying of the priests, that long 
 ago there were inspired men ; but none now ; that you 
 and I must bow our faces to the dust, groping like the 
 blind-worm and the beetle ; not turn our eyes to the 
 broad, free heaven ; that we cannot walk by the great 
 
56 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 central and celestial light which God made to guide all 
 who come into the world, but only by the farthing-candle 
 of tradition, — poor and flickering light which we get of 
 the priest, which casts strange and fearful shadows 
 around us as we walk, that " leads to bewilder and 
 dazzles to blind." Alas for us if this be all ! 
 
 But can it be so ? Has infinity laid aside its omni- 
 presence, retreating to some little corner of space ? No. 
 The grass grows as green ; the birds chirp as gaily ; the 
 sun shines as warm ; the moon and the stars walk in 
 their pure beauty, sublime as before ; morning and even- 
 ing have lost none of their loveliness ; not a jewel has 
 fallen from the diadem of night. God is still there ; 
 ever present in matter, else it were not ; else the serpent 
 of fate would coil him about the All of things ; would 
 crush it in his remorseless grasp, and the hour of ruin 
 strike creation's knell. 
 
 Can it be, then, as so many tell us, that God, trans- 
 cending time and space, immanent in matter, has for- 
 saken man ; retreated from the Shekinah in the Holy 
 of Holies to the court of the Gentiles ; that now he will 
 stretch forth no aid, but leave his tottering child to wan- 
 der on, amid the palpable obscure, eyeless and fatherless, 
 without a path, with no guide but his feeble brother's 
 words and works ; groping after God if haply he may 
 find him, and learning at last that he is but a God afar 
 off, to be approached only by mediators and attorneys, 
 not face to face as before ? Can it be that thought shall 
 fly through the heaven, his pinion glittering in the ray 
 of every star, burnished by a million suns, and then 
 come drooping back, with ruffled plume and flagging 
 wing, and eye which once looked undazzled on the sun, 
 now spiritless and cold — come back to tell us God is 
 no Father ; that he veils his face and will not look upon 
 
NA TURALISM— SPIPdTUA LISM. 57 
 
 his child, his erring cliild ? No more can this he true. 
 Conscience is still God-with-us ; a prayer is deep as ever 
 of old, reason as true, religion as hlest. Faith still 
 remains the substance of things hoped for, the evidence 
 of things not seen. Love is yet mighty to cast out fear. 
 The soul still searches the deeps of God ; the pure in 
 heart see him. The substance of the infinite is not yet 
 exhausted, nor the well of life drunk dry. The Father 
 is near us as ever, else reason were a traitor, morality a 
 hollow form, religion a mockery, and love a hideous lie. 
 Now, as in the days of Adam, Moses, Jesus, he that is 
 faithful to reason, conscience, heart, and soul, will through 
 them receive inspiration to guide him through all his 
 pilgrimage. 
 
58 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 SPECULATIVE ATHEISM, KEGAEDED AS A 
 THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. — Psalm xiv. 1. 
 
 The idea which a man forms of God is always the 
 most important element in his speculative theory of the 
 universe, and in his particular, practical plan of action 
 for the church, the state, the community, the family, 
 and his own individual life. You see to-day the vast 
 influence of the popular idea of God. All the great 
 historical civilizations of the race have grown out of the 
 national idea which was formed of God, or have been 
 intimately connected with it. The popular theology, 
 which at first is only an abstract idea in the heads of 
 the philosophers, by-and-by shows itself in the laws, the 
 navies, the forts, and the jails ; in the churches, the 
 ceremonies, and the sacraments, the weddings, the bap- 
 tisms, and the funerals ; in the hospitals, the colleges, 
 the schools ; in all the social charities ; in the relation of 
 husband and wife, parent and child ; in the daily work 
 and the daily prayer of each man. Thus, what at first 
 is the abstractest of thoughts, by-and-by becomes the 
 concretest of things. If a man concludes there is no 
 God at all, that conclusion, negative though it is, will 
 have an immense influence, — subjectively, on his feel- 
 ings and opinions ; objectively, on his outward conduct ; 
 subjectively, as the theory of the universe ; objectively, 
 as the principle of practical life. 
 
SPECULA TIVE A THEISM. 59 
 
 Speculative theism is the belief in the existence of 
 God in one form or another ; and I call him a theist 
 who believes in any God. By atheism I mean absolute 
 denial of the existence of any God. A man may deny 
 actuality to the Hebrew idea of God, to the Christian 
 idea of God, or to the Mahometan idea of God, and yet 
 be no atheist. 
 
 The Hebrews formed a certain conception of a being 
 with many good qualities and some extraordinary bad 
 qualities, and called it Jehovah, and said, "That is God; 
 it is the only God." The majority of Christians form a 
 certain conception of a being with more good qualities than 
 are ascribed to Jehovah, but with some most atrociously 
 evil qualities, and call it Trinity, or Unity, and say, 
 " That is God ; the only God." 
 
 Now, a man may deny the actuality of either or both 
 these ideas of God, and yet be no atheist. He may do 
 so because he is more of a theist than the majority of 
 Hebrews or Christians ; because he has a higher devel- 
 opment of the religious faculty, and has thereby obtained 
 a better idea of God. Thus the Old Testament prophets, 
 with a religious development often far in advance of 
 their Gentile neighbors, declared that Baal was no God. 
 Of course, the worshippers of Baal called the Hebrew 
 prophets atheists, for they denied all the God these Gen- 
 tiles knew. Paul, in the New Testament, more of a 
 theist than the Greeks and Asiatics about him, with a 
 larger religious development than they dreamed of, said, 
 " An idol is nothing." That is, there is no being which 
 corresponds exactly to the qualities ascribed to an idol. 
 Their idea of God, said Paul, lacked actuality ; it was a 
 personal or national whimsey ; not a perfect subjective 
 representation of the ol^jective fact of the universe, but 
 only a mistaken idea about that fact. 
 
60 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 If a man has outgrown the Hebrew, or common Chris- 
 tian idea of God, he may say what Paul said of the idol, 
 " It is nothing." He will not be" an atheist, but a theist 
 all the more. The superior conception of God always 
 nullifies the inferior conception. 
 
 Thus, as the world grows in its development, it neces- 
 sarily outgrows its ancient ideas of God, which were only 
 temporary and provisional. As it goes forward, the 
 ancient deities are looked on first as devils ; next, as a 
 mere mistaken notion which some men had formed about 
 God. For example, a hundred years ago it was the cus- 
 tom of the learned men of the Christian Church to speak 
 of the heathen deities — Jupiter, Apollo, Venus, and 
 the rest — as devils. They did not deny the actual ex- 
 istence of those beings, only affirmed them to be not 
 gods, but devils or " fallen angels ; " at any rate, evil 
 beings. Some of the heretics among the early Christians 
 said the same of the Hebrew Jehovah, — that he was 
 not the true God, but only a devil who misled the Jews. 
 Now-a-days well-educated men wiio still use the terms 
 say that Jupiter, Apollo, Venus, and the others were 
 only mistaken notions which men formed of God. They 
 deny the actuality of the idea ; " Jupiter is nothing." A 
 man who has a higher conception of God than those 
 about him, who denies their conception, is often called 
 an atheist by men who are less theistic than he. Thus 
 the Christians, who said the heathen idols were no gods, 
 were accounted atheists by the people, and accordingly 
 put to death. Thus Jesus of Nazareth was accused of 
 blasphemy and crucified by men who had not a tithe of 
 tlie religious development and reverence for God which he 
 possessed. The men who centuries ago denied the actual- 
 ity of the Trinity were put to death as atheists, — Servctus 
 among the rest, John Calvin himself tending the flames. 
 
SPECULA TIVE A THEISM. Gl 
 
 At this day the devil is a part of the popular Godhead 
 in tlie common theology, representing the malignant ele- 
 ment which still belongs to the ecclesiastical conce|)tion 
 of Deity, If a man says there is no devil, he is thought 
 to be, if not an atheist, at least very closely related to 
 an atheist. He denies a portion of the popular Godhead ; 
 is constructively an atheist, — an atheist as far as he 
 goes ; atheistic in kind, as much as if he denied the 
 whole Godhead, when he woidd obviously be branded 
 an atheist. 
 
 I use the word atheism in quite a different sense. It 
 is the absolute denial of any and all forms of God ; the 
 denial of the genus, the denial of all possible ideas of 
 God, highest as well as lowest. 
 
 At this day there are some philosophers, quite eminent 
 men too, who call themselves atheists, and in set terms 
 deny the actuality of any possible idea of God. They 
 say the idea of God is a whimsey of men, and God is not 
 a fact of the universe. Man has a notion of God, as of 
 a ghost or devil ; but it is a pure whimsey, — something 
 which he has spun out of his own brain, and there is 
 nothing in the universe to correspond thereto. Man has 
 an idea of God, but the universe has no fact of God. 
 
 These men do not mean to scoff at others. They teach 
 their doctrines with the calmness and precision of i)hi- 
 losophy, and affirm atheism as tlieir theory of the uni- 
 verse. It is a conclusion they have deliberately arrived 
 at. They are not ashamed of it ; they do not conceal it ; 
 do not ostentatiously set it forth. 
 
 I am doing these men no injustice in giving them this 
 name, because they claim the style and title of atheists, 
 and professedly teach atheism. They are not always 
 bigoted atheists, but philosophical. A few of thom are 
 in this country, founding schools and sects of their way 
 
62 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 of thinking. Some of them are men of quite superior 
 ability, men of very large intellectual culture. They 
 seem to be truth-loving and sincere persons ; conscien- 
 tious, just, humane, philanthropic, and modest men. 
 They are men who aim to be faithful to their nature, and 
 to their whole nature. I am acquainted with some of 
 them ; they are commonly on the side of man, as opposed 
 to the enemies of man ; on the side of the people, as 
 against a tyrant : they are, or mean to be, on the side 
 of truth, of justice, and of love. I shall not throw stones 
 at these men ; I shall devise no hard names against 
 them ; they will get abuse enough without my giving 
 them any at all. I feel great tenderness towards them, 
 and very great compassion, — which I suppose they 
 would not thank me for. Some of them I know per- 
 sonally ; others by their reputation ; some by their 
 writings. I think they are much higher in their moral 
 and religious growth than a great many men who are 
 always saying to God, " I go, sir," and yet never stir. 
 These are men who have made sacrifices even, to be 
 faithful ; and without knowing it they have a good 
 deal of practical religiousness of character, both in its 
 subjective form of piety, and in its objective form of 
 personal and social morality. 
 
 I do not believe that such men are real atheists, 
 though they think themselves so ; and I only call them 
 so to distinguish their doctrines, and because they them- 
 selves like the name. I think the philosophical atheist 
 lacks actuality as much as the idea of the devil, or a 
 ghost. 
 
 The Bible says, " The fool hath said in his heart, 
 There is no God." If the fool says so, I shall believe 
 the fool thinks so ; and if the fool holds up his five fin- 
 gers and says he has no hand, I shall believe the fool 
 
SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. G3 
 
 thinks so. But when a philosopher says there is no 
 God, I do not believe he thinks so, only that he thinks 
 he thinks so. A man may sometimes think he sees a 
 thing when he does not sec it ; and so a man may think 
 he thinks a thing when he does not think it. A philo- 
 sophical and consistent atheist is as much an impossi- 
 bility, I think, as a mathematician W'ho cannot count 
 two ; or as a round square, or a three-cornered circle. 
 I shall never believe that a sane man who can under- 
 stand the multiplication-table is an atheist, though he 
 may call himself so, and claim atheism as his theory of 
 the universe. But inasmuch as this is set up as a theory 
 of the universe, let us look at it, and see what real spec- 
 ulative atheism is. That is the first thing. 
 
 There is a mere formal atheism, which is a denial of 
 God in terms. A man says. There is no God; no God 
 that is self-originated, who is the cause of existence, 
 who is the mind and the providence of the universe: 
 and so the order, beauty, and harmony of the world of 
 matter or mind does not indicate any plan or purpose of 
 Deity. But, he says, nature, — meaning by that the 
 whole sum total of existence, — that is powerful, w^ise, 
 and good ; nature is self-originated, the cause of its own 
 existence, the mind of the universe, and the providence 
 thereof. There is obviously a plan and purpose, says 
 he, whereby order, beauty, and harmony are brought to 
 pass ; but all that is the plan and pui-posc of nature. 
 
 Very well. In such cases the absolute denial of God 
 is only formal, but not real. The quality of God is still 
 admitted, and affirmed to be real ; only the representa- 
 tive of that quality is called nature, and not called God. 
 That is only a change of name. The question is this, — 
 "Are there such qualities in existence as we call God ?" 
 It is not, — "How shall we name the qualities?" One 
 
64 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 man may call the sum total of these qualities Nature, 
 another Heaven, a third Universe, a fourth Matter, a 
 fifth Spirit, a sixth Geist, a seventh God, an eighth 
 Theos, a ninth Allah, or what he pleases. Spinoza may 
 call God Natura naturans, and the rest of the universe 
 Natura naturata ; Berosus may call God El, and the rest 
 of the universe Thebal. They all admit the existence 
 of the thing so diversely named. The name is of the 
 smallest consequence. All these men that I know, who 
 call themselves atheists, really admit the actual existence 
 of the qualities I speak of. 
 
 Real atheism is a denial of the existence of any God, 
 — a denial of the genus God, of the actuality of all pos- 
 sible ideas of God. It denies that there is any mind or 
 being which is the cause and providence of the universe, 
 and which intentionally produces the order, beauty, and 
 harmony thereof, with the constant modes of operation 
 therein. To be consistent it ought to go a step further, 
 and deny that there is any law, order, or harmony in 
 existence, or any constant modes of operation in the 
 world. The real speculative atheist denies the existence 
 of the qualities of God ; denies that there is any mind 
 of the universe, any self-conscious providence, any prov- 
 idence at all. If he follows out his principle he must 
 deny the actuality of the Infinite, deny that there is any 
 being or cause of finite things which is self-consciously 
 powerful, wise, just, loving, and self-faithful. To him 
 there are only finite things, — each self-originated, self- 
 sustained, self-directed, — and no more ; the universe, 
 comprising the world of matter, and the world of mind, 
 is a finite whole, made up of finite parts ; each part is 
 imperfect, the whole incomplete ; the finite has no Infi- 
 nite to depend on as its ground and cause ; there is no 
 plan in the universe or any part thereof. 
 
SPECULA TI VE A THEISM. 65 
 
 Now see the subjective effect of this theory. By sub- 
 jective, I mean the effect it produces on the sentiments 
 and opinions within me. 
 
 I. Look at it first as a theory of the world of matter. 
 
 In respect to the origin of matter, both theists and 
 atheists labor under the same difhculty. Neither athe- 
 ist nor theist knows anything about that. I know men, 
 chiefly theologians, pretend to understand all about the 
 creation of matter originally ; and to hear them talk you 
 would suppose it was as easy to comprehend how God 
 made a world out of nothing as it is to understand how 
 a tailor makes a coat out of broadcloth or velvet. But 
 if a man looks with a philosophical eye, he sees that this 
 creation of matter is an extraordinarily difficult thing. 
 The philosophical theist admits the existence of the uni- 
 verse, and the atheist does so ; but in the present state 
 of our knowledge neither atheist nor theist knows the 
 mode of origination. You may go back a good ways and 
 study the origin of an egg, a fish, seed, tree, or rock, or 
 the solar system, after the fashion of Laplace ; but the 
 manner of originating matter, out of which the egg, fish, 
 seed, tree, rock, and solar system are made, is just as far 
 off as ever ; and it seems to be beyond the reach of the 
 faculties of man : I will not say that it is so ; only, in the 
 present stage of man's development and scientific ac- 
 quirements, it seems so. The origin of body — of any 
 specific form of matter — may be made out, but the ori- 
 gin of matter, the primitive, universal substance whereof 
 body is made, still eludes our search. I know that theo- 
 logical theists often call the philosophical atheist very 
 hard names because he denies that he can understand 
 this process at present ; the charge is gratuitous. 
 
 But the real speculative atheist must declare that mat- 
 ter, the general substance whereof body is made, is eter- 
 
 5 
 
Q6 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 nal, but without thought, or will ; and the specific forms 
 of existence — of egg, fish, seed, tree, rock, and solar 
 system — all came with no forethought preceding them ; 
 came " by chance," — that is to say, by the " fortuitous 
 concourse of matter," which has no thought or will, -^ and 
 that they indicate no mJnd, no plan, no purpose, no prov- 
 idence. That is their theory of the universe ; compare 
 it with facts. 
 
 See how this scheme works on a great scale in the 
 material world. The solar system has a sun and nu- 
 merous planets ; they are all distributed in a certain 
 ratio of distance ; they move round the sun with a cer- 
 tain velocity, always exactly proportionate to their dis- 
 tance from the sun. This holds good with regard to the 
 nearest and the farthest. They move in paths of the 
 same form ; they are ruled by the same laws of motion ; 
 they receive and emit light in the same way. These 
 laws, which are the constant modes of planetary opera- 
 tion, when we come to study them, are found to be ex- 
 ceedingly intricate ; yet they are uniform, and the same 
 for one planet as for another ; the same for a satellite 
 as for a planet. They are perfectly kept, and so uni- 
 form in action that if you go back to the time of Thales, 
 five hundred years before Christ, you can calculate the 
 eclipse of the moon, and find that it took place exactly 
 as the historians of that day relate ; or you may go for- 
 ward five days, or five years, or five thousand years, and 
 calculate with the same precision. So accurate are these 
 laws that an astronomer studying the perturbations of 
 a remote planet, the phenomena of its economy not ac- 
 counted for by the attraction of bodies known to be in 
 existence, conjectures the existence of some other planet 
 which causes the phenomena not accounted for. Nay, 
 by mathematical science he determines its place and 
 
SPECULA TIVE A THEISM. G7 
 
 size, — inferring the fact of a new planet outside of the 
 uttermost ring of the solar system ; at a certain minute 
 he turns his telescope to the calculated spot, and, for the 
 first time, the star of Leverrier springs before the eye of 
 conscious man ! 
 
 Now, the atheist must declare that all this order of 
 the solar system was brought about by the fortuitous 
 concourse of matter, and indicates no mind, plan, or pur- 
 pose in the universe. This is absurd. A man might as 
 well deny the fact of the law of the solar system, or the 
 existence of the sun, or of himself, as to deny that these 
 facts, thus coordinated, indicate a mind, denote a plan, 
 and serve a purpose calculated beforehand. 
 
 See the same thing on a smaller scale. The composi- 
 tion of the air is such that first it helps to light and 
 warm the earth ; is a swaddling garment to keep in the 
 specific heat of the earth, and prevent it from radiating 
 off into the cold void spaces of the universe. Next, it 
 helps to cleanse and purify the earth by its free circula- 
 tion as wind. Then, it promotes vegetation, carries wa- 
 ter from the Tropics to the Norwegian pine, furnishes 
 much of the food of plants, their means of life. Next, 
 it helps animal life, is the vehicle of respiration ; all 
 plants that grow, all things that breathe, continually 
 suck the breasts of heaven. Again, it is a most impor- 
 tant instrument for the service of man; through this 
 we communicate by artificial light and artificial sound. 
 Without it all were dumb and motionless ; not a bird 
 could sing or fly, not a cricket creak to his partner at 
 night, not a man utter a word ; and a voiceless ocean 
 would ebb and flow upon a silent shore. The thought- 
 mill would be as idle as the wind-mill. Man kindles his 
 fire by the air; it moves his ship, winnows his corn, 
 fans his temples, carries his balloon. 
 
68 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 Now, the air is capable of these and a great many- 
 other functions in virtue of its peculiar composition, — 
 so much hydrogen, so much oxygen. No other combi- 
 nation of elements could ever have accomplished this. 
 Vary the composition, have a little more hydrogen or 
 oxygen, and you alter its powers as a vehicle of radia- 
 tion, evaporation, vegetation, purification, respiration, 
 communication, and combustion. The atheist must be- 
 lieve that this composition is not the result of any mind, 
 that it serves no plan and purpose, and came by the for- 
 tuitous concourse of matter; no more, — that it is all 
 chance. 
 
 If 1 should say that this sermon came by the fortui- 
 tous concourse of matter, that last Monday I shut up 
 pen, ink, and paper in a drawer, and to-day went and 
 found there a sermon, which had come by the fortuitous 
 concourse of pen, ink, and paper, — every man would 
 think I was very absurd. And yet I should not commit 
 so great a quantity of absurdity as if I were to say, " the 
 composition of air came by the fortuitous concourse of 
 atoms ; " for it takes a much greater mind to bring to- 
 gether and compose the air which fills a thimble than to 
 produce all the sermons and literature of the world. 
 
 If the atheist says there is mind in matter, which 
 arranges the planets, controls their distances, their rev- 
 olutions, their constant modes of operation, that this 
 mind in matter arranges the elements in the air so as to 
 perform all the functions which I have named, and many 
 more, — then he is false to his atheism, and becomes a 
 theist ; for he no longer denies the qualities of God, but 
 only calls them by a different name. 
 
 With atheism as the theory of the universe, the world 
 ought to be a jumble of parts, with no contexture ; for 
 the moment you admit the existence of order in the very 
 
SPECULA TIVE A THEISM. 69 
 
 least form, a constant mode of operation on the very 
 smallest scale, — why, you must admit the existence of 
 the mind which devised the order and the mode of oper- 
 ation ; and if you call the mind Geist, or God, or Nature, 
 or Jehovah, it makes small odds ; the question is not 
 about the name, but about the fact. 
 
 Now the world is nowhere a jumble. Things are not 
 " huddled and lumped together " in the composition of 
 the eyeball of the emmet, or of the solar system. Every 
 part of the universe is an argument against atheism as a 
 theory thereof. 
 
 II. Look next at atheism as the theory of individual 
 human life. According to the atheistic scheme there 
 is no conscious power which is the cause of me and of 
 my life, which is the providence thereof ; no mind which 
 arranges the world in reference to me, or me in reference 
 to the world. Does that conclusion satisfy the instinct- 
 ive desires of human nature any better than it accounts 
 for the facts of material nature ? 
 
 Look at human life from this point of view. I see but 
 little ways behind, around, or before me ; and yet, in all 
 directions, my power of knowledge is greater than my 
 power of work. I know little of the consequences which 
 will follow from my action. I invent an alphabet, gun- 
 powder, the printing-press, the steam-engine, a represen- 
 tative form of government, a constitution. I know very 
 little of the effect which these vast forces will produce 
 in the world of man. I know that the steam-engine will 
 turn my mill, that the printing-press will print my news- 
 paper, that gunpowder will explode at the touch of fire ; 
 but I do not know the effect which these great forces, 
 newly introduced to the world, are to have on the fami- 
 lies, the communities, the churches, the states of mankind, 
 and on the general development of the human race. 
 
70 VIEWS OF religion: 
 
 The atheist says there is nothing whicli knows any 
 better, or which knows any more about it ; nothing 
 which uses these inventions as forces for the advance- 
 ment of any purpose. " The universe," says he, " has 
 no self-conscious mind except the mind of man, and he 
 is only ' darkly wise and meanly great.' Nothing in the 
 world," says our atheist, " knows what a day may bring 
 forth. The universe is drifting in the void inane, and 
 knows nothing of its whence, its whither, or its where- 
 abouts. Man is drifting in the universe, and knows lit- 
 tle of his whereabouts, nothing of his whence or whither. 
 There is no mind, no providence, no power, which knows 
 any better; nothing which guides and directs man in 
 his drifting, or the universe in the weltering waste of 
 time. Nothing is laid up for to-morrow. My life tends 
 to nothing." 
 
 I am joyful ; joy is very well, but nothing comes of it. 
 I am sorrowful, and suffer ; this is hard, but it is no 
 part of a plan which is to lead to something further. 
 And when my manhood falls away, and my body dis- 
 solves, all that is to lead to nothing better. My baby- 
 teeth fall out, giving way to my man-teeth, but that is 
 all chance, and indicates no forethought of a mind which 
 provided for the man before the baby was born ! 
 
 I serve men, and get their hate and scorn : the Sad- 
 ducce grumbles because I tell him of his soul and im- 
 mortality ; the Pharisee, because I demand that he devour 
 widows' houses no more, nor for a pretence make long 
 prayers ; and both of these hunkers, the hunker Saddu- 
 cee and the hunker Pharisee, throw stones at me, and put 
 me to death. It all comes to nothing for me ; I am a dead 
 body, and not a live man ; that is all I get for my virtue. 
 
 I am a brave man, and my country needs me to repel 
 the Spanish Armada, or to keep imperial Nicholas, or 
 
SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 71 
 
 Francis, or papal Pius the Ninth, or the little President 
 Napoleon, from kidnapping my liberty. I go out to do 
 battle, and I come home scarred all over with heroism, 
 half my limbs hewed off, aching at every pore, or I die 
 on the spot. I carry no heroism, no manhood with me ; 
 I am a heap of dust which other dust will soon cover ; 
 but the manhood which once enchanted this dust with 
 valiant life is put out, and quenched for ever, — it is all 
 gone, it is nothing. My brother in that time of peril 
 was a coward ; and when war blew the trumpet and his 
 country called on him, he crept under the oven. When 
 all is over, and quiet is restored, he comes out with a 
 whole skin, and over my unburied bones he marches 
 into peace and carousing, and says, " A pretty fool was 
 this man to lay down his life for me, and get nothing for 
 it ! " and the atheist says he is right. 
 
 The patriot soldier gets his wounds and crutch, the 
 martyr his fagot and flame, Jesus his cup of bitterness 
 and cross of death, — and that is all. Dives has his 
 purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously every day, 
 more heedless than the dogs of the beggar at his gate ; 
 Lazarus has his sores and the medical attendance of the 
 hounds in the street ; but death ends all. 
 
 The mother, whose self-denial leads her to forget 
 everything but her feeble crippled child, has nothing but 
 her affection and watching ; she dies, and all is ended. 
 Another mother abandons her sickly, pestilential child, 
 who dies of neglect, and she lives forty years longer in 
 joyous wantonness and riot ; and when she dies it is to 
 the same end as the other ; only she for her falseness 
 has had forty years of animal joy, and the other mother, 
 for her faithfulness, has had nothing but an instanta- 
 neous death. And my atheist says there is no future 
 world to compensate the mother who died for love. 
 
72 VIEWS OF religion: 
 
 My life is a great disappointment, let me suppose, — 
 and for no fault of mine, but for my excellence, my jus- 
 tice, my philanthropy, for the service I have rendered 
 to mankind. I am poor, and hated, and persecuted. I 
 flee to my atheist for consolation, and I ask, " What does 
 all this come to ? " And he says, " It comes to nothing. 
 Your nobleness will do you no good. You will die, aud 
 your nobleness will do mankind no service ; for there is 
 no plan or order in all these things ; every thing comes 
 and goes by the fortuitous concourse of atoms. If you 
 had been a hunker you might have had money, ease, 
 honor, respectability, and a long life, with the approba- 
 tion of your minister. You had better have been so." 
 
 I lay in the ground one dearest to me ; some only 
 daughter, — her life but a bud, not a blossom, yet mere 
 bud as it is, the better part of my life. In the agony of 
 my heart I flee to my atheist for comfort ; and he can- 
 not give me a drop of water from the tip of his finger, 
 while I am tormented in that unutterable grief. " A 
 worm," says he, " has eaten up your rose-bud. Get what 
 comfort you can. This is the last spring-day, no leaf 
 will be again green for you." 
 
 I come myself to die. I have labored to extend my 
 existence, which every man loves to do ; and so I reached 
 back and sought to find out who my fathers and grand- 
 fathers were, and trace out my pedigree. I wished to 
 extend myself collaterally, and reached forth toward 
 nature, and linked myself with that by science and art, 
 and with man by love. The same desire to extend my- 
 self urges me to go forward instinct with immortality, 
 and join myself again to my dear ones, and to mankind, 
 for eternal life. But my atheist stands between me and 
 immortality. " Death is the end," says he. " This is a 
 world without a God ; you are a body without a soul ; 
 
SPECULA TIVE A THEISM. 73 
 
 there is a here without a hereafter ; an earth without a 
 Heaven. Die, and return to your dust ! 
 
 " I am a philosopher," says he. "I have been up to 
 the sky, and there is no heaven. Look through my tel- 
 escope : that which you see afar off there is a little star 
 in the nebula of Orion's belt ; so distant that it will take 
 light a thousand millions of years to come from it to the 
 earth, journeying at the rate of twelve millions of miles a 
 minute. There is no heaven this side of that ; you see all 
 the way through ; there is not a speck of heaven. And 
 do you think there is any beyond it ? 
 
 " Talk about your soul ! I have been into man with 
 my scalpel in my hand, and my microscope, and there is 
 no soul. Man is bones, blood, bowels, and brain. Mind 
 is matter. Do you doubt tliis ? Here is Arnoldi's per- 
 fect map of the brain ; there is no soul there, — nothing 
 but nerves. 
 
 " Talk of providence ! — there is no such thing. I 
 have been through the universe, and there is no God. 
 God is a whim of men ; nature is a fortuitous concourse 
 of atoms ; man is a fortuitous concourse of atoms ; 
 thought is a fortuitous function of matter, a fortuitous 
 result of a fortuitous result, a chance shot from the great 
 wind-gun of the universe, — which itself is also a chance- 
 shot, from a chance-charge of a chance-gun, accidentally 
 loaded, pointed at random, and fired off by chance. 
 Things happen, they are not arranged. There is luck, 
 and ill-luck, but there is no providence. Die into dust ! 
 True, you sigh for immortality ; you long for the dear 
 arms of father and mother, that went to the ground be- 
 fore you, and for the rose-bud daughter, prematurely 
 nipped. True, you complain of tears that have left a 
 deep and bitter furrow in your cheek ; you complain of 
 virtue not rewarded, of nobleness that felt for the In- 
 
74 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 finite, of a mighty hungering and thirst for everlasting 
 life, a longing and a yearning after God ; all that is 
 nothing. Die, and be still ! " Does not that content 
 you ? Does this theory square with the facts of con- 
 sciousness ? 
 
 III. Now look at atheism as a theory of the life of 
 mankind. Man came by chance ; the family by chance ; 
 society by chance ; nations by chance ; the human race 
 by chance. Man is his own sole guide and guardian. No 
 mind ever grouped the faculties together and made a 
 cosmic man, — it was all chance. There is no mind 
 which groups the solitary into families, these into na- 
 tions, and the nations to a world, — it is all chance. 
 There is no providence for man, except in human heads. 
 Politicians are the only legislators, their statutes the 
 only law ; there is no higher law. Kings and presi- 
 dents are the only rulers ; there is no great Father and 
 Mother of all the nations of mankind. There is no mind 
 that thinks for man, no conscience to enact eternal laws, 
 no heart to love me when father and mother forsake me 
 and let me fall, no will of the universe to marshal the 
 nations in the way of wisdom, justice, and love. His- 
 tory IS the fortuitous concourse of events, as nature is of 
 atoms ; there is no plan nor purpose in it which is to 
 guide our going out and coming in. True, there is a 
 mighty going, but it goes nowhere. True, there has 
 been a progressive development of man's body and mind, 
 and the functions thereof, — a growth of beauty, wisdom, 
 justice, affection, piety ; but it is an accident, and may 
 end to-morrow, and the next day there may be a decay of 
 mankind, a decay of beauty, intellect, justice, affection ; 
 science, art, literature, civilization may be all forgot, and 
 the naked savage come and burn up Boston, New York, 
 London, and Paris, and drown the last baby of civilization 
 
SPE CULATIVEA THEISM. 75 
 
 in the blood of the last mother. You are not sure that 
 any good will come of it ; there is no reason to think that 
 any good will come of it. Says atheism, " Everywhere is 
 instability and insecurity." 
 
 Look on the aspect of human misery, the outrage, 
 blood, and wrong which the earth groans under. Here 
 is the wife of a drunkard, whose marriage life is a per- 
 petual violation. She married for love a man who once 
 loved her ; but the mayor and aldermen of the city in- 
 sisted that he should be made a beast. A beast, did I 
 say ? Ye four-footed and creeping things of the earth, 
 I beg your pardon ! Even the swine is sober in his sty. 
 The mayor and aldermen of the city made this man a 
 drunkard ; and the poor wife watches over him, cleanses 
 his garments, wipes off the foulness of his debauch, and 
 stitches her life into the garments which some wealthy 
 tailor will sell, — giving her for wages the tenth part of 
 his own profit, — and which some dandy will wear, — 
 thanking the " gods of dandies " that he is not like that 
 poor woman, so ill-clad and industrious. She will stitch 
 her life into the garments, working at starvation wages, 
 and yet will pay the fines to keep the street-drunkard out 
 of the House of Correction, whei-e the city government 
 hides the bodies of the men it slays. She toils till at 
 length the silver cord of life has got loosed, and the 
 golden bowl begins to break. She goes to my atheist, 
 and asks, " What comes of all this ? Am I to have any 
 compensation for my suffering ? " and the atheist says, 
 " Nothing comes of it ; there is no compensation. You 
 are a fool. You had better have got a license from the 
 mayor and aldermen to prey on other men's wives about 
 you ; and then you might have had wealth and ease, and 
 respectability. You ought to drink blood and not shed 
 your own. 
 
76 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 " Abel's blood cries out of the ground, " continues our 
 atheist, " but there is no ear of justice to hear it, and 
 Cain, red with slaughter, goes off welcomed to the arms 
 of the daughters of Nod ; the victims of nobleness rot in 
 their blood ; booty and beauty are both for him. The 
 world festers with the wounds of the hero, but there is 
 no cure for them ; the hero is a fool — his wounds prove 
 it. Saint Catherine has her wheel. Saint Andrew his 
 sword. Saint Sebastian his arrows, Saint Lawrence his 
 fire of green wood ; Paul has his fastings, his watchings, 
 his scourge, and his jail, his perils of waters, of robbers, 
 of the city and the wilderness, his perils among false 
 brethren ; and Jesus his thorny crown, his malefactor's 
 death ; Kossuth gets his hard fate, and Francis the Stu- 
 pid gets the Hungarian throne ; the patriots of France 
 broil in the tropic marshes of Cayenne, and Napoleon, 
 surrounded by cultivated women who make merchandise 
 of their loveliness, and by able men who make merchan- 
 dise of their intellect. Napoleon the Little fills his own 
 bosom and the throne of France with his debauchery ; 
 Europe is dotted with dungeons, — Austrian, Hunga- 
 rian, German, French, Italian, — they are crowded witli 
 the noblest men of the age, who there do perpetual pen- 
 ance for their self-denial, their wisdom, their justice, 
 their affection for mankind, and their fidelity to God. 
 These die as the fool dieth. There is no hope for any 
 one of them, in a body without a soul, in an earth without 
 a heaven, in a world without a God. Does not that con- 
 tent you ? 
 
 " All the Christian world over, oppression plies its 
 bloody knout, — its well-paid metropolitan priest bless- 
 ing the scourge before it is laid on. The groan of the 
 poor comes up from the bogs of Ireland, and from the 
 rich farms of England, and her crowded manufactories. 
 
SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 77 
 
 Men make circumstances in London, which degrade two 
 hundred thousand people below the cannibals of New 
 Zealand, and starve the Irish into exile, brutality, or 
 death. The sighing of the prisoner breaks out from the 
 jail of the tormentor, who 
 
 " ' Holds the body bound, 
 But knows not what a range the spirit takes.' 
 
 " The iron gripe of kings chokes the throat of the peo- 
 ple. Every empire is girded at the loins with an iron 
 belt of soldiers, which eats into the nation's flesh.' Siberia 
 fattens with freedom's noble dead, and in America tliree 
 millions of men drag out a life in chains, bought as cat- 
 tle, sold as cattle, counted as cattle, only not prayed for in 
 the Christian churches, as cattle are ; and the little com- 
 missioners who kidnap at Boston, and the great stealers 
 of men who enact the statutes which make women into 
 things, are honored in all the Christian churches of the 
 land. Most of ' the great men,' all the ' citizens of emi- 
 nent gravity,' all the ' unimpeachable divines,' are on the 
 side of wrong. Cry out, blood of Abel ! there is no ear 
 to hear you. Victims of nobleness, rot in your blood ! it 
 will enrich the ground. Ye saints, — Catherine, An- 
 drew, Sebastian, Lawrence, Paul, Jesus, — bear your 
 rack and gibbet as best your bodies may ! Kossuth, 
 stoop to Francis the Stupid ! Ye patriots of France, 
 kneel to Napoleon the Little, and be jolly in the Sodom 
 which he makes. Ye that groan in the dungeons of the 
 world, who starve in its fertile soils, who wear chains 
 in free America, — yield to the Jeffries, the Haynaus, 
 the slave-hunters, and the priests ! for there is a body 
 without a soul, an earth without a heaven, a world with- 
 out a God. Atheism is the theory of the universe ; and 
 there is no God, no cause, no mind, no providence." 
 
78 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 The atheist looks on the lives of the noble men 
 
 " Who in the public breach devoted stood, 
 And for their country's cause were prodigal of blood," 
 
 and he says, " These men were fools ; every man of them 
 might have been as sleek, as comfortable, and as fat as 
 the oiliest priest that Mammon consecrates. They were 
 fools, and only fools, and fools continually. To the indi- 
 vidual hero there comes nothing but blood and wounds." 
 
 He looks on the nations that failed in their struggle 
 against a tyrant's chain ; Poland fell, and Kosciusko 
 went to London, only "Peter Pindar" to welcome the 
 exile ; Greece went down in Turkish night ; Italy and 
 Spain must bow them to a tyrant's whim, — and the 
 atheist has no hope. The States which fail read no 
 lesson to mankind, and have no return for their unblest 
 toil. He looks on the nations now in their agony and 
 bloody sweat, sitting in darkness and iron ; he sees no 
 angel strengthening them. What a picture the world 
 presents! — heroism unrequited, paid with misery; vice 
 on a throne, and nobleness in chains. Want, misery, vio- 
 lence, meet him everywhere ; and for his comfort he has 
 his creed, — a body without a soul, an earth without a 
 heaven, a world without a God ! 
 
 The atheist sends out his intellect to seek for the con- 
 trolling mind, which is the cause of the created, the 
 reason of the conceivable, the ground of the true, and the 
 loveliness of things beautiful. His intellect comes back, 
 and has brought nothing, has found nothing but the 
 reflection of its own littleness mirrored on the surfaces 
 of things. He saw matter everywhere : he met no causal 
 and providing mind. 
 
 He sends out his moral sense to seek the legislating 
 conscience, which is justice in what is right, the ground 
 
SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 79 
 
 of good, and the altogether beautiful to the moral sense, 
 the equitable will which rules the world. But his moral 
 sense returns silent, alone, and empty ; there is no equi- 
 table will, no altogether beautiful of moral excellence, 
 no ground of good, no conscience which enacts justice 
 into the unchanging law of right : there is only the 
 finite will of man, often erring and always feeble, man 
 an animated and self-conscious drop of dew in the Sahara 
 of the world, conscious of desire, of will, but of such 
 feebleness that soon he will exhale into thin air, and be 
 no more a drop in all the world, — will evaporate into 
 nothing. Everywhere is material fate, material chance : 
 spiritual order, spiritual providence, — that is a dream. 
 
 He sends out his affections on the same quest, seeking 
 his heart's desire. They have grown strong by love of 
 nature, — the crystal, the plant, and animal ; they have 
 been educated by loving men, — parent and friend, and 
 wife and child, and all mankind ; refined by loving, no- 
 ble men, who attract ingenuous youth as loadstones draw 
 the iron dust. Now his affections fly forth with trem- 
 bling wing, and seek the all-perfect ideal, the object of 
 their love, to stay the hunger of the heart which craves 
 the infinite to feed upon and love. But the affections 
 also come back to the sad man with no return. " There 
 is nought to love," say they ; " nothing save man and the 
 ideals of his heart ; they are beautiful, but only bubbles ; 
 his warm breath fills them for a moment ; how fair they 
 shine, — they cool, they perish, and are not ! The breath 
 was but a part of the windy cheat which blows along 
 the world, — the bubble breaks, and is nothing. There 
 are only finite things for 3^ou to love ; only finite things 
 to love you in return." He presses the frail object of 
 his affection closer and closer to his heart. " This, at 
 least," say I, " is secure, and is a fact, — the dear one is 
 
80 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 a reality, and not a dream." Still, there is a sadness in 
 my eye, whence speaks the unrest and wasting of the 
 heart which longs for the unchangeable lovely. Death 
 comes down to separate me from the best beloved. 
 Beauty forsakes the elemental clod ; the lip is cold, the 
 heart is still, the eye — its lovely light all quenched and 
 gone. Where is the mind which once spoke to me in 
 hand and lip ; the affection which loved me, finding its 
 delight in loving, serving, and in being loved ? It is 
 nothing; all gone, — like the rainbow of yesterday, no 
 trace thereof still lingering on the sky. " But what ! " 
 say I, " is there nothing for me to love which will not 
 pass away ? " " No : love gravitation if you like, cohe- 
 sion, the primary qualities of matter ; nought else abides." 
 I look up, and an ugly force is there, alien to my mind, 
 foreign to my conscience, and hurtful to my heart, and 
 wantonly strikes down the one I valued more than self, 
 and sought to defend with my own bosom ; then I die, 
 I stiffen into rigid death. So the heathen fable tells 
 that Niobe clung to her children with warding arms, 
 while the envious deities shot child after child, daughters 
 and fair sons, till the twelve were slain, and the mother, 
 all powerless to defend her own, herself became a stone. 
 
 Last hope of all, as first not less of all, the atheist 
 sends out his soul, to seek its rest, and bring back tid 
 ings of great joy. Throughout the vast inane it flies, 
 feeling the darkness with its wings, seeking the soul of 
 all, which at once is reason, conscience, and the heart 
 of all that is, which will give satisfaction to the various 
 needs of all. But the soul likewise comes back, empty 
 and alone, to say, " There is no God, the universe is a 
 disorder, man is a confusion ; there is no infinite, no rea- 
 son, no conscience, no heart, no soul of things." There 
 is nought to reverence, to esteem, to worship, to love, to 
 
SPECULATIVE ATHEISM. 81 
 
 trust in, nothing which in turn loves us with all its uni- 
 versal force. I am but a worm on the hot sand of the 
 world, seeking to fly, but it is only the instinct of 
 wings I feel ; striving to walk, but handless and with- 
 out a foot ; essaying then to crawl, so it be only up. 
 But there is not a blade of grass to hold on to and climb 
 up by, not a weed to shelter me in the intolerable heat 
 of life. 
 
 Thus left alone I look at the ground, and it seems 
 cruel, — a mother that devours her young. No voice cries 
 thence to comfort me ; it is a force, but nothing more. 
 Its history tells of tumult, confusion, and continual 
 change ; it prophesies no future peace, tells of no plan 
 m the confusion. I look up to the sky, there looks not 
 back again a kind Providence, to smile upon me with a 
 thousand starry eyes, and bless me with the sun's am- 
 brosial light. In the storms a vengeful violence, with 
 its lightning sword, stabs into darkness, seeking for 
 murderable men. 
 
 There is no providence, only capricious senseless fate. 
 Here is the marble of human nature ; the atheist would 
 pile it up into palace or common dwelling; but there is 
 only the fleeting sand to build on, which the rains wash 
 away, or the winds blow off ; nowhere is there eternal 
 rock to found his building on. No, he has not daily 
 bread, — nothing to satisfy the hunger of his mind, his 
 conscience, and his heart, the famine of his soul ; only 
 the cold, thin atmosphere of fancy. Does he believe in 
 immortality ? — it is an immortality of fear, of doubt, of 
 dread. Experience tells him of the history of mankind ; 
 a sad history it seems, — a record of war and want, of 
 oppression and servility. He sees that pride elbows 
 misery into the kennel, and is honored for the merciless 
 act ; that tyrants tread the nations under foot, while some 
 
 6 
 
82 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 patriot pines to oblivion and death ; lie sees no prophecy 
 of better things. How can he, — in an earth without a 
 heaven, in a body without a soul, a world without a God ? 
 
 Atheism sits down on the shore of time ; the stream of 
 human history rolls by, bearing successively, as bubbles 
 on its bosom, the Egyptian civilization, — and it passes 
 slowly by, with its myriads of millions, and the bubble 
 breaks ; the Hebrew, Chaldean, Persian, Grecian, Roman, 
 Christian civilization, — and they pass by as other bub- 
 bles, with their many myriads of millions, multiplied by 
 myriads of miUions. Their sorrows are all ended ; they 
 were sorrows for nothing. The tears which furrowed 
 the cheek, the unrequited heroism, the virtue unrewarded, 
 — they have perished, and there is no compensation; 
 because it is a body without a soul, an earth without a 
 heaven, a world without a God. " Does not that content 
 you ? " asks our atheist. 
 
 No man can ever be content with that ; few men ever 
 come to it. " Thanks to the human heart by which we 
 live," human nature stops a great way this side of that. 
 
 I am not a cowardly man ; but if I were convinced 
 there was no God, my courage would drop as water, and 
 be no more. I am not an unhopeful man ; there are 
 few men who hope so much. I never despair of truth, 
 of justice, of love, and piety. I know man will triumph 
 over matter, the people over tyrants, right over wrong, 
 truth over falsehood, love over hate. I always expect 
 defeat to-day, but I am sure of triumph at the last ; and 
 with truth on my side, justice on my side, love on my 
 side, I should not fear to stand in a minority of one, 
 against the whole population of this whole globe of lands. 
 1 would bow and say to them, " I am the stronger. 
 You may glory now, but I shall conquer you at last." 
 Such hope have I for man here and hereafter, that the 
 
SPECULA TIVE A THEISM. 83 
 
 wickedest of sinners, I trust, God will bring face to face 
 with the best of men, his sins wiped clean off, and to- 
 gether they shall sit down at the table of the Lord, in 
 the kingdom of God ; but take away my consciousness 
 of God, and I have no hope, — none for myself, none for 
 you, none for mankind. If no mind in the universe 
 were greater than Humboldt's, no ruler wiser than presi- 
 dents, and kings, and senates, and congresses ; if there 
 were no appeal from the statutes of men to the laws of 
 God, from present misery to future eternal triumph, on 
 earth or in heaven, — then I should have no hope. But 
 I know that the universe is insured at the office of the 
 Infinite God, and no particle of matter, no particle of 
 mind shall ever suffer ultimate shipwreck in this vast 
 voyage of mortal and immortal life. 
 
 I am not a sad man. Spite of the experience of life, 
 — somewhat bitter, — I am a cheerful, and joyous, and 
 happy man. But take away my consciousness of God ; 
 let me believe there is no infinite God, no infinite mind 
 which thought the world into existence, and thinks it 
 into continuance, no infinite conscience which everlast- 
 ingly enacts the eternal laws of the universe, no infinite 
 affection which loves the world, — loves Abel and Cain, 
 loves the drunkard's wife and the drunkard, the mayors 
 and aldermen who made the drunkard, which loves the 
 victim of the tyrant and loves the tyrant, loves the slave 
 and his master, loves the murdered and the murderer, 
 the fugitive and the kidnapper (publicly griping his 
 price of blood, the third part of Iscariot's pay, and then 
 secretly taking his anonymous revenge, stealthily calum- 
 niating some friend of humanity), — that there is no God 
 who watches over the nation, but " forsaken Israel wan- 
 ders lone ; " that the sad people of Europe, Africa, Amer- 
 ica have no guardian, — then I should be sadder than 
 
84 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 Egyptian night ! My life would be only the shadow of 
 a dimple on the bottom of a little brook, whirling and 
 passing away ; all the joy I have in the daily business of 
 the world, in literature and science and art, in the 
 friendships and wide philanthropies of the time, would 
 perish at once, — borne down in the rush of waters, and 
 lost in their headlong noise. Yes, T should die in un- 
 controllable anguish and grief. 
 
 A realizing sense of atheism, a realizing sense of the 
 consequences of atheism, — that would separate our na- 
 ture, and we should give up the ghost ; and the elements 
 of the body would go back to the elements of the earth. 
 But — God be thanked ! — the foundation of religion is 
 too deep within us. There is a great cry through all 
 creation for the Living God. Thanks to him, the evi- 
 dence of God has been ploughed into nature so deeply, 
 and so deeply woven into the texture of the human soul, 
 that very few men call themselves atheists in this sense. 
 No man ever willingly came to this conclusion, — no 
 man ; no, not one. These men who have arrived at this 
 conclusion, we should cast no scorn at them ; we should 
 give them our sympathy, — a friendly heart, and the 
 most affectionate and tender treatment of their soul. 
 
 Religion is natural to man. Instinctively we turn to 
 God, reverence him, and rely on him. And when reason 
 becomes powerful, when all the spiritual faculties get 
 enlarged, and we know how to see the true, to will the 
 just, to love the beautiful, and to live the holy, — then 
 our idea of God rises higher and higher, as the child's 
 voice changes from its treble pipe to the dignity of manly 
 speech. Then the feeble, provisional ideas of God which 
 were formed at first pass by us ; the true idea of God 
 gets written in our soul ; complete beauty drives out par- 
 tial ugliness, and perfect love casts out all partial fear. 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 85 
 
 SPECULATIVE THEISM, EEGAEDED AS A 
 THEOEY OF THE UNIVEESE. 
 
 Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing ? and one of them shall not fall on 
 the ground without your Father. — Matthew x. 29. 
 
 ... I USE the word theism, first, as distinguished 
 from atheism, — that is, from the absolute' denial of all 
 possible ideas of God ; second, as distinguished from 
 the popular theology, which indeed affirms God, but as- 
 cribes to him a finite character, and makes him a fero- 
 cious God ; and third, as distinguished from deism, 
 which affirms a God without the ferocious character of 
 the popular theology, but still starts from the sensational 
 philosophy, abuts on materialism, derives its idea of 
 God solely by induction from the phenomena of material 
 nature or of human history, leaving out of sight the in- 
 tuition of human nature, and so gets its idea of God 
 solely from observation, and not at all from conscious- 
 ness, and thus accordingly represents God as finite and 
 imperfect. I use the word as distinguished from atheism, 
 the denial of God ; from the popular theology, which , 
 affirms a finite, ferocious God ; and from deism, which 
 affirms a finite God without ferocity. So much for the 
 definition of terms. . . . 
 
 I. There must be many qualities of God not at all 
 known to men, some of them not at all knowable by us, 
 because we have not the faculties to know them by. 
 Man's consciousness of God, and God's consciousness 
 of himself, must differ immeasurably. God's conception 
 
86 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 of himself must differ as much from our conception of 
 him, as the constellation called the Great Bear differs 
 from one of the beasts in the public den at Berne. For 
 no man can ever have an exhaustive conception of God, 
 — one, I mean, which uses up and comprises the whole 
 of God. We have scarcely an exhaustive conception of 
 anything. Certain properties and forces of things we 
 know ; substances of things are almost, if not quite, be- 
 yond our ken. But we may have such an idea of God 
 as, though incomplete, is perfectly true, and comprises no 
 quality which is not also a quality of God. Then our 
 idea of God is true as far as it goes, only it does not 
 describe the whole of God. To illustrate tliis, — a thim- 
 ble cannot contain all the water in the Atlantic Ocean 
 at once, but it may be brimful of water from the Atlan- 
 tic Ocean, and it may contain nothing but water from the 
 Atlantic Ocean. So our idea of God, though not con- 
 taining the whole of him, may yet comprise no quality 
 which is not a quality of God, and may omit none which 
 it is needful for our welfare that we should know. In 
 the self-consciousness of God subject and object are the 
 same, and he must know all his own infinite nature. 
 But in our consciousness of God the limitations of the 
 finite subject make it impossible that we should compre- 
 hend God as he is conscious of himself. It is enough 
 for us to know of the Infinite what is knowable to finite 
 man. 
 
 With qualities not knowable to us I have nothing to 
 do. I shall not undertake to discuss the psychology and 
 metaphysics of God. The metaphysics of man are quite 
 hard enough for me to grapple with and understand, 
 
 II. Then, as a next thing, God must be different in 
 kind from what I call the universe, — that is, from na- 
 ture, the world of matter, and from spirit, the world of 
 
SPECULA TI VE THEISM. 87 
 
 man. They are finite, he infinite ; they dependent, 
 he self-subsisting ; they variable, he unchanging. God 
 must include both matter and spirit. 
 
 There are tv\o classes of philosophers often called 
 atheists, but better, and perhaps justly, called pan- 
 theists. 
 
 One of these says, " There are only material things 
 in existence," — resolving all into matter; "the sum 
 total of these material things is God." That is material 
 pantheism. 
 
 If I mistake not, M. Comte of Paris, and the anony- 
 mous author of the " Vestiges of the Natural History 
 of Creation," with their numerous coadjutors, belong to 
 that class. 
 
 The other class admits the existence of spirit, — some- 
 times resolves everything into spirit, — and says, " The 
 sum total of finite spirit, that is God." These are spirit- 
 ual pantheists. Several of the German philosophers, if 
 I understand them, are of that stamp. 
 
 One difficulty with both of these classes is this : Their 
 idea of God is only the idea of the world of nature and 
 of spirit as it is to-day ; and as the world of nature and 
 of spirit will be fairer and wiser a thousand years hence 
 than it is now, so, according to them, God will be fairer 
 and wiser a thousand years hence than he is now. Thus 
 they give you a variable God, who learns by experience, 
 and who grows with the growth and strengthens with 
 the strength of the universe itself. According to them, 
 when there was no vegetation in the world of matter, 
 God knew nothing of a plant, — no more than the 
 stones on the earth. When the animal came, when man 
 came, God was wiser; and he advances with the ad- 
 vance of man. When Jesus came, he was a better God. 
 He was a wiser God after Newton and Laplace, and was 
 
88 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 a more philosophical being after those pantheistic phil- 
 osophers had taught him the way to be so ; for their God 
 knows nothing until it is either a fact of observation in 
 finite nature, — in the material world, — or else a fact 
 of consciousness in finite spirit, — in some man. He 
 knows nothing till it is shown him. That is a fatal 
 error with Hegel and his followers in England and 
 America. 
 
 Mr. Babbage, a most ingenious Englishman, invented 
 a calculating engine. He builded wiser than he knew ; 
 for by and by he found that his engine calculated con- 
 clusions which had never entered into the thought of 
 Mr. Babbage himself. The mathematical engine out- 
 cipliered its inventor. And these men represent God as 
 being in just that predicament. The world is constantly 
 revealing things unknown before, and which God had 
 not conceived of. As there is a progressive develop- 
 ment of the powers of the universe as a whole, and of 
 each man, so there is a progressive development of God. 
 He is therefore not so much a being as a becoming. 
 
 This idea of a progressive Deity is not wholly a new 
 thing. The doctrine was obscurely held by some of the 
 ancient philosophers in the time of Plato. 
 
 If God be infinite, then he must be immanent, per- 
 fectly and totally present in nature and in spirit. Thus 
 there is no point of space, no atom of matter, but God is 
 there ; no point of spirit and no atom of soul, but God 
 is there. And yet finite matter and finite spirit do not 
 exhaust God. He transcends the world of matter and 
 of spirit ; and in virtue of that transcendence continually 
 makes the world of matter fairer, and the world of spirit 
 wiser. So there is really a progress in the manifestation 
 of God, not a progress in God the manifesting. In 
 thought you may annihilate the world of matter and of 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 89 
 
 man ; but you do not thereby in thought annihilate the 
 infinite God, or subtract anything from the existence of 
 God. In thought you may double the world of matter 
 and of man ; but in so doing you do not in thought 
 double the being of the infinite God ; that remains the 
 same as before. 
 
 That is what I mean when I say that God is infinite 
 and transcends matter and spirit, and is different in kind 
 from the finite universe. This is the great point in which 
 I differ most widely from those philosophers. I find no 
 fault with them. I differ from their conclusion. 
 
 III. As a third thing, the infinite God must have all 
 the qualities of a perfect and complete being ; must be 
 complete in the qualities of a perfect being, perfect in 
 the qualities of a complete one. To state that by analy- 
 sis which I have just stated by synthesis, he must have 
 the perfection of being, self-existence ; the perfection of 
 power, almightiness ; the perfection of mind, all-know- 
 ingness ; the perfection of conscience, all-righteousness ; 
 of affection, all-lovingness ; of soul, all-holiness, perfect 
 self-fidelity. Hence, as the result of all these, he must 
 have the perfection of will, absolute freedom. I mean 
 to say, according to this idea of God, there must be no 
 limitation to his existence, his power, his wisdom, his 
 justice, his love, his holiness, and his freedom; none 
 from any outward cause, or any inward cause whatso- 
 ever. The classic, or Greek and Roman idea of God, 
 represented him as finite, limited subjectively by ele- 
 ments of his own character, objectively limited by the 
 elements of the material world ! The popular theologi- 
 cal idea in fact represents him as finite, limited subjec- 
 tively by selfishness, wrath, and various evil passions ; 
 objectively by elements in the world of man which con- 
 tinually prove refractory and turn out as He did not 
 
90 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 intend. In this matter of tlie iniinity of God, I differ 
 from the popular theology, as well as from the common 
 scheme of philosophy. 
 
 So much for the idea of God considered as infinite. 
 So much for its diversity from the common schemes. 
 
 Now look at this philosophical theism, with its idea of 
 the infinite God, as a theory of the universe. Let me 
 divide the universe into two great parts. One I will call 
 the world of matter, and the other the world of spirit. 
 By the world of matter I mean everything, except the 
 Deity, known to us that is not man ; and by the world 
 of spirit I mean what is man, — both man in his material 
 substance and in his spiritual substance. Let me say a 
 word of each. For shortness' sake, I will call the world 
 of matter nature. I begin with this, as it is the least 
 difficult. 
 
 In nature God must be both a perfect cause and a 
 perfect providence. 
 
 I. Of God as perfect cause. Creation itself, the non- 
 existent coming into existence, is something unintelli- 
 gible to us. But this we know, that the infinite God 
 must be a perfect Creator, the sole and undisturbed 
 author of all that is in nature. So there must be a 
 complete and perfect harmony and concord between God 
 and the nature which he creates, God and his works 
 must be at one ; and nature, so far as it goes, must 
 represent the will and purpose of God, and nothing but 
 the will and purpose of God. So, there can be nothing in 
 nature which God did not put in nature from himself. 
 
 Well, God must have made nature first from a perfect 
 motive ; next, of perfect material ; third, for a perfect 
 purpose or end ; fourth, as perfect means to achieve that 
 purpose. That is, the motive for creation, the purpose 
 of creation, must be in perfect harmony with the infinity 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 91 
 
 of God ; in harmony with his infinite power, wisdom, 
 justice, love, and holiness : the material of nature, and 
 the means therein, with the constant modes of operation 
 thereof, — the laws of nature, — must be perfectly ade- 
 quate to the perfect purpose, and so must be in complete 
 harmony with the infinite God ; with his infinite poAver, 
 infinite wisdom, justice, love, and holiness. That is very 
 plain, following unavoidably from the idea of God as 
 infinite. 
 
 Now, a perfect motive for creation, what will that be ? 
 It must be absolute Love producing a desire to bless 
 everything which he creates ; that is, a desire to confer 
 such a form and degree of welfare on each thing which 
 he makes as is perfectly consistent with the character 
 and nature of that thing made, — that is, its highest form 
 and degree of welfare. Absolute love is a perfect motive. 
 
 A perfect purpose or end of creation is the achieve- 
 ment of that bliss ; not the achievement thereof to-day, 
 but ultimately. Perfect material and means are those 
 which perfectly achieve that purpose ; not to-day, or when 
 I will, or when the thing created wills, but when the in- 
 finite wisdom and love of God wills. 
 
 The infinite God must create all from a perfect motive, 
 for a perfect purpose, of perfect material, as perfect 
 means ; for you cannot conceive of a God infinitely 
 powerful, wise, just, loving, and holy, creating anything 
 from an evil motive, for an evil purpose, from evil ma- 
 terial, or as evil means. No more can you conceive of 
 the infinite God creating anything from an imperfect 
 motive, for an imperfect purpose, of imperfect material, 
 or as imperfect means. Each of these suppositions is 
 wholly inconsistent with the idea of the infinite God ; 
 for he can have only perfect motives, perfect purposes, 
 perfect material, and perfect means to create out of, and 
 
92 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 to create by. This being so, you see that the selfishness 
 and destructiveness ascribed to God in the popular the- 
 ology are at once struck out of existence. For such 
 selfishness and destructiveness are absolutely impossible 
 to the infinite God. 
 
 II. Next, of God as perfect providence. Creation and 
 providence are but modifications of the same function. 
 Creation is momentary providence ; providence, perpet- 
 ual creation. One is described by a point ; the other by 
 a line. Now, God is just as much present in a blade of 
 grass or an atom of mahogany, this day and in every 
 moment of its existence, as he was at the instant of its 
 creation. Men say, " When God created matter he was 
 present therein." Very true ! but he is just as present 
 therein, with all his powers, and just as active with all 
 his perfections, at every moment while that matter exists 
 as he was when it was first created. Men tell us when 
 they read the Bible how grand it must have been to have 
 stood in the presence of God when Moses miraculously 
 smote the rock, which gushed with miraculous water. 
 But every drop of water which falls from my roof in a 
 shower, or from my finger, thus, has as much the presence 
 of God in it as when, in Biblical phrase, " the morning 
 stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for 
 joy," at the creation of Avater itself. It cannot be created 
 without God ; it cannot subsist without God. 
 
 Here, too, in his providence the motive, the end, the 
 material, and means must be infinitely perfect. Let me 
 develop this a moment. 
 
 God at the ci-eation must have known the action and 
 history of each thing which he called into being just as 
 well as he knows it now ; for God's knowledge is not 
 a becoming wiser by experience, but a being wise by 
 nature. The infinite God must know every movement 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 93 
 
 of every particle of matter. We generally assent to that 
 in the gross, and reject it in the detail. Let me give an 
 example. 
 
 All the powers, and consequently all the action, move- 
 ments, and history of the whole universe of matter 
 whereof this solar system is a part, — a single 
 " Branch of stars we see, 
 Hung in the golden galaxy," — 
 
 all the powers, actions, movements, and history of the 
 solar system itself, of its primaries and secondaries, 
 must have been completely and perfectly known to God 
 before the universe or any single " branch of stars " liad 
 its existence. So the powers and consequent history and 
 movement of every particular thing on each of these orbs 
 must have been known. The action and history of the 
 mineral matter on the earth, in its inorganic form, in the 
 form of crystal, liquid, gas ; the action and history of 
 vegetable matter, in the fucus, the lichen, and the tree ; 
 and so of animal matter, in the mollusk, the eagle, and 
 the elephant, — all must have been completely and per- 
 fectly known by God before their creation ; eternally 
 known to him. The powers, and so the history, of each 
 atom in nature must have been as thoroughly known to 
 the Mind of the universe a million of million of years 
 ago as at this day, — in their cause as well as by their 
 effects. 
 
 For example, God must have known, at the moment 
 of creation, the present position of this crescent moon 
 which beautifies the early evening hour ; and he must 
 have known, too, the history of these molecules of car- 
 bon that make up the cotton thread which binds the 
 sheets of this sermon together. 
 
 To say it short, the statics and dynamics of the uni- 
 verse, and of each atom thereof, must have been eter- 
 
94 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 nally and thoroughly known to God. And each atom, 
 with its statical and dynamical powers, — the mineral, 
 veo-etable, and animal forces of the universe — must have 
 been created by him, from perfect motives, of perfect 
 material, for a perfect purpose, and as perfect means ; 
 they must be continually sustained by him, and he 
 must be just as present and just as active in each mo- 
 ment of the existence of any one of these things as at 
 the creation thereof, or at the creation of the all of things. 
 So, then, each of these must have been created with a 
 perfect knowledge of its powers, actions, movements, 
 and history, and created from love as motive, for ulti- 
 mate good as purpose, of materials proportionate to the 
 motive, and so adequate to the end, and accordingly pro- 
 vided with the means of accomplishing that purpose ; for 
 the infinite perfection of God would allow no absolute 
 evil, no absolute imperfection, in his motive, or his ma- 
 terial, in his purpose, or his means. If there were any 
 such absolute evil or imperfection in the created, it could 
 only have come from an absolute evil or imperfection in 
 the Creator ; that is, from a lack of infinite power, wis- 
 dom, justice, or love, — because God had not love enough 
 to wish all things well, or justice enough to will them 
 well, or wisdom enough to contrive them well, or power 
 enough to make them well. 
 
 Each thing which God has made has a right to be cre- 
 ated from perfect motives, for a perfect purpose, from 
 perfect material, and as perfect means ; and a right, also, 
 to be perfectly provided for. I know, to some men it 
 will sound irreverent to speak of the right of the created 
 in relation to the Creator, and of the consequent duty 
 and obligation of the Creator in relation to the created. 
 But the infinite God is infinitely just, and it is with the 
 highest reverence that I ask, Shall not the God of all the 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 95 
 
 earth do right ? It is the highest reverence for the Cre- 
 ator to say that he gives his creatures a right to him, 
 to him as infinite Cause, to him as infinite Providence ; 
 and I count it impious to say that God has a right to 
 create even a worm from imperfect motives, for an im- 
 perfect purpose, of imperfect material, as im})erfcct 
 means. This right of the creature depends on the na- 
 ture of the thing, on its quahty as a creation of the in- 
 finite God ; not on the quantity of being it has received 
 from him. So, of course, it is equal in all, — the same 
 in the smallest " motes that people the sunbeams," and 
 the greatest man ; all have a birthright to the perfect 
 providence of the infinite God ; an unalienable right to 
 protection by his infinite power, wisdom, justice, love, 
 and holiness. This lien on the infinity of God vests in 
 the substance of their finite nature, and is not to be 
 voided by any accident of their history ; for that accident 
 must have been known and provided for as one of the 
 consequences of their powers. Each thing has the in- 
 finite perfection of God as guarantee to that right. God 
 is security for the universe, and his hand is endorsed 
 on every great and little thing which he has made. 
 Then, if I am sure of God and his infinity, I am sure 
 beforehand of the ultimate welfare of everything which 
 God has made ; for the infinite Father is the pledge and 
 collateral security, the endorser therefor. 
 
 We cannot comprehend the details of this providence, 
 more than of creating, nor fully understand the mode of 
 attaining the end ; the mode of terminating, originating, 
 and sustaining, are equally unintelligible to us ; but the 
 fact we know from the idea of God as infinite. As we 
 cannot with a Gunter's-chain measure the distance be- 
 tween the sun and the earth, but as by calculation, start- 
 inff from facts of internal consciousness and external 
 
96 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 observation, we can measure it with greater proportion- 
 ate exactness than a carpenter could measure the desk 
 under my hand, — so we cannot understand God's mode 
 of operation as cause or providence, more than an In- 
 dian baby, newly born in Shawneetown, could understand 
 the astronomer's mode of operation in calculating the 
 distance between the earth and the sun ; but as we have 
 this idea of God, though we know not the mode of oper- 
 ation, — the middle terms which intervene betwixt the 
 purpose and the achievement, — we are yet sure of the 
 fact that the motive, purpose, material, and means are all 
 proportionate to the nature of the Creator, and adequate 
 for the welfare of the created. 
 
 In nature God is the only cause, the only providence, 
 the only power ; the law of nature, — that is, the constant 
 mode of action of the forces of the material world, — 
 represents the modes of action of God himself, his 
 thought made visible ; and as he is infinite, unchangea- 
 bly perfect, and perfectly unchangeable, his mode of ac- 
 tion is therefore constant and universal, so that there 
 can be no such thing as a violation of God's constant 
 mode of action ; for there is no power to violate it ex- 
 cept God himself, and the perfectly infinite God could 
 not violate his own perfect modes of action. And ac- 
 cordingly there is no chance, no evil, no imperfection, in 
 motive or purpose, in material or means, or in the modes 
 of action thereof. Everywhere is calculated order, no- 
 where chance and confusion ; everywhere regular, con- 
 stant modes of action of the forces in the material world, 
 unvarying and eternal laws, nowhere is there an extem- 
 poraneous miracle. Men have their precarious make- 
 shifts, the Infinite has no tricks and subterfuges, — not 
 a miracle in nature, not a whim in God. Seeming chance 
 is real direction ; what looks like evil in nature is real 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 97 
 
 good. The sparrow that falls to-day does not fall to 
 ruin, but to ultmiate welfare. Though we know not 
 the mode of operation, there must he another world for 
 the sparrow as for man. 
 
 So much for this theism, as a theory of the world of 
 matter. Now a word for it as a theory of the world of 
 spirit, of the world of man. This shall include man so 
 far as he is matter ; and so far as he is matter and 
 something more. 
 
 Look at this first in the most general way, in relation 
 to human nature, to mankind as a whole ; then I will 
 come down to particulars. Here the same thing is to 
 be said as of nature ; namely, the infinite God must be a 
 perfect cause thereof, and have created the world of 
 man from perfect motives, for a perfect purpose, of per- 
 fect material, as perfect means. God has no other mo- 
 tive, purpose, material, or means. The perfect motive 
 must be absolute love, producing the desire to bless 
 the world of man, — that is, to desire to confer thereon a 
 form and degree of welfare which is perfectly consistent 
 with the entire nature of man. The perfect purpose 
 must be the attainment of that bliss ; the ultimate at- 
 tainment not to-day, or when man wills, but when the 
 infinite God wills. Perfect material is that which is ca- 
 pable of this welfare; and perfect means are such as 
 achieve it. 
 
 So much for God considered as a perfect cause in the 
 world of man. I need not here further repeat what I 
 just said of creation in the world of matter. 
 
 But God must be also perfect providence for the world 
 of man ; he must be perpetually present therein, in each 
 portion thereof. Men think that God was present in 
 some moment of time, at the creation of mankind. Yery 
 true ! but in each moment of mankind's existence since, 
 
 7 
 
98 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 God is just as present ; for providence is a continuous 
 line of creations, and God is as much present, and as 
 much active, at any point of that line as at the beginning 
 or end thereof. I know men speak of yielding up the 
 spirit and going out of the body, going to God. Is not 
 God about, within, and around us, while we are in the 
 body, just as much as when we shake off the known and 
 enter on that untried being ? 
 
 God must have known at the creation all the action 
 and history of the world of man as well as of nature. 
 It is not to be supposed that ten thousand years ago 
 God knew less of human history than he knows to-day. 
 That would be to make God imperfect in his wisdom, 
 growing wiser by experience. Napoleon's coup d'etat 
 was a surprise to mankind ten months ago ; do you think 
 it was an astonishment to God ten months ago ? Was it 
 not infinitely known hundreds of millions of years ago, 
 — eternally known ? It must have been so. 
 
 I know the question is here more complicated than in 
 nature, for in nature there is only one force, the direct 
 statical and dynamical action of matter ; and accordingly 
 it is easy to calculate the action and result of mechani- 
 cal, vegetable, electrical, and vital forces. But in the 
 world of man there is a certain amount of freedom, and 
 that seems to make the question difficult. In that part 
 of the world of nature not endowed with animal life, 
 there is no margin of oscillation ; and you may know 
 just where the moon will be to-night, and where it will 
 be a thousand years hence. The constant forces with 
 their compensations may all be known ; and so every 
 nutation of the moon is calculable with entire certainty. 
 The modes of action there are as little variable as the 
 maxims of geometry. The moon's node is an invariable 
 consequent of material necessity. When a star with 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 99 
 
 fiery hair came splendoring through the night, it filled 
 media3val astronomers with amazement ; and celibate 
 priests, divorced from nature, shook with superstitious 
 fear, as it wrote its hieroglyphic of God over Bvzantium 
 or Rome ; was God astonished at his wandering and 
 hairy star ? 
 
 In the world of animals there is a small margin of os- 
 cillation ; but you are pretty sure to know what the ani- 
 mals will do, — that the beaver will build his dam, and 
 the wren her nest just as their fathers built ; that every 
 bee next summer will make her six-sided cell with the 
 same precision and geometric economy of material and 
 space wherewith her ancestors wrought ten thousand 
 years ago. 
 
 But man has a certain amount of freedom, a larger 
 margin of oscillation, wherein he vibrates from side to 
 side. The nod of Lord Burleigh is a variable contingent 
 of human caprice. Hence it is thought that God could 
 not foreknow the oscillations of caprice in the human 
 race, in the Adamitic Cain of ancient poetry, or the 
 Napoleonic Cain of contemporaneous history, till after 
 they took place. But that conclusion comes only from 
 putting our limitations on God. It is difficult for the 
 astronomer's little boy to measure the cradle he sleeps 
 in, or to tell what time it is by the nursery clock ; but 
 the astronomer can measure the vast orbit of Leverrier's 
 star before seeing it. and correct his clock by the great 
 dial hung up in heaven itself; and the difference be- 
 tween the mind of the astronomer's boy and the mind of 
 the astronomer is nothing compared to the odds between 
 finite intellect and the infinite understanding of God. 
 So, though the greater complication makes it more diffi- 
 cult for you and me to understand the consciousness 
 of free men, whose feelings, thoughts, and consequent 
 
100 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 actions are such manifold contingents, it is not at all 
 more difficult for God. 
 
 Before the creation the infinite God, as perfect cause 
 and providence, must have known all the powers and 
 consequent actions, movements, and history of the col- 
 lective world of men, and each individual thereof. For, 
 either man has no freedom at all, or he has some free- 
 dom of will. 
 
 In the first case, if he has no freedom, no margin of 
 oscillation, the fore-knowableness of his actions does not 
 differ from that of the world of matter ; and the nuta- 
 tion of the moon and the nod of Lord Burleigh are 
 equally tlie invariable consequent of material or human 
 necessity. Then God is the only force in the human 
 world, and of course, without difficulty, knows all its 
 action, for a knowledge of the world is only part of his 
 consciousness of himself ; the treachery of Judas and 
 the faithfulness of Jesus are then but facts of the divine 
 self-consciousness. 
 
 If there be freedom, then God, as the perfect cause of 
 man's freedom of will, must have perfectly understood 
 the powers of that freedom; and understanding per- 
 fectly the powers, he knew perfectly all the actions, 
 movements, and history thereof, at the moment of crea- 
 tion as well as to-day. The perfect Cause must know 
 the consequence of his perfect creation, and knowing the 
 cause and the effects thereof, as perfect Providence, and 
 working from a perfect motive, for a perfect purpose, 
 with perfect material, and by perfect means, he must 
 so arrange all things that the material shall be capable 
 of ultimate welfare ; and must use means proportionate 
 to the nature and adequate to the purpose. So the 
 quantity of human oscillation, with all the consequences 
 thereof, must of course be perfectly known to God before 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 101 
 
 the creation as well as after the special events come to 
 pass ; for to God contingents of caprice and consequents 
 of necessity must be equally clear, both before and after 
 the event. Little boys, under a capricious schoolmaster, 
 learn the constants of his anger's ebb or flow. 
 
 " Full well the boding tremblers learn to trace 
 The day's disaster in his morning face." 
 
 And do you think the infinite God is astonished at revo- 
 lutions in Italy, or the discovery of ether ? because a 
 hyena, stealthily and at night, kills a girl in an Abys- 
 sinian town, or a kidnapper as stealthily and also by 
 night, destroys a man in Boston ? The hyena crouch- 
 ing in his den, the kidnapper lurking in his office, are 
 both known to God. 
 
 ' Though human caprice and freedom be a contingent 
 force, yet God knows human caprice when he makes it, 
 knows exactly the amount of that contingent force, all 
 its actions, movements, and history, and what it will 
 bring about. And as he is infinitely wise, just, and lov- 
 ing Cause and Providence, so there can bo no absolute 
 evil or imperfection in the world of man, more than in 
 the world of matter, or in God himself. 
 
 So much for this theism as a theory of the world of 
 man as a wliole, in its most general form. 
 
 Now see the concrete application thereof in the gen- 
 eral human life — in the life of nations. In creating 
 mankind God must have known there would come the 
 great races of men, — Ethiopian, Malay, Tartar, Ameri- 
 can, Caucasian. He must have known there would 
 come such families of the Caucasian as the Slavic, Clas- 
 sic, Celtic, Teutonic ; such stocks of the Teutonic as the 
 Scandinavian, the German, the Saxon ; of the Saxon 
 such nations as England and America ; in their history 
 
102 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 such events as the American Revolution, the Mexican 
 War, and the like. I mean that God, as perfect cause, 
 must have perfectly known all these things from eternity 
 as well as now. History is a surprise to us, not to God. 
 The breaking out of the Mexican War, the capture of 
 Mexico, the failure or success of a general, might be an 
 astonishment to men ; God was not wiser afterwards 
 than before. As perfect cause and providence, he must 
 have arranged all things so that mankind as a whole 
 shall attain that bliss which his perfect motive and per- 
 fect purpose require, which is indispensable to his per- 
 fect material and his perfect means. All the powers 
 and consequent actions, movements, and history of man- 
 kind must therefore have been known and provided for. 
 The savage, the barbarous, the half-civilized, and the civ- 
 ilized — the feudal and commercial periods, and others 
 yet in store, must have been known and provided for. 
 The whole religious history of man, Atheism, Fetichism, 
 Polytheism, Monotheism, — the Monotheism of the He- 
 brews and of the Christians, — must have been known. 
 The rise, decline, and fall of Egypt, India, Persia, Judea, 
 Greece, Rome, and Byzantium, must have been as well 
 understood by God at creation as now ; and as perfect 
 providence, he must have provided for the rise, decline, 
 and fall thereof, so that they should be steps forward, 
 toward ultimate bliss, and not from it. He must have 
 given man his power of free will as all other powers, 
 from a perfect motive, for a perfect purpose, of perfect 
 material, and as perfect means ; and of course it must 
 achieve that purpose for mankind as a whole, for those 
 great races, — Ethiopian, Malay, Tartar, American, Cau- 
 casian ; for those families, — Slavic, Classic, Celtic, Teu- 
 tonic ; for those tribes, — Scandinavian, German, Saxon; 
 for every nation, — England, America. The great events 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 103 
 
 of their history, — the American Revolution, the Mexi- 
 can War, and every other, — must be so overruled and 
 balanced that they shall contribute to the achievement 
 of the purpose of God. And what is true of the whole 
 must be true of each ; and God must be perfect provi- 
 dence for one as well as for another, and so arrange 
 these that they all shall come to ultimate bliss. 
 
 Therefore as you look on the sad aspect of the world 
 at present, — on Italy, ridden by pope and priest ; on 
 Austria, Hungary, Germany, the spark of freedom trod- 
 den out by the imperial or royal hoof ; on France, 
 crushed by her own armies at the command of a cunning 
 voluptuary ; on Ireland, trodden down by the capitalists 
 of Britain ; on the American slave, manacled by state 
 and church, — you know, first, that God foresaw all this 
 at the creation, as a consequence of the forces which he 
 put into human nature ; next, you know that he pro- 
 vides for it all, so that it shall not interfere with the 
 ultimate bliss of the Italian, pope-ridden and priest-rid- 
 den ; of the Austrian, Hungarian, German, from whose 
 heart the imperial or royal hoof has trod the spark of 
 liberty ; of the Frenchman, the victim of a voluptuous 
 tyrant ; of the Irishman, trodden down by the British 
 capitalists ; and of the American slave, fettered by the 
 American church and manacled by the American state. 
 God made the world so that these partial evils would 
 take place, and they take place with his infinite knowl- 
 edge, and under his infinite providence. So when we 
 see these evils, we know that though immense they are 
 partial evils compensated by constants somewhere, and 
 provided for in the infinite engineering of God, so that 
 they shall be the cause of some ultimate good. For 
 mankind has a right to be perfectly created ; each race, 
 family, tribe, nation, has a right to be created from per- 
 
104 , VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 feet motives for a perfeet purpose, of perfect material, 
 and with the means to achieve that purpose, — not at the 
 time when Russia and Montenegro will, or when you 
 and I will, but when infinite wisdom, justice, love, knows 
 that it is best. And sad as the world looks, God knew 
 it all, provided for it all ; and its welfare, its ultimate 
 triumph is insured at the office of the infinite God. His 
 hand is endorsed on each race, each family, each tribe, 
 each nation of mankind. You cannot suppose — as 
 writers of the Old Testament do — that the affairs of the 
 world look desperate to God, and he repents having 
 made mankind, or any fraction of the human race. 
 
 See this theism in its application to individual human 
 life, — your life and mine. God is perfect cause and 
 perfect providence for me and you. Before the creation 
 he knew everything that I shall do, everything that I 
 shall suffer, everything that I sliall be, — provided for it 
 all, so that absolute bliss must be the welfare of each of 
 us at last. The evil, — that is, the suffering in mind, 
 body, and estate, the imperfect bliss, my failing to attain 
 the outward or inward condition of this welfare, — these 
 must come either from my nature, — my human nature as 
 man, my individual nature as the son of John and Han- 
 nah, — or from my circumstances that are about me, or, 
 as a third thing, from the joint action of these two. 
 
 God, as perfect cause, must have known my nature, 
 my circumstances, the effect of their joint action ; as 
 perfect providence, he must have arranged things so that 
 nature and circumstances shall work out for me and for 
 everybody all this ultimate bliss which the perfect mo- 
 tive can desire as a perfect purpose, which perfect mate- 
 rials can achieve as perfect means. My individual 
 suffering, error, sin, must have been equally foreseen, 
 fore-cared for, and used in the great housekeeping of 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 105 
 
 the Eternal Mother as a means to accomphsh the pur- 
 pose of ultimate welfare. 
 
 This must be true of Jesus of Nazareth crucified, and 
 of Judas Iscariot who betrayed him to the cross ; of the 
 St. Domingo hero wlio rotted in his dungeon, and of 
 Napoleon the Great who locked his dungeon door, him- 
 self one day to be jailed on a rock, with Ocean mount- 
 ing guard over this Prometheus of historic times ; of 
 theistic John Huss who blazed in his fire, and of the 
 twenty-third John, the perjured pope of Rome, who lit 
 that fire five hundred miles from home. 
 
 As at the creation of the world of matter God knew 
 where the solar system would be in space, where the 
 molecules of carbon which form the tie that binds my 
 sermon together would be on this seventeenth of Oct- 
 ober, eighteen hundred and fifty-two years after the 
 cradling of Jesus of Nazareth ; as he arranged the uni- 
 verse so that the solar system and these molecules of 
 carbon should harmonize together ; as he knew of the 
 rise, decline, and fall of States, and arranged all these 
 things so as to harmonize with tlie march of man 
 towards greater bliss, — so he must have known where 
 this little atom of spirit which I call me would be this 
 day, — what thoughts, feelings, will, and suffering I 
 should have ; and he must make all these harmonize 
 with my march towards that ultimate bliss which my 
 human nature needs to take, and which his infinite 
 nature needs to give. 
 
 God is responsible for his own creation, — his world of 
 matter and his world of man, — for mankind in general, 
 for you and me. God's work is all warranted. Each 
 man has a right to perfect creation, — creation from 
 perfect motives, of perfect material, as perfect means, for 
 a perfect purpose. God has no other purpose, no other 
 
106 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 means, no other material, no other motive. He is the 
 infinite power, wisdom, justice, love, and is security for 
 the ultimate welfare of the sparrow that falls, — for 
 mankind groping its dim and perilous way, for you and 
 me darkly feeling our way along, often falling into pain, 
 want, misery, and sin. God as cause, and God as provi- 
 dence has still means to bring us back, and lead us 
 home. I have a natural, unalienable right to the provi- 
 dence of the infinite God ; this providence is the duty 
 of God, inseparable from his infinity. If I am sure that 
 God is infinite, then all else that is good I am sure of ; 
 for everything which God makes is stamped by his hand 
 with an unalienable right to him as infinite cause and 
 infinite providence. 
 
 As God was present at the creation of matter and of 
 mankind, present with all his infinite perfection, and 
 active therewith, — so is he present and active with me 
 to-day with all his infinite perfections ; then as cause, so 
 now as providence. And do you think the imiverse will 
 fail of its purpose, with infinite God as its providence 
 and its cause ? Do you think any nation, any single 
 human soul, can ever fail of achieving this ultimate 
 bliss, with infinite God as its cause and infinite God as 
 its providence ? Why, so long as God is God, it is im- 
 possible that his motive and purpose should fail to de- 
 sign good for all and each, or his materials and means 
 fail to achieve that ultimate good. 
 
 Well, since these things are so, how beautiful appears 
 the material world ! There is no fortuitous concourse 
 of atoms, which the atheist talks of ; there is no uni- 
 verse of selfishness, no grim despot who grinds the 
 world under his heels and then spurns it off to hell, as 
 the popular theology scares us withal. Everything is 
 a thought of infinite God ; and in studying the move- 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 107 
 
 ments of the solar system, or the composition of an 
 ultimate cell arrested in a crystal, developed in a plant, 
 in tracing the grains of phosphorus in the brain of man, 
 or in studying the atoms whicli compose the fusel-oil in 
 a drop of ether, or the powers and action thereof, — I 
 am studying the thought of the infinite God. The uni- 
 verse is his scripture, — nature the prose, and man the 
 poetry of God. The world is a volume holier than the 
 Bible, old as creation. What history, what psalms, what 
 prophecy therein ! what canticles of \o\q to beast and 
 man ! — not the " Wisdom of Solomon," as in this Apoc- 
 rypha, but the wisdom of God, written out in the great 
 canon of the universe. 
 
 Then, when I see the suffering of animals, — the 
 father-alligator eating up his sons and daughters, and 
 the mother-alligator seeking to keep them from his jaws, 
 — when I see the sparrow falling at a dandy's shot, I 
 know that these things have been provided for by the 
 God of the alligator and the sparrow, and that the uni- 
 verse is lodged as collateral security to insure bliss to 
 every sparrow that falls. 
 
 From this point of view how beautiful appears the 
 world of man ! When I look on the whole history of 
 man, — man as a savage, as a barbarian, as half-civil- 
 ized or as civilized, feudal or commercial, fighting with 
 all the forces which chemistry and mechanical science 
 can offer, and suffering from want, war, ignorance, from 
 sin in all its thousand forms, from despotic oppression 
 in Russia, democratic oppression in America ; when I 
 see the tyranny of the feudal baron in other times, with 
 his acres and his armies, — of the feudal capitalist now- 
 a-days, the commercial baron, with notes at cent per 
 cent ; when I see the hyena of the desert stealing his 
 prey in an Abyssinian town, and the hyena of the city 
 
108 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 kidnapping a man in Boston, — when I see all this, I say 
 the thing is not hopeless. Oh, no ! it is hopeful. God 
 knew it all at the beginning, as perfect cause ; cared for 
 it all, as perfect providence, with perfect motive, pur- 
 pose, material, means ; will achieve at last ultimate wel- 
 fare for the oppressor and the oppressed. 
 
 I see the individual suffering from want, ignorance, 
 and oppression, — the public woe which blackens the 
 countenance of men ; the sorrow which with private 
 tooth giiaAvs the heart of Ellen or William ; the sin 
 which puts out the eyes of Cain or George. Can I fear ? 
 Oh, no ! though the worm of sorrow bore into my own 
 heart, I cannot fear. The infinite God, with infinite 
 power, wisdom, justice, holiness, and love, knew it all, 
 and made the nature of Ellen and William, of Cain and 
 George, and controls their circumstances, so that by 
 their action and the action of the world of man and the 
 world of matter, the perfect motive and the perfect 
 means shall achieve the perfect purpose of the infinite 
 loving-kindness of God. 
 
 Then how grand is human destination ! ay, your des- 
 tination and mine ! There is no chance ; it is direction 
 which we did not see. There is no fate, but a Mother's 
 providence holding the universe in her lap, warming 
 each soul with her own breath, and feeding it from her 
 own bosom with everlasting life. 
 
 In times past there is evil which I cannot understand ; 
 in times present evil which I cannot solve, — sujffering 
 for mankind, for each nation, for you and me, sufferings, 
 follies, sins. I know they were all foreseen by the in- 
 finite wisdom of God, — all provided for by his infinite 
 power and justice ; and his infinite love shall bring us 
 all to bliss, not a soul left behind, not a sparrow lost. 
 The means I know not ; the end I am sure of. 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. 109 
 
 " Whether I fly with angels, fall with dust, 
 Thy hands made both, and I am there; 
 Thy power and love, my love and trust, 
 Make one place everywhere." 
 
 In the world of matter there is the greatest economy 
 of force. The rain-drop is wooed for a moment into 
 bridal beauty by some enamored ray of light, then feeds 
 the gardener's violet, or moves the grindstone in the 
 farmer's mill, — serving alike the turn of beauty and of 
 use. Nothing is in vain ; all things are manifold in use. 
 " A rose, beside his beauty, is a cure." The ocean is 
 but the chemist's sink, which holds the rinsings of the 
 world ; and everything washed off from earth was what 
 the land needed to void, the sea to take. All things are 
 two-fold ; matter is doubly winged, with beauty and 
 with use. 
 
 " Nothing hath got so far 
 But man hath caught and kept it as his prey; 
 
 His eyes dismount the highest star; 
 
 He is in little all the sphere. 
 Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they 
 
 Find their acquaintance there. 
 
 "For us the winds do blow, 
 The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow; 
 
 Nothing we see but means our good, 
 
 As our delight or as our treasure ; 
 The whole is either our cupboard of food, 
 
 Or cabinet of pleasure. 
 
 " The stars have us to bed; 
 Night draws the curtain, which the sun withdraws; 
 
 Music and light attend our head. 
 
 All things unto our flesh are kind 
 In their descent and being; to our mind 
 
 In their ascent and cause." 
 
 And do you then believe that the great God, whose motto 
 "Waste not, want not," is pictured and practised on 
 
110 VIEWS OF religion: 
 
 earth and sea and sky, is prodigal of human suffering, 
 human woe ? Every tear-drop which sorrow has wrung 
 from some poor negro's eye ; every sigh, every prayer 
 of grief, each groan wliich the exile puts up in our own 
 land, and the groan which the American exile puts up 
 in Canada, — while his tears shed for his wife and child 
 smarting in the tropics are turned to ice before they 
 touch the wintry ground, — has its function in the great 
 chemistry of our Father's world. These things were 
 known by God ; and he will bring every exile, every 
 wanderer, in his arms, — the great men not forgot, the 
 little not less blest, — and bear them rounding home 
 from bale to bliss, to give to each the welfare which his 
 nature needs to give and ours to take. 
 
 The atheist looks out on a here without a hereafter, 
 a body without a soul, a world without a heaven, a 
 universe with no God ; and he must needs fold his arms 
 in despair, and dwindle down into the material selfish- 
 ness of a cold and sullen heart. The popular theologian 
 looks out on the world, and sees a body blasted by a 
 soul, a here undermined by a hereafter of hell, arched 
 over with a little paltry sounding-board of heaven, 
 whence the elect may look over the edge and rejoice in 
 the writhings of the worms unpitied beneath their feet. 
 He looks out, and sees a grim and revengeful and evil 
 God. Such is his sad whim. But the man with pure 
 theism in his heart looks out on the world, and there is 
 the infinite God everywhere as perfect cause, everywhere 
 as perfect providence, transcending all, yet immanent 
 in each, with perfect power, wisdom, justice, holiness, 
 and love, securing perfect welfare unto each and all. 
 
 On the shore of time, where Atheism sat in despair, 
 and where Theology howled with delight at its dream of 
 hell all crowded with torment at the end, — there sits 
 
SPECULATIVE THEISM. Ill 
 
 Theism. Before it passes on the stream of human his- 
 tory, rolling its volumed waters gathered from all lands, 
 — Ethiopian, Malay, Tartar, Caucasian, American, — 
 from each nation, tribe, and family of men ; and it 
 comes from the infinite God, its perfect cause ; it rolls 
 on its waters by the infinite providence, its perfect pro- 
 tector. He knew at creation the history of empires, 
 these lesser dimples on the stream ; of Ellen and Wil- 
 liam, Cain and George, the bubbles on the water's face. 
 He provided for them all, so that not a dimple deepens 
 and whirls away, not a bubble breaks, but the perfect 
 providence foresaw and fore-cared for it all. God is on 
 the shore of the stream of human history, — infinite 
 power, wisdom, justice, love ; God is in the air over it, 
 where floats the sparrow that fell, falling to its bliss, — 
 in the waters, in every dimple, in each bubble, in each 
 atom of every drop. And at the end the stream falls 
 into the sea, — that Amazon of human history, under 
 the line of providence, on the equator of the world, — 
 falls into the great ocean of eternity ; and not a dimple 
 that deepens and whirls away, not a bubble that breaks, 
 not a single atom of a drop,, is lost. All fall into the 
 ocean of blessedness which is the bosom of love ; and 
 then the rush of many waters sings out this psalm from 
 human nature and from human history, " If God is for 
 us, who can be against us ? " 
 
112 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 A SEEMOK OF PEOVIDEN"CE. 
 
 God will provide. — Gen. xxii. 8. 
 
 In a previous sermon I have already spoken of the 
 infinite God as cause, and as providence. But the con- 
 stant relation of God to the world which he creates and 
 animates is a theme too important to be left with the 
 merely general treatment I have bestowed upon it. Athe- 
 ism and the popular theology are both so unphilosophical 
 in their views of the conduct of the universe ; the func- 
 tion ascribed to finite chance, the Supreme of the atheist, 
 in the one case, and to the finite God, the Supreme of 
 the theologian, in the other, is so at variance with the 
 primitive spiritual instincts of human nature, and so un- 
 satisfactory to the enlightened consciousness of cultivated 
 and religious men, that the subject demands a distinct 
 and detailed investigation by itself. It will require three 
 sermons, — the first going over the matter very much 
 at large and treating of Providence in its universal forms, 
 the others relating to the application thereof to the vari- 
 ous phenomena of evil — to pain and sin. I shall not 
 hesitate to repeat the same thoughts and even the same 
 forms of expression previously made use of in these ser- 
 mons. I do this purposely, both to avoid the needless 
 multiplication of terms, and the better to connect this 
 whole series of discourses together. 
 
 The notion that God continually watches over the 
 world and all of its contents is one very dear to mankind. 
 
A SERMON OF PROVIDENCE. 113 
 
 It appears in all forms of conscious religion. The 
 worshippers of a fetich regards his bit of wood, or am- 
 ulet, as a special Providence working magically and ex- 
 ceptionally for his good alone. Polytheism is only the 
 splitting up of the idea of God into a multitude of special 
 Providences — each one a sliver of deity. Thus man 
 has " parcelled out the glorious name." The Catholic in- 
 vokes his patron-saint, who is only a rude symbol and 
 mind-mark of that Providence which is always at hand. 
 Pantheism puts a providence in every blade of grass, in 
 each atom of matter. The Epicureans of old time de- 
 nied the providence of God, and dreamed of lazy deities 
 all heedless of the world. But their theory is eminently 
 exceptional in the theological world, — yet performing a 
 service, and correcting the extravagance of men who run 
 too far, in devout exaggeration attributing all to God's 
 act. 
 
 In virtue of the functions of providence ascribed to 
 God, he is called by various names : Lord, or King, means 
 providential master ruling the world and exploitering its 
 inhabitants for his good, not theirs. That is the fa- 
 vorite Old Testament notion and title of God; he is 
 King, men are subjects, or even slaves. Yet other names 
 therein appear, for the Old Testament is not unitary. 
 In the New Testament, from his providential function, 
 God is often called Father, indicating the affection which 
 controls his power, — that he is not merely King over sub- 
 jects, and Lord over slaves, but a Father who rules his 
 children for their good, restrains that he may develop, 
 and seemingly hinders that he may really help. Hence, 
 in the Old Testament, slaves are bid to fear God ; in the 
 New Testament, children are told to love him. How- 
 ever, the New Testament is not more unitary in this re- 
 spect than the Old, and the cruel God appears often in 
 
 8 
 
114 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 the Gospels, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse, — not a 
 Father, but only a Lord and King, exploitering a por- 
 tion of the human race with merciless rapacity. 
 
 A king is bound politically to provide for his subjects, 
 inasmuch as he is king ; political providence is the royal 
 function. A father is affectionally and paternally bound 
 to provide for his children, inasmuch as he is father ; af- 
 fectional providence is the paternal function. But as the 
 father, or the king, is limited in his powers, so the pa- 
 ternal or political function is limited ; for duty does not 
 transcend the power to do. Their providence is neces- 
 sarily imperfect, not reaching to all persons in the king- 
 dom, or to all actions of their subjects. A good king 
 and a good father, both, wish to do a good deal more for 
 their charge than it is possible for them to do. Their 
 desirable is limited by their possible. 
 
 The infinite God is infinitely bound to provide for his 
 creatures, inasmuch as he is infinite God : infinite provi- 
 dence is the divine function, — his function as God. 
 
 A duty involves reciprocal obligation ; a right is the 
 correlative of a duty. There is a human duty to obey, 
 reverence, and love God, with our finite nature ; but also, 
 and just as much, is there a human right to the protec- 
 tion of God. So there is a divine duty on God's part, 
 of providence toward man, as well as a divine right of 
 obedience from man. I mean to say, as it belongs to 
 the finite constitution of man to obey, reverence, and love 
 God, — the duty of the finite toward the Infinite ; so it 
 belongs to the infinite constitution of God to provide for 
 man, — the duty of the Infinite toward the finite. Obe- 
 dience belongs to man's nature, providence to God's na- 
 ture. We have an unalienable lien upon his infinite 
 perfection. 
 
 I know men often talk as if God were not amenable 
 
A SERMON OF PROVIDENCE. 115 
 
 to his own justice, and could with equal right care for 
 his creatures or neglect them ; that his almighty power 
 makes him capable of immeasurable caprice, and liber- 
 ates him from all relation to eternal right. Hence it is 
 often taught that God may consistently make a vessel 
 of honor or of dishonor out of this human clay, as the 
 potter does ; or may consistently jest with his material, 
 waste it, throw it away, destroy it as the potter's appren- 
 tice does for sport in some moment of caprice ; or may 
 break the finished vessel, as the potter himself does when 
 drunk or angry. In virtue of this general notion, it is 
 popularly taught in all Christendom, that God will thus 
 waste some of his human clay, casting human souls into 
 endless misery ; and in the greater part of Christendom it 
 is taught that he will destroy the majority of mankind in 
 this way ; that he has a natural right to do so, and man 
 lias no right to anything but the caprice of God. 
 
 This doctrine is odious to me ; and I see not how men 
 can entertain such an idea of God and still call him good. 
 This doctrine is equally detestable whether you consider 
 it in relation to the condition of men consequent thereon, 
 or to the character of God which causes that condition. 
 This false idea tends to unsettle men's moral convictions. 
 The consequence appears in various forms. The State 
 teaches in practice that national might is national right ; 
 that so far as the State is concerned there is no right and 
 no wrong; whatever it may will is justice, the nation 
 not amenable to moral law. The Church theoretically 
 teaches that infinite might is infinite right ; that God 
 repudiates his own justice ; that so far as God is con- 
 cerned there is no right, no wrong; with him caprice 
 stands for reason. The atheist agrees with the theolo- 
 gians in this, only he rejects the ecclesiastical phrase- 
 ology, knowing no God. 
 
116 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 I will not speak of mercy, commonly conceived of as 
 the limitation of might, strong manly justice obstructed 
 by womanly sentiment and weakness. But speaking of 
 bare justice I say, that from the idea of God as infinite, 
 it follows that he has no right to call into being a single 
 soul and make that soul miserable for its whole life ; or 
 to inflict upon it any absolute and unrecompensed evil ; 
 no right to call into life a single worm and make that 
 worm's life a curse to itself. It is irreverent and impious 
 to teach that he could do this. It is a plain contradic- 
 tion to the idea of God. It is as impossible for him to 
 create anything from an imperfect motive, for an imper- 
 fect purpose, of imperfect material, or as imperfect means, 
 as it would be for him to make right wrong, the same 
 thing to be and not to be, or one and one not two, but 
 two thousand. I as finite man am amenable to the laws 
 of my finite, human nature ; he as infinite God to the 
 laws of his infinite, divine nature. To say that God has 
 a right or a desire to repudiate his infinite justice, that 
 he will do it, or that as God he can, is as absurd as to 
 say that he will and can make one and one two thousand 
 and not two. And to me it seems as impious as to say 
 there is no God. Indeed it is a denial of God, not a 
 negation of his existence, but of the very substance of 
 his being. 
 
 From the infinite perfection of God it follows that his 
 providence is infinite, that is, completely perfect and per- 
 fectly complete ; that as cause and providence he works 
 continually to bless his creatures, and only to bless them. 
 
 This must be so ; for the opposite could only come 
 from a defect of wisdom — he did not know how to bring 
 about their welfare ; from a defect of justice — he did 
 not will their welfare ; from a defect of love — he did 
 not desire it ; from a defect of power — he could not 
 
A SEE .AWN OF PROVIDENCE. 117 
 
 bring it to pass ; from a defect of holiness — he would 
 not use the power, love, justice, and wisdom for his 
 creatures' sake. This might be said of conceptions of 
 God as finite, — of Baal, Melkarth, Jupiter, Odin, Je- 
 hovah, — never of the infinite God ; he, inasmuch as he 
 is God, must exercise an infinite providence over each 
 and all his works. The universe, that is, the sum total 
 of created matter and created mind, must be perfectly 
 fitted to achieve the purpose which God designs ; that 
 must be a benevolent purpose, involving the greatest 
 possible bliss for each and all, for the infinite God could 
 desire no other end. 
 
 From this it follows that the material part of the uni- 
 verse, and its spiritual part also, must be perfectly adapted 
 to this end. A perfect whole, material or spiritual, con- 
 sists of perfect parts, each answering its several purpose, 
 and so the whole fulfilling the purpose of the whole. No 
 part must be lost ; no part absolutely sacrificed to the 
 good of another, or of all others, and to its own harm 
 and ruin. 
 
 All this follows unavoidably from the idea of God as 
 infinitely perfect. Starting from this point all seems 
 plain. But concrete things often seem imperfect be- 
 cause they do not completely serve our transient purpose, 
 while we know not the eternal purposes of God. We 
 look at the immediate and transient result, not at the 
 ultimate and permanent. Thus the mariner cannot 
 come to port by reason of the storm and rocks which 
 obstruct his course ; he thinks the weather imperfect, 
 the world not well made ; and you often hear men say, 
 " How beautiful the world would be if there were no 
 storms, no hurricanes, no thunder and lightning." While, 
 if we could overlook the cosmic forces which make up 
 the material world, we should see that every actual 
 
118 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 storm and every rock was needful ; and the world would 
 not be perfect and accomplish its function had not each 
 been just in its proper time and place. 
 
 An oak-tree in the woods appears quite imperfect. 
 The leaves are coiled up and spoiled by the leaf-roller ; 
 cut to pieces by the tailor-beetle ; eaten by the hag-moth 
 and the polyphemus, the slug-caterpillar and her numer- 
 ous kindred ; the twigs are sucked by the white-lined 
 tree-hopper, or cut off by the oak-pruner ; large limbs 
 are broken down by the seventeen-year locust ; the horn- 
 bug, the curculio, and the timber-beetle eat up its w^ood ; 
 the gad-fly punctures leaf and bark, converting the forces 
 of the tree to that insect's use ; the grub lives in the 
 young acorn ; fly-catchers are on its leaves : a spider 
 weaves his web from twig to twig ; caterpillars of various 
 denominations gnaw its tender shoots ; the creeper and 
 the wood-pecker bore through the bark ; squirrels, — 
 striped, flying, red, and gray, — have gnawed into its 
 limbs and made their nests ; the toad has a hole in a 
 flaw of its base ; the fox has cut asunder its fibrous roots 
 in digging his burrow ; the bear dwells in its trunk which 
 w^orms, emmets, bees, and countless insects have helped 
 to hollow ; ice and the winds of winter have broken off 
 full many a bough. How imperfect and incomplete the 
 oak-tree looks, so broken, crooked, cragged, gnarled, and 
 grim ! The carpenter cannot get a beam, the millwright 
 a shaft, or the ship-builder a solid knee for his purpose ; 
 even the common woodman spares that tree as not worth 
 felling ; it only cumbers the ground. But it has served 
 its complicated purpose, — given board and lodging to all 
 these creatures, from the ephemeral fly, joying in its 
 transient summer, to the brawny bear for many a winter 
 hibernating in its trunk. It has been a great woodland 
 caravansary, even a tavern and chateau, to all that hete- 
 
A SERMON OF PROVIDENCE. 119 
 
 rogeneous swarm ; and though no man but a painter 
 thinks it a perfect tree, — and he only because the pic- 
 turesque thing serves his special purpose, — no doubt 
 the good God is quite contented with his oak, and says, 
 " Well done, good and faithful servant." He designed 
 it to serve these manifold uses, and to furnish beauty for 
 the painter's picture and meaning for the preacher's 
 speech. Doubtless it enters into the joy of its Lord, 
 having completely served his purpose ; He wanted a 
 caravansary and chateau for those uncounted citizens. 
 To judge of it we must look at all these ends, and also 
 at the condition of the soil that had a superabundance 
 of the matter whereof oak-trees are made. 
 
 We commonly look on the world as the carpenter and 
 millwright on that crooked oak, and because it does not 
 serve our turn completely we think it an imperfect world. 
 Thus men grumble at the rocky shores of New England, 
 its sterile soil, its winters long and hard, its cold and 
 biting spring, its summers brief and burning, and seem 
 to think the world is badly put together. They complain 
 of wild beasts in the forests, of monsters in the sea, of 
 toads and snakes, vipers and many a loathsome thing, 
 hideous to our imperfect eye. How little do we know! 
 A world without an alligator, or a rattle-snake, a hyena, 
 or a shark, would doubtless be a very imperfect world. 
 The good God has something for each of these to do, — 
 a place for them all at his table, and a pillow for every 
 one of them in Nature's bed. 
 
 Though theologians talk of the infinite goodness of 
 God and the perfection of his providence, they have yet 
 a certain belief in a devil ; even if it is not always a 
 personal devil, at any rate it is a principle of absolute 
 evil, which they fear will somehow outwit and override 
 God, getting possession of the world ; will throw sand 
 
120 VIEWS OF religion: 
 
 into the delicate watch-work of the universe, and com- 
 pletely thwart the providence of the Eternal. 
 
 This comes from that dark notion of God which haunts 
 the theology of Christendom — yea, of the Hebrew, the 
 Mahometan, and Hindoo world. It is painful to see how 
 this notion prevails amongst intelligent and religious 
 men. They tell you of the greater activity of the evil 
 principle ; they see it in the insects which infest the 
 grain and fruit-trees of New England, forgetting that 
 God takes care of these insects as well as of man. 
 When we study deeper, we see that there is no evil 
 principle, but a good principle, so often misunderstood 
 by men. If we start with the idea of the infinite God 
 we know the purpose is good before we comprehend the 
 means thereto. 
 
 There are two ways in which men assert the doctrine 
 of God's providence, two philosophical and antagonist 
 doctrines thereof. 
 
 I. One makes God the only will in creation ; animals 
 are mere machines, wholly subordinate to their organi- 
 zation ; man is also a mere machine, wholly subordinate 
 to his organization. Thus all the action in the world, 
 material and spiritual, is the action of God. The uni- 
 verse consists of two parts, one real, the other phenom- 
 enal. First, there is God the actor ; next, a parcel of 
 tools or puppets, wholly passive, having no will or life 
 of their own ; and with these God works or plays. On 
 this supposition his providence has a clean sweep of the 
 universe : every sentiment, good or bad ; every thought, 
 true or false ; every deed, blessing or baneful, is his 
 work. The sun is an unconscious instrument of God ; 
 I am a conscious instrument, but still a bare tool in 
 God's hand, not a free agent. 
 
 This comprehensive scheme, reducing life to median- 
 
A SERMON OF PROVIDENCE. 121 
 
 ism, appears in many forms. It belont>-s to the gross 
 pliilosophy of the materialist ; it is the cardinal doctrine 
 of the pantheist, material or spiritual, the most offensive 
 and dangerous of his doctrines. It is the great idea with 
 the fatalists of all classes. But it appears in the theo- 
 logical sects also, as well as in philosophic parties ; for 
 a man cannot escape from his first principle, neither in 
 philosophy nor in theology. It lies at the basis of the 
 Catholic and Protestant theology, Calvin and d'Holbach 
 agree in this. The contradiction it leads to is plain in 
 the preaching and writings of almost every Calvinistic 
 or Catholic theologian who tries to reconcile his theology 
 with the common facts of consciousness. Now he tells 
 you. You must do for yourself, and then God will help 
 you ; but adds. You can do nothing till God begins it for 
 you. The popular hymn contains the same contradiction : 
 
 " Bound on a voyage of awful length, 
 Through dangers little known, 
 A stranger to superior strength, 
 Man vainly trusts his own. 
 
 " But oars alone will not prevail 
 To reach the distant coast; 
 The breath of heaven must swell the sail, 
 Or all the work is lost." 
 
 But in Dr. Hopkins and Dr. Emmons and their followers 
 and predecessors, as well Protestant as Catholic, this 
 doctrine is carried out to its natural results : in defiance 
 of consciousness, they boldly and simply declare that 
 God is the direct author of every thought and feeling, 
 will and deed. It is curious to see how men reach the 
 same result, starting from opposite points ; curious to 
 see how antinomianism — Catholic or Protestant — 
 arrives at the most objectionable characteristic of pan- 
 theism, which it yet so abhors. 
 
122 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 On this hypothesis the function of Providence appears 
 quite simple ; all action is God's action. The phenom- 
 enal actor may be human, but the only real agent is 
 God. For example, Cain kills Abel with a club, the 
 spite of his heart flashing from his angry eye. That is 
 the phenomenon. But the fact is, God killed Abel with 
 Cain's arm ; Cain and the club were equally passive in- 
 struments in the hand of God. Here the intervention 
 of Cain, with his malicious sentiment and flashing eye, 
 is only a part of the stage machinery, for theatrical 
 effect, but the contriver and worker of it all is God. 
 His ways are simple ; matter and man have really 
 nought to do. This doctrine shocks common-sense, and 
 is at war with the consciousness of every man. It is 
 eminently at war with religious feeling ; for on this sup- 
 position actual suffering and sin are of no human value ; 
 they lead to nothing ; it is in vain for tlie grass to grow, 
 the human hay is cut and dried by foreordination. 
 
 II. The other doctrine of Providence makes man's 
 will free, absolutely free, — not at all conditioned by cir- 
 cumstances, bodily organization, and the like. The phi- 
 losophical question of freedom and necessity I do not 
 design to enter upon. It is one of the most difficult 
 questions in metaphysics, and I certainly am not able 
 to solve the riddle. There are difficulties in either 
 hypothesis, and I have not psychological science enough 
 to explain them in the court of intellect. Philosophy is 
 intellect working in the mode of art ; common-sense is 
 intellect working after its natural instinct, not in the 
 technical mode of art. Philosophy demonstrates ; com- 
 mon-sense convinces without demonstration. In default 
 of philosophy, we must follow common sense ; that does 
 not settle the matter scientifically and ultimately, but 
 practically and provisionally, subject to revision in 
 
A SERMON OF PROVIDENCE. 123 
 
 another court. But common-sense decides in favor of 
 freedom. Every man acts on that supposition, and sup- 
 poses that other men are likewise free. Courts of law 
 proceed on this hypothesis ; public opinion distributes 
 praise or blame ; my own conscience commends, or else 
 cries out against me. I am conscious of freedom. 
 
 But a little experience shows that this freedom has its 
 limitations and is not absolute. It is conditioned on 
 every side, — by my outward circumstances, the events 
 of my history, the accidents of education, the character 
 of my parents and daily associates ; by the constitution 
 of my body, — its varying health, hunger and thirst, 
 youth, manhood, and old age. In comparison with a 
 shad-fish, or a blackbird, Socrates has a good deal of 
 freedom, and is not so much subordinate to his organi- 
 zation or his circumstances as they ; but in comparison 
 with the infinite freedom of God his volitiveness is little. 
 To speak figuratively, it seems as if man was tied by two 
 tethers, — the one of historic circumstance, the other of 
 his physical organization, — fastened at opposite points ; 
 but the cord is elastic, and may be lengthened by use, or 
 shortened by abuse and neglect ; and within the variable 
 limit of his tether man has freedom, but cannot go be- 
 yond it. Still further, to carry out the figure, one man 
 gets entangled in his confining line and does not use half 
 the freedom he might have ; another continually extends 
 it and becomes more free. 
 
 It is plain, that however these circumstances may or 
 may not limit our ideas, or will, they must determine 
 the form of our conceptions and our power to execute 
 them in works. 
 
 On the hypothesis that man is absolutely or partially 
 free, the function of Providence is much more complica- 
 ted. There are primary and secondary powers ; there 
 
124 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 are other agents beside God, using the power derived 
 from him to work with after their own caprice ; so God 
 acts in part by means of the free will of men. This 
 theory seems to me conformable to common-sense and 
 common consciousness, and is perhaps the most philo- 
 sophic of any that has yet been arrived at. 
 
 So much for these two theories of Providence. 
 
 There are two modes in which God's providence is 
 commonly supposed to act, — namely, the general and 
 the special. 
 
 God's general providence, it is said, takes in the 
 greater part of cases in the material and spiritual world, 
 and provides for them. In his general providence, God 
 is thought to accomplish his function by general laws, 
 which are a constant mode of operation, representing the 
 continual and inferior activity of God ; but this does not 
 extend to all cases. God's special providence attends to 
 particular cases, not otherwise provided for, and disposes 
 of them. One is a court of common or statute law, the 
 other a court of equity. In special providence God is 
 supposed not to act by general laws but without them, 
 or against them. All normal action in nature comes 
 from general providence ; all miracles from special prov- 
 idence. Thus a freshet in the Connecticut, and the 
 annual rising of the Nile, belong under the general prov- 
 idence of God and come by the action of steadfast laws ; 
 but the miraculous flood in the time of Noah came of 
 God's special providence, having no cause in nature, 
 only in the caprice of God. This form of special provi- 
 dence in nature is known only to the theologian, not to 
 the man of science. 
 
 To take examples from human affairs, it is main- 
 tained that God's general providence waited on the whole 
 human race, but the Hebrews were under his special 
 
A SERMON OF PROVIDENCE. 125 
 
 providence, and he went so far in tlieir case as to make 
 a contract with Abraham, which St. Paul thought he was 
 under an obligation to keep, and could not invalidate. 
 
 All men in general are under the general providence, 
 but Christians enjoy the special providence of God, or as 
 Dr. Watts has it, 
 
 " The whole creation is thy charge, 
 But saints are thy peculiar care." 
 
 It is said that the forms of religion in China, India, 
 Egypt, Greece and Mexico, came by the general provi- 
 dence of God;_ growing out of the nature of man, or com- 
 ing at the instigation of the devil, having their route in 
 the human or the infernal nature ; while the Hebrew 
 and the Christian forms of religion came by his special 
 providence, started in God, and were miraculously trans- 
 planted to human soil. 
 
 Certain Christians are thought still more eminently 
 under God's- special providence. They are the " elect," 
 and the world was made for them. The Mahometan 
 thinks the same of his form of religion and of the elect 
 Mussulmans. Christian theologians say that saints, the 
 elect, share the " covenanted mercies " of God and are 
 favorites, enjoying his special providence, while the rest 
 of men are left to his " uncovenanted mercies," and have 
 need to tremble. The governor of Massachusetts, a few 
 years ago, in his proclamation for a day of fasting, in- 
 vited men to pray God to bless the whole United States 
 in general, but to have " a special care of the good State 
 of Massachusetts." The Hebrews, thinking God cared 
 nothing for the Gentiles, praised him, saying, " Thou 
 didst march through the land in indignation. Thou 
 didst thrash the heathen in anger ; thou wentcst forth 
 for the salvation of thy people ; " " Thou didst drive out 
 the heathen with thine hand." 
 
126 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 So Christians think God has his favorites amongst 
 men, and, like a partial father, takes better care of some 
 of his children than of the rest; you and I share his 
 common concern and are under his general laws ; Jesus 
 of Nazareth had his special care and was under special 
 laws. It would be thought a great impiety to suppose 
 that God felt as much concern for Judas as for Jesus, 
 and would no more suffer the son of Simon to be ulti- 
 mately lost, than the son of Mary. Yet if you think 
 twice you will see that the impiety is on the other side ; 
 for if God does not care as much for Iscariot as for 
 Christ, as much desiring and insuring the ultimate tri- 
 umph of the one as the other, then he is not the infin- 
 ite Father whose ways are equal to all his cliildren, but 
 partial, unjust, cruel, wicked, and oppressive. You do 
 not think so well of the British government because 
 it neglects its feeblest subjects, the laboring millions, 
 making England the paradise of the rich and strong, the 
 purgatory of the wise and good, and the hell of the poor 
 and weak. You condemn the government of the United 
 States because it has its favorites, and oppresses and en- 
 slaves the feeblest of its citizens to increase the riches of 
 indolent and cruel men. You would not employ a school- 
 master who turned off the dull boys and beat the bad ones, 
 disposed to truancy and mischief, driving them out into 
 the streets to swelter in crime, to fester in jail, or rot on 
 the gallows. What indignation would suffice towards a 
 mother who neglects a backward boy, takes no pains with 
 the girl that is a cripple, or with a son who has an organic 
 and hereditary tendency to dissipation and licentiousness ? 
 I do not like to say a man is impious without proof that 
 he means it ; but to attribute so base a character and 
 such unjust conduct to God as you would not respect in 
 a government, allow in a schoolmaster, or endure in a 
 
A SERMON OF PROVIDENCE. 127 
 
 mother, is thoughtless, to say the least of it. But that 
 is the common idea of God in the Christian churches, 
 and the common idea of his providence. 
 
 The modern notion of a special providence, wherein 
 God acts without law or against law, is the most spiritual 
 and attenuated form of the doctrine of miracles, the last 
 glimmering of the candle before it goes out. Men who 
 give up the miraculous birth of Jesus still claim that he 
 was under the special providence of God. As the State 
 has general laws which apply well enough to the major- 
 ity of cases, but has special legislation for the excep- 
 tional cases which were not provided for by the general 
 statutes ; and as it has a jury whose function is to deter- 
 mine if the law shall punish this or the other man who 
 has violated it, — so the popular theology teaches that 
 God's providence has its general legislation, which ap- 
 plies well enough to the majority of cases, and its spe- 
 cial legislation, which applies only to the exceptional 
 cases, with its particular mercy, which, like the jury, re- 
 fuses to execute the law when it seems too hard. For it 
 is tacitly taken for granted by the popular theology that 
 God did not foresee and provide for all the wants of the 
 universe, material or spiritual, but is sometimes taken 
 by surprise, things not turning out as he designed or 
 expected, and so he has to interfere by special miracles, 
 to mend his work, to set up makeshifts and provisional 
 expedients. Thus it is represented that the loneliness of 
 Adam in Paradise, his seduction and fall, the subsequent 
 wickedness of his descendants, the transgressions of the 
 Hebrews, and the general sinfulness of mankind at a 
 later day, were all a surprise to the Creator, things not 
 turning out according to his thought. New expedients 
 must accordingly be devised to meet the unexpected 
 emergency. 
 
128 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 In like manner it is taught that Jesus of Nazareth 
 was under the special providence of God ; that all his- 
 tory prepared for him and pointed to him ; that he had 
 a special mission, while you and I are only under the 
 general providence ; history has not prepared for us, does 
 not point to us, and we have no special mission, — in 
 short, that Jesus is a providential man, with a providen- 
 tial function and history, while you and I are not provi- 
 dential men, and have no providential history or function. 
 
 This common theological notion of the limited gen- 
 eral providence and limited special providence of God 
 belongs to the very substance of the popular theology, 
 and springs from its idea of God as finite in power, in 
 wisdom, in justice, and in love. Some ancient and 
 some modern philosophers, seeing the change and prog- 
 ress in manifestation, believe there is a corresponding 
 change in the manifestor, and declare God is not a be- 
 ing but a becoming. The popular theology has the 
 same vice, — though the theologians are not conscious 
 thereof, and denounce it, — : believing that God grows 
 wiser by experiment, and must alter his plans. Yet in 
 contradiction of their own statements, they declare him 
 without variableness and shadow of turning ; while ac- 
 cording to the popular theology the history of God is a 
 history of revolutions, even in his dealing with his cho- 
 sen people, — the revelation through the Messiah being 
 flat opposite to the revelation through Moses, which it an- 
 nuls. Pantheism and the popular theology, hostile as 
 they are, agree in this strange conclusion, the negation 
 of the Infinite, and the affirmation of a variable God. 
 The pantheist consciously denies the one and affirms the 
 other, in laying down his premises ; the theologian does 
 it unconsciously, in developing his conclusions. 
 
 From the nature of God as infinite, from the relation 
 
A SERMON OF PROVIDENCE. 129 
 
 he sustains to the creation, as perfect and perpetual cause 
 thereof, it follows that his providence must be not barely- 
 special, — eminently providing for certain things, — or 
 general, — taking care of the great mass, but letting ex- 
 ceptional particulars slip through his fingers, — it must 
 be universal. It must extend to each thing he has 
 created, to all parts of its existence and to every action 
 thereof. If it be not so, then either some parts of crea- 
 tion are entirely derelict of God, destitute of liis provi- 
 dence, without his care, neglected by him, and outlaws 
 of God, put to the ban of the universe, or else destitute 
 of his providence during some portions of their existence, 
 or in some acts of their lives. Either case is at variance 
 with the infinite nature and function of God. For when 
 the infinite God created the universe, it must have been 
 from a perfect motive, of a perfect material, for a perfect 
 purpose, and as a perfect means thereto ; and he must 
 therefore have understood it all completely, in each of 
 its parts, and perfectly, in all the details of each part ; 
 and, knowing all the powers, he foreknows all the actions, 
 necessitated or contingent, and provides for each. This 
 must be true of the universe as a whole, and of each 
 part thereof. All its actions must be thus provided for. 
 The laws of the universe, — the constant modes of oper- 
 ation of the material or human forces, — must be founded 
 on this complete and perfect knowledge, and coextensive 
 therewith, and be exponents of that motive and servants 
 of that purpose. This is what is meant when it is said 
 the laws of matter and of mind belong to the nature and 
 constitution of matter and of mind. These laws are 
 formed after a complete knowledge of all their properties, 
 functions, and consequences. Before there were two 
 particles of matter in existence, the infinite God must 
 have understood the law of attraction, — in its larger form 
 
130 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 as graYitation, its smaller as cohesion, — and have known 
 that thereby the tower of Siloam would one day fall and 
 slay eighteen men ; that many a beetling crag would tum- 
 ble to the ground, and Alpine landslips bring thousands 
 of men to premature destruction. But all those laws 
 thus made must coincide with the motive of God and be 
 means for his purpose ; they must suit the welfare of the 
 whole creation and of each part thereof. This must be 
 true of the material world, which is unconscious and not 
 free ; of the animal world, which is not free, yet partially 
 conscious : of the human world, which is conscious and 
 partially free ; and of all superhuman worlds, with higher 
 degrees of consciousness and freedom. 
 
 To this universal extent must all things be under the 
 providence of God; to this extent his constant modes 
 of operation must needs reach out. 
 
 Then if you look at the relation of God to any one 
 thing, — say the grub of a buprestian beetle boring into 
 the bough of the oak I just now spoke of, — it seems as if 
 God made the bough of the tree expressly for that little 
 incipient insect ; and the oak for the bough ; and the 
 soil for the oak : the globe, with all its ups and downs, 
 which geology relates, seems made for the soil ; and the 
 universe for the globe. So it appears that that little 
 larva of a beetle is the end, or final cause, of the uni- 
 verse, stands on the top of the world, and has all crea- 
 tion to wait on him, with the God thereof as providential 
 overseer. Then, regarding this grub as the one thing 
 the universe w^as designed to serve, theologians might 
 say, " Behold God's providence is special ; he has special 
 legislation to suit this buprestian grub, and has aimed 
 the whole world at this mark. See how all things pre- 
 pare for that ; the sun and moon are only its forerunners, 
 and in the fulness of time behold a grub ! " 
 
A SERMON OF PROVIDENCE. 131 
 
 But when the theologian studies the condition of the 
 next grub in an oak-apple, or a gall-nut, or in the near- 
 est bough, he finds them all as well-conditioned, and 
 sees that God takes care of the Ijmexylon, the hyleca^tus,. 
 and the brenthus, as well as of the buprestian ; that 
 each of them stands just as much on the top of the world, 
 with the universe to wait thereon, and God as overseer. 
 You may study all the inhabitants of the oak-tree, — the 
 toad, the squirrel, the fox, the bear, — it is true of them 
 all. Yes, it is true of every special thing in the world, 
 when you fully understand that special thing in all its ex- 
 istence, in each act of its life. We cannot by experiment 
 and observation prove this so clearly in every case as in 
 some special cases, but starting with the idea of God as 
 infinite, the conclusion follows at once, — that his prov- 
 idence in reference to each particular thing is a perfect 
 providence. 
 
 Then if you look at the relation of God to the whole 
 universe, you see that, as far as you understand it, the 
 whole is as well taken care of and provided for as the 
 most contented grub who lives on the bounty of the oak ; 
 and you say, " Here is general providence, God acting 
 by general laws for general purposes ; things work well 
 on the whole, and ' if now a bubble bursts, and now a 
 world,' it is only a small exception. The attraction of 
 gravitation is a good thing, it keeps the world together ; 
 and if the tower of Siloam, thereby falling to the ground, 
 slays eighteen men of Jerusalem, that number is too small 
 to think of, considering the myriad millions who are up- 
 held by this same law." 
 
 A law that is perfectly special, providing for each, is 
 also completely general, providing for all. In other 
 words, it is universal. God's providence must be in- 
 finite, like his nature. Special and general are only 
 
132 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 forms in which we conceive of that providence ; in its 
 relation to a single thing men name it special, to many 
 things, general, while it extends to all and is universal. 
 Accordingly, it neither requires nor admits of miraculous 
 makeshifts and provisional expedients, which theologians 
 think indispensable to their finite God. 
 
 When God created mankind, he must have given 
 thereto the powers which are requisite to accomplish all 
 his purpose. This must be true of mankind as a whole, 
 and of Amos and Habakkuk, — of each man, as a part 
 thereof ; of each man considered individually as an in- 
 teger, and considered socially, or humanly, as a fraction 
 of the community, or race, and so a factor in the social, 
 or general human result of the life of mankind. Of 
 course, God must foreknow what use or abuse would be 
 made of these powers, given in their present proportion, 
 just as well as he knows it now, after all the experience 
 of centuries. Knowing human nature, he must fore- 
 know human history. For example, God must have 
 foreknown that young children would stumble bodily in 
 e-ettino: command of their limbs, in learning to walk, 
 and suffer pain in consequence thereof; that older chil- 
 dren would stumble spiritually in getting command of 
 their spirits, in learning to think and to will, and suffer 
 in consequence of that ; that mankind as a whole would 
 stumble in getting command of the material world, and 
 the development of their human powers, and accord- 
 dingly there would be suffering from that cause. 
 ^ Now God, inasmuch as he is God, acts providentially 
 in nature, — not by miraculous and spasmodic fits and 
 starts, but by regular and universal laws, by constant 
 modes of operation ; and so takes care of material things 
 without violating their constitution, acting always accord- 
 ing to the nature of the things which he has made. It 
 
A SERMON OF PROVIDENCE. 133 
 
 is a fact of observation that in the material and uncon- 
 scious world he works by its materiality and uncon- 
 sciousness, not against them ; in the animal world by its 
 animality and partial consciousness, not against them. 
 Judging from the nature of God and of man, it must be con- 
 cluded that in the providential government of the world, 
 he acts also by regular and universal laws, by constant 
 modes of operation ; and so takes care of human things 
 without violating their constitution, acting always ac- 
 cording to the human nature of man, not against it, 
 working in the human world by means of man's con- 
 sciousness and partial freedom, not against them. 
 
 Here, in the human world, God's providence must be 
 as complete and as perfect as there, in the material or 
 animal world, in each department acting by the natural 
 laws thereof, not without or against them. As by the 
 very constitution of material or animal things God's 
 providence acts by the natural laws thereof, — statical, 
 dynamical, and vital laws, — so from the very constitution 
 of man it appears that God's perfect providence must 
 work according to the spiritual laws thereof ; for it is not 
 conceivable either that God should devise laws not ade- 
 quate for his purpose, or capriciously depart from them 
 if made adequate. Call this providence special as it ap- 
 plies to Hophni and Phineas, or general as it applies to all 
 the children of Jacob, it is plain that it must be universal, 
 applying to all material, animal,. and human things. 
 
 If these things are so, if God be infinite, then the He- 
 brew nation is under his universal providence ; but the 
 Amalekites whom the Hebrews overthrew, and the Ro- 
 mans who conquered the conquerors, and the Goths who 
 vanquished the Romans, are all and equally under the 
 universal providence of God, who cares equally for them 
 all. Not only are the nations under his providence in 
 
134 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 their great acts, but in their little everj-day transactions. 
 Theologians love to think that God was present with 
 the Hebrews in their march out of Egypt, at Mount 
 Sinai, — that their exodus and legislation were providen- 
 tial. It is all true ; but the same Providence watched 
 equally over the English Pilgrims, in their exodus, over 
 the British Parliament making laws at Westminster, 
 the American Congress at Philadelphia and Washington. 
 It is well to see this fact in Hebrew history ; well also 
 to go farther forward and see it in all human history, 
 and to know that human nature is divine providence. 
 
 The common theological notion of a special provi- 
 dence, with its special favorites, is full of mischief. 
 Some intensely national writer in the Hebrew Old Tes- 
 tament tells us that Noah cursed the descendants of 
 Ham for their father's folly ; theologians inform us that 
 in consequence tliereof his descendants are cast-off, out- 
 laws from God. But there are no outlaws from the 
 infinite Father : to say he casts off any child of his, He- 
 brew or Canaanite, is as absurd as to say he alters the 
 axioms of mathematics, or the truths of the multiplica- 
 tion-table. It is inconsistent with the nature and consti- 
 tution of the infinite God ; it is as impossible as tliat one 
 and one should be two thousand, and not two. The 
 African nations, whom the Caucasians enslave, must be 
 as dear to God as the pale tyrant who exploiters them, 
 — just as much under his infinite providence, which will 
 not suffer any ultimate and unrecompensed evil to befall 
 the black or white. 
 
 All individuals, then, must be equally under the same 
 providential care of the infinite God ; not merely great 
 men, the Charlemagnes, the Cromwells, the Napoleons, 
 " men of destiny " as they are called, but the little men ; 
 not merely the good men, the heroes of religion, the 
 
A SERMON OF PROVIDENCE. 135 
 
 Moseses and the Jesuses, but ordinary men, and wicked 
 men, not barely in their great moments, when they feel 
 conscious of God, but in their daily work and humble 
 consciousness. Then it is plain that not only Moses 
 and Jesus are providential men intrusted with a special 
 mission, but you and I and each man are just as much 
 providential men, equally intrusted with a mission, not 
 the less special because it is humble and our powers 
 are weak. The unnatural Spartan father rejects and 
 disdains his idiot girl, leaving her to perish on Mount 
 Cithseron ; the theologian casts off his son, grown up 
 wicked and a public criminal, leaving him to perish un- 
 pitied in his jail. But the loving-kindness of the infin- 
 ite Father watches over the fool, the tender mercy of 
 the infinite Mother takes up the criminal when mortal 
 parents let him fall. There is no child of perdition be- 
 fore the infinite God. 
 
 Now God, as the infinitely perfect, must accomplish 
 his providential function by the laws which belong to 
 the nature and constitution of things ; that is, by the 
 normal and constant mode of operation of the natural 
 powers resident in those things themselves, — in material 
 and animal nature by the forces and laws thereof ; in 
 human nature by its forces and its laws. For as provi- 
 dence is the divine execution in time of the eternal di- 
 vine purpose, it is absurd to say that God supersedes or 
 annuls the means which he primarily designed for that 
 purpose. The classic deist supposed the material world 
 was the work of one God, and the arrangement of human 
 affairs the work of another. Between the two there was 
 a collision and a quarrel, the world-governor must in- 
 terfere with the work of the world-maker. Causality and 
 providence were antagonistic. But with the idea of the in- 
 finite God this antithetic dualism vanishes at once away. 
 
136 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 The creative causality of the infinite God is likewise 
 conservative and administrative providence. So, from 
 the nature of the infinitely perfect God and the conse- 
 quent perfection of his motive, material, purpose, and 
 means thereto, it follows that he will not destroy as in- 
 finite providence what he created as infinite cause ; that 
 he will not violate the laws and break the constitution 
 which he himself has made. Accordingly, in the midst 
 of God's providence working from a perfect motive, for 
 a perfect purpose, and by means of the constitution and 
 nature of man, — a Providence extending to all men 
 and to their every act, — it is plain that human freedom 
 is safe, and the ultimate welfare of each man is made 
 sure of, as certain as the existence of God, or of man. 
 
 Atheism tells you of a world without a God, a great 
 going, but a going with none to direct ; the popular the- 
 ology tells that this going is directed by a finite and 
 changeable God, jealous, revengeful, loving Jacob and 
 hating Esau, working by fits and starts, even in wrath 
 destroying what he made imperfect, to begin anew, and 
 designing to torment the great mass of mankind in ever- 
 lasting woe — "miserable to have eternal being." But 
 with the absolute religion, a knowledge of God as infin- 
 ite, how different do all things appear ! We have con- 
 fidence, absolute trust in the motive and purpose of God, 
 absolute trust also in the means which he has provided 
 in the nature and constitution of things. The human 
 faculties become then the instruments of providence. 
 Every man is under the protection of God, and all fear 
 of the final result, for you, or me, or for mankind, quite 
 vanishes away. The details we know not. Experience re- 
 veals them a day-full at a time ; the result we are sure of. 
 
 Timid men, who think that God is miserly, and the 
 great Hunker of the universe, sometimes fear the mate- 
 
A SERMON OF PROVIDENCE. 137 
 
 rial world will not hold out ; some little " perturbations " 
 are discovered ; now the earth approaches the sun for 
 many years, perhaps never twice has described exactly 
 the same track, they fear the earth will fall into the fire 
 and the world be burned up. But by-and-by we find that 
 these " perturbations " only disturbed the astronomer, 
 doubtful of God ; that to the Cause and Providence of 
 the world they were eternally known, fore-cared for ; 
 that they are normal acts of faithful matter, and so all 
 undisturbed the world rolls on. Constant is balanced 
 by constant. Variable holds variable in check. In her 
 cyclic rotation round the earth the moon nods ; the earth 
 oscillates in her rhythmic round, while the sun nods also, 
 as the centre of gravity of .the solar system shifts now a 
 little this way, then a little that ; nay, tlie whole solar 
 system, it is likely, swings a little from side to side : but 
 all this has been foreseen, provided for, balanced by 
 forces which never sleep, and one thing set over against 
 another in such a sort that all work together for good, 
 and the great chariot of heaven sweeps on through 
 starry space keeping its God-appointed track. Such is 
 the providence of God in matter ; not an atom of star- 
 dust is lost out of the sky, not an atom of flower-dust is 
 lost from off this dirty globe : such are the laws by 
 which God works his functions out in nature. Igno- 
 rance is full of dread, and starts at terrors in the dark, 
 trembles at the earthquake and the storm. But science 
 justifies the ways of God to matter, knowing all and lov- 
 ing all, — discloses everywhere the immanent and ever ac- 
 tive force. Where science does not understand the mode 
 of action, nor read the title of perfection clearly in the 
 work, it points to the infinite perfection of the Author, 
 and we fear no more. 
 
138 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 OF JUSTICE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 Turn, and do justice. — Tobit xiii. 6. 
 
 Everywhere in the world there is a natural law, that 
 is a constant mode of action, which seems to belong to 
 the nature of things, to the constitution of the universe : 
 this fact is universal. In different departments we call 
 this mode of action by different names, — as, the law of 
 matter, the law of mind, the law of morals, and the like. 
 We mean thereby a certain mode of action which belongs 
 to the material, mental, or moral forces, the mode in 
 which commonly they are seen to act, and in which it is 
 their ideal to act always. The ideal laws of matter we 
 only know from the fact that they are always obeyed ; 
 to us the actual obedience is the only witness of the ideal 
 rule, for in respect to the conduct of the material world 
 the ideal and the actual are the same. 
 
 The laws of matter we can learn only by observation 
 and experience. We cannot divine them and anticipate, 
 or know them at all, unless experience supply the facts 
 of observation. Before experience of the fact, no man 
 could tell that a falling body would descend sixteen feet 
 the first second, twice that the next, four times the third, 
 and sixteen times the fourth. The law of falling bodies 
 is purely objective to us ; no mode of action in our con- 
 sciousness anticipates this rule of action in the outer 
 world. The same is true of all the laws of matter. The 
 ideal law is known because it is a fact. The law is im- 
 perative ; it must be obeyed without hesitation. In the 
 
OF JUSTICE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 139 
 
 solar system, or the composition of a diamond, no margin 
 is left for any oscillation of disobedience ; margins of 
 oscillation there always are, but only for vibration as a 
 function, not as the refusal of a function. Only the 
 primal will of God works in the material world, — no 
 secondary finite will. 
 
 In nature, the world spread out before the senses, — 
 to group many specific modes of action about a single 
 generic force, — we see there is the great general law of 
 attraction, which binds atom to atom in a grain of sand, 
 orb to orb, system to system, gives unity to the world of 
 things, and rounds these worlds of systems to a universe. 
 At first there seem to be exceptions to this law, — as in 
 growth and decomposition, in the repulsions of elec- 
 tricity ; but at length all these are found to bo instantial 
 cases of this great law of attraction acting in various 
 modes. We name the attraction by its several modes, 
 — cohesion in small masses, and gravitation in large. 
 When the relation seems a little more intimate, we call 
 it affinity, as in the atomic union of molecules of matter. 
 Other modes we name electricity and magnetism ; when 
 the relation is yet more close and intimate, we call it veg- 
 etation in plants, vitality in animals. But for the pres- 
 ent purpose all these may be classed under the general 
 term attraction, considered as acting in various modes of 
 cohesion, gravitation, affinity, vegetation, and vitality. 
 
 This power gives unity to the material w^orld, keeps it 
 whole ; yet, acting under such various forms, gives variety 
 at the same time. The variety of effect surprises the 
 senses at first ; but in the end the unity of cause aston- 
 ishes the cultivated mind. Looked at in reference to 
 this globe, an earthquake is no more than a chink that 
 opens in a garden-walk of a dry day in summer. A 
 sponge is porous, having small spaces between the solid 
 
140 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 parts ; the solar system is only more porous, having 
 larger room between the several orbs ; the universe yet 
 more so, with vast spaces between the systems ; a similar 
 attraction keeps together the sponge, the system, and the 
 universe. Every particle of matter in the world is related 
 to each and all the other particles thereof ; attraction is 
 the common bond. 
 
 In the spiritual world, the world of human conscious- 
 ness, there is also a law, an ideal mode of action for the 
 spiritual forces of man. To take only the moral part of 
 this sphere of consciousness, we find the phenomenon 
 called justice, the law of right. Viewed as a force, it 
 bears the same relation in the world of conscience that 
 attraction bears in the world of sense. I mean justice 
 is the normal relation of men, and has the same to do 
 amongst moral atoms — individual men, — moral masses 
 — that is, nations, — and the moral whole — I mean all 
 mankind — which attraction has to do with material 
 atoms, masses, and the material whole. It appears in a 
 variety of forms not less striking. 
 
 However, unlike attraction, it does not work free from 
 all hindrance ; it develops itself through conscious 
 agents that continually change, and pass by experiment 
 from low to high degrees of life and development to 
 higher forms of justice. There is a certain private force, 
 personal and peculiar to each one of us, controlled by 
 individual will ; this may act in the same line with the 
 great normal force of justice, or it may conflict for a 
 time with the general law of the universe, having private 
 nutations, oscillations, and aberrations, personal or na- 
 tional. But these minor forces, after a while, are sure to 
 be overcome by the great general moral force, pass into 
 the current, and be borne along in the moral stream of 
 the universe. 
 
OF JUSTICE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 141 
 
 What a variety of men and women in the world ! — ten 
 hundred million persons, and no two alike in form and 
 lineament ; in character and being how unlike ; how very 
 different as phenomena and facts ! What an immense 
 variety of wish, of will, in these thousand million men ! — 
 of plans, which now rise up in the little personal bubble 
 that we call a reputation or a great fortune, then in the 
 great national bubble which we call a State ! for bubbles 
 they are, judging by the space and time they occupy in 
 this great and age-outlasting sea of human kind. But 
 underneath all these bubbles, great and little, resides the 
 same eternal force which they shape into this or the other 
 special form ; and over all the same paternal Providence 
 presides, and keeps eternal watch above the little and 
 the great, producing variety of effect from unity of force. 
 This Providence allows the little bubbles of his child's 
 caprice, humors him in forming them ; gives him time 
 and space for that, understands his little caprices and 
 his whims and lets him carry them out awhile; but him- 
 self, with no whim and no caprice, rules there as univer- 
 sal justice, omniscient and all-powerful. Out of his sea 
 these bubbles rise ; by his force they rise ; by his law 
 they have their consistence ; and the private personal will, 
 which gives them size or littleness and normal or abnor- 
 mal shap(3, has its limitation of error marked out for it 
 which cannot be passed by. In this human world there 
 is a wide margin for oscillation ; refusal to perform the 
 ideal function has been provided for, redundance made 
 to balance deficiency ; checks are provided for every form 
 of abnormal action of the will. 
 
 Viewed as an object not in man, justice is the consti- 
 tution or fundamental law of the moral universe, the law 
 of right, a rule of conduct for man in all his moral rela- 
 tions. Accordingly, all human affairs must be subject 
 
 4 
 
142 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 to that as the law paramount ; what is right agrees there- 
 with and stands ; what is wrong conflicts and falls. 
 Private cohesions of self-love, of friendship, or of patri- 
 otism, must all be subordinate to this universal gravita- 
 tion towards the eternal right. 
 
 We learn the laws of matter, that of attraction, for 
 example, by observation and reflection ; what we know 
 thereof is the result of long experience, — the experi- 
 enced sight and the experienced thought of many a 
 thousand years. We might learn something of the 
 moral law of justice, the law of right, in the same way, 
 as a merely external thing. Then we should know it 
 as a phenomenon, as we know attraction ; as a fact so 
 general that we called it universal and a law of nature. 
 Still it would be deemed only an arbitrary law, over us, 
 indeed, but not in us, — or in our elements, not our 
 consciousness, — which Ave must be subordinate to, but 
 could not become coordinate with; a law like that of 
 falling bodies, wliich had no natural relation with us, 
 which we could not anticipate or divine by our nature, 
 but only learn by our history. We should not know 
 why God had made the world after the pattern of jus- 
 tice, and not injustice, any more than we now know why 
 a body does not fall as rapidly the first as the last second 
 of its descent. 
 
 God has given us a moral faculty, the conscience, 
 which is able to perceive the moral law directly and 
 immediately, by intuitive perception thereof, without ex- 
 perience of the external consequences of keeping or vio- 
 lating it, and more perfectly than such experience can 
 ever disclose it. For the facts of man's history do not 
 fully represent the faculties of his nature, as the his- 
 tory of matter represents the qualities of matter. Man, 
 though finite, is indefinitely progressive, continually 
 
OF JUSTICE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 143 
 
 unfolding the qualities of liis nature ; liis history, there- 
 fore, is not the whole book of man, but only the portion 
 thereof "which has been opened and publicly read. So 
 the history of man never completely represents his na- 
 ture ; and a law derived merely from the facts of obser- 
 vation by no means describes the normal rule of action 
 which belongs to his nature. The laws of matter are 
 known to us because they are kept ; there the ideal and 
 actual are the same ; but man has in his nature a rule 
 of conduct higher than what he has come up to, — an 
 ideal of nature which shames his actual of history. Ob- 
 servation and reflection only give us the actual of morals ; 
 conscience, by gradual and successive intuition, presents 
 us the ideal of morals. On condition that I use this fac- 
 ulty in its normal activity, and in proportion as I develop 
 it and all its kindred powers, I learn justice, the law 
 of right, tlie divine rule of conduct for human life ; I see 
 it, not as an external fact which might as well not be at 
 all as be, or might have been supplanted by its opposite, 
 but I see it as a mode of action which belongs to the in- 
 finitely perfect nature of God ; belongs also to my own na- 
 ture, and so is not barely over me, but in me, of me, and 
 for me. I can become coordinate with that, and not 
 merely subordinate thereto ; I find a deep, permanent, 
 and instinctive delight in justice, not only in the outward 
 effects, but in the inward cause, and by my nature I love 
 this law of right, this rule of conduct, this justice, with 
 a deep and abiding love. I find that justice is the ob- 
 ject of my conscience, — fitting that as light the eye 
 and truth the mind. There is a perfect agreement be- 
 tween the moral object and the moral subject. Finding 
 it fit me thus, I know that justice will work my welfare 
 and that of all mankind. 
 
 Attraction is the most general law in the material 
 
144 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 world, and prevents a schism in the universe ; temper- 
 ance is the law of the body, and prevents a schism in the 
 members ; justice is the law of conscience, and prevents 
 a schism in the moral world, amongst individuals in a 
 family, communities in a State, or nations in the world 
 of men. Temperance is corporeal justice, the doing 
 right to each limb of the body, and is the mean propor- 
 tional between appetite and appetite, or one and all ; 
 sacrificing no majority to one desire, however great, — 
 no minority, however little, to a majority, — but giving 
 each its due, and to all the harmonious and well-propor- 
 tioned symmetry that is meet for all. It keeps the pro- 
 portions betwixt this and that, and holds an even balance 
 within the body, so that there shall be no excess. Jus- 
 tice is moral temperance in the world of men. It keeps 
 just relations between men ; one man, however little, 
 must not be sacrificed to another, however great, to a 
 majority, or to all men. It holds the balance betwixt 
 nation and nation, for a nation is but a larger man ; be- 
 twixt a man and his family, tribe, nation, race ; between 
 mankind and God. It is the universal regulator which 
 coordinates man with man, each with all, — me with the 
 ten hundred millions of men, so that my absolute rights 
 and theirs do not interfere, nor our ultimate interests 
 ever clash, nor my eternal welfare prove antagonistic to 
 the blessedness of all or any one. I am to do justice, 
 and demand that of all, — a universal human debt, a 
 universal human claim. 
 
 But it extends further ; it is the regulator between 
 men and God. It is the moral spontaneousness of the 
 infinite God, as it is to be the moral volition of finite 
 men. The right to the justice of God is unalienable in 
 men, the universal human claim, the never-ending gift 
 for them. Can God ever depart from his own justice, 
 
OF JUSTICE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 145 
 
 deprive any creature of a right, or balk it of a natural 
 claim? Philosophically speaking, it is impossible, — a 
 contradiction to our idea of God. Religiously speaking, 
 it is impious, — a contradiction to our feeling of God. 
 Both the philosophic and the religious consciousness de- 
 clare it impossible that God should be unjust. The na- 
 ture of finite men claims justice of God ; his infinite 
 nature adjusts the claim. Every man in the world is 
 morally related to each and all the rest. Justice is the 
 common human bond. It joins us also to the infinite God. 
 Justice is his constant mode of action in the moral world. 
 
 So much for justice, viewed as objective, — as a law of 
 the universe, the mode of action of the universal moral 
 force. 
 
 Man naturally loves justice for its own sake, as the 
 natural object of his conscience. As the mind loves 
 truth and beauty, so conscience loves the right ; it is 
 true and beautiful to the moral faculties. Conscience 
 rests in justice as an end, as the mind in truth. As 
 truth is the side of God turned towards the intellect, so 
 is justice the side of him which conscience looks upon. 
 Love of justice is the moral part of piety. 
 
 When I am a baby, in my undeveloped moral state I 
 do not love justice, nor conform to it ; when I am sick, 
 and have not complete control over this republic of nerves 
 and muscles, I fail of justice and heed it not ; when I 
 am stung with beastly rage, blinded by passion, or over- 
 attracted from my proper sphere of affection, another 
 man briefly possessing me, I may not love the absolute 
 and eternal right, private capillary attraction conflicting 
 with the universal gravitation. But in my maturitv, in 
 my cool and personal hours, when I am most myself, 
 and the accidents of my bodily temperament and local 
 surroundings are controlled by the substance of my 
 
 10 
 
146 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 manhood, then I love justice with a firm, unwavering 
 love. That is the natural fealty of my conscience to its 
 liege lord. Then I love justice, not for its consequences 
 for bodily gain, but for itself, for the moral truth and 
 loveliness thereof. Then if justice crown me I am glad, 
 not merely with my personal feeling, because it is I who 
 wear the crown, but because it is the crown of justice. 
 If justice discrown and bind me down to infamy, I still 
 am glad with all my moral sense and joy in the univer- 
 sal justice, though I suffer with the private smart. 
 Though all that is merely selfish and personal of me 
 revolts, still what is noblest, what I hold in common 
 with mankind and in common with God, bids me be glad 
 if justice is done upon me ; to me or upon me, I know it 
 is justice still, and though my private injustice be my 
 foe, the justice of the universe is still my friend. God, 
 acting in this universal mode of moral force, acts for me, 
 and the prospect of future suffering has no terror. 
 
 Men reverence and love justice. Conscience is loyal ; 
 moral piety begins early, the ethical instinct prompting 
 mankind, and in savage ages bringing out the lovely 
 flower m some woman's character where moral beauty 
 has its earliest spring. Commonly, men love justice a 
 little more than truth ; they are more moral than intel- 
 lectual ; have ideas of the conscience more than of the 
 mind. This is not true of the more cultivated classes 
 in any civilization, but of the mass of men in all ; their 
 morals are better than their philosophy. They see more 
 absolute truth with the moral than with the intellectual 
 faculty. The instinct for the abstract just of will is 
 always a little before the instinct for the abstract true 
 of thought. This is the normal order of development. 
 But in the artificial forms of culture what is selfish and 
 for one takes rank before what is human and for all. 
 
OF JUSTICE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 147 
 
 So cultivated men commonly seek large intellectual 
 power as an instrument for their selfish purposes, and 
 neglect and even hate to get a large moral power, the 
 instrument of universal benevolence. They love the ex- 
 clusive use of certain forms of truth, and neglect justice, 
 which would make the convenience of every truth serve 
 the common good of all. Men with large moral power 
 must needs work for all ; with merely large intellectual 
 power they may work only for themselves. Hence 
 crafty aristocracies and monopolists seek for intellectual 
 culture as a mode of power, and shun moral culture, 
 which can never serve a selfish end. This rule holds 
 good of all the great forms of civilization, from the 
 Egyptian to the British ; of all the higher seminaries 
 of education, from the propaganda of the Jesuits to a 
 New England college. In all the civilized nations at 
 this day the controlling class is intellectual more than 
 moral ; has more power of thought than power of right- 
 eousness. The same fact appears in the literature of the 
 world. The foremost class in culture, wealth, and social 
 rank have less than the average proportion of morality. 
 Hence comes the character of laws, political, social, and 
 ecclesiastical institutions, — not designed for all, but for 
 a few, at best a part, because the makers did not start with 
 adequate moral power, nor propose justice as an end. 
 
 Yet the mass of men are always looking for the just ; 
 all this vast machinery which makes up a State, a world 
 of States, is, on the part of the people, an attempt to 
 organize justice ; the minute and wide-extending civil 
 machinery which makes up the law and the courts, with 
 all their officers and implements, on the part of mankind, 
 is chiefly an effort to reduce to practice the theory of 
 right. Alas ! with the leaders of civil and political 
 affairs it is quite different, — often an organization of 
 
148 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 selfishness. Mankind reaches out after the absolute 
 right, makes its constitutions to establish justice and 
 provide for the common defence. We report the decis- 
 ions of wise men and of courts ; we keep the record of 
 cases decided, to help us judge more wisely in time to 
 come. The nation would enact laws ; it aims to get the 
 justest men in the State, that they may incorporate their 
 aggregate sense of right into a statute. We set twelve 
 honest men to try an alleged offender ; they are to apply 
 their joint justice to the special case. The people wish 
 law to be embodied justice, administered without passion. 
 I know the government seldom desires this ; the people 
 as seldom fail of the wish. Yet the mass of men com- 
 monly attribute their own moral aims to every great 
 leader. Did they know the actual selfishness and injus- 
 tice of their rulers, not a government would stand a year. 
 The world would ferment with universal revolution. 
 
 In savage times, duelling and private revenge grew 
 out of this love of justice. They were rude efforts after 
 the right. In its name a man slew his father's murderer, 
 or, failing thereof, left the reversion of his vengeance as 
 a trust in the hands of his own son, to be paid to the 
 offender or his heir. With the Norsemen it was deemed 
 a crime against society to forgive a grievous wrong, 
 and " nidding " is a word of contempt to this day. It 
 was not merely personal malice which led to private 
 revenge ; which bade the Scottish mother train up one 
 son after another filled with a theological hatred against 
 their father's murderer ; not a private and selfish lust 
 of vengeance alone which sustained her after the eldest 
 and then the next of age perished in the attempt, and 
 filled her with a horrid joy wlien the third succeeded. 
 It was " wild justice " in a wild age, but always mixed 
 with passion, and administered in hate : private ven- 
 
OF JUSTICE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 149 
 
 geance edged the axe with which wild justice struck the 
 blow. Even now, in the ruder portions of America, 
 South and West, where the common law is silent, and 
 of statutes there are none, or none enforced when a 
 wrong is done, the offended people come forth and hold 
 their court, with summary process, brief and savage, to 
 decree something like justice in a brutal way ; rage fur- 
 nishing the occasion, conscience is still the cause. 
 
 All these things indicate a profound love of justice in- 
 herent in mankind. It takes a rude form with rude men, 
 is mixed with passion, private hate ; in a civilized com- 
 munity it takes a better form, and attemi)ts arc made to 
 remove all personal malice from the representatives of 
 right. A few years ago men were surprised to see the 
 people of a neighboring city for the first time choose 
 their judges ; common elections had been carried there 
 by uncommon party tricks ; but when this grave matter 
 came before the people, they laid off their party badges, 
 and as men, chose the best officers for that distinguished 
 trust. 
 
 The people are not satisfied with any form of govern- 
 ment or statute law until it comes up to their sense of 
 justice ; so every progressive State revises its statutes 
 from time to time, and at each revision comes nearer to 
 the absolute right which human nature demands. Man- 
 kind, always progressive, revolutionizes constitutions, 
 changes and changes, seeking to come close to the ideal 
 justice, the divine and immutable law of the world, to 
 which we all owe fealty, swear how we will. 
 
 In literature men always look for poetical justice, de- 
 siring that virtue should have its own reward and vice 
 appropriate punishment, not always outward, but always 
 real, and made known to the reader. All students of 
 English history rejoice at the downfall of Judge Jeffries. 
 
150 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 In romances we love to read of some man or maid op- 
 pressed by outward circumstances, but victorious over 
 them ; hawked at bj villains whose foot is taken in their 
 own snare. This is the principal charm in the ballads 
 and people's poetry of England and Germany, and in the 
 legends of Catholic countries. All men sympathize in 
 the fate of Blue Beard and " the guardian uncle fierce." 
 The world has ready sympathy with the Homeric tale of 
 Ulysses returning to his Penelope, long faithful, but not 
 grown old with baffling the suitors for twenty years. It 
 is his justice and humanity which give such a wide audi- 
 ence to the most popular novelist of our day. But when 
 a writer tries to paint vice beautiful, make sin trium- 
 phant, men shrink away from the poison atmosphere he 
 breathes. Authors like Filmer, Machiavel, and Hobbes 
 arouse the indignation of mankind. The fact of personal 
 error it is easy to excuse, but mankind does not forgive 
 such as teach the theory of sin. We always honor men 
 who forget their immediate personal interests and use an 
 autlior's sacred function to bear witness to the right. 
 
 The majority of men who think have an ideal justice 
 better than the things about them, juster than the law. 
 Some paint it beliind them, on the crumbling walls of 
 history, and tell us of " the good old times ; " others 
 paint it before them, on the morning mist of youthful 
 life, and in their prayers and their daily toil strive after 
 this, their New Jerusalem. We all of us have some 
 ideal ; our dream is fairer than our day ; we will not let 
 it go. If the wicked prosper, it is but for a moment, say 
 we ; the counsel of the froAvard shall be carried head- 
 long. What an ideal democracy now floats before the 
 eyes of earnest and religious men, — fairer than the "re- 
 public " of Plato, or More's " Utopia," or the " golden 
 age " of fabled memory ! It is justice that we want to 
 
OF JUSTICE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 151 
 
 organize, — justice for all, for rich and poor. There the 
 slave shall be free from his master. There shall be no 
 want, no oppression, no fear of man, no fear of God, but 
 only love. " Tliere is a good time coming," — so we all 
 believe when we are young, and full of life and healthy 
 hope. 
 
 God has made man with the instinctive love of justice 
 in him, which gradually gets developed in the world. 
 But in himself justice is infinite. This justice of God 
 must appear in the world, and in the history of men ; 
 and, after all " the wrongs that patient merit of the un- 
 worthy takes," still you see that the ploughshare of jus- 
 tice is drawn through and through the field of the world, 
 uprooting the savage plants. The proverbs of the na- 
 tions tell us this : " The mills of the gods grind slow, 
 but they grind to powder ; " " 111 got ill spent ; " " The 
 triumphing of the wicked is but for a moment ; " " What 
 the devil gives he also takes ; " " Honesty is the best 
 policy ; " " No butter will stick to a bad man's bread." 
 Sometimes these sayings come from the instinct of jus- 
 tice in man, and have a little ethical exaggeration about 
 them, but yet more often they represent the world's ex- 
 perience of facts more than its consciousness of ideas. 
 
 Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual 
 and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend 
 to understand the moral universe ; the arc is a long one, 
 my eye reaches but little ways ; I cannot calculate the 
 curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight ; 
 I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I 
 am sure it bends towards justice. Things refuse to be 
 mismanaged long. Jefferson trembled when he thought 
 of slavery and remembered that God is just. Ere long 
 all America will tremble. The Stuarts in England were 
 tyrannical and strong ; respectable and peaceful men 
 
152 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 kept still awhile, and bore the tyranny ; but men who 
 loved God and his justice more than house and land fled 
 to the wilderness and built up a troublesome common- 
 wealth of Puritans. Such as stayed at home endeavored 
 for a while to submit to the wrong ; some of them made 
 theories to justify it. But it could not be ; the tyranny 
 became unbearable even to barons and bishops ; one 
 tyrant loses his head, another his crown ; no Stuart 
 must tread again the English soil ; legitimacy becomes 
 a pretender. 
 
 England would rule America, not for our good, but 
 hers alone. We forgot the love which bound the two 
 people into one family ; the obstinate injustice of the 
 mother weakened the ties of language, literature, reli- 
 gion, — the Old England and the New read the same 
 Bible, — kindred blood and institutions inherited from 
 the same fathers ; we thought only of the injustice ; and 
 there was an ocean between us and the mother country. 
 The fairest jewel fell from the British crown. 
 
 In France, kings, nobles, clergy, trod the people down. 
 Men bore it with the slow, sad patience of humanity, 
 bore it out of regard for the " divinity that doth hedge 
 a king," for the nobility of the noble, and the reverence 
 of the priest. But in a few years outraged humanity 
 forgot its slow, sad patience, and tore away this triple 
 torment, — as Paul, escaped from wreck, shook off the 
 viper from his hand, — and trod the v^enomous beast to 
 dust. Napoleon came, king of the people. Justice was 
 his word, his action for a while. The nation gathered 
 about him, gave him their treasure and their trust. He 
 was strong through the people's faith ; his foes fell 
 before him; ancient thrones tottered and reeled, and 
 came heavy to the ground. The name of justice, of the 
 rights of man, shook down their thrones, and organized 
 
OF JUSTICE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 153 
 
 victory at every step. But he grows giddy with his 
 height ; selfishness talvcs the place of justice in his coun- 
 sels ; a bastard giant sits on the throne whence the 
 people had hurled off "legitimate" oppression; he fights 
 no more the battles of mankind ; justice is exiled from 
 his upstart court. The people fall away ; victory perches 
 no more on his banner. The snows of Russia cut off 
 his army, but it was his own injustice that brought 
 Napoleon to the ground. Self-shorn of this great 
 strength, the ablest monarch since Charlemagne sits 
 down on a little island in the tropic sea, and dies upon 
 that lonely rock, his life a warning, to bid mankind be 
 just and not despise the Lord. No mightiness of genius 
 could save him, cut off from the moral force of the 
 human race. Can any tyrant prosper where such a 
 master fell ? 
 
 Look at the condition of Christendom at this day ; 
 what tyrant sits secure ? Revolution is the lynch-law 
 of nations ; it creates an anarchy, and then organizes 
 its provisional government of momentary despotism. It 
 is a bloody process, but justice does not disdain a rugged 
 road ; the desire of all nations comes not always on an 
 ass's colt. All Europe is, just now, in a great ferment ; 
 terrible questions are getting ready for a swift tribunal. 
 Injustice cannot stand. No armies, no " Holy Alliance," 
 can hold it up. Human nature is against it ; and so is 
 the nature of God ! " Justice has feet of wool," no man 
 hears her step, " but her hands are of iron," and where 
 she lays them down, only God can uplift and unclasp. 
 It is vain to trust in wrong : as much of evil so much 
 of loss, is the formula of human history. 
 
 I know men complain that sentence against an evil 
 work is not presently executed. They see but half ; 
 it is executed, and with speed; every departure from 
 
154 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 justice is attended with loss to the unjust man, but the 
 loss is not reported to the public. Sometimes a man is 
 honored as a brave, good man, but trial rings him and 
 he gives an empty, hollow sound. All the ancient and 
 honorable may bid the people trust that man, — they 
 turn off their affections from him. 
 
 So have I seen an able man, witty and cunning, grace- 
 ful, plausible, elegant, and rich ; men honored him for 
 a time, tickled by his beauty to eye and ear. But grad- 
 ually the mean soul of the man appeared in his conduct, 
 selfish, grasping, inhuman, and fraudulently unjust. The 
 public heart forgot him, and when he came to die, the 
 town which once had honored him so much gave him only 
 earth to rest his coffin on. He had the official praises 
 whicli he paid for, that was all. Silence is a figure of 
 speech, unanswerable, short, cold, but terribly severe. 
 
 How differently do men honor such as stood up for 
 truth and right, and never shrank ! What monuments 
 the world builds to its patriots ! Four great statesmen, 
 organizers of the right, embalmed in stone, look dawn 
 upon the lawgivers of France as they pass to their hall 
 of legislation, silent orators to tell how nations love the 
 just. What a monument Washington has built in the 
 heart of America and all the world ! not by great genius, 
 — he had none of that, — but by his effort to be just. 
 The martyrs of Christendom, of Judaism, and of every 
 form of heathen faith, — how men worship those firm 
 souls who shook off their body sooner than be false to 
 conscience. 
 
 Yet eminent justice is often misunderstood. Little- 
 ness has its compensation. A small man is seldom 
 pinched for want of room. Greatness is its own tor- 
 ment. There was once a man on this earth whom the 
 world could not understand. He was too high for them, 
 
OF JUSTICE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 155 
 
 too wide, was every way too great. He came, the great- 
 est moral genius of our history, to bless mankind. Men 
 mocked him, gave him a gallows between two thieves. 
 " Saviour, save thyself," said they, as they shot out the 
 lip at him. " Father, forgive them, for they know not 
 what they do ! " was the manly answer to the brutal 
 taunt. Now see how the world avenges its conscience 
 on itself for this injustice : for sixteen hundred years 
 men worship him as God throughout the Western World. 
 His name goes like the morning sun around the earth, 
 like that to waken beauty into life. This conscience of 
 ours is loyal ; only let us see the man and know that he 
 is king of righteousness, and we will do him homage 
 all our days. 
 
 But we do not see that justice is always done on earth; 
 many a knave is rich, sleek, and honored, while the just 
 man is poor, hated, and in torment. The Silesian mer- 
 chant fattens on the weavers' tears, and eats their chil- 
 dren's bones. Three million slaves earn the enjoyment 
 of Americans, who curse them in the name of Christ ; 
 in the North, capital is a tyrant over labor. How sad 
 is the condition of the peasantry of Christendom ! The 
 cry of a world of suffering, from mythic Abel to the 
 actual slaves of America, comes up to our ear, and the 
 instinct of justice paints a world beyond the grave, where 
 exact justice shall be done to all and each, to Abel and 
 to Cain. The moral instinct, not satisfied on earth, 
 reaches out to the future world, and in an ideal heaven 
 would realize ideal justice. But even there the tyranny 
 of able-minded men has interfered, painting immortality 
 in such guise that it would be a curse to mankind. 
 Yet the instinct of justice prevails above it all, and 
 few men fear to meet the eternal Mother of us all in 
 heaven. 
 
156 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 We need a great and conscious development of the 
 moral element in man, and a corresponding expansion 
 of justice in human affairs ; an intentional application 
 thereof to individual, domestic, social, ecclesiastical, and 
 political life. In the old military civilization that was 
 not possible ; in the present industrial civilization it is 
 not thought desirable by the mercantile chiefs of Church 
 and State. Hitherto, the actual function of government, 
 so far as it has been controlled by the will of the rulers, 
 has commonly been this, to foster the strong at the 
 expense of the weak, to protect the capitalist and tax 
 the laborer. The powerful have sought a monopoly of 
 development and enjoyment, loving to eat their morsel 
 alone. Accordingly, little respect is paid to absolute 
 justice by the controlling statesmen of the Christian 
 world. Not conscience and the right is appealed to, but 
 prudence and the expedient for to-day. Justice is for- 
 gotten in looking at interest, and political morality 
 neglected for political economy ; instead of national 
 organization of the ideal right, we have only national 
 housekeeping. Hence come the great evils of civilization 
 at this day, and the questions of humanity, so long ad- 
 journed and put off that it seems they can only be 
 settled with bloodshed. Nothing rests secure save in 
 the law of God. The thrones of Christian Europe 
 tremble ; a little touch and they fall. Capitalists are 
 alarmed, lest gold ill got should find an equilibrium. 
 Behind the question of royalty, nobility, slavery, — relics 
 of the old feudalism, — there are other questions yet 
 more radical, soon to be asked and answered. 
 
 There has been a foolish neglect of moral culture 
 throughout all Christendom. The leading classes have 
 not valued it ; with them the mind Avas thought better 
 than the moral sense, and conscience a dowdy. It is so 
 
OF JUSTICE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 157 
 
 in the higher education of New England, as of Europe. 
 These men seek the uses of truth, not truth itself ; they 
 scorn duty and its higher law ; to be ignorant and weak- 
 minded is thought worse than to be voluntarily unjust 
 and wicked ; idiocy of conscience is often thought an 
 excellence, is never out of fashion. Morality is thought 
 ho part of piety in the Church, it " saves " no man ; 
 " belief " does that with the Protestants, " sacraments " 
 with the Catholics ; it is no part of politics in the State, 
 — not needed to save the nation or the soul. 
 
 Of late years there has been a great expansion of in- 
 tellectual development in Europe and America. Has 
 the moral development kept pace with it ? Is the desire 
 to apply justice to its universal function as common and 
 intense with the more intellectual classes as the desire 
 to apply special truths to their function ? By no means. 
 We have organized our schemes of intellectual culture ; 
 it is the function of schools, colleges, learned societies, 
 and all the special institutions for agriculture, manufac- 
 tures, and commerce, to develop the understanding and 
 apply it to various concrete interests. No analogous 
 pains have been taken with the culture of conscience. 
 France has the only academy for moral science in the 
 Christian world ! We have statistical societies for in- 
 terest, no moral societies for justice. We rely only on 
 the moral instinct ; its development is accidental, not a 
 considerable part of our plan ; or else is involuntary, no 
 part of the will of the most intellectual class. There is 
 no college for the conscience. 
 
 Do the churches accomplish this educational purpose 
 for the moral sense ? The popular clergy think mira- 
 cles better than morality ; and have even less justice 
 than truth. They justify the popular sins in the name 
 of God ; are the allies of desiDotism in all its forms, 
 
158 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 military or industrial. Oppression bj the sword and 
 oppression by capital successively find favor with them. 
 In America there are two common ecclesiastical defen- 
 ces of African slavery : The negroes are the descendants 
 of Ham, who laughed at his father Noah, — overtaken 
 with drink, — and so it is right that Ham's children, 
 four thousand years later, should be slaves to the rest of 
 the world ; slavery teaches the black men " our blessed 
 religion." Such is ecclesiastical justice ; and hence 
 judge the value of the churches to educate the con- 
 science of mankind ! It is strange how little the clergy 
 of Christendom, for fifteen hundred years, have done for 
 the morality of the world ; much for decorum, little for 
 justice ; a deal for ecclesiastical ceremony, but what for 
 ecclesiastical righteousness ? They put worship with 
 the knee before the natural piety of the conscience. 
 "Trusting in good works" is an offence to the Christian 
 Church, as well Protestant as Catholic. 
 
 In Europe the consequences of this defect of moral 
 culture have become alarming, even to such as fear only 
 for money. That intellectual culture which was once 
 the cherished monopoly of the rich, has got diffused 
 amongst wide ranks of men, who once sat in the shadow 
 of intellectual darkness. There is no development of 
 conscience to correspond therewith. The Protestant 
 clergy have not enlightened the people on the science of 
 religion. The Catholics had little light to spare, and 
 that was spent in exhibiting " the holy coat of Treves," 
 or images of "the Virgin," and in illuminating cardinals 
 and popes set in the magic-lantern of the great ecclesi- 
 astical show-box. No pains, or little, have been taken 
 with the moral culture of the people ; none scientifically 
 and for the sake of justice and human kind. So the 
 selfishness of the rich has spread with their intellectual 
 
OF JUSTICE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 159 
 
 culture. The few have long demanded a monopoly for 
 themselves, and with their thunder blasted the mortal 
 life of the prophets of justice sent by God to establish 
 peace on earth and good-will amongst men. Now the 
 many begin to demand a monopoly for themselves. Ed- 
 ucation, wealth, political power, was once a privilege, 
 and they who enjoyed it made this their practical 
 motto : " Down with the poor I " The feudal system fell 
 before Dr. Faustus and his printing-press. Military 
 civilization slowly gives way to industrial. Common 
 schools teach men to read. The steam-press cheapens 
 literature ; the complicated tools of modern industry 
 make the shop a college for the understanding ; the 
 laborer is goaded by his hate of wrong, which is the pas- 
 sion of morality, as love of right is the affection thereof ; 
 — he sees small respect for justice in Church or State. 
 What shall save him from the selfishness about him, 
 long dignified as philosophy, sanctified as religion, and 
 reverenced as the law of God ! Do you wonder at 
 " atheism " in Germany ; at communism in France ? 
 Such " atheism " is the theory of the church made pop- 
 ular ; the worst communism is only the principle of 
 monopoly translated out of aristocracy into democracy ; 
 the song of the noble in the people's moutli. The hid- 
 eous cry, " Down with the rich ! " — is that an astonish- 
 ment to the leaders of Europe, who have trod down the 
 poor these thousand years ? When ignorance, moral 
 and intellectual stupidity, brought only servile obedience 
 from the vassal, the noble took delight in the oppression 
 which trod his brother down. Now numbers are power ; 
 that is the privilege of the people, and if the people, the 
 privileged class of tlie future, have the selfisliness of the 
 aristocracy, what shall save the darling dollars of the 
 rich ? " They that laughed at the grovelling worm, and 
 
160 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 trod on him, may cry and howl when they see the stoop 
 of the flying and fiery-mouthed dragon ! " 
 
 The leaders of modern civilization have scorned jus- 
 tice. The chiefs of war, of industry, and the church are 
 joined in a solidarity of contempt ; in America, not har- 
 lots, so much as politicians, debauch the land. Con- 
 science has been left out of the list of faculties to be 
 intentionally developed in the places of honor. Is it 
 marvellous if men find their own selfishness fall on 
 their own heads ? No army of special constables will 
 supply the place of morality in the people. If they do 
 not reverence justice, what shall save the riches of the 
 rich ? Ah me ! even the dollar flees to the infinite God 
 for protection, and bows before the higher law its wor- 
 shippers despise. 
 
 What moral guidance do the leading classes of men 
 offer the people in either England, — the European or 
 American ? Let the laboring men of Great Britain an- 
 swer; let Ireland, about to perish, groan out her reply; 
 let the three million African slaves bear the report to 
 Heaven. " Ignorance is the mother of devotion," once 
 said some learned fool ; monopolists act on the maxim. 
 Ignorance of truth, ignorance of right, — will these be 
 good directors, think you, of the class which has the 
 privilege of numbers and their multitudinous agglomer- 
 ated power? "Reverence the eternal right," says con- 
 science, " that is moral piety ! " " Reap as you sow," 
 quoth human history. Alas for a church without right- 
 eousness, and a State without right ! All history shows 
 their fate ! What is false to justice cannot stand ; what 
 is true to that cannot perish. Nothing can save wrong. 
 
 A sentence is written against all that is unjust, written 
 by God in the nature of man and the nature of the uni- 
 verse, because it is in the nature of the infinite God. 
 
OF JUSTICE AND THE CONSCIENCE. IGl 
 
 Fidelity to your faculties, trust in their convictions, that 
 is justice to yourself; a life in obedience thereto, that is 
 justice towards men. Tell me not of successful wrong. 
 The gain of injustice is a loss, its pleasure suffering. 
 Iniquity seems to prosper, but its success is its defeat 
 and shame. The knave deceives himself. The miser, 
 starving his brother's body, starves also his own soul, 
 and at death shall creep out of his great estate of injus- 
 tice, poor and naked and miserable. Whoso escapes a 
 duty avoids a gain. Outvrard judgment often fails, in- 
 ward justice never. Let a man try to love the wrong, 
 and do the wrong, it is eating stones, and not bread ; the 
 swift feet of justice are upon him, following with woollen 
 tread, and her iron hands are round his neck. No man 
 can escape from this — no more than from himself. 
 
 At first sight of the consequences of justice redressing 
 the evils of the world, its aspect seems stern and awful. 
 Men picture the palace of this king as hell: there is tor- 
 ment and anguish ; the waters are in trouble. The 
 chariot of justice seems a car of Juggernaut crushing 
 the necks of men ; they cry for mercy. But look again ; 
 the sternness all is gone ; nothing is awful there ; the 
 palace of justice is all heaven, as before a hell; the 
 water is troubled only by an angel, and to heal the sick ; 
 the fancied car of Juggernaut is the triumphal chariot 
 of mankind riding forth to vvelfare. With swift and 
 noiseless feet justice follows the transgressor and clutches 
 the iron hand about his neck ; it was to save him that 
 she came with swift and noiseless tread. This is the 
 angel of God that flies from east to west, and where she 
 stoops her broad wings it is to bring the counsel of God, 
 and feed mankind with angels' bread. As an eagle 
 stirreth up her nest, from her own beak to feed its 
 young, broods over their callow frame, and bears them 
 
 11 
 
162 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 on her wings, teaching them first to fij, so comes jus- 
 tice unto men. 
 
 Sometimes men fear that justice will fail, wickedness 
 appears so strong. On its side are the armies, the 
 thrones of power, the riches, and the glory of the world. 
 Poor men crouch down in despair. Shall justice fail 
 and perish out from the world of men? shall anything 
 that is wrong continually endure ? When attraction 
 fails out of the world of matter, when God fails and 
 there is no God, then shall justice fail, then shall wrong 
 be able continually to endure ; not till then. 
 
 The unity of the material world is beautiful, kept by 
 attraction's universal force ; temperance in the body has 
 fair effects, and wisdom in the mind. The face of na- 
 ture, how fair it is ; the face of strong and healthy, 
 beauteous manhood is a dear thing to look upon. To 
 intellectual eyes, the countenance of truth has a majestic 
 charm. Wise men, with cultivated mind, understanding, 
 imagination, reason well developed, discovering and dis- 
 closing truth and beauty to mankind, are a fair spectacle. 
 But I love the moral side of Deity yet more; love God 
 as justice. His justice, our morality working with that, 
 shall one day create a unity amongst all men more fair 
 than the face of nature, and add a wondrous beauty, 
 wondrous happiness, to this great family of men. Will 
 you fear lest a wrong should prove immortal ? So far 
 as anything is false or wrong it is weak ; so fat as true 
 and right, is omnipotently strong. Never fear that a 
 just thought shall fail to be a thing ; the power of God, 
 the wisdom of God, and the justice of God are on its 
 side, and it cannot fail, — no more than God himself 
 can perish. Wrong is the accident of human develop- 
 ment. Right is of the substance of humanity, justice 
 the goal we are to reach. 
 
OF JUSTICE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 163 
 
 But in human affairs the justice of God must work 
 by human means. Men are the measures of GocVs prin- 
 ciples ; our morality the instrument of his justice, which 
 stilleth alike the waves of the sea, the tumult of the 
 people, and the oppressor's brutal laugh. Justice is the 
 idea of God, the ideal of man, tbe rule of conduct writ 
 in the nature of mankind. The ideal must become 
 actual, God's thought a human thing, made real in a 
 reign of righteousness, and a kingdom — no, a common- 
 wealth — of justice on the earth. You and I can help 
 forward that work. God will not disdain to use our 
 prayers, our self-denial, and the little atoms of justice 
 that personally belong to us, to establish his mighty 
 work, — the development of mankind. 
 
 You and I may work with him, and as on the floor 
 of the Pacific Sea little insects lay the foundation of firm 
 islands, slowly uprising from the tropic wave, — the 
 ocean working with their humble toil, — so you and I 
 in our iiaily life, in house, or field, or shop, obscurely 
 faithful, may prepare the way for the republic of right- 
 eousness, the democracy of justice that is to come. Our 
 own morality shall bless us here, — not in our outward 
 life alone, but in the inward and majestic life of con- 
 scieuce. All the justice we mature shall bless us here, 
 yea, and hereafter ; but at our death we leave it added 
 to the common store of humankind. Even the crumbs 
 that fall from our table may save a brother's life. You 
 and I may help deepen the channel of human morality 
 in which God's justice runs, and the wrecks of evil, 
 which now check the stream, be borne off the sooner by 
 the strong, all-conquering tide of right, the river of God 
 that is full of blessino;. 
 
164 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 OF THE CULTURE OF THE RELIGIOUS 
 POWERS. 
 
 Let us go on unto perfection. — Heb. vi. 1. 
 
 The highest product of a nation is its men ; of you 
 and me is our character, the life which we make out of 
 our time. Our reputation is what we come to be thought 
 of, our character what we come to be. In this character 
 the most important element is the religious, for it is to 
 be the guide and director of all the rest, the foundation- 
 element of human excellence. 
 
 In general our character is the result of three factors, 
 namely, of our nature, both that which is human, and 
 which we have as men in common with all mankind, 
 and that which is individual and which we have fts Sarah 
 or George, in distinction from all men ; next, of the 
 educational forces about us ; and, finally, of our own 
 will, which we exercise, and so determine the use we 
 make of the two other factors ; for it is for us to deter- 
 mine whether we will lie flat before natural instincts and 
 educational forces, or modify their action upon us. 
 
 What is true in general of all culture is true in special 
 of religious education. Religious character is the result 
 of these three factors. 
 
 I suppose every earnest man, who knows what religion 
 is, desires to become a religious man, to do the most of 
 religious duty, have the most of religious rights, and 
 enjoy the most of religious welfare ; to give the most 
 for God, and receive the most from him. It does not 
 always appear so, yet really is. At the bottom of our 
 
CULTURE OF THE RELIGIOUS POWERS. 1G5 
 
 hearts we all wish for that. We have been misled by- 
 blind guides, who did not always mean to deceive us ; 
 we have often gone astray, led off by our instinctive 
 passion in youth, our voluntary calculation in manhood, 
 yet never meaning to deceive ourselves. But there is 
 none of us who does not desire to be a religious man, — 
 at least, I never met one who confessed it, or of whom ■ 
 I thought it true. But of course, they desire it with 
 various degrees of will. 
 
 Writers often divide men into two classes, saints and' 
 sinners. I like not the division. The best men are bad •• 
 enough in their own eyes. I hope God is better pleased 
 with men than we are with ourselves, there are so many 
 things in us all which are there against our consent, — 
 evil tenants whom we cannot get rid of as yet. Tliat • 
 smoky chimney of an ill-temper is a torment to poor 
 Mr. Fiery, which he has not had coui-age or strength to • 
 remove in fifty winters. To " see ourselves as others see ■ 
 us," would often minister to pride and conceit ; how 
 many naughty things, actions and emotions too, I know •• 
 of myself, which no calumniator ever casts in my teeth. 
 Yet take the worst men whom you can find, — men that 
 rob on the highway with open violence, pirates on the 
 sea, the more dangerous thieves who devour widows' 
 houses and plunder the unprotected in a manner thor- 
 oughly legal, respectable, and " Christian," men that 
 steal from the poor ; — take the tormentors of the 
 Spanish Inquisition, assassins and murderers from New 
 York and Naples, nay, the family of commissioners who 
 in Boston are willing to kidnap their fellow-citizens for 
 ten dollars a head, and bind them and their posterity for 
 the perennial torture of American slavery ; — even these 
 men would curl and shudder at the thought of being 
 without consciousness of God in the world ; of living 
 
166 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 without any religion, and dying without any religion. 
 I know some think religion is rather uncomfortable to 
 •live by, but the worst of men, as the best, thinks it is 
 
 • a good thing to die with. Men repent of many things 
 on a death-bed ; when the storm blows, all the dead 
 bodies are stirred in the bosom of the sea, and no one 
 is then sorry for his efforts to become a religious man. 
 Many a man, who lives in the violation of his personal, 
 domestic, social, national, and general human duties, 
 doubtless contrives to think he is a religious man, and 
 if in the name of Mammon he robs the widow of a pound, 
 he gives a penny to the orphan in the name of God, and 
 
 •thinks he serves each without much offending the other. 
 Thus, kidnappers in these times are " exemplary mem- 
 bers " of " Christian churches," where philanthropy gets 
 roundly rated by the minister from week to week, and 
 call themselves " miserable offenders " with the devout- 
 est air. This is not all sham. The men want to keep 
 on good terms with God, and take this as the cheapest, 
 as well as the most respectable way. Louis the Fif- 
 teenth had a private chapel dedicated to the " Blessed 
 Virgin" in the midst of his house of debauchery, where 
 he and his poor victims were said to be " very devout 
 after the Church fashion." Slave-traders and kidnap- 
 pers take pains to repel all calumny from their " relig- 
 ious " reputation, and do not practise their craft till 
 " divines " assure them it is patriarchal and even " Chris- 
 tian." I mention these things to show that men who 
 are commonly thought eminently atrocious in their con- 
 duct and character, yet would not willingly be without 
 religion. I shall take it for granted that all men wish 
 to acquire a religious character. 
 
 • I take it this is the idea of a religious character. It 
 is, first, to be faithful to ourselves, to rule body and 
 
CULTURE OF THE RELIGIOUS POWERS. 167 
 
 Spirit, each by the natural law thereof; to use, develop, 
 and enjoy all the faculties, each in its just proportions, 
 all in harmonious action, developed to the greatest de- 
 gree which is possible under our circumstances ; to have 
 such an abiding consciousness of God, that you will 
 have the fourfold form of piety, so often dwelt on before, 
 and be inwardly blameless, harmonious, and holy. 
 
 It is, next, to be faithful to your fellow-men, — to do 
 for them what is right, from right motives and for right 
 ends ; to love them as yourself ; to be useful to them to 
 the extent of your power ; to live in such harmony with 
 them that you shall rejoice in their joys, and all be 
 mutually blessed with the bliss of each other. 
 
 It is also to be faithful to God, — to know of him, to 
 have a realizing sense of his infinite power, wisdom, jus- 
 tice, goodness, and holiness, and so a perfect love of God, 
 a perfect trust in him, a delight in the infinite being 
 of God ; to love him intellectually in the love of truth, 
 morally as justice, affectionally as love, and totally as 
 the infinite God, — Father. and Mother too of all this 
 world ; so to love God that you have no desire to 
 transcend his law or violate your duty to yourself, your 
 brother, or your God ; so to love him that there shall be 
 no fear of God, none for yourself, none for mankind, 
 but a perfect confidence and an absolute love shall take 
 the place of every fear. In short, it is to serve God by 
 the normal use, development, and enjoyment of every 
 faculty of the spirit, every limb of the body, and every 
 mode of power which we possess. 
 
 I think such is the ideal of a religious character ; that 
 there is no one who would not confess a desire to be 
 religious in that sense, for it is to be a perfect man ; no 
 one who would not make some sacrifice for this end ; 
 most men would make a o-reat one ; some would leave 
 
168 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 father and mother, and lay down their own lives to 
 secure it. 
 
 What are some of the means to this end, to this grace, 
 
 • and this glory ? There are four great public educational 
 forces, — namely, the industrial, political, literary, and 
 ecclesiastical action of the people, represented by the 
 Business, the State, the Press, and the Church. These 
 
 • have a general influence in the formation of the charac- 
 ter, and so a special influence in the formation of the 
 religious character ; but as they cannot be trusted for 
 the general work of forming the character, no more can 
 
 ■ they for this special function. They are less reliable in 
 religion than in any other matter whatever. By these 
 forces the whole community is a teacher of religion to 
 all persons born therein ; but it can only teach the mode 
 and degree of religion it has itself learned and possessed, 
 not that which it has not learned and does not possess. 
 Not only can it not teach a religion higher than its own, 
 but it hinders you in your attempt to learn a new and 
 better mode of religion. 
 
 • For several things we may trust these public educa- 
 tional forces in religion. 
 
 They teach you in the general popular fear of God, 
 and a certain outward reverence which comes of that, — 
 the popular sacraments of our time, — to give your bodily 
 presence in a meeting-house, perhaps to join a sectarian 
 church, and profess great reverence for the Bible. 
 
 They will teach you the popular part of your practical 
 duties, — personal, domestic, social, ecclesiastical, and 
 political. But of course they can teach you only the 
 popular part. 
 
 They may be relied on to teach the majority of men 
 certain great truths, which are the common property of 
 Christendom, — such as the existence of a God, the im- 
 
CULTURE OF THE RELIGIOUS POWERS. 169 
 
 mortality of the soul, the certainty of a kind of retribu- 
 tion, and the like. Then each sect has certain truths 
 of its own which it will commonly teach. Thus the 
 Catholics will learn to reverence the Roman Church ; 
 the Protestants to venerate the Bible ; the Calvinists to 
 believe in the Trinity, and the Unitarians in the Oneness 
 of God. All the sects will teach a certain decorum, — 
 the observance of Sunday, to honor the popular virtues, 
 to shun the unpopular vices. 
 
 The educational forces tend to produce this effect. 
 You send your boys to the public schools of Boston, 
 they learn the disciplines taught there, — to read, write, 
 and calculate. What is not taught they do not learn. 
 In Saxony the children learn German, Dutch in Holland. 
 In the same way the majority of men learn the common 
 religion of the community, and profess it practically in 
 their markets, their houses, their halls of legislature, 
 their courts, and their jails. The commercial newspa- 
 pers, the proceedings of Congress, the speeches of public 
 men, — these are a part of the national profession of 
 faith, and show what is the actual object of worship, 
 and what the practical creed of the nation. 
 
 But for any eminence of religion you must look else- 
 where, — for any excellence of tlie sentiment, any superi- 
 ority of the idea, any newness in the form of religion. 
 These educational forces will teach you evanescent princi- 
 ples which seem to suit your present and partial interests, 
 not eternal principles, which really suit your universal 
 and everlasting interests. In Jerusalem these forces 
 might educate a Gamaliel, — never a Jesus. 
 
 Charles River flows two miles an hour ; chips and 
 straws on its surface, therefore, if there be no wind, will 
 float with that velocity. But if a man in a boat wishes 
 to go ten miles an hour, he must row eight miles more 
 
170 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 than the stream will carry him. So we are all in the 
 dull current of the popular religion, and may trust it 
 to drift us as fast as it flows itself ; we may rise with 
 its flood, and be stranded and left dry when it ebbs out 
 before some popular wickedness which blows from off 
 the shore. The religious educational forces of a com- 
 mercial town, — you see in the newspapers what religion 
 they will teach you; in the streets, what men they would 
 make. 
 
 These educational forces tend to make average Chris- 
 tians, and their influence is of great value to the com- 
 munity, — like the discipline of a camp. But to be 
 eminent religious men we must depend on very different 
 helps. Let us look at some of them. 
 
 There are religious men who, by the religious genius 
 they were born to, and the religious use they have made 
 thereof, have risen far above the average of Christians. 
 Such men are the first help ; and a most important one 
 they are. It is a fortunate thing when such an one 
 stands in a church whither the public current drives in 
 the people, and to the strength of his nature adds the 
 strength of position. But it is not often that such a 
 man stands in a pulpit. The common ecclesiastical 
 training tends to produce dull and ordinary men, with 
 little individual life, little zeal, and only the inspiration 
 of a sect. However, if a man of religious genius, by 
 some human accident, gets into a pulpit, he is in great 
 danger of preaching himself out of it. Still there are 
 such men, a few of them, stationed along the line of the 
 human march ; cities set on a hill, which no cloud of 
 obloquy can wholly hide from sight. Nay, they are 
 great beacons on the shore of the world, — light-houses 
 on the headlands of the coast, sending their guidance 
 far out to sea, to warn the mariner of his whereabouts, 
 
CULTURE OF THE RELIGIOUS POWERS. 171 
 
 and welcome him to port and peace. Street-lamps there 
 must be for the thoroughfares of the town, shop-lights 
 also for the grocer and the apothecary ; nay, hand-lights 
 which are made to be carried from room to room and 
 set down anywhere, and numerous they will ever be, 
 each having its own function. This arrangement takes 
 place in the ecclesiastical as well as in municipal affairs, 
 for each sect has its street-lamps and its shop-lights to 
 guide men to its particular huckstery of salvation, and 
 little hand-lights to take into corners where the salesmen 
 and the showmen are all ready with their wares. But 
 the great Faros of Genoa, and Eddystone light-houses of 
 religion, must always be few and far between ; the world 
 is not yet rich enough in spirit to afford many of this 
 sort. 
 
 Yet even in these men you seldom find the wholeness- 
 of religion. One has the sentiments thereof; he will 
 kindle your religious feelings, your reverence, your de- 
 votion, your trust, and your love of God. 
 
 Another has only its ideas, — new thoughts about relig- 
 ion, new truths, which he presents to the minds of men. 
 Analytic, he destroys the ancient errors of theological- 
 systems, thrashes the creeds of the churches with the 
 stout flail of philosophy, and sifts them as wheat, win- 
 nowing with a rough wind ; great clouds of chaff blow off 
 before his mighty vans. Synthetic, he takes the old 
 truth which stood the critical thrashing and is now win- 
 nowed clean ; he joins therewith new truth shot down- 
 from God, and welcomed into loving arms ; and out of 
 his large storehouse this scribe, well instructed unto the 
 kingdom of heaven, brings forth things new and old, to 
 serve as bread for the living, and seed-corn to genera- 
 tions not born as yet. 
 
 A third, with no eminence of feelings commonly , 
 
172 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 called religious, — none of theological ideas, — will have 
 yet an eminence of justice, and teach personal and so- 
 • cial morality as no other man. He may turn to a single 
 specialty of morals, and demand temperance, chastity, 
 the reform of penal law, the reconstruction of society, 
 the elevation of woman, and the education of the whole 
 mass of men ; or he may turn to general philanthropy, 
 the universality of moral excellence, — it all comes from 
 the same root, and with grateful welcome should be 
 received. 
 
 Each of these teachers will do real service to your 
 souls, — quickening the feelings, imparting ideas, and 
 organizing the results of religion in moral acts. I 
 know a great outcry has been made in all the churches 
 against moral reformers, against men who would apply 
 pure religion to common life, in the special or the uni- 
 versal form. You all know what clamor is always 
 raised against a man who would abolish a vice from 
 human society, or establish a new virtue. Every wolf 
 is interested in the wilderness, and hates the axe and 
 the plough of the settler, and would devour his child if 
 he dared. So every nuisance in society has its support- 
 ers, whose property is invested therein. Paul found it 
 so at Ephesus, Telemachus at Rome, and Garrison in 
 America. I doubt not the men of Ephesus thought re- 
 ligion good in all matters except the making of silver 
 shrines for Diana; "there it makes men mad." Men 
 cry out against the advance of morality ; " Preach us 
 religion ; preach us Christianity, Christ and him cruci- 
 fied, and not this infidel matter of ending particular 
 sins, and abounding in special virtues. Preach us the 
 exceeding sinfulness of sin, ' original sin,' ' which brought 
 death into the world and all our woe ; ' preach the 
 beauty of holiness and the like of that, and let alone the 
 
CULTURE OF THE RELIGIOUS POWERS. 173 
 
 actual sins of society, of the shop and the church and 
 the State ; — be silent about drunkenness and lust, about 
 war, slavery, and the thousand forms of avarice which 
 we rejoice in. Is it not enough, preacher, that we 
 give you of our purse and our corporeal presence, that 
 we weekly confess ourselves ' miserable offenders,' with 
 ' no health in us,' and fast, perhaps, twice in our lives, 
 but you must convict us of being idolaters also ; yea, 
 drunkards, gluttons, impure in youth and avaricious in 
 manhood, — once a voluptuary, and now a hunker ! Go 
 to now, and preach us the blessedness of the righteous, 
 Christ and him crucified ! " When money speaks the 
 church obeys, and the pulpit preaches for doctrine the 
 commandments of the pews. 
 
 But it is these very moral reformers, who, in our 
 time, have done more than all others to promote the 
 feeling of piety which the churches profess so much to 
 covet. The new ground of religion which the churches 
 occupy is always won for them by men whom the 
 churches hated. In the last thirty years these " pesti- 
 lent moral reformers" of New England, I think, have 
 done more to promote love of God, and faith in him, 
 than all the other preachers of all the churches. Jus- 
 tice is a part of piety and such is the instinctive 
 love of wholeness in man, that all attempts to promote 
 justice amongst men lead ultimately to the love of God 
 as God. 
 
 In every community you will find a man who thus 
 represents some portion of religion, — often, perhaps, 
 thinking that part is the whole, because it is all that he 
 knows ; here and there we find such an one in the pul- 
 pit. But now and then there comes a man who unites 
 these three functions of piety into one great glory of 
 religion, — is eminent in feelings, ideas, and actions not 
 
174 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 • the less. Each of those partial men may help us much, 
 teaching his doctrine, kindling our feelings, giving ex- 
 ample of his deed, and laying out religious work for us, 
 spreading his pattern before society. Each of these 
 may help us to a partial improvement. But when a 
 man comes who unites them all, he will give us a new 
 start, an inspiration which no other man can give ; not 
 partial, but total. 
 
 There are always some such men in the world ; the 
 seed of the prophets never dies out. It comes up in 
 Israel and in Attica, — here a prophet teaching truth as 
 divine inspiration, there a philosopher with his human 
 discovery. So the herb of grace springs up in corners 
 where once old houses stood, or wherever the winds 
 have borne the seed ; and, cropped by the oxen, and 
 trodden with their feet, it grows ever fresh and ever 
 new. When Scribes and Pharisees become idolaters at 
 Jerusalem, and the sheep without a shepherd 
 
 " Look up and are not fed, 
 But, swollen with wind and the rank mist they draw, 
 Hot inwardly and foul contagion spread," 
 
 the spirit of God comes newly down on some carpenter's 
 Bon at Nazareth, whose lightning terrifies the non-con- 
 ducting Scribe ; the new encounters the perishable old, 
 and all heaven rings with the thunder of the collision. 
 Now and then such a person comes to stand betwixt 
 the living and the dead. " Bury that," quoth he, " it is 
 hopelessly dead, past all resurrection. This must be 
 healed, tended, and made whole." He is a physician to 
 churches sick of sin, as well as with it ; burying the 
 dead, he heals also the sick, and quickens the sound 
 into new and healthy life. But the owners of swine that 
 perish must needs cry out at the loss. 
 
CULTURE OF THE RELIGIOUS POWERS. 175 
 
 Yet such a man is not understood in liis own genera- 
 tion. A man with a single eminent faculty is soon seen 
 through and comprehended. This man is good for noth- 
 ing but practice ; that, only for thought. One is a senti- 
 mentalist ; another a traveller. But when a genius comes 
 eminent in many and most heterogeneous faculties, men 
 do not see through nor comprehend him in a short time. 
 If he has in himself all the excellence of all the men in 
 the metropolis, — why, it will take many a great city to 
 comprehend him. The young maiden in the story, for 
 the first time hearing her clerical lover preach, wondered 
 that those lips could pray as sweetly as they kissed, but 
 could not comprehend the twofold sacrament, the mys- 
 tery of this double function of a single mouth. Anybody 
 can see that corn grows in this field, and kale in that ; 
 the roughest clown knows this, but it takes a great many 
 wise men to describe the botany of a whole continent. 
 So is it ever. Here is a religious man, — writing on 
 purely internal emotions of piety, of love of God, of faith 
 in him, of rest for the soul, the foretaste of lieaven. He 
 penetrates the deeps of religious joy, its peace enters his 
 soul, his morning prayer is a psalm deeper than David's, 
 with a beauty more various than the poetic wreath which 
 the shepherd-king gathered from the hill-sides of Jordan 
 or the gardens of Mount Zion. Straightway men say : 
 " This man is a sentimentalist ; he is a mystic, all con- 
 templation, all feeling, — poetical, dreamy, — his light 
 is moon-shine." But ere long our sentimentalist writes 
 of philosophy, and his keen eye sees mines of wisdom 
 not quarried heretofore, and he brings a power of un- 
 sunned gold to light. Other men say : " Oh, this man is 
 nothing but a philosopher, a mere thinker, a mighty 
 head, but with no more heart than Chimborazo or 
 Thomas Hobbes." Yet presently some great sin breaks 
 
176 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 out, and rolls its desolating flood over the land, uproot- 
 ing field and town, and our philosopher goes out to 
 resist the ruin. He denounces the evil, attacks the 
 • institution which thus deceives men. Straightway men 
 call out : " Iconoclast ! Boanerges ! John Knox ! de- 
 stroyer ! " and the like. Alas me ! men do not know 
 that the same sun gathers the dews which water the 
 forget-me-not, drooping at noon-day, and drives through 
 the sky the irresistible storm that shatters the forest in 
 its thunderous march, and piles the ruins of a mountain 
 in an Alpine avalanche. The same soul which thun- 
 dered its forked lightning on Scribes and Pharisees, 
 hypocrites, poured out poetic parables from his golden 
 urn, spreading forth the sunshine of the beatitudes upon 
 friend and foe, and, half in heaven, breathed language 
 wholly thence, — " Father, forgive them, for they know 
 not what they do." 
 
 It is a great thing once in our days to meet with a 
 man of religious genius largely developed into lovely 
 life. He stirs the feelings infinite within us, and we go 
 off quite other than we came. He has not put his soul 
 •into our bosom; he has done better, — has waked our 
 soul in our own bosom. Men may go leagues long to 
 listen to such a man, and come back well paid. He 
 gives us seeds of future life for our little garden. So 
 the husbandman journeys far to get a new root or a 
 new seed, to fill his ground with beauty or his home 
 with bread. After we have listened to the life of such 
 a man, the world does not seem so low, nor man so 
 mean ; heaven looks nearer, yet higher too ; humanity 
 is more rich ; if wrong appear yet more shameful, the 
 wrongdoer is not so hopeless. After that I can endure 
 trouble ; my constant cross is not so heavy ; the unwonted 
 is less difficult to bear. Tears are not so scalding to 
 
CULTURE OF THE RELIGIOUS POWERS. 177 
 
 an eye which has looked through them into the serene 
 face of a great-souled man. Men seem friendlier, and 
 God is exceeding dear. The magistrates of Jerusalem 
 marvelled at the conduct of Peter and John, heedful of 
 the higher law of God, spite of bonds and imprisonment 
 and politicians; but they " took knowledge of them, that 
 they had been with Jesus," and the marvel had its ex- 
 planation. What a dull, stupid thing is a candle ! Touch 
 it with fire, and then look ! We are all of us capable of 
 being lit when some Prometheus comes down with the 
 spark of God in his right hand. The word of Jesus 
 touched the dull fisliermen of Galilee, and they flamed 
 into martyrs and apostles. 
 
 It is a great thing to meet such a man once in your 
 lifetime, to be cheered and comforted in your sad way- 
 faring, and filled with new vigor and new faith in the 
 Father of all. After that we thank God, and take cour- 
 age and fare on our happier way. So a company of pil- 
 grims journeying in the wilderness, dry, foot-sore, and 
 hot, the water all spent in their goat-skins, their camels 
 weary and sick, come to a grove of twelve palm-trees, 
 and an unexpected spring of pure water wells up in 
 the desert. Straightway their weariness is all forgot, 
 their limping camels have become whole once more. 
 Staying their thirst, they fill their bottles also with the 
 cool refreshment, rest in the shadow from the noonday's 
 heat, and then with freshened life, the soreness gone 
 from every bone, pursue their noiseless and their happy 
 march. Even so, says the Old Testament story, God 
 sent his angel down in the wilderness to feed Elias with 
 the bread of heaven, and in the strength thereof the 
 prophet went his forty days, nor hungered not. I sup- 
 pose some of us have had this experience, and in our 
 time of bewilderment, of scorching desolation, and of 
 
 12 
 
178 VIEWS OF religion: 
 
 sorrow, have come upon our well of water and twelve 
 palm-trees in the sand, and so have marched all joyful 
 through the wilderness. Elias left all the angels of God 
 for you and me, — the friendlier for his acquaintance. 
 
 There is a continual need of men of this stamp. We 
 live in the midst of religious machinery. Many mechanics 
 at piety, often only apprentices and slow to learn, are 
 turning the various ecclesiastical mills, and the creak of 
 the motion is thought " the voice of God." Yon put into 
 the hopper a crowd of persons, young and old, and soon 
 they are ground out into the common run of Christians, 
 sacked up, and stored away for safe-keeping in the ap- 
 propriate bins of the great ecclesiastical establishment, 
 and labelled with their party names. You look about 
 in what is dryly called " the religious world." What a 
 mass of machinery is there, of dead timber, not green 
 trees ! what a jar and discord of iron clattering upon 
 iron ! Action is of machinery, not of life, and it is 
 green new life that you want. So men grow dull in 
 their churches. What a weariness is an ordinary meet- 
 ing on one of the fifty-two ordinary Sundays of the year! 
 What a dreary thing is an ordinary sermon of an ordin- 
 ary minister ! He does not wish to preach it ; the audi- 
 ence does not wish to hear it. So he makes a feint of 
 preaching, they a feint of hearing him preach. But he 
 preaches not ; they hear not. He is dull as the cushion 
 he beats, they as the cushions they cover. A body of 
 men met in a church for nothing, and about nothing, and 
 to hear nobody, is to me a ghastly spectacle. Did you 
 ever see cattle in a cold day in the country crowd to- 
 gether in an enclosure, the ground frozen under their 
 feet, and no hay spread upon it, — huddling together for 
 warmth, hungry, but inactive, because penned up, and 
 waiting with the heavy, slumberous patience of oxen till 
 
CULTURE OF THE RELIGIOUS POWERS. 179 
 
 some man should come and shake down to them a truss 
 of clean bright hay, still redolent of clover and honey- 
 suckle ? That is a cheerful sight ; and when the farmer 
 comes and hews their winter food out of the stack, what 
 life is in these slumberous oxen ! their venerable eyes 
 are full of light, because they see their food. Ah me ! 
 how many a herd of men is stall-hungered in the churches, 
 not getting even the hay of religion, only a little chaff 
 swept off from old thrashing-floors whence the corn 
 which great men beat out of its husk was long since 
 gathered up to feed and bless mankind ! Churches are 
 built of stone. I have often thought pulpits should be 
 cushioned with husks. 
 
 Of all melancholy social sights that one sees, few are 
 so sad as a body of men got together to convert mankind 
 to sectarianism by ecclesiastical machinery, — men dead 
 as timber, cut down, dead and dry ! Out of wire, muslin, 
 thread, starch, gum, and sundry chemicals, French milli- 
 ners make by dozens what they call roses, lilies of the 
 valley, forget-me-nots, and the like. Scentless and seed- 
 less abortions are they,' and no more. What a difference 
 between the flower the lover gathers by the brook-side 
 for his maiden's breast, and the thing which the milliner 
 makes with her scissors ; between the forget-me-not of 
 the meadow and the forget-me-not of the shop ! Such 
 an odds is there betwixt religious men and Christians 
 manufactured in a mill. 
 
 In the factories of England you find men busy all 
 their life in making each the twenty-sixth part of a 
 watch. They can do nothing else, and become almost 
 as much machines as the grindstone which sharpens 
 their drill, or the rammage which carries their file. 
 Much ot our ecclesiastical machinery tends to make 
 men into mere fixtures in a mill. So there must be 
 
180 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 a continual accession of new religious life from without 
 into the churches to keep Christians living. Men of 
 religious genius it is who bring it in. Without them 
 " religion " in cities would become mere traditional 
 theology, and " life in God " would be sitting in a meet- 
 ing-house, and the baptism in water from an aqueduct 
 taken for the communion of the Holy Ghost. Blessed 
 be God that there are such men not smothered in the 
 surplice of the priest, but still alive in God, and God 
 alive in them ! 
 
 In old towns all the water that fills the wells is dead 
 water, — dead and dirty too ; the rinsings of the streets, 
 the soakings of stables, the slop of markets, the wash 
 and offscouring of the town ; even the filterings of the 
 graveyard settle therein, and the child is fed with its 
 grandsire's bones. Men would perish if left alone, dying 
 of their drink. So, far off in the hills, above the level 
 of the town, they seek some mountain lake, and furnish 
 a pathway that its crystal beauty may come to town. 
 There the living water leaps up in public fountains, it 
 washes the streets, it satisfies the blameless cattle, it 
 runs into every house to cleanse and purify and bless, 
 and men are glad as the Hebrews when Moses smote the 
 fabled rock. So comes religious genius unto men ; some 
 mountain of a man stands up tall, and all winter long 
 takes the snows of heaven on his shoulders, all sum- 
 mer through he receives the cold rain into his bosom ; 
 both become springs of living water at his feet. Then 
 the proprietors of fetid wells and subterranean tanks, 
 which they call " Bethesda," though often troubled by 
 other than angels, and whence they retail their " sal- 
 vation " a pennyworth at a time, — they cry out with 
 sneer and scoff and scorn against our new-born saint. 
 " Shall Christ come out of Galilee ? " quoth they. 
 
CULTURE OF THE RELIGIOUS POWERS. 181 
 
 " Art thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave 
 us this well, and drank thereof himself, and his ciiil- 
 dren, and his cattle ? Who are you ? " Thus the man 
 of forms has ever his calumny against the man of 
 God. 
 
 Religious teachers there will ever be, — a few organ- 
 izers, many an administrator of organizations ; but in- 
 ventors in religion are always few. These are the 
 greatest external helps to the manhood of religion. All 
 great teaching is the teacher's inspiration ; this is truer 
 in religion than in aught besides, for here all is life, and 
 nothing a trick of mechanism. Let us take all the good 
 that we can gain from the rare men of religious genius, 
 but never submit and make even them our lords ; teachers 
 ever, let them never be masters. 
 
 Then there are religious books, such as waken the 
 soul by their direct action, — stirring us to piety, stirring 
 us to morality, — books in which men of great religious 
 growth have garnered up the experience of their life. 
 Some of them are total, — for all religion ; some partial, 
 for the several specialities thereof. These books are 
 sacks of corn carried from land to land, to be sown and 
 bear manifold their golden fruit. There are not many 
 such in the world. There are few masterpieces of poetry 
 in all the earth ; a boy's school-bag would hold them all, 
 from Greece and Rome, Italy, Germany, England. The 
 masterpieces of piety in literature are the rarest of all. 
 In a mineralogist's cabinet what bushels there are of 
 quartz, mica, hornblende, slate, and coal ; and common 
 minerals by heaps ; reptiles and fishes done in stone ; 
 only here and there an emerald ; and diamonds are ex- 
 ceeding rare. So is it with gems of holv thought. Some 
 psalms are there from the Bible, though seldom a whole 
 one that is true to the soul of man, — now and tlicn an 
 
182 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 oracle from a Hebrew prophet, full of faith in God, a 
 
 • warrior of piety, — which keep their place in the cabinet 
 of religion, though two or three thousand years have 
 passed by since their authors ceased to be mortal. But 
 
 •the most quickening of all religious literature is still 
 found in the first three Gospels of the New Testament, 
 — in those dear beatitudes, in occasional flowers of reli- 
 gion, parable and speech. The beatitudes will outlast 
 the pyramids. Yet the New Testament and its choicest 
 texts must be read with the caution of a free-born man. 
 Even in the words of Jesus of Nazareth much is merely 
 Hebrew, . — marked with the limitations of the nation 
 and the man. 
 
 Other religious books there are precious to the heart 
 
 • of man. Some of the works of Augustine, of Thomas 
 k Kempis, of Fenelon, of Jeremy Taylor, of John Bunyan, 
 of William Law, have proved exceeding dear to pious 
 men throughout the Christian world. In a much nar- 
 rower circle of readers, Buckminster, Channing, and 
 Ware have comforted the souls of men. Herbert and 
 Watts have here and there a " gem of purest ray serene," 
 and now and then a flower blooms into beauty in the 
 desert air of liturgies, breviaries, and collections of 
 hymns. The religious influence of Wordsworth's poetry 
 has been truly great. With no large poetic genius, often 
 hemmed in by the narrowness of his traditionary creed 
 and the puerile littleness of men about him, he had yet 
 an exceeding love of God, which ran over into love of 
 men, and beautified his every day; and many a poor 
 girl, many a sad boy, has been cheered and lifted up in 
 soul and sense by the brave piety in his sonnets and in 
 his lyric sweeps of lofty song. A writer of our own time, 
 with large genius and unfaltering piety, adorning a little 
 village of New England with his fragrant life, has sent 
 
CULTURE OF THE RELIGIOUS POWERS. 183 
 
 a great religious influence to many a house in field and 
 town, and youths and maids rejoice in his electric 
 touch. I will leave it to posterity to name his name, — 
 the most original, as well as religious, of American- 
 "writers. 
 
 But the great vice of what is called " religious litera- 
 ture" is this. It is the work of narrow-minded men, 
 sectarians, and often bigots, who cannot see beyond their 
 own little partisan chapel, — men who know little of any- 
 thing, less of man, and least of all of real religion. What 
 criticism do such men make on noble men ? The criti- 
 cism of an oyster on a thrush ; nay, sometimes, of a 
 toad " ugly and venomous," with no " jewel in its head," 
 upon a nightingale. Literature of that character is a 
 curse. In the name of God it misleads common men 
 from religion, and it makes powerful men hate religion 
 itself, — at least hate its name. It bows weak men down 
 till they tremble and fear all their mortal life. I lack 
 words to express my detestation of this trash, — con- 
 cocted of sectarian cant and superstitious fear. I tremble 
 when I think of the darkness it spreads over human 
 life, of the disease which it inoculates mankind withal, 
 and the craven dread it writes out upon the face of its 
 worshippers. Look at the history of the Athanasian 
 Creed and the Westminster Catechism. They have 
 done more, it seems to me, to retard the religious de- 
 velopment of Christendom than all the ribald works of 
 confessed infidels, from Lucian, the king of scofi^ers, 
 down to our own days. . . . 
 
 Some books on religious matters are the work of able 
 men, men well disciplined, but yet contaminated with 
 false views of God, of man, and of the relation between 
 the two ; with false views of life, of death, and of the 
 next, eternal world. Such men were Baxter and Ed- • 
 
184 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 wards and many more, — Protestant and Catholic, Chris- 
 tian, Hebrew, Buddhist, and Mahometan. All these 
 books should be read with caution and distrust. Still 
 
 ■ a wise man, with a religious spirit, in the religious liter- 
 ature of the world, from Confucius to Emerson, may 
 find much to help his growth. 
 
 After the attainment of manlier years in piety, other 
 works, not intentionally religious, will help a man greatly. 
 
 ■ Books of science, which show the thought of God writ 
 in the world of matter ; books of history, which reveal 
 the same mind in the development of the human race, 
 slow, but as constant and as normal as the growth of 
 a cedar or the disclosing of an egg; Newton and La- 
 place, Descartes and Kant, indirectly, through their 
 
 • science, stir devout souls to deeper devotion. A thought- 
 ful man dissolves the matter of the universe, leaving 
 only its forces ; dissolves away the phenomena of human 
 history, leaving only immortal spirit ; he studies the 
 law, the mode of action, of these forces, and this spirit, 
 which make up the material and the human world ; and 
 I see not how he can fail to be filled with reverence, with 
 trust, with boundless love of the infinite God who de- 
 vised these laws of matter and of mind, and thereby 
 bears up this marvellous universe of things and men. 
 Science also has its New Testament. The beatitudes of 
 
 ■ philosophy are profoundly touching ; in the exact laws 
 of matter and of mind the great Author of the world 
 continually says, " Come unto me, all ye that labor and 
 are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." 
 
 ; The study of nature is another great help to the cul- 
 tivation of religion. Familiarity with the grass and the 
 trees teaches us deeper lessons of love and trust than we 
 can glean from the writings of Fenelon and Augustine. 
 What lessons did Socrates, Jesus, and Luther, learn 
 
CULTURE OF THE RELIGIOUS POWERS. 185 
 
 from the great Bible of God, ever open before mankind ! 
 It is only indirectly that He speaks in the sight of a city, 
 — the brick garden with dioecious fops for flowers. But 
 in the country all is full of God, and the eternal flowers 
 of heaven seem to shed sweet influence on the perish- 
 able blossoms of the earth. Nature is full of religious 
 lessons to a thoughtful man. The great sermon of 
 Jesus was preached on a mountain, which preached to 
 him as he to the people, and his figures of speech were 
 first natural figures of fact. But the religious use to 
 be made of natural objects would require a sermon of 
 itself. 
 
 The great reliance for religious growth must not be ■ 
 on anything external ; not on the great and living souls 
 whom God sends, rarely, to the earth, to water the dry 
 ground with their eloquence, and warm it with their 
 human love ; nor must it be on the choicest gems of 
 religious thought, wherein saints and sages have gar- 
 nered up their life and left it for us. We cannot rely 
 on the beauty or the power of outward nature to charm 
 our wandering soul to obedience and trust in God. 
 These things may jostle us by the elbow when we read, 
 warn us of wandering, or of sloth, and open the gate, 
 but we must rely on ourselves for entering in. By the •• 
 aid of others and our own action we must form the ideal 
 of a religious man, of what we ought to be and do, under 
 our peculiar circumsttyices. To form this personal ideal, •• 
 and fit ourselves thereto, requires an act of great earnest- 
 ness on our part. It is not a thing to be done in an idle • 
 hour. It demands the greatest activity of the mightiest ■ 
 mode of mind. But what a difference there is between- 
 men in earnestness of character ! Do you understand 
 the "religion" of a frivolous man? With him it is all- 
 a trifle ; the fashion of his religion is of less concern 
 
186 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 than the fashion of his hat or of the latchet of his shoes. 
 He asks not for truth, for justice, for love, — asks not 
 for God, cares not. The great sacrament of religious 
 life is to him less valuable than a flask of Rhenish wine 
 broke on a jester's head. The specific levity of these 
 men appears in their relation to religion. The fool hath 
 • said in his heart, " There is no God." Quoth the fop in 
 his waistcoat, " What if there be none? What is that 
 to me ? Let us dance and be silly ! " Did you ever see 
 a frivolous man and maid in love, — so they called it? 
 I have : it was like putting on a new garment of un- 
 certain fit; and the giving and the taking of what was 
 called a " heart " was like buying a quantity of poison 
 weed to turn to empty smoke. They were "fearfully 
 and wonderfully made for each other." So have I seen 
 a silly man give a bad coin to a beggar in the streets. 
 
 I know there are those whose practical religion is 
 only decency. They have no experience of religion but 
 the hiring of a seat in a church where pew and pulpit 
 both invite to sleep, — whose only sacrifice is their pew- 
 tax ; their single sacrament but bodily presence in a 
 church. There are meeting-houses full of such men, 
 which ecclesiastical upholsterers have furnished with 
 pulpit and pew and priest, objects of pity to men with 
 human hearts ! 
 
 When an earnest young man offers a woman his heart 
 and his life and his love, asking her for her heart and 
 her life and her love, it is no easy hour to man or maid. 
 The thought of it takes the rose out of the young cheek, 
 gives a new lustre to the eye which has a deeper and 
 mysterious look, and a terrible throbbing to the heart. 
 For so much depends upon a word that forms or else 
 misshapes so much in life, and soul and sense are 
 clamoring for their right. The past comes up to help 
 
CULTURE OF THE RELIGIOUS POWERS. 187 
 
 create the future, and all creation is new before the 
 lover's eye, and all 
 
 " The floor of heaven 
 Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold." 
 
 So is it in some great hour when an earnest man holds 
 communion with himself, seeking to give and take with 
 God, and asks, " What ought I in my life to be and do?" 
 Depend upon it, only to the vulgarest of men is it a com- 
 mon hour. I will not say that every earnest man has 
 his one enamoured hour of betrothing himself to religion. 
 Some have this sudden experience, and give themselves 
 to piety as they espouse a bride found when not looked 
 for, and welcomed with a great swelling of the heart 
 and prophetic bloomings of the yearning soul. Others 
 go hand in hand therewith as brother and sister, through 
 all their early days in amiable amity which sin has never 
 broke and seldom jarred ; and so the wedlock of relig- 
 ion is as the acquaintance which began in babyhood, was 
 friendship next at home and school, and slowly under 
 tranquil skies grew up and blossomed out at last to love. 
 This is the common way, — an ascent without a sudden • 
 leap. If bred as religious children, you grow up relig- 
 ious men. But under the easiest of discipline, I think, 
 every earnest man has his time of trial and of question- 
 ing, when he asks himself, " Shall I serve the soul by a 
 life of piety ; or shall I only serve the flesh, listing in 
 the popular armada of worldliness to do battle in that 
 leprous host ? " That, I say, is a time of trial. 
 
 Let us suppose some earnest man forms the true ideal . 
 of religion, — of his duty to himself, his brother, and 
 his God. He is next to observe and attend to himself, 
 making his prayer a practice, and his ideal dream an • 
 actual day of life. Here he is to watch and scan him- • 
 self, to see what causes help, and what hinder him in • 
 
188 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 his religious growth. We have different dispositions, 
 all of us ; what tempts one, is nothing to another man ; 
 every heart knows only its own bitterness, not also that 
 of another. Let me know my weak points and my strong 
 ones ; forewarned, I shall be then forearmed. This man 
 in the period of passion is led off by the lusts of the 
 body ; that in the period of calculation is brought into 
 yet greater peril by his ambition, — his love of riches, 
 place, and the respect of men. The Devil rings a dollar 
 in one man's ear ; he dreams of money every day. Some 
 sensual lust catches another, as flies with poisoned sweet. 
 To speak mythologically, the Devil has different baits to 
 lure his diverse prey. Love of applause strips this man 
 of his conscience, his affection, and his self-respect, of 
 his regard for God, and drives him naked through a 
 dirty world. Let a man know in what guise the tempter 
 comes, and when, and he will not suffer his honor to be 
 broken through. For this purpose, in the earlier period 
 of life, or later when placed in positions of new peril, it 
 is well to ask at the close of every day, "What have I 
 done that is wrong, — what have I said, or thought, or 
 felt ? What that is right ? " It is well thus to orient 
 yourself before your idea and your God, and see if there 
 be any evil thing in you. This is needful until the man 
 has gained complete possession of every limb of his body 
 and of each faculty of his spirit, and can use them each 
 after its own law in his particular position. Then he 
 will do right with as little trouble as he walks about his 
 daily work. His life will sanctify itself. 
 
 Do you know how artists make their great pictures ? 
 
 First, they form the idea. It is a work of sweat and 
 
 , watching. The man assembles all the shapes of beauty 
 
 and of power which he has ever seen, or thought, or 
 
 fancied, or felt. They flash along before his quickened 
 
CULTURE OF THE RELIGIOUS POWERS. 189 
 
 eye, wildercd and wandering now. New forms of beauty 
 spring into life at the bidding of his imagination, — so 
 flowers at touch of spring. Ere long he has his idea, 
 composite, gathered from many a form of partial beauty, 
 and yet one ; a new creation never seen before. Thus 
 in his seething mind Phidias smelts the several beauty of 
 five hundred Spartan maids into his one Pallas-Athena, 
 born of his head this time, a grand eclecticism of loveli- 
 ness. So Michael devised his awful form of God creating 
 in the Vatican ; and Raphael his dear Cecilia, sweetest 
 of pictured saints, — so fair, she drew the angels down 
 to see her sing, and ears were turned to eyes. Now the 
 artist has formed his idea. But that is not all. Next, 
 he must make the idea that is in his mind a picture in 
 the eyes of men; his personal fiction must become a 
 popular fact. So he toils over this new work for many 
 a weary day, and week, and month, and year, with peni- 
 tential brush oft painting out what once amiss he painted 
 in, — for even art has its error, the painter's sin, and so 
 its remorse ; the artist is made wiser by his own defeat. ■ 
 At last his work stands there complete, — the holy queen 
 of art. Genius is the father, of a heavenly line ; but the 
 mortal mother, that is industry. 
 
 Now as an artist, like Phidias, Angelo, or Raphael, 
 must hold a great act of imagination to form his idea, 
 and then industriously toil, often wiping out in remorse 
 what he drew in passion or in ignorance ; so the man 
 who would be religious must hold his creative act of 
 prayer, to set the great example to himself, and then • 
 industriously toil to make it daily life, shaping his act-- 
 ual, not from the chance of circumstance, but from the 
 ideal purpose of his soul. 
 
 There is no great growth in manly piety without fire : 
 to conceive, and then painstaking to reproduce the idea,. 
 
190 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 ■ — without the act of prayer, the act of industry. The 
 act of prayer, — that is the one great vital means of 
 religious growth ; the resolute desire and the unconquer- 
 able will to be the image of a perfect man ; the compari- 
 son of your actual day with your ideal dream ; the rising 
 forth, borne up on mighty pens, to fly towards the far 
 heaven of religious joy. Fast as you learn a truth, moral, 
 affectional, or religious, apply the special truth to daily 
 life, and you increase your piety. So the best school for 
 religion is the daily work of common life, with its daily 
 discipline of personal, domestic, and social duties, — the 
 daily work in field or shop, market or house, " the char- 
 ities that soothe and heal and bless." 
 
 Nothing great is ever done without industry. Sloth 
 sinks the idle boy to stupid ignorance ; and vain to him 
 are schools, and books, and all the appliances of the 
 instructor's art. It is industry in religion which makes 
 ■the man a saint. What zeal is there for money; what 
 diligence in learning to be a lawyer, a fiddler, or a 
 smith! The same industry to be also religious men, — 
 what noble images of God it would make us ! ay, what 
 blessed men ! Even in the special qualities of fiddler, 
 lawyer, smith, we should be more ; for general manhood 
 is the stuff we make into tradesmen of each special 
 craft, and the gold which was fine in the ingot is fine 
 also in the medal and the coin. 
 
 You have seen a skilful gardener about his work. 
 He saves the slips of his pear-trees, prunings from his 
 currant-bush ; he watches for the sunny hours in spring 
 to air his passion-flower and orange-tree. How nicely 
 he shields his dahlias from the wind, his melons from 
 the frost! Patiently he hoards cuttings from a rose- 
 bush, and the stone of a peach ; choice fruit in another's 
 orchard next year is grafted on his crabbed stock, which 
 
CULTURE OF THE RELIGIOUS POWERS. 191 
 
 in three years rejoices in alien flowers and apples not its 
 own. Are we not gardeners, all of ns, to fill our time 
 with greener life, with fragrant beauty, and rich, timely 
 fruit ? There are bright cheery morning hours good for 
 putting in the seed ; moments of sunnier delight, when 
 some success not looked for — the finding of a friend, 
 husband, or wife, the advent of a child — mellows the 
 hours. Then nurse the tender plant of piety ; one day its 
 bloom will adorn your gloomy hour, and be a brightness 
 in many a winter day which now you reck not of. 
 
 There are days of sadness when it rains sorrow on 
 you, — when you mourn the loss of friends, their sad 
 defeat in mortal life, or worse still, the failure of your- " 
 self, your wanderings from the way of life, or prostrate 
 fall therein. Use, then, man, these hours for penitence, 
 if need be, and vigorous resolve. Water the choicest, 
 tender plants ; one day the little seedling you have 
 planted with your tears shall be a broad tree, and under 
 its arms you will screen your head from the windy 
 storm and the tempest, — yes, find for your bones a 
 quiet grave at last. 
 
 Do you cominit a sin, an intentional violation of the 
 law of God, you may make even that help you in your 
 religious growth. He who never hungered knows not- 
 the worth of bread ; who never suffered, nor sorrowed, ■ 
 nor went desolate and alone, knows not the full value of 
 human sympathy and human love. I have sometimes • 
 thought that a man who had never sinned nor broke 
 the integrity of his consciousness, nor, by wandering, 
 disturbed the continuity of his march towards perfec- 
 tion, — that he could not know the power of religion- 
 to fortify the soul. But there are no such men. We 
 learn to walk by stumbling at the first; and spiritual- 
 experience is also bought by errors of the soul. Peni- 
 
192 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 tence is but the cry of the child hurt in his fall. Shame 
 on us that we affect the pain so oft, and only learn to 
 whine an unnatural contrition ! Sure I am that the 
 grief of a soul self-wounded, the sting of self-reproach, 
 the torment of remorse for errors of passion, for sins of 
 calculation, may quicken any man in his course to man- 
 hood, till he runs and is not weary. The mariner learns 
 wisdom from each miscarriage of his ship, and fronts 
 the seas anew to triumph over wind and wave. 
 
 Some of you are young men and maidens. You look 
 forward to be husbands and wives, to be fathers and 
 mothers, some day. Some of you seek to be rich, some 
 honored. Is it not well to seek to have for yourself a 
 noble, manly character, to be religious men and women, 
 with a liberal development of mind and conscience, heart 
 and soul ? You will meet with losses, trials, disappoint- 
 ments in your business, in your friends and families, and 
 in yourselves ; many a joy will also smile on you. You 
 ■may use the sunny sky and its falling weather alike to 
 help your religious growth. Your time, young men, 
 what life and manhood you may make of that! 
 
 Some of you are old men, your heads white with mani- 
 fold experience, and life is writ in storied hieroglyphics 
 on cheek and brow. Venerable faces ! I hope I learn 
 from you. I hardly dare essay to teach men before 
 whom time has unrolled his lengthened scroll, men far 
 before me in experience of life. But let me ask you, 
 if while you have been doing your work, — have been 
 gathering riches, and tasting the joys of time, — been 
 son, husband, father, friend, — you have also great- 
 ened, deepened, heightened your manly character, and 
 gained the greatest riches,— the wealth of a religious 
 soul, incorruptible and undefiled, the joys that cannot 
 fade away ? 
 
CULTURE OF THE RELIGIOUS POWERS. 193 
 
 For old or young there is no real and lasting human 
 blessedness without this. It is the sole sufficient and 
 assured defence against the sorrows of the world, the 
 disappointments and the griefs of life, the pains of unre- 
 quited righteousness and hopes that went astray. It is 
 a never-failing fountain of delight. 
 
 " There are briars besetting every path, 
 
 That call for patient care; 
 There is a cross in every lot, 
 
 And an earnest need for prayer; 
 But the lowly heart that trusts iu Thee 
 
 Is happy everywhere." 
 
 13 
 
194 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 OF PIETY, AND THE EELATION THEEEOF TO 
 MANLY LIFE. 
 
 Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
 icith all thy mind. — Matt. xxii. 37. 
 
 There are two things requisite for complete and per- 
 fect religion, — the love of God and the love of man; 
 one I will call piety, the other goodness. In their nat- 
 ural development they are not so sharply separated as 
 this language would seem to imply ; for piety and good- 
 ness run into one another, so that you cannot tell where 
 one begins and the other ends. But I will distinguish 
 the two by their centre, where they are most unlilce ; not 
 by their circumference, where they meet and mingle. 
 
 The part of man which is not body I will call the 
 spirit, under that term including all the faculties not 
 sensual. Let me, for convenience' sake, distribute these 
 faculties of the human spirit into four classes : the in- 
 tellectual, — including the aesthetic, — moral, affectional, 
 and religious. Let mind be the name of the intellectual 
 faculty, — including the threefold mental powers, reason, , 
 imagination, and understanding ; conscience shall be the 
 short name for the moral, heart for the affectional, and 
 soul for the religious faculties. 
 
 I shall take it for granted that the great work of man- 
 kind on earth is to live a manly life, to use, discipline, 
 develop, and enjoy every limb of the body, every faculty 
 of the spirit, each in its just proportion, all in their 
 proper place, duly co-ordinating what is merely personal 
 
RELATION OF PIETY TO MANLY LIFE. 195 
 
 and for the present time, with what is universal and for 
 ever. This being so, what place ought piety, the love of 
 God, to hold in a manly life ? 
 
 It seems to me that piety lies at the basis of all manly 
 excellence. It represents the universal action of man 
 according to his nature. This universal action, the bent 
 of the whole man in his normal direction, is the logical 
 condition of any special action of man in a right direc- 
 tion, of any particular bent that way. If I have a uni- 
 versal idea of universal causality in my mind, I can then 
 understand a special cause ; but without that universal 
 idea of causality in my mind, patent or latent, I could 
 not understand any particular cause whatever. My eye 
 might see the fact of a man cutting down a tree, but my 
 mind would comprehend only the conjunction in time 
 and space, not their connection in causality. If you 
 have not a universal idea of beauty, you do not know 
 that this is a handsome and that a homely dress ; you 
 notice only the form and color, the texture and the fit, 
 but see no relation to an ideal loveliness. If you have 
 not a universal idea of the true, the just, the holy, you 
 do not comprehend the odds betwixt a correct stateinent 
 and a lie, between the deed of the priest and that of the 
 good Samaritan, between the fidelity of Jesus and the 
 falseness of Iscariot. This rule runs through all human 
 nature. The universal is the logical condition of the 
 generic, the special, and the particular. So the love of 
 God, the universal object of the human spirit, is the 
 logical condition of all manly life. 
 
 This is clear, if you look at man acting in each of the 
 four modes just spoken of , — intellectual, moral, affec- 
 tional, and religious. 
 
 The mind contemplates God as manifested in truth ; 
 for truth — in the wide meaning of the word includiug 
 
196 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 also a comprehension of the useful and the beautiful — is 
 the universal category of intellectual cognition. To love 
 God with the mind is to love him as manifesting him- 
 self in the truth, or to the mind ; it is to love truth, not 
 for its uses, but for itself, because it is true, absolutely 
 beautiful and lovely to the mind. In finite things we 
 read the infinite truth, the absolute object of the mind. 
 
 Love of truth is a great intellectual excellence ; but it 
 is plain you must have the universal love of universal 
 truth before you can have any special love for any par- 
 ticular truth whatsoever, for in all intellectual affairs 
 the universal is the logical condition of the special. 
 
 Love of truth in general is the intellectual part of 
 piety. We see at once that this lies at the basis of all 
 intellectual excellence, — at love of truth in art, in sci- 
 ence, in law, in common life. Without it you may love 
 the convenience of truth in its various forms, useful or 
 beautiful ; but that is quite different from loving truth 
 itself. You often find men who love the uses of truth, 
 but not truth ; they wish to have truth on their side, but 
 not to be on the side of truth. When it does not serve 
 their special and selfish turn, they are offended, and 
 Peter breaks out with his " I know not the man," and 
 "the wisest, brightest" proves also the "meanest of 
 mankind." 
 
 The conscience contemplates God as manifested in 
 right, in justice, for right or justice is the universal 
 category of moral cognition. To love God with the con- 
 science is to love him as manifested in right and justice, — 
 is to love right or justice, not for its convenience, its 
 specific uses, but for itself, because it is absolutely beau- 
 tiful and lovely to the conscience. In changeable things 
 we read the unchanging and eternal right, which is the 
 absolute object of conscience. 
 
RELATION OF PIETY TO MANLY LIFE. 197 
 
 To love right is a great moral excellence ; but it is 
 plain you must have a universal love of universal right 
 before you can have any special love of a particular 
 right, for, in all moral affairs, the universal is the logi- 
 cal condition of the special. 
 
 The love of right is the moral part of piety. This lies 
 at the basis of all moral excellence whatever. Without 
 this you may love right for its uses ; but if only so, it is 
 not right you love, but only the convenience it may bring 
 to you in your selfish schemes. None was so ready to 
 draw the sword for Jesus, or look after the money spent 
 upon him, as the disciple who straightway denied and 
 betrayed him. Many wish right on their side, w^ho take 
 small heed to be on the side of right. You shall find 
 men enough who seem to love right in general, because 
 they clamor for a specific, particular right ; but ere long 
 it becomes plain they only love some limited or even 
 personal convenience they hope therefrom. The people 
 of the United States claim to love the unalienable right 
 of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 
 But the long-continued cry of three million slaves, groan- 
 ing under the American yoke, shows beyond question or 
 cavil that it is not the universal and unalienable right 
 which they love, but only the selfish advantage it affords 
 them. If you love the right as right, for itself, because 
 it is absolutely just and beautiful to your conscience, 
 then you will no more deprive another of it than submit 
 yourself to be deprived thereof. Even the robber will 
 fight for his own. The man who knows no better rests 
 in the selfish love of the private use of a special right. 
 
 The heart contemplates God as manifested in love, for 
 love is the universal category of affectional cognition. 
 To love God with the heart, is to love him as manifested 
 in love ; it is to love love, not for its convenience, but 
 
198 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 for itself, because it is absolutely beautiful and lovely to 
 the heart. 
 
 Here I need not reiterate what has already been twice 
 said, of mind and of conscience. 
 
 Love of God as love, then, is the affectional part of piety, 
 and lies at the basis of all affectional excellence. The 
 mind and the conscience are content with ideas, with the 
 true and tlie right, while the heart demands not ideas, 
 but beings, persons, — and loves them. It is ono thing 
 to desire the love of a person for your own use and con- 
 venience, and quite different to have your personal de- 
 light in him, and desire him to have his personal delight 
 in you. From the nature of the case, as persons are 
 concrete and finite, man nev^er finds the complete satis- 
 faction of his affectional nature in them, for no person 
 is absolutely lovely, none the absolute object of the 
 affections. But as the mind and conscience use the 
 finite things to help learn infinite truth and infinite 
 right, and ultimately rest in that as their absolute ob- 
 ject, so our heart uses the finite persons whom we 
 reciprocally love as golden letters in tlie book of life, 
 whereby we learn the absolutely lovely, the infinite 
 object of the heart. As the philosopher has the stars of 
 heaven, each lovely in itself, whereby to learn the abso- 
 lute truth of science, — as the moralist has the events 
 of "human history, each of great moment to mankind, 
 whereby to learn the absolute right of ethics, — so the 
 philanthropist has the special persons of his acquaint- 
 ance, each one a joy to him, as the rounds of his Jacob's 
 ladder whereby he goes journeying up to the absolutely 
 lovely, the infinite object of the affections. 
 
 The soul contemplates God as a being who unites all 
 these various modes of action, as manifested in truth, 
 in right, and in love. It apprehends him, not merely 
 
RELATION OF PIETY TO MANLY LIFE. 199 
 
 as absolute truth, absolute right, and absolute love alone, 
 but as all these unified into one complete and perfect 
 Being, the infinite God. He is the absolute object of 
 the soul, and corresponds thereto, as truth to the mind, 
 as justice to the conscience, as love to the heart. He 
 is to the soul absolutely true, just, and lovely, the alto- 
 gether beautiful. To him the soul turns instinctively 
 at first ; then also, at length, with conscious and dis- 
 tinctive will. 
 
 The love of God in this fourfold way is the totality 
 of piety, which comes from the normal use of all the 
 faculties named before. Hence it appears that piety of 
 this character lies at the basis of all manly excellence 
 whatever, and is necessary to a complete and well-pro- 
 portioned development of the faculties themselves. 
 
 There may be an unconscious piety : the man does 
 not know that he loves universal truth, justice, love, — 
 loves God. He only thinks of the special truth, justice, 
 and love which he prizes. He does not reflect upon it ; 
 does not aim to love God in this way, yet does it never- 
 theless. Many a philosopher has seemed without relio-- 
 ion even to a careful observer; sometimes has passed 
 for an atheist. Some of them have to themselves seemed 
 without any religion, and have denied that there was 
 any God. But all the while their nature was truer than 
 their will ; their instincts kept their personal wholeness 
 better than they were aware. These men loved absolute 
 truth, not for its uses, but for itself; they laid down 
 their lives for it, rather than violate the integrity of their 
 intellect. They had the intellectual love of God, though 
 they knew it not ; though they denied it. No man ever 
 has a complete and perfect intellectual consciousness of 
 all his active nature ; something instinctive germinates 
 in us, and grows underground, as it were, before it bursts 
 
200 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 the sod and shoots into the light of self-consciousness. 
 Sheathed in unconsciousness lies the bud, ere long to 
 open a bright, consummate flower. These philosophers, 
 with a real love of truth, and yet a scorn of the name 
 of God, understand many things, perhaps, not known 
 to common men, but this portion of their being has yet 
 escaped their eye ; they have not made an exact and 
 exhaustive inventory of the facts of their own nature. 
 Such men have unconsciously much of the intellectual 
 part of piety. 
 
 Other men have loved justice, not for the personal 
 convenience it offered to them, but for its own sake, 
 because it married itself to their conscience, — have 
 loved it with a disinterested, even a self-denying love, — 
 who yet scorned religion, denied all consciousness of 
 God, denied his providence, perhaps his existence, and 
 would have resolved God into matter, and no more. 
 Yet all the while in these men, dim and unconscious, 
 there lay the religious element ; neglected, unknown, it 
 gave the man the very love of special justice which made 
 him strong. He knew the absolutely just, but did not 
 know it as God. 
 
 I have known philanthropists who undervalued piety ; 
 they liked it not, — they said it was moonlight, not broad 
 day ; it gave flashes of lightning, all of which would not 
 make light. They professed no love of God, no knowl- 
 edge thereof, while they had the strongest love of love ; 
 loved persons, not with a selfish, but self-denying affec- 
 tion, ready to sacrifice themselves for the completeness 
 of another man's delight. Yet underneath this philan- 
 thropy there lay the absolute and disinterested love of 
 other men. They knew only the special form, not the 
 universal substance thereof, — the particular love of 
 Thomas or of Jane, not the universal love of the Infinite. 
 
RELATION OF PIETY TO MANLY LIFE. 201 
 
 They had the affectional form of piety, though they knew 
 it not. 
 
 I have known a man full of admiration and of love 
 for the universe, yet lacking consciousness of its Author. 
 He loved the truth and beauty of the world, reverenced 
 the justice of the universe, and was himself delighted 
 at the love he saw pervading all and blessing all ; yet he 
 recognized no God, saw only a cosmic force, which was 
 a power of truth and beauty to his mind, a power of 
 justice to his conscience, and a power of love to his 
 heart. He had not a philosophic consciousness of the 
 deeper, nobler action which went on within him, building 
 greater than he knew. But in him also there were the 
 several parts of piety, only not joined into one total and 
 integral act, and not distinctly known. 
 
 This unconsciousness of piety is natural with a child. 
 In early life it is unavoidable ; only now and then some 
 rare and precious boy or girl opens from out its husk of 
 unconsciousness his childish bud of faith, and blossoms 
 right early with the consciousness of God, a " strong and 
 flame-like flower." This instinctiveness of piety is the 
 beauty of childhood, the morning-red widely and gor- 
 geously diffused before the rising of the sun. But as a 
 man becomes mature, adds reflection to instinct, trans- 
 mutes sentiments into ideas, he should also become con- 
 scious of his religious action, of his love of God in this 
 fourfold form; when he loves truth, justice, love, he 
 should know that it is God he loves underneath these 
 special forms, and should unite them all into one great 
 act of total piety. As the state of self-consciousness is 
 a more advanced state than unconsciousness ; as the 
 reflective reason of the man is above the unreflective 
 instinct of the child; so the man's conscious piety be- 
 longs to a higher stage of development, and is above 
 
202 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 the mere instinctive and unconscious piety of the girl. 
 Accordingly, the philosopher who loved truth for its own 
 sake, and with his mind denied in words the God of 
 truth, was less a philosopher for not knowing that he 
 loved God. He had less intellectual power because he 
 was in an abnormal state of intellectual religious growth. 
 The man who loved justice for its own sake, and would 
 not for an empire do a conscious wrong, wliom the popu- 
 lar hell could not scare, nor the popular heaven allure 
 from riglit, — he had less power of justice for not know- 
 ing that in loving right he loved the God of right. That 
 philanthropist, who has such love of love tliat he would 
 lay down his life for men, is less a philanthropist 
 and has less affectional power, because he knows not 
 that in his brave benevolence he loves the God of love. 
 The man full of profound love of the universe, of rev- 
 erence for its order, its beauty, its justice, and the love 
 which fills the lily's cup with fragrant loveliness, who 
 wonders at the mighty cosmic force he sees in these 
 fractions of power, — he is less a man because he does 
 not know it is God's world that he admires, reverences, 
 and worships ; ay, far less a man because he does not 
 know he loves and worships God. When he becomes 
 conscious of his own spiritual action, conscious of God, 
 of loving God with mind and conscience, heart and soul, 
 his special love will increase, he will see the defects 
 there are in his piety ; if it be disproportionate, through 
 redundance here or failure there, he can correct the 
 deformity and make his entire inner life harmonious, 
 a well-proportioned whole. Then he feels that he goes 
 in and out, continually, in the midst of the vast forces 
 of the universe, which are only the forces of God ; that 
 in his studies, when he attains a truth, he confronts the 
 thought of God ; when he learns the right, he learns the 
 
RELATION OF PIETY TO MANLY LIFE. 203 
 
 will of God laid down as a rule of conduct for the uni- 
 verse ; and when he feels disinterested love, he knows 
 that he partakes tlie feeling of the infinite God. Then, 
 when he reverences the miglity cosmic force, it is not a 
 blind fate in an atheistic or a pantheistic world, it is the 
 infinite God that he confronts, and feels, and knows. 
 He is then mindful of the mind of God, conscious of 
 God's conscience, sensible of God's sentiment, and his 
 own existence is in the Infinite Being of God. Thus he 
 joins into a whole integral state of piety the various parts 
 developed by the several faculties; there is a new growth 
 of each, a new development of all. 
 
 If these things be so, then it is plain what relation 
 piety sustains to manly life ; it is the basis of all the 
 higher excellence of man, and when the man is mature, 
 what was instinctive at first becomes a state of conscious 
 love of God. 
 
 Now, when this universal fourfold force is once de- 
 veloped and brought to consciousness, and the man has 
 achieved something in this way, his piety may be left to 
 take its natural form of expression, or it may be con- 
 strained to take a form not natural. Mankind has 
 made many experiments upon piety ; books of history 
 are full of them. Most of these, -as of all the experi- 
 ments of man in progress, are failures. We aim many 
 times before we hit the mark. The history of religion 
 is not exceptional or peculiar in this respect. See how 
 widely men experiment in agriculture, navigation, gov- 
 ernment, before they learn the one right way. The 
 history of science is the history of mistakes. The his- 
 tory of religion and the history of astronomy are 
 equally marked by error. It is not surprising that mis- 
 takes have been made in respect to the forms of piety 
 after it is procured. 
 
204 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 For there are various helps which are needful, and 
 perhaps indispensable, in childhood, to the development 
 of the love of God, but which are not needed after the 
 religious character is somewhat mature. Then the man 
 needs not those former outward helps ; he has other aids 
 suited to his greater strength. This is true of the indi- 
 vidual, repeating no more the hymns of his nursery, — 
 true also of mankind, that outgrows the sacrifices and 
 the mythologies of the childhood of the world. Yet it is 
 easy for human indolence to linger near these helps, and 
 refuse to pass further on. So the unadventurous nomad 
 in the Tartarian wild keeps his flock in the same close- 
 cropped circle where they first learned to browse, while 
 the progressive man roves ever forth "to fresh fields and 
 pastures new." See how parents help to develop the 
 body of the child. The little boy is put into a standing- 
 stool, or baby-jumper, till he learns to walk. By and by 
 he has his hoop, his top, his ball ; each in turn is laid 
 aside. He has helps to develop his mind not less, — 
 little puzzles, tempting him to contrive, prints set off 
 with staring colors ; he has his alphabet of wooden 
 letters, in due time his primer, his nursery rhymes, and 
 books full of most wonderful impossibilities. He has 
 his early reader, his first lessons in arithmetic, and so 
 goes on with new helps proportionate to his strength. 
 It is a long slope from counting the fingers up to calcu- 
 lating the orbit of a planet not yet seen. But the fin- 
 gers and the solar system are alike helps to mathematic 
 thought. When the boy is grown up to man's estate, 
 his body vigorous and mature, he tries his strength in 
 the natural work of society, is a merchant, a sailor, a 
 mechanic, a farmer; he hews stones, or lifts up an 
 axe upon the thick timber. For a long time his body 
 grows stronger by his work, and he gets more skill. 
 
RELATION OF PIETY TO MANLY LIFE. 205 
 
 His body pays for itself, and refunds to mankind the 
 cost of its training- up. When his mind is mature, he 
 applies that also to the various works of society, — to 
 transact private business, or manage the affairs of the 
 public ; for a long time his mind grows stronger, gain- 
 ing new knowledge and increase of power. Thus his 
 mind pays for its past culture, and earns its tuition as 
 it goes along. 
 
 In this case the physical or mental power of the man, 
 assumes its natural form, and does its natural work. 
 He has outgrown the things which pleased his childhood 
 and informed his youth. Nobody thinks it necessary or 
 beautiful for the accomplished scholar to go back to his 
 alphabet and repeat it over, to return to his early arith- 
 metic and paradigms of grammar, when he knows them 
 all ; for this is not needful to keep an active mind in 
 a normal condition, and perform the mental work of a 
 mature man. Nobody sends a lumberer from the woods 
 back to his nursery, or tells him he cannot keep his 
 strength without daily or weekly sleeping in his little 
 cradle, or exercising with the hoop, or top, or ball, which 
 helped his babyhood. Because these little trifles sufficed 
 once, they cannot help him now. Man, reaching forward, 
 forgets the things that are behind. 
 
 Now the mischief is, that, in matters of religion, men 
 demand that he who has a mature and well-proportioned 
 piety should always go back to the rude helps of his 
 boyhood, to the A B C of religion and the nursery books 
 of piety. He is not bid to take his power of piety and 
 apply it to the common walks of life. The Newton of 
 piety is sent back to the dame-school of religion, and 
 told to keep counting his fingers, otherwise there is no 
 health in him, and all piety is wiped out of his con- 
 sciousness, and he hates God, and God hates him. He 
 
206 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 must study the anicular lines on the school-dame's slate, 
 not the diagrams of God writ on the heavens in points 
 of fire. We are told that what once thus helped to 
 mould a religious character must be continually resorted 
 to, and become the permanent form thereof. 
 
 This notion is exceedingly pernicious. It wastes the 
 practical power of piety by directing it from its natural 
 work ; it keeps the steam-engine always fanning and 
 blowing itself, perpetually firing itself up, while it turns 
 no wheels but its own, and does no work but feed and 
 fire itself. This constant firing up of one's self is looked 
 on as the natural work and only form of piety. Ask 
 any popular minister, in one of the predominant sects, 
 for the man most marked for piety, and he will not show 
 you the men with the power of business who do the work 
 of life, — the upright mechanic, merchant, or farmer ; 
 not the men with the power of thought, of justice, or 
 of love ; not him whose whole life is one great act of 
 fourfold piety. No, he will show you some men who are 
 always a-dawdling over their souls, going back to the 
 baby-jumpers and nurserj^ rhymes of their early days, 
 and everlastingly coming to the church to fire themselves 
 up, calling themselves "miserable offenders," and saying, 
 "save us, good Lord." If a man thinks himself a miser- 
 able offender, let him away with the offence, and be done 
 with the complaint at once and forever. It is dangerous 
 to reiterate so sad a cry. 
 
 You see this mistake, on a large scale, in the zeal with 
 which nations or sects cling to their religious institutions 
 long after they are obsolete. Thus the Hebrew cleaves 
 to his ancient ritual and ancient creed, refusing to share 
 the religious science which mankind has brought to light 
 since Moses and Samuel went home to their God. The 
 two great sects of Christendom exhibit the same thing 
 
RELATION OF PIETY TO MANLY LIFE. 207 
 
 in their adherence to ceremonies and opinions which 
 once were the greatest helps and the highest expression 
 of piety to mankind, but which have long since lost all 
 virtue except as relics. The same error is repeated on 
 a small scale all about us, men trying to believe what 
 science proves ridiculous, and only succeeding by the 
 destruction of reason. It was easy to make the mistake, 
 but when made it need not be made perpetual. 
 
 Then this causes another evil : not only do men waste 
 the practical power of piety, but they cease to get more. 
 To feed on baby's food, to be dandled in mother's arms, 
 to play with boys' playthings, to learn boys' lessons, 
 and be amused with boys' stories, — this helps the boy, 
 but it hinders the man. Long ago we got from these 
 helps all that was in them. To stay longer is waste of 
 time. Look at the men who have been doing this for ten 
 years ; they are wliere they were ten years ago. They 
 have done well if they have not fallen back. If we keep 
 the baby's shoes forever on the child, what will become 
 of the feet ? What if you kept the boy over his nursery 
 rhymes forever, or tried to make the man grown believe 
 that they contained the finest poetry in the world, that 
 the giant stories and the fairy tales therein were all true, 
 what effect would it have on his mind ? Suppose you 
 told him that the proof of his manhood consisted in his 
 fondness for little boys' playthings, and the little story- 
 books and the little games of little children, and kept 
 him securely fastened to the apron-strings of the school- 
 dame ; suppose you could make him believe so ! You 
 must make him a fool first. What would work so bad 
 in intellectual affairs works quite as ill in the matter of 
 piety. The story of the flood has strangled a world of 
 souls. The miracles of the New Testament no longer 
 heal, but hurt mankind. 
 
208 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 Then this method of procedure disgusts well-educated 
 and powerful men with piety itself, and with all that 
 bears the name of religion. " Go your ways," say they, 
 " and cant your canting as much as you like, only come 
 not near us with your grimace." Many a man sees this 
 misdirection of piety, and the bigotry which environs it, 
 and turns off from religion itself, and will have nothing 
 to do with it. Philosophers have always had a bad name 
 in religious matters ; many of them have turned away in 
 disgust from the folly which is taught in its name. Of 
 all the great philosophers of this day, I think no one 
 takes any interest in the popular forms of religion. Do 
 we ever hear religion referred to in politics ? It is men- 
 tioned officially in proclamations and messages ; but in 
 the parliamentary debates of Europe and America, in 
 the state papers of the nations, you find hardly a trace 
 of the name or the fact. Honest men and manly men 
 are ashamed to refer to this, because it has been so con- 
 nected with unmanly dawdling and niggardly turning 
 back, — they dislike to mention the word. So religion 
 has ceased to be one of the recognized forces of the 
 State. I do not remember a good law passed in my 
 time from an alleged religious motive. Capital punish- 
 ment, and the laws forbidding work or play on Sunday, 
 are the only things left on the statute-book for which a 
 strictly " religious motive " is assigned ! The annual 
 thanksgivings and fast-days are mementos of the politi- 
 cal power of the popular religious opinions in other 
 times. Men of great influence in America are commonly 
 men of little apparent respect for religion ; it seems to 
 have no influence on their public conduct, and, in many 
 cases, none on their private character ; the class most 
 eminent for intellectual culture throughout all Christen- 
 dom is heedless of religion. The class of rich men has 
 
RELATION OF PIETY TO MANLY LIFE. 209 
 
 small esteem for it ; yet in all the great towns of America 
 the most reputable churches have fallen under their con- 
 trol, witli such results as we see. The life of the nation 
 in its great flood passes by, and does not touch the 
 churches, — "the institutions of religion." Such fatal 
 errors come from this mistake. 
 
 But there is a natural form of piety. The natural use 
 of the strength of a strong man, or the wisdom of a wise 
 one, is to the work of a strong man or a wise one. What 
 is the natural work of piety ? Obviously it is practical 
 life, — the use of all the faculties in their proper spheres, 
 and for their natural function. Love of God, as truth, 
 justice, love, must appear in a life marked by these qual- 
 ities ; that is the only effectual " ordinance of religion." 
 A profession of the man's convictions, joining a society, 
 assisting at a ceremony, — all these are of the same 
 value in science as in religion ; as good forms of chemis- 
 try as of piety. The natural form of piety is goodness, mo- 
 rality, living a true, just, affectionate, self-faithful life, from 
 the motive of a pious man. Real piety, love of God, if 
 left to itself, assumes the form of real morality, loyal obe- 
 dience to God's law. Thus the power of religion does 
 the work of religion, and is not merely to feed itself. 
 
 There are various degrees of piety, the quality ever the 
 same, the quantity variable, and of course various de- 
 grees of goodness as the result thereof. Where there is 
 but little piety the work of goodness is done as a duty, 
 under coercion as it were, with only the voluntary, not 
 the spontaneous will ; it is not done from a love of the 
 duty, only in obedience to a law of God felt within the 
 conscience or the soul, a law which bids the deed. The 
 man's desires and duty are in opposition, not conjunc- 
 tion ; but duty rules. That is the goodness of a boy in 
 religion, the common goodness of the world. 
 
 14 
 
210 VIEWS OF religion: 
 
 At length the rising man shoots above this rudimen- 
 tary state, has an increase of love of God, and therefore 
 of love of man ; his goodness is spontaneous, not merelj'- 
 enforced by volition. He does the good thing which 
 comes in his way, and because it comes in his way ; is 
 true to his mind, his conscience, heart, and soul, and 
 feels small temptation to do to others what he would not 
 receive from them ; he will deny himself for the sake of 
 his brother near at hand. His desire attracts in the 
 line of his duty, both in conjunction now. Not in vain 
 does the poor, the oppressed, the hunted fugitive look 
 up td him. This is the goodness of men well grown in 
 piety. You find such men in all Christian sects, Pro- 
 testant and Catholic ; in all the great religious parties 
 of the civilized world, among Buddhists, Mahometans, 
 and Jews. They are kind fathers, generous citizens, 
 unimpeachable in their business, beautiful in their daily 
 lives. You see the man's piety in his work, and in his 
 play. It appears in all the forms of his activity, indi- 
 vidual, domestic, social, ecclesiastic, or political. 
 
 But the man goes on in his growth of piety, loving truth, 
 justice, love, loving God the more. What is piety within 
 must be morality without. The quality and quantity of 
 the outward must increase as the quality and quantity 
 of the inward. So his eminent piety must become emi- 
 nent morality, which is philanthropy. He loves not only 
 his kindred and his country, but all mankind ; not only 
 the good, but also the evil. He has more goodness than 
 the channels of his "daily life will hold. So it runs over 
 the banks, to water and to feed a thousand thirsty plants. 
 Not content with the duty that lies along his track, he 
 goes out to seek it ; not only willing, he has a salient 
 longing to do good, to spread his truth, his justice, his 
 love, his piety, over all the world. His daily life is a 
 
RELATION OF PIETY TO MANLY LIFE. 211 
 
 profession of his conscious piety to God, published in 
 perpetual good-will to men. 
 
 This is the natural form of piety ; one which it as- 
 sumes if left to itself. Not more naturally does the 
 beaver build, or the blackbird sing her own wild gush- 
 ing melody, than the man of real piety lives it in this 
 beautiful outward life. So from the perennial spring 
 wells forth the stream to quicken the meadow with new 
 access of green, and perfect beauty bursting into bloom. 
 
 Thus piety does the work it was meant to do ; the 
 man does not sigh and weep, and make grimaces, for- 
 ever in a fuss about his soul ; he lives right on. Is his 
 life marked with errors, sins, — he ploughs over the bar- 
 ren spot with his remorse, sows with new seed, and the 
 old desert blossoms like a rose. He is free in his spir- 
 itual life, not confined to set forms of thought, of action, 
 or of feeling. He accepts what his mind regards as 
 true, what his conscience decides is right, what his 
 heart deems lovely, and what is holy to his soul ; all 
 else he puts far from him. Though the ancient and the 
 honorable of the earth bid him bow down to them, his 
 stubborn knees bend only at the bidding of his manly 
 soul. His piety is his freedom before God, not his bond- 
 age unto men. The toys and child's stories of religion 
 are to him toys and child's stories, but no more. No 
 baby-shoes deform his manly feet. 
 
 This piety, thus left to obey its natural law, keeps in 
 sound health, and grows continually more and more. 
 Doing his task, the man makes no more ado about his 
 soul than about his sense. Yet it grows like the oak- 
 tree. He gets continually more love of truth and right 
 and justice, more love of God, and so more love of man. 
 Every faculty becomes continually more. His mind acts 
 after the universal law of the intellect, his conscience 
 
212 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 according to the universal moral law, his affections and 
 his soul after the universal law thereof, and so he is 
 strong with the strength of God, — in this fourfold way 
 communicating with him. With this strengthening of 
 the moral faculties there comes a tranquillity, a calm- 
 ness and repose which nothing else can give, and also a 
 beauty of character which you vainly seek elsewhere. 
 When a man has the intellectual, the moral, the affec- 
 tional part of piety, when he unites them all with con- 
 scious love of God, and puts that manifold piety into 
 morality, his eminent piety into philanthropy, he attains 
 the highest form of loveliness which belongs to mortal 
 man. His is the palmy loftiness of man,— such strength, 
 such calmness, and such transcendent loveliness of 
 soul. 
 
 I know some men mock at the name of piety ; I do 
 not wonder at their scoff, for it has been made to stand 
 as the symbol of littleness, meanness, envy, bigotry, and 
 hypocritical superstition ; for qualities I hate to name. 
 Of what is popularly called piety there is no lack ; it is 
 abundant everywliere, common as weeds in the ditch, 
 and clogs the wheels of mankind in every quarter of the 
 world. Yet real piety, in manly quantity and in a manly 
 form, is an uncommon thing. It is marvellous what 
 other wants the want of tliis brings in ; look over the 
 long list of brilliant names that glitter in English his- 
 tory for the past three hundred years ; study their aims, 
 their outward and their inner life ; explore the causes of 
 their manifold defeat, and you will sec the primal curse 
 of all these men was lack of piety. They did not love 
 truth, justice, or love ; they did not love God with all 
 their mind and conscience, heart and soul. Hence came 
 the failure of many a mighty-minded man. Look at the 
 brilliant array of distinguished talent in France for the 
 
RELATION OF PIETY TO MANLY LIFE. 213 
 
 last five generations; wliat intellectual gifts, what un- 
 derstanding, what imagination, what reason ! — but with 
 it all, what corruption, what waste of faculty, what lack 
 of strong and calm and holy life, in these great famous 
 men ! Their literature seems marvellously like the 
 thin, cold dazzle of northern lights upon the wintry 
 ice. In our own country it is still the same ; the high 
 intellectual gift or culture is ashamed of religion, and 
 flouts at God ; and hence the faults we see. 
 
 But real piety is what we need ; we need much of it, 
 — need it in the natural form thereof. Ours is an age 
 of great activity. The peaceful hand was never so busy 
 as to-day ; the productive head never created so fast be- 
 fore. Sep how the forces of nature yield themselves up 
 to man : the riv^er stops for him, content to be his ser- 
 vant, and weave and spin ; the ocean is his vassal, his 
 toilsome bondsman ; the lightning stoops out of heaven, 
 and bears thoughtful burdens on its electric track from 
 town to town. All this comes from the rapid activity 
 of the lower intellect of man. Is there a conscious 
 piety to correspond with this, — a conscious love of 
 truth and right and love, — a love of God? Ask the 
 State, ask the church, ask society, and ask our homes. 
 
 Tlie age requires a piety most eminent. What was 
 religion enough for the time of the Patriarchs, or the 
 Prophets, or the Apostles, or the Reformers, or the Pur- 
 itans, is not enough for the heightened consciousness of 
 mankind to-day. When the world thinks in lightning, 
 it is not proportionate to pray in lead. The old theolo- 
 gies, the philosophies of religion of ancient times, will 
 not suffice us now. We want a religion of the intellect, 
 of the conscience, of the affections, of the soul, — the 
 natural religion of all the faculties of man. The form 
 also must be natural and new. 
 
214 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 We want this natural piety in the form of normal 
 human life, — morality, philanthropy. Piety is not to 
 forsake, but possess the world ; not to become incarnate 
 in a nun and a monk, but in women and in men. Here 
 are the duties of life to be done. You are to do them, 
 do them religiously, consciously obedient to the law of 
 God, not atheistically, loving only your selfish gain. 
 Here are the sins of trade to be corrected. You are to 
 show that a good merchant, mechanic, farmer, doctor, 
 lawyer, is a real saint, a saint at work. Here are the 
 errors of philosophy, theology, politics, to be made way 
 with. It is the function of piety to abolish these and 
 supply their place with new truths all radiant with God. 
 Here are tlie great evils of Church and State, of social 
 and domestic life, wrongs to be righted, evils to be out- 
 grown : it is the business of piety to mend all this. 
 Ours is no age when religion can forsake the broad way 
 of life. In the public street must she journey on, open 
 her shop in the crowded square, and teach men by 
 deeds, her life more eloquent than any lips. Hers is 
 not now the voice that is to cry in the wilderness, but 
 in the public haunts of men must she call them to make 
 straight their ways. 
 
 We must possess all parts of this piety, — the intel- 
 lectual, moral, affectional, — yea, total piety. This is 
 not an age when men in religion's name can safely 
 sneer at philosophy, call reason " carnal," make mouths 
 at immutable justice, and blast with their damnation the 
 faces of mankind. Priests have had their day, and in 
 dull corners still aim to protract their favorite and most 
 ancient night ; but the sun has risen with healing in his 
 wings. Piety without goodness, without justice, without 
 truth or love, is seen to be the pretence of the hypocrite. 
 Can philosophy satisfy us without religion ? Even the 
 
RELATION OF PIETY TO MANLY LIFE. 215 
 
 Jiead feels a coldness from the want of piety. The 
 greatest intellect is ruled by the same integral laws with 
 the least, and needs this fourfold love of God ; and the 
 great intellects that scorn religion are largest sufferers 
 from their scorn. 
 
 Any man may attain this piety ; it lies level to all. 
 Yet it is not to be won without difficulty, manly effort, 
 self-denial of the low for the sake of the highest in us. 
 Of you, young man, young maid, it will demand both 
 prayer and toil. Not without great efforts are great 
 heights won. In your period of passion you must sub- 
 ordinate instinctive desire to your reason, your con- 
 science, your heart and soul ; the lust of the body to 
 the spirit's love. In the period of ambition you must 
 co-ordinate all that is personal or selfish with what is 
 absolutely true, just, holy, and good. Surely this will 
 demand self-denial, now of instinctive desire, now of 
 selfish ambition. Much you must sacrifice; but you 
 will gain the possession, the use, the development, and 
 the joy of your own mind and conscience, heart and 
 soul. You will never sacrifice truth, justice, holiness, or 
 love. All these you will gain ; gain for to-day, gain for- 
 ever. What inward blessedness will you acquire ! what 
 strength, what tranquillity, what loveliness, what joy in 
 God ! You will have your delight in him ; he his in 
 you. Is it not worth while to live so that you know 
 you are in unison with God ; in unison too, with men ; 
 in quantity growing more, in quality superior ? Make 
 the trial for manly excellence, and the result is yours, 
 for time and for eternity. 
 
216 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 CONSCIOUS EELIGION AS A SOUECE OF 
 STRENGTH. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM A SERMON FROM THE TEXT — 
 
 The Lord is the strength of my life. — Psalm xxvii. 1. 
 
 : ... Strength of character appears in two general 
 modes of power, accordingly as it is tried by one or other 
 of two tests. It is power to do, or power to bear. One 
 is active, and the other passive, but both are only.diverse 
 modes of the same thing. The hard anvil can bear the 
 blows of the hard hammer which smites it, because there 
 is the same solidity in the nether anvil which bears up, 
 as in the upper hammer which bears down. It takes as 
 much solidity to bear the blow as to give it ; only one 
 is solidity active, the other merely passive. 
 ; Religion increases the general strength and volume 
 of character. The reason is plain : Religion is keeping 
 the natural law of human nature in its threefold mode 
 of action, — in relation to myself, to my brother, and to 
 my God ; the co-ordination of my will with the will of 
 God, with the ideal of my nature. So it is action ac- 
 cording to my nature, not against it ; it is the agreement 
 of my finite will with the infinite Will which controls 
 the universe and provides for each portion thereof. 
 
 Now, to use a thing against its nature, to abuse it, is 
 ultimately to fail of the natural end thereof, and waste 
 the natural means provided for the attainment of the 
 end. A boat is useful to journey with by sea, a chaise 
 
RELIGION AS A SOURCE OF STRENGTH. 217 
 
 to journey with by land ; use eaeh for its purpose, you 
 enjoy the means and achieve the end. But put off to 
 sea in your chaise, or put on to land in your boat, you 
 miss the end, — you lose also the means. This is true 
 of the natural, as of the artificial instruments of man ; 
 of his limbs, as of his land-carriages or sea-carriages. 
 Hands are to work with, feet to walk on; the feet would- 
 make a poor figure in working, the hands an ill figure 
 in essaying to walk. The same rule holds good in re- 
 spect to spiritual faculties as in bodily organs. Passion 
 is not designed to rule conscience, but to serve ; con- 
 science not to serve passion, but to rule. If passion rule 
 and conscience serve, the end is not reached, — you are 
 in a state of general discord with yourself, your brother, 
 and your God; the means also fail and perish, — con- 
 science becomes weak, the passion itself dies from the 
 plethora of its indulgence ; the whole man grows less 
 and less, till he becomes the smallest thing he is capable 
 of dwindling into. But if conscience rule and passion 
 serve, all goes well; you reach the end, — welfare in 
 genera], harmony with yourself, concord with your 
 brother, and unity with your God; you keep the means, 
 — conscience and passion are each in position, and at 
 their proper function; the faculties enlarge until they- 
 reach their entire measure of possible growth, and the 
 whole man becomes the greatest he is capable of being 
 here and now. 
 
 You see this strength of character, which naturally 
 results from religion, not only in its general forms, but 
 in its special modes. Look a moment at the passive" 
 power, the power to endure suffering. See the fact in 
 the endurance of the terrible artificial torments that are 
 used to put down new forms of religion, or extinguish 
 the old. While men believe in the divinity of matter, 
 
218 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 they try suspected persons oy exposure to the elements, 
 — walking over red-hot ploughshares, holding fire in the 
 
 • naked hand, or plunging into water. All new forms of 
 religion must pass through the same ordeal, and run the 
 gantlet betwixt bishops, priests, inquisitors ; between 
 
 • scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites. See how faithfully 
 the trial has been borne. Men naturally shrink from 
 pain ; the stout man dreads the toothache, he curls at 
 the mention of the rheumatism, and shivers at the idea 
 of an ague ; how suddenly he drops a piece of burning 
 paper which would tease his hand for a minute ! But 
 
 •let a man have religion wakened in his heart, and be 
 convinced that it is of God, let others attempt to drive 
 it out of him, and how ready is he to bear all that malice 
 ■can devise or tyranny inflict! The thumb-screws and 
 the racks, the whip, the gallows, and the stake, — the 
 religious man has strength to bear all these ; and Cran- 
 mer holds his right arm, erring now no more, in the 
 flame, till the hand drops off in the scalding heat. You 
 know the persecutions of Peter and Paul, the martyrdom 
 of Stephen, the trials of early Christians, — Ignatius, 
 Polycarp, Justin, Irenseus, and the rest. They all went 
 out to preach the form of religion themselves had prac- 
 tised, and enjoyed in their own souls. What could they 
 offer men as an inducement to conversion? The common 
 argument at this day — respectability, a comfortable life 
 ■and an honorable death, the praise of men? Could 
 Origen and Cyprian tell the young maiden, " Come to 
 our church, and you will be sure to get a nice husband, 
 as dainty fine as any patrician in Ephesus or Carthage "? 
 ■ Could they promise " a fashionable company in prayer," 
 and a rich wife to the young man who joined their church ? 
 It was not exactly so ; nay, it was considerably different. 
 They could offer their converts hunger, and nakedness, 
 
RELIGION AS A SOURCE OF STRENGTH. 219 
 
 and peril, and prison, and the sword ; ay, and the scorn 
 of relatives and the contemporaneous jeer of a cruel 
 world. But " the word of God grew and prevailed." 
 The nice voluptuary, the dainty woman, too delicate to 
 set foot upon the ground, became converted, and then 
 they could defy the axe of the headsman and the tor- 
 mentor's rack. Unabashed they stood before wild • 
 beasts ; ay, they looked in the face of the marshals and 
 commissioners and district judges of those times, — men 
 who perverted law and spit on justice with blasphemous 
 expectoration, — and yet the religious soul did not fear ! • 
 
 . . . You all know what strength of endurance relig- 
 ion gave to Bunyan and Fox, and their compeers the 
 Quakers, in Boston as well as England ; to the Mor- 
 mons in Missouri, and in all quarters of Christendom. 
 Religion made these men formidably strong. The axe 
 of the tormentor was as idle to stay them as the gallows 
 to stop a sunbeam. This power of endurance is general, 
 of all forms of religion. It does not doi^cnd on what is 
 Jewish in Judaism, or Christian in Christianity, but on 
 what is religious in religion, what is human in man. 
 
 But that is only a spasmodic form of heroism, — the 
 reaction of human nature against unnatural evil. You 
 see religion producing the same strength to endure suf-- 
 ferings which are not arbitrarily imposed by cruel men. 
 The stories of martyrdom only bring out in unusual- 
 forms the silent heroism which works unheeded in soci- 
 ety every day. The strength is always there; oppression,- 
 which makes wise men mad, in making religious men 
 martyrs only finds and reveals the heroism ; it does not 
 make it, more than the stone-cutter makes the marble 
 which he hews into the form his thought requires. The 
 heroism is always there. So there is always enough 
 electricity in the air above this town to blast it to atoms 
 
220 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 and burn it to cinders. Not a babe could be born with- 
 out it, not a snow-drop bloom ; yet no one heeds the 
 silent force. Let two different streams of air, one warm, 
 ■ the other cold, meet here, the lightning tells of the 
 reserved power which hung all day above our heads. 
 : I love now and then to look on the strength of en- 
 durance which religion gives the most heroic martyrs. 
 •Even in these times the example is needed. Though 
 the fagot is only ashes now, and the axe's edge is blunt, 
 •there are other forms of martyrdom, bloodless, yet not 
 less cruel in motive and effect. But I love best to see 
 this same strength in lovelier forms, enduring the com- 
 mon ills of life, — poverty, sickness, disappointment, the 
 loss of friends, the withering of the fondest hopes of 
 mortal men. One is occasional lightning, thundering 
 and grand, but transient; the other is daily sunshine 
 which makes no noisy stir on any day, but throughout 
 the year is constant, creative, and exceeding beautiful. 
 • Did you never see a young woman with the finest 
 faculties, every hope of mortal success crushed in her 
 heart; see her endure it all, — the slow torture which 
 eats away the mortal from the immortal, — with a spirit 
 still unruffled, with a calm cheerfulness and a strong 
 trust in God ? We all have seen such things, — the 
 loveliest forms of martyrdom. 
 
 ; Did you never see a young man with large faculties, 
 fitting him to shine among the loftiest stars of this our 
 human heaven, in the name of duty forego his own in- 
 tellectual culture for the sake of a mother, a sister, or a 
 father dependent upon his toil, and be a drudge when he 
 might else have been a shining light ; and by the grace 
 of religion do it so that in all of what he counted drudg- 
 ery he was kinglier than a king ? Did you never see the 
 wife, the daughter, or the son of a drunkard sustained by 
 
RELIGION AS A SOURCE OF STRENGTH. 221 
 
 their religion to bear sorrows to which Nebuchadnezzar's 
 seven-fokl heated furnace were a rose-garden, — bear it 
 and not complain, — grow sweeter in that bitterness ? 
 There are many such examples all about us, and holy- 
 souls go through that misery of torture clean as sun- 
 light through the pestilential air of a town stricken with 
 plague. So the pagan poets tell a story of the fountain 
 Arethusa, which for many a league ran through the 
 salt and bitter sea, all the way from Peloponnesus to 
 Trinacria, and then came up pure, sweet, and sparkling 
 water, far off in Ortygia, spreading greenness and growth 
 in the valley, where the anemone and asphodel paid back 
 their beauty to the stream which gave them life. 
 
 Such are daily examples of the fortitude and strength • 
 to suffer which religion gives. When we look carelessly 
 on men in their work or their play, busy in the streets 
 or thoughtful in a church, we think little of the amount ■ 
 of religion there is in these human hearts ; but when • 
 you need it in times of great trial, then it comes up in ■ 
 the broad streets and little lanes of life. Disappoint- • 
 ment is a bitter root, and sorrow is a bitter flower, and 
 suffering is a bitter fruit, but the religious soul makes ■ 
 medicine thereof, and is strengthened even by the poi- 
 sons of life. So out of a brewer's dregs and a distiller's 
 waste in a city have I seen the bee suck sweetest honey 
 for present joy, and lay it up for winter's use. Yea, the 
 strong man in the fable, while hungering, found honey in 
 the lion's bones he once had slain; got delight from the 
 destroyer, and meat out of the eater's mouth. 
 
 Why is it that the religious man has this power to • 
 suffer and endure ? Religion is the normal mode of life • 
 for man, and when he uses his faculties according to 
 their natural law, they act harmoniously, and all grow 
 strong. Besides this, the religious man has a confidence ■ 
 
222 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 in his God ; he knows there is the Infinite One, who has 
 •foreseen all, and provided for all, — provided a recom- 
 pense for all the unavoidable suffering of his children 
 here. If you know that it is a part of the purpose of 
 the infinite Father that you must suffer to accomplish 
 your own development, or the development of mankind, 
 yet understand that the suffering must needs be a good 
 for you, then you will not fear. " The flesh may quiver 
 as the pincers tear," but you quiver not; the will is firm, 
 and firm is the unconquerable trust. " Be still, flesh, 
 and burn ! " says the martyr to the molecules of dust that 
 form his chariot of time, — and the three holy children 
 of the Hebrew tale sing psalms in their fiery furnace, a 
 Fourth with them; and Stephen in his stoning thinks 
 •that he sees his God, and to Paul in his prison there 
 comes a great cheering light ; yes, to Bunyan, and Fox, 
 and Latimer, and John Rogers, in their torments ; to the 
 •poor maiden stifled by the slowly strangling sea; to her 
 . whose crystal urn of love is shattered at her feet ; to the 
 young man who sees the college of his dream fade off 
 into a barn ; and the mother, wife, or child who sees the 
 father of the family bloat, deform, and uglify himself 
 into the drunkard, and, falling into the grave, crush un- 
 dei-neath his lumbering weight all of their mortal hopes. 
 •Religion gives them all a strength to suffer, and be 
 blessed by the trials they endure. There are times when 
 nothing outward is left but suffering. Then it is a great 
 •thing to have the stomach for it, the faith in God which 
 disenchants the soul of pain. Did not Jesus, in the 
 Gospel, have his agony and his bloody sweat, — the last 
 • act of that great tragedy ? Did not religion come, an 
 •angel, to strengthen him, and all alone, deserted, for- 
 saken, he could say, " I am not alone, for the Father is 
 with me " ? 
 
RELIGION AS A SOURCE OF STRENGTH. 223 
 
 . . . See this same strength in another form, — the 
 power to do. Religion not only gives the feminine 
 capacity to suffer, but the masculine capability to do. 
 The religious man can do more than another without 
 religion, who is his equal in other respects ; because he 
 masters and concentrates his faculties, making them 
 work in harmony with each other, in concord with man- 
 kind, in unity with God ; and because he knows there 
 is a God who works with him, and so arranges the forces 
 of the universe that every wrong shall be righted, and 
 the ultimate well-being of each be made sure of forever. 
 Besides, he has a higher inspiration and loftier motive,- 
 which strengthen, refine, and ennoble him. Adam Clarke 
 tells us how much more of mere intellectual labor he 
 could perform after his conversion than before. Ignatius ■ 
 Loyola makes the same confession. They each attribute 
 it to the technical peculiarity of their sectarianism, to 
 Methodism or Catholicism, to Christianity ; but the fact 
 is universal, and applies to religion under all forms. It 
 is easily explained by the greater harmony of the facul- • 
 ties, and by the higlier motive which animates the man,- 
 the more certain trust which inspires him. An earnest 
 youth in love with an earnest maid — his love returned 
 — gets more power of character from the ardor of her - 
 affection and the strength of his passion ; and when the 
 soul of man rises up in its great act of love to become 
 one with God, you need not marvel if the man is strong.- 
 "I can do all things," says Paul, " through Christ who 
 strengtheneth me." Buddhists and Hebrews and Mo- 
 hammedans say the same of their religion. 
 
 Then religion helps a man to two positive things, — ' 
 first, to a desire of the right ; next, to a progressive 
 knowledge and practice of the right. Justice is always • 
 power ; whoso has that commands the world. A fool ■ 
 
224 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 ill the right way, says the proverb, can beat a wise man 
 in the wrong. The civilized man has an advantage over 
 the savage, in his knowledge of nature. He can make 
 the forces of the universe toil for him : the wind drives 
 his ship ; the water turns his mill, spins and weaves for 
 him ; lightning runs his errands ; steam carries the new 
 • lord of nature over land or ocean without rest. He that 
 knows justice, and does it, has the same advantage over 
 all that do it not. He sets his mill on the rock, and 
 the river of God forever turns his wheels. 
 
 The practice of the right in the common affairs of 
 life is called honesty. An honest man is one who knows, 
 loves, and does right because it is right. Is there any- 
 thing but this total integrity, which I call religion, that 
 can be trusted to keep a man honest in small things 
 and great things, in things private and things public ? 
 I know nothing else with this power. True, it is said, 
 "honesty is the best policy," and as all men love the 
 best policy, they will be honest for that reason. But to 
 follow the best policy is a very different thing from being 
 honest ; the love of justice and the love of personal 
 profit or pleasure are quite different. But is honesty 
 the best policy ? Policy is means to achieve a special 
 end. If the end you seek be the common object of 
 desire, — if it be material pleasure in your period of 
 passion, or material profit in your period of ambition, — 
 if you seek for money, for ease, honor, power over men, 
 and their approbation, — then honesty is not the best 
 . policy ; is means from it, not to it. Honesty of thought 
 and speech is the worst policy for a minister's clerical 
 reputation. Charity impairs an estate ; unpopular ex- 
 cellence is the ruin of a man's respectability. It is good 
 policy to lie in the popular way ; to steal after the re- 
 spectable fashion. The hard creditor is surest of his 
 
RELIGION AS A SOURCE OF STRENGTH. 225 
 
 debt ; the cruel landlord does not lose his rent ; the 
 severe master is uniformly served the best ; who gives 
 little and with a grudge finds often the most of obvious 
 gratitude. He that destroys the perishing is more hon- 
 ored in Christendom than he who comes to save the 
 lost. The slave-hunter is a popular Christian in the 
 American church, and gets his pay in money and eccle- 
 siastical reputation. The honesty of Jesus brought him 
 to the bar of Herod and Pilate ; their best policy nailed 
 him to the cross. Was it good policy in Paul to turn 
 Christian ? His honesty brought him to weariness and 
 painfulness, to cold and nakedness, to stripes and im- 
 prisonment, to a nateful reputation on the earth. Hon- 
 esty the best policy for personal selfishness ! Ask the 
 " Holy Alliance." Honesty is the means to self-respect, 
 to growth in manly qualities, to high human welfare, — 
 a means to the kingdom of heaven. When men claim 
 that honesty is the best policy, is it this which they 
 mean ? 
 
 I will not say a man cannot be honest without a distinct 
 consciousness of his relation to God ; but I must say that 
 consciousness of God is a great help to honesty in the 
 business of a shop, or the business of a nation ; and with- 
 out religion, unconscious if no more, it seems to me 
 honesty is not possible. 
 
 By reminding me of my relation to the universe, relig- 
 ion helps counteract the tendency to selfishness. Self- 
 love is natural and indispensable ; it keeps the man 
 whole, — is the centripetal power, representing the nat- 
 ural cohesion of all the faculties. Without that, the 
 man would drop to pieces, as it were, and be dissolved 
 in the mass of men, as a lump of clay in the ocean. 
 Selfishness is the abnormal excess of this self-love. It 
 takes various forms. In the period of passion, it com- 
 
 15 
 
226 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 monly shows itself as intemperate love of sensual pleasure ; 
 in the period of ambition, as intemperate love of money, 
 of power, rank, or renown. There are as many modes 
 of selfishness as there are propensities which may go to 
 excess Self-love belongs to the natural harmony of the 
 faculties, and is a means of strength. Selfishness comes 
 from the tyranny of some one appetite which subordinates 
 the other faculties of man, and is a cause of weakness, a 
 disqualification for my duties to myself, to my brother, 
 and my God. Now the effort to become religious, work- 
 ing in you a love of man and of God, a desire of harmony 
 with yourself, of concord with man and unity with him, 
 diminishes selfishness, develops your instinctive self-love 
 into conscious self-respect, into faithfulness to yourself, 
 and so enlarges continually the little ring of your charac- 
 ter, and makes you strong to bear the crosses and do the 
 duties of daily life. 
 
 Much of a man's ability consists in his power to con- 
 centrate his energies for a purpose ; in power to deny 
 some private selfish lust — of material pleasure or profit 
 — for the sake of public love. I know of naught but 
 religion that can be trusted to promote this power of 
 self-denial, which is indispensable to a manly man. 
 There can be no great general power without this ; no 
 strong character that lies deep in the sea and holds on 
 its way through sunshine and through storm, and una- 
 bashed by tempests comes safe to port. I suppose you 
 all know men and women who now are not capable of 
 any large self-denial, — the babies of mere selfish in- 
 stinct. It is painful to look on such, domineered over 
 by their propensities. Compared to noble-hearted men 
 and women, they are as the mushroom and the toad- 
 stool to the oak, under whose shade the fungus springs 
 up in a rainy night to blacken and perish in a day. Self- 
 
RELIGION AS A SOURCE OF STRENGTH. 227 
 
 denial is indispensable to a strong character, and the 
 loftiest kind thereof comes only of a religious stock, — 
 from consciousness of obligation and dependence upon 
 God. 
 
 In youth the seductions of passion lead us easily astray ; 
 in manhood there are the more dangerous seductions of 
 ambition, when lust of pleasure gives way to lust of 
 profit ; and in old age the man is often the victim of 
 the propensities he delicately nursed in earlier life, and 
 dwindles down into the dotage of a hunker or a libertine. 
 It is easy to yield now to this, and then to that, but both 
 mislead us to our partial and general loss, to weakness 
 of power and poverty of achievement, to shipwreck of 
 this great argosy of mortal life. How many do you see 
 slain by lust of pleasure ! How many more by lust of 
 power, — pecuniary, social, or political power ! Religious ■ 
 self-denial would have kept them strong and beautiful 
 and safe. 
 
 Religion gives a man courage. I do not mean the '■ 
 courage which comes of tough muscles and rigid nerves, 
 — of a stomach which never surrenders. That also is a 
 good thing, the hardihood of the flesh ; let me do it no 
 injustice. But I mean the higher, moral courage, which • 
 can look danger and death in the face unawed and undis- • 
 mayed ; the courage that can encounter loss of ease, of 
 wealth, of friends, of your own good name ; the courage 
 that can face a world full of howling and of scorn, — ay, ■ 
 of loathing and of hate ; can see all these with a smile, 
 and, suffering it all, can still toil on, conscious of the • 
 result, yet fearless still. I do not mean the courage that 
 hates, that smites, that kills, but the calm courage that- 
 loves and heals and blesses such as smite and hate and 
 kill ; the courage that dares resist evil, popular, power-- 
 ful, anointed evil, yet does it with good, and knows it 
 
228 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 shall thereby overcome. That is not a common quality. 
 I think it never comes without religion. It belongs to 
 all great forms of religious excellence ; it is not specifi- 
 cally Hebrew or Christian, but generically human and 
 of religion under all forms. 
 
 Without this courage a man looks little and mean, 
 especially a man otherwise great, — with great intellect 
 and great culture, and occupying a great place. You 
 see all about you how little such men are worth ; too 
 cowardly to brave a temporary defeat, they are swiftly 
 brought to permanent ruin. Look over the long array 
 of brilliant names in American, English, universal his- 
 tory, and see what lofty men, born to a large estate of 
 intellect, and disciplined to manifold and brilliant men- 
 tal power, for lack of courage to be true amid the false, 
 and upright amid the grovelling, have laid their proud 
 foreheads in the dust, and mean men have triumphed 
 over the mighty ! 
 
 Did you never read here in your Old Testament, here 
 in your New Testament, here in your Apocrypha, how 
 religion gave men, yea, and women too, this courage, 
 and said to them, " Be strong and very courageous ; turn 
 not to the right hand, neither to the left," — and made 
 heroes out of Jeremiah and Elias ? Did you never read 
 of the strength of courage, the courage of conscience, 
 which religion gave to the " unlearned and ignorant 
 men " who, from peasants that trembled before a He- 
 brew Rabbi's copious beard, became apostles to stand 
 before the wrath of kings and not quake, to found 
 churches by their prayers, and to feed them with their 
 ■ blood ? You know, we all know, what courage conscious 
 • religion gave to our fathers. Their corporal courage 
 grew more firmly knit, as men learned by bitter blows 
 who crossed swords with them on the battle-field ; but 
 
RELIGION AS A SOURCE OF STRENGTH. 229 
 
 their moral courage grew giant high. You know how 
 they dwelt here, amid what suffering, yet with what ■ 
 patience ; how they toiled to build up these houses, these 
 churches, and the institutions of the State. . 
 
 With this honesty, this self-denial, there comes a total • 
 energy of character which nothing else can give. You 
 see what strength religion gives ; what energy and con- 
 tinual persistence in their cause it gave to men like the 
 Apostles, like the martyrs and great saints of the Chris- 
 tian church, of the Hebrew, the Mohammedan, and the 
 Pagan church. You may see this energy in a rough- 
 form in the soldiers of the English revolution, in the 
 " Ironsides " of Cromwell, in the stern and unflinching ■ 
 endurance of the Puritans of either England, the Old or 
 the New, who both did and suffered what is possible to • 
 mortal flesh only when it is sustained by a religious faith. 
 But you see it in forms far more beautiful, as represented • 
 by the missionaries who carry the glad tidings of their 
 faith to other lands, and endure the sorrows of perse- • 
 cution with the long-suffering and loving-kindness we 
 worship in the good God. This is not peculiar to Chris- 
 tianity. The Buddhists had their missionaries hundreds 
 of years before Jesus of Nazareth first saw the light. 
 They seem to have been the first that ever went abroad, 
 not to conquer, but convert ; not to get power, or wealth, 
 or even wisdom, but to carry the power of the mind, the 
 riches of conscience and the affections, and the wisdom 
 of the soul ; and in them you find the total energy which 
 religious conviction gives to manly character in its hour 
 of peril. But why go abroad to look for this ? Our own 
 streets exhibit the same thing in the form of the philan- 
 thropist. The sister of charity treads the miserable 
 alleys of Naples and of Rome ; the Catholic visitor of 
 the poor winds along in the sloughs and slums of St. 
 
230 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 Giles's parish in Protestant London, despised and hated 
 by the well-endowed clergy, whose church aisles are 
 never trodden save by wealthy feet ; and in the mire of 
 the street, in the reeking squalidness of the cellars, where 
 misery burrows with crime, he labors for their bodies and 
 their souls. In our own Boston do I not know feeble- 
 bodied and delicate women, who with their feet write out 
 the gospel of loving-kindness and tender mercy on the 
 mud or the snow of the kennels of this city ? — women 
 of wise intellect and nice culture, who, like that great 
 philanthropist, come to seek and to save that which was 
 lost. 
 
 Look at the reformers of America at this day, — some 
 of them men of large abilities, of commensurate culture, 
 of easy estate, once respected, flattered, and courted too 
 by their associates, but now despised for their justice 
 and their charity, hated for the eminent affection which 
 makes them look after the welfare of the criminal, the 
 drunkard, the pauper, the outcast, and the slave, and 
 feared for the power with which they assert the rights 
 of man against the wrongs which avarice inflicts. See 
 the total energy which marks these men, whose life is 
 a long profession of religion, — their creed writ all over 
 the land, and their history a slow martyrd£)m, — and you 
 may see the vigor which comes of religious conviction. 
 These are the nobler forms of energy. The soldier 
 destroys, at best defends, while the philanthropist 
 creates. 
 
 Last of all these forms of strength, religion gives the 
 power of self-reliance ; reliance on your mind for truth, 
 on your conscience for justice, on your heart for love, 
 on your soul for faith, and through all these reliance on 
 the infinite God. Then you will keep the integrity of 
 your own nature spite of the mightiest men, spite of a 
 
RELIGION AS A SOURCE OF STRENGTH. 231 
 
 multitude of millions, spite of States and cliurches and 
 traditions, and a worldly world filled with covetousness 
 and priestcraft. You will say to them all, " Stand by, 
 and let alone ; I must be true to myself, and thereby • 
 true to my God." 
 
 I think nothing but religion can give any man this 
 strength to do and to suffer ; that without this, the men 
 of greatest gift and greatest attainment too, do not live 
 out half the glory of their days, nor reach half their 
 stature. Look over the list of the world's great failures, 
 and see why Alexander, Csesar, and Napoleon came each 
 to such an untimely and vulgar end ! flad they added 
 religion to their attainments and their conquests, what 
 empires of welfare would they not hold in fee, and give 
 us to enjoy ! Without it, the greatest man is a failure. • 
 With it, the smallest is a triumph. He adds to his 
 character ; he enjoys his strength ; he delights while he 
 rejoices, growing to more vigorous manliness ; and when 
 the fragrant petals of the spirit burst asunder and crowd 
 off this outer husk of the body, and bloom into glorious 
 humanity, what a strong and flame-like flower shall 
 blossom there for everlasting life. 
 
 There are various forms of strength. Wealth is 
 power ; office is power ; beauty is power ; knowledge is 
 power. Religion too is power. This is the power of- 
 powers, for it concentrates, moves, and directs aright 
 the force of money, of office, of beauty, and of knowl- 
 edge. Do men understand this ? They often act and 
 live as if they knew it not. Look at our " strong men," 
 not only mighty by position in office or on money, but 
 mighty by nature. In what are they strong ? In a 
 knowledge of the passions and prejudices of men; of the 
 interests and expedients and honors of the day ; in a 
 knowledge of men's selfishness and their willingness to 
 
232 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 • 
 sin ; in experienced skill to use the means for certain 
 selfish, low, and ignoble ends, organizing a contrivance 
 against mankind ; in power of speech and act to make 
 the better seem the worse, and wrong assume the guise 
 of right. It is in this that our " great men " are chieflj 
 • great. They are weak in a knowledge of what in man 
 is noble, even when he errs ; they know nothing of 
 justice ; they care little for love. They know the 
 animal that is in us, not the human, far less the god- 
 like. Mighty in cunning, they are weak in knowledge 
 of the true, the just, the good, the holy, and the ever 
 beautiful. They look up at the mountains and mock at 
 God. So they are impotent to know the expedient of 
 eternity, what profits now and profits for ever and ever. 
 •Blame them not too much; the educational forces of 
 society breed up such men, — as college lads all learn to 
 cipher and to scan. 
 
 In the long run of the ages see how the religious man 
 distances the unreligious. The memory of him who 
 seeks to inaugurate cunning into the State for his own 
 behoof is ere long gibbeted before the world, and his lie 
 is cast out with scorn and hate ; and the treason of the 
 traitor to mankind is remembered only with a curse ; 
 while the wisdom of the wise, the justice of the upright, 
 the love of the affectionate, and the piety of holy-hearted 
 men, incarnated in the institutions of the State, live, and 
 will forever live, long after Rome and America have 
 gone to the ground. Tyrants have a short breath, their 
 fame a sudden ending ; and the power of the ungodly, 
 like the lamp of the wicked, shall soon be put out ; their 
 counsel is carried, but it is carried headlong. He that 
 seeks only the praise of men gets that but for a day ; 
 while the religious man, who seeks only to be faithful 
 to himself and his God, and represent on earth the 
 
RELIGION AS A SOURCE OF STRENGTH. 233 
 
 absolute true and just, all heedless of the applause of 
 men, lives, and will forever live, in the admiration of 
 mankind, and in " the pure eyes and perfect witness 
 of all-judging Jove." ChampoUion painfully deciphers the 
 names of the Egyptian kings who built the pyramids and 
 swayed millions of men. For three thousand years that 
 lettered muse, the sculptured stone, in silence kept the 
 secret of their name. But the fugitive slave, a bonds- 
 man of that king, with religion in his heart, has writ 
 his power on all the continents, and dotted the name of 
 Moses on every green or snow-clad isle of either sea. 
 That name shall still endure when the last stones of the 
 last pyramid become gas and exhale to heaven. The 
 peasant of Galilee has embosomed his own name in the 
 religion of mankind, and the world will keep it forever. 
 Foolish men ! building your temple of fame on the ex- 
 pedients of to-day, and of selfishness and cunning and 
 eloquent falsehood ! That shall stand, — will it ? On 
 the frozen bosom of a northern lake, go build your palace 
 of ice. Colonnade and capital, how they glitter in the 
 light when the northern dawn is red about the pole, or 
 the colder moon looks on your house of frost ! " This 
 will endure. Why carve out the granite, and painfully 
 build upon the rock ? " Ah me ! at the touch of March, 
 the ice-temple and its ice-foundation take the leap of 
 Niagara ; and in April the skiff of the fisherman finds 
 no vestige of all that pomp and pride. But the temple 
 of granite, — where is that ? Ask Moses, ask Jesus, ask 
 mankind, what power it is that lasts from age to age, 
 when selfish ambition melts in the stream of time. 
 
 Well, we are all here for a great work, not merely to 
 grow up and eat and drink, to have estates called after 
 us and children born in our name. We are all here to- 
 be men ; to do the most of human duty possible for us, 
 
234 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 and so to have the most of human right and enjoy the 
 most of human welfare. Religion is a good thing in 
 itself ; it is the betrothed bride of the spirit of man, to 
 be loved for her own sweet sake ; not a servant, to be 
 taken for use alone. But it is the means to this end, — 
 to strength of character, enlarging the little and great- 
 ening the great. 
 
 You and I shall have enough to suffer, most of us ; 
 enough to do. We shall have our travail, our temptation, 
 perhaps our agony, but our triumph too. 
 
 smooth-faced youths and maids ! — your cheek and 
 brow yet innocent of stain, — do you believe you shall 
 ■pass through life and suffer naught ? Trial will come on 
 you ; you shall have your agony and bloody sweat. Seek 
 in the beginning for the strength which religion brings 
 you, and you shall indeed bo strong, powerful to suffer, 
 and mighty also to do. I will not say your efforts will 
 keep you from every error, every sin. When a boy, I 
 might have thought so ; as a man, I know better, by 
 observation and my own experience too. Sin is an ex- 
 periment that fails, — a stumble, not upright walking. 
 •Expect such mishaps, errors of the mind, errors of the 
 conscience, errors of the affections, errors of the soul. 
 What pine tree never lost a limb ? The best mathe- 
 matician now and then misses a figure, must rub out 
 his work and start anew. The greatest poet must often 
 mend a liue, and will write fa,ulty verses in the heat of 
 song. Milton has many a scraggy line, and even good 
 Homer sometimes nods. What defects are there in the 
 proud works of Raphael and Angclo ! Is there no fail- 
 ure in Mozart ? In such a mighty work as this of life, 
 — such a complication of forces within, of circumstances 
 without, such imperfect guidance as the world can 
 ■furnish in this work, — I should expect to miss the way 
 
RELIGION AS A SOURCE OF STRENGTH. 235 
 
 sometimes, and with painful feet, and heart stung by 
 self-reproacli, or grief, or shame, retread the way shame- 
 faced and sad. The field that is ploughed all over by 
 remorse, driving his team that breathe fire, yields not a 
 faint harvest to the great Reaper's hand. Trust in God 
 will do two things. It will keep you from many an 
 error; nobody knows how great a gain this is till he- 
 has tried. Then it will help you after you have wan- 
 dered from the way. Fallen, you will not despair, but 
 rise the wiser and the stronger for the fall. Do you 
 look for strength to your brave young hearts, and 
 streams of life to issue thence ? Here you shall find 
 it, and with freshened life pass on your way. Religion 
 is the Moses to smite the rock in the wilderness. 
 
 bearded men, and women that have kept and hoarded 
 much in your experienced hearts, you also seek for 
 power to bear your crosses and to do your work. Relig- 
 ion will be the strength of your life, — you may do all 
 things through this. When tlie last act of the mortal 
 drama draws towards a close, you will look joyfully to 
 the end, — not with fear, but with a triumphant joy. 
 
 There are two great things which make up the obvious 
 part of life, — to do, to suffer. Behind both as cause,- 
 and before each as result, is one thing greater, — to be. 
 Religion is true being, normal life in yourself, in nature, 
 in men, and in God. 
 
236 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM A SERMON FROM THE TEXT — 
 
 The communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all. — 2 Cor. xiii. 14. 
 
 . . . There must be such a thing as communion be- 
 tween God and man. I mean, defining that provision- 
 ally, there must be a giving on God's part, and a taking 
 on man's part. To state the matter thus is to make it 
 evident, — since it follows from the nature of God ; for 
 from the necessity of his nature the Infinite Being must 
 create and preserve the finite, and to the finite must, in 
 its forms, give and communicate of his own kind. It is 
 according to the infinite nature of God to do so ; as ac- 
 cording to the finite nature of light to shine, of fire to 
 burn, of water to wet. It follows as well from the na- 
 ture of man, as finite and derivative. From the necessity 
 of his nature, he must receive existence and the means 
 of continuance. He must get all his primitive power, 
 which he starts with, and all his materials for secondary 
 and automatic growth, from the primitive and infinite 
 source. The mode of man's finite being is of necessity 
 a receiving ; of God's infinite being, of necessity a giving. 
 You cannot conceiv^e of any finite thing existing without 
 God, the infinite basis and ground thereof ; nor of God 
 existing without something. God is the necessary log- 
 ical condition of a world, its necessitating cause ; a 
 world, the necessary logical condition of God, his ne- 
 cessitated consequence. Communion between the two is 
 a mutual necessity of nature, on God's part, and on 
 
OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 237 
 
 man's part. I mean it is according to the infinite per- 
 fection of God's nature to create, and so objectify him- 
 self, and then preserve and bless whatever he creates. 
 So by his nature he creates, preserves, and gives. And 
 it is according to the finite nature of man to take. So 
 by his nature, soon as created, he depends and receives, 
 and is preserved only by receiving from the infinite 
 source. 
 
 That is the conclusion of modern metaphysical sci- 
 ence. The stream of philosophy runs down from Aris- 
 totle to Hegel and Hickok, and breaks off with this 
 conclusion ; and I see not how it can be gainsaid. The 
 statements are apodictic, self-evident at every step. 
 
 All that is painfully abstract ; let me make it plainer 
 if I can, — at least shoot one shaft more at the same 
 mark from the other side. You start with yourself, 
 with nothing but yourself. You are conscious of your- 
 self ; not of yourself perhaps as substance, surely as 
 power to be, to do, to suffer. But you are conscious of 
 yourself, not as self-originated at all, or as self-sustained 
 alone ; only as dependent, — first for existence, ever 
 since for support. 
 
 You take the primary ideas of consciousness which 
 are inseparable from it, the atoms of self-consciousness ; 
 amongst them you find the ideas of God. Carefully ex- 
 amined by the scrutinizing intellect, it is the idea of 
 God as infinite, — perfectly powerful, wise, just, loving, 
 holy, — absolute being, with no limitation. It is this 
 which made you, made all ; sustains you, sustains all ; 
 made your body, not by a single act, but by a series of 
 acts extending over millions of years, — for man's body 
 is the resultant of all created things ; made your spirit, 
 — your mind, your conscience, your affections, your 
 soul, your will ; appointed for each its natural mode of 
 
238 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 action, set each at its several aim. Self-consciousness 
 leads you to consciousness of God ; at last to conscious- 
 ness of infinite God. He is the primitive, whence you 
 are the derivative. You must receive, or you could not 
 be a finite man ; and he must give, or he could not be 
 the infinite God. Hence the communion is unavoidable, 
 an ontological fact. 
 
 God must be omnipresent in space. There can be no 
 mote that peoples the sunbeams, no spot on an insect's 
 wing, no little cell of life which the microscope discovers 
 in the seed-sporule of a moss, and brings to light, but 
 God is there, in the mote that peoples the sunbeams, in 
 that spot on the insect's wing, in that cell of life the 
 microscope discovers in the seed-sporule of a moss. 
 
 God must be also omnipresent in time. There is no 
 second of time elapsing now, there has been none mil- 
 lions of years ago, before the oldest stars began to burn, 
 but God was in that second of time. 
 
 Follow the eye of the great space-penetrating tele- 
 scope at Cambridge into the vast halls of creation, to the 
 furthest nebulous spot seen in Orion's belt, — a spot 
 whose bigness no natural mind can adequately conceive, 
 and God is there. Follow the eye of the great sharply 
 defining microscope at Berlin into some corner of crea- 
 tion, to that little dot, one of many millions that people 
 an inch of stone, once animate with swarming life, a 
 spot too small for mortal mind adequately to conceive, 
 — and God is there. 
 
 Get you a mctaphysic microscope of time to divide a 
 second into its billionth part ; God is in that. Get you 
 a metaphysic telescope of time, to go back in millenni- 
 ums as the glass in miles, and multiply the duration of a 
 solar system by itself to get an immensity of time ; 
 still, God is there, in each elapsing second of that mil- 
 
OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 239 
 
 lennial stream of centuries, — liis here conterminous with 
 the all of space, his now coeval with the all of time. 
 
 Through all this space, in all this time, his being ex- 
 tends, " spreads undivided, operates unspent ; " God in 
 all his infinity, — perfectly powerful, perfectly wise, per- 
 fectly just, perfectly loving and holy. His being is an 
 infinite activity, a creating, and so a giving of himself to 
 the world. The world's being is a becoming, a being 
 created and continued. This is so in the nebula of 
 Orion's belt, and in the seed-sporule of the smallest 
 moss. It is so now, and was the same millions of mil- 
 lenniums ago. 
 
 All this is philosophy, the unavoidable conclusion of 
 the human mind. It is not the opinion of Coleridge and 
 Kant, but their science ; not what they guess, but what 
 they know. 
 
 In virtue of this immanence of God in matter, we say 
 the world is a revelation of God ; its existence a show of 
 his. Some good books picture to us the shows of things, 
 and report in print the Avhisper of God which men have 
 heard in the material world. They say that God is a 
 good optician, — for the eye is a telescope and a mi- 
 croscope, the two in one ; that he is a good chemist 
 also, ordering all things " by measure and number and 
 weight ; " that he is a good mechanic, — for the machin- 
 ery of i\\(i world, old as it is, is yet " constructed after 
 the most approved principles of modern science." All 
 that is true, but the finite mechanic is not in his work ; 
 he wakes it and then withdraws. God is in his work, — 
 
 " As full, as perfect in a hair as heart ; 
 
 Acts not by partial, but by general laws." 
 
 All nature works from within ; the force that animates 
 it is in every part. It was objected to Sir Isaac Newton's 
 
240 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 philosoph}', that it makes the world all mechanism, 
 which goes without external help, and so is a universe 
 without a God, — men thinking that he could not work 
 at all in the world-machine, unless they saw the great 
 hand on the crank now and then, or felt the jar of miracu- 
 lous interposition when some comet swept along the sky. 
 The objection was not just, for the manifold action of 
 the universe is only the infinite God's mode of opera- 
 tion. Newton merely showed the mode of operation, — 
 that it was constant and wonderful, not changing and 
 miraculous ; and so described a higher mode of opera- 
 tion than those men could fathom, or even reverence. 
 
 These things being so, all material things that are 
 must needs be in communion with God ; their creation 
 was their first passive act of communion ; their exist- 
 ence, a continual act of communion. As God is infinite, 
 nothing can be without him, nothing without com- 
 munion with him. The stone I sit on is in communion 
 with God, — the pencil I write with, the gray field-fly 
 reposing in the sunshine at my foot. Let God withdraw 
 from the space occupied by the stone, the pencil, and fly, 
 they cease to be ; let him withdraw any quality of his na- 
 ture therefrom, and they must cease to be. All must par- 
 take of him, immanent in each and yet transcending all. 
 
 In this communion these and all things receive after 
 their kind, according to their degree of being and the 
 mode thereof. The mineral, the vegetable, and the 
 animal represent three modes of being, three degrees of 
 existence ; and hence so many modes and degrees of de- 
 pendence on God and of communion with him. They 
 are, they grow, they move and live in him, and by means 
 of him, and only so. But none of these are conscious 
 of this communion. In that threefold form of being 
 there is no consciousness of God ; they know nothing of 
 
OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 241 
 
 their dependence and their communion. The water- 
 fowl, in the long pilgrimage of many a thousand miles, 
 knows naught of Him who teaches its way 
 
 " Along that pathless coast, 
 The desert and illimitable air, 
 
 Lone wandering, but not lost." 
 
 To i\\Q dog, man stands for God or devil. The " half- 
 reasoning elephant " knows nobody and is conscious of 
 nothing higher than his keeper, who rides upon his neck, 
 pulling his ears with curved hook. All these are igno- 
 rant of God. 
 
 We come to man. Here he is, a body and a spirit. 
 The vegetable is matter, and something more ; the animal 
 is vegetable also, and something more; man is animal 
 likewise, and something more. So far as I am matter, 
 a vegetable, an animal, — and I am each in part, — I 
 have tliQ appropriate communion of the vegetable, the 
 mineral, the animal world. My body, this hand, for 
 example, is subject to statical, dynamical, and vital laws. 
 God is in this hand ; without his infinite existence, its 
 finite existence could not be. It is a hand only by its 
 unconscious communion with him. It wills nothing ; 
 it knows nothing; yet all day long, and all the night, 
 each monad thereof retains all the primary statical and 
 dynamical qualities of matter; continually the blood 
 runs through its arteries and veins, mysteriously forming 
 this complicated and amazing work. Should God with- 
 draw, it were a hand no more ; the blood would cease 
 to flow in vein and artery ; no monad would retain its 
 primary dynamical and static powers ; each atom would 
 cease to be. 
 
 All these things, — the stone, the pencil, and the fly, 
 and hand, are but passive and unconscious communicants 
 
 16 
 
242 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 of God ; they are bare pipes alone into which his omni- 
 potence flows. Yes, they are poor, brute things, wliich 
 know him not, nor cannot ever know. The stone and 
 pencil know not themselves ; this marvellous hand 
 knows naught ; and the fly never says, reasoning with 
 itself, " Lo, here am I, an individual and a conscious 
 thing, sucking the bosom of the world." It never sepa- 
 rates the Not-me and the Me. But I am conscious ; 1 
 know myself, and through myself know God. I am a 
 mind to think, a conscience to perceive the just and 
 right ; I am a heart to love, a soul to know of God. 
 For communion with my God I have other faculties 
 than what he gives to stone and pencil, hand and fly. 
 
 Put together all these things which are not body, and 
 call them spirit : this spirit as a whole is dependent on 
 God, for creation first, and for existence ever since ; it 
 lives only by communion with him. So far as I am a 
 body, I obviously depend on God, and am no more self- 
 created and self-sufficing than the pencil or the fly. So 
 far as I am a spirit, I depend equally on him. Should 
 God withdraw himself or any of his qualities from my 
 mind, I could not think ; from conscience, I should know 
 nothing of the right ; from the heart, there could be no 
 love ; from the soul, there could be no holiness, no faith 
 in him that made it. Thus the very existence of the 
 spirit is a dependence on God, and so far a communion 
 with him. 
 
 I cannot wholly separate my spirit from this com- 
 munion, for that would be destruction of the spirit, anni- 
 hilation, which is in no man's power. Only the Infinite 
 can create or annihilate an atom of matter or a monad of 
 spirit. There is a certain amount of communion of the 
 spirit with God, which is not conscious ; that lies quite 
 beyond my control. I " break into the bloody house of 
 
OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 243 
 
 life," and my spirit rushes out of tlie body ; and while 
 the static and dynamic laws of nature reassumc their 
 sway over my material husk, rechanging it to dust, still 
 I am, I depend, and so involuntarily commune with God. 
 Even the popular theology admits this truth, for it teaches 
 that the living wicked still commune with God through 
 pain and wandering and many a loss ; and that the 
 wicked dead commune with him through hell against 
 their will, as with their will the heavenly saints through 
 heavenly joy. 
 
 I cannot end this communion with my God ; but I 
 can increase it, greaten it largely, if I will. The more I 
 live my higher normal life, the more do I commune with 
 God. If I live only as mere body, I have only corporeal 
 and unconscious communion, as a mineral, a vegetable, 
 an animal, — no more. As children, we all begin as 
 low as this. The child unborn or newly born has no 
 self-consciousness, — knows nothing of its dependence, 
 its spontaneous communion with its God, whereon by 
 laws it depends for being and continuance. As we 
 outgrow our babyhood we are conscious of ourselves, — 
 distinguish the Me and the Not-me, and learn at length 
 of God.. 
 
 I live as spirit, I have spiritual communion with God. 
 Depend on him I must ; when I become self-conscious, 
 I feel that dependence, and know of this communion, 
 whereby I receive from him. 
 
 The quantity of my receipt is largely under my control. 
 As I will, I can have less or morCt I cultivate my 
 mind, greatening its quantity; by all its growth I have 
 so much more communion with my Father ; each truth 
 I get is a point common to liim and me. I cultivate my 
 conscience, increasing my moral sense ; each atom of 
 justice that I get is another point common with the 
 
244 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 Deity. So I cultivate and enlarge my affections ; each 
 grain of love — philanthropic or but friendly — is a new- 
 point common to me and God. Then, too, I cultivate 
 and magnify my soul, greatening my sense of holiness 
 by fidelity to all my nature ; and all that I thus acquire 
 is a new point I hold in common with the Infinite. I 
 earnestly desire his truth, his justice, his holiness and 
 love, and he communicates the more. Thus I have a 
 fourfold voluntary consciousness of God through my mind 
 and conscience, heart and soul ; know him as the abso- 
 lutely true and just and amiable and holy ; and thereby 
 have a fourfold voluntary communion with my God. He 
 gives of his infinite kind ; I receive in my finite mode, 
 taking according to my capacity to receive. 
 
 I may diminish the quantity of this voluntary com- 
 munion. For it is as possible to stint the spirit of its 
 God as to starve the body of its food ; only not to the 
 final degree, — to destruction of the spirit. This fact is 
 well known. You would not say that Judas had so much 
 and so complete communion with God as Jesus had. 
 And if Jesus had yielded to the temptation in the story, 
 all would declare that for the time he must diminish the 
 income of God upon his soul. For unfaithfulness in 
 any part lessens the quantity and mars the quality of 
 our communion with the Infinite. 
 
 In most various ways men may enlarge the power to 
 communicate with God ; complete and normal life is the 
 universal instrument thereof. Here is a geologist chip- 
 ping the stones, or studying the earthquake-waves; here 
 a metaphysician chipping the human mind, studying its 
 curious laws, — psychology, logic, ontology ; here is a 
 merchant, a mechanic, a poet, each diligently using his 
 intellectual gift ; and as they acquire the power to think, 
 by so much more do they hold intellectual communion 
 
OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 245 
 
 with the thought of God, — their finite mind communing 
 with the Infinite. My active power of understanding, 
 imagination, reason, is the measure of my intellectual 
 communion with him. 
 
 A man strives to know the everlasting right, to keep 
 a conscience void of all offence ; his inward eye is pure 
 and single ; all is true to the eternal right. His moral 
 powers continually expand, and by so much more does 
 he hold communion with his God. As far as it can 
 see, his finite conscience reads in the book the eter- 
 nal right of God. A man's power of conscience is the 
 measure of his moral communion with the Infinite. 
 
 I repress my animal self-love, I learn to be well- 
 tempered, disinterested, benevolent, friendly to a few, 
 and philanthropic unto all ; my heart is ten times 
 greater than ten years ago. To him that hath shall 
 be given according to the quantity and quality of what 
 he has, and I communicate with God so much the more. 
 The greatness of my heart is the measure of my 
 affectional communion with him. 
 
 I cultivate the religious faculty within me, keeping 
 my soul as active as my sense ; I quicken my conscious- 
 ness of the dear God ; I learn to reverence and trust 
 and love, seeking to keep his every rule of conduct for 
 my sense and soul ; I make my soul some ten times 
 larger than it was, and just as I enhance its quantity 
 and quality, so much the more do I religiously commune 
 with God. The power of my religious sense is the meas- 
 ure of my communion with my Father. I feed on this, 
 and all the more I take, the more I grow, and still the 
 more I need. 
 
 In all this there is nothing miraculous, nothing myste- 
 rious, nothing strange. From his mother's breast it is 
 the laro;est child that takes the most. 
 
246 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 At first a man's spiritual communion is very little, is 
 most exceeding small ; but in normal life it becomes 
 more and more continually. Some of you, grown men, 
 can doubtless remember your religious experience when 
 you were children. A very little manna was food enough 
 for your baby-soul. But your character grew more and 
 moi-e, your intellectual, moral, and religious life con- 
 tinually became greater and greater ; when you needed 
 much, you had no lack, when little, there seemed noth- 
 ing over. Demand and supply are still commensurate ; 
 nothing is more under our control than the amount of 
 this voluntary communion with God. 
 
 "Misfortunes, do the best we can, 
 Will come to great and small." 
 
 We cannot help that, but we can progressively enlarge 
 the amount of inspiration we receive from Heaven, spite 
 of the disappointments and sorrows of life, — nay, by 
 means thereof. 
 
 " Thy home is with the humble, Lord! 
 The simple are thy rest ; 
 Thy lodging is in childlike hearts, 
 Thou makest there thy nest." 
 
 Sometimes a man makes a conscious and serious effort 
 to receive and enlarge this communion. He looks over 
 his daily life ; his eye runs back to childhood, and takes 
 in all the main facts of his outward and inward history. 
 He sees much to mend, something also to approve. Here 
 he erred through passion, there sinned by ambition ; the 
 desire from within leagued with opportunity from with- 
 out, making temptation too strong for him. He is peni- 
 tent for the sin that was voluntary, or for the heedlessness 
 whereby he went astray, — sorrowful at his defeat. But 
 he remembers the manly part of him, and with new 
 
OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 247 
 
 resolution braces himself for new trials. He thinks of 
 the powers that lie unused in his own nature ; he looks 
 out at the examples of lofty men ; his soul is stirred to its 
 deeper depths. A new image of beauty rises living from 
 that troubled sea, and the ideal of human loveliness is 
 folded in his arms. " This fair ideal," says he, " shall 
 be mine. I also will be as whole and beautiful. Ah, 
 me ! how can I ever get such lovely life ? " Then he 
 thinks of the eternal wisdom, the eternal justice, the 
 eternal love, the eternal holiness, which surrounds him, 
 and now fills up his consciousness, waiting to bless. He 
 reaches out his arms towards that infinite Motherliness 
 which created him at first and preserved him ever since ; 
 which surpassed when he fell short, furnishing the great 
 plan of his life and the world's life, and is of all things 
 perfect cause and providence. Then, deeply roused in 
 every part, he communicates with the infinite mind and 
 conscience, heart and soul. He is made calmer by the 
 thought of the immense tranquillity which enfolds the 
 nervous world in its all-embracing, silent arms. He is 
 comforted by the motherly aspect of that infinite eye, 
 which never slumbers in its watch over the suffering of 
 each great and every little thing, converting it all to 
 good. He is elevated to confidence in himself, when he 
 feels so strong in the never-ending Love which makes, 
 sustains, and guides the world of matter, beasts, and 
 men ; makes from perfect motives, sustains with perfect 
 providence, and guides by perfect love to never-ending 
 bliss. Yea, the tranquillity, pity, love, of the infinite 
 Mother enters into his soul, and he is tranquil, soothed, 
 and strong, once more. He has held communion with 
 his God, and the Divine has given of the Deity's own 
 kind. His artistic fancy and his plastic hand have found 
 an Apollo in that pliant human block. 
 
248 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 That is a prayer. I paint the process out in words, — 
 they are not my prayer itself, only the cradle of my 
 blessed heavenly babe. I paint it not in words, — it is 
 still my prayer, not less the aspiration of my upward- 
 flying soul. I carry my child cradled only in my arms. 
 
 I have this experience in my common and daily life, 
 with no unusual grief to stir, or joy to quicken, or peni- 
 tence to sting me into deep emotion ; then my prayer is 
 only a border round my daily life, to keep the web from 
 ravelling away through constant use and wear ; or else 
 a fringe of heaven, whereby I beautify niy common con- 
 sciousness and daily work. 
 
 But there strikes for me a greater hour ; some new 
 joy binds me to this, or puts another generation into my 
 arms ; another heart sheds its life into my own ; some 
 great sorrow sends me in upon myself and God; out of 
 the flower of self-indulgence the bee of remorse stings 
 me into agony. And then I rise from out my common 
 consciousness, and take a higher, wider flight into the 
 vast paradise of God, and come back laden from the 
 new and honeyed fields wherein I have a newer and 
 fresher life and sweeter communings with loftier loveli- 
 ness than I had known before. Thus does the man 
 that will, hold commune with his Father, face to face, 
 and get great income from the Soul of all. 
 
 In all this there is nothing miraculous ; there has 
 been no change on God's part, but a great change on 
 man's. We have received what he is universally giving. 
 So in winter it is clear and cold, the winds are silent, 
 clouds gather over the city's face, and all is still. How 
 cold it is ! In a few hours the warmth steals out from 
 the central fire, — the earth's domestic, household hearth ; 
 the clouds confine it in those airy walls, that it flee not 
 off, nor spread to boundless space ; the frost becomes 
 
OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 249 
 
 the less intense, and men are gladdened with the milder 
 day. So, when magnetic bars in time have lost their 
 force, men hang them up in the line of the meridian, 
 and the great loadstone, the earth, from her own breast 
 restores their faded magnetism. Thus is it that human 
 souls communicate with the great central Fire and Light 
 of all the world, the Loadstone of the universe, and 
 thus recruit, grow young again, and so are blessed and 
 strong. 
 
 There may be a daily, conscious communion with God, 
 marked by reverence, gratitude, aspiration, trust, and 
 love ; it will not be the highest prayer. 
 
 " 'T is the most difficult of tasks to keep 
 Heights that tlie soul is competent to gain." 
 
 And the highest prayer is no common event in a man's 
 life. Ecstasy, rapture, great delight in prayer, or great 
 increase thereby, — they are the rarest things in the life 
 of any man. They should be rare. The tree blossoms 
 but once a year ; blooms for a week, and then fulfils and 
 matures its fruit in the long months of summer and of 
 harvest-time, — fruit for a season, and seed for many an 
 age. The sun is but a moment at meridian. Jesus had 
 his temptation but once, but once his agony, — the two 
 foci round which his beauteous ellipse was drawn. The 
 intensest consciousness of friendship does not last long. 
 They say men have but once the ecstasy of love ; human 
 nature could not bear such a continual strain. So all 
 the blossomings of rapture must needs be short. The 
 youthful ecstasy of love leads man and maid by moon- 
 light up the steep, sheer cliffs of life, "while all below 
 the world in mist lies lost ; " then, in the daylight of 
 marriage they walk serenely on, along the high table- 
 land of mortal life, and though continually greatening 
 
250 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 their connubial love and joy, it is without the early 
 ecstasy. 
 
 Men sometimes seek to have their daily prayer high 
 and ecstatic as their highest hour and walk with God ; 
 it cannot be, it should not be. Some shut themselves 
 up in convents to make religion their business, all 
 their life, — to make an act of prayer their only act. 
 They always fail ; their religion dwindles into ritual 
 service, and no more ; their act of prayer is only kneel- 
 ing with the knees and talking talk with windy tongues. 
 A Methodist, in great ecstasy of penitence or fear, be- 
 comes a member of a church. He all at once is filled 
 with rapturous delight; religious joy blossoms in his 
 face and glitters in his eye. How glad is the converted 
 man! 
 
 " Then when he kneels to meditate, 
 
 Sweet thoughts come o'er his soul, 
 Countless and bright and beautiful, 
 
 Beyond his own control." 
 
 But by and by his rapture dies away, and he is aston- 
 ished that he has no such ecstasy as before. He thinks 
 that he has " fallen from grace," has " grieved away " 
 the Holy Ghost, and tries by artificial excitement to 
 bring back what will not come without a new occa- 
 sion. Certain religious convictions once made my 
 heart spring in my bosom. No wit is not so. The fresh 
 leaping of the heart will only come from a fresh con- 
 quest of new truth. The old man loves his wife a 
 thousand times better than when, for the first time, 
 he kissed her gracious mouth ; but his heart burns no 
 longer as when he first saw his paradise in her recipro- 
 cating eye. The tree of religious consciousness is not 
 in perpetual blossom, — but now in leaf, now flower, 
 now fruit. 
 
OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 251 
 
 It is a common error to take no heed of this vohmtary 
 communion with God, to live intent on business or on 
 pleasure, careful, troubled about many things, and sel- 
 dom heed the one thing needed most ; to take that as it 
 comes. If all this mortal life turned out just as we 
 wished it, this error would be still more common ; only 
 a few faculties would get their appropriate discipline. 
 Men walking only on a smooth and level road use the 
 same muscles always, and march like mere machines. 
 But disappointment comes on us. Sorrow checks our 
 course, and we- are forced to think and feel, — must 
 march now up hill, and then down, shifting the strain 
 from part to part. In mere prosperity most men are 
 contented to enlarge their estate, their social rank, their 
 daily joy, and lift their children's faces to the vulgar 
 level of the vulgar flood whereon their fathers float. 
 There comes some new adventure to change and mend 
 all this. Now it is a great joy, success not looked for ; 
 some kindred soul is made one with us, and on the pin- 
 ions of instinctive connubial love we fly upwards and 
 enlarge our intercourse with God, — the object of passion 
 a communion angel to lead the human soul to a higher 
 seat in the universe and a more intimate acquaintance 
 with the Soul of all. Sometimes the birth of a new 
 immortal into our arms does this, and on the pinions of 
 instinctive affection men soar up to heaven and bring 
 back healing on their wings, — the object of affection 
 the communion angel to convey and welcome them to 
 heaven. 
 
 Sometimes it is none of these, but sorrow, grief, and 
 disappointment, that do this. I set my heart upon a 
 special thing ; it is not mine, or if I get the honor, the 
 money, the social rank I sought, it was one thing in my 
 eye, and another in my grasp. The one bird which I saw 
 
252 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 in the bush was worth ten like that I hold in my hand. 
 The things I loved are gone, — the maid, the lover, hus- 
 band, wife, or child ; the mortal is taken from longing 
 arms. The heart looks up for what can never die. Then 
 there is a marriage and a birth,, not into your arms, but 
 out of them and into heaven; and the sorrow and the loss 
 stir you to woo and win that object of the soul which 
 cannot pass away. Your sorrow takes you on her wings, 
 and you go up higher than before ; higher than your 
 success, higher than friendship's daily wing ascends ; 
 higher than your early love for married mate had ever 
 borne you up ; higher than the delight in your first-born 
 child or latest born. You have a new communion with 
 your Father, and get a great amount of inspiration from 
 him. 
 
 This is the obvious use of such vicissitudes, and seems 
 a portion of their final cause. In the artificial, ecclesi- 
 astical life of monasteries, men aim to reproduce this 
 part of nature's discipline, and so have times of watching, 
 fasting, bodily torture. But in common life such disci- 
 pline asks not our consent to come. 
 
 As I look over your faces and recall the personal his- 
 tory of those I know, I see how universal is this disap- 
 pointment. But it has not made you more melancholy 
 and less manly men ; life is not thereby the less a bless- 
 ing, and the more a load. With no sorrows you would 
 be more sorrowful. For all the sorrows that man has 
 faithfully contended with, he shall sail into port deeper 
 fraught with manliness. The wife and mother at thirty 
 years of age imprisoned in her chair, her hands all impo- 
 tent to wipe a tear away, does not suffer for nothing. 
 She has thereby been taught to taste the fruits of sweeter 
 communion with her God. These disappointments are 
 rounds in the ladder whereby we climb to heaven. 
 
OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 253 
 
 In cities there is less to help us communicate with God 
 than in the fields. Tliese walls of brick and stone, this 
 artificial ground we stand on, all reminds us of man ; 
 even the city horse is a machine. But in the country it 
 is God's ground beneath our feet ; God's hills on every 
 side ; his heaven, broad, blue, and boundless, overhead ; 
 and every bush and every tree, the morning song of 
 earliest birds, the chirp of insects at mid-day, the solemn 
 stillness of the night, and the mysterious hosts of stars 
 that all night long climb up the sky, or silently go down, 
 — these continually affect the soul, and cause us all to 
 feel the infinite presence, and draw near to that ; and 
 earth seems less to rest in space than in the love of God. 
 So, in cities, men build a great church, — at London, 
 Paris, Venice, or at Rome, — seeking to compensate for 
 lack of the natural admonitions of the woods and sky ; 
 and, to replace the music of the fields and nature's art, 
 enlist the painter's plastic hand, and the musician's 
 sweetest skill. 
 
 All that seek religion are in search for communion 
 with God. What is there between him and thee ? Noth- 
 ing but thyself. Each can have what inspiration each 
 will take. God is continually giving ; he will not with- 
 hold from you or me. As much ability as he has given, 
 as much as you have enlarged your talent by manly use, 
 so much will he fill with inspiration. I hold up my little 
 cup. He fills it full. If yours is greater, rejoice in that, 
 and bring it faithfully to the same urn. He who fills 
 the violet with beauty, and the sun with light, — who 
 gave to Homer his gift of song, such reason to Aristotle, 
 and to Jesus the manly gifts of justice and the womanly 
 grace of love and faith in him, — will not fail to inspire 
 also you and me. Were your little cup to become as 
 large as the Pacific sea, he still would fill it full. 
 
254 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 There is such a thing as having a godly heart, a desire 
 to conform to the ideal of man in all things, and to be 
 true to him that is " of all Creator and Defence." He 
 who has that is sure of conscious spiritual communion 
 with the Father ; sure to find his character enlarging in 
 every manly part ; sure to be supplied with unexpected 
 growth, and to hold more of the divine ; sure of the vol- 
 untary inspiration which is proper to the self-conscious 
 man. 
 
 There are continual means of help even for men who 
 dwell hedged up in towns. There are always living 
 voices which can speak to us. A good book helps one ; 
 this feeds his soul for a time on the fair words of David, 
 Paul, or John, Taylor, A Kcmpis, Wordsworth, Emerson ; 
 that, on the life of him who gives a name to Christendom. 
 He who has more than I will help me ; him that has 
 less, I shall help. Some men love certain solemn forms, 
 as aids to their devotion ; I hope that they are helped 
 thereby, — that baptism helps the sprinkler or the wet; 
 that circumcision aids the Jew, and sacrifice the heathen 
 who offers it. But these are not the communion, only 
 at most its vehicle. Communion is the meeting of the 
 finite and the infinite. 
 
 If a man have a truly pious soul, then his whole in- 
 ward, outward life, will at length become religion ; for 
 the disposition to be true to God's law will appear the 
 same in his business as in his Sunday vow. His whole 
 work will be an act of faith, he will grow greater, better, 
 and more refined by common life, and hold higher com- 
 munion with the Ever-present ; the Sun of righteousness 
 will beautify his every day. 
 
 God is partial to no one, foreign to none. Did he in- 
 spire the vast soul of Moses, — the tender hearts of lowly 
 saints in every clime and every age ? He waits to come 
 
OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 255 
 
 down on you and me, a continual Pentecost of inspira- 
 tion. Here in the crowded vulgar town, everywhere, is 
 a Patmos, a Sinai, a Gethsemane ; the infinite Mother 
 spreads wide her arms to fold us to that universal breast, 
 ready to inspire your soul. God's world of truth is ready 
 for your intellect ; his ocean of justice waits to flow in 
 upon your conscience ; and all his heaven of love broods 
 continually by night and day over each heart and every 
 soul. From that dear bounty shall we be fed. The 
 motherly love invites all, — as much communion as we 
 will, as much inspiration as our gifts and faithfulness 
 enable us to take. He is not far from any one of us. 
 Shall we not all go home, — the prodigal rejoice with 
 liim that never went astray ? Even the consciousness of 
 sin brings some into nearness with the Father, tired of 
 their draff and husks ; and then it is a blessed sin. Sor- 
 row also brings some, and then it is a blessed grief ; joy 
 yet others, and then it is blessed thrice. In this place is 
 one greater than the temple, greater than all temples ; 
 for the human nature of the lowliest child transcends 
 all human history. And we may live so that all our daily 
 life shall be a continual approach and mounting up 
 towards God. AVhat is the noblest life ? Nut that born 
 in the most famous place, acquiring wealth and fame and 
 rank and power over matter and over men ; but that 
 which, faithful to itself continually, holds communion 
 with the Infinite, and, thence receiving of God's kind, in 
 mortal life displays the truth, the justice, holiness, and 
 love of God. 
 
 *' 0;, blessed be our trials then, 
 This deep in which we lie ; 
 And blessed be all things that teach 
 God's dear infinity." 
 
256 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 THE RELATION" OF JESUS TO HIS AGE AND 
 THE AGES. 
 
 Have any of the rulers, or of the Pharisees, believed on him? — John vii. 48. 
 
 In all the world there is nothing so remarkable as a 
 great man ; nothing so rare, nothing which so well 
 repays study. Human nature is loyal at its heart, and 
 is, always and everywhere, looking for this its true 
 earthly sovereign. We sometimes say that our institu- 
 tions, here in America, do not require great men ; that 
 we get along better without than with such. But let a 
 real great man light on our quarter of the planet, let us 
 understand him, and straightway these democratic hearts 
 of ours burn with admiration and with love. We wave 
 in his words, like corn in the harvest wind. We should 
 rejoice to obey him, for he would speak what we need to 
 hear. Men are always half expecting such a man. But 
 when he comes, — the real great man that God has been 
 preparing, — men are disappointed; they do not recognize 
 him. He does not enter the city through the gates 
 which expectants had crowded. He is a fresh fact, brand 
 new, not exactly like any former fact ; therefore men 
 do not recognize nor acknowledge him. His language is 
 strange, and his form unusual. He looks revolutionary, 
 and pulls down ancient walls to build his own temple, 
 or at least splits old rocks asunder, and quarries anew 
 fresh granite and marble. 
 
 There are two classes of great men. Now and then 
 some arise whom all acknowledge to be great, soon as 
 
JESUS AND HIS AGE. 257 
 
 they appear. Such men have what is true in relation 
 to the wants and expectations of to-day. They say what 
 many men wished but had not words for ; they transLate 
 into thought what, as a dim sentiment, lay a burning in 
 many a heart, but could not get entirely written out into 
 consciousness. These men find a welcome. Nobody mis- 
 understands them. The world follows at their chariot- 
 wheels, and flings up its cap and shouts its huzzas ; for 
 the world is loyal, and follows its king when it sees and 
 knows him. The good part of the world follows the 
 highest man it comprehends ; the bad, whoever serves 
 its turn. 
 
 But there is another class of men so great that all 
 cannot see their greatness. They are in advance of 
 men's conjectures, higher than their dreams, too good 
 to be actual, think some. Therefore, say many, there 
 must be some mistake ; tliis man is not so great as he 
 seems ; nay, he is no great man at all, but an impostor. 
 These men have what is true, not merely in relation to 
 the wants and expectations of men here and to-day, but 
 what is true in relation to the universe, to eternity, to 
 God. They do not speak what you and I have been 
 trying to say, and cannot ; but what we shall one day, 
 years hence, wish to say, after we have improved and 
 grown up to man's estate. 
 
 Now, it seems to me the men of this latter class, when 
 they come, can never meet the approbation of the censors 
 and guides of public opinion. Such as wished for a new 
 great man had a superstition of the last one in their 
 minds. They expected the new to be just like the old, 
 but he is altogether unlike. Nature is rich, but not 
 rich enough to waste anything. So there are never two 
 great men very strongly similar. Nay, this new great 
 man, perhaps, begins by destroying much that the old 
 
 17 
 
258 VIEWS OF religion: 
 
 one built up with tears and prayers. He shows, at first, 
 the limitations and defects of the former great man ; 
 calls in question his authority. He refuses all masters ; 
 bows not to tradition ; and, with seeming irreverence, 
 laughs in the face of the popular idols. How will the 
 "respectable men," — the men of a few good rules and 
 those derived from their fathers, " the best of men and 
 the wisest," — how will they regard this new great man ? 
 They will see nothing remarkable in him except that he is 
 fluent and superficial, dangerous and revolutionary. He 
 disturbs their notions of order ; he shows that the institu- 
 tions of society are not perfect ; that their imperfections 
 are not of granite or marble, but only of words written 
 on soft wax, which may be erased and others written 
 thereon anew. He shows that such imperfect institu- 
 tions are less than one great man. The guides and 
 censors of public opinion vrill not honor such a man, 
 they will hate him. Why not ? Some others, not half 
 so well bred nor well furnished with precedents, wel- 
 come the new great man, — welcome his ideas, welcome 
 his person. They say, " Behold a prophet ! " 
 
 When Jesus, the son of Mary, — a poor woman, wife 
 of Joseph the carpenter, in the little town of Nazareth, 
 — when he " began to be about thirty years old," and 
 began also to open his mouth in the synagogues and 
 the highways, nobody thought him a great man at all, 
 as it seems. " Who are you ? " said the guardians of 
 public opinion. He found men expecting a great man. 
 This, it seems, was the common opinion, that a great 
 man was to arise, and save the Church, and save the 
 State. They looked back to Moses, a divine man of 
 antiquity, whose great life had passed into the world, 
 and to whom men had done honor in various ways, — 
 amongst others, by telling all sorts of wonders he wrought, 
 
JESUS AND HIS AGE. 259 
 
 and declaring that none could be so great again ; none get 
 so near to God. They looked back also to the prophets, 
 a long line of divine men, so they reckoned, but less 
 than the awful Moses ; liis stature was far above the 
 nation, who hid themselves in his shadow. Now, the 
 well-instructed children of Abraham thought the next 
 great man must be only a copy of the last, repeat his 
 ideas, and work in the old fashion. Sick men like to be 
 healed by the medicine which helped them the last time ; 
 at least, by the customary drugs which are popular. 
 
 In Judea, there were three parties of men, distinctly 
 marked. There were the Conservatives — they repre- 
 sented the church, tradition, ecclesiastical or theocratical 
 authority. They adhered to the words of the old books, 
 the forms of the old rites, the tradition of the elders. 
 "Nobody but a 3g\^ can be saved," said they ; "he only 
 by circumcision, and the keeping of the old formal law ; 
 God likes that, he accepts nothing else." These were 
 the Pharisees, with their servants the Scribes. Of this 
 class were the priests and the Levites in the main, the 
 national party, the native Hebrew party of that time. 
 They had tradition, Moses, and the prophets ; they be- 
 lieved in tradition, Moses, and the prophets, at least in 
 public ; what they believed in private God knew, and so 
 did they. I know nothing of that. 
 
 Then there was the indifferent party, — the Sadducees, 
 the State. They had wealth, and they believed in it, 
 both in public and private too. They had a more gen- 
 erous and extensive cultivation than the Pharisees. 
 They had intercourse with foreigners, and understood 
 the writers of Ionia and Athens which the Pharisee held 
 in abhorrence. These were sleek, respectable men, who, 
 in part, disbelieved the Jewish theology. It is no very 
 great merit to disbelieve even in the devil, unless you 
 
260 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 have a positive faith in God to take up your affections. 
 The Sadducee believed neither in angel nor resurrec- 
 tion, — not at all in the immortality of the soul. He 
 believed in the State, in the laws, the constables, the 
 prisons, and the axe. In religious matters it seems 
 the Pharisee had a positive belief, only it was a positive 
 belief in a great mistake. In religious matters the 
 Sadducee had no positive belief at all, — not even in an 
 error ; at least, some think so. His distinctive affirma- 
 tion was but a denial. He believed what he saw with 
 his eyes, touched with his fingers, tasted with his tongue. 
 He never saw, felt, nor tasted immortal life ; he had no 
 belief therein. There was once a heathen Sadducee who 
 said, " My right arm is my God ! " 
 
 There was likewise a party of come-outers. They 
 despaired of the State, and the Church too, and turned 
 off into the wilderness, " where the wild asses quench 
 their thirst," building up their organizations free, as 
 they hoped, from all ancient tyrannies. The Bible says 
 nothing directly of these men in its canonical books. It 
 is a curious omission ; but two Jews, each acquainted 
 with foreign writers, Josephus and Philo, give an account 
 of these. These were the Essenes, an ascetic sect, hostile 
 to marriage, at least many of them, who lived in a sort 
 of association by themselves, and had all things in 
 common. 
 
 The Pharisees and the Sadducees had no great living 
 and ruling ideas, — none I mean which represented man, 
 his hopes, wishes, affections, his aspirations, and power 
 of progress. That is no very rare case, perhaps you 
 will say, for a party in the Church or the State to have 
 no such ideas, but they had not even a plausible sub- 
 stitute for such ideas. They seemed to have no faith in 
 man, — in his divine nature, his power of improvement. 
 
JESUS AND HIS AGE. 261 
 
 The Essenes had ideas ; had a positive belief ; had faith 
 ill man ; but it was weakened in a great measure l)y their 
 machinery. They, like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, 
 were imprisoned in their organization, and probably saw 
 no good out of their own party lines. 
 
 It is a plain thing that no one of these three parties 
 would accept, acknowledge, or even perceive the great- 
 ness of Jesus of Nazareth. His ideas were not their 
 notions. He was not the man they were looking for ; 
 not at all the Messiah, the anointed one of God, which 
 they wanted. The Sadducee expected no new great man 
 unless it was a Roman quJEstor or procurator ; the Phar- 
 isees looked for a Pharisee stricter than Gamaliel ; the 
 Essenes for an Ascetic. It is so now. Some seem to 
 think that if Jesus were to come back to the earth, he 
 would preach Unitarian sermons, from a text out of the 
 Bible, and prove his divine mission and the everlasting 
 truths, — the truths of necessity that he taught, — in the 
 Unitarian way, by telling of the miracles he wrought 
 eighteen hundred years ago ; that he would prove the 
 immortality of the soul by the fact of his own corporeal 
 resurrection. Others seem to think that he would de- 
 liver homilies of a severer character ; would rate men 
 roundly about total depravity, and tell of unconditional 
 election, salvation without works, and imputed right- 
 eousness, and talk of hell till the women and children 
 fainted, and the knees of men smote together for trem- 
 bling. Perhaps both would be mistaken. 
 
 So it was then. All these three classes of men, im- 
 prisoned in their prejudices and superstitions were hos- 
 tile. The Pharisees said, " We know that God spake 
 unto Moses ; but as for this fellow, we know not whence 
 he is. He blasphemeth Moses and the prophets ; yea, 
 he hath a devil, and is mad, why hear him ? " The Sad- 
 
262 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 ducees complained that " he stirred up the people ; " so 
 he did. The Essenes, no doubt, would have it that he 
 was "a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a friend of 
 publicans and sinners." Tried by these three standards, 
 the judgment was true ; what could he do to please 
 these three parties ? Nothing, — nothing that he would 
 do. So they hated him ; all hated him, and sought to 
 destroy him. The cause is plain. He was so deep they 
 could not see his profoundness ; too high for their com- 
 prehension ; too far before them for their sympathy. 
 He was not the great man of the day. He found all 
 organizations against him, — Church and State. Even 
 John the Baptist, a real prophet, but not the prophet, 
 doubted if Jesus was the one to be followed. If Jesus 
 had spoken for the Pharisees, they would have accepted 
 his speech and the speaker too. Had he favored the 
 Sadducees, he had been a great man in their camp, and 
 Herod would gladly have poured wine for the eloquent 
 Galilean, and have satisfied the carpenter's son with 
 purple and fine linen. Had he praised the Essenes, 
 uttering their Shibboleth, they also would have paid 
 him his price, have made him the head of their associa- 
 tion perhaps, — at least, have honored him in their way. 
 He spoke for none of these. Why should they honor or 
 even tolerate him ? It were strange had they done so. 
 Was it through any fault or deficiency of Jesus that 
 these men refused him ? Quite the reverse. The rain 
 falls and the sun shines on the evil and the good ; the 
 work of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness is before 
 all men, revealing the invisible things ; yet the fool hath 
 said, ay, said in his heart, " There is no God ! " 
 
 Jesus spoke not for the prejudices of such, and there- 
 fore they rejected him. But as he spoke truths for man, 
 truths from God, truths adapted to man's condition 
 
JESUS AND HIS AGE. 263 
 
 there, to man's condition everywhere and always, when 
 the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes went away, 
 their lips curling with scorn, when they gnashed on one 
 another with their teeth, there were noble men and 
 humble women who had long awaited the consolation 
 of Israel, and they heard him, heard him gladly. Yes, 
 they left all to follow him. Him ? no, it was not him 
 they followed ; it w^as God in him they obeyed, the God 
 of truth, the God of love. 
 
 There were men not counted in the organized sects, 
 — men weary of absurdities, thirsting for the truth, sick, 
 they knew not why nor of what, yet none the less sick, 
 and waiting for the angel who should heal them, though 
 by troubled waters and remedies unknown. These men 
 had not the prejudices of a straitly organized and nar- 
 row sect. Perhaps they had not its knowledge, or its 
 good manners. They were " unlearned and ignorant 
 men," those early followers of Christ. Nay, Jesus him- 
 self had no extraordinary culture, as the world judges 
 of such things. His townsmen wondered, on a famous 
 occasion, how he had learned to read. He knew little of 
 theologies, it would seem ; the better for him, perhaps. 
 No doubt the better for us that he insisted on none. He 
 knew they were not religion. The men of Galilee did 
 not need theology. The youngest scribe in the hum- 
 blest theological school at Jerusalem, if such a thing 
 were in those days, could have furnished theology enough 
 to believe in a lifetime. They did need religion ; they 
 did see it as Jesus unfolded its loveliness ; they did wel- 
 come it when they saw ; welcome it in their hearts. 
 
 If I were a poet, as some are born, and skilled to paint 
 with words what shall stand out as real, to live before 
 the eye, and then dwell in the affectionate memory for- 
 ever, I would tell of the audience which heard the Sermon 
 
264 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 on the Mount, which hstened to the parables, the rebukes, 
 the beautiful beatitudes. They were plain men, and 
 humble women ; many of them foolish like you and me ; 
 ^some of them sinners. But they all had hearts, had 
 souls, — all of them, — hearts made to love, souls expec- 
 tant of truth. When he spoke, some said, no doubt, 
 " That is a new thing, tliat the true worshipper shall 
 worship in spirit and iri truth, as well here as in Jerusa- 
 lem, now as well as any time ; that also is a hard saying, 
 Love your enemies ; forgive them, though seventy times 
 seven times they smite and offend you, — that notion that 
 the law and the prophets are contained, all that is essen- 
 tially religious thereof, in one precept. Love men as your- 
 self, and God with all your might. This differs a good 
 deal from the Pharisaic orthodoxy of the synagogue. 
 That is a bold thing, presumptuous and revolutionary, to 
 say, — I am greater than the temple, wiser than Solomon, 
 a better symbol of God than both." But there Avas 
 something deeper than Jewish orthodoxy in their heart, 
 something that Jewish orthodoxy could not satisfy; and 
 what was yet more troublesome to ecclesiastical guides, 
 something that Jewish orthodoxy could not keep down, 
 nor even cover up. Sinners were converted at his re- 
 proof. They felt he rebuked whom he loved. Yet his 
 pictures of sin, and sinners too, were anything but flat- 
 tering. Tliere was small comfort in them. Still it was 
 not the publicans and harlots who laid their hands on 
 the place where their hearts should be, saying, " You 
 hurt our feelings," and " We can't bear you ! " Nay, 
 they pondered his words, repenting in tears. He showed 
 them their sin ; its cause, its consequence, its cure. To 
 them he came as a Saviour, and they said, " Thou art 
 well-come," — those penitent Magdalenes weeping at his 
 feet. 
 
JESUS AND HIS AGE. 265 
 
 It \roiild be curious could we know the mingled emo- 
 tions that swayed the crowd which rolled up around 
 Jesus, following him, as the tides obey the moon, where- 
 ever he went ; curious to see how faces looked doubtful 
 at first as he began to speak, at Tabor or Gennesareth, 
 Capernaum or Gischala, then how the countenance of 
 some lowered and grew black with thunder suppressed 
 but cherished, while the face of others shone as a branch 
 of stars seen through some disparted cloud in a night of 
 fitful storms, a moment seen and then withdrawn. It 
 were curious to see how gradually many discordant feel- 
 ings, passion, prejudice, and pride, were hushed before 
 the tide of melodious religion he poured out around him, 
 baptizing anew saint and sinner, and old and young, 
 into one brotherhood of a common soul, into one immor- 
 tal service of the universal God ; to see how this young 
 Hebrew maid, deep-hearted, sensitive, enthusiastic, self- 
 renouncing, intuitive of heavenly truth, rich as a young 
 vine, with clustei'ing affections just purpling into ripe- 
 ness, — how she seized, first and all at once, the fair 
 ideal, and with generous bosom confidingly embraced it 
 too ; how that old man, gray-bearded, with baldness on 
 his head, full of precepts and precedents, the lore of his 
 fathers, the experience of a hard life, logical, slow, cal- 
 culating, distrustful, remembering much and fearing 
 much, but hoping a little, confiding only in the fixed, 
 his reverence for the old deepening as he himself be- 
 came of less use, — to see how he received the glad in- 
 spirations of the joiner's son, and wondering felt his 
 youth steal slowly back upon his heart, reviving aspira- 
 tions long ago forgot, and then the crimson tide of early 
 hope come gushing, tingling on through every limb ; to 
 see how the young man halting between principle and 
 passion, not yet petrified into worldliness, but struggling, 
 
266 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 uncertain, half reluctant, with those two serpents. Cus- 
 tom and Desire, that beautifully twined about his arms 
 and breast and neck their wormy folds, concealing under- 
 neath their burnished scales the dragon's awful strength, 
 the viper's poison fang, — the poor youth caressing their 
 snaky crests, and toying with their tongues of flame, — 
 to see how he slowly, reluctantly, amid great question- 
 ings of heart, drank in the words of truth, and then, 
 obedient to the angel in his heart, shook off, as ropes of 
 sand, that hideous coil, and trod the serpents underneath 
 his feet. All this, it were curious, ay, instructive too, 
 could we but see. 
 
 They heard him with welcome various as their life. 
 The old men said, " It is Moses or Elias ; it is Jeremiah, 
 one of the old prophets arisen from the dead, for God 
 makes none such, now-a-days, in the sterile dotage of 
 mankind." The young men and maidens doubtless it 
 was that said, "This is the Christ; the desire of the 
 nations ; the hope of the world, the great new prophet ; 
 the Son of David ; the Son of man ; yes, the son of God. 
 He shall be our king." Human nature is loyal, and 
 follows its king soon as it knows him. Poor lost sheep ! 
 the children of men look always for their guide, though 
 so often they look in vain. 
 
 How he spoke, words deep and piercing ; rebukes for 
 the wicked, doubly rebuking, because felt to have come 
 out from a great, deep, loving heart. His first word 
 was, perhaps, " Repent," but with the assurance that the 
 kingdom of God was here and now, within reach of all. 
 How his doctrines, those great truths of nature, com- 
 mended themselves to the heart of each, of all simple- 
 souled men looking for the truth ! He spoke out of his 
 experience ; of course into theirs. He spoke great doc- 
 trines, truths vast as the soul, eternal as God, winged 
 
JESUS AND HIS AGE. 267 
 
 with beauty from the loveliness of his own life. Had 
 he spoken for the Jews alone, his words had perished 
 with that people ; for that time barely, the echo of his 
 name had died away in his native hamlet ; for the Phari- 
 sees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, you and I had heard 
 of him but as a Rabbi, — nay, had never been blest by 
 him at all. Words for a nation, an age, a sect, are of 
 use in their place, yet they soon come to nought. But 
 as he jpoke for etei-nity, his truths ride on the wings of 
 time ; as he spoke for man, they are welcome, beautiful, 
 and blessing, wherever man is found, and so must be 
 till man and time shall cease. 
 
 He looked not back, as the Pharisee, save for illustra- 
 tions and examples. He looked forward for his direction. 
 He looked around for his work. There it lay, the harvest 
 plenteous, the laborers few. It is always so. He looked 
 not to men for his idea, his word to speak ; as little for 
 their applause. He looked in to God, for guidance, wis- 
 dom, strength ; and as water in the wilderness, at the 
 stroke of Moses, in the Hebrew legend, so inspiration 
 came at his call, — a mighty stream of truth for the 
 nation, faint, feeble, afraid, and wandering for the 
 promised land ; drink for the thirsty, and cleansing for 
 the unclean. 
 
 But he met opposition, — oh yes, enough of it. How 
 could it be otherwise ? It must be so. The very soul 
 of peace, he brought a sword. His word was a consum- 
 ing fire. The Pharisees wanted to be applauded, com- 
 mended ; to have their sect, their plans, their traditions 
 praised and flattered. His word to them was " Repent ; " 
 of them, to the people, " Such righteousness admits no 
 man to the kingdom of heaven ; they are a deceitful 
 prophecy, blind guides, hypocrites ; not sons of Abraham, 
 but children of the devil." They could not bear him. 
 
268 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 No wonder at it ; he was the aggressor, — had carried 
 the war into the very heart of their system. They 
 turned out of their company a man whose blindness he 
 healed, because he confessed that fact. They made a 
 law that all who believed on him should also be cast 
 out. Well they might hate him, those old Pharisees. 
 His existence was their reproach ; his preaching their 
 trial ; his life with its outward goodness, his piety within, 
 was their condemnation. The man was their ruin, and 
 they knew it. The cunning can see their own danger, 
 but it is only men wise in mind, or men simple of heart, 
 that can see their real, permanent safety and defence, 
 
 — never the cunning, neither then, neither now. 
 Jesus looked to God for his truth, his great doctrines, 
 
 — not his own, private, personal, depending on his idio- 
 syncrasies, and therefore only subjectively true, but 
 God's, universal, everlasting, the absolute religion. I do 
 not know that he did not teach some errors also, along 
 with it. I care not if he did. It is by his truths that I 
 know him, the absolute religion he taught and lived, — by 
 his highest sentiments that he is to be appreciated. He 
 had faith in God, and obeyed God ; hence his inspira- 
 tion, great in proportion to the greater endowment, 
 moral and religious, which God gave him, great like- 
 wise in proportion to his perfect obedience. He had 
 faith in man none the less. Who ever yet had faith in 
 God that had none in man ? I know not. Surely no 
 inspired prophet. As Jesus had faith in man, so he 
 spoke to men. Never yet, in the wide world, did a 
 prophet arise, appealing with a noble heart and a noble 
 life to the soul of goodness in man, but that soul an- 
 swered to the call. It was so most eminently with Jesus. 
 The Scribes and Pharisees could not understand by what 
 authority he taught. Poor Pharisees ! how could they ? 
 
JESUS AND HIS AGE. 269 
 
 His ph3'lacteries were no broader than those of another 
 man ; nay, perhaps he had no phylacteries at all, nor 
 even a broad-bordered garment. Men did not salute 
 him in the market-place, sandals in hand, with their 
 " Rabbi ! Rabbi ! " Could such men understand by what 
 authority he taught ? no more than they dared answer 
 his questions. They that knew him felt he had author- // 
 ity quite other than that claimed by the Scribes ; the 
 authority of true words, the authority of a noble life ; 
 yes, authority which God gives a great moral and reli- 
 gious man. God delegates authority to men just in ' 
 proportion to their power of truth, and their power of 
 goodness, — to their being and their life. So God spoke 
 in Jesus, as he taught the perfect religion, anticipated, 
 developed, but never yet transcended. 
 
 This, then, was the relation of Jesus to his age ; the 
 sectarians cursed him, cursed him by their gods, rejected 
 him, abused him, persecuted him, sought his life. Yes, 
 they condemned him in the name of God. All evil, says 
 the proverb, begins in that name ; much continues to 
 claim it. The religionists, the sects, the sectarian 
 leaders, rejected him, condemned and slew him at the 
 last, hanging his body on a tree. Poor priests of the ^ 
 people, they hoped thereby to stifle that awful soul ! 
 They only stilled the body ; that soul spoke with a thou- 
 sand tongues. So, in the times of old, when the Satur- 
 nian day began to dawn, it might be fabled that the old 
 Titanic race, lovers of darkness and haters of the light, 
 essayed to bar the rising morning from the world, and 
 so heaped Pelion upon Ossa, and Olympus on Pclion ; 
 but first the day sent up his crimson flush upon the 
 cloud, and then his saffron tinge, and next the sun came 
 peering o'er the loftiest height, magnificently fair, — and 
 down the mountain's slanting ridge poured the intolerable 
 
270 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 day ; meanwhile those triple hills, laboriously piled, came 
 toppling, tumbling down, with lumbering crush, and 
 underneath their ruin hid the helpless giants' grave. 
 So was it with men who sat in Moses' seat. But this 
 people, that " knew not the law," and were counted 
 therefore accursed, they welcomed Jesus as they never 
 welcomed the Pharisee, the Sadducee, or the Scribe. 
 Ay, hence were their tears. The hierarchical fire burnt 
 not so bright contrasted with the sun. That people had 
 a Simon Peter, a James, and a John, men not free from 
 faults, no doubt, the record shows it, but with hearts in 
 their bosoms, which could be kindled, and then could 
 light other hearts. Better still, there were Marthas 
 and Marys among that people who " knew not the law " 
 and were cursed. They were the mothers of many a 
 church. 
 
 The character of Jesus has not changed, his doctrines 
 are still the same ; but what a change in his relation to 
 the age, nay to the ages. The stone that the builders re- 
 jected is indeed become the head of the corner, and its 
 foundation too. He is worshipped as a God. That is 
 the rank assigned him by all but a fraction of the Chris- 
 tian world. It is no wonder. Good men worship the 
 best thing they know, and call it God. What was taught 
 to the mass of men, in those days, better than the char- 
 acter of Christ ? Should they rather worship the Grecian 
 Jove, or the Jehovah of the Jews ? To me it seems the 
 moral attainment of Jesus was above the hierarchical 
 conception of God, as taught at Athens, Rome, Jerusalem. 
 Jesus was the prince of peace, the king of truth, praying 
 for his enemies, " Father, forgive them, for they know 
 not what they do ! " The Jehovah of the Old Testament 
 was awful and stern, a man of war, hating the wicked. 
 The sacerdotal conception of God at Rome and Athens 
 
JESUS AND HIS AGE. 271 
 
 was lower yet. No wonder, then, that men soon learned 
 to honor Jesus as a God, and then as God himself. Apos- 
 tolical and other legends tell of his divine birth, his won- 
 drous poAver tliat healed the sick, palsied and crippled, 
 deaf and dumb and blind, created bread, turned water into 
 wine, and bid obedient devils come and go, — a power 
 that raised the dead. They tell that nature felt with 
 him, and at his death the strongly sympathizing sun 
 paused at high noon, and for three hours withheld the 
 day ; that rocks were rent, and opening graves gave up 
 their sainted dead, who trod once more the streets of 
 Zion,the first-fruits of them that slept ; they tell too how 
 disappointed Death gave back his prey, and spirit-like, 
 Jesus restored, in flesh and shape the same, passed 
 through the doors shut up, and in a bodily form was 
 taken up to heaven before the face of men ! Believe 
 men of these things as they will. To me they are not 
 truth and fact, but mythic symbols and poetry, — the 
 psalm of praise with which the world's rude heart extols 
 and magnifies its king. It is for his truth and his life, l^ 
 his wisdom, goodness, piety, that he is honored in my 
 heart ; yes, in the world's heart. It is for this that in 
 his name churches are built, and prayers are prayed ; for 
 this that the best things we know we honor Avith liis 
 name. 
 
 He is the greatest person of the ages ; the proudest 
 achievement of the human race. He taught the absolute 
 religion, love to God and man. That God has yet greater 
 men in store I doubt not ; to say this is not to detract 
 from the majestic character of Christ, but to affirm the 
 omnipotence of God. When they come, the old contest 
 will be renewed, — the living prophet stoned, the dead one 
 worshipped. Be that as it may, there are duties he 
 teaches us far different from those most commonly 
 
272 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 taught. He was the greatest fact in the whole history 
 of man. Had he conformed to what was told him of 
 men, had he counselled only with flesh and blood, he 
 had been nothing but a poor Jew ; the world had lost 
 that rich endowment of religious genius, that richest 
 treasure of religious life, the glad tidings of the one 
 religion, absolute and true. What if he had said, as 
 others, " None can be greater than Moses, none so 
 great " ? He had been a dwarf ; the spirit of God had 
 faded from his soul ! But he conferred with God, not 
 men ; took counsel of his hopes, not his fears. Working 
 for men, with men, by men, trusting in God, and pure 
 as truth, he was not scared at the little din of Church or 
 State, and trembled not, though Pilate and Herod were 
 made friends only to crucify him that was a born king of 
 the world. Methinks I hear that lofty spirit say to you 
 or me. Poor brother, fear not, nor despair. The good- 
 ness actual in me is possible for all. God is near thee 
 now as then to me, — rich as ever in truth, as able to 
 create, as willing to inspire. Daily and nightly he 
 showers down his infinitude of light. Open thine eyes 
 to see, thy heart to live. Lo, God is here. 
 
THOUGHTS ABOUT JESUS. 273 
 
 THOUGHTS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 
 
 It is plain that Jesus was a man of large intellectual 
 character. He had an uncommon understanding, was 
 clear in his sight, shrewd in his judgment, extraordinarily- 
 subtle in his arguments, coming to the point with the 
 quickness of lightning. What an eye he had for the 
 beauty of nature, — the little things under his feet, 
 the great things all about him ; for cities set on a hill, 
 and for the heavens over his head ! What an eye for the- 
 beauty of the relations of things ! He saw a meaning in 
 the salt without savor, with which men were mending 
 the streets, not fit even for the dunghill, — and what a 
 lesson he drew from it ! He saw the beauty of relation 
 in the lilies, clad by God in more beauty than kingly 
 Solomon ; in the ravens, who gather not into storehouses 
 and barns, and yet the Great Father feeds and shelters 
 them under his own godly wings. He had reason also, 
 which saw intuitively the great universal law of man's 
 nature. And as the result of this three-fold intellect, he 
 had an eloquence which held crowds of men about him 
 till they forgot hunger, thirst, and weariness, even the 
 drawing on of night. He had a power of reasoning- 
 which sent away the scholarly Pharisee, who had jour- 
 neyed all the way from Jerusalem to confute this peasant. 
 His eloquence was quite peculiar. His mind full of great- 
 ideas, his heart aflame with noble sentiments, he knew - 
 how to put these into the homeliest words, and yet give 
 
 18 
 
274 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 them the most lovely and attractive shape. In that 
 common speech, religion was the text, his commentary 
 was the salt without savor, the raven flying over his 
 head, the lilies of the valley, the grass, dried in the sun 
 yesterday, to-day heating the earthen vessel whereon a 
 poor woman clapped her unbaked bread ; it was the 
 tower of Siloam, which fell on men not worse than the 
 survivors ; it was the temple, the great idol of the nation, 
 of which should be left not one stone upon another ; all 
 these were his commentaries. It was no vulgar mind 
 that could weave such things into common speech in a 
 moment, and make the heavens come down and the earth 
 come up, — with marvellous rapidity and instinctive skill 
 seizing and using every implement that might serve as a 
 medium between his heavenly thought and the under- 
 standings of common men. When he spoke, some said 
 that it thundered ; some said that an angel spoke ; and 
 some said it was the eloquence of genius. Studying in 
 the schools makes nothing like it. 
 . Then there is this peculiarity about his intellect : In 
 reading the first three Gospels, you find in him a mind 
 which does not so much generalize by a copious induc- 
 tion from a great many facts ; but it sees the law, as a 
 woman sees it, from a very few principles. And so there 
 •is less ot philosophical talent than of philosophical genius. 
 You are surprised more at the nice quality of this intel- 
 lect than at its great quantity. On this account he an- 
 ticipated experience. There is not a single word in the 
 three Gospels which betrays the youth of Jesus. You 
 would all say, Behold a full-grown man long familiar 
 • with the ways of men. You would never think he was a 
 •young man, scarce thirty years old. But I do not say 
 you find in Jesus at thirty the immense philosophical 
 reason which marks Socrates, Aristotle, and Bacon at 
 
THOUGHTS ABOUT JESUS. 275 
 
 sixty or seventy, in the maturity of their wisdom; nor 
 would I say that you find such monuments of imagina- 
 tion as you meet at every step in Milton, Shakespeare, 
 or Dante ; nor that you find such a vast and comprehen- 
 sive understanding as you meet in the practical managers 
 of States and empires. The thing would not be possible. 
 In the Old Testament you find the writings of some men- 
 of distinguished ability, — the author of the Book of 
 Job, of various parts of the Book of Proverbs, of Eccle- 
 siasticus, of Ecclesiastes, of the wisdom of Solomon, of 
 the prophecy of Isaiah. They were men of very large • 
 intellect, old, familiar with men, had seen peace and in- • 
 stituted war, knew the ways of the market-house and of 
 kings' courts. In comparison, the words of Jesus, a- 
 Nazarene peasant, only thirty years old, are fully up to 
 the highest level of their writings. You never feel that 
 he was inferior to them in intellectual grasp. 
 
 Now, the common idea that Jesus received this intel- 
 lectual power from miraculous inspiration destroys all 
 the individuality of his character; for it makes him 
 God, or else a mere pipe on which God plays. In either 
 case there is nothing human about it, and it is of no use 
 to us. 
 
 But his greater greatness came not from the intellect, • 
 but from a higher source. It is eminence of conscience, •> 
 heart, and soul ; in one word, it is religious eminence. 
 Here are the proofs of it : He makes religion consist in • 
 piety and morality, not in belief in forms, not in outside 
 devotion. Ho knew it is a very easy thing to be devout • 
 after the common fashion, — as easy to make prayers 
 as to fill your hand with dust from the street. Was it a 
 little thing in Jesus to declare that religion consisted in 
 piety and morality ? All the world over, the priests " 
 made religion to consist in forms, rituals, mutilating the 
 
276 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 body and spirit, in attending to artificial ordinances. 
 •Jesus summed up all the law and the prophets in love 
 to God and love to man. Men worshipped the Sabbath ; 
 he religiously broke it. They thought God loved only 
 the Jew, and above all some Jewish priest, with bells on 
 
 ■ his garments ; but he set up a travelling Samaritan as 
 the religious man. What a gnashing of teeth there was 
 in the Jerusalem Association when he said the Samaritan 
 was a great man ! Doubtless it was a story founded on 
 fact, — some good-natured Samaritan, jogging on his 
 donkey from Jerusalem to Jericho, seeing the poor man, 
 
 ■ and giving him his sympathy and aid. It took a man of 
 great religious genius to say that two thousand years 
 ago ; it is a rare thing to comprehend it to-day. See the 
 same thing in his love of the wicked. He went to cure 
 the sick ; not to cure the righteous, and save the well. 
 
 ■His sympathy was with the oppressed and trodden down, 
 and very practical sympathy it was too. The finest pict- 
 ure of an ideal gentleman which antiquity has left is 
 contained in the Book of Job. But Job's ideal gentle- 
 man is very proud, overbearing to men beneath him. 
 " Their fathers," said he, " I would have disdained to 
 set with the dogs of my flock." The Book of Job is one 
 of the best in the Old Testament, — full of poetry, which 
 is a small thing, and full of piety and morality, which 
 is a great thing. This is the limitation of that ideal 
 gentleman. Now Jesus goes out to that despised class 
 of men, and says he came to seek and save them. Was 
 ■that a small thing? Even to-day, in democratic Boston, 
 to be a minister to the poor is a reproach. He is es- 
 teemed the most fortunate minister who is ministered 
 unto, and not who ministers. The man who in Boston 
 gathers crowds of men from the common walks of life, 
 — what is he called ? "A preacher to the rabble," — 
 
THOUGHTS ABOUT JESUS. 277 
 
 that is the ecclesiastical title. What was it in the old 
 civilization two thousand years ago, — a civilization con- 
 trolled by priests and soldiers, who had a sword to offer 
 to the beggar and the slave, and who looked with haughty 
 scorn, like Aristotle and Cicero, on men who got their 
 bread by the work of their hand ? 
 
 The third thing was his trust in God. The Hebrews 
 were and are more remarkable for their faith in God 
 than any other nation that ever lived. In this, Jesus 
 was a Hebrew of Hebrews, the most eminent of his tribe 
 in this vast quality. But witness that his faith was in ■ 
 a God who loved all men, in the God who went out to 
 meet the prodigal, and met him a great way off, and fell 
 on his neck and kissed him, and was more joyous over 
 one sinner that repented than over ninety-nine that 
 needed no repentance. The first Gospel docs not under- 
 stand this, and therefore denies the width of Jesus' faith 
 in God, and makes him limit his ministry to his own • 
 nation; but the second and third Gospels put it beyond- 
 a doubt. 
 
 Now the impression that he has made on the world,- 
 the character of his influence, the opinion which the 
 human race has formed of him, — all confirm this judg-- 
 ment, derived from the historical record of his words 
 and works. It seems to me that his actual character ■ 
 was higher than the character assigned to Jehovah in 
 the Old Testament, to Zeus in Greece, or Jupiter in 
 Rome. He made a revolution in the idea of God, and 
 himself went up and took the throne of the world. That 
 was a step in progress ; and if called upon to worship 
 the Jehovah of the Old Testament, or Jesus of Nazareth, 
 a plain man, as he is painted in the first three Gospels, • 
 I should not hesitate, I should worship my brother ; for 
 in the highest qualities thi's actual man is superior to 
 
278 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 . men's conception of God. He loves men of all nations ; 
 
 • is not angry with the wicked every day ; hating sin, he 
 has the most womanly charity for the sinner. Jesus 
 turned the heathen gods out of the heathen heaven, 
 because he was more God than they ; and he ascended 
 the throne of Jehovah, because in his life he gave more 
 proofs of justice and love than Jehovah, as he is repre- 
 sented in the Old Testament. Let us not be harsh ; let 
 us not blame men for worshipping the creature more 
 than the Creator. They saw the Son liigher than the 
 Father, and they did right. The popular adoration of 
 Jesus to-day is to me the best thing in the popular eccle- 
 siastical religion. 
 
 But I do not believe in the perfection of Jesus, — that 
 he had no faults of character, was never mistaken, never 
 angry, never out of humor, never dejected, never despair- 
 ing. I do not believe that from his cradle to his cross 
 he never did, nor said, nor felt, nor thought, a wrong 
 thing. To say that was his character, I think would be 
 as absurd as to say that he learned to walk without 
 stumbling, or to talk without stammering, or could see 
 as well at three hours old as at twelve years, and could 
 reason as well at thirty days as at thirty years. God 
 does not create monsters, he creates men. I cannot say 
 that in his popular teachings there are no errors. It 
 
 • seems to me very plain that he taught the existence of 
 a devil ; that he ascribed evil qualities to God, wrath 
 that would not sleep at the Day of Judgment; that he 
 believed in eternal torment. His prediction that the 
 world would soon be destroyed, and that the Son of 
 Man would come back in the clouds of heaven, and that 
 this should take place during the life of men then living, 
 was obviously a mistake. So with the promise of tem- 
 poral power to the twelve apostles. All this shows the 
 
THOUGHTS ABOUT JESUS. 279 
 
 limitations of the man. Men claim that Jesus had no 
 error in his creed or his life, no defect in his character. 
 Then of course he is not a man, but God himself, or a 
 bare pipe on which God plays ; and in either case there 
 was no virtue, no warning, no example in the man. And 
 I think that Jesus would be tlie last man in the world 
 ever to have claimed the exemption that is claimed for 
 him by the clergy in all Christian lands. I know that 
 what I say is a great heresy. 
 
 The coming of such a man was of the greatest impor- 
 tance to mankind. He showed a higher type of manli- 
 ness than the world had ever seen before, or men deemed 
 possible. There was manly intellect joined with wom- 
 anly conscience and affection and soul ; there was 
 manhood and womanhood united into one great human- 
 hood of character. Men were shut up in nationalities ; 
 he looked at humanity, — all men were as brothers. Men • 
 looked out at some old conception of a God who once 
 spoke on Sinai, and who said his last word years ago. 
 He told them there was a living God, numbering the • 
 hairs of their head, loving the eighteen men whom 
 the tower of Siloam slew, and just as ready to inspire 
 the humblest fisherman by the Galilean lake as Moses. 
 He found men undertaking to serve God by artificial 
 rites and ceremonies, sacrifices, fast days, feast days ; 
 and he bade them serve Him by daily piety and morality ; 
 and, if they could not find the way, he walked before and 
 showed them, — and this was the greatest thing that 
 could be done. 
 
 I think that Jesus of Nazareth was greater than the : 
 Evangelists supposed him to be. They valued him for 
 his miraculous birth and works, — because he was the 
 Hebrew Messiah. I do not believe his miraculous birth 
 and works ; I am sure he was not the Hebrew Messiah. 
 
/ 
 
 280 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 I should not think him any better for being miraculously 
 •born ; the common birth is good enough for mankind. I 
 think the Christian churches greatly underrate Jesus. 
 •They make his death his great merit. To be willing to 
 spend a few hours in dying for mankind, — what is that ? 
 We must all meet death, — if not to-day, some other day ; 
 and to spend a few hours in dying is a trifle any day ; for 
 a few dollars a month, and a bit of bunting with stripes 
 on it, you may hire men any day for that. But to be a 
 man with such a character as that, possessed of such a 
 masculine quantity of intellect, and of such a womanly 
 quality, with such a feminine affection and soul, — I 
 
 ■ would rather be that than be a dozen Hebrew Messiahs 
 wrought into one. To teach men that religion was piety 
 and morality, and what belonged to them ; to tell them 
 that religion was not for Saturday only, but for Sunday, 
 
 • Monday, and every day ; for the fireside and the way- 
 
 • side ; to live that religion, merciful to the merciless, hat- 
 ing sin with all his character, but loving the sinner with 
 all his heart ; able as the ablest-minded, but shedding his 
 sunlight on the dark places of the earth, — I would rather 
 be such a man than a hundred incarnations of the Olym- 
 pian Jove. Men vastly underrate the character of Jesus 
 in looking to make him a God. They have forgotten the 
 mighty manhood which burned in that Galilean breast. 
 
 This was the cause of his success, — he was a great 
 man, and of the highest kind of greatness ; not without 
 
 ■ faults, but the manliest of men ; not without errors in 
 his doctrine, as it has been reported. He called men off 
 from a dead Deity to a living God, from artificial sacra- 
 ments to natural piety and morality. He preached nat- 
 ural religion, gave men a new sight of humanity. It was 
 too great for them. The first generation said he was a 
 devil, and slew him; the next said he was a God, and 
 
THOUGHTS ABOUT JESUS. 281 
 
 worshipped him. He was not a God, but a man showing 
 us the way to God ; not saving us by his death, but lead- • 
 ing us by his life ; crucified between two other malefac- 
 tors, as the Scripture tells, buried secretly at night, and 
 now worshipped as God. 
 
 Though almost two thousand years have passed by, 
 Christendom has not yet got high enough to reverence 
 tl»e Galilean peasant who was our brother. We honor- 
 his death, but not his life ; look to him to save us in our 
 sins, not to save nafrom them. Men call him " Master," • 
 and scorn his lesson ; " Lord," and reject the religion 
 which he taught, — to visit the fatherless and widows in 
 their affliction, and to keep a life unspotted from the 
 world. 
 
 I look on Jesus as the highest product of the human •• 
 race. I honor intellectual greatness; I bend my neck- 
 to Socrates, and Newton, and Laplace, and Hegel, and 
 Kant, and the vast minds of our own day. But what are--- 
 they all, compared with this greatness of justice, great- 
 ness of philanthropy, greatness of religion? Why, they 
 are as nothing ! I look on Jesus not onl}^ as a historical \y 
 prophet, but as a prophetic foretelling. He shows what- 
 is in you and me, and only comes as the earliest flower 
 of the spring comes, to tell us that summer is near at 
 hand. Amid the Csesars, the Maximuses, the Herculeses, • 
 the Vishnus, the Buddhas, and the Jehovahs, who have 
 been successively the objects of the earthly or heavenly 
 worship of men, Jesus comes out as these fair flowers 
 come in the wintry hour, tokens of a summer yet to 
 come of tropic realms, where all this beauty blossoms all 
 the year, I thank God for the history which Jesus is ! 
 I tliank him more for the prophecy which he is ! -1 <\ 
 
282 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 THE MISSION OF JESUS. 
 
 •■ What did Jesus come for ? To seek and to save that 
 which was lost, not to destroy it ; and to lose his own 
 life, not to save it. His great ability of intellect sepa- 
 rated him from the sympathy of his age. The con- 
 trolling men could no more understand him than an 
 oyster could follow an eagle in his flight through the 
 sky. His motives were beyond their comprehension. 
 
 • Men commonly sought the society of the rich and great ; 
 
 • he that of the poor and lowly. They associated witli the 
 famous and respectable ; he w^as the friend of publicans 
 and sinners. There were able men enough about Jeru- 
 salem, seeking for ease, honor, respectability, and money. 
 I find no fault with them for that ; they sought the best 
 things they were acquainted with. He sought to serve 
 and bless mankind. He asked his daily bread, no more, — 
 no service, honor, fame, — and would not be called master, 
 though he was the master of them all ; he would not be 
 called good, even. See what kind of persons he held 
 up as models to mankind : the despised Samaritan, who 
 
 • went out of his way to do good to a national enemy, 
 whom his nation hated, — and did it after the man's own 
 countrymen had passed by, and left him half dead ; the 
 
 ■ poor and hated publican, Avho dared not lift up his eyes 
 to God, abashed with consciousness of sin in the sweet 
 presence of the Father ; the poor Avidow, who stealthily 
 dropped her two mites, saved by penurious self-denial, 
 into the temple chest. These were the models he held 
 up for the adoration of mankind, wliile Herod and Pilate 
 passed by in pomp and got the admiration of the people, 
 and the high-priest stood there, arrayed in his costly 
 robes, and was greeted with the applause of the multi- 
 tude. See how he lived in daily contact with want and 
 
THOUGHTS ABOUT JESUS. 283 
 
 ignorance and lowness and sin ; but he saw want to 
 relieve it, ignorance to teach, lowness to raise it up, sin 
 to awaken the soul in the sinner's bosom, and to elevate 
 it to God. He went amongst men who seemed to think 
 that God died in giving birth to the Old Testament, as 
 men now think he died in giving birth to Christ and the 
 New Testament. He told them of God, not a thousand 
 years off; showed them his providence, not in killing- 
 Pharaoh in the Red Sea, and taking the Hebrews 
 through, high and dry ; he appealed to facts, not fic- 
 tion; he showed God's providence in the grass, bloom-- 
 ing to-day, though feeding the oven to-morrow ; in the 
 lilies of the valley, taking no thought, but clad in more 
 beauty than Solomon, in the fowls of the air, the raven 
 seeking his food afar, the sparrows, three of them sold 
 for a penny, yet not one of them falling to the ground 
 without the Father. They wanted faith ; and he not 
 only had it, he showed it, he lived it, he was faith- 
 manifest in the flesh; 
 
 Do you wonder such a man made enemies of the 
 priests, the Scribes, and the Pharisees ? It was not pos- 
 sible it should be otherwise. His greatness put their- 
 littleness to shame, his charity was their condemnation. • 
 Those awful words, " Woe unto you. Scribes and Phari- 
 sees ! " were not half so condemnatory as the jxirable of • 
 the Samaritan and the story of the Prodigal Son. They 
 could understand his criticism, — it scorched and witheixd- 
 them up, — but his creation was keener still, though they 
 comprehended it not. Men bred under a different ideal 
 of religion could not see him as he was, more than a fly 
 can see the State House. No wonder they hated and 
 slew him. 
 
 Do you wonder that he was loved ? He went out to 
 seek the lost, — the poor, who had none to comfort ; the 
 
284 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 sick, who had nobody to heal them, except that great 
 physician ; the despised children of Abraham, who re- 
 membered the priests' and Levites' hate, and paid for it 
 ■with scorn and indignity and contempt. Do you wonder 
 the people heard him gladly ? I can understand how 
 such a man looked on the sons and daughters of Abra- 
 ham, — poor, condemned, and self-condemned ; I can un- 
 derstand how ho went and poured out his great human 
 heart and his great human soul to them, in words that 
 ran round like a river of fire, and they turned and 
 blessed the man who spoke a human word to their hun- 
 gry human soul. Very likely there were men amongst 
 them who had given up all hope of religion, who had no 
 joy in the remembrance of the past, and no hope in the 
 future, — men who despaired of man, and had no faith in 
 God. There are always such men. They are not bad, 
 only sick men, and desperate. The churches cast out 
 such men as infidels ; they ought to take them to their 
 arms, and cheer, and comfort, and heal, and bless them. 
 That is always a partial church wliich has not a corner 
 in the chancel for such as call themselves infidels. I 
 can understand liow Christ spoke to such men ; how he 
 solved their doubts, healed their wounds, and cured 
 their griefs ; not by a special answer to every special 
 question, — I do not believe even his wisdom could have 
 given a satisfactory answer to every particular and 
 troublesome doubt, — but by awaking a natural religious 
 sentiment in the heart. I can understand how such men 
 left everything and followed him ; how on foot, and sore, 
 tired, and hungry, they forgot their fainting and the 
 famine in their moutli, for the great plcntcousness which 
 so filled their soul. It is always a great day when a 
 man of genius is born, a man of merely intellectual gen- 
 . ius ; it is a very great day when a man is born into the 
 
THOUGHTS ABOUT JESUS. 285 
 
 world with a genius for justice, for love, and for piety. 
 If he can speak only to scholars, in a scholar's speech, 
 it is a great thing, and the human race may well hold 
 its Christmas festivals at such a birth. But when a. ^— 
 man comes armed with such a genius that he, with his 
 single soul, can fill up all the space between highest God 
 and humblest man, so that he can hear with his own- 
 ears, and at first hand, the thoughts of God, and with 
 his own mouth, and at first hand, tell them to the peo- 
 ple, — needing no mediator between him and God, on the 
 one side, and between him and man, on the other side, 
 — then you have a very rare soul, and mankind may 
 well celebrate its Easter for that. And Jesus was such- 
 a one. He had the power of receiving truth from God,- 
 and the power of telling it, in a way and with an elo- 
 quence which was thunder and lightning to the people, 
 such as the world had not seen before. It would be 
 rather wonderful to see a man come now to seek and 
 save the lost ; it would imply something more than 
 great intellect, — an unconscious gift of conscience, af- 
 fection, and the religious power. What was it to do this - 
 two thousand years ago ? Now we have Jesus for - 
 our model, and a hundred sects in all Christian lands, 
 fired by his example ; some believers in his theology, 
 some disbelievers, from St. Augustine down to Robert 
 Owen ; some believers in the theology of the times, 
 some disbelievers, the believers in real goodness 
 towards men. 
 
 I have always looked on Jesus as the greatest pattern i^ 
 of a man that the human race has produced ; but in 
 nothing does his greatness appear so high as in the di- 
 rection in which he goes to work. He turns to the 
 needy, and seeks for the lost. Here was the greatest- 
 man God had raised up, engaged in the greatest and 
 
286 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 highest function a man can fill. Suppose such a man 
 should come now, — as much before the popular religion 
 in our time as he was then before the popular religion in 
 
 • Jerusalem, — how would he be received ? Some think 
 if such a man were to come, he would report himself at 
 the Boston Association of Ministers, and be invited to 
 stand in pulpits, and perhaps to deliver a " Thursday 
 
 ■Lecture." I doubt that he would do any such thing. 
 
 •If so, I think he would shake the pulpits worse than last 
 
 ■ week's storm shook the steeples. I have some doubts 
 whether the ministers of the nineteenth century would 
 come off any better than the ministers of the first cen- 
 tury did. I think he would turn his attention to the 
 lost now as he did then ; he would not have far to go to 
 seek and find them. Here are the materially lost, — 
 fugitive slaves who do not own their own bodies, and 
 are hunted by men who are members of churches ; who 
 take the sacrament in the church, in the name of Christ, 
 on Sunday, and the next day kidnap their brother men. 
 
 ■He would care for these outcasts. He would raise the 
 drunkard, the criminal, the poor, — men who never en- 
 ter a church from year to year, and in a great city die 
 and have no consolation ; who know of no redeemer, 
 human or divine. How many thousand men and women 
 there are who hear no word of religious instruction, re- 
 ligious rebuke, or religious comfort, who have only one 
 act of religion, as it is commonly called, performed in 
 their presence, and that is the burial service read over 
 their coffin-lids. I think Christ would have a word to 
 say to and for all these men. I think there would be 
 such a Sermon on the Mount as would make the ears of 
 mankind tingle. Then there are men spiritually lost, 
 and I think he would say a word to tliem. Thunder it 
 might be, terrible at first, but like thunder, as cleansing 
 
THOUGHTS ABOUT JESUS. 287 
 
 to the sky ; not so like lightnino; — which shatters where 
 it shines — as light, which cheers and revives Avhat it 
 falls upon. I think he would tell them of the falseness of 
 their life, of the unsatisfactoriness of joys in which re- 
 ligion had no part ; that Christian hypocrisy is a poor 
 substitute for Christian religion before men, and poorer 
 before God. I think he would show them that religion 
 is natural, is human nature itself at its work ; that he 
 would prove to them their need of it, and show them the 
 means of supply. 
 
 Well, Jesus, when he did come, came to seek and to 
 save the lost. He had to pay for it with his life. Had 
 he come to lose men, and not to find them, he might 
 have had rank and fame, have been in the senate of King 
 Herod, Avith plenty of money and honor. But now see 
 the odds. Men could not understand him then ; but his ■ 
 idea went into a few minds, his example into more, and 
 ten years had not passed by before there were men • 
 going all over the world, seeking for what was lost ; and 
 before a hundred years, in every great city of the heathen • 
 world there were Christians, whom his idea had inspired, 
 and his example had quickened into life. Now what a 
 different world it is because he has done as he did ! 
 Take that name out of the world, that great character • 
 out of the world, and all its influence, and what should 
 we be ? I speak within bounds when I say he has ad- 
 vanced the civilization of the world at least a thousand 
 years. Yet we understand very little of his religion ; • 
 we have talked so much of his divinity that we have 
 forgotten his humanity. 
 
 To-day is Easter Sunday, and all over the Christian 
 world, save puritanical New England, it is a day of re- 
 joicing. It is to the Catholic Christian the great festival 
 of the Christian year. Men celebrate the resurrection 
 
288 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 of Jesus. To me all that is mythology ; yet I welcome 
 the day which brings men to a consciousness of that 
 great soul, and wish men could see what he came for, 
 and how he did his work. This seeking to save the lost 
 is the special thing which makes him so dear to man- 
 kind. If he had lived such a life as Herod did, do you 
 suppose men would ever have told the story of his resur- 
 rection from the dead, and celebrated Easter Festival 
 over that event ? No, they would have hated him the 
 •more if he had been raised from the dead. It was his 
 character that made men believe he wrought miracles. 
 • It is this which makes his memory so precious to the 
 world. 
 
CHRIS TIA NITY. 289 
 
 A DISCOURSE OF THE TRANSIENT AND PER- 
 MANENT IN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Heaven and earth shall pass away ; but my icords shall not pass away. — 
 Luke xxi. 33. 
 
 In this sentence we have a very clear indication that 
 Jesus of Nazareth believed the religion he taught would 
 be eternal, that the substance of it would last forever. 
 Yet there are some who are affrighted by the faintest 
 rustle which a heretic makes among the dry leaves of 
 theology ; they tremble lest Christianity itself should 
 perish witiiout hope. Ever and anon the cry is raised, 
 " The Philistines be upon us, and Christianity is in 
 danger." The least doubt respecting the popular the- 
 ology, or the existing machinery of the church ; the least 
 sign of distrust in the religion of the pulpit, or the reli- 
 gion of the street, is by some good men supposed to be 
 at enmity with faith in Christ, and capable of shaking 
 Christianity itself. On the other hand, a few bad men, 
 and a few pious men, it is said, on both sides of the 
 water, tell us the day of Christianity is past. The lat- 
 ter, it is alleged, would persuade us that hereafter piety 
 must take a new form ; the teachings of Jesus are to be 
 passed by ; that religion is to wing her way sublime, 
 above the flight of Christianity, far away, toward heaven, 
 as the fledged eaglet leaves forever the nest which shel' 
 tered his callow youth. Let us therefore devote a few 
 moments to this subject, and consider what is transient 
 in Christianity, and what is permanent therein. The 
 
 19 
 
290 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 topic seems not inappropriate to the times in whicli we 
 live, or the occasion that calls us together. 
 
 Christ says his word shall never pass away. Yet, at 
 first sight, nothing seems more fleeting than a word. Tt 
 is an evanescent impulse of the most fickle element. It 
 leaves no track where it went through the air. Yet to 
 this, and this only, did Jesus intrust the truth wherewith 
 he came laden to the earth, — truth for the salvation of 
 the world. He took no pains to perpetuate his thoughts ; 
 they were poured forth where occasion found him an 
 audience, — by the side of the lake, or a well ; in a cot- 
 tage, or the temple ; in a fisher's boat, or the synagogue 
 of the Jews. He founds no institution as a monument 
 of his words. He appoints no order of men to preserve 
 his bright and glad relations. He only bids his friends 
 give freely the truth they had freely received. He did 
 not even write his words in a book. With a noble con- 
 fidence, the result of his abiding faith, he scattered them 
 broadcast on the world, leaving the seed to its own vi- 
 tality. He knew that what is of God cannot fail, for 
 God keeps his own. He sowed his seed in the heart, and 
 left it there, to be watered and warmed by the dew and 
 the sun whicli heaven sends. He felt his words were for 
 eternity. So he trusted them to the uncertain air ; and 
 for eighteen hundred years that faithful element has held 
 them good, — distinct as when first warm from his lips. 
 Now they are translated into every human speech, and 
 murmured in all earth's thousand tongues, from the pine 
 forests of the North to the palm groves of eastern Ind. 
 They mingle, as it were, with the roar of a populous city, 
 and join the chime of the desert sea. Of a Sabbath morn 
 they are repeated from church to church, from isle to 
 isle, and land to land, till their music goes round the 
 world. These words have become the breath of the 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 291 
 
 good, the hope of the wise, the joy of the pious, and that 
 for many millions of hearts. They are the prayers of 
 our churches ; our better devotion by fireside and field- 
 side ; the enchantment of our hearts. It is these words 
 that still work wonders, to w^hich the first recorded 
 miracles were nothing in grandeur and utility. It is 
 these which build our temples and beautify our homes. 
 They raise our thoughts of sublimity ; they purify our 
 ideal of purity ; they hallow our prayer for truth and 
 love. They make beauteous and divine the life which 
 plain men lead. They give wings to our aspirations. 
 What charmers they are ! Sorrow is lulled at their 
 bidding. They take the sting out of disease, and rob 
 adversity of his power to disappoint. They give health 
 and wings to the pious soul, broken-hearted and ship- 
 wrecked in his voyage through life, and encourage him 
 to tempt the perilous way once more. They make all 
 things ours ; Christ our brother ; time our servant ; 
 death our ally, and the witness of our triumph. They 
 reveal to us the presence of God, Avhich else we might 
 not have seen so clearly in the first wind-flower of 
 spring, in the falling of a sparrow, in the distress of a 
 nation, in the sorrow or the rapture of the world. Silence 
 the voice of Christianity, and the Avorld is well-nigh 
 dumb ; for gone is that sweet music which kept in awe 
 the rulers and the people, which cheers the poor widow 
 in her lonely toil, and comes, like light through the win- 
 dows of morning, to men who sit stooping and feeble, 
 with failing eyes and a hungering heart. It is gone — 
 all gone ! only the cold, bleak world left before them. 
 
 Such is the life of these words ; such the empire they 
 have won for themselves over men's minds since they 
 were spoken first. In the mean time, the words of great 
 men and mighty, whose name shook whole continents, 
 
292 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 though graven in metal and stone, though stamped in 
 institutions, and defended by whole tribes of priests and 
 troops of followers, — their words have gone to the 
 ground, and the world gives back no echo of their voice. 
 Meanwhile the great works, also, of old times, castle and 
 tower, and town, their cities and their empires, have 
 perished, and left scarce a mark on the bosom of the 
 earth to show they once have been. The philosophy of 
 the wise, the art of the accomplished, the song of the 
 poet, the ritual of the priest, though honored as divine 
 in their day, have gone down a prey to oblivion. Silence 
 has closed over them ; only their spectres now haunt the 
 earth. A deluge of blood has swept over the nations ; 
 a night of darkness, more deep than the fabled darkness 
 of Egypt, has lowered down upon that flood, to destroy 
 or to hide what the deluge had spared. But through all 
 this the words of Christianity have come down to us 
 from the lips of that Hebrew youth, gentle and beautiful 
 as the light of a star, not spent by their journey through 
 time and through space. They have built up a new 
 civilization, which the wisest Gentile never hoped for, 
 which the most pious Hebrew never foretold. Through 
 centuries of wasting these words have flown on, like a 
 dove in the storm, and now wait to descend on hearts 
 pure and earnest, as the Father's spirit, we are told, came 
 down on his lowly Son. The old heavens and the old 
 earth are indeed passed away, but the Word stands. 
 Nothing shows clearer than this how fleeting is what man 
 calls great, how lasting what God pronounces true. 
 
 Looking at the word of Jesus, at real Christianity, the 
 pure religion he taught, nothing appears more fixed and 
 certain. Its influence widens as light extends ; it deep- 
 ens as the nations grow more wise. But, looking at the 
 history of what men call Christianity, nothing seems 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 293 
 
 more uncertain and perisliable. While true religion is 
 always the same thing, in each century and every land, 
 in each man that feels it, the Christianity of the pulpit, 
 which is the religion taught, the Christianity of the people, 
 which is the religion that is accepted and lived out, has 
 never been the same thing in any two centuries or lands, 
 except only in name. The difference between w^hat is 
 called Christianity by the Unitarians in our times, and 
 that of some ages past, is greater than the difference 
 between Mahomet and the Messiah. The difference at 
 this day between opposing classes of Christians, the 
 difference between the Christianity of some sects and 
 that of Christ himself, is deeper and more vital than 
 that between Jesus and Plato, pagan as we call him. 
 The Christianity of the seventh century has passed away. 
 We recognize only the ghost of superstition in its faded 
 features, as it comes up at our call. It is one of the 
 things which have been, and can be no more ; for neither 
 God nor the world goes back. Its terrors do not frighten, 
 nor its hopes allure us. We rejoice that it has gone. 
 But how do we know that our Christianity shall not 
 share the same fate ? Is there that difference between 
 the nineteenth century and some seventeen that have 
 gone before it since Jesus, to warrant the belief that 
 our notion of Christianity shall last for ever ? The 
 stream of time has already beat down philosophies and 
 theologies, temple and church, though never so old and 
 revered. How do we know there is not a perishing ele- 
 ment in what we call Christianity ? Jesus tell us Ids 
 word is the word of God, and so shall never pass away. 
 But who tells us that our word shall never pass away ? 
 that our iiotion of liis word shall stand for ever ? 
 
 Let us look at this matter a. little more closely. In 
 actual Christianity, — that is, in that portion of Chris- 
 
294 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 tianity which is preached and believed, — there seems to 
 have been, ever since the time of its earthly founder, 
 two elements, the one transient, the other permanent. 
 The one is the thought, the folly, the uncertain wisdom, 
 the theological notions, the impiety of man ; the other, 
 the eternal truth of God. These two bear, perhaps, the 
 same relation to each other that the phenomena of out- 
 ward nature, such as sunshine and cloud, growth, decay, 
 and reproduction, bear to the great law of nature, which 
 underlies and supports them all. As in that case more 
 attention is commonly paid to the particular phenomena 
 than to the general law, so in this case more is gener- 
 ally given to the transient in Christianity than to the 
 permanent therein. 
 
 It must be confessed, though with sorrow, that tran- 
 sient things form a great part of what is commonly 
 taught as religion. An undue place has often been as- 
 signed to forms and doctrines, while too little stress has 
 been laid on the divine life of the soul, love to God, and 
 love to man. Religious forms may be useful and beau- 
 tiful. They are so, whenever they speak to the soul, 
 and answer a want thereof. In our present state some 
 forms are perhaps necessary. But they are only the ac- 
 cident of Christianity, not its substance. They are the 
 robe, not the angel, who may take another robe quite 
 as becoming and useful. One sect has many forms ; 
 another, none. Yet both may be equally Christian, in 
 spite of the redundance or the deficiency. They are a 
 part of the language in which religion speaks, and exist, 
 with few exceptions, wherever man is found. In our 
 calculating nation, in our rationalizing sect, we have 
 retained but two of the rites so numerous in the early 
 Christian Church, and even these we have attenuated to 
 the last degree, leaving them little more than a spectre 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 295 
 
 of the ancient form. Another age may continue or for- 
 sake botli ; may revive old forms, or invent new ones to 
 suit the altered circumstances of the times, and yet be 
 Christians quite as good as we, or our fathers of the 
 dark ages. Whether the apostles designed these rites 
 to be perpetual seems a question which belongs to schol- 
 ars and antiquarians, — not to us, as Christian men and 
 women. So long as they satisfy or help the pious heart, 
 so long they are good. Looking behind or around us, 
 we see that the forms and rites of the Christians are 
 quite as fluctuating as those of the heathens ; from 
 whom some of them have been, not unwisely, adopted 
 by the earlier church. 
 
 Again, the doctrines that have been connected with 
 Christianity, and taught in its name, are quite as change- 
 able as the form. This also takes place unavoidably. 
 If observations be made upon nature, — which must take 
 place so long as man has senses and understanding, — 
 there will be a philosophy of nature, and philosophical 
 doctrines. These will differ, as the observations are just 
 or inaccurate, and as the deductions from observed facts 
 are true or false. Hence there will be different schools 
 of natural philosophy, so long as men have eyes and un- 
 derstandings of different clearness and strength. And 
 if men observe and reflect upon religion, — which will be 
 done so long as man is a religious and reflective being, — 
 there must also be a philosophy of religion, a theology, 
 and theological doctrines. These will differ, as men 
 have felt much or little of religion, as they analyze their 
 sentiments correctly or otherwise, and as they have rea- 
 soned right or wrong. Now, the true system of nature, 
 which exists in the outward facts, whether discovered or 
 not, is always the same thing, though the philosophy of 
 nature, which men invent, change every month, and be 
 
296 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 one thing at London and the opposite at Berlin. Thus 
 there is but one system of nature as it exists in fact, 
 though many theories of nature, which exist in our im- 
 perfect notions of that system, and by which we may 
 approximate and at length reach it. Now, there can be 
 but one religion which is absolutely true, existing in the 
 facts of human nature and the ideas of infinite God. 
 That, whether acknowledged or not, is always the same 
 thing, and never changes. So far as a man has any real 
 religion, — either the principle or the sentiment thereof, 
 — so far he has that, by whatever name he may call it. 
 For, strictly speaking, there is but one kind of religion, 
 as there is but one kind of love, though the manifesta- 
 tions of this religion, in forms, doctrines, and life, be 
 never so diverse. It is through these, men approximate 
 to the true expression of this religion. Now while this 
 religion is one and always the same thing, tliere may be 
 numerous systems of theology or philosophies of relig- 
 ion. These, with their creeds, confessions, and collec- 
 tions of doctrines, deduced by reasoning upon the facts 
 observed, may be baseless and false, either because the 
 observation was too narrow in extent, or otherwise de- 
 fective in point of accuracy, or because the reasoning was 
 illogical, and therefore the deduction spurious. Each of 
 these three faults is conspicuous in the systems of the- 
 ology. Now, the solar system as it exists in fact is per- 
 manent, though the notions of Thales and Ptolemy, of 
 Copernicus and Descartes, about this system, prove tran- 
 sient, imperfect approximations to the true expression. 
 So the Christianity of Jesus is permanent, though what 
 passes for Christianity with popes and catechisms, with 
 sects and churches, in the first century or in the nine- 
 teenth century prove transient also. Now, it has some- 
 times happened that a man took his philosophy of 
 
CHRISTIANITY. ' 297 
 
 nature at second-hand, and then attempted to make his 
 observations conform to his theory, and nature ride in 
 his panniers. Thus some philosophers refused to look 
 at the moon through Galileo's telescope; for, according 
 to their theory of vision, such an instrument would not 
 aid the sight. Thus their preconceived notions stood up 
 between them and nature. Now, it has often happened 
 that men took their theology thus at second-hand, and 
 distorted the history of the world and man's nature be- 
 sides, to make religion conform to their notions. Their 
 theology stood between them and God. Those obstinate 
 philosophers have disciples in no small number. 
 
 What another has said of false systems of science will 
 apply equally to the popular theology : " It is barren in 
 effects, fruitful in questions, slow and languid in its im- 
 provement, exhibiting in its generality the counterfeit of 
 perfection, but ill filled up in its details, popular in its 
 choice, but suspected by its very promoters, and therefore 
 bolstered up and countenanced with artifices. Even 
 those who have been determined to try for themselves, 
 to add their support to learning, and to enlarge its limits, 
 have not dared entirely to desert received opinions, nor 
 to seek the spring-head of things. But they think they 
 have done a great thing if they intersperse and contribute 
 something of their own ; prudently considering, that by 
 their assent they can save tlieir modesty, and by their 
 contributions, their liberty. Neither is there, nor ever 
 will be, an end or limit to these things. One snatches 
 at one thing, another is pleased with another ; there is 
 no dry nor clear sight of anything. Every one plays the 
 philosopher out of the small treasures of his own fancy ; 
 the more sublime wits more acutely and with better suc- 
 cess, the duller with less success, but equal obstinacy ; 
 and, by the discipline of some learned men, sciences are 
 
298 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 bounded within the limits of some certain authors which 
 they have set down, imposing them upon old men and 
 instilling them into young. So that now (as Tully cav- 
 illed upon Csesar's consulship) the star Lyra riseth by 
 an edict, and authority is taken for truth, and not truth 
 for authority ; which kind of order and discipline is very 
 convenient for our present use, but banisheth those which 
 are better." 
 
 Any one who traces the history of what is called 
 Christianity, will see that nothing changes more from 
 age to age than the doctrines taught as Christian, and 
 insisted on as essential to Christianity and personal sal- 
 vation. What is falsehood in one province passes for 
 truth in another. The heresy of one age is the orthodox 
 belief and " only infallible rule " of the next. Now 
 Arius, and now Athanasius, is lord of the ascendant. 
 Both were excommunicated in their turn, each for affirm- 
 ing what the other denied. Men are burned for profess- 
 ing what men are burned for denying. For centuries the 
 doctrines of the Christians were no better, to say the 
 least, than those of their contemporary pagans. The 
 theological doctrines derived from our fathers seem to 
 have come from Judaism, Heathenism, and the caprice 
 of philosophers, far more than they have come from the 
 principle and sentiment of Christianity. The doctrine 
 of the Trinity, the very Achilles of theological dogmas, 
 belongs to philosophy and not religion ; its subtleties 
 cannot even be expressed in our tongue. As old relig- 
 ions became superannuated, and died out, they left to 
 the rising faith, as to a residuary legatee, their forms and 
 their doctrines ; or rather, as the giant in the fable left 
 his poisoned garment to work the overthrow of his con- 
 queror. Many tenets that pass current in our theology 
 seem to be the refuse of idol temples, the off-scourings 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 299 
 
 of Jewish and heathen cities, rather than the sands 
 of virgin gold which the stream of Christianity has worn 
 off from the rock of ages, and brought in its bosom for 
 us. It is wood, hay, and stubble, wherewith men have 
 built on the corner-stone Christ laid. What wonder the 
 fabric is in peril when tried by fire ? The stream of 
 Christianity, as men receive it, has caught a stain from 
 every soil it has filtered through, so that now it is not 
 the pure water from the well of life which is offered to 
 our lips, but streams troubled and polluted by man with 
 mire and dirt. If Paul and Jesus could read our books 
 of theological doctrines, would they accept as their teach- 
 ing what men have vented in their name ? Never, till 
 the letters of Paul had faded out of his memory ; never, 
 till the words of Jesus had been torn out from the book 
 of life. It is their notions about Christianity men have 
 taught as the only living word of God. They have piled 
 their own rubbish against the temple of Truth where 
 Piety comes up to worship ; what wonder the pile seems 
 unshapely and like to fall ? But these theological doc- 
 trines are fleeting as the leaves on the trees. They — 
 
 " Are found 
 Now green in youth, now withered on the ground : 
 Another race the following spring supplies ; 
 They fall successive, and successive rise." 
 
 Like the clouds of the sky, they are here to-day ; to- 
 morrow, all swept off and vanished ; while Cliristianity 
 itself, like the heaven above, with its sun, and moon, and 
 uncounted stars, is always over our head, though the 
 cloud sometimes debars us of the needed light. It must 
 of necessity be the case that our reasonings, and there- 
 fore our theological doctrines, are imperfect, and so 
 perishing. It is only gradually that we approach to the 
 
300 VIEWS OF religion: 
 
 true system of nature by observation and reasoning, and 
 work out our philosophy and theology by the toil of the 
 brain. But meantime, if we are faithful, the great truths 
 of morality and religion, the deep sentiment of love to 
 man and love to God, are perceived intuitively, and by 
 instinct, as it were, though our theology be imperfect 
 and miserable. The theological notions of Abraham, to 
 take the story as it stands, were exceedingly gross, yet a 
 greater than Abraham has told us, " Abraham desired to 
 see my day, saw it, and was glad." Since these notions 
 are so fleeting, why need we accept the commandment 
 of men as the doctrine of God ? 
 
 This transitoriness of doctrines appears in many in- 
 stances, of which two may be selected for a moi'e atten- 
 tive consideration. First, the doctrine respecting the 
 origin and authority of the Old and New Testament. 
 There has been a time when men were burned for assert- 
 ing doctrines of natural philosophy which rested on evi- 
 dence the most incontestable, because those doctrines 
 conflicted with sentences in the Old Testament. Every 
 word of that Jewish record was regarded as miraculously 
 inspired, and therefore as infallibly true. It was believed 
 that the Christian religion itself rested thereon, .and 
 must stand or fall with the immaculate Hebrew text. 
 He was deemed no small sinner who found mistakes in 
 the manuscripts. On the authority of the written word 
 man was taught to believe impossible legends, conflicting 
 assertions ; to take fiction for fact, a dream for a miracu- 
 lous revelation of God, an Oriental poem for a grave 
 history of miraculous events, a collection of amatory 
 idyls for a serious discourse " touching the mutual love 
 of Christ and the Church ; " they have been taught to 
 accept a picture sketclied by some glowing Eastern im- 
 agination, never intended to be taken for a reality, as a 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 301 
 
 proof that the infinite God spoke in human words, ap- 
 peared in tlie shape of a cloud, a flaming bush, or a man 
 who ate, and drank, and vanished into smoke ; that he 
 gave counsels to-day, and the opposite to-morrow ; that 
 he violated his own laws, was angry, and was only dis- 
 suaded by a mortal man from destroying at once a whole 
 nation, — millions of men who rebelled against their 
 leader in a moment of anguish. Questions in philosophy, 
 questions in the Christian religion, have been settled by 
 an appeal to that book. The inspiration of its authors 
 has been assumed as infallible. Every fact in the early 
 Jewish history has been taken as a type of some analo- 
 gous fact in Christian history. The most distant events, 
 even such as are still in the arms of time, were supposed 
 to be clearly foreseen and foretold by pious Hebrews sev- 
 eral centuries before Christ. It has been assumed at 
 the outset, with no shadow of evidence, that those writers 
 held a miraculous communication with God, such as he 
 has granted to no other man. What was originally a 
 presumption of bigoted Jews became an article of faith, 
 which Cliristians were burned for not believing. This 
 has been for centuries the general opinion of the Chris- 
 tian church, both Catholic and Protestant, though the 
 former never accepted the Bible as the only source of 
 religious truth. It has been so. Still worse, it is now 
 the general opinion of religious sects at this day. Hence 
 the attempt, which always fails, to reconcile the philoso- 
 phy of our times with the poems in Genesis writ a thou- 
 sand years before Christ. Hence the attempt to conceal 
 the contradictions in the record itself. Matters have 
 come to such a pass that even now he is deemed an in- 
 fidel, if not by implication an atheist, whose reverence 
 for the Most High forbids him to believe that God com- 
 manded Abraham to sacrifice his son, — a thought at 
 
302 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 which the flesh creeps with horror ; to believe it solely on 
 the authority of an Oriental story, written down nobody 
 knows when or by whom, or for what purpose ; which 
 may be a poem, but cannot be the record of a fact, un- 
 less God is the author of confusion and a lie. 
 
 Now, this idolatry of the Old Testament has not 
 always existed. Jesus says that none born of a woman 
 is greater than John the Baptist, yet the least in the 
 kingdom of heaven was greater than John. Paul tells 
 us the law — the very crown of the old Hebrew revela- 
 tion — is a shadow of good things which have now come; 
 only a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ ; and when 
 faith has come, that we are no longer under the school- 
 master ; that it was a law of sin and death, from which 
 we are made free by the law of the spirit of life. Chris- 
 tian teachers themselves have differed so widely in their 
 notion of the doctrines and meaning of those books that 
 it makes one weep to think of the follies deduced there- 
 from. But modern criticism is fast breaking to pieces 
 this idol which men have made out of the Scriptures. 
 It has shown that here are the most different works 
 thrown together ; that their authors, wise as they some- 
 times were, pious as we feel often their spirit to have 
 been, had only that inspiration which is common to 
 other men equally pious and wise ; that they were by 
 no means infallible, but were mistaken in facts or in 
 reasoning, — uttered predictions which time has not ful- 
 filled ; men who in some measure partook of the dark- 
 ness and limited notions of their age, and were not 
 always above its mistakes or its corruptions. 
 
 The history of opinions on the New Testament is quite 
 similar. It has been assumed at the outset, it would 
 seem with no sufficient reason, without the smallest 
 pretence on its writers' part, that all of its authors were 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 303 
 
 infallibly and miraculously inspired, so that they could 
 commit no error of doctrine or fact. Men have been 
 bid to close their eyes at the obvious difference between 
 Luke and John, the serious disagreement between Paul 
 and Peter ; to believe, on the smallest evidence, accounts 
 which shock the moral sense and revolt the reason, and 
 tend to place Jesus in the same series with Hercules, 
 and Apollonius of Tyana ; accounts which Paul in the 
 Epistles never mentions, though he also had a vein of 
 the miraculous running quite through him. Men have 
 been told that all these things must be taken as part 
 of Christianity, and if they accepted the religion, they 
 must take all these accessories along with it ; that the 
 living spirit could not be had without the killing letter. 
 All the books which caprice or accident had brought 
 together between the lids of the Bible were declared to 
 be the infallible word of God, the only certain rule of re- 
 ligious faith and practice. Thus the Bible was made not 
 a single channel, but the only certain rule of religious 
 faith and practice. To disbelieve any of its statements, 
 or even the common interpretation put upon those state- 
 ments by the particular age or church in which the man 
 belonged, was held to be infidelity, if not atheism. In 
 the name of him who forbid us to judge our brother, 
 good men and pious men have applied these terms to 
 others, good and pious as themselves. That state of 
 things has by no means passed away. Men who cry 
 down the absurdities of paganism in the worst spirit of 
 the French "free thinkers," call others infidels and 
 atheist, who point out, though reverently, other absurd- 
 ities which men have piled upon Christianity. So the 
 world goes. An idolatrous regard for the imperfect 
 scripture of God's word is the apple of Atalanta, which 
 defeats theologians runninor for the hand of divine truth. 
 
304 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 But the current notions respecting the infallible in- 
 spiration of the Bible have no foundation in the Bible 
 itself. Which evangelist, which apostle of the New 
 Testament, what prophet or psalmist of the Old Testa- 
 ment, ever claims infallible authority for himself or for 
 others ? Which of them does not in his own writings 
 show that he was finite, and, with all his zeal and piety, 
 possessed but a limited inspiration, the bound whereof 
 we can sometimes discover ? Did Christ ever demand 
 that men should assent to the doctrines of the Old 
 Testament, credit its stories, and take its poems for his- 
 tories, and believe equally two accounts that contradict 
 one another ? Has he ever told you that all the truths 
 of his religion, all the beauty of a Christian life, should 
 be contained in the writings of those men who, even 
 after his resurrection, expected him to be a Jewish 
 king ; of men who were sometimes at variance with 
 one another, and misunderstood his divine teachings ? 
 Would not those modest writers themselves be con- 
 founded at the idolatry we pay them ? Opinions may 
 change on these points, as they have often changed — 
 changed greatly and for the worse since the days of 
 Paul. They are changing now, and we may hope for 
 the better ; for God makes man's folly as well as his 
 wrath to praise him, and continually brings good out 
 of evil. 
 
 Another instance of the transitoriness of doctrines 
 taught as Christian is found in those which relate to the 
 nature and authority of Christ. One ancient party has 
 told us that he is the infinite God ; another, that he is 
 both God and man ; a third, that he was a man, the son 
 of Joseph and Mary, born as we are ; tempted like our- 
 selves ; inspired as we may be if we will pay the price. 
 Each of the former parties believed its doctrine on this 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 305 
 
 head was infallibly true, and formed the very substance 
 of Christianity, and was one of the essential conditions of 
 salvation, though scarce any two distinguished teachers, 
 of ancient or modern times, agree in their expression of 
 this truth. 
 
 Almost every sect that has ever been makes Chris- 
 tianity rest on the personal authority of Jesus, and not 
 the immutable truth of the doctrines themselves, or the 
 authority of God, who sent him into the world. Yet it 
 seems difficult to conceive any reason why moral and 
 religious truths should rest for their support on the 
 personal authority of their revealer, any more than the 
 truths of science on that of him who makes them known 
 first or most clearly. It is hard to see why the great 
 truths of Christianity rest on the personal authority of 
 Jesus, more than the axioms of geometry rest on the 
 personal authority of Euclid or Archimedes. The au- 
 thority of Jesus, as of all teachers, one would naturally 
 tliink, must rest on the truth of his words, and not their 
 truth on his authority. 
 
 Opinions respecting the nature of Christ seem to be 
 constantly changing. In the three first centuries after 
 Christ, it appears, great latitude of speculation prevailed. 
 Some said he was God, with nothing of human nature, 
 his body only an illusion; others, that he was man, 
 with nothing of the divine nature, his miraculous birth 
 having no foundation in fact. In a few centuries it was 
 decreed by councils that he was God, thus honoring the 
 divine element; next, that he was man also, thus ad- 
 mitting the human side. For some ages the Catholic 
 Church seems to have dwelt chiefly on the divine nature 
 that was in him, leaving the liuman element to mystics 
 and other heretical persons, whose bodies served to flesh 
 the swords of orthodox believers. The stream of Chris- 
 
 20 
 
306 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 tianity has come to us in two channels, — one within the 
 church, the other without the church, — and it is not 
 hazarding too much to say that since the fourth century 
 the true Christian life has been out of the established 
 church, and not in it, but rather in the ranks of dissen- 
 ters. From the Reformation till the latter part of the 
 last century, we are told, the Protestant Church dwelt 
 chiefly on the human side of Christ, and since that time 
 many works have been written to show how the two — 
 perfect Deity and perfect manhood — were united in his 
 character. But, all this time, scarce any two eminent 
 teachers agree on these points, however orthodox they 
 may be called. What a difference between the Christ 
 of John Gerson and John Calvin, yet were both accepted 
 teachers and pious men. What a difference between the 
 Christ of the Unitarians and the Methodists, yet may 
 men of both sects be true Christians and acceptable with 
 God. What a difference between the Christ of Matthew 
 and John, yet both were disciples, and their influence 
 is wide as Christendom and deep as the heart of man. 
 But on this there is not time to enlarge. 
 
 Now, it seems clear that the notions men form about 
 the origin and nature of the Scriptures, respecting the 
 nature and authority of Christ, have nothing to do with 
 Christianity except as its aids or its adversaries ; they 
 are not the foundation of its truths. These are theol- 
 logical questions, not religious questions. Their con- 
 nection with Christianity appears accidental : for if 
 Jesus had taught at Athens, and not at Jerusalem ; if 
 he had wrought no miracle, and none but the human 
 nature had ever been ascribed to him ; if the Old Testa- 
 ment had forever perished at his birth, — Christianity 
 would still have been the word of God ; it would have 
 lost none of its truths. It would be just as true, just as 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 307 
 
 beautiful, just as lasting, as now it is ; though we should 
 have lost so many a blessed word, and the work of 
 Christianity itself would have been, perhaps, a long time 
 retarded. 
 
 , To judge the future by the past, the former authority 
 of the Old Testament can never return. Its present au- 
 thority cannot stand. It must be taken for what it is 
 worth. The occasional folly and impiety of its authors 
 must pass for no more than their value ; while the 
 religion, the wisdom, the love, which make fragrant its 
 leaves, will still speak to the best hearts as hitherto, and 
 in accents even more divine when reason is allowed her 
 rights. The ancient belief in the infallible inspiration 
 of each sentence of the New Testament is fast changing, 
 very fast. One writer, not a sceptic, but a Christian of 
 unquestioned piety, sweeps off the beginning of Matthew ; 
 another, of a different church and equally religious, the 
 end of John. Numerous critics strike off several epistles. 
 The Apocalypse itself is not spared, notwithstanding its 
 concluding curse. Who shall tell us the work of re- 
 trenchment is to stop here ; that others will not demon- 
 strate, what some pious hearts have long felt, that errors 
 of doctrine and errors of fact may be found in many 
 parts of the record, here and there, from the beginning 
 of Matthew to the end of Acts ? We see how opinions 
 have changed ever since the Apostles' time; and who 
 shall assure us that they were not sometimes mistaken 
 in historical, as well as doctrinal matters ; did not some- 
 times confound the actual with the imaginary ; and that 
 the fancy of these pious writers never stood in the place 
 of their recollection ? 
 
 But what if this should take place ? Is Christianity 
 then to perish out of the heart of the nations, and van- 
 ish from the memory of the world, like the religions that 
 
308 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 were before Abraham ? It must be so, if it rest on a 
 foundation which a scoffer may shake, and a score of 
 pious critics shake down. But this is the foundation of 
 a theology, not of Christianity. That does not rest on 
 the decision of Councils. It is not to stand or fall with 
 the infallible inspiration of a few Jewish fishermen, who 
 have writ their names in characters of light all over the 
 world. It docs not continue to stand through the for- 
 bearance of some critic, who can cut when he will the 
 thread on which its life depends. Christianity does not 
 rest on the infallible authority of the New Testament. 
 It depends on this collection of books for the historical 
 statement of its facts. In this we do not require in- 
 fallible inspiration on the part of the writers, more than 
 in the record of other historical facts. To me it seems 
 as presumptuous, on the one hand, for the believer to 
 claim this evidence for the truth of Christianity, as it 
 is absurd, on the other hand, for the sceptic to demand 
 such evidence to support these historical statements. 
 I cannot see that it depends on the personal authority of 
 Jesus. He was the organ through which the Infinite 
 spoke. It is God that was manifested in the flesh by 
 him, on whom rests the truth which Jesus brought to 
 light, and made clear and beautiful in his life ; and if 
 Christianity be true, it seems useless to look for any 
 other authority to uphold it, as for some one to support 
 Almighty God. So if it could be proved — as it cannot 
 — in opposition to the greatest amount of historical 
 evidence ever collected on any similar point, that the 
 Gospels were the fabrication of designing and artful 
 men, that Jesus of Nazareth had never lived, still Chris- 
 tianity would stand firm, and fear no evil. None of the 
 doctrines of that religion would fall to the ground ; for, 
 if true, they stand by themselves. But we should lose 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 309 
 
 — oh, irreparable loss! — the example of that character, 
 so beautiful, so divine, that no human genius could have 
 conceived it, as none, after all the progress and refine- 
 ment of eighteen centuries, seems fully to have compre- 
 hended its lustrous life. If Christianity were true, we 
 should still think it was so, not because its record was 
 written by infallible pens, nor because it was lived out 
 by an infallible teacher; but that it is true, like the 
 axioms of geometry, because it is true, and is to be tried 
 by the oracle God places in the breast. If it rest on the 
 personal authority of Jesus alone, then there is no cer- 
 tainty of its truth if he were ever mistaken in the smallest 
 matter, — as some Christians have thought he was in 
 predicting his second coming. 
 
 These doctrines respecting the Scriptures have often 
 changed, and are but fleeting. Yet men lay much stress 
 on them. Some cling to these notions as if they were 
 Christianity itself. It is about these and similar points 
 that theological battles are fought from age to age. 
 Men sometimes use worst the choicest treasure which 
 God bestows. This is especially true of the use men 
 make of the Bible. Some men have regarded it as the 
 heathen their idol, or the savage his fetich. They have 
 subordinated reason, conscience, and religion to this. 
 Thus have they lost half the treasure it bears in its 
 bosom. No doubt the time will come when its true 
 character shall be felt. Then it will be seen that, amid 
 all the contradictions of the Old Testament, — its legends, 
 so beautiful as fictions, so appalling as facts ; amid its 
 predictions that have never been fulfilled; amid the 
 puerile conceptions of God, which sometimes occur, and 
 the cruel denunciations that disfigure both psalm and 
 prophecy, — there is a reverence for man's nature, a sub- 
 lime trust in God, and a depth of piety, rarely felt in 
 
310 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 these cold northern hearts of ours. Then the devotion 
 of its authors, the loftiness of their aim, and the majesty 
 of their life, will appear doubly fair, and prophet and 
 psalmist will warm our hearts as never before. Their 
 voice will cheer the young, and sanctify the gray-headed ; 
 will charm us in the toil of life, and sweeten the cup 
 death gives us when he comes to shake off this mantle 
 of flesh. Then will it be seen that the words of Jesus 
 are the music of heaven sung in an earthly voice, and 
 that the echo of these words in John and Paul owe their 
 efficacy to their truth and their depth, and to no acci- 
 dental matter connected therewith. Then can the Word, 
 which was in the beginning and now is, find access to 
 the innermost heart of man, and speak there as now it 
 seldom speaks. Then shall the Bible — which is a whole 
 library of the deepest and most earnest thoughts and 
 feelings, and piety, and love, ever recorded in human 
 speech — be read oftener than ever before, — not with 
 superstition, but with reason, conscience, and faith, fully 
 active. Then shall it sustain men bowed down with 
 many sorrows; rebuke sin, encourage virtue, sow the 
 world broadcast and quick with the seed of love, that 
 man may reap a harvest for life everlasting. 
 
 With all the obstacles men have thrown in its path, 
 how much has the Bible done for mankind. No abuse 
 has deprived us of all its blessings. You trace its path 
 across the world from the day of Pentecost to this day. 
 As a river springs up in the heart of a sandy continent, 
 having its father in the skies, and its birth-place in dis- 
 tant unknown mountains ; as the stream rolls on, en- 
 larging itself, making in that arid waste a belt of verdure 
 wherever it turns its way ; creating palm groves and 
 fertile plains, where the smoke of the cottager curls up 
 at eventide, and marble cities send the gleam of their 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 311 
 
 splendor far into the sky, — such has been the course of 
 the Bible on the earth. Despite of idolaters bowing to 
 the dust before it, it has made a deeper mark on the 
 world than the rich and beautiful literature of all the 
 heatlien. The first book of the Old Testament tells man 
 he is made in the image of God ; the first of the New- 
 Testament gives us the motto, Be perfect as your Father 
 in heaven. Higher words were never spoken. How the 
 truths of the Bible have blessed us ! There is not a boy 
 on all the hills of New England ; not a girl born in the 
 filthiest cellar which disgraces a capital in Europe, and 
 cries to God against the barbarism of modern civilization ; 
 not a boy nor a girl all Christendom through, but their 
 lot is made better by that great book. 
 
 Doubtless the time will come when men shall see 
 Christ also as he is. Well might he still say, " Have I 
 been so long with you, and yet hast thou not known 
 me ? " No ! we have made him an idol, have bowed the 
 knee before him, saying, " Hail, king of the Jews ! " 
 called him " Lord, Lord ! " but done not the things 
 which he said. The history of the Christian world 
 might well be summed up in one word of the evange- 
 list — " and there they crucified him ; " for there has 
 never been an age when men did not crucify the Son of 
 God afresh. But if error prevail for a time and grow 
 old in the world, truth will triumph at the last, and then 
 we shall see the Son of God as he is. Lifted up, he shall 
 draw all nations unto him. Then will men understand 
 the word ot Jesus, which shall not pass away. Then 
 shall we see and love the divine life that he lived. How 
 vast has his influence been ! How his spirit wrought in 
 the hearts of his disciples, rude, selfish, bigoted, as at 
 first they were ! How it has wrought in the world ! 
 His words judge the nations. The wisest son of man 
 
312 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 has not measured their height. They speak to what is 
 deepest in profound men, what is hoHest in good men, 
 what is divinest in religious men. They kindle anew the 
 flame of devotion in hearts long cold. They are spirit 
 and life. His truth was not derived from Moses and 
 Solomon ; but the light of God shone through him, not 
 colored, not bent aside. His life is the perpetual rebuke 
 of all time since. It condemns ancient civilization ; it 
 condemns modern civilization. Wise men we have since 
 had, and good men ; but this Galilean youth strode be- 
 fore the world whole thousands of years, so much of 
 divinity was in him. His words solve the questions of 
 this present age. In him the Godlike and the human 
 met and embraced, and a divine life was born. Measure 
 him by the world's 'greatest sons — how poor they are ! 
 Try him by the best of men — how little and low they 
 appear ! Exalt him as much as we may, we shall yet 
 perhaps come short of the mark. But still was he not 
 our brother ; the son of man, as we are ; the son of 
 God, like ourselves ? His excellence — was it not hu- 
 man excellence ? His wisdom, love, piety, — sweet and 
 celestial as they were, — are they not what we also may 
 attain ? In him, as in a mirror, we may see the image 
 of God, and go on from glory to glory, till we are changed 
 into the same image, led by the spirit which enlightens 
 the humble. Viewed in this way, how beautiful is the 
 life of Jesus ! Heaven has come down to earth, or, 
 rather, earth has become heaven. The Son of God, 
 come of age, has taken possession of his birthright. 
 The brightest revelation is this of what is possible for 
 all men, — if not now, at least hereafter. How pure is 
 his spirit, and how encouraging its words ! " Lowly 
 sufferer," he seems to say, " see how I bore the cross. 
 Patient laborer, be strong ; see how I toiled for the 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 313 
 
 unthankful and the merciless. Mistaken sinner, see of 
 what thou art capable. Rise up, and be blessed." 
 
 But if, as some early Christians began to do, you take 
 a heathen view, and make him a God, the Son of God in 
 a peculiar and exclusive sense, much of the significance 
 of his character is gone. His virtue has no merit, his 
 love no feeling, his cross no burthen, his agony no pain. 
 His death is an illusion, his resurrection but a show. 
 For if he were not a man, but a god, what are all these 
 things ? what his Avords, his life, his excellence of 
 achievement ? It is all nothing, weighed against the 
 illimitable greatness of Him who created the worlds and 
 fills up all time and space I Then his resignation is no 
 lesson, his life no model, his death no triumph to you or 
 me, who are not gods, but mortal men, that know not 
 what a day shall bring forth, and walk by faith " dim 
 sounding on our perilous way." Alas ! we liave despaired 
 of man, and so cut off his brightest hope. 
 
 In respect of doctrines as well as forms, we see all is 
 transitory. " Everywhere is instability and insecurity." 
 Opinions have changed most on points deemed most 
 vital. Could we bring up a Christian teacher of any age, 
 from the sixth to the fourteenth century, for example, 
 though a teacher of undoubted soundness of faith, whose 
 word filled the churches of Christendom, clergymen 
 would scarce allow him to kneel at their altar, or sit 
 down with them at the Lord's table. His notions of 
 Christianity could not be expressed in our forms, nor 
 could our notions be made intelligible to his ears. The 
 questions of his age, those on which Christianity was 
 thought to depend, — questions which perplexed and 
 divided the subtle doctors, — are no questions to us. 
 The quarrels which then drove wise men mad now only 
 excite a smile or a tear, as we are disposed to laugh or 
 
314 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 weep at the frailty of man. We have other straws of our 
 own to quarrel for. Their ancient books of devotion do 
 not speak to us ; their theology is a vain word. To look 
 back but a short period, — the theological speculations 
 of our fathers during the last two centuries, their " prac- 
 tical divinity," even the sermons written by genius and 
 piety, are, with rare exceptions, found unreadable ; such 
 a change is there in the doctrines. 
 
 Now who shall tell us that the change is to stop here ; 
 that this sect or that, or even all sects united, have ex- 
 hausted the river of life, and received it all in their can- 
 onized urns, so that we need draw no more out of the 
 eternal well, but get refreshment nearer at hand ? Who 
 shall tell us that another age will not smile at our doc- 
 trines, disputes, and unchristian quarrels about Chris- 
 tianity, and make wide the mouth at men who walked 
 brave in orthodox raiment, delighting to blacken tlie 
 names of heretics, and repeat again the old charge, " He 
 hath blasphemed " ? Who shall tell us they will not 
 weep at the folly of all such as fancied truth shone only 
 into the contracted nook of their school, or sect, or co- 
 terie ? Men of other times may look down equally on 
 the heresy-hunters, and men hunted for heresy, and 
 wonder at both. The men of all ages before us were 
 quite as confident as we, that their opinion was truth, 
 that their notion was Christianity and the whole thereof. 
 The men who lit the fires of persecution, from the first 
 martyr to Christian bigotry down to the last murder of 
 the innocents, had no doubt their opinion was divine. 
 The contest about transubstantiation, and the immacu- 
 late purity of the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Scrip- 
 tures, was waged with a bitterness unequalled in these 
 days. The Protestant smiles at one, the Catholic at the 
 other, and men of sense wonder at both. It might teach 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 315 
 
 US all a lesson, at least of forbearance. No doubt an 
 age will come in which ours shall be reckoned a period 
 of darkness, like the sixth century, — when men groped 
 for the wall, but stumbled and fell, because they trusted 
 a transient notion, not an eternal truth ; an age when 
 temples were full of idols, set up by human folly; an 
 age in w^hich Christian light had scarce begun to shine 
 into men's hearts. But while this change goes on, while 
 one generation of opinions passes away, and another 
 rises up, Christianity itself, that pure religion, which ex- 
 ists eternal in the constitution of the soul and the mind 
 of God, is always the same. The Word that was before 
 Abraham, in the very beginning, will not change, for 
 that Word is truth. From this Jesus subtracted noth- 
 ing ; to this he added nothing. But he came to reveal 
 it as the secret of God, that cunning men could not un- 
 derstand, but which filled the souls of men meek and 
 lowly of heart. This truth we owe to God ; the revela- 
 tion thereof to Jesus, our elder brother, God's chosen 
 son. 
 
 To turn away from the disputes of the Catholics and 
 the Protestants, of the Unitarian and the Trinitarian, of 
 old school and new school, and come to the plain words 
 of Jesus of Nazareth, — Christianity is a simple thing, 
 very simple. It is absolute, pure morality ; absolute, 
 pure religion, — the love of man ; the love of God acting 
 without let or hindrance. The only creed it lays down 
 is the great truth which springs up spontaneous in the 
 holy heart, — there is a God. Its watchword is, Be per- 
 fect as your Father in heaven. The only form it de- 
 mands is a divine life, — doing the best thing in the best 
 way, from the highest motives ; perfect obedience to the 
 great law of God. Its sanction is the voice of God in 
 your heart ; the perpetual presence of him who made us 
 
316 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 and the stars over our head ; Christ and the Father abid- 
 ing within us. All this is very simple — a little child 
 can understand it ; very beautiful — the loftiest mind 
 can find nothing so lovely. Try it by reason, con- 
 science, and faith, — things highest in man's nature, — ■ 
 we see no redundance, we feel no deficiency. Examine 
 the particular duties it enjoins, — humility, reverence, 
 sobriety, gentleness, charity, forgiveness, fortitude, res- 
 ignation, faith, and active love ; try the whole extent of 
 Christianity, so well summed up in the command, " Thou 
 shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with 
 all thy soul, and with all thy mind ; thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor as thyself ; " and is there anything therein that 
 can perish ? No, the very opponents of Christianity 
 have rarely found fault with the teachings of Jesus. 
 The end of Christianity seems to be to make all men 
 one with God as Christ was one with him ; to bring 
 them to such a state of obedience and goodness that we 
 shall think divine thoughts and feel divine sentiments, 
 and so keep the law of God by living a life of truth and 
 love. Its means are purity and prayer ; getting strength 
 from God, and using it for our fellow-men as well as 
 ourselves. It allows perfect freedom. It does not de- 
 mand all men to thitik alike, but to think uprightly, and 
 get as near as possible at truth ; not all men to live 
 alike, but to live holy, and get as near as possible to a 
 life perfectly divine. Christ set up no Pillars of Hercu- 
 les, beyond which men must not sail the sea in quest of 
 truth. He says, " I have many things to say unto you, 
 but ye cannot bear them now. . . . Greater works than 
 these shall ye do." Christianity lays no rude hand on 
 the sacred peculiarity of individual genius and character. 
 But there is no Christian sect which does not fetter a 
 man. It would make all men think alike, or smother 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 317 
 
 their conviction in silence. "Were all men Quakers or 
 Catholics, Unitarians or Baptists, there would be much 
 less diversity of thought, character, and life, less of truth 
 active in the world, than now. But Christianity gives 
 us the largest liberty of the sons of God ; and were all 
 men Christians after the fashion of Jesus, this variety 
 would be a thousand times greater than now ; for Chris- 
 tianity is not a system of doctrines, but rather a method 
 of attaining oneness with God. It demands, therefore, 
 a good life of piety within, of purity without, and gives 
 the promise that whoso does God's will shall know of 
 God's doctrine. 
 
 In an age of corruption, as all ages are, Jesus stood 
 and looked up to God. There was nothing between 
 him and the Father of all; no old world, be it of Moses 
 or Esaias, of a living Rabbi or Sanhedrim of Rabbis ; 
 no sin or perverseness of the finite will. As the re- 
 sult of this virgin purity of soul and perfect obedience, 
 the light of God shone down into the very deeps of his 
 soul, bringing all of the Godhead which flesh can re- 
 ceive. He would have us do the same ; worship with 
 nothing between us and God ; act, think, feel, live, in 
 perfect obedience to him : and we never are Christians 
 as he was the Christ, until we worship, as Jesus did, 
 with no mediator, with nothing between us and the 
 Father of all. He felt that God's word was in him ; 
 that he was one with God. He told what he saw, — the 
 truth ; he lived what he felt, — a life of love. The truth 
 he brought to light must have been always the same 
 before the eyes of all-seeing God, nineteen centuries be- 
 fore Christ, or nineteen centuries after liim. A life su}> 
 ported by the principle and quickened by the sentiment 
 of religion, if true to both, is always the same thing 
 in Nazareth or New Endand. Now that divine man 
 
318 VIEWS OF religion: 
 
 received these truths from God ; was illumined more 
 clearly by " the light that lighteneth every man ; " com- 
 bined or involved all the truths of religion and morality 
 in his doctrine, and made them manifest in his life. 
 Then his words and example passed into the world, and 
 can no more perish than the stars be wiped out of the 
 sky. The truths he taught ; his doctrines respecting 
 man and God ; the relation between man and man, and 
 man and God, with the duties that grow out of that re- 
 lation are always the same, and can never change till 
 man ceases to be man, and creation vanishes into noth- 
 ing. No ; forms and opinions change and perish, but 
 the word of God cannot fail. The form religion takes, 
 the doctrines wherewith she is girded, can never be the 
 same in any two centuries or two men ; for since the 
 sum of religious doctrines is both the result and the 
 measure of a man's total growth in wisdom, virtue, and 
 piety, and since men will always differ in these respects, 
 so religious doctrines and /or?ws will always differ, always 
 be transient, as Christianity goes forth and scatters the 
 seed she bears in her hand. But the Christianity holy 
 men feel in the heart, the Christ that is born within us, 
 is always the same thing to each soul that feels it. This 
 differs only in degree, and not in kind, from age to age, 
 and man to man. There is something in Christianity 
 which no sect, from the " Ebionites " to the " Latter-Day 
 Saints," ever entirely overlooked. This is that common 
 Christianity which burns in the hearts of pious men. 
 
 Real Christianity gives men new life. It is the growth 
 and perfect action of the Holy Spirit God puts into the 
 sons of men. It makes us outgrow any form or any 
 system of doctrines we have devised, and approach still 
 closer to the truth. It would lead us to take what help 
 we can find. It would make the Bible our servant, not 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 319 
 
 our master. It •would teach us to profit by the wisdom 
 and piety of David and Solomon, but not to sin their 
 sins, nor bow to their idols. It would make us revere 
 the holy words spoken by " godly men of old," but revere 
 still more the word of God spoken through conscience, 
 reason, and faith, as the holiest of all. It would not 
 make Christ the despot of the soul, but the brother of 
 all men. It would not tell us that even he had exhausted 
 the fulness of God, so that he could create none greater ; 
 for with him " all things are possible," and neither Old 
 Testament nor New Testament ever hints that creation 
 exhausts the Creator. Still less would it tell us the wis- 
 dom, the piety, the love, the manly excellence of Jesus, 
 was the result of miraculous agency alone, but that it 
 was won, like the excellence of humbler men, by faithful 
 obedience to Him who gave his Son such ample heritage. 
 It would point to him as our brother, who went before, 
 like the good shepherd, to charm us with the music of 
 his words, and with the beauty of his life to tempt us up 
 the steeps of mortal toil, within the gate of heaven. It 
 would have us make the kingdom of God on earth, and 
 enter more fittingly the kingdom on high. It would lead 
 us to form Christ in the heart, on which Paul laid such 
 stress, and work out our salvation by this. For it is not 
 so much by the Christ who lived so blameless and beau- 
 tiful eighteen centuries ago that we are saved directly, 
 but by the Christ we form in our hearts and live out in 
 our daily life that we save ourselves, God working with 
 us both to will and to do. 
 
 Compare the simpleness of Christianity, as Christ sets 
 it forth on the Mount, with what is sometimes taught 
 and accepted in that honored name, and what a differ- 
 ence ! One is of God, one is of man. There is some- 
 thing in Christianity which sects have not reached, — 
 
320 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 something that will not be won, we fear, by theological 
 battles, or the quarrels of pious men ; still we may re- 
 joice that Christ is preached in any way. The Christi- 
 anity of sects, of the pulpit, of society, is ephemeral, — a 
 transitory fly. It will pass off and be forgot. Some 
 new form will take its place, suited to the aspect of the 
 changing times. Each will represent something of truth, 
 but no one the whole. It seems the whole race of man 
 is needed to do justice to the whole of truth, as ^ the 
 whole church, to preach the whole gospel." Truth is 
 intrusted for the time to a perishable ark of human con- 
 trivance. Though often shipwrecked, she always comes 
 safe to land, and is not changed by her mishap. That 
 pure ideal religion which Jesus saw on the mount of his 
 vision, and lived out in the lowly life of a Galilean 
 peasant ; which transforms his cross into an emblem of 
 all that is holiest on earth ; which makes sacred the 
 ground he trod, and is dearest to the best of men, most 
 true to what is truest in them, — cannot pass away. Let 
 men improve never so far in civilization, or soar never 
 so high on the wings of religion and love, they can never 
 outgo the flight of truth and Christianity. It will always 
 be above them. It is as if we were to fly towards a star, 
 which becomes larger and more bright the nearer we 
 approach, till we enter and are absorbed in its glory. 
 
 If we look carelessly on the ages that have gone by, 
 or only on the surfaces of things as they come up before 
 us, there is reason to fear ; for we confound the truth of 
 God with the word of man. So at a distance the cloud 
 and the mountain seem the same. When the drift 
 changes with the passing wind, an unpractised eye might 
 fancy the mountain itself was gone. But the mountain 
 stands to catch the clouds, to win the blessing they bear, 
 and send it down to moisten the fainting violet, to form 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 321 
 
 streams which gladden valley and meadow, and sweep 
 on at last to the sea in deep channels, laden with fleets. 
 Thus the forms of the church, the creeds of the sects, the 
 conflicting opinions of teachers, float round the sides of 
 the Christian mount, and swell and toss, and rise and 
 fall, and dart their lightning, and roll their thunder, but 
 they neither make nor mar the mount itself. Its lofty 
 summit far transcends the tumult, knows nothing of the 
 storm which roars below, but burns with rosy light at 
 evening and at morn, gleams in the splendors of the 
 mid-day sun, sees his light when the long shadows creep 
 over plain and moorland, and all night long has its head 
 in the heavens, and is visited by troops of stars which 
 never set, nor veil their face to aught so pure and high. 
 
 Let then the transient pass, fleet as it will, and may 
 God send us some new manifestation of the Christian 
 faith, that shall stir men's hearts as they were never 
 stirred ; some new word, which shall teach us what we 
 are, and renew us all in the image of God ; some better 
 life, that shall fulfil the Hebrew prophecy, and pour out 
 the spirit of God on young men and maidens, and old 
 men and children ; which shall realize the word of Christ 
 and give us the Comforter, who shall reveal all needed 
 things ! There are Simeons enough in the cottages and 
 churches of New England, plain men and pious women, 
 who wait for the consolation, and would die in gladness 
 if their expiring breath could stir quicker the wings that 
 bear him on. There are men enough, sick and " bowed 
 down, in no wise able to lift up themselves," wlio would 
 be healed could they kiss the hand of their Saviour, or 
 touch but the hem of his garment, — men who look up 
 and are not fed, because they ask bread from heaven and 
 water from the rock, not traditions or fancies, Jewish or 
 heathen, or new or old ; men enough who, with throbbing 
 
 21 
 
322 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 hearts, pray for the spirit of healing to come upon the 
 waters, which other than angels have long kept in trouble ; 
 men enough who have lain long time sick of theology, 
 nothing bettered by many physicians, and are now dead, 
 too dead to bury their dead, who would come out of their 
 graves at the glad tidings. God send us a real religious 
 life, which shall pluck blindness out of the heart, and 
 make us better fathers, mothers, and children ! a relig- 
 ious life that shall go with us where we go, and make 
 every home the house of God, every act acceptable as a 
 prayer. We would work for this, and pray for it, though 
 we wept tears of blood while we prayed. 
 
 Such, then, is the transient, and such the permanent in 
 Christianity. What is of absolute value never changes ; 
 we may cling round it and grow to it forever. No one 
 can say his notions shall stand. But we may all say 
 the truth, as it is in Jesus, shall never pass away. Yet 
 there are always some, even religious men, who do not 
 see the permanent element, so they rely on the fleeting, 
 and, what is also an evil, condemn others for not doing 
 the same. They mistake a defence of the truth for an 
 attack upon the holy of holies ; the removal of a theo- 
 logical error for the destruction of all religion. Already 
 men of the same sect eye one another with suspicion and 
 lowering brows that indicate a storm, and, like children 
 who have fallen out in their play, call hard names. 
 Now, as always, there is a collision between these two 
 elements. The question puts itself to each man, " Will 
 you cling to what is perishing, or embrace what is eter- 
 nal?" This question each must answer for himself. 
 
 My friends, if you receive the notions about Christi- 
 anity which chance to be current in your sect or church, 
 solely because they are current, and thus accept the 
 commandment of men instead of God's truth, there will 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 323 
 
 always be enough to commend you for soundness of 
 judgment, prudence, and good sense, enough to call you 
 Christian for that reason. But if this is all you rely 
 upon, alas for you ! The ground will shake under your 
 feet if you attempt to walk uprightly and like men. 
 You will be afraid of every new opinion, lest it shake 
 down your church ; you will fear " lest if a fox go up, he 
 will break down your stone wall." The smallest contra- 
 diction in the New Testament or Old Testament, the 
 least disagreement between the law and the gospel, any 
 mistake of the apostles, will weaken your faith. It shall 
 be with you " as when a hungry man dreameth, and 
 behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is 
 empty." 
 
 If, on the other hand, you take the true word of God, 
 and live out this, nothing shall harm you. Men may 
 mock, but their mouthfuls of wind shall be blown back 
 upon their own face. If the master of the house were 
 called Beelzebub, it matters little what name is given to 
 the household. The name Christian, given in mockery, 
 w^ll last till the world go down. He that loves God and 
 man, and lives in accordance with that love, needs not 
 fear what man can do to him. His religion comes to 
 him in his hour of sadness, it lays its hand on him when 
 he has fallen among thieves, and raises him up, heals 
 and comforts him. If he is crucified, he shall rise 
 again. 
 
 My friends, you this day receive, with the usual for- 
 malities, the man you have chosen to speak to you on 
 the highest of all themes, — what concerns your life on 
 earth, your life in heaven. It is a work for which no 
 talents, no prayerful diligence, no piety is too great; 
 an office that would dignify angels, if worthily filled. If 
 the eyes of this man be holden, that he cannot discern 
 
324 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 between the perishing and the true, you will hold him 
 guiltless of all sin in this ; but look for light where it 
 can be had, for his office will then be of no use to you. 
 But if he sees the truth, and is scared by worldly motives, 
 and will not tell it, alas for him ! If the watchman see 
 the foe coming and blow not the trumpet, the blood of 
 the innocent is on him. 
 
 Your own conduct and character, the treatment you 
 offer this young man, will in some measure influence 
 him. The hearer affects the speaker. There were 
 some places where even Jesus " did not many mighty 
 works, because of their unbelief." Worldly motives — 
 not seeming such — sometimes deter good men from 
 their duty. Gold and ease have, before now, enervated 
 noble minds. Daily contact with men of low aims takes 
 down the ideal of life, which a bright spirit casts out 
 of itself. Terror has sometimes palsied tongues that, 
 before, were eloquent as the voice of persuasion. But 
 thereby truth is not holden. She speaks in a thousand 
 tongues, and with a pen of iron graves her sentence 
 on the rock forever. You may prevent the freedom of 
 speech in this pulpit if you will. You may hire you 
 servants to preach as you bid ; to spare your vices, and. 
 flatter your follies ; to prophesy smooth things, and say. 
 It is peace, when there is no peace. Yet in so doing 
 you weaken and enthrall yourselves. And alas for that 
 man who consents to think one thing in his closet and 
 preach another in his pulpit ! God shall judge him in 
 his mercy, not man in his wrath. But over his study 
 and over his pulpit might be writ. Emptiness ; on his 
 canonical robes, on his forehead and right hand. Deceit ! 
 Deceit ! 
 
 But, on the other hand, you may encourage your 
 brother to tell you the truth. Your affection will then 
 
CHRIS TIA NITY. 325 
 
 be precious to liim, your prayers of great price. Every 
 evidence of your sympathy will go to baptize him anew to 
 holiness and truth. You will then have his best words, 
 his brightest thoughts, and his most hearty prayers. 
 He may grow old in your service, blessing and blest. 
 He will have — 
 
 *' The sweetest, best of consolation, 
 The thought, that he has given. 
 To serve the cause of Heaven, 
 The freshness of his early inspiration." 
 
 Choose as you will choose; but weal or woe depends 
 upon your choice. 
 
326 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 View it in what light we may, the Bible is a very sur- 
 prising phenomenon. In all Christian lands, this collec- 
 tion of books is separated from every other, and called 
 sacred ; others are profane. Science may differ from 
 them, not from this. It is deemed a condescension on 
 the part of its friends, to show its agreement with rea- 
 son. How much has been written by condescending 
 theologians to show the Bible was not inconsistent with 
 
 • the demonstrations of Newton ! Should a man attempt 
 to re-establish the cosmogonies of Hesiod and Sanchonia- 
 thon, to allegorize the poems of Anacreon and Theocritus 
 as divines mystify the Scripture, it would be said he 
 wasted his oil, and truly. 
 
 This collection of books has taken such a hold on the 
 world as no other. The literature of Greece, which goes 
 up like incense from that land of temples and heroic 
 deeds, has not half the influence of this book from a 
 nation alike despised in ancient and modern times. It 
 is read of a Sunday in all the thirty thousand pulpits of 
 -our land. In all the temples of Christendom is its voice 
 
 • lifted up, week by week.- The sun never sets on its 
 gleaming page. It goes equally to the cottage of the 
 
 ■ plain man and the palace of the king. It is woven into 
 the literature of the scholar, and colors the talk of the 
 street. The bark of the merchant cannot sail the sea 
 without it ; no ship of war goes to the conflict but the 
 Bible is there ! It enters men's closets ; mingles in all 
 the grief and cheerfulness of life. The affianced maiden 
 
THE BIBLE. 327 
 
 prays God in Scripture for strength in her new duties ; 
 men are married by Scripture. The Bible attends them 
 in their sickness ; when the fever of the world is on 
 them, the aching head finds a softer pillow if such leaves • 
 lie underneath. The mariner, escaping from shipwreck, 
 clutches this first of his treasures, and keeps it sacred 
 to God. It goes with the peddler, in his crowded pack ; 
 cheers him at eventide, when he sits down dusty and 
 fatigued ; brightens the freshness of his morning face. 
 It blesses us when we are born ; gives names to half 
 Christendom ; rejoices with us ; has sympathy for our 
 mourning ; tempers our grief to finer issues. It is the 
 better part of our sermons. It lifts man above himself ; 
 our best of uttered prayers are in its storied speech, 
 wherewith our fathers and the patriarchs prayed. The 
 timid man, about awaking from this dream of life, looks ■ 
 through the glass of Scripture and his eye grows bright ; 
 he does not fear to stand alone, to tread the way unknown 
 and distant, to take the death-angel by the hand and bid 
 farewell to wife, and babes, and home. Men rest on this 
 their dearest hopes. It tells them of God, and of his 
 blessed Son ; of earthly duties and of heavenly rest. 
 Foolish men find it the source of Plato's wisdom, and 
 the science of Newton, and the art of Raphael ; wicked 
 men use it to rivet the fetters on the slave. Men who 
 believe nothing else that is spiritual believe the Bible 
 all through ; without this they would not confess, say 
 they, even that there was a God. 
 
 Now, for such effects there must be an adequate cause. 
 That nothing comes of nothing is true all the world over. 
 It is no liglit thing to hold with an electric chain a thou- 
 sand hearts, though but an hour, beating and bounding 
 with such fiery speed. What is it then to hold the 
 Christian world, and that for centuries? Are men fed 
 
328 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 with chaff and husks? The authors we reckon great, 
 whose word is in the newspaper and the market-place, 
 whose articulate breath now sways the nation's mind, 
 will soon pass away, giving place to other great men of 
 a season, who in their turn shall follow them to eminence, 
 and then oblivion. Some thousand " famous writers " 
 come up in this century, to be forgotten in the next. 
 But the silver cord of the Bible is not loosed, nor its 
 golden bowl broken, as Time chronicles his tens of cen- 
 turies passed by. Has the human race gone mad ? Time 
 sits as a refiner of metal ; the dross is piled in for- 
 gotten heaps, but the pure gold is reserved for use, passes 
 into the ages, and is current a thousand years hence as 
 well as to-day. It is only real merit that can long pass 
 for such. Tinsel will rust in the storms of life. False 
 weights are soon detected there. It is only a heart that 
 can speak, deep and true, to a heart ; a mind to a mind ; 
 a soul to a soul ; wisdom to the wise, and religion to the 
 pious. There must then be in the Bible, mind, con- 
 science, heart and soul, wisdom and religion. Were it 
 otherwise how could millions find it their lawgiver, friend, 
 and prophet ? Some of the greatest of human insti- 
 tutions seem built on the Bible ; such things will not 
 stand on heaps of chaff, but mountains of rocks. 
 
 What is the secret cause of this wide and deep in- 
 fluence ? It must be found in the Bible itself, and must 
 be adequate to the effect. To answer the question we 
 must examine the Bible, and see whence it comes, what 
 it contains, and by what authority it holds its place. 
 If we look superficially, it is a collection of books in 
 human language, from different authors and times ; we 
 refer it to a place amongst other books, and proceed to 
 examine it as the works of Homer and Xenophon. But 
 the popular opinion bids us beware, for we tread on holy 
 
THE BIBLE. 329 
 
 ground. The opinion commonly expressed by the Prot- 
 estant churches is this : The Bible is a miraculous col- 
 lection of miraculous books ; every word it contains was 
 written by a miraculous inspiration from God, which 
 was so full, complete, and infallible, that the authors 
 delivered the truth and nothing but the truth ; that the 
 Bible contains no false statement of doctrine or fact, but 
 sets forth all religious and moral truth which man needs, 
 or which it is possible for him to receive, and no par- 
 ticle of error : therefore, that the Bible is the only 
 authoritative rule of religious faith and practice. To 
 doubt this is reckoned a dangerous error, if not an un- 
 pardonable sin. This is the supernatural view. Some 
 scholars slyly reject the divine authority of the Old 
 Testament ; others reject it openly, but cling strongly 
 as ever to the New; some make a distinction between 
 the genuine and the spurious books of the New Testa- 
 ment. Thus there is a difference in the less or more of 
 an inspired and miraculous canon. The modern Uni- 
 tarians have perhaps reduced the Scripture to its lowest 
 terms. But Protestants, in general, in America, agree 
 that in the whole or in part the Bible is an infallible 
 and exclusive standard of religious and moral truth. 
 The Bible is master to the soul, — superior to intellect, 
 truer than conscience, greater and more trustworthy 
 than the affections and the soul. 
 
 Accordingly, with strict logical consistency, a peculiar 
 method is used both in the criticism and interpretation 
 of the Bible ; such as men apply to no other ancient 
 documents. A deference is paid to it wholly indepen- 
 dent of its intrinsic merit. It is presupposed that each 
 book within the lids of the Bible has an absolute right 
 to be there, and each sentence or word therein is infal- 
 libly true. Reason has nothing to do in the premises 
 
330 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 but accept the written statement of " the Word ; " the 
 duty of belief is just the same whether the Word con- 
 tradicts reason and conscience, or agrees with them. 
 
 This opinion about the Bible is true, or not true. If 
 true it is capable of proof, at least of being shown to be 
 probable. Now there are but four possible ways of es- 
 tablishing the fact, namely : — 
 
 1. By the authority of churches, having either a mir- 
 aculous inspiration or a miraculous tradition, to prove 
 the alleged infallibility of the Bible. But the chui'ches 
 are not agreed on this point. The Roman Church very 
 stoutly denies the fact, and besides, the Protestants deny 
 the authority of the Roman Church. 
 
 2. By the direct testimony of God in our conscious- 
 ness, assuring us of the miraculous infallibility of the 
 
 • Bible. This would be at the best one miracle to prove 
 another, which is not logical. The proof is only sub- 
 
 ■ jective, and is as valuable to prove the divinity of the 
 Koran, the Shaster, and the Book of Mormon, as that of 
 
 • the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. It is the argu- 
 ment of the superstitious and enthusiastical. 
 
 3. By the fact that the Bible claims this divine infal- 
 
 • libility. Tliis is reasoning in a circle, though it is the 
 
 ■ method commonly relied on by Christians. It will prove 
 as well the divinity of any impostor who claims it. 
 
 4. By an examination of the contents of the Bible, 
 and the external history of its origin. To proceed in 
 this way, we must ask, Are all its statements infallibly 
 
 ■ true ? But to ask this question presupposes the stand- 
 ard-measure is in ourselves, not in the Bible ; so at the 
 utmost the book can be no more infallible, and have no 
 more authority, than reason and the moral sense by 
 which we try it. A single mistake condemns its infalli- 
 
 • bility, and of course its divinity. But the case is still 
 
THE BIBLE. 331 
 
 worse. After the truth of a book is made out, before a 
 work in human Language, like other books, can be re- 
 ferred to God as its author, one of two things must be 
 shown : either that its contents could not have come 
 from man, — and then it follows by implication that they 
 came from God, — or that at a certain time and place, 
 God did miraculously reveal the contents of the book. 
 
 Now it is a notorious fact, first, that it has not been ■ 
 and cannot be proved that every statement in the Bible 
 is true ; or, secondly, that its contents, such as they are, 
 could not have proceeded from man, under t\\e ordinary 
 influence of God ; or, finally, that any one book or word 
 of the Bible was miraculously revealed to man. In the 
 absence of proof for any one of these three points, it has 
 been found a more convenient way to assume the truth 
 of them all, and avoid troublesome questions. 
 
 Laying aside all prejudices, if we look into the Bible 
 in a general way, as into other books, we find facts which 
 force the conclusion upon us that the Bible is a human 
 work, as much as the Principia of Newton or Descartes, 
 or the Yedas and Koran. Some things are beautiful and 
 true, but others no man, in his reason, can accept. Here 
 are the works of various writers, from the eleventh cen- 
 tury before to the second century after Christ, thrown 
 capriciously together, and united by no common tie but 
 the lids of the bookbinder. Here are two forms of re- 
 ligion, which differ widely, set forth and enforced by 
 miracles ; the one ritual and formal, the other actual 
 and spiritual ; the one. the religion of fear, the other of 
 love ; one final, and resting entirely on the special reve- 
 lation made to Moses, the other progressive, based on 
 the universal revelation of God, who enlightens all that 
 come into the world ; one offers only earthly recom- 
 pense, the other makes immortality a motive to a divine 
 
332 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 ■ life ; one compels men, the other invites them. One 
 
 • half the Bible repeals the other half. The gospel an- 
 nihilates the law ; the apostles take the place of the 
 prophets, and go higher up. If Christianity and Juda- 
 
 ■ ism be not the same thing, there must be hostility be- 
 tween the Old Testament and the New Testament, for 
 
 ■ the Jewish form claims to be eternal. To an unpreju- 
 diced man this hostility is very obvious. It may indeed 
 be said, Christianity came not to destroy the law and the 
 prophets, but to fulfil them ; and the answer is plain, — 
 
 • their historic fulfilment was their destruction. 
 
 If we look at the Bible as a whole, we find numerous 
 contradictions ; conflicting histories which no skill can 
 reconcile with themselves or with facts ; poems which 
 the Christians have agreed to take as histories, but 
 
 • which lead only to confusion on that hypothesis ; proph- 
 ecies that have never been fulfilled, and from the nature 
 
 ■ of things never can be. We find stories of miracles 
 which could not have happened ; accounts which repre- 
 sent the laws of nature completely transformed, as in 
 fairy-land, — to trust the tales of the old romancers; 
 
 • stories that make God a man of war, cruel, capricious, 
 
 • revengeful, hateful, and not to be trusted. We find am- 
 atory songs, selfish proverbs, sceptical discourses, and 
 the most awful imprecations human fancy ever clothed 
 
 ■ in speech. Connected with these are lofty thoughts of 
 nature, man, and God ; devotion touching and beautiful, 
 
 ■ and a most reverent faith. Here are works whose au- 
 thors are known ; others, of which the author, age, 
 
 • and country are alike forgotten. Genuine and spurious 
 works, religious and not religious, are strangely mixed. 
 
 This doctrine of the infallible inspiration of the Scrip- 
 tures has greater power with Christians at this day than 
 
THE BIBLE. 333 
 
 in Paul's time. In the first ages of Christianity each 
 apostle was superior to the Old Testament. There were 
 no Scriptures to rely on, for the Xew Testament was not 
 written, and the Old Testament was hostile. The law 
 stood in their way, — a law of sin and death ; the greatest 
 prophets were inferior to John the Baptist, and the least 
 in the Christian kingdom was greater than he ; all before 
 Jesus were " thieves and robbers " in comparison. Yet 
 Christianity stood without the New Testament. It went 
 forward without it, made converts, an(f produced a 
 wondrous change in the world. The Old ■ Testament 
 was the servant, not the master of the early Christians. ■ 
 Each church used what it saw fit. Some had the whole 
 of the Old Testament, some but a part; others added 
 the Apocrypha ; for there was no settled canon " pub- 
 lished by authority, and appointed to be read in churches." 
 So it was with the New Testament ; some received more 
 than we, others less. Such men as Justin, Ignatius, 
 Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, refer to some other 
 books just as they quote the New Testament. The 
 canon of the New Testament was less certain than the ■ 
 Old. Men followed usage, tradition, or good sense in 
 this matter, and at last the present collection was fixed 
 by authority. But by what test were its limits decided ? 
 Alas, by no certain criterion. 
 
 Let us look at things as they are. Here is a col- 
 lection of ancient books, spurious and genuine, Hebrew 
 and Greek. The one part belongs to a mode of worship, 
 formal and obsolete ; the other to a religion, actual, 
 spiritual, still alive. The one gives us a Jehovah, jealous 
 and angry ; the other a Father, full of love. Each writer 
 in both divisions proves by his imperfections that the 
 earth did not formerly produce a different race of men. 
 They contradict one another, and some relate what no 
 
334 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 testimony can render less than absurd; but yet all taken 
 together, spite of their imperfections and positive faults, 
 form such a collection of religious writings as the world 
 never saw, — so deep, so divine. Are not the Christian 
 Gospels and the Hebrew Psalms still often the best part 
 
 ■ of the Sunday service in the church? Truly, there is but 
 one religion for the Jew, the Gentile, and the Christian, 
 though many theologies and ceremonies for each. 
 
 Now, unless we reject this treasure entirely, one of 
 two things must be done: either we must pretend to 
 believe the whole, absurdities and all, make one part 
 just as valuable as the other, — the law of Moses as the 
 gospel of Jesus, David's curse as Christ's blessing, — and 
 then we make the Bible our master, who puts common 
 sense and reason to silence, and drives conscience and 
 the religious element out of the church ; or else we must 
 accept what is true, good, and divine therein, — take 
 each part for what it is worth, gather the good together, 
 and leave the bad to itself, — and then we make the 
 Bible our servant and helper, who assists common-sense 
 and reason, stimulates conscience and religion, co-working 
 with them all. A third thing is not possible. 
 
 Which shall be done ? The practical answer was given 
 long ago ; it has always been given except in times of 
 fanatical excitement. Because there is chaff and husks 
 in the Bible, are we to eat of them, when there is bread 
 enough and to spare ? Pious men neglect what does 
 not edify. Who reads gladly the curses of the Psalmist, 
 — chapters that make God a man of war, a jealous God, 
 the butcher of the nations ? Certainly but few ; let them 
 be exhorted to repentance. Men cannot gather grapes 
 of thorns, grasp them never so lovingly ; honest men 
 will leave the thorns, or pluck them up. Now criticism, 
 
 ■ which the thinking character of the age demands, asks 
 
THE BIBLE. 335 
 
 men to do consciously and thoroughly what they have 
 always done impcricetly and with no science but that of 
 a pious heart, — that is, to divide the word rightly; sepa- 
 rate mythology from history, fact from fiction, what is 
 religious and of God from what is earthly and not of 
 God ; to take the Bible for what it is worth. Fearful 
 of the issue, we may put off the question a few years ; 
 may insist as strongly as ever on what we know to be 
 false ; ask men to believe it because in the records, and 
 thus drive bad men to hypocrisy, good men to madness, 
 and thinking men to " infidelity ; " we may throw obsta- 
 cles in the way of religion and morality, and tie the 
 millstone of the Old and New Testaments about the 
 neck of piety as before. We may call men " infidels and 
 atheists " whom reason and religion compel to uplift 
 their voice against the idolatry of the church; or we 
 may attempt to smooth over the matter, and say nothing 
 about it, or not what we think. But it will not do. The 
 day of fire and fagots is ended; the toothless "Guardian 
 of the Faith " can only bark. The question will come, 
 though alas for that man by whom it comes. 
 
 Other religions have their sacred books, — their 
 Korans, Vedas, Shasters, — which must be received in 
 spite of reason as masters of the soul. Some would put 
 the Bible on the same ground. They glory in believing 
 whatever is prefaced with a "Thus saitli the Lord ; " but 
 then all superiority of the Bible over these books dis- 
 appears forever ; the daylight gives place to the shadow, 
 the law of sin and death casts out the law of the spirit 
 of life. Let honest reason and religion pursue their 
 own way. 
 
 The indolent and the sensual love to have a visible 
 master in spiritual things, who will spare them the 
 
336 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 ■ agony of thought. Credulity, ignorance, and supersti- 
 - tion conjure up phantoms to attend them. Some honest 
 
 men find it difficult to live nobly and divine ; to keep 
 the well of life pure and undisturbed, the inward ear 
 always open and quick to the voice of God in the soul. 
 
 ■ They see, too, how often the ignorant, the wicked, the 
 superstitious, and the fanatical confound their own pas- 
 sions with the still small voice of God ; they see wliat 
 evil, deep and dreadful, comes of this confusion. Such 
 is the force of prejudice, indolence, habit, they find it 
 sometimes difficult to distinguish between right and 
 wrong; they love to lean on the Most High, and the 
 Bible is declared his word. They say, therefore, by 
 their action, let us have some outward rule and author- 
 ity, which, being infallible, shall help the still smallness 
 of God's voice in the lieart ; it will bless us when weak ; 
 we will make it our master and obey its voice. It shall 
 be to us as a God, and we will fall down and worship it. 
 But alas, it is not so. The word of God — no Scripture 
 will hold that. It speaks in a language no honest mind 
 can fail to read. Such seem the most prominent causes 
 that have made the Bible an idol of the Christians. 
 
 No doubt it will be said, " Such views are dangerous, 
 for the mass of men must always take authority for 
 truth, not truth for authority." But are they not true ? 
 If so, the consequences are not ours ; they belong to the 
 Author of truth, who can manage his own affairs, with- 
 out our meddling. Is the wrong way safer than the 
 right? No doubt it was reckoned dangerous to abandon 
 the worship of Diana, of the cross, the saints and their 
 • relics ; but the world stands, though " the image that fell 
 down from Jupiter " is forgotten. If these doctrines be 
 true, men need not fear they shall have no " standard of 
 religious faith and practice." Reason, conscience, heart, 
 
THE BIBLE. 337 
 
 and soul still remain, — God's voice in nature ; his word 
 in man. His laws remain ever unchanged, though we 
 set up our idols or pluck them down. We still have the 
 same guide with Moses and David, Socrates and Zoroas- 
 ter, Paul and John and Luther, Fenelon, Taylor, and 
 Fox ; yes, the same guide that led Jesus, the first-born 
 of many brothers, in his steep and lonely pilgrimage. 
 
 This doctrine takes nothing from the Bible but its 
 errors, which only weaken its strength ; its truth re- 
 mains, brilliant and burning with the light of life. It 
 calls us away from each outward standard to the eternal 
 truths of God ; from the letter and the imperfect Scrip- 
 ture of the word to the living Word itself. Then we see 
 the true relation the Bible sustains to the soul ; the 
 cause of the real esteem in which it is held is seen to be 
 in its moral and religious truths ; their power and love- 
 liness appear. These have had the greatest influence on 
 the loftiest minds and the lowliest hearts for eighteen 
 hundred years. How they have written themselves all 
 over the world, deepest in the best of men ! What 
 greatness of soul has been found amid the fragrant 
 leaves of the Bible, sufficient to lead men to embrace its 
 truths, though at the expense of accepting tales which 
 make the blood curdle ! 
 
 Take the Bible for what is true in it, and the first 
 chapter of Genesis is a grand hymn of creation, a worthy 
 prelude of the sublime chants that follow. It sings this 
 truth: The world was not always; is not the work of- 
 chance, but of the living God ; all things are good, made 
 to be blest. The writer, — who, perhaps, never thought • 
 he was writing "an article of faith," — if he were a Jev^r, 
 might superstitiously refer the Sabbath to the time of 
 creation and the agency of God, just as the Greek refers 
 one festival to Hercules and another to Bacchus. Then 
 
 22 
 
338 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 oriental piety comes beautiful from the grave hewn in 
 the rock by our dull theology ; utters her word of coun- 
 sel and hope ; sings her mythological poem, and warms 
 the heart, but does not teach theology, or physical 
 science. 
 
 The sweet notes of David's prayer ; his mystic hymn 
 of praise, so full of rippling life ; his lofty psalm, which 
 seems to unite the warbling music of the wind, the sun's 
 glance, and the rush of the lightning ; which calls on the 
 mountain and the sea, and beast, and bird, and man, to 
 join his full heart, — all these shall be sweet and eleva- 
 ting, but we shall leave his pernicious curse to perish 
 where it fell. 
 
 The excellence of the Hebrew devotional hymns has 
 never been surpassed. Heathenism, Christianity, with 
 all their science, arts, literature, bright and many-col- 
 ored, have little that approach these. They are the de- 
 spair of imitators, still the uttered prayer of the Chris- 
 tian world. Tell us of Greece, whose air was redolent 
 of song ; its language such as Jove might speak ; its 
 sages, heroes, poets, honored in every clime, — they have 
 • no psalm of prayer and praise like these Hebrews, the 
 devoutest of men, who saw God always before them, 
 ready to take them up when father and mother let them 
 fall. 
 
 Some of the old prophets were men of stalwart and ro- 
 bust character, set off by a masculine piety that puts to 
 shame our puny littleness of heart. They saw hope the 
 plainest when danger was most imminent, and never de- 
 spaired. Fear of the people, the rulers, the priests, 
 could not awe them to silence, nor gold buy smooth 
 things from the prophet's tongue. They left hypocrisy, 
 with his weeds and weepers, and feigning but unstained 
 handkerchief, to follow the coffin he knew to be empty, 
 
THE BIBLE. 339 
 
 and went their own way, as men. What shall screen 
 the guilty from the prophet's word ? Even David is met 
 with a " Thou art the man." What if they were stoned, 
 imprisoned, sawn asunder ? It was a prophet's reward. 
 They did not prophesy smooth things ; they gave the 
 truth and took blows, not asking love for love. If these 
 men are set up as masters of the soul, justice must 
 break her staff over their heads. But view them as pa- 
 triots whom danger aroused from the repose of life ; as 
 pious men awakened by concern for the public virtue, 
 — and nobler men never spoke speech. 
 
 " Out from the heart of nature rolled 
 The burdens of the Bible old." 
 
 Little needs now be said of the New Testament, of the 
 simple truth that rustles in its leaves, its parables, epis- 
 tles, where Paul lifts up his manly voice, and John, or 
 whoso wrote the words, pours out the mystic melody of 
 his faith. Why tell the deep words of Jesus ? Have 
 we exhausted their meaning ? The world — has it out- 
 grown love to God and man ? They still act in gentle 
 bosoms, giving strength to the strong, and justice and 
 meekness and charity and faith to beautiful souls, long 
 tried and oppressed. There is no need of new words to 
 tell of this. 
 
 Now it is not in nature to respect the false, and yet 
 reverence the true. Call the Bible master, we do not 
 see the excellence it has. Take it as other books, we 
 have its beauty, truth, religion, not its deformities, fables, 
 and theology. We shall not believe in ghosts, though 
 Isaiah did ; nor in devils, though Jesus teach there are 
 such. Wc shall see the excellence of Paul in his manly 
 character, not in the miracles wrought by his apron ; 
 the nobleness of Jesus, in the doctrine he taught and 
 
340 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 the life he lived, not in the walk on the water or the 
 miraculous draughts of fish. We shall care little about 
 the " endless genealogies and old-wives' fables," though 
 still deemed essential by many, but much for being 
 good and doing good. Our faith — let him shake down 
 the Andes who has an arm for that work. 
 
 On the other hand, he that accepts the monstrous pro- 
 digies of the Gospels, — is delighted to believe that Jesus 
 had divine authority for laying on forms, and damning 
 all but the baptized ; that he gave Peter authority to 
 bind and loose on earth and in heaven ; commanded his 
 disciples to make friends of " the mammon of unright- 
 eousness," to tease God, as an unjust judge, into com- 
 pliance, with vain repetitions, — can he accept the 
 absolute religion ? It is not possible for a long time 
 to make serious things of trifles, without making trifles 
 of serious things. Cannot drunkenness be justified out 
 of the Old Testament, — the very Solomon advising the 
 poor man to drown his sorrows in wine? Jeremiah 
 curses the man that will not fight.^ Is not Sarah com- 
 mended by the Fathers of the Church, and Abraham by 
 the Sons ? Men justify slavery out of the New Testament, 
 because Paul had not his eye open to the evil, but sent 
 
 ■ back a fugitive ! It is dangerous to rely on a troubled 
 fountain for the water of life. 
 
 The good influence of the Bible, past and present, as 
 of all religious books, rests on its religious significance. 
 Its truths not only sustain themselves, but the mass of 
 errors connected therewith. Truth can never pass away. 
 Men sometimes fear the Bible will be destroyed by free- 
 
 ■ dom of thought and freedom of speech. Let it perish 
 if such be the case. Truth cannot fear the light, nor 
 are men so mad as to forsake a well of living water. 
 
 1 Proverbs xxxvi. 6, et seq. ; Jer. xlviii. 10. 
 
THE BIBLE. 341 
 
 All the free-thinking in the world could not destroy the 
 Iliad ; how much less the truths of the Bible. Things 
 at last will pass for their true value. The truths of the 
 Bible, which have fed and comforted the noblest souls 
 for so many centuries, may be trusted to last our day. 
 The Bible has already endured the greatest abuse at the 
 hands of its friends, who make it an idol, and would 
 have all men do it homage. We need call none our 
 Master but the Father of all. Yet the Bible, if wisely 
 used, is still a blessed teacher. Spite of the superstition 
 and folly of its worshippers, it has helped millions to 
 that fountain where Moses and Jesus, with the holy- 
 hearted of all time, have stooped and been filled. We 
 see the mistakes of its writers, for though noble and of 
 great stature, they saw not all things. We reject their 
 follies ; but Iheir words of truth are still before us, to 
 admonish, to encourage, and to bless. From time to 
 time God raises up a prophet to lead mankind. He 
 speaks his word as it is given him ; serves his generation 
 for the time, and falls at last, when it is expedient he 
 should give way to the next Comforter whom God shall 
 send. But mankind is greater than a man, and never 
 dies. The experience of the past lives in the present. 
 The light that shone at Nineveh, Egypt, Judea, Athens, 
 Rome, shines no more from those points, — it is every- 
 where. Can Truth decease, and a good idea once made 
 real ever perish ? Mankind, moving solemnly on its 
 appointed road, from age to age, passes by its imper- 
 fect teachers, guided by their light, blessed by their toil, 
 and sprinkled with their blood. But Truth, like her 
 God, is before and above us forever. So we pass by the 
 lamps of the street, with wonder at their light, tliough 
 but a smoky glare ; they seem to change places and burn 
 dim in the distance as we go on ; at last the solid walls 
 
342 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 of darkness shut them in. But high over our head are 
 the unsullied stars, which never change their place, nor 
 dim their eye. So the truths of the Scriptures will teach 
 forever, though the record perish and its authors be 
 forgot. They came from God, through the soul of man. 
 They have exhausted neither God nor the soul. Man 
 is greater than the Bible. That is one ray out of the sun ; 
 • one drop from the infinite ocean. The inward Christ, 
 which alone abideth for ever, has much to say which 
 the Bible never told, much which the historical Jesus 
 never knew. The Bible is made for man, not man for 
 the Bible. Its truths are old as the creation, repeated 
 more or less purely in every tongue. Let its errors and 
 absurdities no longer be forced on the pious mind, but 
 perish forever ; let the word of God come through con- 
 science, reason, and holy feeling, as light through the 
 windows of morning. Worship with no master but God, 
 no creed but truth, no service but love, and we have 
 nothing to fear. 
 
A SERMON ON IMMORTAL LIFE. 343 
 
 A SERMON ON IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God: their hope is full of 
 immortality. — Wisdom of Solomon iii. 1, 4. 
 
 It is the belief of mankind that we shall all live for- 
 ever. This is not a doctrine of Christianity alone. It 
 belongs to the human race. You may find nations so 
 rude that they live houseless, in caverns of the earth ; 
 nations that have no letters, not knowing the use of 
 bows and arrows, fire, or even clothes ; but no nation 
 without a belief in immortal life. The form of that be- 
 lief is often grotesque and absurd ; the mode of proof 
 ridiculous ; the expectations of what the future life is to 
 be are often childish and silly. But notwithstanding all 
 that, the fact still remains, — the belief that the soul 
 of a man never dies. 
 
 How did mankind come by this opinion ? " By a 
 miraculous revelation," says one. But according to the 
 common theory of miraculous revelations, the race could 
 not have obtained it in this way, for according to that 
 theory the heathen had no such revelations ; yet we find 
 this doctrine the settled belief of the whole heathen 
 world. The Greeks and Romans believed it long before 
 Christ ; the Chaldees, with no pretence to miraculous 
 inspiration, taught the idea of immortality ; while the 
 Jews, spite of their alleged revelations, rested only in 
 the dim sentiment thereof. 
 
 It was not arrived at by reasoning. It requires a 
 good deal of hard thinking to reason out and prove this 
 
344 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 matter. Yet you find this belief among nations not 
 capable as yet of that art of thinking, and to that degree, 
 — nations who never tried to prove it, and yet believe it 
 as confidently as we. The human race did not sit down 
 and think it out ; never waited till they could prove it 
 by logic and metaphysics ; did not delay their belief till 
 a miraculous revelation came to confirm it. It came to 
 mankind by intuition ; by instinctive belief, — the belief 
 which comes unavoidably from the nature of man. In 
 this same way came the belief in God, the love of man, 
 the sentiment of justice. Men could see, and knew 
 they could see, before they proved it ; before they had 
 theories of vision ; without waiting for a miraculous rev- 
 elation to come and tell them they had eyes, and might 
 see if they would look. Some faculties of the body act 
 spontaneously at first ; so others of the spirit. 
 
 Immortality is a fact of man's nature, so it is a part of 
 the universe, — just as the sun is a fact in the heavens 
 and a part of the universe. Both are writings from 
 God's hand, each therefore a revelation from him, and 
 of him, — only not miraculous, but natural, regular, 
 normal. Yet each is just as much a revelation from 
 him as if the great Soul of all had spoken in English 
 speech to one of us and said, " There is a sun there 
 in the heavens, and thou shalt live forever." Yes, the 
 fact is more certain than such speech would make it, for 
 this fact speaks always, — a perpetual revelation; and 
 no words can make it more certain. 
 
 As a man attains consciousness of himself, he attains 
 consciousness of his immortality. At first he asks proof 
 no more of his eternal existence than of his present 
 life; instinctively he believes both. Nay, he does not 
 separate the two ; this life is one link in that golden and 
 electric chain of immortality; the next life another and 
 
A SERMON ON IMMORTAL LIFE. 345 
 
 more bright, but in the same chain. Immortality is 
 what philosophers call an ontological fact ; it belongs 
 essentially to the being of man, just as the eye is a physi- 
 ological fact and belongs to the body of man. To my 
 mind this is the great proof of immortality, — the fact 
 that it is written in human nature ; written there so 
 plain that the rudest nations have not failed to find it, 
 to know it ; written just as much as form is written on 
 the circle, and extension on matter in general. It comes 
 to our consciousness as naturally as the notions of time 
 and space. We feel it as a desire ; we feel it as a fact. 
 What is thus in man is writ there of God, who writes no 
 lies. To suppose that this universal desire has no cor- 
 responding gratification, is to represent him not as the 
 Father of all, but as only a deceiver. I feel the longing- 
 after immortality, — a desire essential to my nature, deep 
 as the foundation of my being ; I find the same desire in 
 all men. I feel conscious of immortality ; that I am not 
 to die, — no, never to die, though often to change. I can- 
 not believe this desire and consciousness are felt only 
 to mislead, to beguile, to deceive me. I know God is my 
 Father, and the Father of the nations. Can the Almighty 
 deceive his children ? For my own part, I can conceive 
 of nothing which shall make me more certain of my 
 immortality. I ask no argument from learned lips. 
 No miracle could make me more sure ; no, not if the 
 sheeted dead burst cerement and shroud, and rising forth 
 from their honored tombs stood here before me, — the 
 disenchanted dust once more enchanted with that fiery 
 life ; no, not if the souls of all my sires since time 
 began came thronging round, and with miraculous speech 
 told me they lived and I should also live. I could only 
 say, " I knew all this before, why waste your heavenly 
 speech ! " I have now indubitable certainty of eternal 
 
346 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 life. Death, removing me to the next state, can give 
 me infallible certainty. 
 
 But there are men who doubt of immortality. They 
 say they are conscious of the want, not of the fact. 
 They need a proof. The exception here proves the rule. 
 You do not doubt your personal and conscious existence 
 now ; you ask no proof of that ; you would laugh at me 
 should I try to convince you that you are alive and self- 
 conscious. Yet one of the leaders of modern philosophy 
 wanted a proof of his as a basis for his science, and 
 said, " I am because I think." But his thought required 
 proof as much as his being ; yes, logically more, for 
 being is the ground of thinking, not thinking of being. 
 At this day there are sound men who deny the existence 
 of this outward world, declaring it only a dream-world. 
 This ground, they say, and yonder sun have been but in 
 fancy, like the sun and ground you perchance dreamed 
 of last night, whose being was only a being dreamed. 
 These are exceptional men, and help prove the common 
 rule, — that man trusts his senses and believes an out- 
 ward world. Yet such are more common amongst phi- 
 losophers than men who doubt of tlieir immortal life. 
 You cannot easily reason those men out of their philos- 
 ophy and into their senses, nor by your own philosophy 
 perhaps convince them that there is an outward world. 
 
 I think few of you came to your belief in everlasting 
 life through reasoning. Your belief grew out of your 
 general state of mind and heart. You could not help 
 it. Perhaps few of you ever sat down and weighed the 
 arguments for and against it, and so made up your mind. 
 Perhaps those who have the firmest consciousness of the 
 fact are least familiar with the arguments which confirm 
 that consciousness. If a man disbelieves it, if he denies 
 it, his opinion is not often to be changed immediately or 
 
A SERMON' ON IMMORTAL LIFE. 347 
 
 directly by argument. His special conviction has grown 
 out of his general state of mind and heart, and is only to 
 be removed by a change in his whole philosophy. I am 
 not honoring men for their belief, nor blaming men who 
 doubt or deny. I do not believe any one ever willingly 
 doubted this ; ever purposely reasoned himself into the 
 denial thereof. Men doubt because they cannot help it ; 
 not because they will, but must. 
 
 There are a great many things true which no man as 
 yet can prove true ; some things so true that nothing can 
 make them plainer, or more plainly true. I think it is 
 so with this doctrine, and therefore, for myself, ask no 
 argument. With my views of man, of God, of the rela- 
 tion between the two, I want no proof, satisfied with my 
 own consciousness of immortality. Yet there are argu- 
 ments which are fair, logical, just, which satisfy the 
 mind, and may, perhaps, help persuade some men Avho 
 doubt, if such men there are amongst you. I think that 
 immortality is a fact of consciousness ; a fact given in 
 the constitution of man : therefore a matter of sentiment. 
 But it requires thought to pick it out from amongst the 
 other facts of consciousness. Though at first merely a 
 feeling, a matter of sentiment, on examination it becomes 
 an idea, — ■ a matter of thought. It will bear being looked 
 at in the sharpest and dryest light of logic. Truth never 
 flinches before reason. It is so with our consciousness 
 of God ; that is an ontological fact, a fact given in the 
 nature of man. At first it is a feeling, a matter of sen- 
 timent. By thought we abstract this fact from other 
 facts ; we find an idea of God. That is a matter of 
 philosophy, and the analyzing mind legitimates the idea, 
 and at length demonstrates the existence of God, which 
 we first learned without analysis, and by intuition. A 
 great deal has been written to prove the existence of 
 
348 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 God, and that by the ablest men ; yet I cannot believe 
 that any one was ever reasoned directly into a belief in 
 God by all tliose able men, nor directly out of it by all 
 the sceptics and scoffers. Indirectly such works affect 
 men, cliange their philosophy and modes of thought, and 
 so help them to one or the other conclusion. 
 
 The idea of immortality, like the idea of God, in a 
 certain sense is born in us, and fast as we come to con- 
 sciousness of ourselves we come to consciousness of God, 
 and of ourselves as immortal. The higher we advance 
 in wisdom, goodness, piety, the larger place do God and 
 immortality hold in our experience and inward life. 
 I think that is the regular and natural process of a 
 man's development. Doubt of either seems to me an 
 exception, an irregularity. Causes that remove the 
 doubt must be general more than special. 
 
 However, in order to have a basis of thought and 
 reasoning, as well as of intuition and reason, let me 
 mention some of the arguments for everlasting life. 
 
 I. The first is drawn from the general belief of man- 
 kind. The greatest philosophers and the most profound 
 and persuasive religious teachers of the whole world 
 have taught this. That is an important fact, for these 
 men represent the consciousness of mankind in tlie high- 
 est development it has yet reached, and in such points 
 are the truest representatives of man. What is more, 
 the human race believes it, not merely as a thing given 
 by miraculous revelation, not as a matter proven by 
 science, not as a thing of tradition resting on some 
 man's authority, but believes it instinctively, not know- 
 ing and not asking why, or how ; believes it as a fact of 
 consciousness. Now, in a matter of this sort the opinion 
 of the human race is worth considering. I do not value 
 very much the opinion of a priesthood in Rome or Judea 
 
A SERMON ON IMMORTAL LIFE. 349 
 
 or elsewhere, on this point or any other, for they may 
 have designs adverse to the truth. But the general sen- 
 timent of the liuman race in a matter like this is of the 
 greatest importance. This general sentiment of man- 
 kind is a quite different thing from public opinion, which 
 favors freedom in one country and slavery in another ; 
 this sentiment of mankind relates to what is a matter 
 of feeling with most men. It is only a few thinkers 
 that have made it a matter of thought. The opinion of 
 mankind, so far as we know, has not changed on this 
 point for four thousand years. Since the dawn of his- 
 tory, man's belief in immortality has continually been 
 developing and getting deeper fixed. 
 
 Still more, this belief is very dear to mankind. Let 
 me prove that. If it wei'e true that one human soul was 
 immortal and yet was to be eternally damned, getting 
 only more clotted with crime and deeper bit by agony as 
 the ages went slowly by, then immortality were a curse, 
 not to that man only, but to all mankind ; for no 
 amount of happiness, merited or undeserved, could ever 
 atone or make up for the horrid wrong done to that one 
 most miserable man. Who of you is there that could 
 relish heaven, or even bear it for a moment, knowing 
 that a brother was doomed to smart with ever greatening 
 agony, while year on year, and age on age, the endless 
 chain of eternity continued to coil round the flying 
 wheels of hell ? I say the thought of one such man 
 would fill even heaven with misery, and the best man of 
 men would scorn the joys of everlasting bliss, would 
 spurn at heaven and say, " Give me my brother's place ; 
 for me there is no heaven while he is there ! " Now it 
 has been popularly taught that not one man alone, but 
 the vast majority of all mankind, are thus to be con- 
 demned, — immortal only to be everlastingly wretched. 
 
350 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 That is the popular doctrine now in this land ; it has 
 been so taught in the- Christian churches these sixteen 
 centuries and more, — taught in the name of Christ! 
 Such an immortality would be a curse to men, to every 
 man ; as much so to the " saved " as to the " lost ; " for 
 who would willingly stay in heaven, and on such terms ? 
 Surely not he who wept with weeping men ! Yet in spite 
 of this vile doctrine drawn over the world to come, man- 
 kind religiously believes that each shall live forever. 
 This shows how strong is the instinct which can lift up 
 such a foul and hateful doctrine and still live on. Tell 
 me not that scoffers and critics shall take away man's 
 faith in endless life ; it has -stood a harder test than can 
 ever come again. 
 
 II. The next argument is drawn from the nature of 
 man. 
 
 1. All men desire to be immortal. This desire is 
 instinctive, natural, universal. In God's world such a 
 desire implies the satisfaction thereof, equally natural 
 and universal. It cannot be that God has given man 
 this universal desire of immortality, this belief in it, and 
 yet made it all a mockery. Man loves truth, tells it, 
 rests only in it ; how much more God, who is the true- 
 ness of truth. Bodily senses imply their objects, — the 
 eye light, the ear sound; the touch, the taste, the smell, 
 things relative thereto. Spiritual senses likewise foretell 
 their object, — are silent prophecies of endless life. The 
 love of justice, beauty, truth, of man and God, points to 
 realities unseen as yet. We are ever hungering after 
 noblest things, and what we feed on makes us hunger 
 more. The senses are satisfied, but the soul never. 
 
 2. Then, too, while this composite body unavoidably 
 decays, this simple soul which is my life decays not; 
 reason, the affections, all the powers that make the man, 
 
A SERMON ON IMMORTAL LIFE. 351 
 
 decay not. True, the organs by which they act become 
 impaired. But there is no cause for thinking that love, 
 conscience, reason, will ever become weaker in man ; 
 but cause for thinking that all these continually become 
 more strong. Was the mind of Newton gone when his 
 frame, long over-tasked, refused its wonted work ? 
 
 3. Here on earth, everything in its place and time 
 matures. The acorn and the chestnut, things natural to 
 this climate, ripen every year. A longer season would 
 make them no better nor bigger. It is so with our body ; 
 that, under proper conditions, becomes mature. It is 
 so with all the things of earth. But man is not fully 
 grown, as the acorn and the chestnut ; never gets mature. 
 Take the best man and the greatest, — all his faculties 
 are not developed, fully grown and matured. He is not 
 complete in the qualities of a man ; nay, often half his 
 qualities lie all unused. Shall we conclude these are 
 never to obtain development and do their work? The 
 analogy of nature tells us that man, the new-born plant, 
 is but removed by death to another soil, where he shall 
 grow complete and become mature. 
 
 4. Then, too, each other thing, under its proper condi- 
 tions, not only ripens but is perfect also after its kind. 
 Each clover-seed is perfect as a star. Every lion, as a 
 general rule, is a common representation of all lionhood; 
 the ideal of his race made real in him, a thousand years 
 of life would not make him more. But where is the 
 Adamitic man, — the type and representative of his race, 
 who makes actual its idea ? Even Jesus bids you not 
 call him good ; no man has all the manhood of mankind. 
 Yes, there are rudiments of greatness in us all, but 
 abortive, incomplete, and stopped in embryo. Now, all 
 these elements of manhood point as directly to another 
 state as the unfinished walls of yonder rising church 
 
852 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 intimate that the work is not complete, that the artist 
 here intends a roof, a window there, here a tower, and 
 over all a heaven-piercing spire. All men are abortions, 
 our failure pointing to the real success. Nay, we are 
 all waiting to be born, our whole nature looking to 
 another world, and dimly presaging what that world 
 shall be. Death, however we misname him, seasonable 
 or out of time, is the birth-angel, that alone. 
 
 6. Besides, the presence of injustice, of wrong, points 
 the same way. The fact that one man goes out of this 
 life in childhood, in manhood, at any time before the 
 natural measure of his days is full ; the fact that any one 
 is by circumstances made wretched ; that he is hindered 
 from his proper growth, and has not here his natural due, 
 — all intimates to me his future life. I know that God 
 is just. I know his justice too shall make all things 
 right, for he must have the power, the wish, the will 
 therefor, to speak in human speech. I see the injustice 
 in this city, its pauperism, suffering, and crime, men 
 smarting all their life, and by no fault of theirs. I 
 know there must be another hemisphere to balance this ; 
 another life, wherein justice shall come to all and for 
 all. Else God were unjust ; and an unjust God to me is 
 no God at all, but a wretched chimera which my soul 
 rejects with scorn. I see the autumn prefigured in the 
 spring. The flowers of May-day foretold the harvest, its 
 rosy apples and its yellow ears of corn. As the bud 
 now lying cold and close upon the bark of every tree 
 throughout our northern clime is a silent prophecy of 
 yet another spring and other summers, and harvests 
 too, so this instinctive love of justice, scantly budding 
 here and nipped by adverse fate, silently but clearly tells 
 of a kingdom of heaven. I take some miserable child 
 here in this city, squalid in dress and look, ignorant and 
 
A SERMON ON IMMORTAL LIFE. 353 
 
 wicked too as most men judge of vagrant vice, made so 
 by circumstances over "which that child had no control ; 
 1 turn off with a shudder at the public wrong we have 
 done and still are doing ; but in that child I see proof of 
 another world, yes, heaven glittering from behind those 
 saddened eyes. I know that child has a man's nature 
 in him, perhaps a Channing's trusting piety ; perhaps 
 a Newton's mind, — has surely rudiments of more than 
 these ; for what were Channing, Newton, both of them, 
 but embryo men ? I turn off with a shudder at the pub- 
 lic wrong, but a faith in God's justice, in that child's 
 eternal life, which nothing can ever shake. 
 
 III. A third argument is drawn from the nature of 
 God. He, as the Infinite, the Unconditioned, the Abso- 
 lute, is all-powerful, all-wise, all-good. Therefore he 
 must wish the best of all possible things; must know 
 the best of all possible things ; must will the best of all 
 possible things, and so bring it to pass. Life is a possi- 
 ble thing ; eternal life is possible. Neither implies a 
 contradiction ; yes, to me they seem necessary, more 
 than possible. Now, then, as life, serene and happy life, 
 is better tlian non-existence, so immortality is better 
 than perpetual death. God must know that, wish that, 
 will that, and so bring that about. Man, therefore, must 
 be immortal. This argument is brief indeed, but I see 
 not how it can be withstood. 
 
 I do not know that one of you doubts of eternal life. 
 If any does, I know not if these thoughts will ever affect 
 his doubt. Still I think each argument is powerful, — to 
 one that thinks, reasons, balances, and then decides, ex- 
 ceeding powerful. All put together form a mass of 
 argument which, as it seems to me, no logic can resist. 
 Yet I beg you to understand that I do not rest immortal- 
 itj on any reasoning of mine, but on reason itself ; not 
 
 23 
 
354 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 on these logical arguments, but on man's consciousness, 
 and the instinctive belief which is common to the human 
 race. I believed my immortality before I proved it ; be- 
 lieved it just as strongly then as now. Nay, could some 
 doubter rise, and, to my thinking, vanquish all these ar- 
 guments, I should still hold fast my native faith, nor 
 fear the doubter's arms. The simple consciousness of 
 men is stronger than all forms of proof. Still, if men 
 want arguments — why, there they are. 
 
 The belief in immortality is one thing ; the special 
 form thereof, the definite notion of the future life, an- 
 other and quite different. The popular doctrine in our 
 churches I think is this : That this body which we lay 
 in the dust shall one day be raised again, the living soul 
 joined on anew, and both together live the eternal life. 
 But where is the soul all this time, between our death- 
 day and our day of rising ? Some say it sleeps uncon- 
 scious, dead all this time ; others, that it is in heaven 
 now, or else in hell ; others, in a strange and transient 
 home, imperfect in its joy or woe, waiting the final day 
 and more complete account. It seems to me this notion 
 is absurd and impossible, — absurd in its doctrine relative 
 to the present condition of departed souls ; impossible in 
 what it teaches of the resurrection of this body. If my 
 soul is to claim the body again, which shall it be, the 
 body I was born into, or that I died out of ? If I live to 
 the common age of men, changing my body as I must, 
 and dying daily, then I have worn some eight or ten 
 bodies. So at the last, which body shall claim my soul, 
 for the ten had her ? The soul herself may claim them 
 all. But to make the matter still more intricate, there 
 is in the earth but a certain portion of matter out of 
 which human bodies can be made. Considering all the 
 millions of men now living, the myriads of millions 
 
A SERMON ON IMMORTAL LIFE. 355 
 
 that have been before, it is plain, I think, that all the 
 matter suitable for human bodies has been lived over 
 many times. So if the world were to end to-day, in- 
 stead of each old man having ten bodies from which to 
 choose the one that fits him best, there would be ten 
 men, all clamoring for each body ! Shall I then have a 
 handful of my former dust, and that alone ? That is 
 not the resurrection of my former body. This whole 
 doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh seems to me 
 impossible and absurd. 
 
 I know men refer this, as many other things no better, 
 to Jesus. I find no satisfactory evidence that he taught 
 the resurrection of the body ; there is some evidence that 
 he did not. I know it was the doctrine of the Pharisees 
 of his time, of Paul, the early Christians, and more or 
 less of the Christian churches to this day. In Christ's 
 time in Judea, there were the Sadducees, who taught the 
 eternal death of men ; the Pharisees, who taught the 
 resurrection of the flesh and its reunion with the soul ; 
 the Essenes, who taught the immortality of the soul, but 
 rejected the resurrection of the body. Paul was a Phari- 
 see, and in his letters taught the resurrection of the dead, 
 the belief of the Pharisees. From him it has come down 
 to us, and in the creed of many churches it is still written, 
 " I believe in the resurrection of the flesh." Many 
 doubted this in early times, but the council of Nice de- 
 clared all men accursed who dared to doubt the resurrec- 
 tion of the flesh. I mention this as absurd and impossible, 
 because it is still, I fear, the popular belief, and lest some 
 should confound the doctrine of immortality with this 
 tenet of the Pharisees. Let it be remembered the im- 
 mortality of the soul is one thing, the resurrection of the 
 body another and quite different. 
 
 What is this future life ? whac can we know of it be- 
 
356 f/je:t^,s of religion. 
 
 sides its existence ? Some men speak as if they knew 
 the way around heaven as around the wards of their 
 native city. What we can know in detail is cautiously 
 to be inferred from the nature of man and the nature of 
 God. I will modestly set down what it seems to me. 
 
 It must be a conscious state. Man is by his nature 
 conscious ; yes, self-conscious. He is progressive in his 
 self-consciousness. I cannot tliink a removal out of the 
 body destroys this consciousness ; rather that it enhances 
 and intensifies this. Yet consciousness in the next life 
 must differ as much from consciousness here as the ripe 
 peach differs from the blossom, or the bud, or the bark, 
 or the earthly materials out of which it grew. The child 
 is ^10 limit to the man, nor my consciousness now to 
 what I may be, must be hereafter. 
 
 It must be a social state. Our nature is social ; our 
 joys social. For our progress here, our happiness, we 
 depend on one another. Must it not be so there ? It 
 must be an advance upon our nature and condition here. 
 All the analogy of nature teaches that. Things advance 
 from small to great ; from base to beautiful. The girl 
 grows into a woman ; the bud swells into the blossom, 
 that into the fruit. The process over, the work begins 
 anew. How much more must it be so in the other life. 
 What old powers we shall discover, now buried in the 
 flesh, what new powers shall come upon us in that new 
 state, no man can know ; it were but poetic idleness to 
 talk of them. We see in some great man what power 
 of intellect, imagination, justice, goodness, piety, he re- 
 veals, lying latent in us all. How men bungle in their 
 works of art ! No Raphael can paint a dew-drop or a 
 flake of frost. Yet some rude man, tired with his work, 
 lies down beneath a tree, his head upon his swarthy arm, 
 and sleei^ shuts, one by one, these five scant portals of 
 
A SERMOX OX IMMORTAL LIFE. 357 
 
 the soul, and -what an artist is he made at once ! How 
 brave a sky he paints above him, with what golden gar- 
 niture of clouds set off ; what flowers and trees, what 
 men and women does he not create, and moving in celes- 
 tial scenes I What years of history does he condense in 
 one short minute, and when he wakes, shakes off the 
 purple drapery of his dream as if it were but worthless 
 dust and girds him for his work anew ! What other 
 jDOwers there are shut up in men, less known than this 
 artistic phantasy, — powers of seeing the distant, recalling 
 the past, predicting the future, feeling at once the charac- 
 ter of men, — of this we know little, only by rare glimpses 
 at the unwonted side of things. But yet we know enough 
 to guess there are strange wonders there waiting to be 
 revealed. 
 
 What form our conscious, social, and increased activity 
 shall take, we know not. We know of that no more than 
 before our birth we knew of this world, of sight, smell, 
 hearing, taste, and touch, or the things which they re- 
 veal. We are not born into that world, have not its 
 senses yet. This we know, that the same God, all- 
 powerful, all-wise, all-good, rules there and then, as here 
 and now. Who cannot trust him to do right and best 
 for all ? For my own part, I feel no wish to know how, 
 or where, or what I shall be hereafter. I know it will 
 be right for my truest welfare, for the good of all. I 
 am satisfied with this trust. 
 
 Yet the next life must be a state of retribution. 
 Thither we carry nothing but ourselves, our naked 
 selves. Our fortune we leave behind us ; our honors 
 and rank return to such as gave; even our reputation, — 
 the good or ill men thought we were, — clings to us no 
 more. We go thither without our staff or scrip, — nothing 
 but the man we are. Yet that man is the result of all 
 
358 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 life's daily work; it is the one thing which we have 
 brought to pass. I cannot believe men who have volun- 
 tarily lived mean, little, vulgar, and selfish lives, will go 
 out of this and into that, great, noble, generous, good, 
 and holy. Can the practical saint and the practical hyp- 
 ocrite enter on the same course of being together ? I 
 know the sufferings of bad men here, the wrong they do 
 their nature, and what comes of that Avrong. I think 
 that suffering is the best part of sin, the medicine to 
 heal it with. What men suffer here from their wrong- 
 doing is its ^natural consequence; but all that suffering 
 is a mercy, designed to make them better. Everything 
 in this world is adapted to promote the welfare of God's 
 creatures. Must it not be so in the next ? How many 
 men seem wicked from our point of view who are not 
 so from their own; how many become infamous through 
 no fault of theirs, — the victims of circumstances, born 
 into crime, of low and corrupt parents whom former 
 circumstances made corrupt ! Such men cannot be 
 sinners before God. Here they suffer from the tyranny 
 of appetites they never were taught to subdue ; they 
 have not the joy of a cultivated mind. The children of 
 the wild Indian are capable of the same cultivation as 
 children here; yet they are savages. Is it always to 
 be so ? Is God to be partial in granting the favors of 
 another life ? I cannot believe it. I doubt not that many 
 a soul rises up from the dungeon and the gallows, yes, 
 from dens of infamy amongst men, clean and beautiful 
 before God. Christ, says the Gospel, assured the peni- 
 tent thief of sharing heaven with him — and that day. 
 Many seem inferior to me,- who in God's sight must be 
 far before me ; men who now socra too low to learn of 
 me here, may be too high to teach me there. 
 
 I cannot think the future world is to be feared, even 
 
A SERMON ON IMMORTAL LIFE. 359 
 
 by the worst of men. I had rather die a sinner than 
 live one. Doubtless justice is there to be done ; that 
 may seem stern and severe. But remember, God's justice 
 is not like a man's ; it is not vengeance, but mercy ; not 
 poison, but medicine. To me it seems tuition more than 
 chastisement. God is not the jailer of the universe, but 
 the Shepherd of the people ; not the hangman of man- 
 kind, but their Physician ; yes, our Father. I cannot 
 fear him as I fear men. I cannot fail to love. I abhor 
 sin, I loathe and nauseate thereat ; most of all at my 
 own. I can plead for others and extenuate their guilt, 
 perhaps they for mine ; not I for my own. I know God's 
 justice will overtake me, giving me what I have paid for. 
 But I do not, cannot fear it. I know his justice is love ; 
 that if I suffer, it is for my everlasting joy. I think 
 this is a natural state of mind. I do not find that men 
 ever dread the future life, or turn pale on their death-bed 
 at thought of God's vengeance, except when a priest- 
 hood has frightened them to that. The world's litera- 
 ture, «v'hich is the world's confession, proves what I say. 
 In Greece, in classic days, when there was no caste of 
 priests, the belief in immortality was current and strong. 
 But in all her varied literature I do not remember a man 
 dying, yet afraid of God's vengeance. The rude Indian 
 of our native land did not fear to meet the Great Spirit 
 face to face. I have sat by the bedside of wicked men, 
 and while death was dealing with my brother, I have 
 watched the tide slow ebbing from the shore, but I have 
 known no one afraid to go. Say what we will, there is 
 nothing stronger and deeper in men than confidence in 
 God, — a solemn trust that he will do us good. Even 
 the worst man thinks God his Father ; and is he not ? 
 Tell me not of God's vengeance, imnishing men for his 
 own glory ! There is no such thing. Talk not to me of 
 
360 VIEWS OF religion: 
 
 endless hell, where men must suffer for suffering's sake, 
 be damned for an eternity of woe. I tell you there is 
 no such thing, nor can there ever be. Does not even the 
 hireling shepherd, when a single lamb has gone astray, 
 leave the ninety and nine safe in their fold, go forth 
 some stormy night and seek the wanderer, rejoicing to 
 bring home the lost one on his shoulders ? And shall 
 God forget his child, his frailest or most stubborn child ; 
 leave him in endless misery, a prey to insatiate sin, — 
 that grim, bloodthirsty wolf, prowling about the human 
 fold ? I tell you No ; not God. Why, this eccentric 
 earth forsakes the sun awhile, careering fast and far 
 away, but that attractive power prevails at length, and 
 the returning globe comes rounding home again. Does 
 a mortal mother desert her son, wicked, corrupt, and 
 loathsome though he be ? If so, the wiser world cries 
 Shame ! But she does not. When her child becomes 
 loathsome and hateful to the world, drunk with wicked- 
 ness, and when the wicked world puts him away out of its 
 sight, — strangling him to death, — that mother forgets 
 not her child. She had his earliest kiss, from lips all 
 innocent of coming ill, and she will have his last. Yes, 
 she will press his cold and stiffened form to her own 
 bosom ; the bosom that bore and fed the innocent babe 
 yearns yet with mortal longing for the murdered murderer. 
 Infamous to the world, his very dust is sacred dust to her. 
 She braves the world's reproach, buries her son, piously 
 hoping that as their lives once mingled, so their ashes 
 shall. The world, cruel and forgetful oft, honors the 
 mother in its deepest heart. Do you tell me that cul- 
 prit's mother loves her son more than-God can love him ? 
 Then go and worship her. I know that when father and 
 mother both forsake me, in the extremity of my sin, I 
 know my God loves on. Oh yes, ye sons of men, Indian 
 
A SERMON ON IMMORTAL LIFE. 361 
 
 and Greek, ye are right to trust jour God. Do priests 
 and their churches say No ? — bid them go and be silent 
 forever. No grain of dust gets lost from off this dusty 
 globe ; and shall God lose a man from off this sphere of 
 souls ? Believe it not. 
 
 I know that suffering follows sin, lasting long as the 
 sin. I thank God it is so ; that God's own angel stands 
 there to warn back the erring Balaams, wandering 
 towards woe. But God, who sends the rain, the dew, the 
 sun, on me as on a better man, will, at last, I doubt it 
 not, make us all pure, all just, all good, and so, at last, 
 all happy. This follows from the nature of God himself, 
 for the All-good must wish the welfare of his child ; the 
 All-wise know how to achieve that welfare ; the All-pow- 
 erful bring it to pass. Tell me he wishes not the eter- 
 nal welfare of all men, then I say, That is not the God 
 of the universe. I own not that as God. Nay, I tell 
 you it is not God you speak of, but some heathen fancy, 
 smoking up from your unhuman heart. I would ask the 
 worst of mothers. Did you forsake your child because he 
 went astray, and mocked your word ? " Oh no," she 
 says ; " he was but a child, he knew no better, and I led 
 him right, corrected him for his good, not mine ! " Are 
 we not all children before God ; the wisest, oldest, wick- 
 edest, God's child ? I am sure he will never forsake me, 
 how wicked soever I become. I know that he is love ; 
 love, too, that never fails. I expect to suffer for each 
 conscious, wilful wrong ; I wish, I hope, I long to suffer 
 for it. I am wronged if I do not ; what I do not out- 
 grow, live over and forget here, I hope to expiate there. 
 I fear a sin, — not to outgrow a sin. 
 
 A man who has lived here a manly life, must enter 
 the next under the most favorable circumstances. I do 
 not mean a man of mere negative goodness, starting in 
 
362 
 
 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 the road of old custom, with his wheels deep in the ruts, 
 not having life enough to go aside, but a positively good 
 man, one bravely good. He has lived heaven here, and 
 must enter higher up than a really wicked man, or a 
 slothful one, or one but negatively good. He can go 
 from earth to heaven, as from one room to another, pass 
 gradually, as from winter to spring. To such an one, 
 no revolution appears needed. The next life, it seems, 
 must be a continual progress, the improvement of old 
 powers, the disclosure or accession of new ones. What 
 nobler reach of thought, what profounder insight, what 
 more heavenly imagination, what greater power of con- 
 science, faith, and love, will bless us there and then, it 
 were vain to calculate, it is far beyond our span. You 
 see men now, whose souls are one with God, and so his 
 will works through them as the magnetic fire runs on 
 along the unimpeding line. What happiness they have, 
 it is they alone can say. How much greater must it be 
 there, not even they can tell. Here the body helps us 
 to some things. Through these five small loopholes 
 the world looks in. How much more does the body 
 hinder us from seeing ? Through the sickly body yet 
 other worlds look in. He who has seen only the day- 
 light, knows nothing of that heaven of stars, which all 
 night long hang over head their lamps of gold. When 
 death has dusted off this body from me, who will dream 
 for nie the new powers I shall possess ? It were vain to 
 try. Time shall reveal it all. 
 
 I cannot believe that any state in heaven is a final 
 state, only a condition of progress. The bud opens into 
 the blossom, the flower matures into the fruit. The sal- 
 vation of to-day is not blessedness enough for to-morrow. 
 Here we are, first, babes of earth, with a few senses, and 
 those imperfect, helpless, and ignorant; then children 
 
A SERMON ON IMMORTAL LIFE. 363 
 
 of earth ; then youths ; then men, armed with reason, 
 conscience, affection, piety, and go on enhirging these 
 without end. So methinks it must be there, that wc 
 shall be, first, babes of heaven, then children, next youths, 
 and so go on growing, advancing and advancing, — our 
 being only a becoming more and more, with no possibil- 
 ity of ever reaching the end. If this be true, then there 
 must be a continual increase of being. So, in some fu- 
 ture age, the time will come when each one of us shall 
 have more mind, and heart, and soul, than Christ on 
 earth ; more than all men now on earth have ever had ; 
 yes, more than they and all the souls of men now passed 
 to heaven, — shall have, each one of us, more being than 
 they all have had, and so more truth, more soul, more 
 faith, more rest, and bliss of life. 
 
 Do men of tlie next world look in upon this ? Are 
 they present with us, conscious of our deeds or thoughts? 
 Who knows ? Who can say ay or no ? The unborn 
 know nothing of the life on earth ; yet the born of earth 
 know somewhat of them, and make ready for their com- 
 ing. Who knows but men born to heaven are waiting for 
 your birth to come, have gone to prepare a place for us ? 
 All that is fancy, and not fact ; it is not philosophy, but 
 poetry ; no more. Of this we may be sure, that what is 
 best will be ; what best for saint or sinner ; what most 
 conducive to their real good. That is no poetry, but 
 unavoidable truth, which all mankind may well believe. 
 
 There are many who never attained their true stature 
 here, yet without blameworthiness of theirs ; men cheated 
 of their growth. Many a Milton walks on his silent way, 
 and goes down at last, not singing, and unsung. How 
 many a possible Newton or Descartes has dug the sew- 
 ers of a city, and dies, giving no sign of the wealthy soul 
 he bore ! 
 
864 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 " Chill peniu-y repressed his noble rage, 
 And froze the genial current of the soul." 
 
 What if the best of you had been born slaves in North 
 Carolina, or among savages at New Zealand ; nay, in 
 some of the filthy cellars of Boston, and turned friend- 
 less into the streets ; what might you have become ? 
 Surely not what you are ; yet, before God, you might, 
 perhaps, be more deserving, and at death go to a far 
 higher place. What is so terribly wrong here must be 
 righted there. It cannot be that God will thrust a man 
 out of heaven because his mother was a savage, a slave, 
 a pauper, or a criminal. It is men's impiety which docs 
 so here, not Heaven's justice there ! How the wrong 
 shall be righted I knoAv not, care not now to know ; of 
 the fact I ask no further certainty. Many that are last 
 shall be first. It may be that the pirate, in heaven, hav- 
 ing outgrown his earthly sins, shall teach justice to the 
 judge who hanged him here. They who were oppressed 
 and trampled on, kept down, dwarfed, stinted, and ema- 
 ciate in soul, must have justice done them there, and 
 will doubtless stand higher in heaven than we, who, hav- 
 ing many talents, used them poorly, or hid them idle in 
 the dirt, knowing our Father's will, yet heeding not. It 
 was Jesus that said. Many shall come from the east and 
 the west, and sit down in the kingdom of God, and men 
 calling themselves saints be thrust out. 
 
 Shall we remember the deeds of the former life, — this 
 man that he picked rags out of the mud in the streets, 
 and another that ho ruled nations ? Who can tell ; nay, 
 who need care to ask ? Such a remembrance seems not 
 needed for retribution's sake. The oak remembers not 
 each leaf it ever bore, though each helped to form the 
 oak, its branch and bole. How much has gone from our 
 bodies ! we know not how it came or went ! How much 
 
A SERMON ON IMMORTAL LIFE. 365 
 
 of our past life is gone from our memory, jet its result 
 lives in our character ! The saddler remembers not 
 every stitch he took Tvhile an apprentice, yet each stitch 
 helped to form the saddle. 
 
 Shall we know our friends again ? For my own part 
 I cannot doubt it ; least of all when I drop a tear over 
 their recent dust. Death does not separate them from 
 us here. Can life in heaven do it ? They live in our 
 remembrance ; memory rakes in the ashes of the dead, 
 and the virtues of the departed flame up anew, enlight- 
 ening the dim cold walls of our consciousness. Much of 
 our joy is social here ; we only half enjoy an undivided 
 good. God made mankind, but sundered that into men, 
 that they might help one another. Must it not be so 
 there, and we be with our real friends ? Man loves to 
 think it ; yet to trust is wiser than to prophesy. But 
 the girl who went from us a little one may be as parent 
 to her father when he comes, and the man who left us 
 have far outgrown our dream of an angel when we meet 
 again. I cannot doubt that manv a man who not longr 
 ago left his body here, now far surpasses the radiant 
 manliness which Jesus won and wore ; yes, is far better, 
 greater, too, than many poorly conceive of God. 
 
 There are times when we think little of a future life. 
 In a period of success, serene and healthy life, the day's 
 good is good enough for that day. But there comes a 
 time when this day's good is not enough, its ill too great 
 to bear. When death comes down and wrenches off a 
 friend from our side, — wife, child, brother, father, a dear 
 one taken, — this life is not enough. Oh, no, not to the 
 coldest, coarsest, and most sensual man. I put it to you, 
 to the most heartless of you all, or the most cold and 
 doubting ; when you lay down in the earth your mother, 
 sister, wife, or child, remembering that you shall see 
 
866 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 their face no more, — is life enough ? Do yon not reach 
 out your arms for heaven, for immortality, and feel you 
 cannot die ? When I see men at a feast, or busy in the 
 street, I do not think of their eternal life, — perhaps feel 
 not my own ; but when the stiffened body goes down 
 to the tomb, sad, silent, remorseless, I feel there is no 
 death for the man. That clod which yonder dust shall 
 cover is not my brother. The dust goes to its place, the 
 man to his own. It is then I feel my immortality. I 
 look through the grave into heaven. I ask no miracle, 
 no proof, no reasoning for me. I ask no risen dust to 
 teach me immortality. I am conscious of eternal life. 
 
 But there are worse hours than these ; seasons bitterer 
 than death, sorrows that lie a latent poison in the heart, 
 slowly sapping the foundations of our peace. There are 
 hours when the best life seems a sheer failure to the 
 man who lived it, his wisdom folly, his genius impotence, 
 his best deed poor and small ; when he wonders why he 
 was suffered to be born ; when all the sorrows of the 
 world seem poured upon him ; when he stands in a pop- 
 ulous loneliness, and though weak, can only lean in upon 
 himself. In such hour he feels the insufficiency of this 
 life. It is only his cradle-time, he counts himself just 
 born ; all honors, wealth, and fame are but baubles in 
 his baby band ; his deep philosophy but nursery rhymes. 
 Yet he feels the immortal fire burning in his heart. He 
 stretches his hands out from the swaddling-clothes of 
 flesh, reaching after the topmost star, which he sees, or 
 dreams he sees, and longs to go alone. Still worse, the 
 consciousness of sin comes over him ; he feels that he 
 has insulted himself. All about him seems little ; him- 
 self little, yet clamoring to be great. Then we feel 
 our immortality ; through the garish light of day we 
 see a star or two beyond. The soul within us feels her 
 
A SERMON ON IMMORTAL LIFE. 367 
 
 wings, contending to be born, impatient for the sky, and 
 wrestles with the eartlily worm that folds us in. 
 
 "Mysterious Niglit! when our first Parent knew 
 Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, 
 Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, 
 
 This glorious canopy of light and blue? 
 
 Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, 
 
 Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, 
 Hesperus with the host of heaven came ; 
 
 And lo, Creation widened in man's view. 
 
 Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed 
 Within thy beams, O Sun ? or who could find, 
 
 Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed, 
 That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind? 
 
 Why do we then shun Death with anxious strife ? 
 
 If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life? " 
 
 I would not slight this wondrous world. I love its 
 day and night ; its flowers and its fruits are dear to me. 
 I would not wilfully lose sight of a departing cloud. 
 Every year opens new beauty in a star, or in a purple 
 gentian fringed with loveliness. The laws too of matter 
 seem more wonderful the more I study them, in the 
 whirling eddies of the dust, in the curious shells of for- 
 mer life buried by thousands in a grain of chalk, or in 
 the shining diagrams of light above my head. Even the 
 ugly becomes beautiful when truly seen. I see the jewel 
 in the bunchy toad. The more I live, the more I love 
 this lovely world ; feel more its Author in each little 
 thing, in all that is great. But yet I feel my immor- 
 tality the more. In childhood the consciousness of im- 
 mortal life buds forth feeble, though full of promise. 
 In the man it unfolds its fragrant petals, his most celes- 
 tial flower, to mature its seed througliout eternity. The 
 prospect of that everlasting life, the perfect justice yet 
 to come, the infinite progress before us, cheer and 
 
368 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 comfort the heart. Sad and disappointed, full of self- 
 reproach, we shall not be so forever. Tlie light of heaven 
 breaks upon the night of trial, sorrow, sin ; the sombre 
 clouds which overhung the east, grown purple now, tell 
 us the dawn of heaven is coming in. Our faces, gleamed 
 on by that, smile in the new-born glow ; we are beguiled 
 of our sadness before we are aware. The certainty of 
 this provokes us to patience, it forbids us to be slothfully 
 sorrowful. It calls us to be up and doing. The thought 
 that all will at last be right, with the slave, the poor, the 
 weak, and the wicked, inspires us with zeal to work for 
 them here, and make it all right for them even now. 
 
 There is small merit in being willing to die ; it seems 
 almost sinful in a good man to wish it when the world 
 needs him here so much. It is weak and unmanly to be 
 always looking and sighing voluptuously for ,that. But 
 it is of great comfort to have in your soul a sure trust 
 in immortality; of great value here and now to anticipate 
 time, and live to-day the eternal life. That we may all 
 do. The joys of heaven will begin as soon as we attain 
 the character of heaven and do its duties. That may 
 begin to-day. It is everlasting life to know God, to have 
 his Spirit dwelling in you, yourself at one with him. 
 Try that and prove its worth. Justice, usefulness, wis- 
 dom, religion, love, are the best things we hope for in 
 heaven. Try them on ; they will fit you here not less 
 becomingly. They are the best things of earth. Think 
 no outlay of goodness and piety too great. You will 
 find your reward begin here. As much goodness and 
 piety, so much heaven. Men will not pay you, God 
 will, — pay you now, pay you hereafter and forever. 
 
TRIBUTE TO DR. CHANNING. 369 
 
 AN HUMBLE TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF 
 WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, D.D. 
 
 And Eliska saw it and he said : My father, mi/ father, the chariot of Israel, 
 and the horsemen thereof! — 2 Kings ii. 12. 
 
 In the singular mythical story related in the second 
 chapter of tlic second book of the Kings, it is said that 
 Elijah the Prophet was separated from the world of liv- 
 ing mortals, and carried up to the heavens in a fiery 
 chariot, with fiery horses, in the midst of a whirlwind. 
 Elisha, when he saw a man of such power and usefulness 
 as the good prophet so suddenly snatched from the earth, 
 exclaimed, " My father, my father, the chariot of Is- 
 rael, and the horsemen thereof ! " Since we met on the 
 last Sabbath, intelligence has reached us of the death of 
 the great and good Dr. Channing. I can in nowise 
 allow that event to pass without notice in this place. 
 However, I must say it is with the greatest diffidence 
 that I venture to speak of him. I feel unworthy of the 
 theme ; wholly unable to do justice to so great and good 
 a man. But it is useless to waste your time in profes- 
 sions of inability, which the discourse, poor and imperfect 
 as it is, will itself carry on its face. 
 
 The facts of his life most relevant to this occasion 
 may be stated in a few words. He was born at Newport, 
 Rhode Island, on the seventh of April, 1780 ; graduated 
 at Harvard University, with the first honors of his class, 
 in 1798 ; was settled in the ministry in 1803 ; and died 
 
 24 
 
370 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 at Bennington, Vermont, the second day of this present 
 month. 
 
 He was known to few of this audience by face ; fewer 
 still have heard his voice. But his influence was a 
 stranger to none of us all. His words of wisdom, piety, 
 and love have touched our hearts, and that long ago, and 
 often. If there are amongst us any who have read no line 
 of his works, — and doubtless there are such in every au- 
 dience, — still, the tones of his golden harp have been 
 repeated by others, and echoed back even to their ears, by 
 both the pulpit and the press. The sun warms the air 
 of caverns where it never shines. 
 
 A great man, of wide reputation and deep influence, 
 has fallen in the midst of us. It is speaking with moder- 
 ation to say that no man of oui" century who writes the 
 English tongue had so much weight with the wise and 
 pious men who speak' it. The evening before an election 
 any political brawler, with confidence and a voice, can 
 collect the " freemen," and make the mob fling up their 
 caps and shout huzzas, which in the next year shall be 
 turned to hissing, if not execration. Such men are 
 thought to have influence ; they have it, as boys to raise 
 clouds of dust in a summer day. But here one has gone 
 back to the sky who touched the mind of wise men, the 
 heart of good men, the soul of men pious and Christian, 
 deepening what is deepest, and appealing to what is most 
 divine. 
 
 Of all our writers, there was none whose words found 
 the class of readers which he addressed. He spoke on 
 the loftiest themes, — Man, Christ, God, Duty, Life, 
 Heaven. His word reached the best of men. At this 
 day his noiseless influence on the soul of his countrymen 
 was wide, deep, and beautiful. How could it be other- 
 wise ? Let those that knew him say. He was of no 
 
TRIBUTE TO DR. CIIANNING. 371 
 
 part}"^ in politics ; all must have smarted under his re- 
 buke; each might have been blessed by his sublime ideal, 
 and the wise and moderate method he took to reach it. 
 He was of no clan or coterie in social life. The in- 
 structed man, accomplished with the learning and sci- 
 ence of the times, saw in him an equal, to say the least ; 
 the poorest of the ignorant found here a brother, who 
 never scorned the affinity which bound him to the 
 humblest of his race. He was of no sect in religion ; 
 he loved piety and honored a divine life wherever he saw 
 their light, and did not think living water impure because 
 it flowed into an urn of different form from his own. 
 All denominations of theology — there is but one of re- 
 ligion — have been blessed by him. His writings found 
 their way where no other modern books can go : into the 
 hearts of men of all parties, political, social, or theologi- 
 cal. It is not saying too much to say he has done more 
 to liberalize theology than any man now living where 
 the English tongue is spoken. Some have gone farther, 
 and many faster than he. They may have shed more 
 light ; but he more warmth ; and after all it is the good 
 heart, more than the wise head, that is to make our the- 
 ology edifying and religious. Still, spite of Dr. Channing's 
 catholic wisdom, there was a sectarian zeal, a social clan- 
 nishness, a political bigotry amongst us, which rejected 
 liis influence, and yet remains unblessed ; for of all walls, 
 those of a party, a clan, and a sect are the hardest to 
 break down, the most difficult to climb over, the most 
 impossible to see through. The idols of the tribe are 
 perhaps the last that will be given up. 
 
 Dr. Channing's influence was not confined to New 
 England : the South and the West were warmed at his 
 fire ; not to the United States, for in England his works 
 were more read, his spirit took a stronger and deeper 
 
372 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 hold, than with us. The local jealousies, the party strife, 
 the pecuniary interests, the fanaticism of a sect, had less 
 po^er over his writings abroad than at home. He was not 
 personally mingled with their discussions, nor involved 
 in their strife, as whoever speaks must be at home, and 
 therefore he was heard with something of the same im- 
 partiality as a voice from remote ages. The absolute 
 value of his works was weighed more judiciously there, 
 because the reader stood aloof from the war of opinions 
 that went on with us. None of our writers was so well 
 known abroad among serious and religious men ; none 
 so well represented the morality and religion of our 
 land ; none contributed so much to wipe off the foul but 
 just imputation cast upon us, — of caring only for money, 
 and if that came, not caring by what means, though we 
 violate all laws of man or God, and break our faith, and 
 butcher the Red-man, who will not work, and chain the 
 Black-man, whom stripes compel to toil. 
 
 No American had such power abroad. His judgment 
 on the great moral questions of the day was earnestly 
 looked for by wise men, and respected when it came. 
 We have had great men : men that did honor to their 
 country and their kind ; men of large soul and broad 
 views, who have made a mark on their age; political 
 men, that warded off the perils which hung over our 
 heads, and helped us live together on better terms ; but 
 I hesitate not to say that, since Washington, no man has 
 died amongst us whose real influence was so wide and so 
 beneficent, both abroad and at home. ' 
 
 It may be asked, what was the secret of his power 9 
 It was in no uncommon gifts of mind that God gave him 
 outright. With these, no doubt, he was sufficiently well 
 provided ; a man thoroughly well-born and amply en- 
 dowed. But many of his fellow-citizens far outshone 
 
TRIBUTE TO DR. CHANNING. 373 
 
 him in this respect, who have yet no influence. He had 
 not the power of acute analysis and rapid combination 
 of particulars, — the faculty of seeing the soul of things, 
 the one common property, which, as a law, runs through 
 the many diverse particulars, — the quality that makes a 
 philosopher. Of this he had less than many of his con- 
 temporaries who shall go down to their grave and be 
 forgot, leaving no mark, but a stone in the churchyard, 
 to show they once have been. Dr. Channing's analysis 
 seems sometimes to have halted this side of the ultimate 
 fact. 
 
 Not possessing this quality in a very eminent degree, 
 he could not be " original " as a philosopher or theo- 
 logian. His abstract opinions, or his general laws, never 
 struck you, therefore, as his own discoveries. His specu- 
 lations had not the charm of even apparent novelty, which 
 imposes on the superficial whenever some unripe apple 
 is shaken from the tree, or some withered dogma is dis- 
 quieted and brought up from its place of oblivion. In 
 matters of pure thought. Dr. Channing was never con- 
 spicuous for originality. Others went before him in all 
 paths of philosophy, ethics, or theology which he after- 
 wards trod. 
 
 He had not the powers of imagination which wheels 
 over earth and through the sky, and comes rounding 
 home at last, its chariot laden with spoils gathered from 
 every flower and every star. Of this he had little, be- 
 cause others have more ; though certainly he was not 
 deficient when measured by the common scale. No one 
 will contend that he had the creative faculty of imagina- 
 tion as it appears in some of his contemporaries on both 
 sides the water. Perhaps he had not the lively fancy 
 that passes for imagination with the careless, which 
 allures and disappoints you in so many writers of the 
 
374 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 present day. Certainly he never embellished meagre 
 conceptions with a dazzling trope, nor used fine words 
 to conceal poverty of sense. 
 
 He had not that practical turn for affairs which often 
 does what neither inventive nor creative powers can ac- 
 complish. He had neither skill nor boldness to put him- 
 self at the head of a mass of men and lead them on to 
 some one particular end. He did not know the right 
 handle of things, the only philosophy of some that have 
 passed for great. If tlie world is ruled by boldness, as 
 some fancy, he was destined at birth to have no place 
 in its government. He was cautious and timid both in 
 thought and action. 
 
 It was none of these things that gave him his power. 
 No, that came from a deeper, purer, and more enduring 
 source. It was a moral power that spoke in him ; which 
 spoke through him. As you read his works, or listened 
 to his words, you felt it was not his understanding 
 that addressed you, but his whole character. There are 
 some that speak bravely and in fine speech ; yes, with 
 deep thought, but you think of them when they speak. 
 Their opiiiions seem their property, at least for the time. 
 Others put themselves in the background, their thought 
 concealing them. It seems to be no personal thing, but 
 the voice of wisdom or piety that speaks through them, 
 not affected by the man's private will. You say, " An 
 angel spoke ; let us obey." So was it with him. When 
 their great orator thundered, the Athenians forgot De- 
 mosthenes in thinking of Philip and the city. In hear- 
 ing a sermon of Dr. Channing, men thought of goodness, 
 duty, religion, not of him. 
 
 His fidelity to his moral and religious convictions 
 made him strong and great. What he said seemed to 
 come from nothing partial and peculiar to this man, or 
 
TRIBUTE TO DR. CHANNING. 375 
 
 that man, but from what is universal, the Soul of all 
 our souls. He would think for himself. Nothing could 
 pervert his moral judgment ; neither the eclat of great- 
 ness, neither the antiquity of an ungodly custom become 
 a law, nor yet the respectability of sin long wonted to 
 the world. Timid though he was, and self-distrustful to 
 a great degree, yet when conscience spoke he heeded 
 neither the roar of the little, nor the clamor of the great 
 which excites that roar. He saw through the shadows 
 and into the reality of life. Many knew more of things 
 as they are ; few men have been so true to things as 
 they ought to be. With him, to see what is right, was 
 to begin to move towards it, for he made no distinction 
 between things right and things to be done. He was 
 single-hearted in his efforts, aiming at no personal ag- 
 grandizement. He forgot himself in finding the truth. 
 He did not ask for the consequences of right action 
 or riglit thought, but took them when they came. He 
 trusted God, as a child its father, and did not fear to 
 be true to truth. This moral simplicity was beautiful 
 above praise. 
 
 Again, he was eminently a pious man. Nothing was 
 more marked in him than his piety. His " life was hid 
 with Christ in God," to use the mystical expression of 
 the apostle. His piety did not stare you in the face, 
 standing in the aisles of a church, as the false pietism 
 of the sects. It was not sanctimonious — piety never is — 
 nor ascetic, and least of all desirous to be seen. It went 
 on its way like a brook " in the leafy month of June," 
 that takes no pains to woo your eye or ear to its musical 
 and sparkling waters ; but come when you will come, in 
 serene weather or in cloudy days, day time or night 
 time, it murmurs sweetly as it goes; break on it in -the 
 thicket, cross it in the meadow, it welcomes you with 
 
376 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 the same pleasing note ; flowing it sings, and singing 
 flows. His piety gave the sweetness of its tone to his 
 writings. All his maturer works are deeply religious. 
 Take any one of his treatises, on War, Slavery, Educa- 
 tion, Temperance, its religious character meets you per- 
 petually as light in the heavens, which is all about you 
 as a continual presence. He does not insult the reader 
 with it, as some writers, nor ask you to admire it. But 
 there it is to charm, not repel. It is not easy to find a 
 writer, since the days of John the evangelist, in whom 
 piety is so universal, so lovely, and above all so attrac- 
 tive. It has all the strength of Saint Augustine, without 
 his extravagant asceticism ; all the sweetness of Kempis 
 or Hugh de St. Victor, or Behme or Law, without their 
 dreamy mysticism and aqueous sentimentality. In this 
 respect he was the Ft'nelon of the Protestants ; yes, more 
 and better than Fenelon, for his heart did not conflict 
 with his head ; and he needed not, like the good Arch- 
 bishop of Cambray, degrade man to exalt God, nor forbid 
 thinking and action, that we might feel the more. He 
 trusted God throughout, and not only as far as he could 
 see, for in him faith was developed as well as sense or 
 intellect. "Were there days of trouble, — as there is 
 always thunder in the sky, and he lived through stormy 
 times and died when there was no settled serenity, — he 
 did not fear, but confided. He lay low in the hand of 
 his God, and was warmed in the bosom of the Father of 
 all. Perfect love cast out his fear. Why should it not ? 
 He felt the Spirit of Christ within him, and loved Jesus, 
 who helped him come to God. His piety was so strong 
 and ever flowing, that it affected his tones and his very 
 looks. A worldly man must have felt rebuked in his 
 presence, as by an angel. He found God everywhere : 
 not only in the church, but wherever his footstep trod ; 
 
TRIBUTE TO DR. CHANNING. 377 
 
 ill the sounds of ocean, where God holds in the Avaters 
 with a leash of sand ; in the bloom of the crocus beside 
 his door-step in winter ; in the ribs and veins of a leaf ; 
 in the sounds of nature, so full of poetry, — the grass, 
 the leaves, the drowsy beetles, the contented kine ; in 
 the summer wind, that came to the window at nightfall 
 and played in the ringlets of his children's hair ; in the 
 light that mantles over the western sky, as the sun goes 
 down ; in the fires that shine there, beautiful creatures, 
 all night long ; in the star that anticipates the day, which 
 looked gently through his window, consoling him for the 
 loss of sleep. His piety was like an old Hebrew's in a 
 Christian soul. He saw God always before his face. 
 God led him in his truth, and taught him the secret of 
 the Lord. 
 
 More than any man I have known, he had confidence 
 in God. He saw him in the world, where they are 
 doubly blind who cannot see him ; he saw him in the 
 history of man ; yes, in man's darkest day, a great waken- 
 ing light, a pillar of fire guiding us from lowness and 
 rudeness to loveliness of life. He knew the Father of 
 all had taken care of his own world in times past, and 
 did not doubt he would do so in time to come, though 
 man did not see how. He saw God in every step this 
 side the grave ; and when that opens its gates, and 
 the soul shakes off the body, he knew the eternal light 
 niust needs roll through. 
 
 It has often been said of what is sometimes called 
 "liberal Christianity," that it is not favorable to piety. 
 Dr. Channing was a perpetual reproof of the uncharita- 
 ble assertion. His writings made religion life, beau- 
 tiful life. In most of what are called " religious books," 
 what is set forth as Christianity appears as a very dull 
 thing ; cold, ascetic, lachrymose ; it insults your manli- 
 
3(8 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 ness ; casts you off from sunny and fresh nature ; lays 
 a rude hand on the most blameless enjoyments, as if 
 cheerfulness were a mistake. They may make you a 
 monk, not a man. The practical works of the accom- 
 plished Taylor, the ascetic Baxter, even of Fenelon, 
 Foster, and Law, make religion severe and dreadful. 
 The writings of Dr. Channing have just the opposite 
 effect. Religion appears in her native garb, not in the 
 regimentals of a sect ; an angel, not a nun. Life is made 
 more than belief, and love is placed higher than grimace. 
 It would be saying but little, to assert that Dr. Channing 
 has done more than any of the Christian writers to make 
 religion beautiful and winning. He saw — still more, 
 he felt — its accordance with man's constitution, not 
 viewing it as a thing foreign to our nature, but as the liv- 
 ing of the life God appoints. How could it fail to be 
 lovely ? 
 
 Then, again, he loved mankind. He did not believe 
 moral laws were beautiful in thought, but become de- 
 formed when applied to life, and therefore good for 
 nothing when tried, and so he attempted not to amend 
 the laws of God. He did not think piety had done its 
 work when it said grace, or rose from prayer. Though, 
 by the peculiar and natural bent of his mind, more medi- 
 tative than philosophic, more mystical than rationalistic, 
 he was yet the last to go astray in pictistic vagaries, and 
 revel in the flowers of sentimental devotion, bringing 
 back nothing to the hive that sheltered and fed him. 
 Oh, no. His love of God did not hinder him from lov- 
 ing man. Did love of God ever do this ? No, but the 
 love of self often, in religion's name. His piety helped 
 him to a good life of thought and action. His religion 
 and reason, his love of God and love of man, walked 
 together and did not fall out by the way. His vine 
 
TRIBUTE TO DR. CHANNING. 379 
 
 proved its planting by bearing much fruit. He loved 
 man as man ; not because he was educated, or famous, 
 or rich, but for the immortal nature that was in him, 
 the affections that never die, the spirit capable of un- 
 bounded growth and infinite glory. He looked deeper 
 than the wrappage which circumstances place about 
 mankind. He saw the man in the beggar. To him the 
 greatest man was he who conformed most nearly to the 
 divine image. " The greatest man is he who chooses 
 the right with invincible resolution, who resists the 
 sorest temptations from within and without, who bears 
 the heaviest burden cheerfully, who is calmest in storms 
 and most fearless under menace and frowns, whose reli- 
 ance on truth, on virtue, on God, is most unfaltering." 
 Save only the words of Jesus in the Gospels, I know of 
 nothing, in the whole compass of human literature, that 
 partakes so largely of this love, as his eloquent works. 
 How he plead for man against the tyranny of ages past, 
 the tyranny of the present, the despotism of social insti- 
 tutions, the tyranny of the strong over the weak ! Still, 
 his pleading was not a " woe-unto-you," but a " Father- 
 forgive-them." You turn from the writings of the few 
 great men and the multitude of little men that are read 
 amongst us, and in his page you find words which come 
 straightway out of a heart full of love — love to all. 
 His affection was strong and manly, not that puling 
 sentimentalism which takes a friend by the hand in a 
 conference-room, saying, " Oh, how I love you, my 
 brother," and after that has no more that it can do ; 
 nor was it of that sublimated sort which loves man as 
 an abstraction, but treads individuals, concrete men, 
 under foot in so doing. No, it was a love of making 
 them greater, wiser, better. Though not found in the 
 busy walks of men, few had so many that made him 
 
380 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 their adviser in spiritual things, and sought his sympathy 
 in distress. He was disinterested and forgetful of him- 
 self to a degree rare among men. If he saw an error or 
 a sin of society, he told of it. Distrustful of himself in 
 many things, — so mild and meek that it seemed he would 
 not break the wing of a perished fly, — when sin came 
 before him, no fire was so scorching as his words ; no 
 man's indignation like his. He did not ask. What will 
 my friends or my foes think of 7ne for doing or saying 
 this ? but what he thought right to do and say, he did 
 without fear. Living in a place where he said it was 
 " difficult to draw a long breath," surrounded by men 
 of views widely different from his own, dependent upon 
 them in some measure, when duty called him he did 
 not ask what they favored, what they feared, or what 
 they would tolerate, or what they would tliink of him, 
 knowing that the consequences of truth God will take 
 care of. A man truly religious — of whom should he 
 be afraid ? 
 
 His self-discipline was not the less remarkable. His 
 self-command, it is said, was not a natural gift, but 
 bought with its price. In youth, we are told, he was 
 hasty, impetuous. His controversial writings in theology, 
 printed many years ago, do not discover the same philo- 
 sopliical composure and unconscious moderation that 
 mark those of at least one of his early fellow-soldiers, 
 and wdiich distinguish his own later works. He knew 
 the power of genius, but believed in industry none the 
 less. His tranquillity of mind, his acquaintance with 
 the world, — great for a man so recluse, — his clearness of 
 insight, his skill in separating the unimportant from 
 the essential points of any case, his accurate discrimi- 
 nations of character, — all these were the result of diligent 
 cultivation, far more than of natural gifts. Had he not 
 
TRIBUTE TO DR. CHANNING. 381 
 
 cultivated the affections and religious sentiments with 
 the same care as the intellectual and moral faculties, to 
 produce that piety and love so conspicuous in him ? 
 
 Such, then, were the sources of his influence, a foun- 
 tain of healing water fed by five perennial springs ; his 
 moral fidelity, his pious heart, his love of man, his for- 
 getfulness of self, and the careful cultivation of his gifts, 
 — these were the secret of his eloquence and power. 
 As a man he must have had his faults, certainly his 
 imperfections, which some one, I trust, will relate, for 
 of such a man the faults should be portrayeel, as the 
 scars of a hero. 
 
 With such sources to draw from, how could he fail 
 to be eloquent; yes, to have what puts eloquence to 
 shame, — the persuasive power of simple truth ? All men, 
 with hearts in their bosoms and eyes not blinded by 
 prejudice, could see the truth when it was spoken, — a 
 truth which carried the seal of its witness along with it. 
 How could they do less than respect it and yield ? It 
 need not be said that such a man came gradually to 
 the truth he taught. God rains down truth on no man, 
 but invites all to draw at her well for themselves. There 
 were men, good as himself, that thought differently on 
 many points, and did as such men always do, — opposed 
 him with a good man's weapon. It is needless to dwell 
 on the treatment he must meet from others of a different 
 character, and tell how the envious assailed him with 
 venomous tooth, though only to poison themselves ; how 
 the wicked and the worldly mocked at him because he 
 was not one of them ! I need not tell how men in pews 
 and men in pulpits lifted up their voice against him ; 
 how some " could not understand him ; " how others saw 
 only to gnash on him with their teeth. You know that 
 such things must needs be ; that the beginning thereof 
 
382 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 is very ancient, and the end not yet. It is useless to 
 stop in this place to tell how such things befell him and 
 how he bore them, while he moved through the years, 
 as to tell of the dust that annoys a traveller, or the mire 
 that clings to his chariot wheels, or the dogs that bark 
 at him as he approaches some village inn. These things 
 must be, and the pilgrim leaves them behind and fares 
 on. But it is worth while to tell that he bore this trial 
 bravely and like a religious man. He did not give abuse 
 for abuse, coldness for coldness. Neglect awakened no 
 anger, insult no indignation. He gave his opponents 
 no harsh words for their railing, no scorn, no contempt, 
 but pitied their ignorance and continued to love. What 
 else could a Christian wish to do ? The sun shines on 
 the unthankful and the unmerciful, though they offend 
 God's laws each day. 
 
 Let us now consider more particularly the work to 
 which he devoted himself. He engaged in the eeform 
 OF THEOLOGY, in common with many of his contempora- 
 ries. We all of us know something of the present staie 
 of theology, in what are called the more " liberal 
 churches ; " we know how slowly the voice of truth gets 
 heard, or even spoken in theological matters. But it is 
 better in our time than in days gone by. When Dr. 
 Channing came to the pulpit, the gloomy doctrines of 
 that austere theology which our fathers embraced, pre- 
 vailed far more widely than now, and in a form more 
 repulsive than the present. The common doctrine of 
 the churches respecting the character of God, the nature 
 of man, the terms of salvation, the future condition of 
 the greater part of mankind, were such as to make the 
 flesh creep with horror ; doctrines which, if preached to 
 you at this day, I trust, would drive you forth to the 
 fields to learn your religion in the flowers and the trees. 
 
TRIBUTE TO DR. CHANNING. 388 
 
 The common theology made God a Kino;, not a Father ; 
 Christ the master, not the brother of us all ; and man a 
 worm, a child of God's wrath, not the son of his love, 
 made in the Father's image. These views still prevail 
 in the greater part of the New England churches ; but 
 they are modified, softened here and there, and beside, 
 there is amongst us a " more liberal " sect called Uni- 
 tarians, who disclaim the most revolting doctrines of 
 the old school ; a sect halting, indeed, it seems, between 
 life and death, between the liberty of the spirit and the 
 thraldom of the letter, but still an auspicious and blessed 
 sign of the times. 
 
 When Dr. Channing came to the pulpit, the great 
 protest against theological tyranny had not been made. 
 Many had abandoned in silence the more repulsive dog- 
 mas ; there had been already much freedom of thought 
 in theology ; many saw that religion was one thing and 
 our notions about it something quite different. There 
 had been, fifty years before, a Bryant at Quincy, a Shute 
 and a Gay at Hingham, a Brown at Cohassct ; above all, 
 perhaps, a Mayhew at Boston, one whose word and 
 works provoked the spirit of freedom to fight the politi- 
 cal war for Independence, and the war yet more difficult 
 and not so soon ended, the war for freedom in theology 
 and religion. What need to speak of others, clergy- 
 men and laymen, that shared and encouraged the work ? 
 Dr. Freeman and his church had, formally and publicly, 
 rejected much of the " Athanasian theology," as early 
 as 1785, and — received their reward from the church 
 and the clergy, for the pains they took to " search the 
 scriptures " and " hold fast what was good." A spirit 
 of new liberality was dawning upon our churches. Some 
 welcomed the light with loud hozannas ; some received 
 it, but said nothing; but others closed the windows, 
 
384 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 sighing for the darkness of Egypt, and saying, " Oh 
 Lord, we pray thee give us no more light." There were 
 great difficulties to overcome, but there were earnest 
 men to overcome them, brave men, godly teachers set 
 for that work. A battle was to be fought ; they did not 
 provoke the charge, but stood each in his lot, with his 
 loins girded and his weapon bright. It is needless to 
 repeat their names. The time has not come to speak 
 worthily of them. Some of their number still linger on 
 the earth, while the greater part have gone where they 
 can be learned Avithout books, wise without study, and 
 free without fighting always for their life. Honor to 
 those men who first broke through the darkness and 
 dared to think. They stood together like men ; they 
 fought like brave men, long and well. They saw not all 
 things, but they did not tell of what they never saw. 
 They put confidence in man, and trusted God. 
 
 Among this band of theological reformers. Dr. Chan- 
 ning stood conspicuous. But he was never in the fore- 
 most rank of the movement; not a discoverer, but 
 defender. Read his writings, from the first contro- 
 versial letter, or the ordination sermon in Salem, 1815, 
 to the sermon at Philadelphia, twenty-six years later, 
 and you see how gradual was his progress when meas- 
 ured by the rapid strides of some of his brethren. He 
 parted reluctantly with many old doctrines which had 
 little of reason or Scripture to support them. He was 
 slow in examination, suspicious of new things, cautious 
 in his statements, feeling the ground before him as he 
 trod ; but not Monadnock stands firmer on its base, than 
 he stood on his convictions, when once established. 
 
 In our day, there is a talk about "liberal Christianity," 
 and the term has a meaning; for what is popularly 
 called Christianity was never liberal, since the early 
 
TRIBUTE TO DR. CHANNING. 385 
 
 age. God grant it may be. Dr. Channing has done 
 much to show that Christianity is not necessarily con- 
 nected with a foul system of doctrines ; much to lead 
 men to a sound theology, which rests on the facts of 
 the case ; more, perhaps, than any other has done directly 
 to liberalize theology in all the sects. In this work, 
 however, he was not called on, as Paul in his first trial, 
 to stand alone. He was never, in his earlier years, " the 
 voice of one crying in the wilderness ; " there was never 
 a time when " all forsook him and fled." No, there 
 were men, older and younger than himself, engaged in 
 that war, — a Bentley, a Kirkland, a, Bancroft, a Wor- 
 cester, whom the Lord has taken ; a Ware, who reposes 
 in peaceful age after his honorable and noble toil; a 
 Norton, whose talents, learning, dialectic skill, were 
 devoted to the defence of freedom, whose ponderous 
 mace has done such service for truth. I need not men- 
 tion others, men perhaps valiant as these, certainly 
 as true. Conspicuous among these men stood Dr. 
 Channing. 
 
 This battle was fought as other theological battles ; 
 there were hard words on both sides ; a great many 
 hard words on one side. The war they began is not 
 yet over, the principles which lay concealed, it may be, 
 at the bottom of all are not yet carried out. How the 
 old questions of theology are noiv met, it is not needful 
 to say, nor to waste time in describing how the broad 
 banner, once borne in the van, on which great men 
 had emblazoned the motto, Man's Freedom and God's 
 Truth, is now draggled in the dust. Let this subject 
 pass for some other time. But this must be said of Dr. 
 Channing, that if he was slow in coming to the princi- 
 ples and the method of a liberal theology, he never 
 forsook them, but went farther than his former friends 
 
 25 
 
386 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 to some conclusions logically unavoidable, but now 
 vehemently denied. He did not — certainly not in his 
 later years — quarrel with a theology, because its circle 
 was wider than his own. It is not saying too much 
 to declare, that no one of our century, in England or 
 America, has done so much as he to set forth the great- 
 ness of man's nature, the loveliness of Jesus, and the 
 goodness of God. In this respect he is the father of us 
 all. What a welcome did a " great truth " meet from 
 him ; what a cordial hand did he extend to every ear- 
 nest soul struggling through the darkness and calling for 
 aid ! He did not fear inquiry, for he knew Truth not 
 only takes care of herself but of us. He did not trust 
 God for nothing ; his trust made him fearless and strong. 
 He did not see all the truth that will be seen in the next 
 century. He did what was better, he helped men to see 
 somewhat of truth in this, and blessed all that aided 
 others to see. Preachers in their pulpit, and solitary 
 scholars in their closet, felt stronger for his sympathy 
 with freedom and truth. We may well say, " The chariot 
 of Israel and the horsemen thereof," for a greater than 
 Elijah has gone up to the sky. He was taken at a time 
 when needed most. But God governs the world wisely, 
 and will see to the affairs of truth ; for, as the proverb 
 says, " When men are silent, stones speak." 
 
 Dr. Channing's view of Christianity was eminently 
 beautiful. With him it was the religion of love. It 
 showed him God as a Father, watching over his children, 
 and correcting them for their good ; presiding in all the 
 affairs of the world, and overruling accidents, seemingly 
 the most untoward, for the good of all. He saw Iiim 
 rebuking the sin, encouraging the goodness, answering 
 the prayers, and blessing the heart of all men. He felt 
 safe in God's world. He saw in Jesus, the archetype 
 
TRIBUTE TO DR. C MANNING. 387 
 
 of man, the religious and moral ideal to which all should 
 aspire. He looked on Christianity as destined to a vast 
 work that shall never end. Were it to do no more 
 than it had done, it were a failure. It was to civilize 
 the world ; to make the strong the guardians, not tyrants, 
 of the weak ; to annihilate war ; to make earth a better 
 place, and man more fit to live on it. It was to educate 
 men, developiug all the powers of mankind, physical, 
 intellectual, affectional, moral, religious. Christianity 
 was a means divinely appointed for this great end. In 
 it was the explanation of the world's early history, the 
 promise of its future glory. 
 
 He turned his attention also to another branch of the 
 great work in the salvation of man, — to the reform of 
 SOCIETY. Here his courage and influence were greater 
 than in the theological reform. Here he was more alone. 
 True, he had his friends who went with him, and before 
 him, to this work, but not men of the same stamp as 
 in the earlier reform. Some differed from him con- 
 scientiously, and stood back; some were taking their 
 ease in their inn ; some were busy about particular con- 
 cerns of man, — the fishing, the manufacturing, the ship- 
 ping interest, — but forgot, it seems, the great interest of 
 man, to be cared for, not by neglecting the parts, indeed, 
 but by attending to the whole. 
 
 In the early part of his ministry, without neglecting 
 more- practical subjects, Dr. Channing spoke often and 
 eloquently of the principles of religion and virtue, the 
 greatness of man, the goodness of God, the eternity 
 of truth, the beauty of self-denial, the necessity of con- 
 forming to the law of God. When men heard this, 
 many were moved by his eloquent truth, but some said : 
 " This is very beautiful ; it may be very true, but it is 
 very high ; too high for this world, we are certain ; too 
 
388 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 low for the next, we are afraid. He talks to angels, 
 and not men. He talks of truth and justice as if they 
 were not abstractions. We cannot understand him." 
 In later years he applied these doctrines to life. The 
 greatness of human nature was his favorite theme. But 
 he saw man degraded, insensible alike of his duties and 
 his rights. He preached the duties and the truths 
 belonging to this subject. 
 
 He saw the vice of intemperance belittling the facul- 
 ties and impoverishing the resources of man. He lifted 
 his voice against the sin ; and of all that has been 
 written on this fertile theme, perhaps nothing is more 
 just and wise than his Temperance Address. It has 
 counsel not to be neglected at the present day. 
 
 He turned also to the great subject of education. He 
 saw its value, and felt the necessity of a work very 
 different from what is commonly conceived of. Had 
 man great powers of mind, affection, soul ? They must 
 be developed by careful cultivation. He demanded an 
 education, for all men, far in advance of what many 
 deem sufficient, or even possible. He thought that the 
 resources and talent of tlie country could not be better 
 employed than in building up a nobler population, better 
 men and women, able to understand the world, and fit 
 to live in it. It was no one-sided culture, but the per- 
 fection of all the faculties, that he demanded. 
 
 He turned his attention to one other theme, the sub- 
 ject of SLAVERY, "which makes us the by-word and 
 scorn of the nations." I know it is a tender subject ; 
 one which many think must not be touched upon with 
 us, "who have no concern" — so it is said — "in the 
 matter." Against this national crime, this hideous sin 
 of a free people, whose motto is, " All are born free ; " 
 a Christian people, whose religion says, " Love your 
 
TRIBUTE TO DR. CHANNING. 389 
 
 brother," — against this sin he uplifted his voice with 
 more than even his usual eloquence and persuasive 
 power, but not without his customary charity and mod- 
 eration. No subject, of late years, engrossed so much 
 of his attention as this. None of his writings, I may 
 safely say, does so much honor to his head and heart as 
 on this theme. I know there are men, good and wise 
 men, who scruple not to condemn his course ; others, 
 who think slavery is a " very clever thing to all parties ;" 
 for the slave is fed and clothed, lives, not among savage 
 blacks, but Christian whites, and the master can get 
 more sugar or cotton with slaves than without them ! I 
 know there are "good and wise men" who would not 
 have any one cry out for the wrongs of two or three 
 millions Of souls held in the foulest bondage, because, 
 to their owners, these souls are worth some twelve 
 hundred millions of dollars, and the dollars must be 
 kept, though the souls be lost. I know there are men, 
 " Christian men," as the world uses that term, who 
 think the righting of wrongs belongs to anybody but 
 themselves. Dr. Channing was not of this number. 
 His mind was early turned to this sin, and his zeal 
 against it never abated. On this ground also he had 
 his predecessors, men whose self-denying zeal is so well 
 known that their names need not be spoken here. In 
 the warfare against slavery, he encountered the abuse, — 
 that is the true word for the treatment he met, — the 
 abuse of both parties. The one condemned him for 
 meddling with the matter at all, and could " never for- 
 give his speaking about slavery ; that must be left to 
 the slave-holders ; " the other condemned him for not 
 going the same length, or in the same way, with tliem- 
 selves. But did it never happen, in times of excitement, 
 that he who was condemned by the extremes of both 
 
390 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 parties was not very far from the right ? His opposi- 
 tion to this national sin brought on him more obloquy 
 than all his theological heresies, early and late. His 
 tracts on slavery have been widely read, and perhaps 
 have had more influence than any other contemporary 
 works in turning the attention of wise and serious men 
 to this crime ; perhaps more than all others. Here, too, 
 he was not alone ; others went with him to the work, 
 and got honorable scars. Above all others in his es- 
 teem, there was one, united to him in the closest ties of 
 friendship, sharing his aspirations and his sympathies. 
 Shoulder to shoulder they went to this work, each 
 encouraging the other ; the same spirit seemed in them 
 both, and they took sweet counsel together. In the 
 inscrutable wisdom of Him, without whom not a spar- 
 row falleth to the ground, that one was torn from us, 
 leaving us, indeed, tears for his departure, but joy, also, 
 for his life. Honor to him, honor to both. Yes, honor 
 to all who dare lift up their voice for freedom, and for 
 man. The tyranny of opinion is the most stifling of all 
 tyranny ; but to true men like these, it was neither let 
 nor bar. 
 
 He aimed to improve society in its general principles 
 and entire framework. He saw that we live in a state 
 unchristian and not rational ; that wars prevail, and 
 must be prepared for ; that we prevent crime by reme- 
 dies almost as bad as the disease ; that laws do not reach 
 all offenders, perhaps not the most heinous ; that the 
 goods of society do not always fall into the hands of 
 their primitive owners ; that some men are losers by 
 what we call civilization ; that laws and institutions do 
 not always make us more free, but weave webs of con- 
 ventionalism about us, belittling the might of man. He 
 saw that the strong use the weak as their tools, and do 
 
TRIBUTE TO DR. C MANNING. 391 
 
 not bear the burdens of the weak, as reason and relig- 
 ion demand. He saw, too, the increasing power of 
 covetousness, which is corrupting the whole people, 
 individuals, legislatures, yes, the nation ; a spirit that 
 may make the rich richer, but certainly the poor poorer ; 
 which drives the laboring man each year farther from 
 lionorable competency. Against all these he lifted up 
 his voice, thinking we were never a rational nor a 
 Christian people till we applied reason and religion 
 to all our daily life. To dwell a moment on a single 
 point : he loved freedom, the largest liberty of the sons 
 of God. He asked this for himself, for all men, — the 
 liberty to feel right, think right, do right. He was jeal- 
 ous of associations, and preferred the monarchy of indi- 
 vidual freedom to the democracy of a public opinion 
 forcing man to extremes. He found no guillotine nor 
 fagots awaiting him, it is true, but he did find a tyranny 
 of opinion destructive to all real freedom. I cannot 
 forbear to quote some of his own words on this subject, 
 they are so full of wisdom and instruction at this day : 
 " Shall I say a word of evil of tliis good city of Boston ? 
 Among all its virtues it does not abound in a tolerant 
 spirit. The yoke of opinion is a heavy one, often crush- 
 ing individuality of judgment and action. No city 
 in the world is governed so little by a police, and so 
 much by mutual inspection, and what is called public 
 sentiment. . . . Opinion is less individual, or runs more 
 into masses, and often rules with a rod of iron. Un- 
 doubtedly opinion, when enlightened, lofty, pure, is a 
 useful sovereign ; but in the present imperfect state of 
 society it has its evils as well as benefits. It suppresses 
 the grosser vices, rather than favors the higher virtues. 
 It favors public order, rather than originality of thought, 
 moral energy, and spiritual life. To prescribe its due 
 
392 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 bounds is a very difficult problem ; were its restraints 
 wholly removed, the decorum of the pulpit would be 
 endangered ; but that these restraints are excessive in 
 this city, and especially in our denomination, that they 
 often weigh oppressively on the young minister, and 
 that they often take from ministers of all ages the 
 courage, confidence, and authority which their high mis- 
 sion should inspire, cannot, I fear, be denied. The 
 minister, here, on entering a pulpit, too often feels that 
 he is to be judged rather than to judge ; that instead of 
 meeting sinful men who are to be warned or saved, he 
 is to meet critics to be propitiated or disarmed. . . , 
 Formerly Felix trembled before Paul ; now the suc- 
 cessors of Paul more frequently tremble." 
 
 I need not pause to tell how his words on these great 
 topics were met, nor what echo they brought back. If 
 a prophet be not stoned he is generally a prophet of 
 smooth things. " Blessed," said One whose voice still 
 rings in the ears of the world, — " blessed are ye when 
 men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say 
 all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake . . . 
 for so persecuted they the prophets which were before 
 you." Now that he is dead, men that made wide the 
 mouth, and drew out the tongue at his zeal, his piety, 
 his hope, his confidence in man and God, may build his 
 tomb, and sing psalms to his praise. 
 
 But time fails me ; not so the theme. Let us make 
 an end of words. Here dies one before whom nothing 
 was sacred but truth. No lie found shelter with him. 
 No fear affrighted him. He aimed to come up to the 
 measure of a Christian man ; he went forward in that 
 work. He was a rare instance of a social reformer in 
 the pulpit ; a preacher that denounced the sins of his 
 time. He did not preach about the Hebrew bondsmen 
 
TRIBUTE TO DR. CHANNING. 393 
 
 and their sufferings eighteen centuries before Christ, 
 but of American bondsmen and their sufferings eighteen 
 centuries after Christ. He did not expose the idolatry 
 and the sin of Babylon, but of Boston. He carried you 
 to Nazareth, Gethsemane, Calvary. For what end ? To 
 give you the spirit of Jesus, to do and liv'e now as he 
 lived then, that you might be a Christian, as he the 
 Christ. A catholic man, he did not deem it necessary 
 to be a bigot before he was a Christian. He saw a 
 religion deeper than the superficial notions of a theo- 
 logical coterie. 
 
 'to' 
 
 *' To sect or party his large soul 
 Disdained to be confined: 
 The good he loved of every name, 
 And prayed with all mankind." 
 
 Educated in the grim theology of Dr. Hopkins, he 
 slowly laid aside the prepossessions of his youth ; but he 
 never returned to an idol once forsaken. Each year 
 brought him new wisdom and greater power of speech. 
 He was a rare example of a man after half a century of 
 life, growing yearly more eloquent. The cause is plain. 
 The eloquence that comes of tropes, and figures, and 
 brilliant thought, may fade with the fading sense ; but 
 the eloquence that comes of a moral purpose, of a relig- 
 ious trust, deepens with that zeal, and grows brighter as 
 'that faith rises higher and more high. How could he 
 fail to become more persuasive, when his heart yearned 
 more and more towards the children of men ? 
 
 Each season the flowers and the stars had a new 
 beauty in his eyes. Nature and man grew yearly in his 
 esteem. He has gone from us ; in the midst of his use- 
 fulness was he taken away, his eye not dim nor his 
 natural vigor abated. He has gone, and we are left. 
 
394 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 To mourn at his loss ? It cannot be otherwise. We must 
 weep. The slave has lost that voice which pleaded so 
 eloquently for him. The poorest boy amid the Berkshire 
 hills is the poorer for his death. The babe born in a 
 garret of yonder city is left more friendless than before. 
 The mourner has one less to wipe her tears away. The 
 selfish and wicked will hear no more his pathetic rebuke, 
 so often slighted. The wise man has lost a counsellor ; 
 the humblest a friend. Who is there to right the wrongs 
 of the oppressed ? He who has taken his servant where 
 sorrow and sighing cannot enter. Shall we lament over 
 the glory that has gone ? No, let us take courage, and 
 rejoice that so much goodness has been lived out in our 
 times, in the midst of us. When I compare him with 
 the gifted men of England, whose mortal lids death has 
 closed within not many years, — with Scott, Coleridge, 
 Byron, Mackintosh, Bentham, Stewart, Brown, — I cannot 
 but say his influence is deeper and far more elevating 
 than theirs. But I must end. 
 
 In the circumstances of his departure there was some- 
 thing exceedingly pleasant to remember. He had spent 
 the summer in the valley of the Housatonic, among the 
 Berkshire mountains ; his " soul went forth amid the 
 vast works of God." It had been the pleasantest period 
 of his life. He was meditating a great work which he 
 leaves not done. On the first of August he had delivered 
 an address on the emancipation of eight hundred thou- 
 sand fellow-men in the West Indies, — a work not inferior 
 to his best productions. He was returning to his home. 
 Amid the lovely scenery of Vermont he sickened and 
 lay. His family were about him. His senses continued 
 to the last. It was a clear and balmy autumn day, — 
 the Sabbath ; the day of his greatest labors, when he 
 had spoken to so many hearts; the day hallowed to all 
 
TRIBUTE TO DR. CHANNING. 395 
 
 our minds by lovely and long-cherished associations. 
 The sun went towards the horizon ; the slanting beams 
 fell into the chamber. He turned his face towards that 
 sinking orb, and he and the sun went away together. 
 Each, as the other, left " the smile of his departure " 
 spread on all around: the sun on the clouds ; he on the 
 heart. 
 
 For himself, a good man cannot die poorly ; nor a 
 Christian immature. There is something lovely and 
 soothing in all this. He leaves not his written thoughts 
 unfinished, perishing, to the world's loss. He was not 
 cut off just thrusting his sickle into a field none else 
 could reap. He was spared the daily decline of age, 
 and has gone with powers mature, but not faded ; happy 
 not only in the prolonged usefulness of his life, but in 
 the opportunity of death. 
 
 " The joys of age had crowned him, 
 And when he breathed his life away, 
 The arms of friends were round him." 
 
 His words will not perish ; the spirit of the prophet 
 not only goes to the realm it saw in vision, but reads 
 still its lessons here. As the sun, while it shines, shows 
 us the earth, but hides the stars, so is the presence of a 
 great soul. When he is gone, the deeper and higher 
 lights of his character come out, to shine in their lovely 
 radiance, while his orb rolls on in never-ending light. 
 
 The cares of the world will trouble him no more. He 
 enjoys the rest he contemplated. His faith is changed 
 to open vision. He enters the joy of his Lord. The 
 word of his mouth — we shall hear it no more forever ; 
 but his lesson remains for you and me, — his moral truth, 
 his piety, his love, his divine life ; a rare union of rare 
 qualities ! Who does not feel the stronger and better 
 
396 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 that he has lived, so great and good ? We sliall all join 
 in the last words of his public address ; " Mighty pow- 
 ers are at work in the world. Who can stay them ? 
 God's word has gone forth, and ' it cannot return to him 
 void.' A new communion of the Christian spirit, a new 
 reverence for humanity, a new feeling of brotherhood 
 and of all men's relation to the common Father, — this 
 is among the signs of our times ; we see it ; do we not 
 feel it? Before this all oppressions are to fall.- Society, 
 silently pervaded by this, is to change its aspect of uni- 
 versal warfare for peace. The power of selfishness, all- 
 grasping and seemingly invincible, is to yield to this 
 divine energy. The song of angels, ' On earth peace,' 
 will not always sound as fiction. come, thou kingdom 
 of heaven, for which we daily pray ! Come, Friend and 
 Saviour of the race, who didst shed thy blood on the 
 cross to reconcile man to man, and earth to heaven ! 
 Come, ye predicted age of righteousness and love, for 
 which the faithful have so long yearned ! Come, Father 
 Almighty, and crown with thine omnipotence the humble 
 striving of thy children to subvert oppression and wrong, 
 to spread light and freedom, peace and joy, the truth 
 and spirit of thy Son through the whole earth ! " 
 
BEAUTY IN THE WORLD OF MATTER. 397 
 
 BEAUTY IN THE WORLD OF MATTER. 
 
 All things are double, and he hath made nothing imperfect. — Ecclesiasti- 
 cus xlii. 24. 
 
 Late at night of a Saturday the milliner's girl shuts 
 up the close-pent shop, and, through such darkness as 
 the city allows, walks to her home in the narrow street. 
 All day long, and all the week, she has been busy with 
 bonnets and caps, crowns and fronts, capes and lace and 
 ribbons ; with gauze, muslin, tape, wire, bows, and arti- 
 ficial flowers ; with fits and misfits, bearings and unbear- 
 ings, fixings and unfisings, tryings-on and takings-off; 
 with looking in the glass at " nods, becks, and wreathed 
 smiles," — till now the poor girl's head swims with the 
 heat of the day and the bad air of the shop, and her heart 
 aches with weary loneliness. Now, thankful for the com- 
 ing Sunday, she sits down in her little back chamber, 
 opens the blinds, and looks out at the western sky, taking 
 a long breath. Over her head what a spectacle ! In the 
 western horizon there yet linger some streaks of day ; a 
 pale red hue, toned up with a little saffron-colored light, 
 lies over Brighton and Cambridge and Watertown, — a 
 reflection it seems from the great sea of day which tosses 
 there far below the horizon, where the people are yet at 
 their work ; for with them it is still the hot, bustling 
 Saturday afternoon, and the welcome night has not yet 
 reached them, putting her children to bed with her cradle 
 hymn, — 
 
398 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 " Hush, my child, lie still and slumber; 
 Holy angels guard thy bed ; 
 Heavenly blessings without number 
 Hover o'er thy infant head! " 
 
 One lamp of heavenly light pours its divine beauty 
 into the room. What a handsome thing it is, that even- 
 ing star ! No wonder men used to worship it as a god- 
 dess, at once queen of beauty and of love, thinking while 
 unkindly ice tipped the sphere and bounded the Arctic 
 and Antarctic realm, that she ruled into one those two 
 temperate zones of an ideal world, and even the tropic 
 belt between the two. Well, God forgive the poor 
 heathens ! they might have worshipped something meaner 
 than that " bright particular star," full of such signifi- 
 cance ; many a Christian has gone further and done 
 worse, whom may God also pity and bless ! If Kathie's 
 eyes were bright enough, she could see that this interior 
 star has now the shape of the new moon, and is get- 
 ting fuller every night. But what a blessed influence 
 both of beauty and of love it pours into that little 
 hired chamber ! Then all about the heavens there is 
 such wealth of stars of all sizes, all colors, — steel-gray, 
 sapphire, emerald, ruby, white, yellow, — each one " a 
 beauty and a mystery ! " 
 
 " Twinkle, twinkle, little star [quoth she], 
 How I wonder what you are, 
 Up above the world so high. 
 Like a diamond in the sky ! " 
 
 What a sight it is ! yet God charges nothing for the 
 spectacle ; the eye is the only ticket of admission ; com- 
 monly it is also a season-ticket given for a lifetime, only 
 now and then it is lost, and the darkened soul looks out 
 no more, but only listens for those other stars, which 
 
BEAUTY IN THE WORLD OF MATTER. 399 
 
 also rise and set in the audible deep, — for the ear like- 
 wise has its celestial hemisphere and kingdom of heaven. 
 But those stars the poor maiden looks at belong to no- 
 body ; the heavens are God's guest-chamber ; he lets in 
 all that will. 
 
 Our maiden knows a few of the chief lights, — great, 
 hot Sirius, the three in Orion's belt, the North-star, the 
 Pointers, and some of those others '' which outwatch the 
 Bear," and never set. 
 
 Well, poor tired girl, here is one thing to be had with- 
 out money. God's costliest stars to you come cheap as 
 wishing ! All night long this beauty broods over the 
 sleeping town, — a hanging garden, not Babylonian, but 
 heavenly, whereof the roses are eternal, and thornless 
 also. How large and beautiful they seem as you stand 
 in dismal lanes and your eyes do not fail of looking up- 
 wards ; full of womanly reproach as you look at them 
 from amid the riot and uproar and debauchery of wicked 
 men. Yet they cost nothing — everybody's stars. The 
 dew of their influence comes upon her, noiseless and soft 
 and imperceptible, and lulls her wearied limbs. 
 
 " Oh sleep! it is a blessed thing, 
 
 Beloved from pole to pole ! 
 To Mother God the praise be given ! 
 She sent the blessed sleep from heaven 
 
 Which slid into her soul." 
 
 At one touch of this wonder-working hand the maiden's 
 brain triumphs over her mere muscles, her rnind over 
 the tired flesh ; the material sky is transfigured into the 
 spiritual heaven, and the bud of beauty opens into the 
 flower of love. Now she walks, dreamy, in the kingdom 
 of God. What a world of tropic luxuriance springs up 
 around her ! — fairer than artists paint ; her young 
 
400 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 " imagination bodies forth the forms of things unseen," 
 nor needs a poet's pen to give those " airy nothings a 
 local habitation and a name." No garden of Eden did 
 poet ever describe so fair, for God " giveth to his beloved 
 even in their sleep," — more than most wakeful artists can 
 reconstruct when " the meddling intellect misshapes the 
 forms of things." What a kingdom of heaven she walks 
 in, — the poor tired maiden from the shop now become the 
 new Eve in this paradise of dreams ! But forms of earth 
 still tenant there. It is still the daily life, but now all 
 glorified ; sleep and love are the Moses and Elias who 
 work this real and not miraculous transfiguration. The 
 little close-pent shop is a cathedral now, vaster than St. 
 Peter's, richer too than all Genoese marbles in its vari- 
 colored decoration ; the furniture and merchandise are 
 transubstantiated to arches, columns, statues, pictures. 
 Ribbons stretch into fair galleries from pillar to pillar, 
 lighter and more graceful than Cologne or Strasburg can 
 boast in their architectural romance, writ in poetic stone, 
 and the poor tape of the shop is now a stairway climbing 
 round a column of the transept and winding into the 
 dome far out of sight, till the mind, outrunning that 
 other disciple, the eye, takes wing to follow its aerial 
 ramp, which ends only in the lights of day, streaming in 
 at the top and coloring the walls, storied all over with 
 the pictured glory of heavenly scenes. The counter has 
 become the choir and chancel ; the desk is the great 
 high altar. The roar of the street — where market- 
 wagons, drays, omnibuses, coaches, carts, gigs, mix in 
 one continuous uproar from morn till eve — is now sub- 
 dued into music, sweeter and sublimer too than the Pope 
 ever heard in his Sistine chapel, nay, though he were 
 composed for by Beethoven and Mozart, and sung to and 
 aided by all the great masters of heroic song, from old 
 
BEAUTY IN THE WORLD OF MATTER. 401 
 
 Timotheus, who " raised a mortal to the skies," to St. 
 Cecilia, who " drew an angel down." What manly and 
 womanly voices sing forth the psalm of everlasting life, 
 while the spheral melody of heaven is the organ-chant 
 which they all follow ! A visionary lover comes forth, 
 — his form a manly fact, seen daily from the window 
 of her shop, his love a naaidenly dream of many a natural 
 and waking hour. He comes from the high altar ; it is 
 the Desire of all nations, the Saviour himself, the second 
 Adam, the king of glory. He leads her through this 
 church of love, built of sleep and beauty, takes her within 
 the veil to the holy of holies, where dwells the Eternal ; 
 therein, that which is in part is done away, and the mor- 
 tal maid and immortal lover are made one forever and 
 ever. 
 
 Sleep on, maiden ! and take thy rest till the morn- 
 ing star usurp the evening's place ; nay, till the sexton 
 toll his bell for Sunday prayers ! I will not wake thee 
 forth from such a dream ; but thank the dear God who 
 watches over those who rise early and sit up late, who 
 giveth to his beloved even in their sleep. 
 
 Late on the same Saturday night, Jeremiah Welltodo, 
 senior partner of the firm of Welltodo & Co., a wealthy 
 grocer, now waxing a little old, shuts up his ledger and 
 puts it in the great iron safe of his counting-room. He 
 is tired with the week's work ; yet it is not quite done. 
 The rest of the servants of the shop have long since 
 retired to their several homes. He closes the street 
 door — the shutters were let down long ago — and walks 
 towards home. The street is mainly still, save the 
 rumble of a belated omnibus creeping along, and a tired 
 hackman takes off his last fare : for it is late Saturday 
 night ; nay, it is almost Sunday morning now, — the 
 two twilights come near each other at this season, — 
 
 26 
 
402 • VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 and the red which the young milliner saw has faded out 
 before the deep, dark blue of midnight; the clouds which 
 held up the handsome colors for her to look at have fallen 
 now, and are dropped on meadows newly mown. How 
 they will jewel the grass there to-morrow morning ! 
 
 Mr. Welltodo's work is not quite done ; business pur- 
 sues him still. " Sugars are rising," quoth he, " and my 
 stock is getting light. Flour is falling ; the new harvest 
 is coming in pretty heavy, opens rich. What a great 
 flour country the West is. Well, I '11 think of that to- 
 morrow. Dr. Banbaby won't interrupt me much, except 
 with the hymns. I do like music. How it touches the 
 heart ! That will do for devotion. I wish the Doctor 
 did n't make such theological prayers, fit only for the 
 assembly of divines at Westminster, who are dead and 
 gone, thank God ! I wish some of their works had fol- 
 lowed them long ago. Well, in sermon time I can think 
 of the flour and the sugar. Good night, Mr. Business. 
 No more talk with you till to-morrow at eleven o'clock. 
 
 " What a lucky dog Jacob is, that partner of mine ! 
 Smart fellow, too ! went up to Charlemont at four o'clock, 
 on the Fitchburg railroad — bad stock that ! — to see 
 his mother. That won't be the first one he stops to 
 see; somebody else waiting for him, — not quite so old. 
 Mother not first this time. Well, I suppose it is all 
 right ; I used to do just so. Did not forget poor dear 
 old mother; only thought of somebody else then; just 
 at that time thought of dear little Jeannie ; so I did, 
 could n't help it. Mother said nothing about it ; she 
 knew ; always will be so ; always was ; one generation 
 goeth away, and another generation cometh, but love 
 remaineth forever. Well, sugar's rising, flour getting 
 low — think of that to-morrow. How my business 
 chases me ! " 
 
BEAUTY IN THE WORLD OF MATTER. 403 
 
 But the wind from the country hills comes into town, 
 its arms full of the scents of many a clover-field, where 
 the haymaker with his scythe has just swept up those 
 crumbs which fall from God's table, and stored them as 
 oxen's bread for next winter ; but the wind gleans after 
 him, and in advance brings to town the breath of the 
 new-mown hay. It fans his hot temples, shaking his 
 hair, now getting gray a little prematurely, and to his 
 experienced memory it tells all the story of summer, and 
 how the farmer is getting on. " What a strange thing 
 the wind is," said he, — " seventy -five per cent nitrogen, 
 twenty-four per cent oxygen, and one per cent aqueous 
 vapor, flavored with carbonic acid ! What a strange 
 horse to run so swift, long-backed it is too, carrying so 
 many sounds and odors ! What a handsome thing the 
 wind is — to the mind I mean. Look there, how it 
 tosses the boughs of this elm tree, and makes the gas- 
 light flicker as it passes by ! See there how gracefully 
 these long, pendulous limbs sway to and fro in the night ! 
 How it patters in the leaves of that great elm-tree up at 
 the old place ! " 
 
 He lifts his hat, half to enjoy the coolness, half also in 
 reverence for the dear God whose wind it is which brings 
 the country in to him, and he fares homeward. All the 
 children are a-bed, and as Jane Welltodo, thriftiest of 
 kind mothers, has taken the "last stitch in time," on 
 the last garment of little Chubby Cheeks, — whose blue 
 eyes were all covered up with handsome sleep when she 
 looked at him two hours ago, ^ the good woman lifts 
 her spectacles, and wonders why father does not come 
 home. " Business ! business ! it makes me half a widow! 
 it will kill the good man. His hair is gray now, at fifty- 
 five ; it is not age, only business. ' Care to our coffin 
 adds a nail, no doubt.' Killing himself with business ! 
 
404 VIEWS OF RELIGION'. 
 
 but he 's a good soul, sends home all the young folks ; 
 lets Mr. Haskell go off courting, * to see his mother,' I 
 think he calls it." 
 
 Just then the pass-key rattled in the door, the bolt 
 was shot into its place, and Mr. Welltodo ran into 
 his parlor. " To-morrow," cries he, " let us go out to 
 the old place. You and I will ride in the chaise, and 
 take Bobbie. Edward can go in the carryall, and take 
 Matilda Jane and the rest of the family. He will like 
 to deliver his piece to the trees before he speaks it on 
 commencement-day. College wears on Edward ; stud- 
 ies too hard. Let him run out to grass a little up at 
 Gove's Corner; 'twill do him good. I want a little 
 smell of the country; so you do. How red your eyes 
 are ! 'T will do us all good." 
 
 So they agree, and both think of the mothers that 
 bore them, and of their own early days in the little 
 country town, — poor days, and yet how rich ! They re- 
 member the little school-house and the mill, the meet- 
 ing-house and the singing-school they went to once, 
 when music was not the most important business they 
 attended to. Going separate, and coming home to- 
 gether, — first two, next one, and finally many, in this 
 wonderful human arithmetic ! 
 
 The next morning before the first bell rung, they were 
 at the old place where his father lived once, and his 
 brother now ; her father lives yet the other side of the 
 hill, near the meeting-house. They will go there in the 
 afternoon. 
 
 What green beauty there is all around. How hand- 
 some is the white clover which the city horse greedily 
 fills his mouth withal, as Mr. Welltodo and brother 
 'Zekiel lead the good-natured creature to the barn ! The 
 grocer follows the example, and has a head of clover in 
 
BEAUTY IN THE WORLD OF MATTER. 405 
 
 his mouth also, — sweeter than the cloves he put there 
 yesterday. How delicate the leaf is ; how nicely framed 
 together ! No city jeweller unites metals with such nice 
 economy of material, or fits them with such accuracy of 
 joint. What well-finished tracery on the leaf! Nay, 
 the honey-bee who has been feeding thereon flies off in a 
 graceful curve, and on wings of what beauty ! How 
 handsome the old elm-tree is ; how lovely the outline of 
 its great round top ! " That tree would weigh forty 
 tons," says Mr. Welltodo, " 89,600 pounds ; yet it seems 
 to weigh nothing at all. There ! that robin flies right 
 through it as if it were but a green cloud. How attrac- 
 tive the color ; such a repose for the eye ! Dear little 
 bits o' babie is never cradled so soft as my eye reposes 
 on that mass of green. But how pleasantly the color of 
 the ash-gray bark contrasts with the grass beneath, the 
 boughs above ! Look there, how handsomely the great 
 branches part off from the trunk, and then divide into 
 smaller limbs, then into boughs, into twigs and spray ! 
 How the pendulous limbs hang down, and swing in the 
 wind, trailing clouds of greenness close to the ground ! 
 Look at the leaves, how well made they are ! There is 
 cabinet work for you ! What joining ! How well the 
 colors match ! See where the fire-hang-bird has built a 
 nest in one of those pendulous twigs, — just as it used 
 to be fifty years ago ! Dr. Smith's squirrels will never 
 reach that ! What a pretty piece of civil or military en- 
 gineering it was to put such a dainty nest in such a well- 
 fortified place ! How curiously it is made too ! Such a 
 nice covering ! But here is the father ; the mother is in 
 the nest, brooding the little ones, — rather late though. 
 Did not marry early, I suppose ; could not get ready ! 
 
 ' To choose securely choose in May, 
 The leaves iii autumu fall away.' 
 
406 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 This is good counsel to bird or man, I suppose. That is 
 right, old fellow ! go and carry your wife her breakfast, 
 — or dinner, I suppose it is. But what a blaze of beauty 
 he is, newly kindled there in the boughs ! — a piece of a 
 rainbow, or a bit of the morning, which got entangled in 
 the tree and torn off. How he sings ! — Grisi does not 
 touch that ; no, nor Swedish Jenny Lind, with all the 
 bobolinks of New England in her Swedish throat, as I 
 used to think. Not up to that, not she ! Then, too, the 
 very caterpillar he has just caught and now let fall at 
 my feet, — what a handsome thing that is ! What eyes ; 
 what stripes of black on his sides, and spots of crimson 
 on his back ; what horns tipped with fire on his head ! 
 What a rich God it must be who can afford to dress a 
 worm in such magnificence, — a Joseph's coat for a cat- 
 erpillar ! But next summer he will have a yet fairer 
 coat, as he comes out of his minority with his new free- 
 dom suit on, and will flutter by all the flowers, himself 
 an animate flower with wings. Butterflies are only 
 masculine flowers, which have fallen in love, and so fly 
 wooing to their quiet feminine mates. Let him go ! I 
 am glad the Oriole did not dine on such a meal as that. 
 What a glutton, to eat up a Solomon's song of loveli- 
 ness ! which was not only a canticle but a prophecy like- 
 wise — of Messianic beauty for next year. 
 
 ' " There is a hornets' nest, — a young hornets' nest. I 
 used to be afraid of hornets ; now I will let you alone, 
 Mr. Stingabee ! Look there ! city joiners and masons 
 don't build so well in Boston as this country carpenter, 
 who is hod-carrier, architect, and mason, and puts up 
 his summer-house of papier mache under the great limb 
 of the elm. There is a piece of conscientious work ! 
 done by the job too, — so he works Sundays, — but done 
 faithfully. What an overseer the good God is ! But no, 
 
BEAUTY IN THE WORLD OF MATTER. 407 
 
 Mr. Hornet, your little striped head did n't plan that 
 house, — not an artist, only a tool in another hand ! " 
 
 In the mill-pond close at hand he sees the water-lilies 
 are all out. How handsomely they lie there, withdraw- 
 ing the green coverlets lined with white, and turned up 
 with pink, wherein they wrapped themselves up yester- 
 day at noon ! What a power of white and saffron color 
 within their cups ! How they breathe their breath into 
 his face, as if he and they were little children ! and are 
 they not of the same Father, who cradles the lily and 
 the man with equal love ? The arrowhead and the 
 pickerel-weed blossom there, and tall flags grow out of 
 the soft ground, with cardinals redder than Roman Lam- 
 bruschini. The button-ball is in its glory, swarmed about 
 with little insects, promoting the marriage of the flowers. 
 The swamp honey-suckle has put on its white raiment 
 also, as if to welcome the world, and stands there a can- 
 didate for all honors. How handsome is this vegetable 
 tribe who live about the pond ! Nay, under his feet is 
 the little pale-blue forget-me-not. Once he used of a 
 Sunday to fold it up in a letter signed I know you never 
 will, and send it to the dear little maiden, now mother of 
 his tall boys and comely girls. She liked the letter all 
 the more because it contained the handwriting of her 
 lover and her God, — a two in one without mystery. She 
 has the letter now, laid away somewhere, and her grand- 
 daughter years hence will come upon it and understand 
 nothing. Like Eliot's Indian Bible, nobody can read it 
 now. No ; there must be a resurrection of the spirit 
 to read what the spirit wrote, — in Bible leaves, in flower 
 leaves. There is the cymbidium he used to send on the 
 same errand, saying, " God meant it for my Arethusa." 
 
 Hard by is the kitchen garden ; the pumpkin-vine, dis- 
 daining narrow limits, has climbed over the wall, and 
 
408 FIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 puts forth its great yellow flowers. In one of them is a 
 huge bee tumbling about ; he does not know it is Sun- 
 day, does not hear the bell now tolling its last jow for 
 meeting ; does not care what the selectmen are talking 
 of outside the meeting-house, while within the old ladies 
 are fanning themselves, or eating green caraway-seeds, or 
 opening their smelling-bottles, in the great square pews, 
 where on high seats are perched the little uncomfortable 
 children, whose legs do not touch the floor ; he cares 
 nothing for all that, nor whether the minister finds a 
 whole new Bible, or an old half Bible ; he is buzzing and 
 humming and fussing about in the blossom, powdered 
 all over with the flower-dust ; now he flies off to another, 
 marrying the dioecious blossoms, — the thoughtless priest 
 of nature that he is, who docs manifold work while 
 seeking honey for his subterranean hive. Our grocer 
 knows him well. " What a well-built creature that is," 
 quoth he ; " how well-burnished is his. coat of mail ; how 
 nicely it fits ; how delicate are those strong wings of his ! 
 Sebastopol is not so well armed for offence and defence. 
 What an apparatus for suction ! The steam fire-engine 
 rusting out in the city stables is not so well contrived for 
 that, though it did cost the city ten thousand dollars 
 and that famous visit to Cincinnati. But why all this 
 wealth of beauty? Is not use enough, or is God so 
 rich that he can dress up an humble-bee in such fine 
 clothes ? so benevolent that he will not be content with 
 doing less ? " 
 
 On the other side, the pasture comes close down to 
 the pond ; some of the cows stand there in the water, 
 protecting their limbs from the flies ; others lie rumi- 
 nant in the shadow of an oak-tree. Wild roses come 
 close down to the lilies, and these distant relatives, but 
 near neighbors and good friends, meet in the water, — 
 
BEAUTY IN THE WORLD OF MATTER. 409 
 
 the one looking down and reflected, where the other Hes 
 low and looks up. Spiraeas and sweetbriers are about 
 the wall, where also the raspberries are now getting ripe ; 
 andromedas shake their little white bells, all musical 
 with loveliness ; the elder-bush is also in blossom, its 
 white flowers grateful to the eye, as to the manifold 
 insects living and loving in its hospitable breast. How 
 clean is the trunk of the basswood ; how large and hand- 
 some its leaves; how full it is of flowers ! — to which the 
 
 bees, 
 
 "with musical delight, 
 For their sweet gold repair. " 
 
 A little further off, the chestnut trees, also in their 
 late bloom, dot the woods with unexpected beauty, — 
 looking afar off like white roses sprinkled in the grass. 
 How well their great round tops contrast with the tall 
 pines further up on the hill ! The grouping of plants is 
 admirable as the several beauty of each. Nature never 
 combines the inappropriate, nor makes a vulgar match. 
 There are no misalliances in that wedlock. How lovely 
 is the shadow of the oak, as it lies there, half on land, 
 half in the water! The swallow stoops on the wing, 
 dips her bill, and then flies off to her populous nest in 
 the rafters of the barn ; how curiously she clings there, 
 braced by her stiff tail, and wakes up the little ones to 
 fill their mouths ! and then comes such twittering as 
 reminds the city horse of his own colthood in the far-off 
 pastures of Vermont. 
 
 " Ah me," says the grocer, " what a world of use here 
 is! see the ground, how rich the clover is! time it was 
 cut too, — running into the ground every day. How the 
 corn comes out ! earth full of moisture, air full of heat, 
 country never looked finer ! How the Indian corn, that 
 Mississippi of grain, rolls out that long stream of green 
 
410 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 leaves ; it will tassel this very week ! What a fine water- 
 power the pond is ! — only ten foot fall, and yet it is 
 stronger than all the king's oxen; turns 'Zekiel's mill just 
 as it used to father's, sawing in winter and spring, and 
 grinding all the year through ; now it does more yet, for 
 he has put the water to 'prentice, and taught it many a 
 trade. How big the trees are ! that great pasture white- 
 oak, twenty feet in circumference, — Captain McKay 
 would give two hundred dollars for it, take it where it 
 stands, here ; it has only one leg to stand on, but so 
 many knees ! That hill-side where the cows are, what 
 admirable pasture it is, early and late! see the white 
 clover — a little lime brought that out ! what a growth 
 of timber further up ! What a useful world it is ! what 
 a deal of engineering it took to put it together ! only to 
 run such a world after it was set up must take an infi- 
 nite Providence. It is a continual creation, as I told Dr. 
 Banbaby ; but he could not understand it, for ' it was 
 not in the Bible,' no part of revelation ; ' continued crea- 
 tion is a contradiction in the adjective;' — well, well, it 
 is an agreement in the substantive, a fact of nature if 
 not a word of theology. What a useful world ! But 
 what a power of beauty there is too ! How handsome 
 the clover is! — Miss Moolly Cow, you don't care any- 
 thing about that ; it is grass to you, to the bee it is honey ; 
 it is loveliness also to my eyes. The Indian corn — a 
 Mississippi of use is it ? Why it is the loveliest Amazon 
 that ever ran in all this green world of grains ! That 
 mill-pond grinds use for brother 'Zekiel all day long, 
 makes him a rich man. But what beauty runs over the 
 dam, year out, year in, and comes dripping down from 
 those mosses, on the stones : how much more of it lies 
 there in the pond to feed the lilies, handsome babies on 
 that handsome breast, — and serve as looking-glasses for 
 
BEAUTY IN THE WORLD OF MATTER. 411 
 
 the clouds all day, the stars all night ! This makes all 
 the neighbors rich, if they will only hold up their dish 
 when it rains wealth of handsomeness. Beauty is all 
 grist, — no toll taken out for grinding that. Mill-pond 
 is useful and beautiful at the same time, a servant and 
 a sister. How that little cat's paw of wind rumples its 
 dress, and those 
 
 ' Little breezes dusk and shiver,' 
 
 just as Matilda Jane read it to me in Tennyson last Sun- 
 day afternoon, when her mother was hearing Banbaby 
 preach on the ' Fall of man.' What an eye that Tennyson 
 has ! — he sees the fact ; daguerreotypes it into words. 
 If I were a poet, I would sit right down before nature 
 and paint her just as she is ; that is the way Tennyson 
 does. So did Shakespeare, — did not put nature's hair 
 into papers ; liked the original curl ; so do I ; so does 
 God. There, it is all gone now, just as still as before ! 
 I used to fish here, — but I only caught the outline of 
 the hills, and the shadows of the trees. How those 
 great round clouds come and look down there, and see 
 their own face ! What ! don't you like it, that you must 
 change it so fast? Well, you keep your beauty, if you 
 do change your shape. What sunny colors ! It is Sunday 
 all the time to the clouds and the pond. How all the 
 hills are reflected in it! and see the linden tree, and the 
 great oak, and the white-faced cow, the house, the wall 
 and the sweetbriers on it, and underneath all are the 
 clouds ! so the last is made first, and the first last. Mr. 
 Church, who painted that Andes picture at the Athenasum, 
 could not come up to this, — not he ; no, not if he had 
 Titian to help him ! Look at the reflection of that great 
 oak-tree ! Worth two hundred dollars for use, is it ? 
 Captain McKay sha'n't have it ; no, not for a thousand 
 
412 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 dollars ! No, no, dear old tree ! Grandfather who was 
 shot at Lexington used to tell grandmother, and she told 
 everybody of it, that it was a large, full-grown tree when 
 his great-great-grandfather built the first log-house in 
 town. Underneath that he first took his pack off his 
 shoulders, and his hat from his head, and stood up 
 straight, and offered his prayer of thanksgiving to God. 
 ' Ebenezer,' said he, ' hitherto hath the Lord helped us,' 
 and he called his first son by that name, — Ebenezer 
 Welltodo. Here the old pilgrim buried Rachel, his first 
 daughter, a tall girl, they say, but delicate. She died 
 when she was only fifteen, — died the first year of their 
 settlement, came over from England. But the garden 
 rose could not stand the rough winters of those times, 
 faded, and died. The old pilgrim — he was only thirty- 
 six or eight then, though — buried that rosebud under 
 the great oak. When he was digging the grave, a wood- 
 pecker came and walked round on the trunk of the tree, 
 and tapped it with his bill, and then stood close to his 
 head and looked at him with great red eyes. He never 
 had seen such a woodpecker before, nor any wild creature 
 so tame, and called it a bird of paradise sent to tell him 
 that his daughter was safe in the Promised Land. So 
 he finished her grave, and lined it with green twigs 
 which the oak-pruner had cut off from the tree, and 
 covered her young body with the same — they had no 
 other coffin — and filled it up with earth, and planted a 
 wild-rose bush there for headstone. So this Rachel, like 
 the other, was buried under a tree, and this Jacob also 
 had his Oak of Weeping. I don't know how it is, but 
 there has been a woodpecker in some of the great dead 
 limbs ever since. Dear old oak ! if there be ' tongues in 
 trees,' what stories you could tell ! You are as fair to 
 the memory as to the eye. You shall never go to the 
 
BEAUTY 7iV THE WORLD OF MATTER. 413 
 
 mill ; too beautiful for use, you build what is worth 
 more than ships, for there is a heart in you ! 
 
 " Look there, where the old barn stood ! how the ivy 
 and wild grape-vine have come and covered up the rock, 
 casting a handsome veil over what man left bare and 
 ugly. So it is on all the roadsides betwixt here and 
 town. One day the railroad embankments will be also 
 green and lovely. First come weeds, — a sort of rough 
 great-coat, then grass, then flowers also. So is it with 
 all our destructiveness. Nature walks backward, and 
 from her own shoulders casts the garment of material 
 beauty on the human shame of Waterloo and Balaklava, 
 and all the battlefields of earth. See how the rock is 
 covered with vegetation: houseleek here, celandine there, 
 and saxifrage — how early it comes out, close to the 
 snow ; while mosses and lichens grow everywhere ! 
 Beauty pastures even on the rocks, — God feeding it out 
 of the clouds ; he holds forth a cup, and every little 
 moss comes and drinks out of it and is filled with life. 
 
 " What does it all mean ? Is God so liberal, that, after 
 drawing use for the customers at his universe of a shop, 
 he lets the tap run awhile merely for the beauty of the 
 stream ? Use costs us hard work, but the beauty of 
 nature costs nothing. He throws it in as I do the twine 
 and paper with a pound of cheese. No ; for that I get 
 pay for in another way. He gives it, just as I gave little 
 Rosanna Murphy, the Irish girl with the drunken father, 
 who went to the house of correction for beating his 
 family — thank God, I don't sell rum ! — just as I gave 
 Rosie an orange last Friday when she came to buy the 
 salt fish. That is it, he gives it in. ' Don't charge any- 
 thing for that,' as I told poor little Rosie, who had been 
 crying for her good-for-nothing father, — we don't ask 
 anything for that. I give it to you that you may be a 
 
414 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 good girl and happy, and know there is somebody richer 
 than you who takes an interest in you ; to let you know 
 somebody loves you.' How she dried her tears and did 
 thank me ! 
 
 " Well, it must be a good God who makes such a world 
 as this, and wlien we only pay for the dry salt fish of 
 use — often with tears in our eyes — pats us on the head, 
 flings in this orange of beauty and makes no charge, ' so 
 that you may be a good girl and happy, and know that 
 somebody takes an interest in you, — that you have a 
 friend in the world ! ' 
 
 " ' Comes of notliing,' does it ? 'No plan in the world, 
 no thought,' is there ? ' The fool hath said in his heart, 
 there is no God,' — that is, because he is a fool. He 
 must be a fool to think so, a natural born fool, a fool in 
 four letters. "Well, I pity him ; so does God. Poor 
 fool, he could not help thinking so. I do not believe 
 in Dr. Banbaby's God, — a great, ugly devil, sending 
 Elias and two bears — miraculous she-bears — to kill, 
 and ' carry off to hell,' forty-two babies who laughed at 
 his bald head. I don't believe in such a devilish God as 
 that ! it is worse than the fool's no-God. But there is 
 wisdom and power somewhere ! Think of all this, — 
 sermon on the mount, sermon on the hill, sermon in 
 the pond, in the oak-tree — a dear good sermon that is, 
 — sermon in the wild-rose and the lily ! Yes, that 
 swallow twitters away a whole One Hundred and Nine- 
 teenth Psalm Qf praise to God. How all nature breaks 
 forth into voice as soon as you listen ! I don't blame 
 her ; I would if I could. Sing away there, fire-hang- 
 bird ! buzz away there, humble-bee in the pumpkin blos- 
 som ! there is an infinite goodness somewhere ! You 
 don't know it, but you grow out of it, all of you ! The 
 world itself is but one little moss, drinking from the cup 
 
BEAUTY IN THE WORLD OF MATTER. 415 
 
 God holds in his hand. Ah me ! if the Rev. Banbaby 
 would come out here and read God's fresh handwriting, 
 and not blear his eyes so continually over the black 
 print of John Calvin and the Synod of Dort ; if he 
 would study St. Nature only half as much as St. Reve- 
 lation, he would never have preached that sermon on 
 the ' Damnation of the Unbaptized,' and declared that 
 all such were lost, and especially infants, on whom God 
 visits the sins of their parents for ever and ever, — which 
 he did let fly on the Sunday after poor widow Faithful 
 lost her only child, a dear little boy of fifteen months. 
 No wonder she went crazy the next week, and I took her 
 to Worcester. 
 
 " This must be the meaning of it all, — it is a Reve- 
 lation OP God's Love. That is what it is. Consider 
 the lilies of the pond, — they all teach this : If God so 
 clothe the lilies in brother 'Zekiel's mill-pond, watch over 
 them, ripen their seed thus curiously under water, sow 
 it there, and keep the race as lasting as the stars, will 
 he not much rather bless every soul of saint or sinner, 
 Rev. Banbaby ? Oh, foolish congregations of self-deny- 
 ing men, who think you must believe in all the clerical 
 nonsense and bad-sense which ministers preach at you ! 
 where are your eyes, where are your hearts, where are 
 your souls that you make such a fuss about ? 
 
 ' Why tliis longing-, this for ever sighing 
 
 For such doctrines ghastly, hateful, grim, — 
 While the beautiful, all round thee lying, 
 
 Offers up its low, perpetual hymn? 
 Would 'st thou listen to its gentle teaching, 
 
 All that restless longing it would still, — 
 Flower and pond and laden bee are teaching, 
 
 Thy own sphere with natural work to fill.' " 
 
 Mr. Welltodo is right ; that is the meaning of it all. 
 Love sums it up: " All things are double" — use this, 
 
416 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 beauty that : Old Testament and New Testament are 
 thus bound up in the same volume of nature. What a 
 revelation of God's goodness this world of beauty is ! 
 How it comes to the tired young milliner, soothes her 
 weariness, quickens her imagination, and then laps her 
 in the arms of sleep, till all is joyous, blessed rest ! No, 
 in that rest she longs for another tranquillity, — the 
 soul's rest in the infinite perfections of God. 
 
 How this mundane beauty comes to the calculating 
 man, lifts him above his " sugars " and his " flours " he 
 meant to spend all Sunday in thinking over ; and shows 
 him the heavenly meaning in this life of ours ! 
 
 What a revelation it is of the Cause and Providence 
 of all this world ! God gives us use ! " giveth liberally." 
 You niight expect it. But that is not enough for him. 
 He adds another world, which feeds and cheers the su- 
 perior faculties. There is use for need and virtue, 
 beauty also as overplus and for delight. We ask corn 
 for bread ; God makes it handsome and it feeds the 
 mind. It seems to me as if he could not give enough to 
 satisfy his own benevolence. How he spreads a table 
 with all that is needful for material wants, and then 
 gives this beauty as a musical benediction to the feast, — 
 a grace before and after meat! To a thoughtful man, 
 how the sight of this wakens emotions of reverence, 
 love, and trust ! Who can doubt the causal Goodness 
 which makes the fairness ? 
 
 Men tell about " miracles," which prove " the great- 
 ness of the Lord," and "his goodness too;" that he 
 was once angry with mankind, and sent a flood, which 
 killed all the living things on earth, from the lowest 
 plant up to the highest man, save only eight men and 
 women and a troop of inferior animals whom he kept in 
 a great box, which floated for a whole year on this ocean 
 
BEAUTY IN THE WORLD OF MATTER. 417 
 
 of murder, and then let out the ancestors of all things 
 that now live upon the earth ; that he miraculouslj con- 
 founded the speech of men building a city, and they fled 
 asunder, leaving their abortive work ; that he miracu- 
 lously plagued Egypt with grotesque and awful torments, 
 and by miracle led Israel through a sea of waters closing 
 on their foes, and into a sea of sand, which eat up one 
 generation of the Israelites themselves, — nay, that by 
 tlie ministration of one Hebrew man, continued miracles 
 v\*ere wrought for forty years ; and then, yet more won- 
 derful, by another, at whose word water was changed 
 to wine, the bread of five sufficed five thousand men, the 
 wanting limb came strong again, the dead returned to 
 life, — nay, at his death, that the very sun stood still, 
 and darkness filled the heavens at high noonday, while 
 the rocks were rent, the graves stood wide, and buried 
 saints came back to light and life. Believe it not ! To 
 me such tales are ghastly as Egyptian idols and Hin- 
 doo images of God, mixing incongruous limbs of beast 
 and bird and man. In this little leaf there is more 
 divinity than in all those monstrous legends, writ in 
 letters or carved out in stone. But the daily wonder of 
 nature, which is no miracle, — that is the actual reve- 
 lation of God's power and goodness, a diamond of love 
 set in the gold of beauty. 
 
 Look all about you ! What a ring of handsomeness 
 surrounds the town ! What a heaven of loveliness is 
 arched over us ! See how earth, air, and water are 
 turnmg into bread ! Out of the ground what daily use 
 and beauty grow ! Think of the thousand million men 
 on earth, the million millions of beast, bird, fish, insect ! 
 They all hang on the breasts of Heaven, and arc fed 
 by the motherly bounty of infinite perfection. This is 
 a clover blossom at one end of the stalk, at the other 
 
 27 
 
418 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 end is God. Yes, all rests in him, flowers out of him, 
 lives by him, leads us to him. All this material beauty 
 of nature is but one rose on the bosom of Deity, over- 
 looked by the Infinite Loveliness which is alike its 
 Cause and Providence. Yea, the universe of matter is a 
 revelation of him, — of his power in its strength, of his 
 wisdom in its plan and law, of his love and his loveli- 
 ness in that perfume of the world which we call beauty. 
 Earth beneath and heaven above are greater and les- 
 ser prophets, gospel, and epistle ; and all unite in one 
 grand psalm, — " Glory to God in the highest, on 
 
 EARTH PEACE, AND GOOD WILL TO MEN." 
 
SPRING. 419 
 
 SPRING. 
 
 How mighty are the forces in the world of matter, — 
 attraction, affinity, light, heat, electricity, vegetation, the 
 growth of plants, animation, the life of heast, bird, rep- 
 tile, insect ! Yet how delicate are the results thereof ! 
 It seems strange that a butterfly's wing should be woven 
 up so thin and gauzy in this monstrous loom of nature, 
 and be so delicately tipped with fire from such a gross 
 hand, and rainbowed all over in such a storm of thunder- 
 ous elements. But so it is. Put a little atom of your butter- 
 fly's wing under a microscope, and what delicate wonders 
 do you find ! The marvel is that such great forces do 
 such nice work. A thoughtful man for the first time 
 goes to some carpet factory in Lowell. He looks out of 
 the window, and sees dirty bales of wool lying confusedly 
 about, as they were dropped from the carts that brought 
 them there. Close at hand is the Merrimac River, one 
 end of it pressed against the New Hampshire mountains 
 and the sky far off, while the other crowds upon the mill- 
 dam and is pouring through its narrow gate. Under the 
 factory it drives the huge wheel, whose turning keeps 
 the whole town ajar all day. Above is the great bell 
 which rings the river to its work. Before him are puUies 
 and shafts ; the floor is thick-set with looms ; there are 
 rolls of various-colored woollen yarn, bits of card pierced 
 with holes hang before the weaver, who now pulls a 
 handle, and the slmttles fly, wedding the woof to the 
 expectant warp, and the handsome fabric is slowly woven 
 
420 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 up and rolled away. The thoughtful man wonders at 
 the contrivance by which the Merrimac River is made to 
 weave such coarse materials into §uch beauty of form, 
 color, and finish. What a marvel of machinery it is ! 
 None of the weavers quite understand it ; our visitor still 
 less. He goes off wondering, thinking what a head it 
 must be which planned the mill, — a tool by which the 
 Merrimac transfigures wool and dyestuff into handsome 
 carpets, serviceable for chamber, parlor, staircase, or 
 meeting-house. 
 
 But all day, you, and I, President Buchanan, the Amer- 
 ican Tract Society, the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, all the people in the world, are in a carpet factory 
 far more wonderful. What vast forces therein spin and 
 weave continually ! What is the Merrimac, which only 
 reaches from the New Hampshire mountains to the sea, 
 compared to that great river of God on whose breast the 
 earth, the sun, the solar system, yea, the astral system, 
 are but bubbles, which gleam, many-colored, for a mo- 
 ment, or but dimple that stream, and whicli swiftly it 
 whirls away ? What is the fabric of a Lowell mill to 
 that carpet which God lays on the floor of the earth, 
 from the Arctic Circle to the Antarctic, or yet also 
 spreads on the bottom of the monstrous sea ? It is trod 
 under foot by all mankind ; the elephant walks on it, 
 and the royal tiger. What multitudes of sheep, swine, 
 and horned cattle lie down there, and take their rest ; 
 what tribes of beasts, insects, reptiles, birds, fishes, make 
 a home therein, or feed thereon. Moths do not eat away 
 this floor-cloth of the land and sea. The snow lies on 
 it, the sun lurks there in summer, the rain wets it all the 
 year ; yet it never wears out ; it is dyed in fast colors. 
 Now and then the feet of armies in their battle wear a 
 little hole in this green carpet, but next year a handsome 
 
SPRING. 421 
 
 piece of botanic rug-work covers up tlie wear and tear of 
 Sebastopol and Delhi, as of old it repaired the waste of 
 Marathon and Trasimenus. Look, and you see no weaver, 
 no loom visible ; but the web is always there, on the 
 ground and underneath the sea. The same clothier like- 
 wise keeps the live world tidy and in good trim. How 
 all the fishes are dressed out, — those glittering in plate 
 armor, these only arrayed in their vari-eolored jerkins, 
 such as no Moorish artist could paint. How well clad 
 are the insects ; with what suits of mail are the beetle 
 and bee and ant furnished. The coat of the buffalo never 
 pinches under the arm, never puckers at the shoulder ; it 
 is always the same, yet never old-fashioned, nor out of 
 date. The shoes of the reindeer and the ox inherit that 
 mythical Hebrew blessing pronounced on those of the 
 Israelites ; tliey wax not old upon their feet. The pigeon 
 and humming-bird wear their court-dress every day, and 
 yet it never looks rusty nor threadbare. In this grand 
 clothiery of the world everything is clad in more beauty 
 than many-colored Joseph or imperial Solomon ever put 
 on, yet nobody ever sees the wheel, the loom, or the sew- 
 ing-machine of this great Dorcas Institution which car- 
 pets the earth and upholsters the heavens, and clothes 
 the creatures of the world with more imperial glory than 
 the Queen of Sheba ever fancied in her dream of dress 
 and love. How old is the world of matter, — many a 
 million years ; yet it is to-day still fresh and young as 
 when the morning stars first saug together, and all the 
 sons of God shouted for joy. Not a power of the earth 
 has decayed. The sea, 
 
 " Such as creation's dawn beheld, it roUeth now." 
 
 The stars have been watching many a million years; yet 
 in all that heavenly host not a single eye has turned 
 
422 VIEWS OF religion: 
 
 dim. The sun has lost nothing of his fire. Never old, 
 the moon still walks in maiden beauty through the sky, 
 and though men and nations vanish, " the most ancient 
 heavens are fresh and strong." Centripetal and Centri- 
 fugal are the two horses of God that make up the won- 
 drous span that draws the heavenly chariot ; they are 
 always on the road, yet never cast a shoe ; and though 
 they have journeyed for many a million years, are to-day 
 fresh and fleet and road-ready as when first they drew 
 Neptune, the earliest horn of this family of planets, in his 
 wide orbit round the central sun. How old the world is ; 
 yet well-clad, and its garments as fresh as if they were 
 new, spick and span, in every thread. 
 
 What a revival of nature is just now going on in all 
 Europe, Asia, North America, and the islands which dot 
 the frozen sea with green. To the arctic world, which 
 for months sat in darkness, exceeding great light has 
 come. Truly here is the out-pouring of the spirit of 
 God ! Yet nobody preached the reasonableness of eter- 
 nal damnation to the alewives, the shad, and the salmon, 
 which now abound in our waters ; but with no minister 
 to scare them they know what they shall do to be saved, 
 for the spirit of God comes into these mute disciples, 
 who crowd up the little streams, float into the ponds, 
 and spread in the great streams, and there drop, as an 
 offering, into the temple-chest of the Almighty all that 
 they have, even their living, and then, like the poor 
 widow in the New Testament story, pass out of human 
 sight, swallowed up in that great sea of oblivion wliere 
 man beholds nothing, but where God never loses sight 
 of an alewife, having provided for its existence and the 
 accidents of its history from before the foundations of 
 the world. From his eye neither the great sun in 
 heaven nor the spawn of ,an alewife in the sea is ever for 
 
SPRING. 423 
 
 a moment lost or hid. What new life is there in the 
 air, which hums with little insects new-born, short-lived, 
 yet not one of them afraid to die. Why should it be ? 
 The infinite Mind, which is cause and providence to all 
 things that be, knows the little track of an ephemeron as 
 well as the calculated orbit of this world, which teams 
 its thousand million men from age to age along its well- 
 proportioned path. " Fear not, little flock of ephemera," 
 God says to them, " lo, I am with you also to the end of 
 the world. Not a fly shall fall to the ground without 
 my providence." In some warm spring day, in the shal- 
 low waters of a sluggish river there sports a shoal of lit- 
 tle fishes, new-born, trying their tiny fins in waters 
 which are at once their bed and board. Suddenly a 
 swarm of little insects, just waked into new life by the 
 sun, springs from the bank and darkens the surface of 
 the water, for a yard or two, with a cloud. The fishes 
 which play there spring into the air, and in a few min- 
 utes all this cloud of flies has been swallowed down. 
 But tlie fly was born with his children cradled in his 
 body, and in the bosom of the fish itself this new gener- 
 ation finds its garden of Eden, where it cats, if not from 
 the tree of knowledge, at least the tree of life. So while 
 the new born ephemera give the new-born fish a break- 
 fast, the eater unconsciously adopts the children of the 
 fly, nurses them in his body, and when they are grown 
 to their majority, sets free these creatures, which had so 
 strange a birth and bringing up in this little floating col- 
 lege of a country brook. Does God take care for oxen ? 
 asks St. Paul. Ay, as well as for man, and sends his 
 apostles to these little creatures whose life is so brief. 
 The perpetuation of their race is provided for, and they 
 have organs which take hold on eternity. Truly the in- 
 finite God is fatherly providence to the little fly born in 
 
424 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 a spring day, and perishing in an hour after it sees the 
 light. 
 
 What wonders of nature go on all around us to-day ! 
 From the top of some tall house, look on the fair mantle 
 which nature has just cast on all the hills ahout us, and 
 whicli falls with such handsome folds into every valley. 
 Go into any one of the towns near at hand, and see what 
 there takes place. There is not an apple-tree but has 
 put its wedding garments on. The elm has half ripened 
 its fruit ; the maple is making provision for whole for- 
 ests of future joy ; while the trees which the farmer 
 plants for profitable use, and not for beauty, are white 
 with the oracles of prophecy. It is a revival of nature, 
 whereof the sun is the evangelical preacher. No city 
 government warns him off from the common, for he 
 preaches iho, everlasting gospel of the blessed God, 
 wherewith he rejoices both old and young. There is no 
 heresy in that. All nature hears him, and expounds 
 his word of life. The silent fishes plentifully obey the 
 first of God's commands ; the tuneful birds repeat their 
 litany, chanting their morning and evening psalm ; all 
 the trees put on their bridal garments, — these candi- 
 dates for the divine communion, who have come to take 
 part in this great epiphany, the natural manifestation of 
 God to these Gentiles of the field and wood. They also 
 share the Pentecost of the year, and celebrate their 
 thanksgiving with such abundance as they can or know. 
 What a Pentecost of new life is there ! Every bush 
 burns and is not consumed ; yea, greatens and multi- 
 plies in its bloom and blossom, and the ground seems 
 holy with new revelation ; it is a white Sunday all round 
 the town. How grand and vigorous the new blade 
 comes out from the earth ; and ere long these will be 
 sheaves, and oxen will laboriously drag home the far- 
 
SPRING. 425 
 
 mer's load of grain, whicli in due time will be changed 
 to other oxen, and then likewise to farmers too, and so 
 be resurrected in his sons and daughters. What a mar- 
 vellous transfiguration is that ! first the seed, then the 
 plant, then the harvest, next bread, and at length Moses, 
 Elias, Jesus ! No Hel)rew writer of legend could ever 
 finish half so fair a miracle as this, wherein is no mira- 
 cle, but constant law at every step. Last autumn in 
 some of the pastures fire ran along the wall, and left the 
 ground black with its ephemeral charcoal, where now 
 the little wind-flower lifts its delicate form and bends its 
 slender neck, and blushes with its own beauty, gathered 
 from the black ground out of which it grew; or some 
 trillium opens its painted cup, and in due time will 
 sbow its fruit, a beautiful berry there. So out of human 
 soil, blackened by another fire which has swept over it, 
 in due time great flowers will come out in the form of 
 spiritual beauty not yet seen, and other fruit grow there, 
 whose seed is in itself, and which had not ripened but 
 out of that black ground. Thus the lilies of peace cover 
 the terrible field of Waterloo, and out of the grave of 
 our dear ones there spring up such flowers of spiritual 
 loveliness as you and I else had never known. It is not 
 from the tall, crowded warehouse of prosperity that men 
 first or clearest see the eternal stars of heaven. It is 
 often from the humble spot where we have laid down 
 our dear ones that we find our best observatory, which 
 gives us glimpses into the far-off world of never-ending 
 time. 
 
 In the hard, cold winter of our northern lands, how do 
 we feel a longing for the presence of life. Then we love 
 to look on a pine or fir tree, which seems the only living 
 thing in tlie woods, surrounded by dead oaks, birches, 
 maple, looking like the grave-stones of buried vegeta- 
 
426 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 tion : that seems warm and living then ; and at Christ- 
 mas men bring it into meeting-houses and parlors, and 
 set it up, full of life, and laden with kindly gifts for the 
 little folk. Then even the unattractive crow seems half 
 sacred, through the winter bearing messages of promise 
 from the perished autumn to the advancing spring, — 
 this dark forerunner of the tuneful tribes which are to 
 come. We feel a longing for fresh green nature, and so 
 in the shelter of our houses keep some little Aaron's rod, 
 budding alike with promise and memory ; or in some 
 hyacinth or Dutchman's tulip we keep a prophecy of 
 flowers, and start off some little John to run before, and . 
 with his half-gospel tell of some great Emmanuel, and 
 signify to men that the kingdom of heavenly beauty is 
 near at hand. Now that forerunner disappears, for the 
 desire of all nations has truly come ; the green grass is 
 creeping everywhere, and it is spangled with many-col- 
 ored flowers that come unasked. The dullest bush 
 tingles with new life in all its limbs. How the old 
 apple-tree blushes at the genial salutation vv^hispered by 
 the wind, the Gabriel of heaven, that freest agent of 
 Almiglity power, " Hail, thou that art highly favored ! 
 Thou hast found favor with God, and in due time shalt 
 rejoice, and drop thy Messianic apples down." Already 
 the multitude of the heavenly host is here, — the black- 
 bird, the robin, the brown thrush, the purple finch, and 
 the fire-hang-bird ; these build their nests, while they 
 sing, " Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good 
 will toward men." 
 
 What if there was a spring-time of blossoming but 
 once in a hundred years ! How would men look forward 
 to it, and old men who had beheld its wonders tell the 
 story to their children, how once all the homely trees 
 became beautiful, and earth was covered with freshness 
 
SPRING. 427 
 
 and new growth. How would young men hope to be- 
 come old that they might see so glad a sight ; and when 
 beheld, the aged man would say, " Lord, now Icttestthou 
 thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy 
 salvation ! " Nay, wise men who knew the signs of the 
 times would follow that star of spring till it stood over 
 that happy country where the young child was, and then 
 fall down and worship him. But now, in every year, in all 
 lands, this Messianic beauty is born, this star stands still 
 over every garden, every farm. It pauses over each elder- 
 bush, and does not disdain the buttercup and dandelion, 
 for like that other Messiah, these also lie in the oxen's crib. 
 
 What a solidarity there is between the world of matter 
 and its inhabitants. They suit and fit each other, like 
 him and her. From inorganic matter up to the highest 
 man there is a gradual and continual ascent. Vege- 
 tation is a ring, whereunto animation is a living precious 
 stone, with which God marries man to nature ; and the 
 world of spirit and the world of matter are no longer 
 twain, but the two are wedlocked into one. How the 
 world of matter is grateful to our flesh ! To canny 
 man the Avorld is very kind. It feeds us, clothes, houses, 
 heals, and at last folds us in its bosom, whence our flesh 
 is a perpetual resurrection, and rises again into other 
 men, while the soul invisible fares further on in the as- 
 cending march of infinite progression, whereof we see 
 the beginning, and to which there is no end. 
 
 How the world delights us with its beauty, — feeding, 
 clothing, housing, healing, the nobler part of man ! 
 Even the savage and the baby love the handsome things 
 of earth. Little Two-year-old, a lumpy baby, as merry 
 as a May-bee, comes stumbling through the grass, and 
 loves to pick the attractive flowers, drawn by their very 
 loveliness, that will not feed his mouth, but feed his soul. 
 
428 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 Thoughtful man makes a grand eclecticism of lovelincs-; 
 from earth, air, water, sky, and rainbows both Joseph's 
 and Josephine's coat, builds his house with architectural 
 beauty, has painting, sculpture, and music to attend him. 
 
 What a fair sign of God's all-embracing love is found 
 in this presence of beauty, — a sweet charm which fasci- 
 nates us to refinement and elevation of character ! It 
 does not seem needful to the conception of the world 
 that nature should be beautiful. Why need any star be 
 limned so fair ? The moon must walk, — but need she 
 walk in beauty ? Why should the form of the apple, 
 peach, nut, the blossom of the Indian corn, and every 
 little grain, be made so handsome ? Surely they could 
 feed us just as well otherwise. Why set off beast and 
 bird with such magnificence, and so clothe the grass of 
 the field, which is here to-day, and to-morrow is cast into 
 the oven ? Why make the morning and night such 
 handsome children, and purple the anemone with the 
 charcoal Avhere heedless boys have burned the grass, and 
 out of battle-fields bring such loveliness, beauty cradled 
 in the bloody arms of strength ? You can read it all. 
 A great poet told it two hundred years ago : " O Mighty 
 Love ! Man is one world, and hath another to attend 
 him ; " and it answers to his being more tenderly than 
 he thinks. So long as a single star burns in lieaven 
 with fire, or a rose on earth flings out her own loveliness, 
 or the water-lily rings beauty's sweet-toned bells, no He- 
 brew or Christian revelation shall make me doubt the 
 infinite loving-kindness of God, to saint and sinner too. 
 Every violet, every dandelion, every daffodil, or jonquil, 
 is a preacher sent to tell us of the loving-kindness of 
 God. For that doctrine, at this hour there is a sermon 
 on every mount, east, south, west, or north. 
 
 And how this world of beauty and use is a school- 
 
SPRING. 429 
 
 house also for the mind, and a church likewise for the 
 soul, to inspire men with devotion ! In tropic lands, 
 swept by hurricanes, rent by earthquakes, or desolated 
 by volcanoes, I do not wonder that men believe in a devil 
 who sometimes gets the better of the good God. Super- 
 stition is a natural weed in the savage human soil, which 
 yet the rising religious blade overtops and lives down, 
 and kills out at last. It is not surprising that every- 
 where rude but thoughtful men looked on the falling 
 earth and steadfast sky, and saw the many forms of 
 wondrous, yet uncomprehended life, and said, "All these 
 things are gods," and sought to w^orship them. Nature 
 is the primer where man first learns of God. There, 
 " day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night 
 showeth knowledge. There is no voice nor language," 
 — yet the eye finds revelations: not only to Hebrew 
 Moses, but to all humankind, God speaks in every burn- 
 ing bush, and the rising of nature's song wakes new 
 morning in the soul of man. This perpetual renewal of 
 vegetation, this annual wonder of blossoming, — what a 
 religious revelation it offers to us ! How it fills us with 
 admiration, trust, and love ! Every flowering bush burns 
 with God, and is not consumed. With neither trick nor 
 miracle, he changes water into wine on all the vine-clad 
 hills of Italy, France, and Spain, and fills, not five thou- 
 sand men, but five thousand times two hundred thou- 
 sand, — a thousand million men, — every day; and on 
 the broken bread of this meal supports the multitudinous 
 armies of beast, bird, fish, insect, reptile. No little 
 worm is turned away unfed from that dear Father's 
 board, where the trencher is set, and all things made 
 ready for the ephemeron born this minute, and to perish 
 the next hour. Compared to this wonder of law, the 
 tales of miracle, of the Old Testament or New, are no 
 
480 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 fact, but poor poetry. They are like ghosts among a 
 market full of busy men and women. 
 
 How old is the material world, and yet for ever fresh 
 and young! So it is with the human world. If the 
 race of men be thirty thousand years old, then there are 
 a thousand fathers between us and the first man ; and 
 yet you and I are just as new and fresh, and just as near 
 to God, as the first father and mother. We derive our 
 humanity from him, not them ; and hold it by divine 
 patent from the Creator of all. Mankind never grows 
 old. You and I pass off as leaves are blown from the 
 trees, decay, and are exhaled, becoming but vapors of 
 the sky again. So also do nations grow old and pass 
 away. At the gate where Egypt, Assyria, Judasa, Greece, 
 Sparta, and Rome, were admitted through, stand Spain 
 and Italy to-day, beating at the door and crying, 
 " Divinest Mother, let thy weary daughters in ! " They 
 will pass to the judgment of nations, and in due time 
 Britain and America will be gathered to their fathers, 
 but mankind will have still, as now, the bloom of im- 
 mortal youth about his handsome brow. Thirty thou- 
 sand years, perhaps sixty, nobody knows how long, has 
 he lived here ; still not a hair is gray, no sense is dull, 
 the eye of this old Moses of humanity is not dim, nor is 
 his natural strength abated ; and new nations are still 
 born as vigorous as the old, and to a much better estate. 
 
 The last three generations have done more than any 
 six before in science, letters, art, religion, and the great- 
 est art of bearing men and building them into families, 
 communities, nations, and the human world. The reli- 
 gious faculty vegetates into new churches, animates into 
 new civilization men and women. Tell me of Moses, 
 Isaiah, Confucius, Zoroaster, Buddha, Pythagoras, Jesus, 
 Paul, Mohammed, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin, — a 
 
SPRING. 431 
 
 whole calendar full of saints ! I give God thanks for 
 them, and bare my brow, and do them reverence, and sit 
 down at their feet to learn what they have to offer. They 
 are but leaves and fruit on the tree of humanity, which 
 still goes on leafing, flowering, fruiting, with other Isaiahs 
 and Christs, whereof there is no end. As the tree grows 
 taller, the wealth of blossoms is more, and so too the 
 liarvest of its fruit. When the woods have not a leaf, 
 when the ocean has not a drop, when the sun has not a 
 particle of life, still shall the soul of man look up to God, 
 and reverence the infinite Father and Mother, love and 
 trust ; for God created man in his own image, and gave 
 him to be partaker of his own immortality, and no devil 
 can filch his birthright away from the meanest man. No 
 virtue fades out of mankind. Not over-hopeful by in- 
 born temperament, cautious by long experience, I yet 
 never despair of human virtue. The little charity which 
 palliates effects sometimes fails, but the great justice 
 which removes the causes of ill is as eternal as God. So 
 the most precious corn of humanity which I gather from 
 the pastures of ethics and history, and out of the deep, 
 well-ploughed field of philosophy, I sow beside the waters, 
 nothing doubting. Some falls on a rock, where suddenly 
 it starts, and presently withers away. The shallow- 
 minded bring no fruit to perfection, and only produce 
 ears of chaff. Some drops by the wayside, and covetous- 
 ness, lust, vanity, and ambition, devour it up, rioting to- 
 day on what should be seed-corn for future generations. 
 Some is blown before bigots, who trample it under their 
 feet, and turn again and rend me with their sermons and 
 their prayers. But I know that most of it will fall into 
 good ground, — earnest, honest meu and women, where 
 in due time, if not in my day, it will spring up, and bear 
 fruit of everlasting life, some thirty-fold, some forty, 
 
432 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 some sixty, and some a hundred. Hopeful mankind is 
 not forgetful to entertain strangers, nor lets an angel 
 pass for lack of invitation. Tenacious mankind lets slip 
 no good that is old. 
 
 " One accent of the Holy Ghost 
 The heedless world has never lost," — 
 
 nor ever will. 
 
 But while the human race is on the earth, — its con- 
 tinuing city, ever building, never done, — our individual 
 life has also another spriiig. Death is but a blossoming 
 out from the bulbous body, which kept the precious germ 
 all winter long, and now the shards fall oft", and the im- 
 mortal flower opens its beauty, which God transfers to 
 his own paradise, fragrant with men's good deeds and 
 good thoughts ; nay, where their good wishes and prayers 
 pass at their proper worth. 
 
 There runs a story that one Passover Sabbath-day 
 when Jesus was a boy of twelve, he stood with liis 
 mother at the door of their little cottage in Nazareth, — 
 his father newly dead, and his brotliers and sisters 
 playing their noisy games, — and he said, " mother, 
 would that I had lived in the times when there was 
 open .vision, and the Lord visited the earth, as in the 
 days of Adam, Abraham, and Moses. These are sad 
 times, mother, which we have fallen in." 
 
 Mary laid the baby, sleeping, from her arms, and 
 took a sprig of hyssop out of the narrow wall, and said, 
 " Lo, God is here ! and, my boy, not less than on Jacob's 
 Ladder do angels herein go up and down. It is spring- 
 time now, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our 
 land, and the blossom of this grape-vine is fragrant with 
 God. The date-tree, the white rose of Sharon, and the 
 lily of the valley, root in him. He is in your little gar- 
 den out there, not less than in grand Eden, \\ith Adam 
 
SPRING. 433 
 
 and Eve. Look, how the setting sun has illumined all 
 the hills ! What a purple glory flames in the west, and 
 is reflected in the east, where the full moon tells us it is 
 Passover day." 
 
 " Nay, mother," said the thoughtful boy, " but He has 
 left the soul of Israel for their sins, — so Rabbi Jonas 
 told us in the synagogue to-day. Oh that I had lived 
 with Elias or Amos, when the Spirit fell on men ! 1 
 had also been filled with Him." 
 
 And Mary took up her wakened baby, who began to 
 cry, and stilling it in her bosom, she said, " The sins of 
 Israel, my boy, are like Rebecca's cry. God is more 
 mother to the children of Israel than I to her. Do you 
 think he will forsake the world ? This little baby is as 
 new as Adam ; and God is as near to you as he was to 
 Abraham, Moses, Amos, or Elias. He speaks to you 
 as to Samuel. He never withdraws from the soul of 
 men, but the day-spring from on high comes continually 
 to the soul of each. Open the window, and the sun of 
 righteousness comes in." 
 
 And Jesus paused, the story tells, and sat there, and 
 while his mother laid the little ones silently away in 
 their poor cribs, he watched the purple fade out from 
 the sky, and the great moon pouring out her white fire, 
 with a star or two to keep her company in heaven. 
 And when the moon was overhead, there came two 
 young lovers, newly-wed, and as Jesus caught the joy 
 of their talk to one another, and smelt the fragrance of 
 the blooming grape, there came a gush of devotion in 
 his young heart, and he said, " My Father worketh 
 hitherto; I also will work," — and laid him down to his 
 dreams and slept, preparatory to the work which fills 
 the world. 
 
 28 
 
434 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 PRAYER. 
 
 THOU who art always near to us, we in our con- 
 sciousness would for a moment draw near unto thee, 
 and feeling thee at our heart, would remember the 
 circumstances of our daily lives, the joys we delight in, 
 the sorrows we bear, the sins wherewith we transgress 
 against thee, the grave, and solemn, and joyous duties 
 thou givest us to do. 
 
 thou who givest to mankind liberally, we thank 
 thee for the world of matter wherein thou hast placed 
 us, for the heavens above our head, for the stars that 
 burn in perennial splendor, though the misty exhala- 
 tions of the earth may hide them from our sight. We 
 bless thee for the sun which above the clouds pours 
 down the light, and creates a world of beauty, ere long 
 to be opened to our mortal sense. We thank thee for 
 this great foodful ground underneath our feet, now 
 garmented with such loveliness, and adorned with the 
 manifold radiance of thy loving-kindness and thy tender 
 mercy. We thank thee for the grass everywhere grow- 
 ing for the cattle, and for the bread which the farmer's 
 thoughtful toil wins by thy providence from out the fer- 
 tile ground. We thank thee for the seed he has cast 
 into its furrows, and the blade piercing the earth with 
 its oracle of promise, foretelling the weeks of harvest 
 which are sure to follow in their appointed time. We 
 thank thee that in the cold rain from the skies, thou 
 sheddest down the unseen causes of harvests both of 
 use and of beauty which are yet to come. 
 
PRA YER. 435 
 
 We thank thee for the love with which thou givest 
 thy benediction to everything which thou hast made. 
 Thou pasturest thy clouds on every ocean field ; thou 
 feedest thy mountains from the breast of heaven; thou 
 blessest the flowers on a thousand hills ; thou suppliest 
 the young lions when they hunger from lack of meat ; 
 thou clothe st the lily with beauty more than queenly, 
 and through all these outward things that perish thou 
 speakest of thine infinite providence, which watches 
 over every sparrow that falls, and holds in thy hand the 
 wandering orbs of heaven. 
 
 We thank thee also for this great, glorious human 
 nature which thou hast blessed us with. We thank thee 
 for the body, so curiously and wonderfully made, fitted 
 for all the various purposes of human need ; and we 
 thank thee for this spiritual part which thou hast 
 breathed into this mortal. 
 
 We bless thee for this toilsome and far-reaching mind, 
 which gives us dominion over the earth beneath our feet, 
 and makes the winds and the waters serve us ; which 
 tames the lightning of heaven, and learns the time 
 from the stars by night and the sun by day. We thank 
 thee for that great world of artistic use and beauty, and 
 of scientific truth, which the human mind has made to 
 blossom from out this foodful ground and these starry 
 heavens wherewith thou girdest us about. 
 
 We bless thee for the moral sense, hungering and 
 thirsting after righteousness, and that thou fillest our 
 conscience with thine own justice, enlightening our 
 pathway with the lamp of right, shining with its ever 
 unchanging beams to light alike the way of thy com- 
 mandments and of human toil upon the earth. 
 
 We thank thee for these dear aifections, which set the 
 solitary in families, and of twain make one, and thence 
 
436 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 bring many forth, peopling the world with infantile 
 gladness, which grows up to manhood and to woman- 
 hood in all their various forms. We thank thee for that 
 unselfish and self-forgetful love which toils for the needy, 
 which is eyes for the blind and feet for the lame, and 
 is wisdom for the fool, and spreads civilization all round 
 the world, giving freedom to the slave and light to those 
 who have long sat in darkness. 
 
 We thank thee for this overmastering religious 
 faculty, — the flower of intellect and conscience and the 
 affections, — and we bless thee that by this we know thee 
 instinctively, and have a joyous delight in thy presence, 
 opening our flower, whereinto thou sheddest gentle dew, 
 warming it with all thy fatherly and motherly love, 
 blessing us from day to day, from age to age. 
 
 We thank thee for the great triumphs of the human 
 race, — that while thou createst us individually as little 
 babies, and collectively as wild men, slowly but certainly 
 thou leadest thy children from low beginnings, ever up- 
 ward and ever forward, towards those glorious heights 
 which our eyes hav^e not seen nor our forefeeling hearts 
 completely understood. We thank thee for the truth, 
 the justice, the philanthropy, and the piety which elder 
 ages have brought forth and sent down to us, to gladden 
 our eyes and to delight our hearts. We thank thee 
 for those great, noble souls whom thou createdst with 
 genius and filledst with its normal inspiration, who have 
 shed light along the human path in many a dark day 
 of our human history, and in every savage land. And 
 above all these do we thank thee for that noble brother 
 of humanity, who, in his humble life, in a few years, 
 revealed to us so much of justice, so much of love, and 
 with such blameless piety looked up to thee, while he 
 forgave his enemies, putting up a prayer for them. And 
 
pn.i YER. 437 
 
 not less, Father, do we thank thee for the millions 
 of men and women, who with common gifts and noble 
 faithfulness have trod the way of life, doing their daily 
 duties all unabashed by fear of men. We thank thee 
 for what has been wrought out by these famous or these 
 humble hands, which has come down to us. 
 
 Lord, we thank thee for thyself. Father and Mother 
 to the little child and the man full-grown. We thank 
 thee that thou lovest thy savage and thy civilized, and 
 puttcst the arms of motherly kindness about thy saint 
 and round thy sinner too. thou who art Infinite in 
 power and in wisdom, we bless thee that we are sure 
 not less of thine infinite justice and thy perfect love. 
 Yea, we thank thee, that out of these perfections thou 
 hast made alike the world of matter and of man, pro- 
 viding a glorious destination for every living thing which 
 thou broughtest forth. 
 
 We remember before thee our daily lives, and we pray 
 thee that in us there may be such knowledge of thy true 
 perfection, such a feeling of our nature's nobleness, that 
 we shall love thee with all our understanding, with all 
 our heart and soul. We remember the various toils thou 
 givest us, the joys we rejoice in, the sins we have often 
 committed, and we pray thee that there may be such 
 strength of piety within us that it shall bring all our 
 powers to serve thee in a perfect concord of harmonious 
 life. In youth may no sins of passion destroy or disturb 
 the soul, but may we use our members for their most 
 noble work ; and in manhood's more dangerous hour 
 may no ambition lead us astray from the true path of 
 duty and of joy. Wherever thou castest the lines of our 
 lot, there may we serve thee daily with a life which is a 
 constant communion with thyself. So day by day may 
 we transfigure ourselves into nobler images of thy spirit, 
 
438 VIEWS OF RELIGION. 
 
 walk ever in the light of thy countenance, and pass from 
 the glory of a manly prayer to the grander glory of a 
 manly life, upright before thee, and downright before 
 men, and so serve thee in the flesh till all our days are 
 holy days, and every work, act, and thought becomes 
 a sacrament as uplifting as our prayer. So may thy 
 kingdom come, and thy "will be done on earth as it is 
 in heaven. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 AARON, budding rod, 426. (See 
 
 -^ Moses.) 
 
 Abel: blood of, 76, 77, 83; providen- 
 tial death, 122; justice done, 155. 
 (See Cain.) 
 
 Abraham: divine contract, 125; chil- 
 dren, 259, 207, 284; theology, 300; 
 sacrifice of Isaac, 301 ; era, 308; the 
 Word older, 315; commended, 340; 
 near God, 433. (See Jews, Old Tes- 
 tament.) 
 
 Absolute Religion, lived by Jesus, 208. 
 
 Achilles, of doctrines, 298. 
 
 Activity, in heaven, 357. 
 
 Acts, Book of, errors, 307. (See Bible, 
 Epistles, New Testament, Paul.) 
 
 Adam: allusion, 57; the second, 401; 
 near God, 432 ; every babe, 433. 
 (See Eve.) 
 
 Adamite Man, 351. 
 
 Adam's Fall: allusion, 37; a surprise 
 to God, 127. 
 
 Affection: as a human faculty, 194, 
 195, 212; sublimated, 379, 380. 
 
 Affections: revealing truth, 46; medi- 
 ators with God, 52; place, 237, 2.;8; 
 increased, 244 ; and immortalitv, 
 350. (See Love.) 
 
 Affinity, everywhere in nature, 139. 
 
 Africa : sadness, 83 ; pi-ovidential 
 slaverj' (q. v.), 134. 
 
 Ages, Jesus' relation (q. v.) to the, 
 250-272. 
 
 Age: teachings and hopes, 192, 193; 
 injury in 3'outh, 227. 
 
 Age, the Present, will be accounted one 
 of darkness, 315. 
 
 Air: illustration, 67, 68; faithful pre- 
 
 ^ server of words, 290. (See Wind.) 
 
 A Kempis, Thomas : precious writ- 
 ings, 1S2; helpful, 254; sweetness, 
 370. 
 
 Alewivcs. God's care of, 422. (See 
 Ainmals, Eishes.) 
 
 Alexander the Great, his failure, 230. 
 
 Allah, a divine name. 04. (See God.) 
 
 Alphabet : illustration, 69 ; no return 
 to, 205. 
 
 Alps: land-slide, 130; avalanche, 176. 
 
 Amalekites, providential, 133. 
 
 Amazon River, illustration of theism, 
 111. 
 
 America: slavery (q. v.), 77; sadness, 
 83 ; Ilegelianism, 88; foreknown, 
 101, 102 : Continental Congress, 134; 
 perils, 151, 155, 100; devotion to 
 intellect, 157; indifference to reli- 
 gion, 208, 209 ; brilliant names, 228 ; 
 reformers, 230; gone, 232; siiid to 
 have no need of great men, 256; 
 Protestants, 329 ; revived nature, 
 422; gathered to its fathers, 430. 
 (See En(]land, United States) 
 
 American Revolution : foreknown, 102, 
 103 ; courage of our ancestors 228, 
 229. 
 
 American Tract Society, 420. 
 
 Amos: inspiration, 49; providential, 
 135 ; spirit longed for, 433 ; near 
 God, 433. (See Prophets.) 
 
 Amulet, as a providence, 113. 
 
 Anacreon, 326. 
 
 Analysis, Channing's power of, 373. 
 
 Andes: illustration of faith, 340 ; pic- 
 ture, 411. 
 
 Angels: troubling the pool, 161; robe 
 of. 294; of death, 352; warning by, 
 361 ; s]ieaking through men, 374 ; in 
 Channinir, 376; their song made 
 realit}', 396. 
 
 Animals: teaching God, 87; called 
 machines, 120; law of vitality, 139; 
 divine life, 240; their idea about 
 man, 241 ; more than vegetables, 
 241 ; perfect, 351 ; beauty among, 
 397-418 passim; carpet for, 420; 
 how clad, 421. (See Birds, Insects, 
 Eishes, Nature.) 
 
440 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Antarctic Circle, 398, 420. (See Arctic.) 
 
 Antliropomorpliisui, illustrated, 11, 12. 
 (See God.) 
 
 Anvil and Hammer, 216. 
 
 Apocalypse: cruel pictures of God, 
 113, 114 ; touched by criticism, 307. 
 (See Jvhn.) 
 
 Apocrypha: Wisdom, 107; quoted, 
 138 ; record of courage, 228 ; received 
 by the Fathers, 333. (See Bible, 
 Old Testament.) 
 
 Apollo: considered a devil, 60; in the 
 marble, 247. 
 
 Apollonius of Tyana, miracles (q. v.), 
 303. 
 
 Apostles: inspired through obedience, 
 40; their piety outgrown, 213; cour- 
 age, 228, 229; power erroneously 
 promised, 278; changed views, 308; 
 mistakes, 323 ; superior to Old Tes- 
 tament, 333. (See Ejnstles.) 
 
 Appetite: above cookery, 16; tyranny, 
 226. 
 
 Apple, unripe, 373. (See Fruit, Trees.) 
 
 Aqueduct, illustrating religion, 180. 
 
 Aquinas, Thomas, a blessing, 430. 
 
 Archimedes, science of, 305. 
 
 Architecture, in cathedrals, 400. 
 
 Arctic Circle, realm, 398, 422. 
 
 Arethusa's Fountain, 221. 
 
 Arguments, used by Jesus, 273. (See 
 Reason.) 
 
 Aristocracy, monopoly of intellectual- 
 ity, 147.' 
 
 Aristotle: philosophy, 237, 274, 275; 
 reason, 253; scorn, 277. 
 
 Arithmetic, wonderful human, 404. 
 (See Mathematics.) 
 
 Arius, his ideas, 298. (See Unitarian.) 
 
 Ark: illustration of atheism, 80; per- 
 ishable, 320. 
 
 Armada, Spanish, 70. 
 
 Arnold's Brain-map, 73. 
 
 Art : replacing nature, 253; bungling, 
 350; Moorish, 421; advance, 430. 
 (See Raphael, &c.) 
 
 Arts: stirred by religion, 20, 21; in- 
 spired, 46 ; following ideas, 188, 189. 
 
 Asceticism, not religion, 275. 
 
 Asia, revival of nature, 422. 
 
 Asiatics, not theists, 59. 
 
 Assyria, past civilization of, 430. 
 
 Astronom}': on trust, 33; illustration 
 of atheism, 06. 67; and heaven, 73; 
 illustrations of theism, 86, 93, 99; 
 perturbations, 137; law, 139; illus- 
 tration of knowledge, 198; errors, 
 203; Orion's (q. v.) Belt, 238, 239; 
 beaut}', 398, 399. (See Comet, Stars, 
 &c.) 
 
 Atalauta's Apple, 303. 
 
 Athanasian Creed : retarding progress, 
 183 ; rejected, 383. 
 
 Athanasius, views of, 298. 
 
 Atheism : early Christians convicted 
 of, 16; speculative (q. v.). 58-111 
 passiin; foreknown, 102; imphilo- 
 sophical, 112. 136 ; ni Germany, 159; 
 of fops, 186; want of faith in creative 
 intelligence, 203 ; in Jesus' time, 262. 
 
 Atheists : falsely so called, 11 ; few, 15 ; 
 two classes of, 87 ; pantheistic, 87 ; 
 confounding good and evil, 115; not 
 real, 199; cold, 214; so called for 
 disbelief of legends, 301, 303, 335. 
 (See God.) 
 
 Athena?um, Boston, picture in the, 411. 
 
 Athens: immoral gods, 270, 271; h}-- 
 pothesis of Jesus' presence, 306; 
 light, 341. (See Greece.) 
 
 Atoms: divine foreknowledge and ac- 
 tion in, 93, 94; no fortuitous action, 
 106; not lost, 137; law of relations, 
 139, 140; moral, 140; full of God, 
 241, 242. 
 
 Attica, prophets in, 174. 
 
 Attraction : law, 139, 140; how learned, 
 142; prevents schism, 143, 144; un- 
 failing, 102; two divine horses, 422. 
 
 Augustine: writings, 182, 184; a be- 
 liever, 285; strength, 376. 
 
 Australian Tribes, without religion, 18, 
 19. 
 
 Austria: patriots, 76; ruler, 76, 77; 
 foreknown, 103. 
 
 Authority of Jesus (q. v.), 268. 
 
 Authors, great, 328. (See Boolcs.) 
 
 Autumn, fire in, 422. (See Sjmng.) 
 
 Avarice, wrongs of, 230. 
 
 T> AAL : sacrifices to, 21 ; no god, 59 ; 
 
 -^ defective, 119. 
 
 Babbage's Calculating Machine, 88. 
 
 (See Mathematics.) 
 Babes, no self-consciousness, 243. (See 
 
 Children.) 
 Babj-lon: voluptuaries, 15; sins, 393. 
 Bacchus, festivals, 337. 
 Bacon's Philosophj', 274, 275. 
 Balaam, warned back, 361. 
 Ballads, teaching justice, 150. (See 
 
 Poetry.) 
 Banbabv, Dr., a type, 402, 410, 411, 
 
 414, 415. 
 Bancroft, Aaron, liberal views, 385. 
 Baptism: essential, 340; penalty for 
 
 neglecting, 415. 
 Baptists, tlie, 317. 
 Baxter, Richard: false views, 183; 
 
 severe, 378. 
 Bayle, Peter, 34. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 441 
 
 Beatitudes: their excellence, 182; of 
 nature, 184. 
 
 Beauty in tlie World (q. v.) of Matter 
 (q. v.): sermon, 397-418; the vis- 
 ion? ot a tired girl, 397-401; a Sun- 
 day at the old homestead, 4U1-416; 
 a revelation, 41G ; summed up in 
 love, 41G; miracles (q. v.) not so 
 great, 416, 417; everywhere, 417, 
 418. (See Aiilmah, Floivtis, Fruit, 
 Nature; Trees, &ic.) 
 
 Beauty: of nature and inspiration, .51; 
 physical soon gone, 80; material, 
 106, a wing of matter, 109; as a 
 moral attraction, 185; universal idea, 
 195; new images, 247; seen by 
 Jesus, 273; and immortality, 350. 
 (See Spring.) 
 
 Beaver : margin of oscillation, 99 ; 
 natural work of the, 211. (See Ani- 
 mals.) 
 
 Bee: freedom, 99; beautv, 405, 408, 
 409, 427. (See Insects.) 
 
 Beetiioven, composition, 400. (See 
 .Music.) 
 
 Beetle : providential, 130 ; drowsy, 
 377. (See Insects.) 
 
 Behme, Jacob, his mysticism, 370. 
 (See Biihme.) 
 
 Being, threefold, 240, 241. 
 
 Belief: savinir, 157; made a dutv, 
 330. (See t^iith.) 
 
 Bennington, Vt., Channing's death, 
 370, 394. 
 
 Bentham, .Jeremy, ability, -394. 
 
 Bentlev, William, liberal views, 385. 
 
 Berkshire Mills, 394. 
 
 Berlin, Prussia: microscope, 238; phi- 
 losophy, 236. 
 
 Berne, Switzerland, its bears, 83. 
 
 Berosus, his ideas of God, 64. 
 
 Bethesda, an illustration of religion, 
 180. 
 
 Bil)le : master of reason, 40; inspired, 
 52 ; idea of God's presence, 92 ; 
 Tounger than creation, 107 ; in both 
 luiglands, 152; professed reverence 
 for, 168, 169; literary gems, 181, 182; 
 of nature, 185, 416; silence about the 
 Essenes, 260; made the onlv source 
 of knowledge, 301, .302; not infal- 
 lible, 303, 304; belief outgrown, 300; 
 doctrines changed, 309 ; true use, 
 309; library, 310; servant, 318, 
 319; faith weakened, 323; extract 
 from sermon, 326-342; phenomenon, 
 320; illustrations of its hold on the 
 world, 326, 327; some adequate 
 cause, .327, 328; helpful, .328; a 
 miraculous collection, 329; peculiar 
 criticism demanded, 329, 3.30; how 
 
 the supernatural claim can be 
 proved, 330, 331 ; errors, 331 ; hu- 
 man origin, 331, 332; internal con- 
 tradictions, 332; infallibility not an 
 early belief, 332, 333; a compila- 
 tion^ 333, 334; chaff and wheat, 334, 
 335; other sacred books, 335; belief 
 in, a substitute for thought, 336; 
 such views dangerous, 336, 337; a 
 right view, 337, 338 ; beauties of Old 
 Testament and New (q. v.), 339, 340; 
 abused by its friends, 341; man 
 greater, 342; flower and leaves, 407; 
 Half, 408; miracles, 429.430. (See 
 Epistles, Genesis, Gospels, Inspira- 
 tion, Paul, &c.) 
 
 Bigotry : mistaken for piet}^ 212 ; 
 modern, 314. 
 
 Birds : regular action, 99 ; illustrating 
 criticism, 183; natural song, 211; 
 in Jesus' teaching, 273, 284, 291; 
 beauty, 405, 406, 409, 412, 414, 417 ; 
 clothing, 421; songs, 424; in spring, 
 426. (See Animals, Insects, Nature.) 
 
 Birth, a household blessing, 247, 251, 
 252. 
 
 Blasphemy, Jesus accused of, 60. 
 
 Bliss, ultimate. 91. 
 
 Blood, softens the Alpine rock, 50. 
 
 Blossoms, from love, 250. (See Flow- 
 ers.) 
 
 Bluebeard, story of, teaching justice, 
 150. 
 
 Boanerges, 170. 
 
 Boat, useful, 216. 
 
 Bodily Senses (q. y.) : and immortal- 
 ity, 350; closed, 357; five loopholes, 
 362. (See Man.) 
 
 Bodily Wants, supplied, 42, 43. 
 
 Body: a tether to freedom, 123; to be 
 enjoyed, 194; result of ages, 237; 
 "bloody house,'' 243; renewed of- 
 ten, 354, 355. 
 
 Biihme, Jacob, inspiration, 47, 49, 50. 
 (See Bell me.) 
 
 BoMness, ruling men, 374. 
 
 Book of Life, a leaf torn out, 299. 
 
 Books: religious, 181-184, 377 ; bless- 
 ings, 254; divine authority deter- 
 mined, 3.30, 331. (See Literature.) 
 
 Boston, IMass.: hypothetical confla- 
 gration, 74; fugitives, 100-108; com- 
 missioners, 105 ; schools, 169 ; 
 Quakers, 219; charity, 230; minis- 
 try to poor despised, 276, 277 ; As- 
 sociation of Ministers, 286; State 
 House, 283; wickedness. 352; filthy 
 cellars, .304; Mayhew, 383 ; criti- 
 cised, 391-393. (See Massachusetts, 
 New Em/land.) 
 
 Botany, of a continent, 175. 
 
442 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Boys, games outgrown, 204, 205, 207. 
 
 (See Chililren, Girls.) 
 Brighton, ISIass., view, 397. 
 Brown, Kev. Mr., of Coliasset, 383. 
 Brown, Thomas, ability, 394. 
 Bryant, Kev. Mr., of (iuiuc3% 383. 
 Br3'ant, William Cullen, his Water- 
 fowl, 241. (See Poelry.) 
 Bubbles, of state and nature, 141. 
 Buchanan, James, presidency, 420. 
 Buckminster, Joseph S., literary com- 
 fort, 182. 
 Buddha: sacrifices to, 21; and Jesus, 
 
 281 ; a blessing, 430. 
 Buddhism: books, 184; saints, 210; 
 
 strengthening, 223; ancient missions, 
 
 229. 
 Buffalo, a lasting coat, 421. (See 
 
 Animals.) 
 Bunyan, John: inspiration, 49, 50; 
 
 ge'nis, 182; martyrdom, 219; light 
 
 in prison, 222. 
 Burial Service, the only religion of 
 
 many people, 286. 
 Burleigh, Lord, his nod, 99. 
 Business: an educational force, 168; 
 
 religious, 254; absorption in, 402, 
 
 403, 416. 
 Butterflies, like flowers (q. v.), 406. 
 
 (See Animals, Insects.) 
 Byron, Lord, poetic ability, 394. 
 Byzantium : comet, 99 ; foreknown, 102. 
 
 P^SAES, the, inferior to Jesus, 
 
 ^^ 281. (SeeJ«/a(s.) 
 
 Cain : allusions, 76, 83; foreknown, 
 99, 108, 111, 122; justice to, 155. 
 (See Abel.) 
 
 Calamity, inspiring devotion, 6. 
 
 Calchas, inspired, 48. 
 
 Calvinism, the Trinity, 169. 
 
 Calvin, John: burning Servetus, 00; 
 mechanical theologv, 121; views of 
 Christ, 306; black print, 415 ; allu- 
 sion, 430. 
 
 Cambridge, Mass.: telescope, 238 ; 
 view, .397. 
 
 Camp, discipline of, 170. 
 
 Canaanites, providential, 134. 
 
 Canon of Scripture (q. v.), uncertain, 
 333. (See Bible.) 
 
 Capabilitv, masculine and feminine, 
 223. 
 
 Capitalists, alarmed, 156. 
 
 Capital Punishment, considered reli- 
 gious, 208. 
 
 Carpenter, and oak, 119. 
 
 Carpet-factorv, compared with nature, 
 419, 420. 
 
 Carthage, 218. (See Rome.) 
 
 Cathedrals, compared with nature 
 (q. v.), 400. (See Church-buildings.) 
 
 Cattle, 410, 411. {Hae Animals, Horses.) 
 
 Caucasian Kace, foreknown, 101, 102, 
 111, 134. 
 
 Causality, providential, 135, 136. 
 
 Causation, perfection in, 90-92. 
 
 Cause: unity of, 139; of all, 416, 418. 
 
 Celtic Tribes, foreknown, 101, 102. 
 
 Censors, of public opinion, 257, 258. 
 
 Centrifugal Force, 422. 
 
 Ceremonies: absurd religious, 33, 34; 
 many, 295. (See Rites.) 
 
 Chaise, a useful vehicle, 216. 
 
 Chaldea: civilization, 82; belief in 
 immortality, 343. 
 
 Champollion, the archaeologist, 233. 
 
 Chance: an atheistic idea, 60, 73; 
 nowhere, 86, 87. 
 
 Channing, William Ellery: gems, 182; 
 pietv, 353; Humble (q. v.) Tribute 
 to, 369-396. 
 
 Character : affected by circumstances, 
 27; affecting inspiration (q. v.), 46, 
 47; and reputation (q. v.), 164; 
 three factors, 164 ; two modes of 
 power, 216; diversity, 317. 
 
 Character of Jesus (q. v.): extract, 
 27.3-281; intellectual, 273-275, 281; 
 mature youth, 274, 275; not a mere 
 pipe for God to play on, 275, 279; 
 liigher source of power than intel- 
 lect, 275, 276; deeds and words, 
 276 ; trust in God, 277 ; higher than 
 represented, 277, 280; faking the 
 phice of old gods, 277, 278; imper- 
 fect, 278; breadth, independence, 
 and manliness. 278, 279; errors of 
 belief, 278, 279'; true manhood, 279, 
 280; every-day religion, 280; causes 
 of success. 280, 281 ; above Chris- 
 tendom, 281; himself a prophecy, 
 281 ; highest product, 281. 
 
 Charity: 'may be injurious, 218; of 
 Jesus, 278; as a virtue, 316; less 
 than justice (q. v.), 431. 
 
 Charlemagne: providential, 134; al- 
 lusion, 153; elements, 166, 167. 
 
 Charles River, its flow, 169, 170. 
 
 Chastity, how taught, 172. 
 
 Chemistry, the divine, 239. 
 
 Childhood: isolated and undevout, 16; 
 growing up religious, 187; helps, 
 204 ; plavthings outgrown, 204-207 ; 
 buds, 367; dear, 377. (See Babes, 
 Fatherhood, God.) 
 
 Children: forsaken and foreknown, 
 132; deficient in justice, 145: relig- 
 ious experience, 246 ; calling names, 
 322 ; of the Welltodo familj-, 403, 
 404. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 443 
 
 Chimborazo, 175. (See Andes, Moun- 
 tains.) 
 Chimney, illustrating bad temper, 165. 
 China, general providence for, 125. 
 Christ: the name, 317; hidden in the 
 heart, 318, 375; inward, 342. (See 
 Jesus.) 
 Christendom: tyranny, 153; injured 
 by adherence to tradition, 206, 207 ; 
 slavery, 225; blessed b^-^ the Bible, 
 311. 
 Christianity: teaching union with di- 
 vine nature, 47; monotheism, 102; 
 strength from it, 219, 222; ante- 
 dated bv Buddhism, 229; Transient 
 (q. V.) and Permanent, 289-325; 
 not Judaism, 332; in men before it 
 was in a book, 333; not the sole 
 teacher of immortalitv, 343; dull 
 books, 377, 378 ; never liberal till 
 now, 384, 385; Channing's views, 
 386, 387. (See Relujion, &:c.) 
 Christians: convicted of atheism, 16; 
 inspiration not limited to, 43; the 
 God-idea, 59, 00; special providence 
 for, 125; favoritism, 126; average, 
 170; persecuted, 218, 219; courage 
 not peculiar to, 229; early view of 
 bodily resurrection, 355. 
 Christian: the name, 323; Channing 
 
 a true, 393. 
 Christian Churches, preaching a bad 
 
 deity, 127. 
 Christian Civilization (q. v.), 82. 
 Christian Year, 287. 
 Christmas: a worthy observance, 285; 
 
 evergreen, 426. 
 Church, the: established for regula- 
 tive purposes, 33 ; scepticism a 
 medicine for, 35; might making 
 right, 115; piety and "morals, 157; 
 slavery, 158; without right, 160; 
 educational force, 168; developing 
 ordinary men, 170; not touching 
 sins, 173; greatevil in.213 ; against 
 Jesus, 202; din, 272; early forms, 
 204; one channel of Christianity, 
 300; growing liberal, .383, 384. " 
 Churches: outcry against reformers, 
 172; led by money, 173; new 
 ground won, 173; physicians needed, 
 174; foppery, 186; neglected, 2()!t; 
 replacing nature, 253; partiality, 
 283; early, and the Bible, 333; 
 preaching" hell, 350; new, 430. 
 Churcli-buildnigs, illustrations of pur- 
 pose, 351, 352. 
 Church-members: robbers, 160; com- 
 pared to oxen, 170. 
 Churcli, Frederick Edwin, his Heart of 
 the Andes, 411. 
 
 Cicero: scorn, 277; quoted, 298. (See 
 
 Tulhj.) 
 Cigars, illustrating marriage, 180. 
 Cincinnati, Ohio, a visit, 408. 
 Circumstances, a human tether, 123. 
 
 (See Cliaracter.) 
 Cities: built by religion, 20; de- 
 stroyed, 74; "hindrance to divine 
 communion, 253. 
 Civilization: indebted to religion, 20; 
 through the God-idea, 58; destruc- 
 tion, 74, 75; passing away, 82; 
 moral and intellectual, 146, 147 ; 
 leaders, 160; advantage over sav- 
 agery, 225; of two thousand 3-ears 
 ago, 277 ; immensely advanced by 
 Jesus, 287, 202 ; barbai'isms of, 
 311 ; ahead of Christianity, 320 ; 
 from Chri.Ntianitv, 387; advance of, 
 430. 
 Clark, Adam : mistaken argument, 
 
 10; strength from religion, 223. 
 Clement of Alexandria, and the Bi- 
 ble, 333. 
 Clergymen, anecdote, 175. (See Min- 
 isters.) 
 Clock, illustration of knowledge, 99. 
 Clouds: vanishing, 209; mistaken for 
 mountains, 320. (See Btauty, Na- 
 ture, Sky, Sun.) 
 Cohesion: an abiding quality, 80; law, 
 
 139. (See Attraction.) 
 Coleridge, S. T. : his piiilosophy, 239 ; 
 his ability, 394; Ancient Mariner, 
 399. 
 Cologne Cathedral, 400. 
 Come-outers, in Palestine, 260. 
 Comet : Halley's, 37 ; bringing terror, 
 
 99. (See Astronomy, Stars.) 
 Comforter, the : revealed, 321 ; newest, 
 
 341. 
 Common Sense, instinctive, 122. 
 Communion with God (q. v.): sermon. 
 236-255; real, 236; giving and re- 
 ceiving, 236, 237; scientific conclu- 
 sions, 237, 239 ; idea of God primary, 
 237. 238; the world a revelation, 239; 
 creation a communion, 240 ; each 
 receives the divine spirit after its 
 kind, 240, 241 ; effect of divine 
 ■withdrawal, 241, 242; involuntary 
 communion unavoidable, 242, 243: 
 increased or diminished, 243-245 ; 
 development, 246; conscious effort 
 to enlarge, 246. 247; through human 
 experiences, 247; nature of prayer, 
 248; ecstasy not constant, 249, 2.50; 
 voluntary communion often un- 
 heeded, 251; life's trials, 251, 252 ; 
 religions a search for communion, 
 253 ; helps, 253-255. 
 
444 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Comte, Anguste : inconsistent atheism 
 (q. v.), 34 ; material pantheism, 
 87. 
 
 Confucius: his inspiration (q. v.), 52; 
 books, 184; a blessiiii;-, 430. 
 
 Coiigreiss, reports of, IG'J. 
 
 Connecticut iiiver, fresliet, 124. 
 
 Conscience : sacrificed to supernatural- 
 ism, 39; teaching God, 43; truths 
 learned, 46; mediator with God, 52; 
 and justice (q. v.), 138-102 passim ; 
 no college for, 157; more than wor- 
 ship, 158; name for moral powers, 
 194, seeks God's ju.Uice, 19(j, 198, 
 200, 201, 213; not ruled by passion, 
 217; courageous, 228; place, 237; 
 left by God, 242; cultivated, 243; 
 to judge Christianity, 316 ; and the 
 Bible, 330; remains'. 336, 337; God's 
 word in, 342; in Channing, 375. 
 
 Consciousness; different in man and 
 God, 85, 86; law, 140; of self, 210; 
 fourfold of God, 244; common and 
 higher, 248; judgment on the Bible, 
 330; and immortality, 345-348; in 
 future life, 350. 
 
 Consci<ius Ileligion (q- v.) as a Source 
 of Strength (q. v.): sermon, 216- 
 236; two modes of power, 210; in- 
 creases strength, 216 ; no pow-er 
 should be wasted, 216, 217; special 
 modes, 217, 218; trials, 218-225; 
 instances, 218, 219; spasmodic hero- 
 ism, 219, 220; daily heroism, 220, 
 221; religion normal in man, 221, 
 222; bestows botli masculine and 
 feminine capability, 223; in two 
 ways, 223; profit from religion not 
 outward, 224, 225 ; counteracting 
 selfishness, 225, 226; the only pro- 
 moter of self-denial, 226, 227; gives 
 courage, 227-229; illustrations,' 228. 
 229 ; energy developed, 229, 230 ; 
 self-reliance, 230, 231 ; forms of 
 strength, 231, 232 ; irreligion dis- 
 tanced by religion, 232, 233; a bride 
 loved for her own sake, 234; trials 
 essential, 234; trust, 235. 
 
 Consolation, denied bv atheism (q. v.), 
 72, 75. 
 
 Convents, formal religion of, 2.50, 252. 
 (See Asceticism, Roman Catholic 
 Church.) 
 
 Copernicus, theories changed, 296. 
 
 Coral Insects (q. v.), illustrating di- 
 vine justice, 163. (See Sea.) 
 
 Corn-husks, 179. 
 
 Corn: sacks, 181; waving, an illustra- 
 tion of influence, 256; a Mississippi 
 of grain, 409, 410; beauty, 428; of 
 humanity, 431. 
 
 Councils, Church: on Christ, 306; not 
 the arbiters of religion (q. v.), 
 308. 
 
 Country, compared with city (q. v.), 
 253. 
 
 Courage : from religion, 227, 228 ; real, 
 227-229. 
 
 Courts: illustrating free-will, 123; 
 providence, 124. (See Law.) 
 
 Cowardice, engendered by atheism, 
 72, 82. 
 
 Cowper, William, quoted, 121. 
 
 Crafts, William and Ellen, their 
 troubles, 108, 111. 
 
 Creation: perfect, 90, 91; hymn of, 
 337, 338. (See Genesis, God.) 
 
 Creditor and Debtor, 225. 
 
 Credulity, phantoms of, 330. (See 
 Superstition.) 
 
 Creeds: published by authority, 33; 
 hindrances, 183 ; none but truth, 
 342. (See Religion.) 
 
 Criminals: left to perish, 135; purified 
 by death, 358. (See Sin.) 
 
 Criticism: illustrated by birds, 183; 
 demands, 334, 335. (See lieason.) 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver: specially providen- 
 tial, 134; Ironsides, 229." 
 
 Cross: holy, 320; worshipped, 336. 
 (See Jesus.) 
 
 Culture of Religious (q. v.) Powers: 
 highest product, 164; all desire to be 
 religious, 164-106: even the bad, 
 165, 166; ideal religious character, 
 166-168; means of attainment, 168; 
 four public educational forces to be 
 partially trusted, 168-170; eminence 
 must come from outside, 169 et seq. ; 
 one-sided development, 170-173; 
 wholeness of religion, 171, 172; sen- 
 timents and ideas, 171, 172; ecclesi- 
 astical opposition to reformers, 172, 
 173; portions of religion represented 
 by one man, 173, 174; seeds of in- 
 spiration, 174, 176; leaders not full}- 
 understood, 175, 176; .value of re- 
 ligious genius, 176-178 ; always 
 needed, 178, 179; dead organiza- 
 tions, 178, 179; narrow distribution 
 of labor, 179, 180; living water, 180, 
 181; teachers, 181; books. 181-184; 
 study of nature, 184, 185; internal 
 reliance, 185, 186; superficial prac- 
 tical religion, 186; a great hour, 
 186, 187; constant element, 187; 
 conformity to ideal, 187-189; flre 
 and industry, 190 ; daily culture, 
 190, 191; help from errors', 191,192; 
 hopes and fears, 192, 193. 
 
 Custom, a serpent, 206. 
 
 Cyprian, his church, 218. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 445 
 
 ])AGUERREOTYrE, in words, 411. 
 Dante, his fj^enius, 275. 
 
 David: inspiration, 47; deeper Psalms 
 (q. v.), 175; lielpful words, 2o4; 
 pietv, 319; curses, 334; same guide, 
 337; prayer, 338; guilt. 339. 
 
 Death-I)ed: never terrifying, 359; this 
 life felt to be insufficient, 305, 3G(J. 
 
 Death: the end-all, in atheism, 70, 
 74, 80; and immortality, 346; an 
 angel, 352 ; Channing's, 395, 39G; 
 best observatory, 425; a blossom- 
 ing, 432. (See t'uture Life, Immor- 
 tctlity.) 
 
 Decay, apparent exception to law, 
 1.39". (See Growth.) 
 
 Decency, the only religion of manv, 
 186. " 
 
 Deism, as distinguished from theism 
 (q. v.), 85. 
 
 Deists : English, 35, 36 ; theory of 
 two gods, 135. 
 
 Deities, called demons, 60. 
 
 Deity: dead, 280; of Jesus (q. v.), 
 305, 306. (See God.) 
 
 Delhi, India, 421. 
 
 Delphic Oracle, 52. 
 
 Demosthenes, his oratory, 374. 
 
 Dependence, how engendered, 7-9. 
 
 Descartes: works, 184, 331; astron- 
 omy (q. v.), 296; what might have 
 been, 363. 
 
 Desert, illustrating life, 177. 
 
 Desire, a serpent, 266. 
 
 Destruction, impossible, 92. 
 
 Deucalion, 37. 
 
 Devil: in the godhead, 61; unreal, 
 62; still believed, 119, 120; insti- 
 gating religions, 125; disbelief in, 
 not all, 260; Jesus' belief in, 278. 
 
 Devils, or deities, 60. 
 
 Diamonds, obedient to law, 139. 
 
 Diana of the Ephesians, 336. 
 
 Disappointment: bitter root, 221; 
 chill, 251; universal, 252. 
 
 Distribution of Labor, ISO- 
 Dives and Lazarus, the parable, 71. 
 
 Divine Afflatus, 52. (See Inspiration.) 
 
 Doctrines: preferred to practice, 172, 
 173; undue stress, 294; changed, 
 295, 309 ; of the fathers, 298, 299 ; 
 hav and stubble, 290 ; changing, 
 318. 
 
 Dorcas, inspired, 47. 
 
 Dotage, of evil-doers, 227. 
 
 Drama of Morals. 235. 
 
 Dreams: proof of immortality (q. v.), 
 357; beauty (q. v.), 400, 401. 
 
 Druids, sacred idea of the, 52. 
 
 Drunkard, family of the, 220-222. 
 (See Inteniperance.) 
 
 Drunkenness: evils, 75; rebuked, 
 173; coniniendeil in Scripture, 340 
 
 Dualism, in theolngy (([. v.), 135, 136. 
 
 Duelling, outgrowth of justice, 148. 
 
 Dust, no grain lost, 361. 
 
 Dutch Language, 169. 
 
 Duties: popular practical, 168, 169; 
 Christian, 316. 
 
 Duty: how learned, 41; involved in 
 right, 114; sought, 210, 211. 
 
 "PAGLE, illustration of justice, 161, 
 ^ 162. (Sec Birds.) 
 Earnestness, difference in, 185, 18G. 
 Earth, forsaking the sun (q. v.), 360. 
 
 (See World.) 
 Earthquake: a mere crack, 139; 
 
 waves, 244. 
 Easter, a great festival, 285, 287, 288. 
 
 (See Resurrection.) 
 Ebionites, the sect, 318. 
 Ecclesiastes: allusion, 275; "golden 
 
 bowl," 328. 
 Ecclesiasticus, text from, 397. 
 Echo of Jesus, 310. 
 Economy in Nature, 109, 110. 
 Eddystone Lighthouse, 171. 
 Eden: in nature, 400; in a fish, 423; 
 
 in Nazareth, 432. 
 Educational Forces: four, 108; effect, 
 
 169, 170. 
 Education: conferring greater power, 
 
 147; once an exohisive privilege, 
 
 159; universal, 172; Channing's 
 
 service, 376, 388. 
 Edwards, Jonathan, false views, 183, 
 
 184. 
 Egypt: architecture (q. v.) religiously 
 
 inspired, 20; darkness, 82, 84, 292"; 
 
 foreknown, 102; general providence 
 
 (q. v.). 125; Hebrew sojourn, 134; 
 
 intelligent classes governing, 147; 
 
 hieroglyphics, Moses (q. v.), 233; 
 
 light, 341; plague, 417; civiliza- 
 tion (q. v.), 430. 
 El, a divine name, 64. 
 Elections, brawlers at, 370. 
 Electricity: expression of law, 139; 
 
 power, '219, 220; errands, 224. 
 Ellas; fed, 177, 178; made a hero, 
 
 228; risen again, 266; compared to 
 
 love, 400; come at last, 425; loncjed 
 
 for, and near God, 433. (See Elijah, 
 
 Pro2)hets.) 
 Elijah the Prophet, 3G9. (See Ellas, 
 
 Prophets.) 
 Eliot's Bible (q. v.), 407. 
 Elisha: calling and inspiration, 49; 
 
 rapid triivel, 55 ; te.xt, 369 ; the 
 
 bears, 414. 
 
446 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Elm-tree : boughs, 40-3 ; ripe, 424. 
 (See Trees.) 
 
 Eloquence, of Channing and others, 
 381, 393. 
 
 Einerson, Ralph Waldo: books, 184; 
 helpful words, 254; "one accent," 
 432. 
 
 Emmanuel, a new, hailed, 426. 
 
 Emmons, Nathaniel, his doctrine, 121. 
 
 Endless Misery, taught in New Testa- 
 ment, 115. 
 
 Endurance, common. 220. 
 
 Energy, concentrated by religion, 226. 
 
 England: deism, 35, 30; factory-hands, 
 76; Hegelianism, 88; foreknown, 
 101, 102; paradise of the rich, 126 ; 
 popular poetry, 150; Stuarts, 151, 
 152; needing moral guidance, 160; 
 watch-factories, 179, 180; poetry, 
 181; want of piety, 212; Quakers, 
 219; brilliant names, 228 ; Puritanic 
 braverv, 229; (^hanning's influ- 
 ence, 371, 372, 386; gifted men, 
 394. (See Amenca, Europe, Great 
 Britain). 
 
 English Language, Channing's influ- 
 ence co-extensive with the, 371. 
 
 Environment: affecting character (q. 
 v.), 27; a tether, 123; factor in 
 character, 164. 
 
 Ephemera, in the divine care, 423, 
 429. (See Insects.) 
 
 Ephesus : Paul there, 172 ; church, 
 218. 
 
 Epicureans, thinking the gods lazy, 
 113. 
 
 Epistles : representing God as cruel, 
 
 113, 114; allusions to miracles, 303; 
 
 if struck out, 307; noble, 339. 
 
 (See Apostles, Bible, New Testa- 
 
 ' ment, Paul.) 
 
 Errors: in Bible (q. v.), 307; possibil- 
 ity denied, 329; one fatal, 329, 330; 
 many, 331. 
 
 Esau, iiated by God, 13G. 
 
 Esquimaux, religious emotions, 15. 
 
 Essenes: Bible silent, 260; ideas, 261; 
 and Jesus, 262; scorn, 263; Jesus 
 not for them, 267; belief in immor- 
 tality, 355. (See Pharisees.) 
 
 Eternal Life, the nature of, 368. (See 
 Immortality.) 
 
 Eternal ISIother, housekeeping, 105. 
 (See Gild's Motherhood.) 
 
 Eternal Torment: believed by Jesus, 
 278; affecting immortality, 349; 
 moralh- impossible, 358, 359. (See 
 Hell, Immortnlity.) 
 
 Ether, providential discovery, 101. 
 
 Ethics: learned in history, 198; of 
 Charming, 373. (See Moral.) 
 
 Ethiopia, divinely foreknown, 101, 
 102, 111. 
 
 Euclid, an authority, 305. 
 
 Europe: monstrous forms of religion, 
 17, 18;- sadness, 83; ferment, 153; 
 tottering thrones, 156; power of in- 
 tellect, 157; "down with riches," 
 159; filth, 311; revival of nature, 
 422. (See Km/land, United States.) 
 
 Evangelists: not apprehending Jesus, 
 279; not claiming infallibility, 304. 
 (See Apostles, Gospels.) 
 
 Eve, in Eden, 433. (See Adam.) 
 
 Evergreen, its beauty and use, 426. 
 (See Christmas, Trees.) 
 
 Evil: a mvsterv, 108; phenomena, 
 112. (See ,9m.) 
 
 Evolution : difficult to understand, 65; 
 in the line of nature. 184; rapid in 
 nature, 425. (See Nature.) 
 
 Experience: teaching inspiration, 54, 
 55; confirming the sadness of his- 
 tory, 81, 82; as a teacher in physics 
 and morals, 142; garnered in books, 
 181; religious, 186; sudden, 187; 
 from error, 191, 192. 
 
 Experiments, in piety, 203. 
 
 Eye: what it can and cannot see, 194; 
 its mechanism (q. v.), 239; made for 
 light (q. v.), 350. 
 
 T^ACT, distinguished from fiction, 
 
 -*- 335. 
 
 Factory, run by water, 419. 420. 
 
 Faculties: differently manifested, 17; 
 of spirit, 194, 203. (See Man.) 
 
 Failures, of the great (q. v.), 231. 
 
 Faithfulness, an element of religious 
 character, 166, 167. 
 
 Faith: of Jesus, 268; test of Christian- 
 ity, 316. (See Trust.) 
 
 Fairy Tales, compared with Bible sto- 
 ries (q. v.), 332. 
 
 Fanaticism, errors of, 335. 
 
 Fatalists, making a mechanical uni- 
 verse. 121. 
 
 Fatherhood. (See God.) 
 
 Fathers of the Church, 340. 
 
 F^nelon: allusion. 32; inspiration, 47; 
 literary help, 182, 184; same guide, 
 337: the Feneioii of Protestants, 
 376; severe views, 378. 
 
 Fetichism : divinely foreknown, 102; 
 wooden god, 113' (See Idols.) 
 
 Fetich, the Bible (q. v.) made a, 309. 
 
 Feudalism, of the past, 159. 
 
 Fiction, distinguished fnun fact, 335. 
 
 Filmer, Sir Robert, his unpopular 
 theories, 150. 
 
 Fire-engine, a comparison, 408. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 447 
 
 Fishes: how clad, 421; life, 422; an 
 Eden, 423; nni!tii)lying, 424. (See 
 Animals, Beiiiil;/. Birds, Nature.) 
 
 Flood, the: allusion, 37; miraculous, 
 1.34; from anger, 41G. 
 
 Flowers: artiticial, 179; ina city, 185; 
 illustration of unconscious pietv, 
 200, 201; the lilv, 202; in Jesus' 
 teacliiiiff, 273, 281, 283, 2'Jl; in 
 suriiig, 352; lovelier each year, 367; 
 Clunining's interest, 377; beauty, 
 404-41 8 /ws.'/m; spring, 425, 427; 
 a prophecy, 426, 427; children of 
 nature, why beautiful, 428. (See 
 Beauty, Nature.) 
 
 Flv: nearness to Jesus, 320; finding 
 Its Eden, 423. (See Insects.) 
 
 FoUen, Charles, early death, 390. 
 
 Fops, their religion, 186. 
 
 Forces of Nature (q. v.), working for 
 man (q, v.), 224. 
 
 Force : the antagonistic power above, 
 80; its unity, 141. (See Attraction, 
 Enerfjy.) 
 
 Forgiveness: regarded as a public 
 wrong, 148; Christian virtue, 316. 
 
 Forms, changing, 318. (See Ceremo- 
 nies, Rites.) 
 
 Foster, John, severe views, 373. 
 
 Fox, George: inspirati<ni, 47, 49, 50; 
 persecuted, 219; light, 222; same 
 guide, 3-37. (See Quakers.) 
 
 France: materialism, 35; foreknown, 
 103; tyranny, 152, 153; four great 
 statesmen, 154; Academy of florals, 
 157; communism, 159; lack <jf pietv, 
 212, 213 ; vine-clad hills, 429. (See 
 Jiurojie.) 
 
 Francis the Stupid, reign of, 76, 77. 
 
 Freedom: in animals (q. v.) and men 
 (q. v.), 99,100; banner, 385; Chan- 
 ning's (q. v.) interest, 391. (See 
 Human.) 
 
 Freeman, James, liberal views, 383. 
 
 Free Speech, affecting the Bible, 340. 
 
 Free Thinkers: in France, 303; on the 
 Bible (q. v.), 341. 
 
 Free-will: made impossible, 32; abso- 
 lute, 122, 123; conditioned, 123. 
 
 French I'atriots, 76, 77. 
 
 Friendship: subordinate to justice, 
 142; its ecstasy brief, 249. 
 
 Friends, known in heaven (q. v.), 365. 
 (See Immortality.) 
 
 Frivolity, religion' of, 185, 186. 
 
 Fruit: lavish, 413, 414; spring, 426; 
 why beautiful, 428. (See Animals, 
 Beauty, Flowers, Trees.) 
 
 Future Life: delusive promise, 35; 
 denied l)y atheism, 71-73, 110, 111. 
 (See f/enven. Immortality.) 
 
 (^ALILEE, fishermen of, 177. (See 
 Apostles, Jesus.) 
 
 Gamaliel : a product of Jerusalem, 
 169; a severe teacher, 261. 
 
 Gardeners, industry of, 190, 191. 
 (See Flowers, Trees.) 
 
 Garrison, AVilliam Lloyd, the opposi- 
 tion to him, 172. 
 
 Gay, Ebenezer, of Hingham, 383. 
 
 Geist, a divine name, 64. 69. 
 
 Genesis : poetry, 301 ; (|Uoted, 311 ; 
 a poem of Creation, 337, 338. (See 
 Bible.) 
 
 Genius: religious, 170, 171, 180; the 
 birth of, 284. 
 
 Genoa: lighthouse, 171; marbles, 400. 
 
 Gentiles : inspiration, 45 ; Court of, 
 58; backward in the God-idea, 59; 
 scorned, 125; no separate religion, 
 334. 
 
 Gentleness, a Christian virtue, 310. 
 
 Geology, divine communion in, 244. 
 (See Science.) 
 
 Geometry: no personal authority, 
 305; axioms, 309. {iice Arithmetic, 
 Mathematics.) 
 
 Geiizim, a hoi}' place, 53. 
 
 German Language, native, 169. 
 
 Germany: patriots, 76; philosophers, 
 spiritual pantheists, 87; foreknown, 
 101-103; popular poetry, 150; athe- 
 ism, 159; poetry, 181. (See£'«ro/;e.) 
 
 Gerson, John: inspired, 47; view of 
 Jesus, 306. 
 
 Ghosts, believed, 339. 
 
 Gibbon, Edward, his scoffs, 35. 
 
 Girlhood, in heaven, 356. 
 
 Gluttony, rebuked, 173. 
 
 Gnostic Theories, .313. 
 
 God : the idea developed, 8, 9; inade- 
 quate conception, 11-13; afar off in 
 supernaturali^m (q. v.), 40 ; many 
 names, 04; an actor, 119, 122; the 
 Me and Not-me, 242, 243 ; Com- 
 munion (q. v.), 2-36-253; the best 
 thing known worshipped as, 270; 
 voice, 336. (See Atheism, Theism.) 
 
 Godhead, the devil a part of the, 61. 
 
 God's Attributes: perfect, 8:j ; made 
 defective, 116, 117; desired, 244; 
 learned through humanity, 247 ; 
 finite communion, 255. 
 
 God's Being, iiitinite activity, 239. 
 
 God's Causation (q. v.) : perfect in 
 nature, 90-92, 102, 104; unity. 96; 
 wise, 101; saving, 106; inferences, 
 112, 129. 
 
 God's Character (q. v.) : considered 
 tyrannical, 21 ; popular idea, 85; 
 cruelty imputed in Bible, 113, 114; 
 might making right, 115 ; caprice, 
 
448 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 124; variable, 128; moral spontane- 
 ity, 14-1; evil qualities as believed 
 by Jesus, 278; won by effort, 319; 
 cruel, 332, 334; all good, 361; as 
 preached by Clianniiig, 382, 383; 
 made devilish, 414. 
 
 God's Creatorship: of nature, 29; im- 
 perfect, 32; not mechanical, 05; 
 evil motives entirely excluded, 91 ; 
 all-knowing, 92, 93, 100; considered 
 momentary, 97 ; responsible, 105 ; 
 imperfect motive, 110 ; perfect, 129; 
 pattern of justice, 142 ; objectivity, 
 237 ; chemistry and eye, 239 ; not 
 exhausted, 319; free spectacle, 398; 
 guest-chamber, 399 ; handwriting, 
 407 ; prodigal of beauty, 413 ; patent, 
 430. (See Beauty.) 
 
 God's Existence: called a hvpothesis, 
 31; undiscoverable, 37; speculative 
 (q. V.) atheism, 58-84: called a 
 whim, 01, 73; popularly taught, 108; 
 only cosmic force,201-203 ; strength- 
 ening belief, 223; inconceivable with- 
 out something, 230; not dead, 283; 
 arguments for, 347, 348; Great 
 Overseer, 400, 407. (See Theism.) 
 
 God's Fatherhood (q. v.): denied by 
 atheism, 73; in New Testament, 
 113, 114; allusion, 167; near to 
 Jesus, 317; our warrant that he will 
 not deceive us, 345, 350; the opinion 
 of the worst men, 359; as set forth 
 by Channing, 37.5-377, 383, 380; in 
 flowers (q. v.), 407; reverenced for 
 the saints, 431 ; in a prayer, 437. 
 
 God's Foreknowledge (q. v.), perfec- 
 tion, 93, 94, 98, 100, 129. 
 
 God's Goodness (q. v.), made to in- 
 clude a devil, 119, 120. 
 
 God's Government: not despotic, 100; 
 illustrations, 126, 127; purpose of 
 martyrd(iu), 222. 
 
 God's Growth (q. v.), as a theory, 
 128. 
 
 God's Holiness (q. v.), made defective, 
 116, 117. 
 
 God's Immanence (q. v): denied, 36; 
 constant, 37; qualified, 40; '"in Him 
 we live," 42 ; through reason, 43 ; 
 unceasing, 56; essential, 88; in mat- 
 ter, 2:59. 
 
 God's Inlinity (q. v.): illogically in- 
 ferred, 31, 32; essential to imma- 
 nence, 88; not doubted, 89; binding 
 him to provide, 114 ; consequences, 
 116 ; idea intuitive, 237. 
 
 God's Influence, beautifying nature 
 (q. v.), 51. (See Beauty.) 
 
 God's Inspiration (q. v ), from obe- 
 dience (q. v.), 46. 
 
 God's Justice (q. v.): deity made not 
 amenable to, 115; limited by mercy, 
 115; made imperfect, 116; affecting 
 immortality, 352, 353 ; not like 
 man's, 359. 
 
 God's Knowledge, constantly improv- 
 ing, 87, 88. 
 
 God's Law (q. v.), obedience the es- 
 sence of religion, 25, 26. 
 
 God's Love (q. v. ): perfect, 91; con- 
 sidered defective, 110, 117; all- 
 embracing, 428. 
 
 God's Mind (q. v.): man mindful of, 
 203 ; inlinite care, 423. 
 
 God's Motherhood (q. v.) : teTiderness, 
 135; almost feared by a few. 155; 
 allusion, 167; inlinite motherliness, 
 247 ; tender breast, 255; and human, 
 360, 301; reverenced, 431; Mary's 
 story, 433; in prayer, 437. (See 
 Eternal.) 
 
 God's Motives, perfect, 90-92. 
 
 God's Nature (q.A*.): as becoming, 
 but not being, 128 ; manifested to 
 soul, 198, 199; to preserve the finite, 
 236; soul of all, 248. 251; affecting 
 immortality, 353, 356; not u jailer 
 or hangman, but shepherd and phy- 
 sician, 359 ; a wrathful king, 383. 
 
 God's Omniaction, 43. 
 
 God's Omnipotence, siding with right, 
 40. 
 
 God's Omnipresence : allusions, 43, 48, 
 49; needing no mediator, 44; seen 
 bv men, 53, 54; not laid aside, 56; 
 in space and time, 238. 
 
 God's Perfection (q. v.): everywhere, 
 90; elements, 91; involving rights 
 of the created, 94, 95; ultimate con- 
 sequences, 100, 104; inferences, 116, 
 117, 129. 
 
 God's Personality: finite, 34; made 
 visible bv supernaturalism (q. v.), 
 37; living, 279; authority, 305, 306. 
 
 God's Presence, in creation (q. v.), 
 100. 
 
 God's Providence (q. V.) : in general, 
 92-94; details, 95; sole arbitrator, 
 90; continuous, 97, 98; wise, 101, 
 102; perfect (q. v.), 104; and saving, 
 106; sermon, 112-137; little ar.d 
 great, 141. 
 
 God's Spirit (q. v.), in man, through 
 love, 44. 
 
 God's Thoughts (q. v.), as including 
 everything, 107. (See il/mt/.) 
 
 God's " Will (q. v.): primary, not 
 secondarj', 139; controlling, 216. 
 
 God's Wisdom, increasing, 36, 37. 
 
 God's Work: warranted, 105; pattern 
 of justice, 142. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 449 
 
 Gods, turned out of heaven by Jesus, 
 278. 
 
 Golden Age, allusion to the, 150. 
 
 Goldsmith, Oliver, quoted, 101. 
 
 Good and Evil: confounded in natu- 
 ralism (q. v.), 32, 33, 115; and in 
 supernaturalism, 37. 
 
 Good Men, specially providential, 134, 
 135. 
 
 Goodness : and piety, 194 ; of a boy, 
 209; negative and positive, 3lil, 
 362; in Channing, 387; causal, 410. 
 
 Good Samaritan : parable of, 195; a 
 model of religion, 270; the story a 
 condemnation, 283. 
 
 Gospel, annihilates law, 332. 
 
 Gospels: making God cruel, 113, 114; 
 the first three quickening, 182: por- 
 trayal of Jesus (q . V. ), 274 ; below his 
 mark, 277, 279; best part of church 
 service, 334 ; record of prodigies, 
 340; literature, Channing's sj-mpa- 
 thy, 379. (See Apustlts) 
 
 Goths, providential work, 133. 
 
 Government, former functions, 156. 
 
 Grace, falling from, 250. 
 
 Granite, institutions like, 256, 258. 
 
 Gravitation: an abiding principle, 80; 
 illustrating moral law, 138; towards 
 right, 142. 
 
 Gray's Elegy, quoted, 364. 
 
 Great Bear: illustration of superiority 
 of divine knowledge, 80 ; noted, 399. 
 (See Astronomy, Stars.) 
 
 Great Britain: providential, 134; in- 
 tellectual power, 147; will perish, 
 430. (See En/jland.) 
 
 Great Men: sjiecially providential, 
 134; tested, 154; in religion, 210; 
 characteristics, 232; influential, 256 ; 
 two classes, 256-258; revolutionary, 
 258; not copies, 259 ; measured with 
 Jesus, 312. 
 
 Greatness, a torment, 154. 
 
 Great Spirit, not feared, 359. (See 
 Indian.'!.) 
 
 Greece, Ancient: spirit of beauty, 18; 
 architecture inspired by religion, 20; 
 inspiration, 53 ; civilization, 82 ; 
 idea of God, 89; foreknown, 102; 
 providential, 125 ; poetry, 181 ; 
 sculpture, 189; gods, 270, 277, 
 337; literature, 326; song, 338; no 
 priesthood, 359 : civilization past, 
 430. (See Athens, Phidias.) 
 
 Greece, Modern, prostrated, 78. 
 
 Greeks: ancient, not tlieists, 59; be- 
 lief in immortality, 342, 359. 
 
 Grief, best observatorv of heaven, 
 425. 
 
 Grisi, Giulia, her singing, 400. 
 
 Growth: an exception to law, 139: in 
 
 future life, 350, 302, 303. (,Sce 
 
 Decay, God's Growth.) 
 Grubs, providential, 133. (See Beetles, 
 
 Insects.) 
 Gunpowder, an illustration, 69. 
 Gunter's Chain, measure of iufinitv, 
 
 95, 96. 
 Gymnastics, moral, 34. 
 
 TTABAKKUK : inspiration of, 48 ; 
 providential man, 132. {SeeOld 
 Testament, Prophets.) 
 
 Hand, a divine work, 241. (See Body.) 
 
 Haynau, Baron, cruelly, 77. 
 
 Heart: holiest ground, 54; affection- 
 ate qualities, 194 ; survives idolatry, 
 3-37. (See Man.) 
 
 Heaven : divine name, 64 ; invisible, 
 73; arch of love, 255; made un- 
 happy by discontent, 349 ; growth. 
 302, 303; joys, 308; a mother, 417. 
 (See Future, Immortality.) 
 
 Hebrews: God-idea, 59, 00; civiliza- 
 tion, 82; monotheism, 102; dark 
 ideas, 120; speciallv providential, 
 124, 125, 133, 134; books, 184: 
 clinging to the past, 200; "three 
 holy children," 222 ; religious 
 strength, 223 ; courage, 229 ; escape by 
 Red Sea. 283; devotional hymns, 33S; 
 pietv, 379. (See Israelites, Jews.) 
 
 Hegei; G. W. F. : fatal error, 88; 
 philosophy, 237 ; admiration for. 281. 
 
 Hell, duration of, 350. (See Eternal 
 Torment. ) 
 
 Herbert, George, literary gems, 182. 
 
 Herb of Grace, an illustration of truth, 
 174. 
 
 Hercules: and Jesus, 281; legends, 
 303; Pillars, 310; festival, 337. 
 
 Herod: allusion, 225; against Jesus, 
 272; pomp, 282; senate, 287. 
 
 Heroism, how mate, 219, 220. 
 
 Hesiod's Cosmogony, 326. 
 
 Hickock's Philosophy, 237. 
 
 Hindoos: dark ideas of God, 120; 
 images, 417. (See India.) 
 
 History : proving religion universal, 
 14, 15; illustration of human devel- 
 opment, 17; religious lessons, 21; 
 record of confusion if godless, 81; 
 not a surprise to (Jod, 98, 101, 102; 
 compared to a river, 111; foreso' n 
 in human nature, 132; imperfection 
 of mankind. 142, 143; sowing and 
 reaping, 160; teaching ethics, 198; 
 full of piety, 203 ; Jesus a, 281 ; 
 Bible, 332 ; distinguished from 
 iin'thulog\-, 335. 
 
 29 
 
450 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Hobbes, Thomas : materialism, 35, 
 36; unpopular ideas, 150; no heart, 
 175. 
 
 Holbach, Baron, mechanical universe, 
 121. 
 
 Holland, schools, 169. 
 
 Holy Alliance, 225. 
 
 Holy Ghost: text, 236; grieved, 250. 
 
 Holy Spirit, in the heart, 318. 
 
 Homer: tales of justice, 150; gift of 
 song, 253 ; and the Bible, 328. (See 
 Gr<;ece.) 
 
 Homestead, visit to, 401-416. 
 
 Hoiiestv, dependent on religion (q. v.), 
 224, 225. 
 
 Honey, from dregs, 221. (See Bees.) 
 
 Hoplini, providential work, 133. 
 
 Ho])kins, Samuel: doctrines, 131; 
 Channing's teacher, 393. 
 
 Hornets, beauty of nests, 406, 407. 
 (See Insects.) 
 
 Housatonic Valley, 394. (See Chan- 
 ninrj.) 
 
 Human Beings, variety of, 141. (See 
 Man.) 
 
 Human Freedom (q. v.), as affecting 
 theism, 99, 100. 
 
 Human Historv (q. v.), foreordained, 
 107. 
 
 Human Institutions (q.v.) : their source, 
 1; moulded by the God-idea, 58. 
 
 Humanity, teaching intinit}', 247. 
 
 Human Life (q. v.), made chaotic by 
 atheism (q. v.), 69-74. 
 
 Human Nature (q. v.) : as everywhere 
 the same, 14 ; marble, 81 ; divine 
 cause, 97; instincts, 112; factor in 
 character, 164. 
 
 Human Races, divinelv foreknown, 
 101-104. (See Nations.) 
 
 Human liight (q. v.): to God's provi- 
 dence, 106 ; to divine justice, 144, 145. 
 
 Human Spirit, four classes of facul- 
 ties, 194, 198. 
 
 Human Will: allied to God's, 216; 
 place, 237. 
 
 Humble Tribute to Channing (q. v.): 
 unworthy of the theme, 369; biog- 
 raphy, 369, 370 ; great influence, 
 writings, 370; unsectarianism, 371; 
 power at home and abroad, 371, 
 372; secret of that power, 372, 373, 
 originality, 373; imagination, 373, 
 374 ; practical aflPairs and moral 
 power, 374; fidelity, 374, .375; tim- 
 idity and other traits, 375 ; pietv, 
 37.5-377 ; confidence in God, 377 ; 
 making religion beautiful, 377, 378, 
 cheerfulness, 378; affection. 378- 
 380; self-discq-iliue, 380, 381; sources 
 of influence, 381, 382; annoyances, 
 
 and special work of reform, 382, 
 383; theological tyranny, 383, 384; 
 liberal Christianity, 384, 385, 391; 
 coadjutors, 385; battles tor freedom, 
 385, 386 ; views of Christianity, 386, 
 387 ; social elevation, 387, 388, 390, 
 391; temperance, 388; slavery, 388, 
 • 390 ; letter quoted, 392 ; integrity, 
 392, 393 ; early training, 393 ; list- 
 ening to nature, 393, 394 ; loyalty, 
 394 ; death, 394-396 ; peroration, 
 396. 
 
 Humboldt, great mind of, 83. 
 
 Hume's Scepticism (q. v.), 35, 36. 
 
 Humility, a Christian virtue, 316. 
 
 Hungary: patriots, 76; foreknown, 103. 
 
 Hunkers: successful, 70; illustration 
 of God, 136, 137; dotage, 227. 
 
 Husbandman, after new plants, 176. 
 (See Flowers, Trees.) 
 
 Huss, John : martyrdom, 50 ; divinely 
 foreknown, 105. 
 
 Hymns, helpful, 182. 
 
 Hypocrisy: no foundation for a re- 
 ligion, 3 ; confounded with piety, 
 212; poor substitute, 287; hated by 
 prophets, 338. 
 
 Hyssop, its lesson, 432. 
 
 ICONOCLASTS, modern, 175. (See 
 
 •^ Idols.) 
 
 Ideal, of a religious man, 185-189. 
 
 Ideas, of religion, 171. 
 
 Idiots, in Sparta, 135. 
 
 Idolatrj^: Christian, 21; among sav- 
 ages, 23; Christians convicted of, 
 173; in Jerusalem, 174; of Bible, 
 303, 311, 312, 336 ; would seem 
 strange to Scriptural writers, 304; 
 in Boston, 393. 
 
 Idols: Paul's disregard, 59, 60; of this 
 age, 315; of a tribe, 371. (SeeFetich.) 
 
 Ignatius: persecuted, 218; Scriptural 
 canon, 333. (See Fathers.) 
 
 Ignorance: the mother of devotion, 
 160; arises from sloth, 190; phan- 
 toms, 336. (See Educulion.) 
 
 Iliad, indestructible, 341. (See Greece, 
 Homer.) 
 
 Imagination: a religious force, 189; 
 in mind, 194; Channing's, 373,374. 
 
 Immortality: denied by naturalism, 
 32; of fear, 81; Parker's grounded 
 belief, 84; terrible guise, 155; pop- 
 ularly taught, 168, 169. (See Fw- 
 ture Life, Heaven.) 
 
 Immortal Life (q. v ) : sermon, 343- 
 368; general belief, 343; origin of 
 this belief, 343; not reached by 
 reasoning, 343, 344, 346, 347; fact 
 
INDEX. 
 
 451 
 
 of man's nature, 344, 345; no argu- 
 ments needetl, 345, 34G; doubted, 
 34(j, 353; many things not to be 
 proved, 347 ; sense inborn, yet argu- 
 ments not witliout value, 348 ; ideas 
 of mankind, 348-350; endless hell a 
 cnise to the hope, 349, 350; nature 
 of soul, 350; universal desire, 350; 
 spiritual entity, 350, 351; natural 
 maturity and decay, 351; ripeness 
 and con'ipletion, ^ibl, 352; argument 
 from injustice, 352, 353; God's na- 
 ture, 353; combined arguments, 354 ; 
 special forms of belief, 354 ; bodily 
 resurrection, 354, 355; nature of 
 future life, 356 ; must be conscious, 
 356; social, 356, 357; particulars 
 unknown, 357 ; only self with us, 
 357 ; retribution, 357-359 ; vengeance 
 impossible, 359, 360; death rarely 
 feared, 359; rescue, 360, 361; suf- 
 fering follows sin, but love follows 
 both, 361; entrance and progress, 
 362, 363 ; can heaven see earth, 363 ; 
 development, 364; memory, 364, 
 365; recognition, 365; forgotten in 
 joy, remembered in trouble, 365, 366 ; 
 beauty of present and future, 367, 
 368. 
 
 Imperfection : in all, 234 ; an argu- 
 ment for immortality, 352. (See 
 Perftcdon.) 
 
 Imprecations, in Bible, 332, 334. 
 
 Independence, Channing's, 380. 
 
 Indestructibility, of religion, 19. 
 
 India: inspiration, 53; foreknown, 
 102; providential, 125. 
 
 Indians: sick babe, 96; children, 358; 
 Great Spirit not feared, 359; trust, 
 360, 361; ill-treated, 372; Bible, 407. 
 
 Indolence, spiritual, 335, 330. 
 
 Induction: religious argument from, 
 7; Jesus not reasoning from, 274, 
 275. (See Intuition.) 
 
 IndusWy, essential, 190, 191. 
 
 Infallibilitv: claimed for the Bible 
 (q. v.), 303, 329, 330; but not by 
 authors, 304; broken bv one error, 
 330, 331. 
 
 Infancy, never resumed, 205. (See 
 Childhood.) 
 
 Infidelity, accusation of, 301, 335. 
 (See Atheism.) 
 
 Infinity, a dream, 34. (See God.) 
 
 Iniquity, often prosperous, 161. 
 
 Injustice, everywhere, 252. 
 
 Inquiry, not to be feared, 386. 
 
 Inquisition: concealing good inten- 
 tions, 165; persecuting, 218. 
 
 Insects: margin of freedom, 99; cara- 
 vansary, 119; New England, 120; 
 
 wing, 238; study of God, 240-242; 
 lessons, 377 ; beauty, 405-409 pus- 
 sim, 417; under the microscope, 
 419. (See Bee, Butterfly, &c.) 
 
 Insecurity, under atheism, 75. 
 
 Inspiration : a figure of speech, 34, 
 35; no miracle, 43; always one, defi- 
 nition, 44; two conditions, 45, 46; 
 same everywhere, 45 ; in fools, wise 
 men, poets, 46: dependent on char- 
 acter, 46; different purposes, 47; 
 does not fetter the mind, 48; 
 strengthening manhood. 49 ; lead- 
 ing to martyrdom, 50; beauty, 51; 
 in great leaders, 52 ; unlimited, 53, 
 54; hours, 55; shadowy remem- 
 brance, 55, 56; in infancy, 56; from 
 all truth, 181; in every age, 254, 
 255; of Bible (q. v.) assimied, 301, 
 329, 332, 333; miraculous, 302, 303; 
 opinions changed, 307 ; power of 
 belief in, 332, 333. 
 
 Instability, everywhere, 75. 
 
 Instinct, aided bV reflection, 201. 
 
 Institutions: not democratic, 147; 
 long-lived, 232; founded on Bible, 
 328. (See Humun.) 
 
 Intellect : truth given for the, 255; of 
 Jesus, 274, 275, 282. 
 
 Intellectuality : selfish use of, 147 ; 
 America and Europe, 157; a part of 
 piety, 194-196, 200, 213. (See Books, 
 Literuture.) 
 
 Intemperance: how legalized, 75, 83; 
 Channing's interest, 388; mischief, 
 413. (See Drunkenness, Tenijjer- 
 nnce.) 
 
 Intuition : essential, 5-13 passim ; tac- 
 itly admitted in New England, 41, 
 42; needs no experience in morals, 
 142, 143 ; of Jesus, 274, 275 : of 
 God and immortality, 346-348. 
 (See Induction.) 
 
 Inventions, effect on human history 
 (q. v.), 69. 
 
 Inventors, rare in religion, 181. 
 
 Ireland: groans of, 76, 77, 160; fore- 
 known, 103. (See /England.) 
 
 Irenwus, persecuted, 218. (See 
 Fathers.) 
 
 Isaiah: ability, 275; the world of, 317; 
 belief in ghosts, 339; a blessing, 
 430. (See Inspiration, Old Testa- 
 ment, Prophets.) 
 
 Israel : forsaken, 83 ; living prophets, 
 174. 
 
 Israelites, story of the shoes, 421. 
 (See Hebrews, Jews.) 
 
 Italy : patriots, 76, 78 ; revolution, 101, 
 103 ; poetry, 181 ; vine-clad hills, 
 429 ; asking for admission, 430. 
 
452 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 "lACOB: allusion, 133; divine favor- 
 
 ite, 136: and Jesus, 181; ladder, 
 
 198, 432. (See Jews, Old Testament.) 
 
 James the Apostle (q. v.): faults, 
 270; Epistle (q. v.), quoted, 281. 
 (See New Testament.) 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, trembling over 
 slavery (q. v.), 151. 
 
 Jeffries, Judge: cruelty, 77; fall, 149. 
 
 Jehovah : sacrifices to, 21 ; name, 59, 
 69; called a devil, CO; defective, 
 117; wicked, 270; Jesus higher, 
 277; throne lost, 278; and Jesus, 
 281; jealous, 333. (See Gud.) 
 
 Jeremiah: timidity, 49; heroism, 228; 
 raised from the dead, 260; indorses 
 fighting, 340. (See Old Testament, 
 Projihets.) 
 
 Jerome of Prague, inspiration, 50. 
 
 Jerusalem : sacred, 54; educational 
 forces, 159; idolatry, 174; magis- 
 trates, 177; theological students, 
 263; low views of God, 270; Asso- 
 ciation, 270; able men, 282; Jesus' 
 presence, 300. (See Judea.) 
 
 Jesuits, intellectual power, 147. 
 
 Jesus: relation (q. v.) to his age, 256- 
 272; deification, 270, 271; apostro- 
 phe to, 390. (See Christ.) 
 
 Jesus' Advent, increasing God's (q.v.) 
 knowledge, 87. 
 
 Jesus' Career: divinely foreknown, 
 105; specially providential, 126, 
 128, 135: miVaculous birth, 127; 
 misunderstood, 154, 155 ; wor- 
 shipped, 155; not apprehended, 175; 
 greater than .lacob, 181; era, 229; 
 the great philanthropist, 230; name 
 lives forever, 233; all before him 
 condemned, 333; the historical Jesus 
 less than the inward Christ, 342; 
 titles, 401; come at last, 425; classi- 
 fied with other saints, 430; doing 
 God's work, 433. 
 
 Jesus' Character (q. v.): considered 
 fanatical, 34, 35; faithfulness, 57; 
 severe but forgiving, 176 ; fidelit_y, 
 195; communion with God, 244; 
 self-sacrifice, 312, 313; filled from 
 the same fountsin, 341; refusing to 
 be called good, 351; may be sur- 
 passed in eternity, 305 ; lovely, 
 386. 
 
 Jesus' Inspiration (q. v.): of religious 
 
 genius, 43; not a monopoly, 53. 
 Jesus' Life: temptation, 49, 244; cru- 
 cifixion, 50 ; cup, 71 ; crown of 
 thorns, 76, 77 ; trade and swine, 
 174 ; from Galilee, 180 ; bloody 
 sweat, 222; mission (q.v.), 282- 
 288; natural birth, 304, 305; spirit 
 
 inculcated, 393; anecdote of child- 
 hood, 432, 433. (See Relation.) 
 Jesus' Nature : considered not a type, 
 but a miracle, 39; not a product of 
 Jerusalem, 169; manly greatness, 
 253; greater than the Temple, 255; 
 placed on a par with Hercules, 303; 
 conflicting theological views, 304; 
 changiug opinions, 305; divine side, 
 305; human side, 300; reality, 311; 
 Gnostic view, 313. 
 Jesus' Teachings: true per sc, or by 
 authority, 39; accused of blasphemy, 
 60; the'sparorw's fall, 85, 97, 111; 
 parables, 175, 182; Hebrew element, 
 beatitudes, 182; "Come unto me," 
 184: from nature, 184, 185; sus- 
 taining words, 254; permanency of 
 thoughts, 290; mission (q. v.), 282- 
 288; their loss, a leaf torn from 
 historic life, 299; music of htaven, 
 310. 319; unchangeable, 318; deep 
 words, 339; bodily resurrection, (q. 
 y.), 355; promise to the thief, 358; 
 higher ideas attainable in heaven, 
 363; the depraved entering the 
 kingdom first, 304; in (Jhanning 
 and the gospels (q. y.), 379. 
 
 Jews: religion varying in mind, 24; 
 only recipients of revelation, 38; 
 inspiration not limited to, 43, 45; 
 great souls, 210; Jesus not alone 
 for them, 207; divine favorites, 276; 
 historic fables, 301 ; no separate re- 
 ligion, 334; immortality, 343. (See 
 Hebrews, Is7-aeUtes.) 
 
 Job : Book of, 275 ; a gentleman, 
 276. 
 
 Joel, Book of, quoted, 321. 
 
 John the Apostle (q. v.): youthful 
 ideas, 28; inspiration, 38; in Jeru- 
 salem, 177 ; helpful M'ords, 254, 
 255 : faults, 270 ; an echo of Jesus, 
 310; the same guide, 337 ; mystic, 
 339; compared with Channing, 376. 
 
 John the Baptist: his inspiration, 47; 
 martyrdom, 50; doubtful about Je- 
 sus, 262; greatness of, 302, 333; a 
 smaller forerunner, 426. 
 
 John's Gospel : differences, 303 ; view 
 of Jesus, 306 ; end spurious, 307. 
 
 John XXni , perjured, 105. 
 
 Jonah, fallibility of, 48. (See Proph- 
 ets.) 
 
 Jordan River, hillsides, 175. 
 
 Joseph's Coat, 421, 428. 
 
 Josephus, on the Essenes, 200. 
 
 Journey, utility of a, 210, 217. 
 
 Jove: "all-judging," 233; character, 
 270; incarnations, 270; language, 
 338. (See God.) 
 
INDEX. 
 
 453 
 
 Joy: inspiring devotion, 6; nothin":, 
 70; hours, 191; new generation, 
 248: iinlooked for, 251. 
 
 Judaism: niartjTs, 154; element of 
 religion, 2iy"; not Christianity, 
 332. 
 
 Judas Iscariot: his bribe, 83; fore- 
 known, 105; providential, 12(); 
 false, 195; divine communion, 244. 
 (See Apostles.) 
 
 Judea: foreknown, 102; three parties, 
 259 et seq. ; light, 341; civilization 
 past, 430. 
 
 Judgment Dav, believed in bv Jesus, 
 278. (See 'Future. ) 
 
 Juggernaut, justice illustrated, IGl. 
 
 Julius Cwsar (q. v.): enforced humil- 
 ity, 6; failure, 231; consulate, 298. 
 
 Jumble, made bv atheism (q. v.), C8, 
 09. 
 
 Jupiter: called a demon, 60; defec- 
 tive, 117 ; morals. 277 ; image from, 
 336. (See God, Tlieism.) 
 
 Justice: eminent, 172; sought by con- 
 science. 196 ; for its own sake, 200, 
 201,210; less power if piety lack- 
 ing, 202; always powerful, 223; 
 long-lived, 232; greater than char-, 
 ity, 431. 
 
 Justice (q. v.) and the Conscience 
 (q. v.): sermon, 138-163; introduc- 
 tion, 138-140; the gravitation of the 
 moral system, 140-142; attraction 
 compared to the moral faculty, 142- 
 144; instinctive delight, 143; moral 
 temperance in society, 144; between 
 men and God, 144, 145; naturally 
 loved, 145, 146; conscientious loy- 
 alty to, begins early, 146, 147; truth 
 less loved, 146; intellectual suprem- 
 acy, 147; the state an attempt to 
 organize justice, 147, 148; rude 
 manifestations, 148, 149; laws 
 amended, 149; poetic, 149, 150; 
 an ideal better than enactments, 
 150, 151 ; infinite in God, 151 ; illus- 
 trative axioms, 151; progressive 
 triumph of right, 151-153; deferred, 
 153, 154; misunderstood, 154, 155; 
 not always done, 155; great expan- 
 sion of, 156; cultivation neglected, 
 156-161; here and abroad, 157; edu- 
 cation by church and state, 157- 
 160; alarming consequences, 158, 
 159 ; a monopoly of power, 159, 
 160; scorned, 160; successful wrong, 
 160, 161; awful redress, 161, 162; 
 cannot fail, 162 ; human means, 
 163. 
 
 Justin: inspiration, 50; persecuted, 
 218; canon of Scripture, 333. 
 
 T/'ANT, IMMANUEL: works, 184; 
 
 -"- phiiosoph}', 2-39; ability, 281. 
 
 Kidnappers, interested in religion, 
 166. 
 
 King, divine name, 113, 114. (See 
 God.) 
 
 Kings, Books of, quoted, 369. 
 
 Kings, supremacy of, 75, 83. 
 
 Kirkland, John Thornton, his liberal 
 views, 385. 
 
 Kitchen Garden, described, 407, 408. 
 
 Knowledge of God (q. v.), indispensa- 
 ble to religion, 41. 
 
 Knox, John, 176. 
 
 Koran: inspired, 330, 335; human, 
 331. (See Bible, Inspiration.) 
 
 Kosciusko, patriotism of, 78. 
 
 Kossuth, Louis, defeated, 76, 77. 
 
 T AMPS : illustrating practical re- 
 ligion, 170, 171; illustrating 
 truth, 341, 342. (See Li;jht.) 
 
 Laplace: allusion, 33; stud}' of ori- 
 gins, 65; increasing God's knowl- 
 edge, 87; works, 184; ability, 281. 
 (See Astronomy, Stars.) 
 
 Latimer, persecuted, 222. 
 
 Law: generalization, 30; embodiment 
 of justice (q. v.), 148. 
 
 Law of Mind, 42, 138. (See flatter.) 
 
 Law of Moses (q. v.), destroyed bj' the 
 Gospel (q. v.), 332. 
 
 Laws, natural, (&c., 130-133. 
 
 Law. William: works, 182; sweetness, 
 376; severe views, 378. 
 
 Leaves: beautv (q. v.), 405; divinity, 
 417. (See Flowers, Trees.) 
 
 Legends, illustrating justice (q. v.). 
 
 Legislation, special, 127. 
 
 Leibnitz, inspiration of, 47. 
 
 Leverrier, his new star, 67, 99. (See 
 Astronomy, Comet, Stars.) 
 
 Lexington, Mass., battle, 411. (See 
 Revolutionanj War.) 
 
 Liberal Christianity-: piety, 877; bat- 
 tle, 383, 384; meaning, .384, 385. 
 (See Unitarians.) 
 
 Liberty, needing heroism, 71, 77. 
 (See Freedom.) 
 
 Lies, popular, 224. 
 
 Life: two obvious things, 235; diver- 
 sity, 317; immortal (q. v), 343-368; 
 insufficient, 366. 
 
 Light, illustration and description, 51. 
 (See Sun.) 
 
 Lighthouses, illustration of religious 
 genius, 171. (See Eddystonv.) 
 
 Lightning: occasional, 220; errands, 
 224. (See Electricity.) 
 
454 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Lind, Jenny, 406. 
 
 Literature : moral lessons, 147; jus- 
 tice looked for in, 150; vice of re- 
 ligious, 183; piety lacking in, 212, 
 213 ; a confession of need, 359 ; re- 
 cent advance, 430. (See Books.) 
 
 Liturgies, literary value. 182. (See 
 Ceremonies, Rites.) 
 
 Loadstone, renewal of magnetism, 249. 
 
 Logic, and immortality (q. v.), 347, 
 353, 354. 
 
 London: hypothetical burning, 74; 
 degradation, 77; Kosciusko's refuge, 
 78; Catholic charity, 230; church, 
 253; philosophy, 296. (See Eng- 
 land.) 
 
 Lord : divine name, 113, 114 ; applied 
 to Jesus, 281. (See God.) 
 
 Louis XV., chapel, 106. 
 
 Love: perfect motive, 91; category of 
 spiritual affection (q. v.), 197, 198; 
 fourfold to God, 199, 215; crystal 
 urn shattered, 222 ; confers power, 
 223; ecstasy short-lived, 249-251; 
 in Channing, 378, 395; compared to 
 Elias, 400 ; a revelation, 415. (See 
 God's Love.) 
 
 Lowell, Mass., vision of power, 419, 
 420. 
 
 Loyola, Ignatius, working power in- 
 creased, 223. (See Jesuits.) 
 
 Lucan, quoted, 49. 
 
 Lucian, king of sceptics, 183. 
 
 Luck, deified, 73. 
 
 Lucretius, on religion, 3. 
 
 Luke's Gospel (q. v.), differences, 303. 
 
 Luther: inspired, 47; works, 184,185; 
 same guide, 337 ; a blessing, 430. 
 
 Lj'ra. illustration, 2,.8. (See Astron- 
 omy, /Stars.) 
 
 IVf ACHIAVELLI, rouses indigna- 
 tion, 150. 
 Macliinery, of religion, 178- 
 Mackintosh, Sir James, his ability, 
 
 394. 
 Magnetic Law, 139. 
 Mahometanism : fundamental idea, 17, 
 
 24; inspiration, 43; God-idea, 59; 
 
 dark views, 120 ; books, 184 ; 
 
 strength, 223. 
 Mahometans: great souls among, 210; 
 
 courage, 229. (See Mussulmans.) 
 Mahomet : inspired, 52, 53 ; and the 
 
 Messiah, 293; a blessing, 430. 
 Malays, divinely foreknown, 101, 102, 
 
 Hi. 
 Man : additions to God's work, 1 ; a 
 
 worm, 21 ; slave of organization, 32; 
 
 limited by supernaturalism, 37; the 
 
 five senses not his only teachers, 40 ; 
 goodness better than the sun, 51; 
 drifting, 70; fortuitous, 73; delined, 
 90 ; rights before God, 94, 95 ; con- 
 scious instrument of God, 120 ; 
 tethers, 123; progress, 142, 143; one 
 faculty prominent, 175; whole na- 
 ture rarely known, 199. 200; concord 
 desired, 226; derived, 230; receiv- 
 ing from God, 237 ; more than ani- 
 mal, 241 ; mind, 242 , and immor- 
 tality, 344, 345, 350, 356 ; loves 
 truth, 350 ; a worm and child of 
 wrath, 383; greatness, 387; Clian- 
 ning's view, 393; divine image, 
 431. (See Human.) 
 
 Mankind: history demoralized by 
 atheism, 74-84; atomic, 140; reach- 
 ing after absolute right, 148: prog- 
 ress, 149; great end, 194; childhood 
 (q. v.), 204 ; not represented b}' the 
 Pharisees, 260 ; loved by Channing, 
 378; never old, 430. 
 
 Manliness: and piety (q. v.), 194-215; 
 of Jesus, 279, 280,' 365. 
 
 Marathon, battle of, 421. 
 
 Marble, institutions made of, 256, 
 258. 
 
 Mariners, narrow conception of nature, 
 117, 118. 
 
 Marriage ; differing outlooks, 186, 
 187; table-land, 249, 2.^0; enduring 
 love (q. v.), 252; in nature, 427. 
 
 Martyrdom : inspired, 50 ; illustra- 
 tions, 217-220; lovely forms, 220; 
 glorious purpose, 222; courage, 229. 
 
 Martyrs: how regarded, 154; the 
 tir^t, 314. 
 
 Mary: understanding Jesus, 270; her 
 story to him, 432, 433. 
 
 Massachusetts, a special providence 
 craved for, 125. 
 
 Master : name refused by Jesus, 282 ; 
 only one, 341. 
 
 Materialism : near c'eism, 85; in 
 Judea, 260. 
 
 Materialists: French, 35; mechanical 
 philosophy, 121. 
 
 Material World, unconscious, 130. 
 
 Mathematics, illustration of atheism, 
 63, 66, 67. 
 
 Matter: qualities of God, 64; from an 
 atheistic standpoint, 65-69; different 
 from God, 86. 87 ; all resolved into, 
 87 : transcended by God, 88 ; half 
 the universe, 90 ;" double-winged, 
 109; laws, 129; ideal action, 138; 
 how learned, 139; rules kept, 143. 
 
 Matthew's Gospel : limiting Jesus, 
 277; view of Jesus, 306; tirst chap- 
 ters spurious, 307. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 455 
 
 Maximus, and Jesus, 281. 
 
 May-tlay, a. harbinger. ;i52. 
 
 Ma3'hew, Jonatlian, liberal views, 383. 
 
 McKav, Captain, valuation of trees 
 (q. v.), 410, 411. 
 
 Mechanical Theorj': of the universe, 
 120, 121 ; Kewton's, 23i), 240. 
 
 Mechanics : divine knowledge, 244 ; 
 work compared with uature, 400, 
 407. 
 
 Mediators : needed, 38; not needed, 44. 
 
 Medicine ; for soul, 221 ; repeated, 
 250. 
 
 Memorv, in heaven, 364, 3G5. 
 
 Men: no two alike, 27; varying in- 
 spiration, 45; highest product of a 
 nation, 164; one with God, 316; 
 abortions, 352 ; in embrvo, 35o; 
 stunted, 364; all filled from God, 
 420. (See Human, Alan.) 
 
 Mercantile Civilization, averse to jus- 
 tice, 156. 
 
 Merchants, communion with God, 214. 
 
 Mercy, considered weak, 115. 
 
 Merrimac Eiver, vision of, 419, 420. 
 
 Messiah : and Moses, 128 ; Jesus not 
 the, 261; disciples' belief, 270; Jesus 
 better than the expected, 280 ; and 
 Mahomet, 293 ; apples of, 426; spring 
 compared to, 427. (See Jesus.) 
 
 Metaphvsical Pliilosophv, in natural- 
 ism, 30, 31. 
 
 Metaphysics : of God, not discussed, 
 86 ; divine teaching, 244. 
 
 Methodism: strengthening, 223; rap- 
 ture, 250. 
 
 Methodists, view of Jesus, 306. 
 
 Mexican War, 102, 103. 
 
 Mexico, providential, 125. 
 
 Michael Angelo : allusion, 20; his 
 Creating God, 189 ; imperfection, 
 234. (SeeJri.) 
 
 Microscope: divine revealings, 239; 
 wonders, 419. (See Insects.) 
 
 Militarv Civilization : averse to justice, 
 156; of the past, 159. 
 
 Milliner, sketch of a young, 397-401. 
 
 Millwright, and the oak, 119. 
 
 Milton, John: inspiration, 47; scraggj' 
 lines, 234 ; compared with Jesus, 
 275; unsung, 303. 
 
 Mind : immutable laws, 45, 129 ; a 
 mediator, 52 ; material, 73; law, 
 138; made better than conscious :, 
 156, 157; in its place, 237; in man, 
 242; cultivated, 244; decaving, 350, 
 351 ; school-house for, 428j 429. 
 
 Minerals: cabinet of, 181; divine life 
 in, 240. 
 
 Ministers, condemned by Jesus, 286. 
 (See Clerr/ymen.) 
 
 Minos, inspiration, 45, 47, 52. 
 Miracles: materialistic, 36; only need- 
 ful in religion, 37; recorded, and to 
 one people, 38; Jesus and ]\loses 
 (q. v.), 39; flood, 124; Jesus' birth, 
 127 ; placed above morals, 157 ; 
 hurtful, 207; divine communion not 
 one, 244; in religious elevation, 248 ; 
 spoiling the individuality of Jesus, 
 275; his birth not one, 279, 280; 
 words greater, 291; in Bible, 300- 
 302, 329, 330; supposition of none, 
 306; revealed, 331; never happened, 
 332; Paul's, 339; in a revelation of 
 immortality, 343-345, 348 ; God's 
 greatness otherwise shown, 416, 417 ; 
 nature the chief, 425, 429. 
 Mission of Jesus (q. v.): extract, 282- 
 288 ; saving the lost, 282 ; his 
 models, 282; opposed by conserva- 
 tism, 283; his parables a criticism, 
 283; words like fire, 284; comfort 
 to those astray, 284 ; genius born, 
 285; power of' truth, 285; greatest 
 pattern of a man, 285, 286; aim of 
 his rebukes, 286, 287. 
 
 Mississip|)i River, grain compared to 
 the, 409, 410. 
 
 ^Missouri, Mormons in, 219. 
 
 Moloch, demanding sacrifices, 21. 
 
 JMonadnock, Mount, a comparison, 394. 
 
 Money, love of, 226, 
 
 Monopoly, of intellectual power, 147, 
 159. 
 
 Monotheism: three forms, 17; oneness 
 of religion, 24 ; foreknown, 102. 
 
 Montenegro, troubles in, 104. 
 
 Moonlight, pietv so called, 200. 
 
 Moorish Art (q.'v.), 421. 
 
 Moral Culture, neglected, 158. 
 
 Moral Element, needing culture, 156. 
 
 Moral Faculties, 142, 194, 195. (See 
 Conscience.) 
 
 Moral Force (q. v.): the great need, 
 140; expanded, 245. 
 
 Moral Guidance, needed, 160. 
 
 Moral Ideas, taken at second-hand, 
 38, 39. 
 
 Moral Law (q. v.): derived from ex- 
 perience, 33, 34 ; in general, 138 (see 
 Justice) ; perceived immediately, 
 142. 
 
 Moral Power (q. v.), in Channing, 374. 
 
 Moial Science (q. v.) Academy, 157. 
 
 floral Sense, increased, 243. 
 
 Moral Spontaneity, of God, 144. 
 
 Moral Truth (q. v.), the highest inspi- 
 ration, 46. 
 
 Moral Universe (q. v.), long arc, 151. 
 
 Morality only a part of religion. 25, 
 26 ; sellish, 34 ; Priestley's cold 
 
456 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 theory, 35 ; separated from piety, 
 157 ; no substitute, IGU ; dft'})er 
 channels, 1C3 ; well taught, 172 ; 
 outward piety, 210, 212 ; as taught 
 by Jesus, 275, 279. 
 
 Morals, better than philosophy (q. v.), 
 140. 
 
 More, Sir Thomas : a believer in tran- 
 substautiation, 22 ; Utopia, 150. 
 
 Mormons : persecuted, 219 ; sect, 318 ; 
 sacred books, 330. 
 
 Mosaic Dispensation, same elements, 
 17. 
 
 Moses : regarded as exceptional and 
 miraculous, 39; inspiration, 43, 45, 
 47, 52; slow, 49; faithful, 57; mira- 
 cles, 92; opposite of the Messiah, 
 128; specially providential, 135; 
 smiting the rock, 180, 267 ; gone 
 home, 206; bonds, 233; a religion, 
 236 ; inspired, 254, 255 ; looked back 
 to by Jews, 258, 259. 261 ; returned, 
 206 ; supposition of Jesus' adherence 
 to, 272 ; not alone, 279 ; burning 
 bush, 301, 429 ; Jesus' truth not 
 from, 312 ; world of, 317 ; special 
 revelation, 331; law, 334; allusion, 
 337; tilled from the fountain, 341; 
 sleep compared to, 400 ; forty years 
 of miracles, 417 ; come at last, 425; 
 of humanity, 430; vision, 432. 
 
 Motes, rights of, 95. (See Insects) 
 
 Motherhood : sacrifices and selfishness, 
 71; partiality, 126; breast, 245; in- 
 stance of suffering, 252; everlasting 
 love, 360, 361. (See God.) 
 
 Motives: perfect in God, 90, 91; of 
 Jejus, 282. 
 
 Mountain, and cloud (q. v.), 320. 
 
 Mozart: imperfect, 234; composition, 
 400. 
 
 Music: inspiring angel, 21; of Chris- 
 tianity, 291 ; cathedral, 400, 401. 
 (See Beethoven.) 
 
 Mussulmans, special divine favorites, 
 125. (See Mahometans.) 
 
 Mystics: teaching divine union, 47; 
 reformers accused of being, 175. 
 
 Mythology : resurrection of Jesus, 288 ; 
 not history, 335. 
 
 "IV'APLES: criminals, 165; poverty, 
 
 -'-^ 229. (See Italy.) 
 
 N.Tpoleon Bonaparte: enforced humil- 
 ity, 5; Prometheus bound, 105; 
 providential, 134; instrument of 
 justice, 152. (See France.) 
 
 Napoleon III., the Little, 71 ; sensu- 
 alitv, 76, 77; coup d'etat, 98; Cain, 
 99.' 
 
 Nationality, a limitation, 279. 
 
 Nations : each taking its turn at lead- 
 ership, 17 ; and divinclv foreknown, 
 101-103; might making right, 115; 
 bubbles, 141; witliout justice (q. v.), 
 160; highest fruit, 164; religious 
 traditions, 206. 
 
 Naturalism, near deism, 85. 
 
 Naturalism, Supernaturalism, and 
 Spiritualism: essay, 29-57; nature's 
 powers from God, 29, 30; perception 
 and reflection, 29-31; necessity, 32; 
 spiritual knowledge denied, 31-33; 
 ceremonies held as useless, 33-36 ; 
 modern forms of naturalism, 35, 36 ; 
 supernaturalism based on natural- 
 ism, 36-42; spiritual want and its 
 supply, 42-51 ; inspiration (q. v.) 
 learned from nature, 51 ; holy men, 
 
 52, 53; divine influence unlimited, 
 
 53, 54; personal knowledge, 54-56; 
 present value, 56, 57. 
 
 Niitural History: illustrating provi- 
 dence, 93; suffering, 107; divine 
 place for all creatures, 119. (See 
 Animals, Beauty, Birds, Insects.) 
 
 Natural Philosophj': differing sj-stems, 
 295, 296; second-band, 297; con- 
 flict with Bible, 300. 
 
 Natura, of Spinoza (q. v.), 64. 
 
 Nature: inspiration in viewing. 6; a 
 name for God, 63, 64, 60; fortui- 
 tous, 73 ; different from God, 86, 
 87 ; perfect cause, 90-92 ; lessons, 
 184, 185; works from within, 239; 
 replaced by churches, 253; no waste, 
 257; supposed sympathy with Je- 
 sus, 271; lessons to Jesus, 273, 274; 
 analogies for immortality, 351 ; di- 
 vine gifts, 361 ; influence over Chan- 
 ning, 377, 393; beauty (q. v.), 398- 
 418; no wrong matches, 409; walks 
 backward, 413 ; in spring (q. v.), 
 419-438 jiassim ; revival, 422; a 
 primer, 429. (See God, Sjiring.) 
 
 Nazareth, truth found there, 317. (See 
 Hyssop. Jesus.) 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar, King, 221. 
 
 Necessity: a concomitant of natural- 
 ism (q. v.), 32; views of Ennnons 
 !uid Hopkins, 121. 
 
 New England : religion the same, 28 ; 
 theory of naturalism, 35, 36 ; tacitly 
 admitting intuition, 41, 42; rocks, 
 119; insects, 120; power of intellec- 
 tuality, 147, 157; Bible, 152; moral 
 guidance, 160 ; reformers, 173 ; a 
 religious poet's influence, 182, 183; 
 Puritan courage, 229 ; Bible studied, 
 311 ; truth there, 317 ; saints and 
 their Bible, 321; Channing's influ- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 45T 
 
 ence, 371; cruel ideas of God, 383; 
 bobolinks, 400. (See America.) 
 New llampsliire, mountain sources, 
 
 419, 420. 
 New Jerusalem, justice in the, 150. 
 (See Heaven, Immortality.) 
 
 Newport, K. I., Chauning's (q. v.) 
 birtliplace, 3G9. 
 
 New Testament: view of God, 113; to 
 be cautiously road, 182; of science, 
 184; courai^'e, 228; changing esti- 
 mate, 302, 307; religion not depend- 
 ent on, 308; on creation, 31'J; spu- 
 rious books, 32!) ; hostility to Old 
 (q. v.), 332 ; once unwritten, 333; 
 beauty, 339. (See Bible, Ejjistles, 
 Inspiration.) 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac: his science trusted, 
 33; inspiration, 44, 47; increasing 
 the divine knowledge, 87; works, 
 184; not sent back to school, 205; 
 mechanism in theorv, 239, 240 ; re- 
 spect for, 281; and Bible, 326; 
 science, 327; Principia, 331; not 
 dead, 351; mind, 353; an unknown, 
 .363. ^ 
 
 New York : supposed burning, 74 ; 
 criminals, 165. 
 
 New Zealand: cannibals, 15, 77; re- 
 ligion the same, 28; savages, 364. 
 
 Niagara, melting, 233. 
 
 Nice, Council of, 355. (See Canon, 
 Roman Catholic.) 
 
 Nicholas, Emperor, tyranny, 70, 71. 
 
 Nile, overflow of the, 124. ' 
 
 Nineveh, religious light, 341. (See 
 Babylon.) 
 
 Niobe, allusion, 80. 
 
 Noah: the tlood (q. v.), .37, 124; curs- 
 ing his sons, 134, 158; a simile, 413. 
 
 Norsemen, their view of foriciveness, 
 148. 
 
 North America (q. v.), revival of na- 
 ture, 422. 
 
 North Carolina, slavery (q. v.) in, 365. 
 
 Nortiiern States, tyranny of capital in, 
 135. 
 
 North Star, seen, 399. (See Astron- 
 omy, Stars.) 
 
 Norton, Andrews, liberal views, 385. 
 
 Norway Pines, 67. 
 
 Nubia, inspiration there, 53. 
 
 Numa, inspired, 52. 
 
 Nun, religion not a, 378. (See Ro- 
 man Catholic.) 
 
 Nuts, ripening, 351. (See Trees.) 
 
 riAK-TREE : description, 118, 119, 
 
 ^~' 130, 131; illustration of pietj', 
 
 211; its remembrances, 364, 365; 
 
 beauty, 408; stories, 412. (See 
 Trees.) 
 
 Obedience: a condition of inspiration 
 (q. v.), 46, 51; man's duty, 114; 
 teaching the ideal of material law, 
 138. 
 
 Observation : not the sole teacher of 
 God, 85; teaching material law, 138; 
 and moral, 143. (See Intuition.) 
 
 Ocean: in small measure, 86; service 
 to the world, 109; of justice, 255. 
 
 Odin, a defective deitv, 117. 
 
 Old Testament : view of God's de- 
 spair, 104; men, God's slaves, 113; 
 courage, 228; literarv abilitv, 275; 
 poetry, 276; Jehovah, 277, 278; 
 supposed death of God in giving 
 birth to, 283; men burned for dis- 
 belief, 300; errors, 301, 302; idol- 
 ized, 302; assent not demanded by 
 Jesus, 304 ; hypothesis of its dis- 
 appearance, 306; authority gone, 
 307; iictions, 309; high teaching, 
 311; on creation, 319; authority 
 sot aside, 329; hostilitj- to the New 
 (q. v.), 332, 333. (See Bible, In- 
 spiration, Isaiah, Prophets, Psalms.) 
 
 Ontology, and immortality, 345, 347. 
 
 Oracle, in the breast, 309. (See Con- 
 science.) 
 
 Order, everywhere, 96, 97. 
 
 Ordinances of lieligion, the only real, 
 208. (See Ceremonies, Rites.) 
 
 Organ of the Infinite, 308. 
 
 Oriental Poetry, mistaken for history, 
 300, 302. (See Genesis.) 
 
 Orient: religious stock, 17, 18; tem- 
 ples, 20. 
 
 Origen : his church, 218; Scripture 
 canon, 333. 
 
 Originality, not strong in Channing, 
 
 Orion's Belt, 238, 239, 399. (See As- 
 
 tronomy, Stars.) 
 Orpheus, inspired, 47. 
 Orthodoxy, Jewish, 264. 
 Oscillation, in margin of free-will, 99, 
 
 100, 1.39, 141. 
 Owen, Robert, an unbeliever, 285. 
 Oxen: illustrating a church, 178, 170; 
 
 God's care, 423, 427. (See Animals, 
 
 Cattle.) 
 Oyster, following an eagle's flight, 282. 
 
 PAGANISM, identity of religious 
 
 -*■ idea, 20, 24. 
 
 Pagans: convicted of atheism, 16; 
 
 religious courage, 229. 
 Pain, providential, 112. 
 Palestine, sacred, 53. (See Jerusalem.) 
 
458 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Paley, William, selfish tlieories, 35, 30. 
 
 Pantheism : involving the religions 
 idea, 24; God iu each flower, 113; 
 mechanical theory, 121; a variable 
 God, 128. 
 
 Pantheists: two classes, 87; not help- 
 ful, 203. 
 
 Parables, beauty, 339. (See Good 
 Samaritan, Produ/al, &c.) 
 
 Paradise, allusion, 127. (See Heaven.) 
 
 Paris : philosophers, 15 ; supposed 
 burning, 74 ; church, 253. (See 
 France.) 
 
 Parker, Theodore: not cowardly, 82, 
 83; nor sad, 83, 84; life-incidents 
 foreknown, 104; sermon, 105; early 
 opinion about sinlessness, 234 ; 
 brother's death, 359, 306. 
 
 Parthenon, inspired by religion, 20. 
 
 Passion : and conscience (q. v.), 217; 
 periods, 225, 220 ; in youth, 227. 
 
 Passover Sabbath, a stor^- about Jesus, 
 432, 433. 
 
 Patriarchs, their religion outgrown, 
 213. (See Old Testament.) 
 
 Patriotism: made foolish by atheism, 
 70. 71, 77, 78 ; subordinate to justice, 
 142. 
 
 Paul : change of religion, 28 ; inspira- 
 tion, 39, 47; theism, 59; on idols, 
 60; fastings, 76 ; on the contract of 
 Abraham, 125; enmity, 172 ; perse- 
 cuted, 218 ; light, 222 ; strength 
 from Christ, 223 ; would be sur- 
 prised at our books, 299; the law a 
 shadow, 302; differing from Peter, 
 303 ; changes since his day, 304 ; 
 echo of Jesus, 310 ; same guide, 337 ; 
 manly, 339; and slavery, 340; belief 
 in bodily resurrection, 355 ; alone, 
 385 ; before Felix, 392 ; his word 
 about oxen, 423 ; a blessing, 430. 
 (See. Apostles, Bible, Ejnsttes, In- 
 spiration, Neio Testament. 1 
 
 Pencil, divine law in a, 240-242. 
 
 Pentecost: allusions, 310, 311 ; of the 
 year, 424. 
 
 Perception : as a teacher, 29-31 ; the 
 quick, of Jesus, 273. 
 
 Perfection: in God (q. v.), 89; mo- 
 tives, 90-92 ; everywhere, 93-95 ; 
 text, 164 ; following religious ideal, 
 167, 168 ; not in Jesus, 278, 279; 
 commanded, 311 ; affecting immor- 
 tality, 351, 352. (See Imperfectinn.) 
 Permanency of Christianity' (q. v ), 
 
 289-325 j^rfssm. 
 Persia, divinely foreknown, 102. (See 
 
 Zoroaster.) 
 Person, Jesus the great, of history, 
 271. 
 
 Pestilence, an i'lustration, 221. 
 
 Peter the Apostle; inspiration, 44; lies, 
 48; in Jerusalem, 177; courage, 196; 
 denial, 197; persecuted, 218; faults, 
 270; differs from Paul (q. v.), 303; 
 authority, 340. 
 
 Pharaoh, killed, 283. (See Egypt, 
 Moses.) 
 
 Pharisees: modern, 70; idolatrj', 174; 
 struck by lightning v/ords, 175; per- 
 secutors, 218; and Jesus, 256,259; 
 believers. 260; strictness, 261; scorn, 
 262, 263; orthodoxy, 264: Jesus not 
 for them alone, 267; hatred, 268; 
 ceremonies, 269 ; authority, 270 ; 
 enemies of Jesus, 283; belief in bod- 
 ily resurrection, 355. (See Essents, 
 Sadducees.) 
 
 Phidias: allusion, 20; inspiration, 47; 
 his Pallas, 189. (See Art.) 
 
 Philadeliihia, Pa., Channing's sermon 
 there, 384. 
 
 Philanthropy : inspired with truth, 
 46; met by religious genius, 172; 
 and piety, 200, 201, 210, 212; crea- 
 tive, 230"; in Jesus, 230. 
 
 Philo, on the Essenes (q. y.), 260. 
 
 Philosophers : inspired, 46 ; atheistic, 
 61-63; in America, 62; may be sen- 
 timental, 175; seemingly godless, 
 199, 200; bad name, 208; Channing 
 not one, 373. 
 
 Philosophic Theism (q. y. 1, 90. 
 
 Philosophy: an art, 122 ; teaching 
 God, 237. 239 ; settled by Scripture, 
 301; and immortality, 346. 
 
 Phineas, providential, 133. 
 
 Phylacteries, not worn by Jesus, 269. 
 
 Pictures, how made, 188, 189. (See 
 Art, Raphael.) 
 
 Piety : divorced from morality (q. v.), 
 157; fourfold form, 167; manlier, 
 184,189; fire, 189, 190: long-lived, 
 232; as taught by Jesus, 275, 279; 
 demanded, 317 ; Channing's, 371, 
 375, 395; as a brook, .375; ancient, 
 377; large, 378. (See Relifjion.) 
 
 Piety, and its Kelation to a Manly 
 Life : sermon, 194-215 ; defined, 
 194; manliness the great purpose, 
 194, 195; piety the basis, 195; God 
 seen in truth,' 195, 196 ; and right, 
 
 196, 197; love, the affectional part, 
 
 197, 198; unconscious piety, 199- 
 
 202 ; undervalued by philanthro- 
 pists, 200; instinctive" in childhood, 
 201,202; conscious piety, 202, 203; 
 relation plain, 203 ; experiments, 
 
 203 ; natural course, 203 ; helps 
 needful, 204, 205 ; but outgrown, 
 204, 205, 207; pernicious error, 206; 
 
INDEX. 
 
 459 
 
 national institutions, 200, 207; why 
 piety is rejected, 208 ; confounded 
 with errors, 208, 20'J ; natural form, 
 20^-212; degrees, 209; individual 
 ascendency', 210; growth, 210-212; 
 not ascetic, 211 ; mockery, 212 ; 
 lack in literature, 212, 21-3 ; real, 
 needed, 21^3 ; more demanded, 213, 
 214; modern form, 214 ; all parts, 
 214, 215; iucarnate and total, 214; 
 attainable, 215. 
 
 Pilate: aUusion, 225; against Jesus, 
 272; pomp, 282. 
 
 Pilgrim Fathers, providential, 134. 
 
 Pilgrims, finding water, 177. 
 
 Pindar, Peter : inspired, 47 ; on Kos- 
 ciusiio, 78. 
 
 Pine-tree, imperfect, 234. (See Trees.) 
 
 Pirates: often religious, 165; teaching 
 others in heaven, 361. 
 
 Pius IX., tyranny, 71. 
 
 Plants, adding to (iod's knowledge, 87. 
 
 Plato: inspired, 47; his Republic, 150; 
 and Jesus, 2ii3; wisdom, 327. (See 
 Greece.) 
 
 Platonists, teaching divine union, 46. 
 
 Pleasure, lust for, 227. (See Pain.) 
 
 Poetic Quotations : human power, 109 ; 
 sheep unfed, 174 ; " There are 
 briars," 193; "fresh fields," 204; 
 perfection, 239 ; misfortunes, 240 ; 
 humility, 246 ; elevation of soul, 249 ; 
 religious meditation, 250 ; trials, 
 255; leaves fallen, 299; consolation, 
 325; on nature's Bible, 3-39; liberal 
 religion, 393; jovs of age, 395; 
 cradle-song, 397, "398 ; stars, .398; 
 sleep, 399'; May, 405; bees, 409; 
 doctrines, 415; sea, 421; apostrophe 
 to Love, 428. (See Coleridge, Em- 
 erson, Goldsmith, ike.) 
 
 Poet : inspiring gift, 244 ; painting 
 word-pictures, 263. 
 
 Poetrj' : inspired, 46 : masterpieces, 
 181 ; Bible, 276, 332; in nature, 377. 
 (See Literature.) 
 
 Poland, fallen, 78. 
 
 Policy, and honesty, 224, 225. 
 
 Politics: hurtful, 100; no religion in, 
 204. "^ ' 
 
 Polycarp, persecuted, 218. 
 
 Polytheism : developed, 23, 24 ; fore- 
 known, 102; splitting deity, 113. 
 
 Pomponatius, 34, 35. 
 
 Pope, sacredness of the, 52. 
 
 Popular Theology (q. v.) : its idea of 
 God, 89-91; sad view of the world, 
 110; unphilosophical, 112, 130; sin, 
 127. 
 
 Potter : Bible illustration, 115 ; last- 
 ing, 233. 
 
 Power: two modes, 210; love of, 220. 
 
 Powers, religious, 104-193. (See Cul- 
 ture.) 
 
 Praxiteles : allusion, 20 ; inspiration, 
 47. (See Art, Phidias.) 
 
 Prayer: in boy and man, 28; natural 
 need, 33, 34; gj-nniastics, 34; apos- 
 trophe, 34; willed or spontaneous, 
 43, 44; painted. 248; highest rare, 
 249; daily, 250; hallowed by Jesus, 
 291; not the whole of piety, 378; in 
 spring, 434-438. 
 
 Prayers: easy, 275; theological, 402. 
 
 Preaching, affected by congregation, 
 324. (See Chtrrches, Ministry, 
 Priesthood, Pulpit.) 
 
 Press, an educational force, 108-170. 
 (See Books.) 
 
 Priesthood : not the authority for the 
 soul, 348, 349 ; inspiring' fear of 
 death, 359. (See Church, Ministry, 
 Roman Catholic.) 
 
 Priestle}', Joseph, coldness, 35. 
 
 Printing: illustration, 69: death of 
 feudalism, 159. (See Press.) 
 
 Prodigal Son: husks, 255; effect of 
 the parable, 277; a rebuke, 283. 
 (See Parables.) 
 
 Progress, in future life (q. v.), 362, 
 363. 
 
 Prometheus: bound, 105; allusion, 
 177. (See Napoleon.) 
 
 Prophecy: believed, 301; fulfilled, 
 321; unfulfilled, 332; of endless life, 
 350. 
 
 Prophets : fanciful, 34; false and true, 
 52,53; in advance, 59; seed alive, 
 174; great words, 182; outgrown 
 religion, 213; a new one welcomed, 
 258 ; Jesus Christ one, 281 ; not 
 claiming infallibility, 304; warming 
 the heart, 310; vigorous, 3-38,339; 
 from time to time, 341; stoned, 392. 
 (See A7nos, &c.) 
 
 Protestantism : mechanical theories, 
 121; books, 184; human side of 
 Jesus, 306; smiling at controversies, 
 314; disputes, 315. (See Roman 
 Catholic.) 
 
 Protestants : inspired, 53 ; saving be- 
 lief, 157; good works opposed, 158; 
 great souls, 210 ; view of Bible, 301 ; 
 miraculous Bible, 329 ; deny Rome's 
 authority, 330. 
 
 Proverbs, about justice, 151. 
 
 Proverbs, Book of: ability, 275; self- 
 ish, 332; cited, 340. 
 
 Providence: made material, 34; de- 
 nied by atheism, 73, 81; perfect, 
 92-94; "sermon, 112-137; plan, ] 12; 
 the divine watching, 112, 113; func- 
 
460 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 tions, 113, 114; duty, 114; clay and 
 potter, 115; demands of justice, 116; 
 intiuite, 116, 117; in the oak, 118, 
 119; interference of diabolism, 119, 
 120; two theories, 120; meclianical, 
 shown in variable forms, 120-122; 
 free-will recognized, 122, 123 ; lim- 
 itations, 123; complicating, 123, 124; 
 two modes, 124: general and special, 
 124, 125; favoritism, 126, 127; mi- 
 raculous interference, 127; limited, 
 128; unlimited. 129-135; through 
 laws, 135; causalitv, 136, 137; of 
 the world, 416, 418. " (See God.) 
 
 Psalms: theistic texts, 58, 62, 216; 
 deeper, 178; some beautiful, 181; 
 warming the heart, 310; best part 
 of church service, 334; curses, 334; 
 beauty, 338; 119th, 414. (See 
 David, Jews, Old Testament.) 
 
 Psvchology : the divine, 86 ; rejected, 
 122. (See Soul.) 
 
 Publican and Pharisee, the parable 
 (q. v.), 282. 
 
 Pulpit, freedom essential, 324, 325. 
 (See Preachhiff.) 
 
 Puritans : troublesome to the Stuarts, 
 152; endurance, 229; and Easter, 
 287. 
 
 Puritj-, demanded, 317. 
 
 Pj'ramids, built by religion, 20. (See 
 E!/ij2)t.) 
 
 Pythagoras, 430. 
 
 QUAKERS: persecuted, 219; allu- 
 sion, 317. (See Fox.) 
 
 T) ABBINS, bearded, 228. 
 
 ■^^ Races, differently developed, 17. 
 
 (See Human.) 
 Eain-drop, as illustrating providence, 
 
 109. 
 Rank, love of, 226. 
 Raphael: inspired, 47; his St. Cecilia, 
 
 189; defects, 234; Bible art, 327; 
 
 art compared with the divine, 356. 
 
 (See Ai't, Titian, &c.) 
 Reasoning: about God, 29, 30; im- 
 mortality, 343, 344, 347, 353, 354. 
 
 (See Logic.) 
 Reason : sacrificed to supernaturalism, 
 
 39; teaching God, 43; other truths, 
 
 46 ; as an intellectual power, 194 ; 
 
 judging Christianity, 316; excluded 
 
 from Biblical criticism, S29, 330; 
 
 survival, 336, 337. (See Mind.) 
 Reflection: as a teacher. 29-31, 142, 
 
 143; aid to instinct, 201. 
 Reformation, Protestant: its religion 
 
 outgrown, 213 ; human side of Jesus 
 emphasized, 306. 
 
 Reformers, outcry against, 172, 173. 
 
 Reforms, Channing's interest in, 387, 
 388. 
 
 Regularity, in nature, 132. 
 
 Relation of Jesus to his Age and the 
 Ages: sermon, 256-272; great men 
 remarkable, 256 ; two kinds of great- 
 ness, popular and unpopular, 257; 
 Jesus', of the latter, 257, 258; little 
 thought of at first, 258, 259; three 
 Jewish parties, 259-267: Sadducees, 
 
 259, 260; Pharisees, 200; Essenes, 
 
 260, 261; outsiders, 263, 264; effect 
 on the people, 265, 266; speaking 
 from experience, 266 ; and hope, 
 267; opposition, 267, 208; faith in 
 God and man, 268; authority, 268, 
 269; summary, 269; doctrines un- 
 changed, 270; rank different, 270, 
 271; apotheosis, 271; the person of 
 the ages, 271, 272; separation from, 
 282. 
 
 Relations, threefold human, 216. 
 
 Relics: attention to, 158; worshipped, 
 336. 
 
 Religion: identical with priestcraft, 
 34; at second-hand, 40; revealed to 
 saints, 46 ; natural to man, 84; cul- 
 ture (q. v.), 164-193; work the best 
 school of, 190; two requirements, 
 194; faculties, 194, 195; not in poli- 
 tics, 208; more needed than theol- 
 ogy, 204; hope gone, 283; Chris- 
 tianity (q. v.), 289-325 ; always the 
 same, 293 ; two forms in Bible, 331, 
 332; for all, 334; winning in Chan- 
 ning, 378 ; one denomination, 371 ; 
 made beautiful, 377; recent ad- 
 vances, 430. 
 
 Religious Consciousness (q. v.): two 
 great truths essential, 41; confer- 
 ring strength, 216-230. 
 
 Religious Element in Man : essay, 1- 
 28; the creations of God and man, 1, 
 2; source of religion, 2, 3, 4; wor- 
 ship, 4, 5; mystery and helpless- 
 ness of personal lite, 5, 6; analysis 
 of man's nature, 6, 7 ; induction 
 leading to religion, 7 ; dependence, 
 7, 8 ; intuition and revelation early 
 reached, 8, 9; a priori and a jjos- 
 teriori arguments, 9, 10 ; idea of 
 God presupposed, 10 ; primitive con- 
 ception, 10, 11; personally modified, 
 11-13; inborn faculties the basis of 
 religion, 13, 14; universality, 14- 
 19; human similarity, 14; history 
 of religions, 14, 15;" atheistic ex- 
 ceptions to the rule, 15, 16; an 
 
INDEX. 
 
 461 
 
 ante-relif,nous period, IG; dc<;rees 
 of eiulipwment, 17; three forms of 
 monotheistic relit;ion, 17-1'J; inde- 
 structibility, 19; strength and dei)th, 
 19-23 ; identity and prolific parent- 
 age, 19, 20; inspiration of art and 
 civilization, 20, 21; absurd ex- 
 tremes, 21, 22, 23 ; all religion one, 
 23, 2-4 ; how to determine the abso- 
 lute religion, 21, 25; definition, 25; 
 speculative tendency, 25; religious 
 consciousness progressive, 25, 20 ; 
 a common element in varving forms, 
 27, 28. 
 
 Remorse, teaching of, 191, 192. 
 
 Renown, love of, 22(5. 
 
 Repentance, preached by Jesus, 266, 
 267. 
 
 Reptiles, providential place, 119. (See 
 Animals, Birds, Insects.) 
 
 Reputation: a bubble, 141; and char- 
 acter (q. v.), 164. 
 
 Resignation, Christian duty, 316. 
 
 Resurrection of the Body, 351, 355. 
 
 Resurrection of Jesus (q. v.): sym- 
 bolic, 271 ; a mythic, 287, 288 ; con- 
 ferring kingship, 304; Gnostic view, 
 313. 
 
 Retribution: proverbial, 151; future 
 (q. V.) essential, 357, 358. (See 
 Eternul Torment, Hell.) 
 
 Revelation : powerless without intui- 
 tion, 13,14; identical with natural 
 religion, 24; metaphoric, 34; occa- 
 sional and miraculous, 37; confined 
 to Jews, 38; verbal, 38, 39; limited 
 to a few minds, 41; the world a, 
 23S; of immortality, 343, 344; of 
 God's love, 415; providence, 416; 
 to the eye, 429. 
 
 Revenge, wild justice, 148. 
 
 Reverence: intuitive, 24; Christian 
 duty, 316. 
 
 Revival of Nature (q. v.), 421-424. 
 (See Beauty, Sprinr/.) 
 
 Revolutionary War, inspired by liberal 
 ministers, 383. 
 
 Right: identical in God and man, 46, 
 47; loved for itself, 197; desire and 
 practice, 223, 224; striven for, 245. 
 
 Rights, involved in God's (q. v.) cre- 
 ation, 94, 9.5, 114. 
 
 Ring, in nature's marriage (q. v.), 427. 
 
 Ripeness, as illustrating immortality 
 (q. v.), 351, 352. 
 
 Rites, changing, 295. (See Ceremonies, 
 Worship.) 
 
 Ritualism, easy, 275. 
 
 River, the Bible a, 310, 311. (See 
 Merrimac, (S:c.) 
 
 Rogers, John, persecuted, 222. 
 
 Roman Catholic Church: inspiration, 
 53; patron saints, 113; mechanical 
 theology, 131; legends, 150; sacra- 
 ments, 157; faith and works, 158; 
 relics, 158; reverenced, 169; books, 
 184; great souls, 210; strengthen- 
 ing, 223; sisterhoods, 229, 230; fes- 
 tivities, 287, 288 ; opinions about 
 Bible, 301 ; divine side of Jesus, 
 305, 306; smiling at disputes, 314; 
 disputes, 315; all not members, 317; 
 view of Bible, 330. 
 
 Rome, Ancient : civilization, 82 ; idea 
 of God, 89 ; frightened by a comet, 
 99; foreknown, 102 ; providential, 
 133; Telemachus, 172; poetry, 181; 
 good survives, 232; officials in Pal- 
 estine, 261; gods, 270, 277; light, 
 341 ; belief in immortality, 343; 
 priesthood, 348, 349 ; civilization, 
 430. (See Greece.) 
 
 Rome, Modern: a perjured Pope, 105; 
 the poor, 229; a church, 253. 
 
 Rose, its beauty and cure, 109. (See 
 Beauty, Flowers ) 
 
 Russia : divinely foreknown, 104, 107; 
 repulse of Napoleon, 153. 
 
 CABBATH: worshipped, 276; chimes, 
 ^ 290; origin, 337. (See Sunday.) 
 Sacraments: saving, 157; inculcated, 
 
 168 ; of life, 186. 
 Saddler, his stitches forgotten, 365. 
 Sadducees : modern, 70; indifference 
 
 and culture, 259-261 ; relation to 
 
 Jesus, 202, 270 ; scorn, 203 ; Jesus 
 
 not their partisan, 267; disbelief of 
 
 future life, 355. 
 Sadness: Parker's, 83, 84; hours of, 
 
 191. 
 Sahara, illustration of atheism, 79. 
 Saints: inspired for religion, 46; the 
 
 class, 165; made by industry, 190; 
 
 thanks for all, ISO,' 431. 
 Saint Andrew's Sword, 76. 77. 
 Saint Catherine's Wheel, 76, 77. 
 Saint Cecilia: picture of, 189; music 
 
 (q. v.), 401. 
 Saint Domingo, hero of, 105. 
 Saint Lawrence's Fire, 76, 77. 
 Saint Nature (q. v.), 415. 
 Saint Peter's Church, 400. (See 
 
 Home.) 
 Saint Sebastian's Arrows, 76, 77. 
 Saint Victor, Hugh de: inspiration, 
 
 48; traits, 376. 
 Saint-worship (q. v.), 336- 
 Salem, Mass., ordination sermon, 384. 
 Samuel the prophet, 206. 
 Sanchoniathon, cosmogonj' of, 326. 
 
462 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Sanhedrim, authority of the, 317. 
 
 Sarah, commended, 340. 
 
 Saturnian Day, 2U'J. 
 
 Saturn, sacrifices to, 21. 
 
 Savages, life among, 350. 
 
 Saxon Race, providential, 101, 102. 
 
 Saxony, schools in, 169. 
 
 Scandinavian Nations, divinelv fore- 
 known, 101, 102. 
 
 Scepticism: Hume's (q. v.), 35; in 
 Bible, 332. 
 
 Scholars, no return to the primer, 205. 
 
 School, illustration of divine govern- 
 ment, 126. 
 
 Science : inspired, 46 ; in its igno- 
 rance trusts God, 137; books, 184; 
 its New Testament, 184; in astron- 
 omy (q. v.), 198 ; Coleridge and 
 Kant, 239; false systems, 297, 298; 
 and the Bible, 326 ; not in Scripture, 
 338 ; recent advancement, 430. 
 
 Scotland, ideas of justice, 148, 149. 
 
 Scott, Walter, his ability, 394. 
 
 Scribes: rebuked, 174, 175; persecut- 
 ors, 218 ; authority, 208-270; ene- 
 mies, 283. (iSee Pharisees.) 
 
 Scriptures : documents, 38 ; canon 
 closed, 39; infallibility, 40; ques- 
 tions of lingual accuracy, 314; old 
 doctrines, 380. (See Bible, Old 
 Testament.) 
 
 Sculpture: religious origin, 20; how 
 wrought, 189. (See Art, Michael 
 Anqelo, Phidias.) 
 
 Sea: ■ God's, 141, 163; carpet of, 420 ; 
 age, 421. (See Ocean.) 
 
 Seasons, connection of the, 352. (See 
 Spring.) 
 
 Sebastopol, fortress, 421. 
 
 Sectarianism : cursing .Jesus, 269 ; 
 Channing's freedom from, 371. (See 
 CJiurches.) 
 
 Sects : each teaching a truth, 169 ; 
 great souls in all, 210; inspired by 
 Jesus, 285; no monopoly of truth, 
 314; and Christianity, 320; creeds, 
 321; internal suspicion, 322; pietv, 
 375. 
 
 Secret of God, 315. 
 
 Self-command, bought with a price, 
 380. 
 
 Self-consciousness : awakening depen- 
 dence. 237; leads to God, 238; not 
 in babes, 243. 
 
 Self-denial: arises from religion, 226, 
 227 ; supplies energv, 229. 
 
 Selfishness: impossible with God, 92; 
 varying forms, 225, 226. 
 
 Self-love: subordinate tn right, 142; 
 ii' dispensable, 225; to be conquered, 
 22G. 
 
 Self-reliance, from religion, 230. 
 
 Self-respect, developed, 226. 
 
 Self-sacrifice: inspired by religion, 
 22, 23; from inspiration, 48. 
 
 Sensational Philosophy, near deism, 
 85. 
 
 Sensation, not the whole of man, 40. 
 
 Senses: the five, 40; their teacliing, 
 46. (See Person.) 
 
 Sensuality: hating religion, 19; love 
 for, 226. 
 
 Sentences: deferred, 153, 154; sure, 
 160, 161. 
 
 Sentimentalism, accusation of, 175. 
 
 Sentiments, religious, 171. 
 
 Sermon on the Mount : sentiments, 
 185; for common people, 203,264; 
 making ears tingle, 28G ; simple, 
 319. 
 
 Sermons: never fortuitous, 68; fore- 
 known, 105 ; antiquated, 314. (See 
 Preaching.) 
 
 Serpents, to be strangled, 266. 
 
 Servetus, execution of, 60. 
 
 Shackford, C. C, ordination, .323-325. 
 
 Shakespeare : The Merchant of Venice 
 quoted, 187; imagination, 275; on 
 adversity, 367; Midsummer Night's 
 Dream, 400. (See Poetry.) 
 
 Shasters, authority of, 330, 335. 
 
 Sheep, illustration of truth's need, 174. 
 
 Sliekinah, the, 56. 
 
 Sheniitic Familv, religious. 17, 18. 
 
 Shepherd: God" a, 359; hireling, 360. 
 
 Shibboleth, not spoken by Jesus, 
 262. 
 
 Shipwreck, and Bible, 327. 
 
 Shute, Rev. Mr., of Hingham. 383. 
 
 Siberia, fetters, 77. (See Russia.) 
 
 Siljylline Leaves, inspired, 52. 
 
 Sickness, a terror, 218. 
 
 Silesia, tvrannv in, 155. 
 
 Siloam, tower' of, 130, 131, 274, 279. 
 
 Simeon : in New England, 321 ; praver 
 of, 425. 
 
 Simeon Stylites, 21. 
 
 Simplicity", of Clianning, 375. 
 
 Sinai, an'ancient conception, 279. 
 
 Sni : as including all natural human 
 action, 37; phenomena, 112; help to 
 growth, 191; experimental failure, 
 234 ; voluntary, 246; helps us to God, 
 255 ; Jesus' hatred of, 278 ; not ever- 
 lasting, 368. (See Crime.) 
 
 Sinlessness, impossible, 234, 235. 
 
 Sinners : class, 165 ; all men, 191, 192 ; 
 ceasing to be so bad, 206 ; better die 
 than live, 359. 
 
 Sins: actual, 173; specially hated in 
 self, 359. 
 
 Sirius, hot, 399. (See Stars.) 
 
INDEX. 
 
 463 
 
 SistineChapel, choir, 400. (See Music.) 
 
 Sky, beauty of the, 308-402. (See 
 Astronomy, Sun.) 
 
 Slavery: American, 77; selfish, 12G; 
 ecclesiastical support, 158; peren- 
 nial torture, IGo; traditions, ICG; 
 and love of right, 197; popular, 
 225; and Bible, 327, 340; not shut- 
 ting from heaven, 304; Channing's 
 interest, 87G, 388-390, 393, 394. 
 
 Slaves: fugitive, 83, 210; in Boston 
 (q. v.), 101, 280; forelcnown, 103; 
 tears, 110; cursed in Ciirist's name, 
 155; report to heaven. 100; ill- 
 treated, 372. i^eti Negroes.) 
 
 Slavic Race, providential, 101, 102. 
 
 Sleep: a blessing, 399; a Moses, 400; 
 vision, 401. 
 
 Sobriety, a Christian duty, 316. 
 
 Society : a human outgrowth, 2 ; re- 
 constructed, 172; essential to heaven, 
 350; how improved, 390. 
 
 Socrates: allusion, 32; martyrdom, 
 50; freedom, 123; learning from 
 nature, 184, 185; arguments, 274, 
 275; ability, 281; same guide, 337. 
 (See Greece.) 
 
 Soil, filter of truth, 299. 
 
 Solar System : illustrating chance and 
 order, 65-08, 93; foreordained, 105; 
 oscillation, 137; obedient, 139; a 
 sponge, 140; permanent, 290. (See 
 Astrcnomy. Sun.) 
 
 Solidarity, of the world and its inhabi- 
 tants, 427. 
 
 Solomon: Wisdom of, 275, 343; lilies, 
 283 ; Song of, 300, 332, 406 ; piety, 
 319; wine, 340; and Queen of Sheba, 
 421. 
 
 Sorrow: nothing, 70; not everlasting, 
 308. (See Joy.) 
 
 Soul: rooted in God, 4; fleshly, 34; 
 truths taught, 40; tide, 47; a new, 
 48; mediation of, 52; unseen, 73; 
 compared to Noah's dove, 80, 81 ; 
 name for religious faculties, 194; 
 view of God, 198, 199; in place, 237; 
 magnified, 244; depths stirred, 254; 
 survives, 330, 337; of all, 344; an 
 entity, 350, 351 ; claimed by many 
 bodies, 354, 355 ; weaUli of, 363. 
 (See Spirit.) 
 
 Soul's Law, kept, 45, 46. 
 
 Sound: illustration, 38, 39; dependent 
 on air, 67. 
 
 Southern States, justice forgotten, 149. 
 (Sec Slareri/.) 
 
 Sower, parable (q. v.) of the, 431, 4-32. 
 
 Space, God omnipresent in, 238, 239. 
 
 Spain: tvrannv, 78; Inquisition, 165; 
 hills, 429; waiting, 430. 
 
 Sparta : cruel laws, 135 ; civilization, 
 430. 
 
 Speculation, Channing's opinions, 
 373. 
 
 Spf'culative Atheism (q. v.): sermon, 
 58-84; influence of popular theol- 
 ogy, 58; definition of atheism, 59, 
 61 ; all denial of divinity not athe- 
 istic, 59-61; philosophical atheism, 
 61-63; denial in terms merely, 63, 
 64; names for deity, 04; real de- 
 nial, 64; I. as a theory of matter, 
 65-09; II. of human" life, 69-74; 
 denial of virtue, 70, 71; of the con- 
 solation of immortality, 71-73; of 
 providence, 73, 74, 8i; III. as a 
 tiieory of human history, 74-84; 
 misery every wliere, 75, 76; tyranny, 
 70-78; intellectually and morally 
 unsatisfactory, 78-84. 
 
 Speculative Tncism (q. v.): sermon, 
 8.5-111; delinition. 85; divine quali- 
 ties unknown to men, 85, 86 ; God 
 different fi-om the universe, 80-89 ; 
 denials, 87; progressive deity, 87, 
 88: God must be perfect, 89, 90; 
 philosophic theism, 90 ; perfect 
 cause, 90-92; perfect rule and fore- 
 knowledge in nature, 92-97; gen- 
 eral relation to mankind, 97; per- 
 fect providence for men, 97-111; 
 mai-gin of human freedom, 99-101; 
 concrete application to life in gen- 
 eral, 101-104: to individual life, 
 104-111; in suffering, 107, 108; des- 
 tiny, 108-110: economy of nature, 
 109, 110; theism entlironed, 110, 
 111. 
 
 Speech, free (c[. v.), 340. 
 
 Spinoza, naming God, 04. (See Pan- 
 theism.) 
 
 Spirit: a divine name, 64; different 
 from God, 80, 87; theory that all is, 
 87; not exhausting God, 88; half 
 the universe, 90 ; separate from body, 
 194; in place, 237; God, 242; out of 
 man, 243. (See Pantheism, Soul.) 
 
 Spiritualism, contrasted with natural- 
 ism ((]. v.), 42-58. 
 
 Spiritual Senses, and immortalitj', 
 350. 
 
 Spiritual Wants, always met, 42. 
 
 Sponge, an illustration. 140. 
 
 Spring: sermon, 419-433; mighty 
 forces at work, 419; town and river, 
 419, 420; a factory, 420, 421; cloth- 
 ing of (Jod's creatures, 421; revival 
 of nature, 422-424; seasons, 424- 
 426; the supposition or no spring 
 for a century, 420, 427; delight in 
 beauty, 427-430; age of the world, 
 
464 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 430-432; storv about Jesns' bov- 
 hood, 432, 433; prayer, 434-438. 
 (See Seasons.) 
 
 Stars: as pniviclential, 93; growing 
 larger, 3-20; and clover-seed, 251; 
 new beauty, 307; evening, 3'J8; 
 ■worship, 3'J9; costliest, 399; morn- 
 ing, 421 ; when best seen, 425 ; 
 spring, 427; why beautiful, 428. 
 (See Astronomy, (jlreat Btar, Orion, 
 &e.) 
 
 State House, seen by a fly, 283. (See 
 Boston.) 
 
 State, the: attempt to establish jus- 
 tice, 147, 148 ; an educational force, 
 108; sins of, 173; evil of tradition, 
 213; cunningness in, 232; against 
 Jesus, 202; din, 272. (See Nations.) 
 
 Statutes, amended for justice, 149. 
 (See Law.) 
 
 Steam: engine, 69; human use, 224. 
 
 Stephen tlie Martyr, 218, 222. 
 
 Stewart, Dugald, 'ability, 394. 
 
 Stomach, inspiring courage, 227. 
 
 Stone: in divine communion, 240-242; 
 chipped, 244. (See Art, Beauty, 
 Nature.) 
 
 Strasbuvg Cathedral, 400. 
 
 Strength, sermon on, 216-235. (See 
 Conscious. ) 
 
 Strong Man (q.v.), reason for courage, 
 231, 232. (See Great Minds.) 
 
 Stuart Dynasty, 151, 152. 
 
 Suffering": providential, 108; a bitter 
 flower, 221; unavoidable, 251; and 
 future life, 3.58. 
 
 Sun: compared with a good man, 51; 
 blind instrument, 120; a surprise to 
 God, 127; not always at meridian, 
 249; heaven, 344; only a fancy, 
 346; strong attraction, 3G0: no fire 
 lost, 422. (See Li(jht, Solar Sys- 
 tem.) 
 
 Sunbeam: motes in, 238; Channinga, 
 370. 
 
 Sunda3': dreary, 178; laws, 208; 
 vows, 254; only religion of many, 
 280; kidnapping, 286; Bible read, 
 326; worship (q. v.), 334; prayers 
 (q. v.), 401 ; at the homestead, 401- 
 416. 
 
 Sun of Righteousness, 254. 
 
 Sunshine, dail.y, 220. 
 
 Supernaturalism, 36-41. (See Natu- 
 ralism.) 
 
 Superstition: mistaken for religion, 
 212; phantoms, 336; and the Bible, 
 341. 
 
 Synagogue: Jesus in, 258, 290; the- 
 'ologv, 264; bliiul man cast out, 268; 
 Kab'bi Jonah, 433. 
 
 'PAILOE, an illustration of creation, 
 
 -*- 65. 
 
 Tartars, providential, 101, 102, 111. 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy: Avorks, 182; help- 
 ful word, 254; same guide, 337; 
 severe views, 378. 
 
 Telemachus, in Kome, 172. 
 
 Telescope, revealing life, 239. (See 
 Astronomy, Stars.) 
 
 Temperance : keeping the bodj' whole, 
 144; specialty, 173; Channing's ad- 
 vocac}', 388. (See Jntemiierance, 
 Reforms.) 
 
 Temptation, of various kinds, 188. 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, read and quoted, 
 411. (See Poetry.) 
 
 Teutonic Eace, providential, 101. 
 
 Tliales: eclipses, 66; errors, 296. 
 (See Astronomy, Sun.) 
 
 Theatre, the universe compared to 
 one, 122. 
 
 Thebal, name for universe, 64. 
 
 Theism : Paul's, 59 ; speculative (q. v.), 
 85-111. (See Atheism.) 
 
 Theocritus, poetry of, 326. 
 
 Theology: defined and defended, 25; 
 result of speculation, 25, 373 ; seen 
 in institutions, 58; not the whole of 
 religion, 172: Palestinian, 263, 264; 
 foundation of, 308; Channing's, 373, 
 380; reform of, 382: freedom, 383; 
 old questions met, 384; in pravers, 
 402. 
 
 Theos, a divine name, 64. 
 
 Thieves : often religious, 165 ; ideas 
 of right, 197. 
 
 Tliimble, an illustration of the human 
 knowledge of divinity, 86. 
 
 Tiiinking Men, inclined to naturalism, 
 41. 
 
 Thought: not fortuitous, 73; diversi- 
 ties, 317. (See Mind.) 
 
 Tlirashing, of grain, 171, 179. 
 
 Thunder, from Jesus, 286, 287. 
 
 Thursday Lecture, 286. 
 
 Tlivestes, banquet of, 22. 
 
 Tide of Soul, 47. 
 
 Time, subdivided infinitely, 238, 239. 
 
 Timidity, Channing's, 374, 375. (See 
 Self-command.) 
 
 Timotheus, music of, 401. 
 
 Titian, art (q. v.) of, 411. 
 
 Toad, beauty in a, 367. 
 
 Torture, for religion's sake, 217-221. 
 (See Inqidsition, Martyrs.) 
 
 Toussaint L'Ouverture, 105. 
 
 Toys, outgrown, 211. 
 
 Transient and Permanent in Chris- 
 tianity (q. v.): 289-325; confidence 
 of Jes'us, 289; doubts of Christians, 
 289; subject, 289, 290; eternity of 
 
INDEX. 
 
 465 
 
 his words, 290-292; fixed yet vari- 
 able, 2'J2, 2i)3; the word of Jesus, 
 and our word about him, 293; two 
 eleuients from the first, 294; tran- 
 sient preponderating in religious 
 historv, 294; rites change, 295; and 
 doctrines, 295, 296; principle un- 
 changing, 296 ; scientific illustra- 
 tion, 21)6-298 ; historic changes, 
 298-300; doctrines transitory, 300; 
 legends believed, 300-302 ; estimate 
 of the Old and New Testaments, 
 300-304; authority and nature of 
 Christ. 304-306, these varying opni- 
 ions non-essential, 306, 307; criti- 
 cisms increasing, 307 ; Christianity 
 still lives, 308, 309; doctrines and 
 personalitv, 309, 310; Jesus seen as 
 he is, 3li-313; transitoriness, 313, 
 314; changes not ended, 314, 315; 
 turning from disputes to plain words, 
 315, 316; nothing between Jesus 
 and God, 317, 318; Christianity in 
 the heart unchanged, 318 ; new life, 
 318, 319 ; sects not reaching the 
 heart of Christianity, 319, 320; near 
 and distant view, "320, 321; tran- 
 sient passing, 321, 322; mistaken 
 defence, 322 ; current ideas not per- 
 manent, 323 ; peroration, 323-325. 
 
 Trai;sub>tantiation: More's belief, 22; 
 contest, 314. (See Sacrament.) 
 
 Trasimenus, the waste restored, 421. 
 
 Travellers : tales of undevout tribes, 
 15, 16 ; annoyances, a comparison, 
 382. 
 
 Trees : beauty, 51 ; weight, 405 ; size, 
 410, 411; ill spring, 424; wedding- 
 garments, 424; in winter, 425, 42'j. 
 (See Apple, Elm, Oak, Pine, &c.) 
 
 Trials, blessed, 255. (See Pain, Suf- 
 ferinfj.) 
 
 Tribe, idols (q. v.) of a, 371. 
 
 Trinitv: a name, 59; death for denial, 
 60; "inculcated, 169 ; the Achilles of 
 dogmas, 298 ; disputes, 315. (See 
 God.) 
 
 Trust, of Jesus, 277. (See Faith.) 
 
 Truth: in Jesus' (q- v.) words, 34, 35; 
 various forms, 46; less loved than 
 justice, 146; exclusive forms of. 147; 
 loved for itself. 195, 190, 199', 200, 
 210; world of, 255; temple and rub- 
 bish, 239; diversitv, 317; wrecked, 
 320; lasting, .322, 340; always above, 
 341; never flinches before reason, 
 347; loved bj' man, 350 ; illustration 
 of rain and well, 381; God's, 385; 
 care of itself, 386. 
 
 Truths: popularly taught, 108, 109; 
 old as creation, 342. 
 
 Tiilly, on Caesar (q. v.), 298. (See 
 
 Cicero.) 
 Turkev, benighted, 78. 
 Tyrants, short breath of, 232. 
 
 TTLYSSES. allusion to, 150. 
 ^ Uncdusciousness, of piety, 201. 
 
 Understanding: revealing tiuth, 46; 
 part of mind, 194. (See Reasun.) 
 
 Unitarians : belief in divine oneness, 
 169 ; what they would expect of 
 Jesus to-day, 2*61 ; Idea of Chris- 
 tianity, 293 ; views of Jesus, 306 ; 
 disputes, 315 ; all not, 317 ; views 
 of Bible, 329; liberty, 383. (See 
 Liberal, Trinity.) 
 
 United States : a general blessing 
 craved, 125; favoritism, 120; love 
 of right, 197; Channing's influence, 
 371, 380. (See America, New 
 En(jland.) 
 
 Unitv: divine name, 59; of world, 
 162. (See God, Trinity.) 
 
 Universality, of religious ideas, 14-19. 
 
 Universal, the, in logic, 195, 197. 
 
 Universe: divine qualities so named, 
 64 ; no mind, 70; different from God, 
 86, 87; two parts, 90; instructing 
 God, 93, 94; secure in God, 95; un- 
 failing purpose, 103 ; a scripture, 
 107 ; conduct of, 112 ; both parts 
 adapted to the divine purpose, 117; 
 the actor and tools, 120 ; mechan- 
 ism, 120, 121; a theatre, 120, 122; 
 laws and parts, 129; balance, 137; 
 atomic, 1-39 ; a sponge, 140 ; long 
 moral arc, 151; forces used b}- man, 
 224; godless, 240. (See Speculative, 
 World.) 
 
 Urns, canonized, 314. 
 
 Utility, one wing of matter, 109. 
 
 YARIABILITY, keeping the bal- 
 ance, 137. 
 Variation, in nature, 139. 
 Vedas : inspired, 52 ; human, 331. 
 
 (See Shasters.) 
 Vegetables : mode of divine life. 240 ; 
 
 more than matter, 241. (See Trees.) 
 Vegetation, law of, 139. (See Plants.) 
 Venice, church in, 253. 
 Venus, called a demon, GO. 
 Vermont, pastures in, 40!i. 
 Vestiges of Creation, pantheistic book, 
 
 87. 
 Vices, and future (q. v.) life, 358. 
 Virtue, identical in God and man, 46, 
 
 47. 
 Virtues: Christian, 316; rewarded in 
 
 heaven, 308. 
 
 30 
 
466 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Vishnu, and Jesus, 281. (See Hindoo, 
 
 India.) 
 Vitality, law of, 139. 
 Voice, an illustration, 84. 
 Voltaire, not so very dangerous, 35. 
 
 TI^AE, Channing's views, 376. 
 ' ' Ware, Henry : consoling words, 
 182; liberal views, old age, 385. 
 
 Washington, George : his heart-monu- 
 ment, 154; infiuence compared with 
 Channing's, 372. 
 
 Waste, none in nature, 257. 
 
 Watch, work on one part of a, 179, 180. 
 
 Water : miracle of a drop, 92 ; of life, 
 180, 181; force, 224. (See Mevri- 
 mac, River, Sta.) 
 
 Waterloo, the lield of, 425. 
 
 Watertown, Mass., A-iew, 397. 
 
 Watts, Isaac, gems, 182. 
 
 Wealth, privileged, 159. 
 
 Weeds, beauty of, 413. (See Flowers, 
 Plants.) 
 
 Welltodo Family, a countrv trip, 401- 
 416. 
 
 Western States: wild justice, 149; 
 flour, 402. 
 
 West Indies, emancipation in, 394. 
 
 Westminster Catechism, a hindrance, 
 183. 
 
 Wheat, and truth, 171. (See Missis- 
 sippi.) 
 
 Whimsey, God considered a, 61, 73. 
 
 White, Blanco, sonnet to Niglit, 367. 
 
 White Sunday, around the globe, 424. 
 
 Whittier, Jolin Greenleaf, tribute to, 
 182, 183. 
 
 Widow's Mite : allusion, 282 ; in na- 
 ture, 422. (See Parables.) 
 
 Wife : found in church, 218: of drunk- 
 ard, 220, 222 ; disappoiiited, 222 ; 
 a strength, 223. (See Marriruje.) 
 
 Will: a factor of character (q. v.), 
 164; human and divine, 216. 
 
 Wind, composition of, 403, 411. (See 
 Air.) 
 
 Windows, morning, 342. 
 
 Winter: description, 2-i8, 249; hard, 
 425. (See Seasons, Spriny.) 
 
 Wolf: reform compared to, 172; com- 
 pared to sin, 360. 
 
 Woman, elevation of, 172. (See Wife.) 
 
 Worcester, Mass., 385, 415. 
 
 Word of God: purity questioned, 40; 
 in Jesus, 319; lived, 323; not to be 
 contained in a book, 336; in man, 
 337; in conscience, 341. (See Bible.) 
 
 Words : permanent, 290-292; hre, 284; 
 of Jesus (q. v.) and ourselves, 293; 
 lasting, 318. 
 
 Wordsworth, William : his gems, 182; 
 helpful words, 254. 
 
 Word, the : access to us, 310 ; before 
 Abraham, 315; duty of belief, 330. 
 
 World : older than Bible (q. v.), 107; 
 not godless, 203; God ihe condition 
 of, 236; "becoming," 239; end of, 
 believed by Jesus, 278; dumb with- 
 out Christianity, 291; literature its 
 confession, 359 ; growing more won- 
 drous, 367; age, 421 ; man a, 428; 
 old and young, 430. (See Universe.) 
 
 Worm: turning, 160; fed, 429. 
 
 Worship : its phenomena, 4, 5 ; bloody 
 rites (q. v.), 23 ; often wasted, 33, 34; 
 placed before conscience, 138 ; pop- 
 ularly enjoined, 168; of man or 
 God,' 277; best part of service, 334; 
 for God alone, 342. (See Ceremonies, 
 Prayer.) 
 
 Wren, order and freedom, 99. (See 
 Birds.) 
 
 "V ENOPHON, works of, 328. 
 
 ■yOUTH: its hopes and lessons, 192, 
 
 ^ 193 ; daily martyrdom, 220 ; sure 
 
 to suffer, 234; o"f Jesus, 274. 
 
 VALEUCUS, inspiration of, 52. 
 ^ Zeal, for money and religion, 190. 
 Zeus, lower than Jesus, 277, 278. 
 Zion, streets of, 271. 
 Zoroaster: inspiration, 52; a blessing, 
 430. (See Persia.) 
 
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