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FORMATION 
 
 OF 
 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 TWELVE LECTURES 
 
 Delivered m the First Presbyterian 
 Church, NewOrleans, La., 
 
 BY 
 
 B. M. PALMER, Pastor. 
 
 E. S. UPTON, 
 
 Religious Book Depository, 
 NEW ORLEANS. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 
 1889, by 
 
 E. S. UPTON, 
 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Wash- 
 ington. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Youth, the Formative Period _ 7 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 Elements Which Enter into Character 25 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 Influence of Piety in Forming Character 45 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Obligation Arising From a Pious Ancestry 63 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 Obligation Arising From the Trusts of Life.. 81 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 Obstacles to Piety in the Young 95 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Choice of Amusements _ 1 13 
 
IV. CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 Sin of Profane Swearing .133 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 Sin of Sabbath- Breaking.. 149 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 Intemperance and Sins of the Flesh. 167 
 
 LECTURE XI. 
 
 The Sin of Gambling 183 
 
 LECTURE XT I. 
 The Scriptures, Our Rule -.203 
 
 
NOTE TO THE READER. 
 
 These Lectures were delivered in response to a 
 request signed by twenty-five of the young men of 
 the Author's church. In a brief space of time a 
 stenographic report of the same was placed in his 
 hands, with request for revision, in order to publica- 
 tion. The whole movement was a complete surprise; 
 and without stopping to inquire whether they are 
 intrinsically worthy of being embalmed in print, they 
 are herewith surrendered as a testimony of affection 
 for a class of persons whom every Pastor desires to 
 bring into the fold of Christ. With far greater depth 
 and tenderness of feeling than when first uttered with 
 the living voice, they ?re now reproduced in perma- 
 nent form ; that those specially addressed "may be 
 able after his decease to have these things always in 
 remembrance." The Author. 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 13, line 20, read "years" for " youth." 
 Page 15, line 10, read "remain" for " remains." 
 Page 27, line 26, read "crisis" for "crises." 
 Page 108, line 12, read "restraints" for "restrains." 
 Page 114, line 27, read "matron " for "maiden." 
 Page 137, line 25, read "of" for "or." 
 Page 184, line 2, read "providence" for "province." 
 Page 196, line 7, and page 197, line 17, read " covet- 
 ousness" for " covetuousness." 
 
LECTURE I. 
 YOUTH, THE FORMATIVE PERIOD. 
 
 Ecclesiastes xii. I — " Remember now thy Creator in 
 
 the days of thy youth ; while the evil days come not, nor the 
 years draw nigh, when thoti shall say, I have no pleasure 
 in them.' 1 '' 
 
 A few weeks since a communication was 
 addressed to me, signed by twenty-five 
 names of young men of this congregation, 
 asking, if in accordance with my own views, 
 for a course of Lectures to be delivered 
 specially to them ; and I am particularly 
 gratified to find so many of this class sitting 
 before me to-night. In responding to this 
 call, I simply represent the deep interest 
 felt by the Church and the world in those 
 who are soon to be the chief actors in life, 
 and by whom history is to be made. 
 
 It is an interest due to a variety of 
 causes. Before all others, is the beauty 
 of youth ; not intrinsically greater than at- 
 taches to other periods of life, but vastly 
 more fascinating. Like the natural seasons, 
 all ages possess their peculiar charm. 
 First, Winter comes with his hoar-frost 
 
8 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 and snow, hanging up everywhere his 
 icicles like resplendent diamonds shining 
 in the sun ; and it is as though a magician 
 had touched the earth with his wand, and 
 turned it into a palace of crystal splendors. 
 Next, Spring comes with its regenerating 
 life, opening the bud upon tree and flower, 
 waking the birds to their forgotten song, 
 and clothing the earth again with her 
 virgin charms. Then Summer with her 
 golden fruits, the serials hanging their 
 heads as if in the obeisance of worship, and 
 the wind whistling softly through the corn 
 the joy of the husbandman, until the earth 
 laughs in the abundance of her stores. 
 Finally, Autumn browns the fields, and 
 with artistic skill touches the forests with 
 the colors of the rainbow. As the shifting 
 panorama passes before our view, and we 
 gaze upon Nature's changing splendor, we 
 cannot but exclaim : ' ' God hath made 
 everything beautiful in His time ! " 
 
 Just so it is with the great sections of 
 human life. What moonlight serenity 
 crowns a godly old age, which through 
 blistering days has toiled for God and the 
 race ; and now with its work finished, sits 
 with folded arms upon the edge of the cold 
 river, waiting the summons beckoning it to 
 "the shining shore "? Or, what is there 
 
YOUTH, THE FORMATIVE PERIOD. 9 
 
 of moral grandeur equal to the massive 
 strength which you find in middle life ; 
 when virtuous men, like great cliffs front- 
 ing the roaring sea, in the robustness of 
 their vigor bear up under responsibilities 
 which might seem to crush an angel ? But 
 youthful beauty has a glow upon its 
 cheek, which fastens upon the imagination ; 
 not simply for the promise which may be in 
 it, but for the traits which are peculiarly its 
 own. Who does not admire its freshness 
 of feeling, before it has been cankered by 
 disappointment and care, resting upon it 
 like the dew of an Autumnal morning ? 
 Who does not rejoice in the frankness and 
 confidingness of youth responding gene- 
 rously to every overture of kindness, open- 
 ing the door of its heart to every challenge 
 of love, and pouring out its own affections 
 without the stint of measurement ? When 
 these characteristics are brought together 
 in their frequent assemblage, it is not 
 strange that the old sometimes bow before 
 the young in the homage of a true rever- 
 ence. 
 
 This brings me to the melancholy inter- 
 est felt in the young which you, in the dawn 
 of life, cannot possibly understand ; nor shall 
 ever appreciate, until you shall occupy our 
 positions and look back upon the sufferings 
 
IO FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 of the past. Life is to many clouded with 
 ill-success and failure, even to the end. 
 Seeking to escape from this gloom, men go 
 back in memory to the dreamland of their 
 youth ; and gaze upon those early pictures 
 which Hope, with her delicate pencil, 
 threw upon the canvas, and which now 
 only mock them with their deceitful witch- 
 ery. As an author revises his book in the 
 light of the criticisms upon it, bringing it 
 out in greater perfection than at first ; so 
 the vain wish springs up in the heart, that 
 it were possible to commence at the begin- 
 ning and to put out a second and improved 
 edition of one's life. This may not be 
 allowed ; we make but one journey through 
 time, and it must close with whatever of 
 success or failure may have attended it. 
 Young men, it is with an unspeakable 
 pathos those who are departing from life 
 with a broken heart turn their gaze upon 
 you who are springing up around them, 
 and seek with plaintive advice to guard you 
 from the mistakes which have made their 
 career a sad miscarriage. The tremor of a 
 tear is felt in every voice which speaks 
 from a disappointed life. 
 
 Beyond all this, solicitude must be felt 
 for the young, who are always the hope of 
 the Church and the world. I have, per- 
 
YOUTH, THE FORMATIVE PERIOD. I I 
 
 haps, flattered you in painting the loveli- 
 ness of your early morning hour ; let me 
 put beside it, in the glare of contrast, the 
 strength of your coming noon. Soldiers 
 tell us of "the joy of battle" when the 
 preliminary fear has vanished in the first 
 clash of arms. Even so, there is a proud 
 enthusiasm in bearing the responsibilities 
 of an honorable career ; felt most when 
 duty presses heaviest, and in conscious 
 weakness we reel beneath the burden ; 
 then it is that weakness becomes strength, 
 and the hero asks to live until his task is 
 finished. Some of these are ungirding 
 themselves of solemn trusts with which 
 they were charged ; others are still in the 
 sweat and dust of the arena ; but all look 
 behind them to see if the race that is coming 
 after, is a royal race — stalwart champions 
 for the true and the right — who with faces 
 as a flint, like those iron beaks which cut 
 their way through the ice of the Northern 
 rivers, make opposition itself tributary to 
 brilliant achievements. A strong man is 
 willing to die, if he leaves a son equal to 
 himself. But if that son be a man of 
 brighter nature, of larger culture, of nobler 
 aspirations, he will rejoice to divest himself 
 of his own honors, and cast them as a priestly 
 robe upon him who bears his name and 
 office. 
 
12 FORMATION. OF CHARACTER. 
 
 Such, my young friends, are the grounds 
 of that almost paternal affection universally 
 felt for those who are just buckling on the 
 armor of duty. We cannot look upon the 
 flush of hope which brightens your cheek, 
 without a prayer for your welfare ; that 
 Heaven may guide you by a staighter 
 path than ours, freer from difficulties, 
 and leading to nobler rewards. In the re- 
 mainder of this introductory Lecture, I 
 will simply impress upon you the import- 
 ance OF THIS FORMING PERIOD OF YOUR 
 EARTHLY CAREER. 
 
 I. Consider, then, that it embraces not less 
 than oiie-tliird of all the years allotted to man 
 upon earth, Common-places upon the 
 shortness of life make but feeble impres- 
 sion ; but here is a concrete illustration 
 which takes hold of the conscience and the 
 heart — one-third of life spent in simply 
 getting ready to live. Linger over the 
 fact, until its portentous import has sub- 
 dued you with its shadow — that death has 
 advanced one-third of the way, at the very 
 moment when almost in mockery you are 
 whispering to yourself, "Now I am going 
 to begin life;" yes, beginning life when the 
 candle has already burnt down one-third to 
 the socket ! The arrangement is not arbi- 
 trary, that you must ascend by these twenty 
 
YOUTH, THE FORMATIVE PERIOD. I 3 
 
 steps to incipient manhood ; reaching then 
 only the first landing-place — with five steps 
 more, exceedingly narrow and steep, before 
 you are honored with the trusts of which 
 death alone can disrobe you. Nature her- 
 self marks off this period of human growth, 
 by her law of corporeal and intellectual 
 maturity. The few instances of precocious 
 development are but feeble exceptions to 
 the rule. Even the differences in climate, 
 which may lengthen or abridge the period 
 of growth, equally determine the period of 
 decay ; so that over the globe the same 
 proportion is preserved between the parts 
 of human life. 
 
 Taking up the thought in this practical 
 form, let us observe further into how small 
 a portion of the whole our real and effective 
 life on earth is condensed. " The days of 
 our youth are threescore years and ten," 
 saith the Scripture ; but how soon the noon 
 of our life is fled, when the energies flag 
 and shrink from new enterprises ? And 
 worse than both, how soon the sense of 
 isolation creeps upon us ? Those who had 
 walked with us by the way in the various 
 relationships of society, have somehow 
 dropped through the broken planks of the 
 bridge into the seething waters beneath ; 
 and in the time of our age we find ourselves 
 
14 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 more alone than when we nestled with 
 brothers and sisters in the parental home. 
 The picture may seem to you too deeply 
 shaded, possibly sending a shiver through 
 your frame ; yet I ask you to look at it 
 with the solemnity that it deserves — this 
 division of life into its thirds : the first 
 third spent in learning how to live ; the 
 last third in learning how to die ; and the 
 intervening space, protracted perhaps be- 
 yond the limit of either extreme, into whose 
 narrow compass all that is our efficient life 
 is actually compressed. 
 
 I have said that Nature's decree assign- 
 ing so long a period for human growth, is not 
 arbitrary ; let it rather be proclaimed as the 
 arrangement of a most wise and gracious 
 Providence. Man is altogether too precious 
 a thing to grow up as a weed. The pro- 
 phet's gourd which grew in a night, perished 
 in a night ; but man was made to endure. 
 Within his mortal frame God has imprisoned 
 an immortal spirit ; and the life of this is 
 measured, as the hands move upon the 
 face of that clock which hangs upon the 
 walls of Eternity. It is for this we take so 
 long to grow ; and if it should seem to you 
 that one-third of mortal life is too much to 
 spend in just preparing to live, remember 
 that time has no measure but Eternity ; 
 
YOUTH, THE FORMATIVE PERIOD. I 5 
 
 and that only in its disciplinary and educa- 
 tional relation to this, has it any signifi- 
 cance at all. Twenty years is not too long 
 to form habits which are to be to us a 
 second nature ; or to establish principles 
 which are to be the law of our activity for- 
 ever ; or to mould a character which, by 
 its own development, shall crystallize into 
 a form of beauty to' endure while the 
 heavens remains. How it contradicts the- 
 logic both of reason and of conscience to 
 misappropriate, in idleness or folly, any 
 portion of youth so necessary to the after- 
 life ; and which, when gone, leaves a record 
 we must surely face at the judgment- 
 bar ! 
 
 II. Consider that, within tins period, a 
 character of some sort must be formed. It 
 is not submitted to our discretion whether 
 this shall or shall not be. We may use or 
 we may waste our opportunities, the pro- 
 cess of development goes on just the same. 
 No protest of the reason, or of the will, can 
 arrest the operation of the law which de- 
 fines the conditions under which character 
 must shoot up into its perfect crystal. 
 There can be no greater fallacy than to 
 suppose anything negative in its influence 
 upon the young. At no time in our 
 
1 6 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 earthly history do our acts stand apart 
 from the dispositions from which they 
 spring ; least of all is this possible during 
 youth, the first stage of that continuous 
 education where everything enters into the 
 substance of our being. Every sight, every 
 sound, every thought, every deed, goes 
 right into character ; everything is positive, 
 nothing negative in the discipline of life. 
 Through every moment of wakeful time, 
 character is building by accretions infinitely 
 more minute than those by which the coral 
 insects build up the islands of the sea. 
 Just as the plant absorbs color from the 
 light, drinks through its leaves the moisture 
 of the air, or draws up by its delicate fibres 
 the fatness of the soil, so in youth we ab- 
 sorb the influences around us which grow 
 into the entire frame of our future 
 being. 
 
 Let it be remembered, too, that char- 
 acter, thus formed, abides with us an 
 enduring possession. During this mortal 
 state it may be modified, both for good 
 and evil ; it may be improved ; it may 
 deteriorate ; in a religious aspect, it may 
 even be transformed. Yet, even in the 
 sphere of grace, the natural traits, upon 
 which all individuality is grounded, will 
 come to the surface — only in the Christian, 
 
YOUTH, THE FORMATIVE PERIOD. \J 
 
 redeemed, controlled, beautified by Divine 
 love. The fact in this connection pressing 
 most upon my young friends to-night, is 
 that the basis of this lasting structure is 
 laid in our early years. The adage that 
 " the boy is father of the man," is illus- 
 trated by a thousand examples. The chil- 
 dren of genius almost universally manifest 
 in childhood the tastes by which they are 
 distinguished in their prime. When we 
 pass from a state of trial to one of recom- 
 pense, even death, which does not arrest 
 the continuity of our being, makes no sub- 
 stantive change m that character upon 
 which the final judgment has stamped the 
 seal of destiny. Under this view, how un- 
 speakably important this period of youth ; 
 when life is running into its mould not only 
 for the future that is near, but for that in 
 the great hereafter ! It has been truly 
 said : 
 
 " Sow an act and you reap a habit ; 
 Sow a habit and you reap a character ; 
 Sow a character and you reap a destiny." 
 
 III. In youth the appetites and passions 
 come to the front, and are most difficult of 
 control. It is then the conflict opens be- 
 tween the animal and spiritual elements of 
 our nature ; and it is largely determined 
 which of the two shall obtain the ascend- 
 
1 8 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 ency for life. The peril is far from being 
 slight. First of all, there is a superb en- 
 joyment in the earliest exercise of one's 
 own will, free from the authority which 
 has hitherto constrained it. How easily 
 this runs into wilfulness, in the impatient 
 assertion of its own independence ! Like 
 the " wild ass which snuffeth up the wind 
 at his pleasure," the lawless youth swings 
 loose from all restraint, and solicits the 
 temptation under which it is his doom to 
 succumb. Moreover, the pleasures of 
 sense are the more enticing from their 
 novelty and freshness ; appealing to the 
 imagination, which throws around them a 
 veil of illusion effectually concealing "the 
 dead men's bones and all uncleanness " 
 lying within. The fatal poison is already 
 introduced into the blood, with its raving 
 delirium, before the unhappy victim is 
 aroused to the first suspicion of danger. 
 Add to all this that the wisdom, which is 
 to be man's guide through life, has not 
 fully gained her seat of empire in the soul ; 
 nor has experience taught her to put the 
 curb upon these fiery appetites, through 
 anticipation of that eternal remorse, the 
 sure avenger of dissipation and vice. 
 
 If, then, in this forming period of life 
 our passions and appetites are at the strong- 
 
YOUTH, THE FORMATIVE PERIOD. 1 9 
 
 est, and our experience and knowledge are 
 at the weakest, how important is the shield 
 of parental control which guards us through 
 the long years of immaturity and growth ; 
 and how necessary it is that we should not 
 be surrendered to our own discretion, until 
 principles shall be acquired which shall 
 keep us from being swept away by the 
 temptations of life and buried in the abyss 
 beneath ! 
 
 IV. Finally. tJie probationary period of 
 youth is immediately followed by the weaving 
 of new ties, and by the assumption of solemn 
 and irremissible trusts. Nothing strikes the 
 middle-aged with more astonishment than 
 the recklessness with which the most sacred 
 and enduring ties are formed under the 
 influence of mere caprice or fancy. Young 
 men and young women are brought to- 
 gether in marriage and impose upon them- 
 selves obligations which only death can 
 dissolve, under the impulse of mere taste. 
 Without bringing the choice before the 
 judgment or passing it under the decision 
 of conscience, they weave ties which after- 
 wards bind them like iron bands to the 
 stone wall of a prison cell. It is useless 
 to declaim against this folly. Wisdom 
 lifts up her voice of solemn warning in 
 
20 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 vain ; simply because the young are swept 
 into these domestic and friendly alliances 
 through the intoxication of a delighted 
 imagination, whose spell cannot be broken. 
 The only protection is to bring this taste 
 itself under the dominion of principle, of 
 principle as taught in God's holy word — 
 laying hold upon the conscience and sway- 
 ing the affections to all that is beautiful 
 and good. Thus an educated taste will be 
 lifted above the danger of mere caprice ; 
 and through its very instinct will make the 
 choice which is reasonable and safe. 
 
 Equally so, my young friends, with the 
 trusts to be hereafter assumed in life. No 
 man can foretell what these may be. We 
 approach them so gradually, that we are 
 upon them before we have taken their 
 measure. What we term the accidents of 
 life drift us into new positions, and we find 
 ourselves in this eddy or in that. There 
 we are in the centre of the constant whirl, 
 from which there is no outlet ; and there 
 society drops down upon us the responsi- 
 bilities which are to be borne until we sleep 
 in death. I do not know that I say any- 
 thing strange, that men are continually 
 thrust into prominence as the leaders of 
 others, who are themselves astonished at 
 their own position. Not infrequently they 
 
YOUTH, THE FORMATIVE PERIOD. 2 1 
 
 start back with apprehension and fear, 
 thoroughly distrustful of their ability to 
 meet the expectations which nothing in 
 their conscious experience appears to jus- 
 tify. What, now, is the only protection 
 from disgraceful failure? It is that sound 
 preparation made beforehand, in the acqui- 
 sition of a solid character and the adoption 
 of principles capable of bearing the strain 
 hereafter to be put upon them. With a 
 good basis securely laid, the immediate 
 preparation is soon made which will place 
 any man abreast of life. I have a deep 
 conviction — which you may take for what 
 it is worth — that he who deals honestly 
 with himself, with the world, and with 
 God, will never be found unequal to any 
 responsibility fairly laid upon him through 
 the agency of others. These sacred trusts 
 fall upon us from the God of Providence, 
 and they mark out our appointed path of 
 duty. In the acceptance of them we may, 
 in all humility and faith, rest upon the 
 Divine promise, ' ' as thy day is, so shall 
 thy strength be." 
 
 In bringing these thoughts to a close, 
 permit me to add that the young men of 
 this generation, and of those which are to 
 follow, enter upon life under increasingly 
 severe requisitions. The whole past of 
 
22 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 history has been but a preparation for the 
 present and future, with their momentous 
 issues. You recall the energetic appeal 
 which flashed like fire from the soul of 
 Napoleon to his soldiers in Egypt ; when, 
 pointing to the Pyramids, he said : " From 
 the top of those Pyramids the centuries 
 look down upon you ; " even so the young 
 men of to-day are ' ' encompassed by a 
 great cloud of witnesses " looking out from 
 the historic past, and by a vast array of 
 living witnesses breathless with anxiety to 
 see how you are arming for the contests 
 of the future! That future is pregnant 
 with most stupendous events. Knowledge 
 is throwing her electric light to illuminate 
 the path to be trodden. Nature is yielding 
 forces stored within her womb to drive the 
 world forward with accelerating speed. 
 Are we rushing near to the great catas- 
 trophe, when the final plunge will be made 
 into the darkness that is beyond ? All 
 signs go to show that the battles of the 
 future are to be the battles worthy of the 
 end, when " the moon shall be turned into 
 blood and the great and notable day of the 
 Lord shall come." In any event, it is not 
 the war of the pigmies, but of the giants, 
 to which you are summoned. Let your 
 armor be tried armor, of steel tempered in 
 
YOUTH,. THE FORMATIVE PERIOD. 23 
 
 the fire, that can turn the point of every 
 lance hurled against it. See well to it that, 
 as the bud opens into the flower, your youth 
 of preparation will bloom into brilliant and 
 successful manhood. 
 
 4^©5^ 
 
LECTURE II. 
 ELEMENTS OF CHARACTER. 
 
 Judges viii. 21 — "For as the man is, so is his 
 strength." 
 
 This pithy aphorism is found imbedded 
 within a parenthesis in the history of 
 Gideon, the Hebrew judge. After defeat- 
 ing the Midianitish armies in successive 
 battles, he at length obtained possession 
 of their two kings, Zebah and Zalmunna. 
 Referring to one of the atrocities com- 
 mitted during their seven years' oppres- 
 sion of Israel, he addresses the searching 
 question, ' 4 what manner of men were they 
 whom ye slew at Tabor ?" The reply was, 
 ' ' As thou art, so were they ; each one 
 resembled the children of a king." Then 
 said Gideon, "They were my brethren, 
 even the sons of my mother ; as the Lord 
 liveth, if ye had saved them alive, I would 
 not slay you." The command was then 
 given to Jether, Gideon's first-born, as the 
 avenger of blood, "up and slay them." 
 When the stripling drew back from the 
 
26 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 tragic office, through the timidity of youth, 
 Zebah and Zalmunna, with the chivalry 
 characteristic of the warrior, prayed to fall 
 by the hand of an equal. They said to 
 Gideon, " Rise thou and fall upon us ; for 
 as the man is, so is his strength." I ap- 
 propriate these words as singularly ex- 
 pressing the topic of this evening's discus- 
 sion. 
 
 It is true in the moral as in the physical 
 sphere, that the man himself is the measure 
 of his strength ; we know what he can do, 
 when we know what he is. I had occasion 
 in the last Lecture to dwell upon the im- 
 portance of youth, as the period in which 
 character is mainly formed ; for however it 
 be modified in after years, either improving 
 or deteriorating, it will retain the cast of 
 features acquired in the earlier time. But 
 now the question recurs, what do we mean 
 by character ? The word is sufficiently in- 
 definite ; yet it always implies something, 
 when applied to our fellow-men. How 
 shall we define it ? In tracing its etymol- 
 ogy, we find it to be a Greek word bodily 
 transferred to our own language. In its 
 original verbal form it signifies to cut or 
 to engrave, as with a graving tool upon a 
 seal ; then, by an easy transition, the term 
 comes to signify whatever is thus cut or 
 
ELEMENTS OF CHARACTER. 2*] 
 
 engraved upon that seal — the motto or 
 sentiment which has been carved upon its 
 surface. Thus we have characters of va- 
 rious kinds and designs. The letters of 
 the alphabet are characters invented as ex- 
 pressive of particular sounds, indicating 
 their power in framing words and sentences. 
 The numerals which are used in arithmetic, 
 the symbols which are employed in algebra, 
 the devices sometimes carved upon shields, 
 the emblems blazoned upon banners to 
 arouse the patriotism of a people — these 
 exemplify, without further enumeration, 
 the different uses in which the word char- 
 acter is popularly used. But when the 
 term is transferred to man, or to moral 
 beings of any grade, it may, perhaps, be 
 best described as that assemblage of quali- 
 ties which impart distinctness and indi- 
 viduality to each — as is vividly expressed 
 in the familiar quotation from England's 
 great dramatist : 
 
 " A combination, and a form, indeed, 
 Where every god did seem to set his seal, 
 To give the world assurance of a man." 
 
 The point, however, to be emphasized 
 here is, that character is something to be 
 acquired. It must rest upon a basis deeper 
 than itself, must strike its roots into what 
 
25 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 we are accustomed to call " nature ; " pre- 
 cisely as the properties of matter inhere in 
 an unknown substance of which they are 
 the expression and the sign. Every plant 
 has a virtue secreted within its very life, 
 which determines its development in leaf, 
 bud, flower and fruit. Every animal has 
 its fundamental quality giving complexion 
 to all its actions, and distinguishing it from 
 every other — the lion, as the beast of 
 prey ; the lamb, as the symbol of innocent 
 meekness. So man, created in the image 
 of God, in knowledge, righteousness and 
 holiness, possessed a nature whose whole 
 bias was toward God in obedience of His 
 will and worship of His glorious majesty. 
 But in the formation of personal character, 
 these original aptitudes and tendencies 
 must pass from the region of instinctive 
 promptings, and be reproduced and reflec- 
 tively recognized in consciousness. Thus 
 perceived by the reason, approved by the 
 judgment, endorsed by the conscience and 
 adopted by the will, they become regula- 
 tive principles, shaping the life and direct- 
 ing the conduct. Hence, it will be borne 
 in mind, all moral beings of whom we have 
 knowledge — angels and men — were placed 
 upon probation ; that, by the free choice 
 of their own will, original dispositions may 
 
ELEMENTS OF CHARACTER. 29 
 
 crystallize into fixed principles, and thus 
 by voluntary acceptance form personal and 
 permanent character.* The same law ob- 
 tains in the sphere of Grace. The princi- 
 ples of faith and obedience, implanted by 
 the Holy Spirit in the renewed soul, are 
 gifts bestowed from above ; nevertheless, 
 they must be accepted by the believer's 
 free choice as the guiding principles of his 
 life — and thus in the fullest sense be made 
 his own. He is placed to the end of life 
 under a various discipline, subjecting these 
 graces often to an excruciating test ; in 
 order that they may be wrought into the 
 very texture of his being, until he shall 
 grow " unto a perfect man, unto the 
 measure of the stature of the fulness of 
 
 * That accurate and subtle thinker, Dr. Thornwell, 
 in the Tenth of his Theological Lectures ("Collected 
 Writings," vol. i., p. 245), uses the following lan- 
 guage : " Now. at the commencement of a moral 
 career, our upright constitution has not been com- 
 pletely identified with our personality, because it has 
 not, in its tendencies and dispositions, been taken up 
 by our wills and deiiberately chosen and adopted. 
 It is the determination of the will which fixes our 
 natural dispositions as principles. When they are re- 
 viewed by the understanding and deliberately chosen 
 by the will, they then become ours in a nearer and 
 closer sense ; they are reflectively approved, reflec- 
 tively endorsed, and through that energy by which 
 acts generate a habit they become fixed elements of 
 our life." 
 
30 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 Christ." Just here is grounded the in- 
 eradicable sense of responsibility for our 
 acts as the outflow of character. They are 
 distinct expressions of our personal, indi- 
 vidual will ; as the leaf and the fruit deter- 
 mine the nature of the tree. And as the 
 leaves, in their decay, fertilize the soil, 
 restoring fatness to the tree that it may 
 produce more fruit — so these acts which 
 flow from character return into it again, 
 making it stronger either for good or evil. 
 In this we see the solemnity of life as 
 strictly an educational process ; presenting 
 every man at the bar of Christ, fitted by 
 his training for the world of happiness or 
 woe. 
 
 " The mind is its own place, and in itself 
 Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." 
 
 With this brief exposition of what is 
 meant by the word character, we are 
 
 PREPARED TO CONSIDER THE ELEMENTS 
 WHICH ENTER INTO IT AND CONSTITUTE ITS 
 
 strength. Whenever this term is used 
 without a qualifying adjective it is in the 
 way of approval. Thus we say, this or 
 that man is a man of character ; meaning 
 that he is intensely individual, with traits 
 distinctly marked, able therefore to bear 
 his part in life, and to discharge its varied 
 
ELEMENTS OF CHARACTER. 3 I 
 
 responsibilities. What, then, are the con- 
 stituent elements of a strong character ? 
 I will seek to answer this question in six 
 particulars : 
 
 I. Obviously, the first requisite is a clear 
 practical judgment, which estimates every 
 thing in life at its true value. God has 
 placed the eye in front, as the candle of 
 the body ; throwing its light into the far 
 beyond, that man may not walk in dark- 
 ness ; like the headlight in front of an en- 
 gine, throwing its gleam into the deep 
 midnight and opening a pathway into 
 which the train may follow on its iron 
 track. So, by a beautiful analogy, the 
 mind is placed in front of all man's powers, 
 as the directing faculty — looking through 
 and lighting up the perspective of life. 
 The power to weigh all that he sees or 
 hears in equal scales, to form a just judg- 
 ment of what they are intrinsically worth, 
 and then to adjust these values in their 
 relation to each other, will give to him who 
 possesses it a clearness of vision piercing 
 through all the mists that hang around hu- 
 man life, and making it bright as day. 
 Through this practical intelligence we come 
 to have an aim, which is the goal of all 
 our endeavor ; which gleams before us as 
 
32 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 the polar star, such as that guiding the 
 mariner along the paths of the sea. 
 
 Moving in what direction soever, we 
 must ascertain the limit beyond which we 
 may not suffer ourselves to pass. God, 
 for example, has made us capable of enjoy- 
 ment ; He has placed us in a world regaling 
 the senses with every species of delight, 
 and has provided us with spiritual tastes 
 for the more refined pleasures of the mind 
 and heart. Pleasure, therefore, has a value 
 not to be despised by any ; but what are 
 its limits within which it should be re- 
 strained ? Not to recognize and respect 
 these boundaries, is to surrender ourselves 
 as voluptuaries to mere sensual or intel- 
 lectual enjoyment, and to become as frivo- 
 lous as the insect humming in the breeze. 
 So again, my young friends, we are placed 
 under the exactions of business ; as you 
 will find, as soon as you have placed your 
 feet squarely upon the platform of life. 
 Some calling must be pursued, through 
 which we earn our bread, swallowing up 
 our thoughts by day and often invading 
 the hours of rest. But what are the limits 
 within which it shall be severely hedged ? 
 Unless this be known, the fretting cares of 
 work-day toil will eat like a canker into 
 the substance of our beino-, and leave 
 
ELEMENTS OF CHARACTER. 33 
 
 nothing but the shell behind. So, too, 
 honor has its charms. Ambition has been 
 styled " the vice of noble minds," and God 
 has made us to aspire. The prizes held 
 out to noble achievements are the incen- 
 tives to greatness. Yet ambition must be 
 held with a curb ; else it overleaps itself, 
 and falls into a debasing selfishness in 
 which all true nobility of character is en- 
 gulfed forever. These illustrations suffice 
 to show the need of a discriminating judg- 
 ment, which cannot be deceived by aught 
 that is hollow and pretentious on earth. 
 
 Observe, further, that we live in the 
 bosom of so many complex relations, all of 
 which mark out a separate sphere of duty 
 and impose obligations absolutely impera- 
 tive. There is the home, in whose soft 
 nest we were born ; there is the State, 
 laying its iron hand upon us at every step 
 in life ; there is the Church, with her holier 
 duties laid upon every heart ; there is the 
 broad philanthropy, which binds in a 
 blessed brotherhood the whole human 
 race ; and as our vision shall enlarge in the 
 light of "the upper day," there will be a 
 spirit broader than even philanthropy, 
 which, like God's own love, shall take the 
 moral universe in the embrace of our affec- 
 tions. Now, to walk evenly in these varied 
 
34 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 and complex relations, and to adjust the 
 duties belonging to each, requires a clear, 
 practical judgment necessary as the first 
 element of character. One duty is some- 
 times pleaded as the excuse for the neglect 
 of others equally important : it is needless 
 to say that this is always a mark of weak- 
 ness ; for the highest obligation is to adjust 
 these duties, so that they may never clash, 
 and be equally performed with a dignity 
 and grace that does not cringe before any 
 obstacle. We shall be thus self-poised and 
 equal to any emergency that may arise ; 
 like that hanging rock, of which you have 
 read, so evenly balanced upon its own 
 centre of gravity, that, whilst swaying 
 under the finger of a child, it remains un- 
 moved through the storms of all the cen- 
 turies. 
 
 II. The second element of character we 
 must find in the sphere of the will, tenacity 
 of purpose springing from the strength of con- 
 viction. We sometimes complain of the 
 difficulties encountered in the performance 
 of duty, whereas it is from these difficulties 
 a true heroism emerges ; and he is a weak- 
 ling and a coward who quails before the 
 obstacles that oppose his progress. A 
 proper manhood never dawdles in the lap 
 
ELEMENTS OF CHARACTER. 35 
 
 of pleasure, sipping- the honey and wine of 
 sensual indulgence. The heroic quality 
 rejoices in the struggles by which its virtue 
 is approved, and glories in the triumph 
 with which it is finally adorned. Those 
 alone are entitled to lasting fame who can 
 brave solitude, enduring suffering and re- 
 proach for the cause they hold to be just 
 and true. As the slain warrior is laid in 
 his grave on the field of blood, with his 
 martial cloak as his winding-sheet ; so it 
 becomes a true man to go even to his 
 death, shrouded in his personal and in- 
 alienable convictions. For out of these 
 convictions of what is right and lovely and 
 honorable, the courage is born by which 
 the world is conquered. 
 
 Young men, if I read history aright, this 
 tenacity of purpose is the historic quality, 
 which you will allow me to describe by 
 that quaint but expressive Saxon word, 
 toughness. The nation that is tough, is 
 the nation that rules. It was this that 
 made the old Romans the iron race, whose 
 sceptre once sw r ayed the earth. It was this 
 tenacity of purpose that enabled the silent 
 William to w r ork out the liberty of the 
 Netherlands from a. succession of defeats, 
 such as would have smothered any but the 
 noblest of heroes. Force of will is the con- 
 
36 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 stant power that succeeds, whether it be in 
 the world of matter or of mind ; and he who 
 consecrates his life to a noble end, and 
 clings to it with an undivided purpose, will 
 leave behind him a memory crowned with 
 gratitude and praise. 
 
 III. The formation of sound principles, 
 and the habitual command of them, arc both 
 indispensable to those who would play well 
 their part in life. The sentiment of one of 
 the great thinkers of our own time deserves 
 to be written in letters of gold : ' ' The love 
 of truth is honesty of reason, as the love of 
 virtue is honesty of heart." It is an im- 
 mense gain to know the truth, so exquis- 
 itely described by the poet as the 
 
 "Stern daughter of the voice of God ;" 
 
 but it is a divine benediction when this 
 truth is embraced with the virgin love of 
 the heart. The young man who enters 
 upon life with this double "honesty of 
 reason and of heart, " will easily digest the 
 principles which are to be the guide of his 
 conduct. They will enter into the blood 
 and bone of all his thinking, and will be 
 applied in all the exigencies of his career, 
 as safely as the sinews and muscles move 
 the limbs upon which they are strung. 
 This counsel, my young friends, is far from 
 
ELEMENTS OF CHARACTER. 3/ 
 
 being useless. We meet every day with 
 those unhappy incapables, to whom the 
 right of private judgment proves an in- 
 cumbrance rather than a privilege. Swing- 
 ing to and fro in perpetual vacillation and 
 doubt, they can never determine for them- 
 selves what is truth. Such pour forth the 
 pitiful complaint that the Bible is not 
 throughout a Book of Leviticus, a mere 
 record of technical rules meeting every 
 perplexity that arises. But is it not plam 
 that such a system could never answer an 
 educational purpose ? It may do for the 
 period of childhood to be thus held in 
 leading-strings ; but the reason and the 
 conscience need to be in daily exercise, if 
 we are to grow into strong men able ' ' to 
 discern between good and evil." Infinite 
 wisdom has not, therefore, prescribed stiff 
 and arbitrary rules, as the splinters and 
 bandages to bind up a broken will ; but has 
 revealed the great principles of truth and 
 duty, which are to be absorbed into our 
 very substance ; and no small part of our 
 education on earth, is to learn how to 
 apply these in every crises through which 
 we pass. And it will be found that these 
 principles, whilst inflexible in their author- 
 ity, arc elastic enough to fit in with all the 
 perplexities and difficulties of the most 
 troubled career. 
 
38 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 One point further needs to be empha- 
 sized : these principles must not only be 
 distinctly formed, but must always be in 
 hand for immediate use. In war an army 
 must always be ready for action. When 
 the midnight foe is upon them, there is no 
 time for burnishing the armor ; it must be 
 ready for defence, or the battle is lost. So 
 when the world opens its batteries upon 
 the young, and the temptations of life are 
 suddenly sprung on their path, they fail in 
 the struggle of life unless prepared with 
 the weapons to beat back the foe. The 
 men whose principles of action are fully 
 matured, and held in due subordination to 
 each other, are never surprised in any 
 emergency ; and by mere force of character 
 will bend to their own purpose the most 
 obstinate difficulties that oppose. 
 
 IV. The symmetrical development of all 
 the faculties with which we are endowed, is 
 indispensable to a perfect character. Gram- 
 marians tell us of nouns declinable in but 
 a single case, which are termed " monop- 
 totes;" so there are men educated in but a 
 single faculty. It may be the intellect ; 
 one stands before us the very incarnation 
 of logic, but as cold as a polar iceberg ; a 
 pure intelligence, without a pulse of genu- 
 
ELEMENTS OF CHARACTER. 39 
 
 ine emotion, or glow of fancy, to give 
 complexion to his life. It is the combina- 
 tion of all his powers that gives strength 
 and beauty to man. It is the intellect 
 looking out upon truth, the affections em- 
 bracing the good, the conscience discrimi- 
 nating the right, and the will turning all 
 these into concrete acts of the life — it is 
 while passing around the entire circle of 
 all his endowments, that a man stands be- 
 fore his fellows in the perfect symmetry of 
 his nature. We look with delight upon 
 every instance of physical development ; 
 one appears before us six feet high, broad- 
 shouldered, deep-chested, with a noble 
 head crowning the body, erect upon the 
 earth as with the tread of a conqueror, with 
 admirable pose he stands the very picture 
 of manly beauty. But this is only a pic- 
 ture of what is nobler yet ; when, in the 
 proportion of his intellectual and moral 
 gifts, he stands complete in all the attri- 
 butes which make a hero — possessing in 
 the assemblage of his powers a sinewy 
 strength which shall be equal to any enter- 
 prise. 
 
 V. There can be no moral excellence ivith- 
 01a the supremacy of the spiritual ele7nents of 
 our nature over the animal. Man is, indeed, 
 
40 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 a miracle among the creatures, the bridge 
 which connects two worlds. In the pos- 
 session of a soul, he is akin to God ; and 
 in the cultivation of his spiritual nature he 
 rises to his highest dignity, and becomes 
 the peer of angels. When in all the utter- 
 ances and movements of a man can be 
 traced the flashings of an immortal soul, 
 then he is glorified into the image of God 
 who made him. We can but exclaim : 
 
 " What a piece of work is man ! How noble 
 In reason ! how infinite in faculty ! in form, 
 And moving, how express and admirable ! in 
 Action, how like an angel ! in apprehension, 
 How like a god ! the beauty of the world ! the 
 Paragon of animals !" 
 
 Yet with these lofty endowments, he is 
 allied to the beasts of the field, with the 
 same appetites and lusts, with a mortal 
 body destined to return to the earth from 
 which it was taken. In this commixture 
 of opposing elements one cannot but recall 
 the antitheses of the poet Young : 
 
 •' How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, 
 How complicate, how wonderful, is man !" 
 
 In the warfare between these forces of his 
 complex being, man finds the turning point 
 of his earthly and eternal destiny. If he 
 gives the rein to appetite always craving 
 
ELEMENTS OF CHARACTER. 4 I 
 
 for indulgence, he sinks into the pit of 
 debauchery and loses that nobility conferred 
 upon him as lord over the animals beneath 
 him. It is very sad that, when man de- 
 grades himself to the level of the brute, he 
 becomes the meanest animal that lives, a 
 sufficient proof that his true manhood is to 
 be found in " the sanctity of reason " with 
 which he is endowed ; and which being 
 lost, he falls below the guidance even of 
 the instinct of the brute. Character in man, 
 therefore implies the ascendency of the 
 spiritual over the animal propensities of his 
 nature ; without which he forfeits his son- 
 ship as made after the likeness of his 
 Creator. 
 
 VI. The last constituent which I will 
 mention as entering into a tine character, is 
 the pozver of relating ourselves to society and 
 to the great Being who controls our destiny 
 Every man has his place in life, though he 
 does not always succeed in finding it ; then 
 inevitable failure ensues. He who ascer- 
 tains his true position in the generation to 
 which he belongs, finds the duties assigned 
 to him ; and may reverently expect that 
 gracious protection will ensure success in 
 the sphere allotted to him. 
 
 This involves the great principle of self- 
 
42 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 abnegation. True greatness does not con- 
 sist in the building up of self, which on the 
 contrary is always an element of weakness 
 — like the flaw in machinery, which breaks 
 down at length under the strain put upon 
 it. There are not a few who die, as one 
 expresses it, " from an overdose of self." 
 The glory of God's love is seen in the gift 
 of His own Son as "the propitiation for 
 our sins ;" and the most acceptable sacri- 
 fice laid upon any human altar is the 
 supreme gift which one makes of himself, 
 consecrating all his powers to the glory of 
 God and to the welfare of mankind. Those 
 who enter into this holy priesthood will 
 ever draw upon the strength that is Divine, 
 and rise superior to all the trials of this 
 troubled life. 
 
 My young friends, allow me to close this 
 Lecture with this pregnant truth, that 
 character is the condition of success in all 
 our undertakings. Genius, so often lauded 
 to the skies, fails frequently for want of 
 common sense to guide it. The men upon 
 whom society leans for support are those 
 of well-balanced minds, of sound practical 
 judgment, whose solid character gives the 
 pledge of faithfulness to every trust com- 
 mitted to their hands. 
 
 Young men, in the opening of their 
 
ELEMENTS OE CHARACTER. 43 
 
 career, ask the anxious question, "shall I 
 succeed?" I recall the confused fear which 
 filled my breast when I first stepped from 
 the cloister of the student, and was turned 
 loose upon life. It spread itself before me 
 like a tempestuous sea, the waste of waters 
 within the encircling horizon. Would my 
 frail bark be equal to the pre-destined 
 voyage ? Ever since that day I have de- 
 sired to stand in the presence of young 
 adventurers like myself, if only to say just 
 this — that success belongs to those who 
 deserve it ; but success in the sphere which 
 Providence assigns to each. It may not 
 be the career of the eagle, with the strong- 
 wing soaring above the storm into the very 
 eye of the sun ; yet it may be the flight of 
 the lark shaking the morning dew from its 
 wing, and caroling its song in the upper 
 air. But whether the career be that of the 
 eagle or of the lark, it will be the success 
 of him who honestly weighs life and dis- 
 charges its responsibilities. Then as under 
 the discipline of earth the character forms 
 into the perfect crystal, its diamond splen- 
 dor will reflect the Divine glory as it shines 
 upon him through the eternal day. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF PIETY IN FORM- 
 ING CHARACTER. 
 
 Job xvii. 9 — " The righteous shall hold on his way ; 
 and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and 
 stronger.'''' 
 
 In the last Lecture, I was led to insist 
 upon personal character as something 
 acquired, and the elements which enter 
 into it. In this last, I purposely omitted 
 to dwell upon the influence most important 
 of all ; reserving it for consideration at the 
 present time. I propose, then, to set 
 
 BEFORE YOU TO-NIGHT THE INFLUENCE OF 
 PRACTICAL RELIGION IN GIVING CONSISTENCY 
 AND TRUTHFULNESS TO MAN. 
 
 If you were asked to give the definition 
 of a perfect man, you would probably 
 reply, "it is he who can afford to be ex- 
 actly what he seems." Many deny the 
 possibility of this, insisting that life is 
 simply a masquerade. I would not endorse 
 a view so cynical as this. Let us freely 
 acknowledge the generous and noble qual- 
 ities often exhibited- by many who are not 
 brought within the kingdom of Christ ; 
 
46 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 and whilst this may be credited to the in- 
 direct influence of the Gospel, which is its 
 outer halo, still let due honor be paid 
 to the candor and generosity natural to 
 many. It would be captious and illiberal 
 not to allow the many excellent traits 
 possessed by those who are not the subjects 
 of grace. Even with this large admission, 
 however, there are probably none in this 
 world who can entirely take the covering 
 from their hearts, and disclose every secret 
 thought to public inspection. We may 
 perhaps venture, in our approach to God, 
 upon that seemingly over-bold prayer of 
 the Psalmist, "Search me, O God, and 
 know my heart ; try me, and know my 
 thoughts;" for this is only the recognition 
 of His omniscience and forgiving love, but 
 does not justify the same exposure to the 
 gaze of our fellow-men. There is that degree 
 of imperfection in the best of us, that a 
 decent reserve must veil our conflict with 
 the evil within us ; or society would be 
 disjointed by the destruction of confidence 
 between man and man, which is the basis 
 of all human intercourse. Even the holiest 
 cannot describe the corruption of indwell- 
 ing sin, without the use of terms which 
 would debase those who hear the sad nar- 
 ration. In this imperfect state we can only 
 
XI 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF PIETY. 47 
 
 mate the being- what we seem 
 
 appro 
 
 and I wish now to show, that the most 
 determinative influence in imparting truth- 
 fulness and consistency to character is to 
 be found in true religion. After all — 
 
 11 It matters not what men assume to be ; 
 
 Or good, or bad, they are but what they are." 
 
 I. Religion is the only system thai spreads 
 itself over the whole nature of man, in its 
 various departments Let us enter into 
 some detail. First of all, it takes posses- 
 sion of the understanding, relieving both 
 from ignorance and doubt. These unques- 
 tionably are the two principal causes of 
 irregularity in the conduct of life. We 
 begin our career with a limited measure of 
 knowledge, under which we are obliged to 
 act as the only guide we have ; but as we 
 advance in our course, other truths break- 
 in upon us from the right and left, which 
 modify our practice in accordance with the 
 new convictions that have necessarily been 
 formed. In the course of a long life, the 
 charge of inconsistency is sometimes reck- 
 lessly preferred against men ; who cannot es- 
 cape the impeachment, if they would do that 
 which is honest and true. Manifestly, to 
 persist in a course of error lest we should 
 be accused of vacillation, is a shameful 
 
48 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 dereliction of principle, and inflicts a lasting 
 wound upon the character. Ignorance must, 
 therefore, to a greater or less extent, in- 
 volve one in outward inconsistencies which 
 can only be justified on the plea of increas- 
 ing light. Doubt also, to an equal extent, 
 occasions indecision and unsteadiness of 
 life. In the moment confidence in one's 
 own judgment begins to waver, his step 
 becomes more and more hesitating, until 
 finally all progress is arrested. 
 
 Now the Gospel presents itself as a 
 system of positive truth, and controls the 
 intellect of which it takes possession. It 
 does not deal in probabilities, nor in re- 
 mote inferences. Its method of teaching 
 is that of authoritative testimony, all its 
 truths being on the same level. Inscru 
 table mysteries, such as the Trinity, the 
 Incarnation, the New Birth, the Resurrec- 
 tion, are disclosed upon the same authority, 
 are received with the same faith, with the 
 plainest moral precept or the simplest 
 historical fact. Its range of instruction is 
 wider, covering all the relations in which 
 man can possibly stand and all the duties 
 growing out of the same : and what is more 
 wonderful still, there is a congruity between 
 the truths revealed and the nature of the 
 human soul ; by reason of which .they 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF PIETY. 49 
 
 secure an entrance from which it is impos- 
 sible they shall ever be dislodged. So far, 
 then, as the mind is enlightened by it, so 
 far is consistency given to character. 
 
 Turn now from the understanding to the 
 conscience, and see how religion takes hold 
 of that. This is the religious faculty in 
 man, by which he is distinguished from the 
 brute. It is the power within us which 
 responds immediately and necessarily to 
 law ; discriminating between the fight and 
 the wrong, just as the law authoritatively 
 prescribes in what it commands and in 
 what it forbids. To this conscience the 
 Gospel directly appeals ; in its ethical as- 
 pect transcending all human systems in five 
 particulars, thus : (a) it places man in wider 
 relations, and enlarges in every direction 
 the sphere of duty. In due subordination, 
 it presents the relation we sustain to God, 
 to ourselves, to the family, to the commu- 
 nity in which we dwell, to the State, to 
 the Church, to the world ; in each of these 
 concentric circles filling the entire space 
 with the duties appertaining to each. 
 Then, (b) these duties themselves are set 
 forth with far greater precision and clear- 
 ness than under any merely human expo- 
 sition. The mists which hang around 
 philosophic speculations are dispelled by 
 
50 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 the full light of Divine revelation, and he 
 who has the spirit of simple obedience, is 
 never doomed to walk in darkness. Fur- 
 ther, (c) it brings into play higher principles 
 of action than considerations of present in- 
 terest or general expediency ; in place of 
 which it substitutes the fear of God and 
 ready acquiescence in His revealed will. 
 Of course, it follows (d) that it presents an 
 infallible and unchanging standard or rule 
 to which our practice may be referred ; 
 and let it never be forgotten that a perfect 
 standard is needed for the measure of 
 character as well as of conduct. Thus 
 coming directly from God, it has the sanc- 
 tion of imperial law, and binds the con- 
 science with a supreme authority. Finally, 
 (e) the Gospel not only teaches duty, but 
 enables to its performance. It reveals an 
 agency by which the heart is renewed and 
 all its affections turned to what is right and 
 true and proper and good. The con- 
 science, which before trembled under the 
 accusations of the violated law, is now 
 purged from a sense of guilt and renders a 
 willing and joyful obedience to all that is 
 commanded. Man is lifted above the fear 
 of his fellows, moves ever in the eye of 
 the Being whom he loves, only seeking to 
 know what is right, and determining this 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF PIETY. 5 I 
 
 by no suggestions of a fluctuating policy, 
 but by the unerring decisions of a wisdom 
 that is infinite. 
 
 Let it not be urged that man is deprived 
 of freedom, if placed under a supreme law. 
 A little reflection will show r that law is the 
 only ground upon which the liberty of a 
 rational agent can be based ; just as the 
 weight of a bird enables it to float in the 
 air, or the ballast of the ship enables it to 
 plow the waters of the deep. If man were 
 outside law, he would be outside all rela- 
 tions ; and there would be no sphere in 
 which moral agency could be exercised, 
 and consequently it would be idle to speak 
 of will at all, much less of the freedom of 
 its exercise. 
 
 But the Gospel covers the whole nature 
 of man, when it gains full possession of his 
 heart. It is in the affections of the soul 
 the motive power resides, which is the 
 spring of human action. They have been 
 almost poetically likened to the wings of 
 the bird, with which it mounts aloft in the 
 sky ; and to the sails of a ship, by which it 
 is pressed forward on its destined course 
 to a distant port. If a man were without 
 desires, if he were incapable of emotions, 
 he would be equally incapable of action. 
 However his understanding might perceive 
 
5 2 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 truth or his conscience recognize the right, 
 he would be without the disposition to 
 move in this direction or that. For this 
 he is dependent upon the affections of the 
 heart ; by which the will is determined to 
 its choice, resulting finally in the concrete 
 act in which all the antecedent processes 
 are embodied. 
 
 Observe now in this connection the 
 amazing simplicity of God's dealings with 
 man. The whole of human obedience is 
 reduced to the single principle of love : 
 "Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with 
 all thy heart, and thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor as thyself." The two Tables of 
 the Law are covered in one single precept, 
 and our obligations fulfilled in one compre- 
 hensive act of love. We are thus relieved 
 of the wearisome drudgery of a merely 
 mechanical service, and obedience is made 
 the joy of our life. This simplicity marks 
 the Divine procedure in nature, as well as 
 in grace. Innumerable worlds revolve 
 around their respective centres, controlled 
 by that single law of attraction which 
 brings a falling stone to the earth, and 
 which binds the atom to the mass of which 
 it is a constituent part. So it is in Provi- 
 dence. When God placed man in Eden, 
 his probation was reduced to a single issue : 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF PIETY. 53 
 
 whilst the law covered Adam's entire na- 
 ture, yet the temptation was restricted to 
 one point on which alone his destiny turned. 
 It was an act of singular benevolence thus 
 to simplify and render easy the trial upon 
 which the first man was placed, when he 
 was called to guard the one avenue by 
 which alone the Tempter was allowed to 
 enter. The same tender consideration is 
 shown to the sinner in the scheme of grace. 
 When the momentous question is raised, 
 "What must I do to be saved?" the one 
 answer is returned, "Believe on the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved !" 
 The whole matter is reduced to a single and 
 simple issue, that of a personal trust in the 
 Redeemer of men. In like manner God 
 rules His children through the affections of 
 their renewed nature. The value of Chris- 
 tianity is seen in that it is a system of 
 practical religion. As in the household 
 true filial obedience springs only from the 
 heart, so in the family of God no external 
 conformity to the letter constitutes obedi- 
 ence which does not root itself in the prin- 
 ciple of love. Thus, in taking possession 
 of all man's natural powers, religion exerts 
 the most influence in imparting consistency 
 to human character. 
 
54 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 II. TJie Gospel discloses broad and com- 
 prehensive principles, whicJi are to be applied 
 in every case of individual duty This point 
 was alluded to in the preceding lecture, but 
 deserves more articulate consideration just 
 here. We are often tempted to wish that 
 an oracle without, or an unerring instinct 
 within, would guide us whenever the 
 emergencies arise which set our judgment 
 at fault. But if life be a discipline through- 
 out, we need an educational system rather 
 than an arbitrary rubric for the government 
 of our actions. In the changing conditions 
 of our earthly lot, new situations constantly 
 arise -in which duty can only be ascertained 
 by a wise application of principles already 
 adopted. Take, for example, the question 
 of wealth in the case of Christian men. 
 When a hungry world is lifting up its cry 
 for the bread of life, how solemn the ques- 
 tion, " How much wealth is it lawful for a 
 child of God to retain in his own hands?" 
 If wealth be a trust, how is it to be admin- 
 ministered ? Evidently, there are many 
 vitally interested in the solution of this 
 single problem, which can only be resolved 
 by the principles laid down in the sacred 
 Scriptures. 
 
 Take another illustration in the matter 
 of worldly conformity : how far may a pro- 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF PIETY. 5 5 
 
 fessing Christian go with the unconverted 
 in the enjoyment of their pleasures ? 
 Where is the line to be drawn between the 
 pursuits which are lawful, and those in 
 which Christian character would be seri- 
 ously compromised ? The educational value 
 of true piety is clearly exhibited in these 
 two sufficient examples : for as the question 
 of duty is to be determined under the safe 
 application of the same general principles, 
 just to that extent will the conduct pursued 
 become uniform and consistent. 
 
 III. Consider that man has a religions 
 nature; and every training that does net in- 
 clude this is seriously defective. It is this 
 capacity for religion and worship, which 
 discriminates the man from the brute. 
 Man knows the meaning of the word 
 " ought ;" he recognizes the obligation im- 
 posed by authority upon the conscience ; 
 and through, the operation of this faculty 
 he has the sense of guilt in neglecting the 
 same. The brute, on the contrary, knows 
 nothing of moral distinctions, and is there- 
 fore incapable of worship. The character, 
 then, in which the religious element is not 
 found, is sadly defective. The man of 
 science who has searched through Nature's 
 cabinet, wresting from her all her secrets 
 
56 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 and placing them on record — or the phil- 
 osopher who can dive into the depths of 
 human conduct, and explore the motives by 
 which men are actuated in life— let these 
 be simply intellectual, and they have lost 
 that seal of nobility which would be recog- 
 nized by the angels in heaven. Let one's 
 morals be of the purest type, but without 
 any movement of the soul in worship of the 
 Creator, and he is dwarfed in the highest 
 part of his being. The Gospel, then, in 
 cultivating the noblest attributes of man, 
 not only prepares him for the duties of this 
 life, but also develops that which is to be 
 glorified in the eternal world. 
 
 IV. True piety imparts that conscious 
 sincerity so indispensable in a race of beings 
 confessedly imperfect. Ours may be a true 
 love, though it be not the "perfect love 
 that casteth out fear;" and the Christian 
 goes into the presence of his Heavenly 
 Father, covering his face in shame that his 
 adoring worship does not rise to the height 
 of the Divine majesty and glory. Yet it is 
 much if in all sincerity he can say, as did 
 Peter after the denial of his Master, 
 "Lord, thou knowest all things, thou 
 knowest that I love thee." Our obedience 
 to God's will may not be a covering long 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF PIETY. 5/ 
 
 enough or broad enough to give us warmth ; 
 yet, imperfect as it is, it is something to 
 say honestly before God and our fellow- 
 men, "What I profess, 1 am." These 
 acts, therefore, though falling short of our 
 full duty, may yet be offered even to a 
 holy God as evidence of a true devotion to 
 His service. 
 
 What, then, ensures a deeper sincerity 
 than true piety ? When a man becomes a 
 child of God, he is created anew by Divine 
 grace ; and all the love which he feels, to- 
 gether with the obedience which is its 
 fruit, flows directly from the spiritual life 
 begotten within him by the Holy Ghost. 
 The same sincerity will be evinced in all 
 the relative duties between man and man. 
 In the varied relations of life, the child be- 
 fore the parent, the wife before the hus- 
 band, the acts performed are true acts 
 which are not disgraceful, simply because 
 they spring from a true love within the 
 soul. As the new nature expands, in the 
 growth from infancy to "the stature of 
 the fulness of Christ," it presses out the 
 old nature of sin which languishes to its 
 final extinction. You recall, perhaps, the 
 memorable discourse of Dr. Chalmers upon 
 " the expulsive power of a new affection ;" 
 a philosophic way of stating the doctrine 
 
58 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 of sanctification on its positive side. Why, 
 even our gardens cannot be kept clean by 
 simply plucking up the weeds ; the soil 
 must be preoccupied with useful and 
 wholesome plants : so the Holy Ghost, 
 creating us ' ' new creatures in Christ 
 Jesus," fills the soul with a new life which 
 throws sincerity and truth into the very 
 acts which we acknowledge to be wholly 
 imperfect before God and men. Through 
 the force of true piety, a value attaches to 
 actions which otherwise are destitute of 
 merit. 
 
 V. // is no small proof of the moulding 
 power of the Gospel, thai it pi ices its rewards 
 in Heaven — above and beyond the competi- 
 tions of earth. How can it fail to give con- 
 sistency and strength to human character, 
 when faith with its prophetic eye peers 
 through the gloom of the present, and sees 
 beyond the Judgment the rewards laid up 
 for those who love God and keep His com- 
 mandments. Under the influence of this 
 vision the world may reel beneath our feet, 
 or through its successive disappointments 
 fade wholly out of sight ; still the knowl- 
 edge of the joy that is to come will enable 
 us to be patient and enduring under all the 
 trials of our lot. Our plans may ravel out 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF PIETY. $g 
 
 in our hands, and we may feel that nothing 
 has been accomplished of all that we de- 
 sired ; still these sickening failures may be 
 the most precious lessons teaching us to 
 4 ' set our affections on things above where 
 Christ sitteth at the right hand of God." 
 The jeers of our fellow-men may fall upon 
 us bearing our cross, as they fell upon the 
 Master hanging upon His ; yet with Him 
 we may be able to say, ' ' Father, into thy 
 hands we commend our spirit." With 
 hopes and expectations above, we are pre- 
 served from the despondency and gloom 
 which the disappointments of life are so 
 apt to engender ; and our walk becomes 
 steady with the eye fixed upon the star 
 which shines with its cheering light upon 
 our path. In our Lord's ascension into 
 Heaven we have the assurance that the 
 blessings purchased by His blood are borne 
 above as a sacred trust, where the world 
 can never reach them with its temptations, 
 nor Satan assail them, in the fury of his 
 rage. 
 
 It is not a little touching that the last act 
 of our Lord, when leaving the earth, was 
 to bless His people with outstretched 
 hands ; and in the very last look which the 
 disciples had of Him, as the clouds re- 
 ceived Him out of their sight, He was still 
 
60 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 engaged in this act of priestly, benediction : 
 "and he lifted up his hands, and blessed 
 them ; and it came to pass, while he 
 blessed them, he was parted from them, 
 and carried up into Heaven." Through 
 all the ages from that day to this, our High 
 Priest is standing before the throne of His 
 Father with His priestly blessing still drop- 
 ping from His open palm upon His strug- 
 gling Church. With this vision before his 
 eye, how can the believer yield to despair, 
 though seemingly crushed beneath the sor- 
 rows of life ? Thus does the Gospel inspire 
 the soul with hope even in the darkest 
 hour, and consistency is given to character 
 even to the end. 
 
 My young friends, when the claims of 
 personal religion are pressed upon you, I 
 know how prone you are to say, " Not 
 just yet." Your thought is that the old 
 who are sitting upon the edge of the preci- 
 pice, their feet almost touching the waters 
 of the cold river, do well to take out some 
 sort of insurance policy against the risks 
 which are just before them ; nay, it maybe 
 wise for those who are in the fierce battle 
 of life to find repose in leaning upon the 
 bosom of a Saviour. But as for you, in 
 the effervescence of youth, and with the 
 world's attractions spread around you, you 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF PIETY. 6 1 
 
 wish to be let alone for a season until these 
 pleasures shall a little pall upon the taste. 
 Ah ! that you could know the true secret 
 of happiness here on earth. The whole 
 Christian world rises to tell you that there 
 is more joy in the repentance of a sinner, 
 than in those vain pleasures which the wise 
 Solomon compares to ' ' the crackling of 
 thorns under a pot." Not all the frivo- 
 lous enjoyments of earth can one such drop 
 of joy afford as a Christian feels when he is 
 able to weep over forgiven sin. Accept 
 the testimony of the old, who were young 
 once like you. Accept the testimony of 
 him who is now addressing you, who once 
 fought against the convictions of conscience 
 rather than submit to the authority of 
 Christ. Believe me, it is no professional 
 utterance I bear to you to-night. It is not 
 so long ago I held up my hand against 
 God and warred against all the principles 
 of Grace : yet I am here to proclaim to you 
 the testimony of the universal Church, here 
 on earth as well as in heaven, that the 
 secret of true joy is to be found alone in 
 the pardon of sin and in acceptance with 
 God. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 OBLIGATION ARISING FROM A 
 PIOUS ANCESTRY. 
 
 2 Timothy i. 15 — " When I call to remembrance the 
 unfeigned faith that is in thee which dwelt first in thy 
 grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice. ," 
 
 Before entering upon the subject of this 
 evening's Lecture, I desire to present to 
 the young men before me the Apostle 
 Paul as strikingly illustrating all I have 
 said upon the importance of character and 
 upon the elements which enter into it. 
 Intellectually and morally he was of mas- 
 sive proportions ; strong in his convictions, 
 which were not allowed to slumber in his 
 bosom, but were wrought into all the ac- 
 tivities of life ; he stands out like an island 
 rising up from the sea. Even in his earliest 
 career, what an intense Jew he was ! " An 
 Hebrew of the Hebrews ; as touching the 
 law, a Pharisee ; concerning zeal, perse- 
 cuting the Church " — such is the portrait 
 drawn by his own hand of himself. But 
 when by Divine grace he is brought to the 
 
64 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 feet of Jesus, what life-long devotion does 
 he display in " preaching the faith which 
 once he destroyed?" During three years 
 in the solitudes of Arabia studying the 
 symbols of the Old Dispensation, he comes 
 forth from that strange school under the 
 power of one ruling idea : carrying the truth 
 that the Gospel was for all mankind, against 
 the opinions and prejudices of the world, 
 he established the catholicity of Christian- 
 ity. With incredible toil and sacrifice he 
 proclaimed "the fellowship of the mys- 
 tery, which from the beginning of the 
 world had been hid in God, who created 
 all things by Jesus Christ ;" in whom hence- 
 forth "there is neither Jew nor Greek, 
 there is neither bond nor free, there is 
 neither male nor female ; for all are one in 
 Christ Jesus. " Yet what strange gentle- 
 ness nestles in this rugged character ! 
 Throughout these two Pastoral Epistles he 
 breathes the most tender affection to one 
 whom he calls his "son;" and in the 
 verse immediately preceding the text, 
 refers with touching pathos to the tears of 
 Timothy, as he lay upon his bosom at the 
 hour of parting. What a picture is here, 
 as the strong warrior of the Cross takes 
 into his loving arms the young disciple 
 who weeps under the paternal benediction 
 
A PIOUS ANCESTRY. 65 
 
 which falls from those polemic lips ! What 
 a strange combination in the after history 
 between the two : this tender nursling by 
 the side of the rugged athlete, his confi- 
 dential friend and the companion of his 
 travels ; then located at Ephesus, receiving 
 these affectionate letters which shall guide 
 and cheer the young pastor amid the trials 
 of his responsible and difficult field. If we 
 should ever be disposed to regard rugged- 
 ness of character incompatible with the 
 tenderness of love, let the delusion be dis- 
 pelled as you view the gentle Timothy in 
 the embrace of the massive Paul. 
 
 In the text, however, Timothy is pre- 
 sented as standing in the line of a pious 
 descent, from his grandmother Lois, and 
 through his mother Eunice : which prop- 
 erly introduces the topic upon which I de- 
 sire to address you to-night, to- wit : the 
 
 OBLIGATION RESTING UPON THE YOUNG WHO 
 ARE BORN OF A PIOUS ANCESTRY. 
 
 I. Consider, then, tlic greater probability of 
 conversion with those who come of a godly 
 parentage. Of course, you understand that 
 piety is not hereditary : it does not descend 
 with the blood. On the contrary, the 
 Gospel has the same work to do in each 
 Let us suppose that at the 
 
66 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 moment I am speaking, every adult on the 
 globe should be a Christian — and not only 
 every adult, but every child old enough to 
 understand the terms of salvation — bring 
 all these before you as included within the 
 kingdom of Christ, how long would the 
 world stay converted ? Just as soon as 
 this favored generation has passed away 
 and another generation is born, the Gospel 
 is called to the new enterprise of bringing 
 each individual of this also under the influ- 
 ence of saving truth. Let this be pon- 
 dered by those who mock at Christianity, 
 because of its slow progress in converting 
 the nations of the earth. When was such 
 a momentous task ever assigned to an or- 
 ganized society, as we find laid upon the 
 Church of the Redeemer ? All who are 
 born upon earth are born with a depraved 
 nature, needing to be renewed and sancti- 
 fied by the Holy Ghost ; and this work 
 must be performed upon every individual 
 of the countless millions composing each 
 generation successively coming into the 
 world. It is a work constantly renewed, 
 as often as it is performed ; always begin- 
 ning, and never finished until time itself 
 shall cease. Evidently, therefore, piety 
 does not flow in the way of carnal descent : 
 it does not follow that because the father 
 
A PIOUS ANCESTRY. 6"j 
 
 is a Christian, the son shall be the heir of 
 his faith ; nor that the daughter will pos- 
 sess the traits of a godly mother. Yet the 
 grand fact remains, standing out promi- 
 nently in history, that the Church is largely 
 perpetuated through the conversion of 
 those born within her pale. 
 
 This may be partially explained upon 
 the principle that grace sanctifies all the 
 relations and ties of life ; and turns them 
 all into instrumentalities for the salvation of 
 those around us. Every soul brought into 
 the kingdom of Christ, touches a larger or 
 smaller circle of those who are near at 
 hand : and thus the current of influence 
 flows through innumerable channels of 
 tender and affectionate intercourse ; so that 
 few are so remote as not to feel in some 
 degree the power of Divine truth. But 
 the final solution of this problem is unques- 
 tionably to be found in the promise of 
 Jehovah's covenant, "I will be a God to 
 thee and thy seed after thee. " What adds 
 to the preciousness of this promise made 
 to the Church, is that it is a perpetual 
 promise, transferred from generation to 
 generation through succeeding ages. Nay, 
 more : whilst in the administration of His 
 government God ' ' visits the iniquity of 
 the fathers upon the children unto the third 
 
68 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 and fourth generation of them that hate 
 him," He is "the faithful God which 
 keepeth covenant and mercy with them 
 that love him and keep his command- 
 ments, to a thousand generations." His 
 judgments upon the wicked are thus seen 
 tempered with mercy ; but in the outflow 
 of His love, there is no limit to the bles- 
 sings secured in His covenant to His peo- 
 ple. In "the families that call upon His 
 name," there is a special blessing for the 
 children upon whose brow the seal of the 
 kingdom has been impressed ; and upon 
 this gracious principle we understand how 
 it is, that those born of a pious ancestry 
 are so largely led in the way of salvation. 
 You perceive, then, my young friends, 
 how peremptory is the obligation resting 
 upon those of you who issue from Chris- 
 tian homes. As I speak, it may be that 
 the image of a godly father rises before 
 you, or the still more tender remembrance 
 of a dear mother, who have passed from 
 your embrace into the skies above. By 
 the sacredness of those memories I would 
 press upon your conscience and heart the 
 duty of possessing their faith and their 
 hope. By the seal of that covenant, which 
 through them binds you to the service of 
 God, I would adjure you to assume and to 
 
A PIOUS ANCESTRY. 69 
 
 discharge the supreme obligation it im- 
 poses. If perchance you descend from an 
 ancestry which has been godly from genera- 
 tions back, remember that the argument 
 gathers force by the very accumulation of 
 influences from the mother that bore you, 
 and from the grandmother that bore her, 
 and from the ancestors lying further back ; 
 all urging upon you the obligation to serve 
 and to worship the God of your fathers. 
 How can it be, that you shall have grown 
 to manhood and assumed all the other 
 responsibilities of life, without recognizing 
 the higher duties which spring from the 
 privilege of birth under the seal of Jeho- 
 vah's covenant in a Christian home ? 
 
 1 1 . Consider again the benefit derived from 
 the prayers of pious parents and of godly 
 ancestors. We naturally seek to trace the 
 connection between prayer and its answer. 
 It is not satisfactory to find that connection 
 simply in the reflex influence upon the 
 petitioner. Undoubtedly, prayer does pre- 
 pare us to receive the blessings of a kind 
 Providence, but this cannot be its whole 
 design and effect. Whether we understand 
 it or not, when we bend the knee before 
 God in secret, we feel that a real tie exists 
 between the petition offered and the bene- 
 
yO FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 fits afterward bestowed — that somehow in 
 the economy which God has established 
 the prayer is of account before Him, and 
 has a determining agency in securing the 
 blessings we implore. Even in the natural 
 sphere no want is supplied, until it is 
 recognized. Hunger must precede the 
 enjoyment of food ; we are thirsty before 
 we can drink ; and until the eyelids are 
 worn down with fatigue, sleep is a stranger 
 to our couch. The Divine Being seems to 
 have established these conditions upon 
 which earthly blessings are conferred ; and 
 by analog)^ we may expect that our spiritual 
 wants will not be met, until they are felt 
 and are distinctly acknowledged. This 
 thought may be pressed a little further. 
 God is a Sovereign, and moves under the 
 promptings of His own will. " He giveth 
 not account of His matters;" but requires 
 of all intelligent creatures that they shall 
 submit to His authority and acknowledge 
 the supremacy of His will. Whether, 
 therefore, we can explain the mysteries of 
 Providence or not, we are compelled in the 
 dependence of our nature to cast ourselves 
 upon His wisdom and His strength. It is 
 of His own munificence that blessings are 
 bestowed upon men, who have forfeited 
 every claim upon His favor ; and His grace, 
 
A PIOUS ANCESTRY. 7 I 
 
 no less than His Sovereignty, should be 
 acknowledged, and man's responsibility in 
 reference to the same must be brought out 
 in the duty of prayer. A substantive and 
 true connection is thus shown to exist 
 between the prayer and its answer — a true 
 relation between the petitioner on earth and 
 the " Father of lights from whom cometh 
 down every good and perfect gift." 
 
 How many prayers are offered in every 
 pious home, accumulating the obligation 
 which rests upon those brought up in the 
 same ! It is written in the Scriptures that 
 the tears of God's people are put in His 
 bottle, and that ' ' a book of remembrance 
 is written before him for them that 
 fear him and think upon his name." Who 
 can tell how these remembered tears and 
 prayers may prove a shield to many of you, 
 sheltering from dangers and snares of which 
 you little dream ? And what a fearful 
 doom awaits those who will face these 
 unanswered petitions at the judgment-seat ! 
 Oh, young man, lift up that profane foot 
 which perhaps is trampling on a dead 
 mother's supplications ; which, though 
 looked upon with indifference by you, are 
 written in God's book of remembrance as 
 a challenge for your obedience and 
 homage. As they are recorded in Heaven, 
 
7 2 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 let them be a sign for blessing and not for 
 woe ; that they may yet be answered in 
 your conversion and final salvation. 
 
 III. Consider, further, the obligation 
 arising front the training and example of 
 sainted parents. I use the term, " training," 
 because it includes the two elements upon 
 which I desire to insist. There are the 
 counsels which we receive from those wiser 
 than ourselves, and in the case of parents 
 there is the discipline with which these 
 counsels are enforced. Just as the mind is 
 opening to recognize the truth, a matured 
 mind is at our side already charged with 
 the truth and holding it in the form of love 
 for the more ready communication of it. 
 A fountain is provided in the very home 
 in which we were born, sending forth its 
 magnetic waters to stimulate and refresh 
 the young inquirers who drink and bathe 
 in the same. Remember, too, that the 
 knowledge thus pouring upon the plastic 
 mind of the child, is not the knowledge 
 derived from books, nor yet drawn from 
 life's experience ; but it is also that higher 
 knowledge which is bestowed through the 
 teaching of the Divine Spirit. These 
 Christian guides who stand by us from the 
 cradle till manhood is reached, have a 
 
A PIOUS ANCESTRY. 73 
 
 spiritual discernment of God's holy truth ; 
 and at every moment in our childhood's 
 growth they have been imparting this 
 knowledge to us. 
 
 Nor should the value of authority be 
 overlooked which, before parental counsels 
 can be rationally apprehended, enforces 
 them with a consistent and wholesome 
 discipline. During the years when char- 
 acter is unfolding we are under this gentle 
 pressure, which moulds and shapes the 
 will without binding its action or fettering 
 its freedom — only breathing around us the 
 moral atmosphere necessary to the exercise 
 of all the faculties with which we are en- 
 dowed. Before We have intelligence enough 
 to frame resistance to this mild control, we 
 have learned the first great lesson of human 
 life in the submission of the will to lawful 
 and needful authority. With this self- 
 control we are in a measure fitted to assume 
 the responsibilities of life, through which 
 we are brought in contact with our fellow- 
 men. 
 
 So far, then, as regards the training of a 
 Christian home, under the double aspect 
 of instruction and discipline. But beyond 
 all this, there is the exemplification of 
 goodness and virtue in the character of 
 godly parents. No influence can be more 
 
74 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 pervading than that of personal character ; 
 which, like the light, is the more effective 
 because of the silence in which it moves. 
 It is virtue not in dogma or precept, chal- 
 lenging the scepticism of the mind 
 or the antagonism of the will ; but it 
 is virtue incarnate, living, breathing, and 
 showing its power in every act. Who can 
 wholly resist an influence like this, always 
 present and ever penetrating — insinuating 
 itself as through our very pores until it 
 secretly fashions the form and movement 
 of our future life ? Even the momentary 
 touch of one who is intellectually stronger 
 than ourselves galvanizes by the contact. 
 It argues a nature either exceedingly weak 
 or superlatively strong, which does not feel 
 the electric influence flash through the 
 frame coming from a mind stronger and 
 nobler than our own. As it is intellectually, 
 so it is morally. The moment we are 
 brought in contact with a positive charac- 
 ter, such as Paul's — a character always 
 pronounced — always under the control of 
 principles — always a character moulded by 
 convictions too powerful to be resisted — we 
 cannot touch a battery like this without 
 feeling an unwonted energy swiftly per- 
 vading our own being. If such be the 
 effect of occasional intercourse with an 
 
A PIOUS ANCESTRY. 75 
 
 intellect or will superior to ours, what must 
 be the influence of permanent association 
 with those who shape our entire nature 
 from the cradle to mature age ? My young 
 friend, there stands before your eye the 
 image of a father who, in your earlier 
 years, was to you in the place of God. I 
 pause a little under the solemnity of the 
 utterance, which involves a reciprocal and 
 fearful responsibility. There is a brief 
 period in the history of every child, when 
 he knows no other authority but that of 
 the parent, and recognizes no other Provi- 
 dence save that of parental watchfulness and 
 care. If the parent trembles under the as- 
 sumption of such a trust as that of being- 
 God's representative to the child, who can 
 measure the equal responsibility of resist- 
 ing the infinite Jehovah as expressed in 
 the authority and piety of the parent ? If 
 any of you before me to-night call up the 
 memory of a pious home with its godly 
 training, I implore you to prepare for the 
 account to be rendered for such a privilege 
 at the bar of judgment. 
 
 I V. In estimating the influence of a Chris- 
 tian home, consider also the sweet associations 
 with the good and the stimulus it afforded. 
 Remember that every household is the 
 
y6 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 centre of an outer circle, in which the 
 associations woven around the parent 
 are also woven around the child. These 
 are often the most shaping influence of 
 early childhood. If you will pardon a 
 reference to my own personal experience, 
 I recall among the most distinct and pleas- 
 ing memories of my youth the conversa- 
 tions I was permitted to hear between my 
 father and his ministerial friends sometimes* 
 gathered around the evening fireside. As 
 far back as my memory goes I bring before 
 me the pleasant circle, as I sat in my little 
 chair in the shadow, unnoticed by all, 
 drinking in with eyes and ears the wisdom 
 poured forth from those consecrated lips ; 
 the influence of which toned my whole life, 
 and the sweetness of which is upon my 
 tongue to-night. Bear in mind that we do 
 not begin to count in the world's estima- 
 tion, until we are found in conjunction with 
 others. Take any single number by itself, 
 and what is its value ? It is two, or three, 
 or four, or six, or nine ; but as long as it 
 stands alone, it is that and no more. But 
 place even a cipher behind it, and you 
 multiply it tenfold. So it is in society. 
 When we are brought together in close 
 fellowship one with another, in the influence 
 re-echoing between the two we have a 
 
A PIOUS ANCESTRY. JJ 
 
 numerical value given to us never enjoyed 
 in our individual sphere. Hence the sweet- 
 ness and power of these early Christian 
 associations, which linger in the memory 
 with an influence always in favor of virtue 
 and truth. 
 
 V. Fiji ally, 1 suggest the relation of a 
 pious home to future happiness in Heaven 
 Of course, our earthly relations terminate 
 at death : our Lord impressively teaches 
 that "in the Resurrection they neither 
 marry, nor are given in marriage, but are 
 as the angels of God." 
 
 But while the earthly relations are abol- 
 ished, the spiritual ties which spring out of 
 them are not cancelled. If the future world 
 be a world of retribution, as we are distinctly 
 taught in Holy Scripture, then memory 
 will abide ; and with memory there will be 
 in Heaven a complete transfiguration of 
 our earthly affections and associations. If 
 I can go back to the period of childhood 
 and recognize that under God I owe all 
 that I am to the influence of a godly 
 mother, will not this spiritual tie forever 
 bind me to her as to no other of the re- 
 deemed in glory ? If the children of my 
 loins have passed, through my moulding 
 influence as an instrumental agency, into 
 
yS FORMATION OF .CHARACTER. 
 
 the kingdom of Grace, then surely the 
 spiritual tie will be as distinctly recognized 
 in Heaven as upon earth. If, as the Master 
 has told us, there are "mansions in our 
 Father's House " prepared for them that 
 love Him, we shall surely be closely asso- 
 ciated with those with whom our Christian 
 life was most closely blended upon earth. 
 
 If, moreover, our heavenly joy should 
 prove the outcome of pious influences 
 accumulating through past generations, 
 from sire to grand-sire back to the third 
 and fourth generation of those who were 
 all the children of God, how will the family 
 swell into a great tribe bound eternally 
 together in a sacred relationship ? Ah, my 
 friends, if the family be the original society 
 in which God first planted the Church — if 
 in the relations of the family He illustrates 
 His adopting love, by which we become 
 His children in Christ Jesus, who can tell 
 how the spiritual ties of the earthly home 
 may be glorified above ? And who can 
 deny but that from these transfigured affec- 
 tions our joy will be increased as we wor- 
 ship before the throne ? 
 
 In bringing this Lecture to a close, you 
 will perceive that the whole argument may 
 be reduced within the compass of a brief 
 but familiar maxim, "Noblesse oblige." 
 
A PIOUS ANCESTRY. 79 
 
 Rank carries with it its unchangeable 
 obligations. You expect the son of a king 
 to behave as becomes his royal blood. The 
 nobility of his station pledges him to a 
 noble demeanor. You are justly disap- 
 pointed if, in a child born of cultivated 
 parents, you do not find the wisdom which 
 should be displayed in all his words and 
 actions. What then do we not owe to 
 that Providence which has given us our 
 birth in a Christian home ? And does not 
 this oblige us to a Christian life answering 
 to our privilege of birth ? How unspeak- 
 able the shame of a son who confesses 
 himself unworthy of the father who begat 
 him ! Young men, if you are born of godly 
 parentage, you have a patent of nobility 
 greater than an earthly kingdom can 
 bestow. In the sovereignty of God you 
 are born of Christian parents in a Christian 
 land, whilst myriads came to the light under 
 some heathen god. Surely this distin- 
 guished mercy throws upon you a corres- 
 ponding obligation to engage in the service 
 and worship of the living and true God. 
 It will be a fearful doom, to find yourselves 
 separated forever from those whose faith and 
 piety should have been your eternal heri- 
 tage. May God avert it through His 
 infinite mercy and grace ! 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 OBLIGATION ARISING FROM THE 
 TRUSTS OF LIFE. 
 
 I John ii 14—"/ have written unto you, young men, 
 because ye are strong-" 
 
 In this instructive chapter, the Apostle 
 presses several things upon the attention 
 of Christians. He shows how utterly- 
 worthless is a religious profession, which is 
 not marked by reverential and loving 
 obedience to the Divine law. If however 
 any be surprised into sin, refuge may be 
 found in the Atonement and Intercession 
 of Christ : "If any man sin, we have an 
 advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the 
 righteous ; and he is the propitiation for 
 our sins, and not for ours only, but for the 
 sins of the whole world." From this the 
 Apostle passes to the more particular duty 
 of brotherly love ; which he enjoins as both 
 an old and a new commandment. It is an 
 old commandment, inasmuch as love from 
 the beginning was the root from which all 
 obedience must spring: " thou shalt love 
 
82 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 the Lord thy God with all thy heart and 
 with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This 
 is the first and great commandment. And 
 the second is like unto it, thou shalt love 
 thy neighbor as thyself. On these two 
 commandments hang all the law and the 
 prophets." It is a new commandment, in 
 that it is enforced under a new sanction 
 and by a new motive — even the love of 
 Christ Himself to a lost world in "giving 
 His life a ransom for many." To make 
 these admonitions more impressive, He 
 distributes the Church into three leading 
 classes; "the little children," or those 
 just brought into the kingdom — "the 
 Fathers," who have had long experience 
 of the truth and have " endured hardness 
 as good soldiers of Christ " — and, inter- 
 mediate between these, those whom he 
 styles " young men ;" in the early but ripe 
 development of their Christian experience, 
 and who are thus equipped for all the re- 
 sponsibilities of life. These classes are 
 addressed with motives especially adapted 
 to each : the young believer, because he 
 has just tasted the joy of pardon in the 
 knowledge of God as his Heavenly Father ; 
 the old Christian, because he has had such 
 long acquaintance with his Saviour and is 
 so near to the eternal home ; the young 
 
TRUSTS OF LIFE. 83 
 
 men, because their piety has been tested 
 and "the word of God abideth in them." 
 Then follows the grand exhortation, to which 
 all this is preliminary, " love not the world, 
 neither the things that are in the world." 
 Here, it is noticeable that he makes a 
 three-fold classification of the temptations 
 to which all men are exposed in life ; which 
 lie in the pleasures, or the profits, or the 
 honors of the world. The young are most 
 in danger from the first, classified under 
 the title of " the lust of the flesh ;" the old 
 are in peril from the second, indicated as 
 " lust of the eye," in the greedy craving 
 after gain ; the busy actors are most likely 
 to be snared by "the pride of life," in the 
 ambitious endeavor to secure the vain 
 honors which wither in the first hour of 
 enjoyment. It will thus appear that "the 
 young men " of the text are those who are 
 enrolled as members of the Church of 
 Christ; but it is not an unwarrantable 
 extension of the phrase to include all of 
 the class which, in the maturity of its 
 strength, is about to assume the duties and 
 to discharge the trusts of life. I am thus 
 brought face to face with the topic of this 
 Lecture ; to press the obligation resting 
 
 UPON YOUNG MEN FROM THE FACT OF 
 THEIR EQUIPMENT FOR THE RESPONSIBILITIES 
 
84 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 WHICH THEY MUST IMMEDIATELY AND NECES- 
 SARILY UNDERTAKE. 
 
 I. Let me press the fact itself of the 
 necessity for action on the part of young men. 
 The world in which they live is a world of 
 action. Change and movement are every- 
 where. The very globe on which we stand 
 revolves perpetually on its own axis ; whilst, 
 in the system to which it belongs, it sweeps 
 in its orbit around the sun. On its surface 
 all is shifting and change. " The sun also 
 ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and 
 hasteth to his place where he arose. The 
 wind goeth toward the south, and turneth 
 about unto the north ; it whirleth about 
 continually ; and the wind returneth again 
 according to his circuits. All the rivers 
 run into the sea ; yet the sea is not full ; 
 unto the place from whence the rivers 
 come, thither they return again." So it is 
 in the orderings of Providence : ' ' one gen- 
 eration passeth away, and another genera- 
 tion cometh." If you stand upon the plane 
 of history, nations and kingdoms move to 
 and fro like figures upon a chess-board ; 
 and when you come to individuals, they 
 play their little part in the activities of life, 
 and melt away as the mist. Everything 
 partakes of movement. Who now are to 
 
TRUSTS OF LIFE. 85 
 
 be the chief actors on this stage of excite- 
 ment and whirl ? Not the old who have 
 fought their way through this life of storm 
 and battle, and are about to strip off their 
 armour ; but those who, in the zenith of 
 their strength, are facing the issues which 
 they cannot avoid. There are many rea- 
 sons why the old cannot be the principal 
 performers upon the stage which they are 
 shortly to abandon. First of all, their 
 physical and intellectual vigor is upon the 
 decline. True, it is not easy to draw 
 the line at which vitality begins to decay ; 
 just as we cannot determine the moment 
 when the keel of the ship cuts the 
 equator which separates two continents. 
 However it may vary in different cases, 
 there is in the life of every man a line 
 which divides the two hemispheres ; a point 
 where vitality begins to decay, indicating 
 that he must remit the burdens and cares 
 of life to more youthful and competent 
 workers. Again, the old lose that elasticity 
 which needs only the removal of a burden 
 to restore the toiler to his original activity, 
 showing that no injury has been sustained 
 under the pressure. But in all men the 
 point is reached when this spring of elas- 
 ticity is weakened, and we refuse to regain 
 the vigor which is lost ; and this inability 
 
86 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 discovers to us that our duties must be 
 devolved upon other and more stalwart 
 champions. Nor is this the worst : the 
 care and sorrow which accumulate upon 
 the old impart a sombre hue to life, unfit- 
 ting them to engage longer in the struggles 
 that remain. They are not able to accom- 
 date themselves to the changes of time, 
 and to do in the future what they resolutely 
 performed in the past. They have ex- 
 hausted the world of all it has to give ; 
 they have sucked the orange dry, and hold 
 in their hand only the squeezed and empty 
 pulp. Finally, is there not a propriety in 
 the old retiring from the dust and turmoil 
 of earth, that they may fix their thoughts 
 and hopes upon the life beyond ? As the 
 light breaks upon them from another world, 
 should they not have leisure to lay their 
 hand upon that solemn future and weigh the 
 trusts which are beckoning them above the 
 stars ? 
 
 If this world is to be a world of action, 
 to whom can the aged remit their respon- 
 sibilities except to the sons who should 
 inherit the names and destinies of the 
 fathers ? These, too, are prepared to as- 
 sume the imposed burden. They have 
 passed through the discipline of their early 
 years, they have been educated in the 
 
TRUSTS OF LIFE. 87 
 
 school of obedience and self-control, they 
 have been shaped for all the contingencies 
 of the future under parental authority, stern 
 in the hand of the father but gracious and 
 gentle in the hand of the mother — why 
 should they not be ready to assume and 
 fulfil the most sacred trusts which society 
 may impose ? Does not this fact of his 
 equipment for the life upon which he must 
 of necessity enter, hold every young man 
 responsible for fidelity in the duties from 
 which he cannot be discharged ? 
 
 II. Observe further that we must take up 
 life just where it meets us. Nothing is 
 fortuitous ; God is sovereign in all His allot- 
 ments. We enter upon life exactly at the 
 point where we touch it. Like a party 
 crossing a river, the moment we strike the 
 opposite shore we must land. It may be 
 where a thicket, thorny as a Mexican 
 Chapparal, grows down to the water's 
 edge ; and right there we must cut our 
 way through to the inviting plains beyond. 
 The introduction of one into life may be 
 under the most favorable circumstances ; 
 he may be born of parents having liberal 
 views, who have given him the advantage 
 of the highest education, who have set be- 
 fore him the example of the noblest en- 
 
88 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 durance, and whose potent influence may 
 lift him into position at once ; or he 
 may be born of parents poor and obscure, 
 who have been able to afford no oppor- 
 tunities for improvement, and who can 
 wield no influence for his promotion ; yet 
 the one and the other must take the chances 
 for success, under the precise conditions 
 in which life presents itself. As I look 
 around me upon the young men in this 
 city struggling for a foot-hold in the world, 
 my deepest sympathy is stirred for those 
 boys of fourteen and fifteen years, who 
 through stern poverty are driven out upon 
 life — whom a hard necessity has deprived 
 of their childhood, never having had their 
 run in the free air, rejoicing in the exuber- 
 ant freshness of youth's early morning, but 
 who under the pressure of premature care 
 are old before they were young. Yet how 
 many true heroes, through this severe dis- 
 cipline, have carved their way to dignity 
 and station ? Under this pressure are 
 fashioned the men of brain, solving- the most 
 intricate problems of life ; the men of mus- 
 cular will, whose sharp sword cleaves 
 through at a stroke the complications of an 
 unpropitious destiny. 
 
 What need, then, has every young man 
 for a firm character, full of faith and hope, 
 
TRUSTS OF LIFE. 89 
 
 strong in its principles and settled in its 
 purposes, as he enters upon the respon- 
 sibilities of life ? Let him abandon useless 
 complaints against what he terms inexor- 
 able fate, as well as false conceptions of 
 what he calls luck or chance. Let him re- 
 solve to conquer fortune, even if she meet 
 him with a frown ; for only thus can life be 
 mastered at all. Young men — 
 
 " A sacred burden is this life ye bear, 
 Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly, 
 Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly, 
 Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin, 
 But onward, upward, till the goal ye win." 
 
 III. Consida' also the debt we owe to the 
 past, whose cumulative influence has made 
 the present what it is An honorable senti- 
 ment must respond to the claims of those 
 who have gone before, handing down their 
 trusts to us. There can be no haphazard 
 or accident in the government of that au- 
 gust Being who ' ' doeth according to his 
 will in the army of heaven and among the 
 inhabitants of the earth ;" and surely those 
 creatures are not abandoned to chance, 
 who are ' ' made in his image and after his 
 likeness." If our reason be the reflection 
 of the Divine intelligence, if our conscience 
 be the interpreter of His holiness, if our 
 will be the shadow of His omnipotence, 
 
90 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 then it becomes us to take up the duties of 
 life in the solemnity of that high relation 
 we sustain to Him whose image we bear 
 on earth. Life has come down to us 
 through a long succession, deriving its cast 
 and color from those who preceded us ; 
 and we have " entered into their labors." 
 Yes, we owe a debt to the past, we are 
 under obligations to the ancestors from 
 whose loins we sprang. Every father leaves 
 to the son, who is his heir, the obligation 
 of family honor to transmit that name un- 
 tarnished to those who shall come after ; 
 and in a large sense we are the heirs of the 
 generations which have trodden the earth 
 from the first moment of recorded time. 
 The pressure of sixty centuries rests upon 
 the conscience and heart of all who now 
 sustain the burden of the world's history. 
 Ancestry ought to mean something ; and 
 if the subject of this evening's Lecture does 
 not lift into prominence the higher consid- 
 erations which are drawn from the Gospel 
 of Christ, I feel it right to appeal to that 
 sentiment of honor with which every noble 
 heart swells. 
 
 IV. The last proposition may now be 
 reversed : if, as heirs, zve ozve a debt to the 
 past y as ancestors zve are under equal obliga- 
 
TRUSTS OF LIFE. 9 1 
 
 Hon to the future. As our hands are rev- 
 erentially stretched forth to take the trusts 
 falling from the hands of our fathers, so 
 the day is approaching when our half- 
 discharged obligations must be rolled over 
 upon those who are born of our loins. 
 When those children shall arise to assume 
 the self-imposed trust, it will be for them 
 to pronounce upon our fidelity, and to de- 
 clare whether it has been honorably trans- 
 ferred from our keeping into theirs. Each 
 generation stands thus upon a narrow 
 isthmus between the two continents of the 
 past and the future ; and it is difficult to 
 decide to which of the two the obligation 
 is the more solemn. In the one direction, 
 it reaches back over the centuries up to the 
 beginning of time ; in the other direction, it 
 stretches forward to the consummation of 
 all things, when the ' ' angel standing upon 
 the sea and the earth shall swear by Him 
 that liveth forever and ever that there shall 
 be time no longer. " If in the one case the 
 obligation is enhanced by the feeling of 
 reverence, in the other it is enforced by the 
 natural affection cherished towards one's 
 offspring. The law of the Scripture is, 
 " the children ought not to lay up for the 
 parents, but the parents for the children ;" 
 and under this rule the debt we owe to 
 
92 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 posterity is of sacred and binding character. 
 Let no one enter upon life thinking that he 
 liveth only to himself. The race is linked 
 together in solid unity ; and the unfaithful- 
 ness of one generation may entail woes 
 upon those that follow, which shall draw 
 upon its head the bitterest execrations. It 
 becomes every young man to be serious 
 and thoughtful, as he weighs the duties 
 devolved upon him in the great drama of 
 life. 
 
 V. Permit me now to dwell upon the 
 gravity of the trusts imposed often without 
 our consent, but from which there is no retreat. 
 There are obligations which we voluntarily 
 contract ; as when, stepping from the pa- 
 ternal home to create our own, we clothe 
 ourselves with responsibilities of the most 
 tender and delicate kind. It is not my 
 purpose, however, to speak of these ; but 
 rather of those imposed by society, usually 
 dropped upon us suddenly often against 
 our will. A word of wisdom uttered in a 
 moment of perplexity and trial, marks one 
 as fit to be a counsellor and guide ; and 
 when enthroned in the seat of the legis- 
 lator or judge, there is no escape from the 
 responsibility which accrues. Or, it may 
 be that in some public emergency, one 
 
TRUSTS OF LIFE. 93 
 
 displays a promptness and energy which 
 at once determine his destiny. He is called 
 to executive functions, and his record be- 
 comes a part of the history of the Com- 
 monwealth. Thus, a man "wakes up 
 some morning to find himself famous;" 
 and though he may tremble in his secret 
 soul lest he be found unequal to the high 
 positions to which he has been so unex- 
 pectedly advanced, he must abide in his lot 
 and either do or die. My young friends, 
 I know not what counsel to give in this 
 matter, except to say, let a young man see 
 to it when he steps forth into life, that 
 his principles are fixed and his character 
 formed. With this antecedent preparation, 
 he will readily fit himself for the duties 
 which are suddenly sprung upon him ; and 
 will not be overwhelmed with shame under 
 the discomfiture which he dreads. 
 
 VI. Finally, I urge upon you the solemn 
 issues of the eternal zvorld ; lying so close to 
 the young, and for which they are in imme- 
 diate preparation. I am aware that a young- 
 man of twenty feels that a stretch of twenty 
 years is an age ; yet when he comes to 
 forty, he is as though he had not escaped 
 the awkwardness of early youth ; he looks 
 through the vista of another twenty years, 
 and at sixty feels that the experience of 
 
94 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 years has but just fitted him for the re- 
 sponsibilities of life. At last bending under 
 the weight of fourscore years, he discovers 
 that life is gone. Swifter than the shadow 
 cast upon our path, swifter than the eagle's 
 flight to his eyrie on the mountain-top, is 
 the flight of time ; and life is spent before 
 it is half-recognized as begun. Ere we 
 know, with a single bound we are pre- 
 cipitated upon the dread realities which lie 
 behind death and the judgment. I desire 
 to impress upon you the startling truth that 
 these eternal responsibilities are nigh to 
 you even before you have attained your 
 majority. The moment character begins 
 to crystallize in its final shape, it reaches 
 forth to the life beyond "unmeasured by 
 the flight of years." It is not wise for 
 those whose lives are so short on earth, to 
 put out of sight the tremendous issues of 
 an eternal state. Our real life is the life 
 that never ends, in the great hereafter. 
 We begin to live when the risen body and 
 the immortal spirit are forever emancipated 
 from the decree of death. The life is life, 
 which is rescued from the curse of sin and 
 is spent forever in the presence and in the 
 joy of our Father above. Beyond the in- 
 termediate duties which press upon you 
 here, I urge those immense trusts which 
 will occupy the ages of eternity. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 OBSTACLES TO PIETY IN YOUNG 
 MEN. 
 
 Titus ii. 6 — " Young men likewise exhort to be sober - 
 minded." 
 
 In the preceding lecture I sought to 
 present the influence of early piety in the 
 formation of character ; it falls in with this 
 course of thought to consider to-night the 
 
 OBSTACLES TO PIETY IN THE YOUNG. Going, 
 
 then, to the root of the matter, the final 
 and comprehensive difficulty is "the carnal 
 mind which is enmity against God." Mark 
 the force of the expression ; the Apostle 
 does not say of the " carnal mind " that it 
 is inimical to God, but that it is enmity 
 itself. That which makes it ' ' the carnal 
 mind " is its entire estrangement from God, 
 which cannot be removed except by re- 
 newing and sanctifying grace. But, then, 
 this enmity takes on special forms at dif- 
 ferent periods of life : it is inconsiderateness 
 and levity in the young, selfishness and 
 greed in the middle-aged, indifference and 
 callousness in the old. The young are not 
 
g6 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 easily persuaded to become Christians, 
 because they are fascinated by the pleasures 
 of the world ; those in mid-life, because 
 they are absorbed in the pursuit of wealth ; 
 the old, because the habit of resistance to 
 the truth has grown into a second nature. 
 Hence the exhortation of the text bears 
 upon a single point, " young men likewise 
 exhort to be soberminded. " The word here 
 employed by the Holy Ghost is com- 
 pounded of two, as in our version, which 
 together mean " a sound mind " — a mind 
 well poised upon its own centre, and not 
 easily thrown from its balance ; a mind 
 weighing all things with unerring judgment, 
 and therefore marked by the moderation 
 of the desires. In delivering his pastoral 
 instructions to his son, Titus, Paul tells 
 him to press specially upon the young the 
 duty of sobriety. But this levity, so char- 
 acteristic of those in the morning of life, 
 manifests itself differently in different per- 
 sons ; never perhaps presenting all its forms 
 in one individual. It will thus be impor- 
 tant to notice some of the ways in which 
 this inconsiderateness is disclosed. 
 
 I. It is seen in the difficulty with which 
 young pet sons can be held to continuous reflec- 
 tion and study, and the ease with which they 
 
OBSTACLES TO PIETY. gj 
 
 are borne away by new and transient im- 
 pressions from without. In natural vision 
 three things are required : the organ of 
 vision, the object of vision and the medium 
 of vision. When the eye which sees, and the 
 external object which is seen, are brought 
 into relation through the light as the 
 medium, then only is sight enjoyed. So it 
 is with the mind : there is first the inquir- 
 ing mind, then the truth to be apprehended ; 
 and when these are brought together 
 through some form of disclosure, then only 
 knowledge takes place. This cannot be 
 had except through a right exercise of the 
 understanding assimilating the truth to 
 itself. In religion that truth comes* to us 
 through a Divine Revelation ; but however 
 perfect this Revelation, it goes for naught 
 with any individual until it is studied ; 
 there must be reflection upon its contents 
 in order to Piety. As it is with all other 
 truth, so it must be with Divine and Re- 
 vealed truth ; the mind which is the organ 
 of knowledge must bring its powers to 
 bear upon these sacred verities, as facts 
 disclosed to its apprehension. It must take 
 them into itself, and by a process of mental 
 digestion incorporate them into its own 
 substance. Of course, I am not disallowing 
 or undervaluing that spiritual illumination 
 
90 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 through which these truths are inwrought 
 into the affections of the Christian and 
 made the spiritual food of the soul. Of 
 this deeper process of spiritual enlight- 
 enment I am not here speaking ; but of 
 that natural process by which the mind 
 obtains its knowledge in the sphere of 
 philosophy or of science. In the sphere 
 of religion no less than of these, there 
 must be the comprehension of the proposi- 
 tions in which truth is revealed in -the sacred 
 Scriptures ; involving the same natural 
 operation of the understanding in all cases 
 alike. But what multitudes read the 
 Scriptures and wait upon the services of 
 the Sanctuary, without even an intellectual 
 grasp of the fundamental principles of the 
 Gospel, or comprehending in any degree 
 the method of grace therein revealed ? 
 Here then is the first serious obstacle to 
 practical religion with the young. Now 
 couple with this the ease with which youth 
 surrenders itself to impressions intruding 
 at inauspicious moments from without. 
 With what persistency these chase each 
 other over the whole field of thought, dis- 
 tracting the attention just when it should 
 be fastened upon some given truth. The 
 mind, instead of being magnetized and 
 held firmly to the investigation of what is 
 
OBSTACLES TO PIETY. 99 
 
 before it, is swept away by these cross 
 currents of impertinent and foreign associa- 
 tions. Under the combined influence of 
 natural reluctance to serious reflection and 
 the seductive temptation to drift upon 
 these wayside suggestions, the characteris- 
 tic levity of the young is constantly dis- 
 played. 
 
 II. It is discovered, further, "in the too 
 eager pursuit of enjoyment. I touch this 
 topic gently, not to anticipate the next 
 Lecture ; it cannot however be entirely 
 omitted in this connection. As we first 
 step forth into life we are very much under 
 the domination of sense. Everything is 
 novel and fresh. As Isaac Taylor vividly 
 puts it, the five senses are so many gate- 
 ways by which the soul comes out from its 
 seclusion ; walking up and down the 
 avenues which open before it, and taking 
 possession of a world foreign to itself. On 
 every side vistas of beauty and delight 
 stretch before the eye in almost endless 
 perspective ; and the young saunter forward 
 in a strange and delirious bewilderment. 
 The succession of pleasures is so quick as 
 to forstall satiety and weariness. We have 
 scarcely thrown aside the toys of innocent 
 childhood, before we encounter the more 
 
100 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 robust pleasures of boyhood ; and we have 
 scarcely outgrown these, before we enter on 
 the more enlarged and varied enjoyments of 
 ripening manhood. The rapid transition 
 from stage to stage prevents each from 
 palling upon the taste, and the appetite is 
 constantly whetted by the anticipation of 
 new pleasures in prospect. In reaching 
 our majority a zest is given to life in our 
 complete emancipation from parental and 
 educational control. The young man is in 
 danger of being intoxicated with his sud- 
 denly acquired freedom ; and may seek to 
 realize it in the rush to excesses of every 
 kind. Just then the world bursts upon his 
 view in the display of its innumerable 
 attractions : throughout it is a vision of 
 loveliness. Is it strange, with temptation 
 addressed to every sense, they should 
 sometimes forget that — 
 
 " Sure as night follows day, 
 Death treads in pleasure's footsteps around the world, 
 When pleasure treads the path which reason shuns." 
 
 Let it be remembered too, that, in this 
 period of dangerous fascination, the young 
 do not come near enough to these pleasures 
 to discover their hollowness and vanity. It 
 is only in the experience of later years, 
 when perhaps recovery is born of remorse, 
 
OBSTACLES TO PIETY. IOI 
 
 the cruel deception is unmasked. Like 
 the beautiful soap-bubbles blown into the 
 air by our children, irradiated with all the 
 colors of the rainbow, yet broken with a 
 breath and bursting into emptiness and 
 nothing ; so with these sensual enjoyments 
 upon which is painted every form of de- 
 light, but which break at last into disap- 
 pointment — if not into despair. How diffi- 
 cult in the early moments of infatuation to 
 persuade the young to pause and consider 
 the claims of personal religion ! It is 
 enough that piety assumes the appearance 
 of stern restraint, and puts out the false 
 lights luring them on to destruction, to 
 cause it to be thrust aside with positive 
 aversion. How impossible, without Divine 
 grace, until experience shall dispel the 
 illusions of sense, to win them from the 
 world to the truer and higher enjoyment 
 to be found in usefulness and duty ? My 
 young friends, it would be easy, though 
 painful, to tell you of the wrecks which 
 bestrew the shore of that treacherous sea 
 glistening beneath the sun, upon which 
 you are tempted to spread your sail. Do 
 you ask how I come to know ? Remember 
 that the old were once young, and may 
 have had hard knowledge of the tempta- 
 tions which spring now with surprise upon 
 
102 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 you. It is only necessary to draw on 
 memory, from whose chambers they will 
 come almost as fresh as when they were 
 undergoing the discipline through which 
 you are passing now. Even were this not 
 the case, pastors are made the keepers of 
 many secrets poured into their ear by the 
 victims of dissipation and vice. In the dark 
 hours of biting remorse, these unhappy 
 wrecks know where their truest friends are 
 to be found. They cross our thresholds 
 and tell of the flatteries by which they were 
 enticed ; and how their virtue crumbled 
 under temptation, until they took that 
 which was not theirs to secure the means 
 of continuance in sin ; and how exposure 
 came at length, with character gone and 
 all hope of advancement in the future ; thus 
 with scalding tears they breathe out their 
 remorse, and ask how they can again be 
 restored to society and happiness. Oh, 
 this fearful abandonment to a life of pleas- 
 ure, if the young could but know the snares 
 and pit-falls which lie along that dangerous 
 path ! But whilst the delusion lasts, prac- 
 tical religion sues in vain for recognition at 
 their door. 
 
 III. I trust you will not smile when I 
 mention the third form in which this levity 
 
OBSTACLES TO PIETY. I03 
 
 is displayed ; it is the pronetiess to what is 
 termed ' ' Castle building" — a lazy dreaming, 
 in which the mind drifts upon any current 
 that seizes it at the moment. It is more 
 seductive, because partially an intellectual 
 vice. The pleasure is chiefly mental, from 
 the indulgence of the imagination ; and the 
 young enter upon it as a thing wholesome 
 in character, because of its intellectual 
 aspect. They know not how it emasculates 
 the mind, as leading to no vigorous thought 
 by which that mind may be disciplined 
 into strength. It is only drifting upon the 
 fancy, swept on its current into this eddy 
 or that, dancing like a bubble on the wave 
 and bursting into air. 
 
 A worse result even than this obtains : 
 it not only emasculates the understanding, 
 but it debauches the heart. It nourishes 
 a selfish egotism, which is fatal to the 
 exercise of every virtue. It is so easy to 
 become the hero of our own story ; and by 
 a mere flight of fancy to rise to the height 
 of fame, without one manly effort to achieve 
 the greatness which is the burden of our 
 epic. The precious hours of life's morning 
 are thus worse than wasted in idle dream- 
 ing ; dreaming dreams as unsubstantial and 
 untrue as those which visit us by night. 
 This sentimental musing, like the opium 
 
104 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 drug, relaxes while it bewitches the mind. 
 Under its seductive charm, the vain dreamer 
 floats into the valley of enchantment, where 
 Thompson's poetic wand raises the "Castle 
 of Indolence : 
 
 "A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was, 
 
 Of dream? that wave before the half-shut eye, 
 And of gay castles in the clouds that pass 
 Forever flushing round a Summer sky : 
 Then eke the soft delights, that bewitchingly 
 Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast ; 
 But whate'er smacked of noyance or unrest, 
 Was far, far off, expelled from this delicious nest." 
 
 It is difficult to exaggerate the ener- 
 vating influence of this seductive habit 
 upon the young, in all the paths of human 
 life ; but it is peculiarly destructive of re- 
 ligious feeling. How can one given over 
 to this intellectual vice project his thoughts 
 beyond these intoxicating delights ? Who 
 can arrest the attention to the solemn 
 claims of God and the soul ? How much 
 more pleasing to turn away from harsh 
 and forbidding subjects, such as those of 
 sin and its future rewards, to the delicious 
 intoxication of the novelist's fancy, when 
 that novelist is the dreamer himself, and he 
 the hero of the unwritten tale ? 
 
 IV. This levity of the young manifests 
 itself further in their vanity and self-conceit. 
 
OBSTACLES TO PIETY. IO5 
 
 These words are not happily chosen, and I 
 cancel their harshness in the very utter- 
 ance. I will come at the thought by an 
 indirection. There are young men en- 
 dowed by the Creator with noble faculties, 
 in the cultivation of which they become at 
 length distinguished. It is scarcely pos- 
 sible for such to remain wholly unconscious 
 of the power latent within them ; unde- 
 veloped though it may be, like the mines 
 of silver and gold, or of iron and coal, still 
 hidden in the bowels of the earth. With 
 this dim consciousness of reserved power, 
 there will arise in those who possess it a 
 desire to express it in words and deeds be- 
 fore their fellow-men. 
 
 I hold it the duty of every man to bring 
 forth whatever of intellectual or moral force 
 may be within him ; he must not allow it 
 to remain an undeveloped energy. He 
 must go down into the dark and dreary 
 colliery with pick-axe and shovel, and dig 
 out what is there concealed ; and his whole 
 life should be an incarnation of the living 
 force with which he has been entrusted of 
 God. Now the young man but half-con- 
 scious of his dormant power, looks out upon 
 the world and turns pale at imaginary diffi- 
 culties. A sickly self-love greatest with 
 the young who have not been toned under 
 
106 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 the discipline of life, causes him to shrink 
 from possible discomfiture and shame ; and 
 he sinks, perhaps, under a morbid dread 
 of the conflict before him. This is what I 
 mean when I speak of youthful self-conceit 
 — that undue tenderness for one's self, 
 which is the worst form of vanity, as it 
 shrinks from duty through a sickening fear 
 of failure amid the uncertainties of the fu- 
 ture. My young friends, I suppose most 
 of us have gone through this kind of ex- 
 perience : and it has been a happy discov- 
 ery to find that, when the first shock of 
 the battle is felt, these preliminary fears 
 are given to the winds. The first resist- 
 ance to our entrance upon life has rendered 
 the will more compact ; and with a firmer 
 purpose we have conquered success in 
 what we first feared to undertake. 
 
 But so long as the young are thus 
 wrapped up in self-contemplation and self- 
 love, how difficult it is to make them esti- 
 mate the value of personal religion. Ah ! 
 if they did but know the holy courage 
 which is born of that fear of God which 
 casts out every other fear. He who plants 
 his feet upon the rock of Divine truth, and 
 looks with the eye of faith upon the reali- 
 ties of the eternal world, will hold his own 
 under all the disasters of life and win his 
 
OBSTACLES TO PIETY. IO7 
 
 triumphs from the very defeats he encoun- 
 ters. But he who bows in idolatrous wor- 
 ship of self, bows in homage of the feeb^st 
 Sfod to whom sacrifice was ever offered. 
 On the contrary, it is said of the Most High, 
 " in the fear of the Lord is strong confi- 
 dence, and His children shall have a place 
 of refuge." 
 
 V. The saddest form of levity in youth is 
 seen in the secret tendency to scepticism. I 
 ascribe this tendency to levity of character, 
 because the scepticism does not spring 
 from investigation. It is frivolous in its 
 origin, as being simply the recoil from pre- 
 vious restraint, and is a false assumption 
 of independence. It is, therefore, perfect- 
 ly shoddy in its pretentions. The author- 
 ity of the father, saying, "Thou shalt 
 not," is withdrawn ; perhaps the more ten- 
 der voice of the mother is hushed in death ; 
 and the young man, who has just been 
 emancipated from the restraints of home, 
 thinks it necessary in the assertion of his 
 manhood to trample upon all the faiths of 
 his childhood. He is not completely free 
 from the authority which controlled his 
 youth, until he has mocked at the piety of 
 those who have gone before him. With- 
 out being able to assign a solitary reason 
 
T08 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 for deserting his father's altar, in the spirit 
 of mere self-assertion the son casts aside 
 the restraints of heaven as well as of earth. 
 The desire also of being unhampered in the 
 enjoyment of worldly pleasure, or in climb- 
 ing the dizzy heights of ambition, increases 
 the madness which throws away the checks 
 that reason herself would impose. Just 
 because religion comes at that moment as 
 a law, in the intoxication of their newly 
 acquired freedom the young rend aside her 
 salutary restrains and follow the dictates of 
 their own judgment and the decisions of 
 their own will. Alas, not until too late do 
 they discover that they who ' ' walk in the 
 light of their own fire and in the sparks 
 which they have kindled, shall lie down in 
 sorrow." It is this vanity of mind that 
 makes a young man think himself superior 
 to the superstitions of his gray-haired sire; 
 and in the insolence of his spirit, he 
 plunges into the temptations and snares of 
 life without the protection which true piety 
 would surely afford. Imagining himself 
 clothed with all the majesty of freedom, 
 other eyes see that in the fetters of a slave 
 he is " drawing iniquity with cords of 
 vanity and sin as with a cart-rope." 
 
 As I conclude this lecture, indulge me 
 in a single reflection. Archdeacon Paley 
 
OBSTACLES TO PIETY. IO9 
 
 somewhere remarks that every man selects 
 some one illustration of the Divine good- 
 ness, which is more striking to his mind 
 than any other. He goes on to say that 
 the instance which impressed him most 
 was the enjoyment of little infants with 
 their little toys : 
 
 " Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw ;" 
 
 and finding, in the changes of infantile life, 
 a succession of pleasures before its powers 
 had fairly opened upon the world in which 
 it lived. If then I were called to furnish 
 the illustration of God's goodness more 
 constantly impressing me than any other, 
 it would be the sovereign mercy which so 
 largely spares the young — not taking them 
 from life between the ages of twelve and 
 twenty years. Look at the record of mor- 
 tality in every morning's paper, and see 
 how few deaths occur between these limits. 
 I do not attempt to give the vital statistics ; 
 but certainly a very large proportion of the 
 human race dies between the ages of one 
 and three. That is to say, before the little 
 ones can distinguish between right and 
 wrong, and can be held accountable for 
 their acts, they are safely sheltered from 
 all sin in the bosom of Him who has re- 
 deemed their souls from death. Suppose 
 
I IO FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 this benevolent order reversed, and the 
 large proportion of our guilty race to be 
 hurried into eternity between the ages of 
 twelve and twenty, what a fearful gloom 
 would shadow many a home that now 
 hears, in the death of infants, only the 
 voice, " Suffer little children to come unto 
 me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven?" 
 In the period which forms the middle pas- 
 sage between boyhood and mature years, 
 the mental development puts beyond ques- 
 tion their moral responsibility ; whilst the 
 inconsiderateness which marks that epoch 
 indisposes them to think seriously of the 
 soul and its immortal interests. Through 
 the abundance of His grace, God is pleased, 
 for the most part, to bridge over this criti- 
 cal period ; sparing the young until they 
 reach the maturity of their powers, and 
 are more likely to weigh the solemnities of 
 death and the judgment. 
 
 My young friends, suffer me to urge the 
 obligation and importance of an early con- 
 secration to the service of almighty God, 
 as a protection from all these perils. If 
 you could be persuaded this night to give 
 your hearts to the Saviour ; if you would 
 go into life's conflicts, which maybe severe 
 with some of you, equipped with the grace 
 and strength which you need, you would 
 
OBSTACLES TO PIETY. 
 
 find the world sweeter, brighter, easier to 
 your tread ; because, in the pledge of 
 Divine aid, you would hold the secret of 
 all your future triumphs. 
 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 CHOICE OF AMUSEMENTS. 
 
 Ecclesiastes xi. 9—" Rejoice. O young man, in thy 
 youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, 
 and rvalk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of 
 thine eyes ; but know thou, that for all these things God 
 will bring thee into judgment." 
 
 It was intimated on last Sabbath even- 
 ing that THE SUBJECT OF THE PRESENT 
 
 Lecture would be that of youthful 
 pleasures : yet in taking it up, I am im- 
 pressed with the difficulty and delicacy of 
 the task. On my part, there will be re- 
 quired a due discrimination so as not to 
 confound things that differ, and a wise 
 moderation so as not to push just views to 
 an unjust extreme. On your part, will be 
 required patience and candor— patience, 
 not to run away with half-sentences ; can- 
 dor, to put a right construction upon what 
 shall be said. 
 
 It will be well, in the outset, to ascertain 
 on what points we agree in this discussion, 
 and where we are likely to part company. 
 I assume then that we are at one, at least, 
 upon two points : 
 
I 14 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 I. That youth is to a large degree the 
 season of enjoyment. It is by no means 
 granted that it is the only season ; on the 
 contrary, God shows His wisdom and 
 benevolence in providing suitable pleasures 
 for all periods of human life ; universal 
 experience testifying that the serene en- 
 joyments of the old are more captivating 
 to them, than the more brilliant pleasures 
 of the young. I do not suppose that this 
 can be easily understood by those whose 
 experience is limited to their single age ; 
 it is impossible that the young shall put 
 themselves in the place of the old, so as to 
 know how they feel. Those alone, who 
 have stood at both ends of human life, are 
 able to make a just comparison between 
 the two. Still, the analogies of nature 
 may suggest to the young that the Autumn 
 of life may have its charms no less than 
 the Spring. In the latter, the youthful 
 year appears as a beautiful maiden be- 
 decked with the blossoms upon her green 
 robe : in the former, the brown forest is 
 adorned with a thousand kaleidoscopic 
 colors which charm the eye ; and we say 
 of the sober maiden, gray with age, she is 
 as beautiful as when she was a youthful 
 bride. Even when the dying Winter is 
 wrapped in its winding-sheet of snow, and 
 
"5 
 
 the icy crystals glisten like diamonds in the 
 sun, we say that nature is beautiful as she 
 sleeps in death. Equally true is it of all 
 the ages through which we pass — and I 
 may add, of all the conditions of human 
 society — that all have their several enjoy- 
 ments, which would not be exchanged for 
 those of any other period or condition. It 
 is, however, freely acknowledged that 
 youth is the season for enjoyment. 
 
 There are, indeed, many proofs of this, 
 obtruding themselves upon our notice. 
 The full tide of animal life gushing from 
 its hidden fountain within, the warm blood 
 flowing through the veins, both make the 
 very frame in which the soul dwells instinct 
 not only with life, but with joy. The ani- 
 mal spirits, which we share with the beasts 
 of the field as they gambol on the meadow 
 before our eyes, mark youth as the time 
 for enjoyment. Consider, too, the com- 
 parative absence of care in early life. I 
 sav, comparative absence ; for it is an 
 error to suppose that happy childhood has 
 no care. Those anticipated rebukes from 
 parent or teacher, which hang like a cloud 
 over the young heart, are they not as heavy 
 a burden as any that are borne in after 
 years? But then these are limited cares, 
 likes clouds drifting over the face of the 
 
Il6 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 moon — evanescent, and leaving no scars 
 upon the heart. They are not the cares 
 which cut the deep furrows across the 
 brow, in which the passing years are 
 buried. In this freedom from corroding 
 anxiety and trouble, and in the wild exu- 
 berance of animal life, we may trace the 
 signature of God assigning this season of 
 youth for casting the character in the mould 
 of happiness. 
 
 II. But we agree further that it is unwise 
 and injurious to interdict pleasure to the young. 
 One of three results would accrue : by vio- 
 lent reaction these restraints would be 
 thrust aside, with a more impetuous rush 
 towards the pleasures which are forbidden 
 — just as a sluggish stream may be con- 
 verted into a foaming torrent ; or, if re- 
 tained, they might prove bandages swath- 
 ing the free powers of the soul — by com- 
 pression forcing the character into unnatural 
 shape and hindering its expansion into 
 those generous and noble qualities which 
 adorn life and make it fruitful of good ; or 
 the tumultuous energy pent up within, will 
 force an outlet for itself in grosser vices 
 which shall deform the character and ruin 
 the soul. 
 
 Here, then, is a substantial agreement 
 
CHOICE OF AMUSEMENTS. \\J 
 
 between us ; that youth is largely the sea- 
 son for enjoyment, and that it is injurious 
 to interdict pleasures to the young. We 
 are more likely to diverge when we come 
 to consider the class of pleasures to be in- 
 dulged, and the grounds of their selection. 
 The question, then, emerges just here, are 
 there any general principles which may be 
 formulated to guide us in this matter — 
 principles which can be digested into a 
 code and put into the hands of the young, 
 enabling them wisely to discriminate be- 
 tween enjoyments which are healthful and 
 such as are hurtful ? If this is possible, I 
 mnch prefer to present these in portable 
 compass so as to be carried in your con- 
 sciences and hearts, rather than to indulge 
 in detailed criticism of the various forms of 
 worldly pleasure into which the young are 
 enticed. 
 
 I. The first principle, then, which I lay 
 down for your guidance, my young friends, 
 is this : those amusements are to be avoided 
 which cannot be converted into the means of a 
 good moral education. You perceive that I 
 ascend to a higher plane than has ever 
 been dreamed by the advocates of earthly 
 pleasure : I not only concede that pleasure 
 is lawful, but affirm that it is obligatory. 
 
Il8 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 It not only may be enjoyed, but should be 
 enjoyed, as a part of that educational sys- 
 tem by which men are the better fitted for 
 the duties and responsibilities of life. 
 Through happiness our sympathies are 
 nourished, and those kindly charities are 
 begotten, by which we are bound together 
 in the fellowship of society. It is in har- 
 mony with God's fatherly discipline over 
 His children, which mingles love-tokens 
 with the rod. Through a wise use of both 
 He educates His children, not only for use- 
 fulness on earth, but for glory and immor- 
 tality beyond the grave. Solomon says : 
 " In the day of prosperity be joyful, but 
 in the day of adversity consider ; God also 
 hath set the one over against the other, to 
 the end that man should find nothing after 
 him." When the great Vine dresser goes 
 into His vineyard with His pruning shears, 
 you find inscribed upon its two blades the 
 words, ''prosperity" and "adversity;" 
 and upon the reversed sides the two terms 
 "joy" and "consideration." Between 
 the sharp edges of the two we are placed ; 
 and as the two blades, in His strong hand 
 and with their powerful leverage, are 
 brought to bear upon us, we are made 
 fruitful in the clusters of ripe grapes which 
 are finally gathered by the Master. 
 
CHOICE OF AMUSEMENTS. I I9 
 
 Those pleasures, then, are to be chosen 
 which educate us ; those are to be declined, 
 which interfere with our advancement in 
 whatever is useful and -good. The state- 
 ment is very general, but it has an immense 
 sweep ; and it possesses the advantage of 
 being a working principle, capable of easy 
 application to every form of pleasure 
 springing up in our path. Lay it over, for 
 example, against the manly out- door 
 amusements with which our young men 
 should be familiar. How these invigorate 
 the body, causing the glow of health to 
 pervade the whole frame, and preserving 
 from the incursion of disease ; and how, 
 through this increase of bodily vigor, men 
 become good tempered, charitable in their 
 judgments, and free from disparaging 
 criticisms which evil men cast as fire- 
 bands upon their enemies. In such whole- 
 some amusements the physical condition, 
 and incidentally the moral, is improved — all 
 tending to the right education of man in 
 all his faculties. But what moral education 
 is there in the ball-room, or at the race- 
 course, or in any other place of mere sen- 
 sual enjoyment? On the contrary, the 
 undue stimulus which is afforded to pride, 
 self-love, vanity, envy and jealousy, warps 
 the character and renders it deformed and 
 
120 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 unlovely throughout. I am simply illus- 
 trating the principle, to show how easy it 
 is of application in all the conditions of 
 society and to every form of temptation 
 to which we are exposed in life. Write it 
 then in red letters upon your tablet : our 
 pleasures are a part of our moral discipline, 
 and should be selected with reference to 
 education for the highest ends of life in 
 this world and in that which is to come. 
 
 II. Let us pass to the second principle : 
 those pleasures are to be avoided, which we 
 cannot share with our seniors, and which 
 require entire exemption from restraint to give 
 them zest. The natural pleasures which 
 God has ordained, belong to men in all 
 ages and conditions of life. Permit me to 
 sketch a scene which may be disclosed in 
 a hundred homes in our city. We will 
 open this door and that : the father and the 
 mother are the central figures in the group ; 
 between the two range the children, in all 
 degrees from infancy to robust manhood 
 or the gentler charm of early womanhood ; 
 over there in the corner of the fire-place sit 
 the grand-parents, with the frost of age 
 upon their brow, looking through their dim 
 glasses upon the cheerful scene ; old and 
 young are together — old and young are 
 
CHOICE OF AMUSEMENTS. 121 
 
 happy at the same moment with the same 
 pleasure — by reason of their diversities of 
 age and experience, they are acting and 
 reacting upon each other, echoing and re- 
 echoing the same note of domestic enjoy- 
 ment. The father came in, a little while 
 since, with wrinkled brow ; for his busi- 
 ness had been all day in a wretched tangle. 
 He heaved a bitter sigh when his hand 
 was on the lock of the door ; and he sought 
 with an effort of will to throw off the bur- 
 den of care, that its gloom might not cast 
 its shadow upon those within. Now he 
 has taken the little prattler upon his knee ; 
 who, with that silvery laugh that belongs 
 to early childhood, puts out its dimpled 
 hand upon that rugged brow — which be- 
 comes so strangely smooth under its magic 
 touch. The heart that was sinking in 
 half despair, grows brave again ; and he 
 resolves to go back to his burden, and by 
 industry and thrift beat back the storm 
 which threatens to turn those nestlings out 
 of their happy home. Who could have 
 dreamed of such power in an unconscious 
 infant's touch.; but it must be a touch laid 
 upon careworn age. And look upon those 
 half-grown boys overflowing with merri- 
 ment, because the father steps down from 
 his dignity, and for one hour on that happy 
 
122 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 evening becomes the oldest boy in the 
 house. We know it all, for we had in 
 other days the homes in which these things 
 were. 
 
 God means that society shall be held to- 
 gether in bonds of reciprocal love ; and 
 those pleasures which make us happy in 
 the end, are put right here in the endear- 
 ments of domestic life. But when we be- 
 gin to dismember the social fabric by sep- 
 arating the classes which God has ordained 
 to be together — when we put the young in 
 one room, and the old in another, and say 
 the glare of our brightness is too much for 
 your dim eyes — in that separation, we are 
 proving the infelicity of the enjoyments 
 which cannot be common to all. Why, 
 we can separate the water we drink into 
 the elements of which it is composed : but 
 then we have oxygen and hydrogen, and 
 no longer the water which quenches thirst. 
 We can take the beautiful light coming 
 from the sun, and with childish glee rejoice 
 in the prismatic colors into which we have 
 resolved it ; but then it is no longer the 
 light which is so sweet for the eyes to be- 
 hold. So, when we take society to pieces 
 by the joints, we dissolve that which God 
 has constituted for our highest enjoyment 
 as well as noblest improvement. It is a 
 
CHOICE OF AMUSEMENTS. I 23 
 
 safe working principle, therefore, to eschew 
 all pleasures which we cannot share with 
 the serious and the old. 
 
 III. Those pleasures, again, are hurtful 
 iv Inch intoxicate and beruitch the senses. 
 Healthful enjoyments have their natural 
 bounds : as seen from the fact that they 
 cease to be enjoyed as soon as these limits 
 are passed. It is with them as with our 
 food and drink. When hungry, food is 
 grateful ; the moment hunger ceases, it is 
 easier to swallow physic than the most 
 delicate viands. In consuming thirst, the 
 water bursting from the mountain spring- 
 is more delicious than the costliest imported 
 ,wines : but when thirst is assuaged, we 
 dash the goblet from our lips. Having 
 reached the point at which enjoyment stops, 
 the temptation to further indulgence is re- 
 moved. In like manner, in natural plea- 
 sures excess is prevented because at a given 
 point they cease to please, and therefore 
 cease to tempt. 
 
 But as there are pleasures which are 
 safe and healthful, so there are others 
 which madden and inflame. Brandy may 
 have its uses, when the fever has died out 
 and the patient is in danger of collapse ; 
 and opium may have its use when the 
 
124 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 nerves have been for hours upon the rack, 
 and the taxed brain is ready to slip into 
 madness unless it can have the medicine of 
 sleep : but in the heyday of youth it would 
 be as well to leave the brandy and opium 
 alone, when it shall become a strange fire 
 setting the blood on flame — a catastrophe 
 not unlike setting on fire the whole 
 ocean — making it a universal and consum- 
 ing flame. Yet constituted as society is, 
 it is to these maddening and destructive 
 enjoyments the young are chiefly exposed. 
 Forgive me, if the suggestion strike you as 
 grotesque ; if there be any class to whom 
 these intoxicating enjoyments should be re- 
 mitted, it is the old rather than the young. 
 Give up the wild dance to your father, 
 when he begins to freeze and stiffen with 
 age ; it may do him good by suppling his 
 limbs : but for you who need it not, avoid 
 the fascination of those pleasures in whose 
 intoxicating power lies your inevitable 
 destruction. 
 
 IV. Again, those pleasures are forbidden 
 which contravene any known duty, or any 
 truth in the word of God. There are cir- 
 cumstances in which even lawful enjoyment 
 becomes criminal. Take a concrete illus- 
 tration : here is a youth of 18 years; his 
 
CHOICE OF AMUSEMENTS. 1 25 
 
 father died when he was but fifteen ; his 
 widowed mother, under the pressure of 
 grief, has struggled through three years to 
 maintain the household plunged by that 
 unhappy death in extreme poverty. This 
 son has obtained employment which yields 
 a moderate salary, sufficient barely to sus- 
 tain the feeble mother and two dependent 
 sisters. He is surrounded by gay compan- 
 ions who generously wish him to share 
 their costly amusements : evidently what 
 may be lawful to them, is forbidden to him. 
 He cannot engage in pursuits of any kind 
 which disable him from performing those 
 solemn duties of protection and care, 
 which he owes to those now dependent on 
 his earnings. 
 
 Allow me, my young friends, to tear a 
 leaf from my own history in enforcement 
 of this position : for I read a day or two 
 since, that to give power to any utterance 
 it must cease to be abstract, and the man 
 must stand behind his thought. When I 
 was seventeen years of age, I was thrown 
 into a large city as much given to gaiety as 
 this, without being subject to any control, 
 I was irreligious, nay, worse than that, I 
 was hostile to religion, in decided hostility 
 to God and the Gospel, in such evil pos- 
 ture that, had I fallen into the hands of 
 
126 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 scoffers, I might have become as infidel 
 as they. Surrounded by companions as 
 unrestrained as myself, most of whom sank 
 into premature graves, through the mercy 
 of God I was saved. /Vnd what instru- 
 mentality saved me from ruin ? Simply 
 the fortunate combination of poverty and 
 pride. Over the chasm of fifty years I re- 
 call the tempting invitations of that period : 
 ' ' to-night we are to have a supper, and will 
 have a gay time of it, and we want you to 
 be with us and add to our pleasure. " 
 "No," was the reply, "I thank you for 
 your kindness, but I cannot come." "Why 
 cannot you come? " " Because I cannot 
 afford it." "Cannot afford it ! You are 
 not asked to pay for the supper, but only 
 to eat it." " Yes," I replied, "but if to- 
 night I eat your supper and drink your 
 wine, very soon -after you must eat my 
 supper and drink my wine : and I cannot 
 afford it." Thus the poverty under which 
 I chafed at the time, was God's protection 
 of me. Easier fortunes came later and 
 floated me over those days ; and within a 
 year I found a home in the Church of the 
 living-- God, where I have been sheltered 
 from that day to this. 
 
 I have chosen to run the hazard of be- 
 ing charged with egotism, in order to give 
 
CHOICE OF AMUSEMENTS. 1 27 
 
 a personal illustration of the principle be- 
 fore us — that pleasures which are lawful to 
 many, may be unlawful to us who are 
 placed providentially in circumstances 
 which render indulgence criminal. Bear 
 in mind that pleasures are intended as a 
 tonic, to bring up the energies that would 
 otherwise flag : and the moment they in- 
 terfere with the duties assigned us, they 
 become temptations and a snare. 
 
 The prohibition is stronger whenever 
 these pleasures constructively contravene^ 
 any principle taught in Holy Scripture.. 
 Is it lawful, for example, to enter any 
 calling which gives him scmething for 
 nothing : when that something for nothing 
 does not come in the way of a gift, and 
 represents no feeling of kincjness ? Place 
 against any such system of finance the pre- 
 scribed law of labor under which all men 
 are placed, that "if a man does not work 
 neither shall he eat ; " is there not a law in 
 the Decalogue, which says with solemn 
 emphasis, " thou shalt not steal " ? Oram 
 I by unwise extravagance to involve my- 
 self in embarrassments from which there is 
 no extrication without injury to others? 
 You can seldom take up the journal of 
 any morning, but the staring head- 
 lines report some enormous defalcation : 
 and in almost every instance the cause as- 
 
128 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 signed is fast living, the plunging into gaie- 
 ties which could not be sustained. Driven 
 at length by necessity, the victim of 
 his own folly breaks the commandment of 
 God and finds himself on the way to the 
 Penitentiary. 
 
 V. I am brought to the last principle 
 which should rule the young in the selec- 
 tion of their pleasures ; that those amuse- 
 ments are injurious which are hostile to an 
 early devotion to the sen 'ice of Christ. It is 
 just as obligatory for you to be a Christian 
 at twenty, as at seventy years of age. 
 The epicurean maxim is fatal in its conse- 
 quences, that because youth is the season 
 for enjoyment therefore it may take reprisals 
 for the cares hereafter to devolve upon it. 
 No proverb is more hurtful than that which 
 allows the "sowing of wild oats" while 
 we are young. These wild oats will crop 
 out in the field when we are old, laying 
 the foundation for future toil in weeding 
 the garden and supplying it with plants 
 which are wholesome. Every period of 
 human life is covered with the authority of 
 God ; and to the young he speaks with 
 loving emphasis, " My son, give me thine 
 heart." It is robbery in the young, as it is 
 in the old, to withhold that heart upon 
 
CHOICE OF AMUSEMENTS. I 20, 
 
 which the Almighty is ever enforcing His 
 just claim : and if there are forms of enjoy- 
 ment which hinder this early consecration 
 to God, this alone stamps them as evil. 
 
 Nor is there a single natural pleasure 
 which interferes with early piety. A boy 
 of ten may be a Christian, as well as a 
 man of thirty : but it should be the piety 
 of the boy, and becomes hypocrisy when- 
 ever it is anything else. The very mirth- 
 fulness of the child may be sanctified by 
 divine grace and made tributary to God's 
 glory. The characteristic feature of all 
 true enjoyment is that it is consistent with 
 the claims of Jehovah, in all the relations 
 and conditions of human life. 
 
 In conclusion, I trust I have sufficiently 
 shown that neither the old nor Christians 
 have any jealousy of the true pleasures of 
 the young. You may possibly think — if 
 not saying it — "oh, you are a church- 
 member and cannot be expected to en- 
 gage in these our enjoyments!" Why, 
 my young friends, we are Christians be- 
 cause we choose to be such ; and have as 
 good a right to be wild and rollicking as 
 any of you. You cannot therefore urge 
 any plea of this sort, in evading our re- 
 monstrance. If I am a minister of the 
 Gospel, it is because, through the influ- 
 ence of the Holy Spirit, I chose to be : 
 
130 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 but there was a time when I did not so 
 choose ; and I could have gone forward in 
 a course of recklessness and folly, if it had 
 seemed fit to do so. We wish it to be 
 understood that the old, by their past ex- 
 perience, have sympathy wit '1 the pursuits 
 and enjoyments of youth. But I would 
 be unjust to you, if I failed to remind you 
 of the purer enjoyment to be found in the 
 service and worship of the blessed God. 
 If the world could only know it, there is 
 more true joy in the penitence and sorrow 
 of the Christian, when he melts in grati- 
 tude as the Father above sweetly whis- 
 pers, "thy sins are forgiven thee, " than 
 in all the pleasures which Solomon com- 
 pares to "the crackling of thorns under a 
 pot." I commend to you this night the 
 sober pleasures of religion as immeasure- 
 ably greater than all the glittering plea- 
 sures of this poor world. The logic is 
 very short : if the sorrow and the weeping 
 of the pious are happier than all your 
 joys, what must the ecstasy of the Chris- 
 tian be when he basks in the full light of 
 his Heavenly Father's favor, with assur- 
 ance of eternal blessedness in the world to 
 come? May God bring you at last into 
 His presence where is fulness of joy, and 
 to "His right hand where are pleasures for 
 evermore." 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 S/N OF PROFANE SWEARING. 
 
 Exodus xx. 7—" Thou shalt not take the name of the 
 Lord thy God in vain : for the Lo>d will not hold him 
 guiltless that takcth his name in vain.'''' Also. 
 
 Matthew v. 34-37 — 4i But I say unto yon, swear not 
 at all ; neither l>\> heaven, for it is God'' s throne ; nor hv the 
 earth, for it is his footstool ; neither by Jerusalem, for it 
 is the c iy of the great King ; neither shalt thou swear 
 by thy head, because thou camt not make one hair white or 
 Hack. But let your communication be, yea. yea, — nay, 
 nay— for whatsoever is more than these comcth of evil." 
 
 The preceding lectures were upon gen- 
 eral topics, and were approached without 
 reluctance. But the four which are to 
 follow will be more special, and will be 
 approached with some misgiving because 
 they partake of the nature of censure. 
 It is never pleasant, in Church or State, 
 to assume the function of prosecuting At- 
 torney and to file indictments against our 
 fellow-men. Certainly the preacher of the 
 Gospel would far prefer to dwell upon the 
 infinite love of God, and so persuade men 
 
132 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ. But 
 it is sometimes necessary to lift the voice 
 of warning against the sins and vices pre- 
 vailing in society, and so to pluck men 
 from perdition. 
 
 From the passages of Scripture just re- 
 cited, you perceive that I propose to 
 dwell upon the vice of profane swear- 
 ing. It would be natural to present the 
 lower aspects of the case : such as the in- 
 appropriateness of the language employed, 
 when used simply to adorn our speech or 
 to lend emphasis to what we utter. In 
 most instances the oath is a mere expletive 
 filling up a hollow utterance, or confirming 
 its truth. The indecency of the language 
 might also be urged as a dissuasive : for 
 the fact that those given to it find them- 
 selves constrained to suppress the oath in 
 the presence of those whom it would out- 
 rage, is an involuntary confession that it is 
 an offence against good manners. Yet if 
 conventional usage sustains the practice, 
 no conviction of its indecency or absurdity 
 will arrest it. Indeed it would only weak- 
 en the impression I desire to make upon 
 you, should I linger upon these lower con- 
 siderations. Let us then ascend at once 
 to the higher plane upon which all moral 
 advice should rest. 
 
SIN OF PROFANE SWEARING. 1 33 
 
 I. Profane swearing pours contempt upon 
 the perfections of God, as these are symbo- 
 lized in His various names. Names are 
 given to things in order to distinguish 
 them ; they are the handles by which we 
 take them up, and present them to our own 
 view and to the views of others. We can- 
 not get along in ordinary intercourse with- 
 out designating the various objects to 
 which we direct our attention ; and this is 
 done shortly and conclusively by the 
 names which describe them. At the be- 
 ginning, names were never arbitrary, but 
 were significant ; inasmuch as they set 
 forth some of the properties conspicuous 
 in the objects indicated. Certainly this is 
 true of the name of the Deity. Some of 
 the ancient fathers were accustomed to 
 say, that God was the only being in the 
 universe who needed not a name ; since 
 being alone of His kind, he had no need to 
 be distinguished from others. But if God 
 is pleased to reveal Himself as the object 
 of worship, and if the creature must ap- 
 proach Him with his wants, then certain- 
 ly a name is needed as a medium of ad- 
 dress. It is not a little instructive on this 
 point, that in the recorded prayers of the 
 Bible the names of the Deity always em- 
 balm the substance of the petition. The 
 
134 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 mind naturally seeks that in the character 
 of Jehovah which warrants the prayer: 
 and through this attribute, as embodied in 
 some of the Divine names, ventures to ap- 
 proach the throne with its petition. The 
 names of God in the Scripture are derived 
 sometimes from His essential being— as "Je- 
 hovah, " or as the " I am," or as "He 
 was and is and is to come: " sometimes 
 again from His attributes, both natural and 
 moral — as when we speak of Him as " the 
 Most High, " or "the Almighty," or as 
 " the only wise God," or " the King eter- 
 nal, immortal, invisible," etc; at other 
 times, the names are derived from the re- 
 lations which He sustains to the creature, 
 as ruler, preserver and judge. The point 
 then to be made here is this ; as these 
 names are all of them significant of some 
 property or excellence in the Divine Being, 
 the special vice of profane swearing con- 
 sists in disassociating them from the per- 
 fections which they symbolize. You will 
 perceive how completely this anticipates 
 and refutes the apology usually offered to 
 palliate this offence. A man may say, I 
 intend no disrespect to the Almighty when 
 I use His name as an expletive : it is done 
 thoughtlessly, not even having that august 
 Being in my mind at all ; and He who 
 
SIN OF PROFANE SWEARING. 1 35 
 
 searches the heart knows that it was not in 
 my thought to disparage His character, or 
 to throw reproach upon His awful majes- 
 ty. Now what is here offered as an apol- 
 ogy constitutes, in my view, the essence 
 of the sin, to-wit: that it disassociates those 
 things which should ever be closely and 
 reverently joined together. It is a serious 
 injury to a man's moral nature, when the 
 two can be so separated that no sugges- 
 tion of God's majesty and holiness comes 
 with the mention of His name. 
 
 I recall at this moment a story once 
 read in my youth, strikingly illustrating 
 this matter. It was the story of an Ital- 
 ian nobleman unfortunately addicted to 
 the vice of gambling. One eventful night 
 proved to him the night of destiny. He 
 first staked upon the board all the ready 
 money that he could command ; then the 
 revenues accruing from his landed estates : 
 after this, those estates themselves, one 
 after another until they were all swept 
 from his possession. Nothing remained of 
 his ancestral domain, except the palace in 
 the imperial city, in whose proud halls 
 high revelry had been kept through cen- 
 turies past by his forefathers. When re- 
 lentless fortune had wrested this, too, from 
 his grasp, with the intense passion of the 
 
I36 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 gamester he exclaimed, "One tie alone 
 binds me to life ; it is the bride who was 
 shortly to have been worn as a jewel upon 
 my bosom." It was the last stake to be 
 thrown upon the fatal board — the fair and 
 noble creature who should have shared 
 with him the fortunes of life. When the 
 cruel dice decided this against him, he 
 rose in the madness of despair : with a hor- 
 rid imprecation, he said to his successful 
 rival, "You have taken from me the estates 
 of my progenitors, the palace in which 
 they lived ; you have cut the last tie which 
 bound me to the future ; I stand, a ruined 
 beggar, before you in your triumph : there 
 is but one thing left ; I stake my name — a 
 name illustrious in Italy's history, a name 
 never tainted with reproach — the name to 
 which I am heir, coming down to me 
 through a proud and honored ancestry ; 
 it is all that is left to me ; I pledge it as 
 my last stake." His evil fortune could 
 not be appeased : this, too, was lost, and 
 the ruined gamester rushed madly through 
 the brilliantly lighted halls into the 
 "outer darkness." Just think ; he could 
 not tell to any being on earth so much as 
 who he was. He had deliberately put 
 away from him that by which he could be 
 distinguished from others of his race ; he 
 
SIN OF PROFANE SWEARING. 1 37 
 
 had severed the last tie by which he was 
 bound to the rest of mankind, and stood 
 confessed at the bar of his own conscience 
 an apostate from himself. The story goes 
 on to say that, a fugitive over the earth, 
 he chanced to encounter the antagonist who 
 robbed him of his all. Rushing forward 
 he kneeled at his feet, saying, "Keep, keep 
 all, my lands and estates, my palace and 
 my bride, only give me back my name." 
 When this was disdainfully refused, he 
 rushed upon his foe in deadly combat. 
 But fortune was still unrelenting : falling 
 to the earth with the sword of his antago- 
 nist through his breast, he gathered the 
 clotted blood and threw it back upon him 
 with a muttered curse, and passed away 
 to meet the retribution of his crime. 
 
 This story, whether fact or fiction, forci- 
 bly teaches us, what is in a name : it repre- 
 sents our personality, and to forfeit it is 
 to forego our identity. If this can be true 
 of a name which is arbitrary, in that it is 
 significant of nothing, what must be the 
 guilt or the attempt to rob the living God 
 of the names which represent to our 
 thought all His glorious excellence ? Is it 
 not because of this necessary association 
 between the names and perfections of God, 
 that the sin of profane swearing is so hard- 
 
I38 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 ening in its influence ? By destroying, in 
 one's own mind, this association with all of 
 sweetness and love, a man's whole con- 
 science and heart becomes as impenetrable 
 as the nether millstone. 
 
 II. Observe further that the oath is or- 
 dained as an act of religious worship ; of 
 which profane swearing is the perversion 
 and travesty. All swearing is not forbid- 
 den ; only that which is profane. In the 
 Old Testament, God testifies His willing- 
 ness to save the sinner by an oath : ' ' As I 
 live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in 
 the death of the wicked : but that the wick- 
 ed turn from his way, and live." (Ezekiel 
 xxxiii 2.) What more stringent oath 
 can there be, than thus to swear by His 
 own necessary and eternal being ? Equal- 
 ly solemn, if not even more startling, is 
 the oath founded upon His consummate and 
 unchangeable Holiness: "Once have I 
 sworn by my holiness that I will not lie 
 unto David. " (Psalms lxxxix 35.) So 
 in the New Testament the superiority of 
 Christ's priesthood over that of Aaron is 
 proven by the fact of his induction into 
 office with the solemnity of an oath : "for 
 those priests were made without an oath ; 
 but this with an oath by Him that said 
 
SIN OF PROFANE SWEARING. 1 39 
 
 unto him, the Lord sware and will not re- 
 pent, Thou art a priest forever after the 
 order of Melchisedec. " The Apostle Paul, 
 refers to the covenant of old made with 
 Abraham, that it was confirmed with an 
 oath; "for when God made promise to 
 Abraham, because He could swear by no 
 greater, He sware by Himself, saying, 
 surely blessing I will bless thee, and mul- 
 tiplying I will multiply thee. For men 
 verily swear by the greater ; and an oath 
 for confirmation is to them the end of all 
 strife." (Hebrews vi. 13-16.) Paul does 
 not hesitate to call God to witness to the 
 truth of what he averred. (Romans 1 9.) 
 And I am not sure that the asseveration 
 so commonly employed by our Lord, 
 "verily, verily, I say unto you," does not 
 partake of the nature of an oath. It is at 
 least the solemn and duplicate deposition 
 of one who recognized that He was a wit- 
 ness for the truth. 
 
 The oath then, when analyzed, is an act oi 
 religious homage : it is a recognition of the 
 Divine existence, of His necessary attri- 
 butes, of His supreme relation to us as 
 lawgiver and judge. By it a man binds 
 his soul under the Divine law, and chal- 
 lenges the omniscient Jehovah as witness to 
 what he says and does. If God be wit- 
 
I4O ' FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 ness and judge of every transaction of man 
 upon earth, is not this oath by which God 
 is specially invoked an act of worship sin- 
 gularly impressive in its solemnity ? Is not 
 the guilt therefore of using this name ir- 
 reverently correspondingly great, which 
 travesties all that is sacred in the charac- 
 ter of that august Being before whom we 
 must stand in the final judgment ? I re- 
 member a class of young men in a college, 
 more than fifty years ago, who engaged 
 one night in a mock prayer-meeting : and 
 went beyond this in a sacrilegious travesty 
 of the sacrament of the Supper. Now I 
 am far from saying that the ordinary and 
 thoughtless profanity of men partakes of 
 the malignity of these acts ; but I do say 
 that it is always and everywhere a traves- 
 ty of that which God ordains as a medium 
 of communion between Himself and the 
 human soul ; and the guilt cannot be slight 
 which profanes this worship. 
 
 Do not deem me harsh when I add that, 
 as I pass along these streets compelled to 
 hear the blasphemies that fall upon my ear, 
 I pause and ask myself "do these men 
 know that unwittingly in their oaths they 
 are testifying to the most fearful truths re- 
 vealed in the Word of God ? " When you 
 hear them sending themselves and others 
 
SIN OF PROFANE SWEARING. I4I 
 
 to endless perdition in terms which cause 
 one's hair to stand on end, do they not 
 proclaim the doctrine of Hell with an em- 
 phasis which the pulpit would not dare to 
 use? How do you explain it? How 
 comes it that these men who turn con- 
 temptously away from all the overtures of 
 infinite love, with that instinct of justice 
 planted in every bosom do so conspicu- 
 ously challenge the judgment of Heaven 
 upon themselves and their fellows ? Never- 
 theless, as it is done inconsiderately, it re- 
 mains a perversion and travesty of what 
 Almighty God ordains as acts of solemn 
 worship. 
 
 III. Profane swearing weakens the bonds 
 of society, by lessening the value of the Ju- 
 dicial Oath in our Courts of Justice. Man's 
 religious nature underlies all the institu- 
 tions of society. Look at this assemblage 
 here to-night : several hundred human be- 
 ings sit together, each with a separate will, 
 and each will exacting all within its con- 
 trol : yet is this assembly but a miniature 
 representation of the world at large ; how 
 is society to be preserved amidst this clash 
 of wills ? Civil government must lay a 
 forcible restraint upon the passions of men ; 
 although we have been under discipline 
 
142 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 and accustomed to restraint from the cradle 
 upward. How is it that men, with pas- 
 sions as fierce as those of the bear and 
 tiger, and with intelligence far exceeding 
 that of the beasts, can be held in check ? 
 We may dream as we please about man- 
 kind coming up from a state of barbarism 
 and brute force, and sitting in council to 
 devise constitutions and laws by which 
 their mutual interests might be protected ; 
 but the truth underlying all this mystery, is 
 that Almighty God has made man a religious 
 being. With a conscience ever responding 
 to the authority of law, and held under a 
 supernatural control, man is capable of 
 subjection to human law : and without this 
 religious nature underlying all obedience, 
 the government could not be framed 
 strong enough to hold in check the pas- 
 sions and lusts by which society would be 
 convulsed. But the last resource of hu- 
 man government is an appeal to this re- 
 ligious sentiment in man. In our Courts 
 of Justice, in every case that is tried 
 whether of life or death, or where proper- 
 ty interests alone are involved, the wit- 
 nesses are not allowed to utter a syllable of 
 testimony, until they have been placed in 
 the presence of the Omitiscient One, and 
 are bound under penalty of the Divine 
 
SIN OF PROFANE SWEARING. 1 43 
 
 law to speak only the truth. This is no 
 idle form ; but a solemn acknowledgment 
 that perjury, though it may escape detec- 
 tion here, will surely be overtaken by the 
 swift and unerring justice of Jehovah. It 
 thus appears that human law and human 
 courts can protect the interests of property 
 and human life, only by laying its reverent 
 hand upon the sanctions of the eternal 
 world ; and bringing all parties under the 
 scrutiny of that Judge who has power to 
 read the secrets of every heart. 
 
 If now, we weaken this sentiment of 
 reverence by a light and frivolous use of 
 the venerable name, of what value is the 
 oath in the sacred precincts of human 
 justice? If no higher consideration can 
 prevail, a common interest in the welfare 
 of society, and the need of mutual protec- 
 tion, should restrain the useless oath in 
 which God's holy and dreadful name is 
 daily profaned. 
 
 IV. Profane sweating exposes constantly 
 to the danger and guilt of petjury. The 
 legal definition of perjury, given by Sir 
 Edward Coke, is — " when a lawful oath is 
 administered in some judicial proceeding, 
 to a person who swears wilfully, absolutely 
 and falsely in a matter material to the 
 
144 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 issue or point in question." This defini- 
 tion, it will be perceived, is narrowed with- 
 in the scope of merely judicial proceed- 
 ings ; which is all that law is technically 
 called to do. But there is a wider sense 
 in which a shade, at least, of this guilt may 
 be contracted. It is where men swear to 
 that which is false in any case ; whether in 
 the interests of litigants in the courts of 
 justice, or beyond legal jurisdiction alto- 
 gether. Now see how the common 
 swearer may graze the edge of this fearful 
 crime, in the loose way in which he throws 
 about his terrific asseverations. He may 
 swear most solemnly to do that which, in 
 the next moment or the next day, he may 
 conclude to leave undone. Or upon mis- 
 information, he may sincerely swear to the 
 truth of that which is afterward shown to 
 be false. There may be a hundred differ- 
 ent ways, in which a man careless of 
 his speech may be trapped into glaring 
 falsehoods ; and these when confirmed by 
 an oath, bring one into hazardous near- 
 ness to a crime of which he may not 
 dream ; and which brought home to his 
 conscience would fill him with horror. 
 
 In this connection, permit me to sug- 
 gest a thought not often used as an argu- 
 ment against swearing. Why should a 
 
SIN OF PROFANE SWEARING. 1 45 
 
 man swear at all ? The reply is, to give 
 emphasis to what he is saying. But what 
 need is there of any emphasis ? Why is it 
 not enough in ordinary intercourse to say, 
 yea, yea, or nay, nay? What more is 
 wanted between man and man than the 
 simple statement of truth ? Why should 
 any one put suspicion upon his veracity by 
 unnecessary and continual emphasis on 
 what he says ? If he knows that he speaks 
 the truth, what need is there of these ex- 
 pletives? And why must he clinch every 
 statement with these tremendous oaths 
 which drag the Almighty into the conflict 
 with the unbelief of his neighbor? Un- 
 truthfulness may be disclosed not only in 
 deviation from the truth, but also in the 
 suspicion that others know it. It should 
 be a sufficient protection against this com- 
 mon vice, that the "oath for confirmation" 
 weakens the word by the intensity of the 
 useless emphasis. If a man be recognized 
 as honest and true, his word will be ac- 
 cepted as his bond ; and he betrays a 
 foolish fear, if he undertakes to bolster 
 that word with a profusion of imprecatory 
 oaths. I commend this thought to those 
 who find it necessary to back every asser- 
 tion with an appeal to the omniscience of 
 God. 
 
I46 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 V. Profaneness is aggravated by the 
 thought of its utter unprofitableness. Most 
 vices offer a balance sheet of profit, even 
 though it be both temporary and small ; 
 but what possible gain is found in profane 
 swearing ? Robert Hall, in his caustic 
 style, terms it " the superfluity of naught- 
 iness " — a sort of " pepper-corn rent which 
 a man pays in acknowledgment of the 
 Devil's authority. " And the milder Bar- 
 row of the English Church says, "of all 
 the dealers in sin, the swearer is the most 
 thriftless; because he sins gratis." It is 
 therefore without the poor excuse of neces- 
 sity or advantage, by which other sins are 
 apologized for : it is the most wanton of 
 all offences against the Divine law. What 
 defence can be set up for this vile and per- 
 nicious use of the tongue, which David de- 
 clares to be the glory of our frame ? Un- 
 der every aspect in which it can be viewed, 
 the habit is without excuse or palliation. 
 The language is unintelligent, even silly : 
 it must be proscribed as an offence against 
 good breeding ; it always loosens the bond 
 by which society is held together ; and it 
 violates all the instincts of religion in the 
 soul. 
 
 In closing this lecture, I may be asked 
 by some of the young men present " Why 
 
SIN OF PROFANE SWEARING. 1 47 
 
 do you address this particularly to us, see- 
 ing the habit is so universal?" My an- 
 swer is, just because it is universal there is 
 no way of stopping it in its course but by 
 breaking the succession of those who trans- 
 gress. The stream must be cut off at the 
 fountain : if the young could be persuaded 
 to abstain from this unwholesome practice, 
 it might possibly be dried up in a genera- 
 tion or two. Again, the young are per- 
 haps peculiarly exposed to this vice. The 
 liveliness oi their disposition may easily be- 
 tray them into extravagance of speech : 
 their want of experience has not shown 
 the importance of measuring their words, 
 so that they shall never pass beyond the 
 bounds of truth. At any rate, my young 
 friends, the habit is not so confirmed in 
 you, as in those who are older ; and it may 
 be, you will be inclined to listen to the 
 voice of reason, if not to the authority of 
 religion, when both set before you a prac- 
 tice which even common sense universally 
 deprecates. 
 
LECTURE IX. 
 SIN OF SABBATH-BREAKING. 
 
 Exodus xx. 8-ii — " Remember the Sabbath-day to 
 keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy 
 tvork : but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy 
 God ; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, 
 nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-ser- 
 vant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy 
 gates ; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the 
 sea , and all that in them is. and rested the seventh day; 
 wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day and hallowed 
 
 itr 
 
 Pursuing the line of criticism opened in 
 the preceding lecture, I am led to-night to 
 
 URGE THE CLAIMS OF THE SABBATH AND 
 TO SHOW THE GUILT INCURRED IN ITS DESE- 
 CRATION. Perhaps of all sins forbidden 
 in the Decalogue, not one rests more light- 
 ly upon the conscience than the violation 
 of the Sabbath. For this, three reasons 
 may be assigned : first, it is regarded by 
 many as a positive institute merely, based 
 upon authority alone and without any 
 
I50 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 moral ground of support. So it is argued, 
 the transgression is comparatively slight 
 as not committed against one's own moral 
 convictions. Again, the observance of the 
 Sabbath clashes with earthly interests at 
 every point, exposing to the temptation 
 of constant evasion ; and there is no surer 
 way of debauching the conscience than by 
 the constant suppression of its testimony. 
 Further, the allowed exceptions of " neces- 
 sity " and " mercy " are somewhat indefi- 
 nite, and call for wise discretion in deter- 
 mining them. It is therefore the more 
 necessary to set forth the grounds upon 
 which the obligation of the Sabbath may 
 be firmly established. 
 
 I. Taking then the lowest ground \ that 
 the Sabbath is a positive institute only, hav- 
 ing no foundation but the Divine command, 
 it follows that its desecration is an act of 
 fiaked rebellion. God's authority is final, 
 in every case binding upon the conscience. 
 Is it allowed under any government, hu- 
 man or Divine, to go behind the law and 
 determine its propriety before obedience 
 shall be rendered ? Would not such a 
 principle vacate all law, and disable every 
 government? In the instance before us, 
 the assumption is peculiarly flagitious. 
 
SIN OF SABBATH-BREAKING. I 5 I 
 
 We know that the Lawgiver here is in- 
 finitely wise and good ; His commands 
 must therefore rest upon sufficient grounds, 
 whether they are disclosed to us or not. 
 The Divine character is guarantee for the 
 wisdom and beneficence of the law ; and 
 the reasons, if revealed, ought to satisfy 
 the judgment of every creature. The fact 
 that He sees fit to withhold these from our 
 knowledge does not weaken, but rather 
 strengthens, the obligation to obey ; be- 
 cause then the obedience founds not upon 
 our judgment of the law, but upon the 
 guarantee of His perfections. What there- 
 fore is often urged in extenuation of Sab- 
 bath-breaking, turns into an aggravation 
 of the offence. 
 
 A significant illustration of the principle 
 here involved, vvill be found in the history 
 of man's original probation in the garden 
 of Eden. This probation, it will be re^ 
 membered, turned upon a point in itself 
 indifferent — precisely adapted as the test of 
 obedience. A single injunction was laid 
 upon our first parent: "of every tree of 
 the garden thou mayest freely eat ; but of 
 the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, 
 thou shalt not eat of it : for in the day that 
 thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." 
 (Genesis n. 16-17.) Here then is a posi- 
 
152 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 tive command touching an act which, 
 aside from this restriction, was morally in- 
 different ; and which consequently was 
 simply an expression of the Divine will. 
 But for this very reason, that it was an asser- 
 tion of the Divine supremacy, it tested per- 
 fectly the spirit of obedience which rested 
 nakedly upon the authority of the Law- 
 giver. So with the law of the Sabbath : 
 let it be granted that no reason can be as- 
 signed for the reservation of it, except the 
 bare authority of Jehovah — this alone con- 
 stitutes it the test of our obedience. It is 
 needful that such a test should exist, un- 
 der all the dispensations of law or grace in 
 which man shall be found, as illustrating 
 the nature of the obedience required of 
 him. If such dismal consequences fol- 
 lowed the first transgression of authority, 
 when 
 
 " Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat 
 Sighing through all her works gave signs ot woe 
 That all was lost ; " 
 
 surely the danger of trifling with it is suf- 
 ficiently shown. Through all the Scrip- 
 tures God is shown to be jealous of His 
 sovereignty, making the denial of His su- 
 premacy a perilous issue to be joined. 
 
 II. But the Sabbath is not without a sup- 
 
SIN OF SABBATH-BREAKING. I 53 
 
 porting moral foundation. It was appointed 
 at the very beginning as the memorial of 
 God 's creative power > and of the rights ac- 
 cruing therefrom. It is expressly stated in 
 the Decalogue that, ' ' in six days God 
 made heaven and earth, the sea and all 
 that in them is, and rested the seventh 
 day ; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sab- 
 bath day and hallowed it." On turning 
 to the earlier record, you will find this a 
 reproduction of the language employed 
 at the Creation : "on the seventh day 
 God ended His work which He had made ; 
 and He rested on the seventh day from 
 all His work which He had made ; and God 
 blessed the seventh day and sanctified it ; 
 because that in it He had rested from all 
 His work which God created and made." 
 (Gen. ii. 2-3.) Those of you who are 
 familiar with the speculations in philos- 
 ophy through all the ages, will un- 
 derstand the importance of this Divine tes- 
 timony as to the origin of the Universe. 
 Science, by her own acknowledgment, can 
 only observe the phenomena, and trace 
 the causes by which they are immediately 
 produced and the laws under which these 
 forces are seen to operate. What occurred 
 at the earliest beginning, from the nature 
 of the case, can be known only from testi- 
 
154 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 mony : and the only being competent to 
 deliver that testimony is the Creator Him- 
 self. Hence the value even to philosophy 
 and science of these first two chapters in 
 the book of Genesis. From these alone 
 we have knowledge how the universe 
 came into being ; and we know it from the 
 declaration of Him by whose voice it was 
 called out of nothing — "so that things 
 which are seen were not made of things 
 which do appear." We may lengthen the 
 interval which separates us from that be- 
 ginning, as much as we please ; and we 
 may imagine the process by which the 
 worlds were fashioned and thrown into 
 space ; but we know from infallible testi- 
 mony that matter is not eternal, and that 
 it exists alone by the power of Him who 
 first brought it into being. The Sabbath 
 then lifts its shaft from the moment of the 
 Creation high above all history, testifying 
 through the ages to the end of time that 
 4 ' through faith we understand the worlds 
 were framed by the word of God." 
 
 Associated with this great truth are the 
 proprietary rights of Jehovah as the Crea- 
 tor of all things, The Sabbath comes to 
 man asserting God's supremacy over him ; 
 and in keeping this holy day, he makes 
 acknowledgment of his dependence upon 
 
SIN OF SABBATH-BREAKING. I 55 
 
 4 'the Father of lights from whom cometh 
 down every good and perfect gift." It is 
 the confession of man's creatureship, and 
 of all the duties which grow out of it. 
 Like the ancient tithe, the Sabbath is a 
 Divine royalty, reserved by Jehovah to 
 Himself and His own uses. It does not 
 belong to man in fee-simple ; it never did 
 so belong to him ; it never will be his by 
 absolute right, to the end of time. It is 
 given to him for specified uses, and only 
 under these limitations is it his at all. 
 From the beginning God separated the 
 Sabbath from the week as the property of 
 man : the six days are his, but the Sabbath 
 is the Lord's. It lies between the weeks 
 of labor, the golden clasp which holds 
 them together — the condition upon which 
 Jehovah has granted this arrangement of 
 time which shall be continuous through hu- 
 man history until the consummation of all 
 things. 
 
 The obligation of the Sabbath rests pri- 
 marily upon this ; that it belongs to God 
 by a solemn and exclusive reservation of it 
 to Himself; and it is ours to be employed 
 for Him and to the manifestation of His 
 gloryr It raises its testimonial spire from 
 the first Sabbath in Paradise to the eternal 
 Sabbath in Heaven, proclaiming that Jeho- 
 
I56 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 vah is the proprietor of all things, and the 
 supreme object of worship in Heaven and 
 in Earth. The misappropriation of it to 
 loreign uses is simply theft. What right 
 has any man to that which is not his ? Ah, 
 my friends, when we are talking about 
 rights, let us remember that Almighty 
 God has His, as well as we ; and of these 
 He cannot be divested : for of all proprie- 
 tors, He has the most power to enforce 
 His claims. Never forget that, however 
 long these may be held in abeyance 
 through the audacious usurpation of the 
 creature, there will come a fearful reclama- 
 tion when the world is summoned to the 
 judgment of the great day. The violation 
 of the sanctity of the Sabbath is not only 
 an act of simple disobedience to authority, 
 but of contumacy and constructive apos- 
 tasy. 
 
 III. The Sabbath is allowed to man in miti- 
 gation of the curse of lab or t which imposes tip on 
 us the obligation of gratitude. Immediately 
 after the Fall, the curse was pronounced in 
 these words: "cursed is the ground for 
 thy sake ; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all 
 the days of thy life ; in the sweat of thy 
 face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return 
 unto the ground ; for out of it wast thou 
 
SIN OF SABBATH-BREAKING. I 57 
 
 taken ; for dust thou art, and unto dust 
 thou shalt return." (Gen. in. 17-19.) 
 It is before your eyes wherever you turn, 
 that this curse is upon the sons of men to 
 the present hour ; the mass of the human 
 family are simply struggling for subsistence 
 everywhere, living not so much from day 
 to day, as from meal to meal. God in 
 His mercy has exempted the holy Sabbath 
 from the operation of this curse, and has 
 made it a day of rest. Were it kept as it 
 should be, the hum of industry would be 
 hushed over the earth, every spindle would 
 be stopped, and the world would have its 
 appointed repose. The vision of the poet 
 would be realized : 
 
 " How still the morning of the hallow'd day. 
 Mute is the voice of rural labor, hush'd 
 The plowboy's whistle, and the milkmaid's song." 
 
 There is an accumulation of facts, easily 
 produced if wanted, showing man's need 
 of the supplemental rest of the Sabbath, 
 in order to keep him in body and mind 
 fairly in repair. So far is it from diminish- 
 ing the products of toil, they prosper most 
 who by this supplemental rest are better 
 fitted to endure the six days' toil. I re- 
 member when first coming to this State 
 asking a sugar-planter, not fifty miles from 
 this city, whether it was really necessary 
 
158 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 to violate the Sabbath during the grinding 
 season: the emphatic answer was, "Sir, 
 the leather bands by which our machinery 
 is run need the rest of the Sabbath. " Cer- 
 tainly this is a strong statement of the 
 necessity of the Sabbath : if even inani- 
 mate things cannot undergo a ceaseless 
 strain without disintegration, how much 
 more is this stated intermission of labor re- 
 quired for so complicated a structure as 
 that of man ? 
 
 Take another view of this matter, in- 
 volving a moral element. The inequali- 
 ties of life introduce many forms of servi- 
 tude : it may not be in the severe form of 
 slavery ; but in some form or other the 
 necessities of life will compel some to labor 
 for others whom Providence has placed in 
 better positions than themselves. All over 
 the land the distinction is drawn between 
 the employer and the employed. The 
 clerk must ^ork through the hours ap- 
 pointed by the merchant ; and so with the 
 laborer in the field, and the artisan at his 
 trade : the necessity of earning to-morrow's 
 bread by the toil of to day, will put one 
 man under the control of another. How 
 gratefully should these children of toil wel- 
 come the Sabbath, which blots out for a 
 little moment these artificial distinctions, 
 
SIN OF SABBATH-EREAKING. I 59 
 
 and brings the whole race to equality be- 
 fore God ! Eeyond the works of necessity 
 and mercy equally binding upon all, the 
 Sabbath brings a remission of the woe de- 
 nounced against sinful man ; and by giving 
 bread without labor affords to all the pledge 
 of providential care. Of what priceless 
 value to the poor man is the day of rest, 
 affording time for the indulgence of the af- 
 fections, and drawing closer the ties of do- 
 mestic life? In every social and temporal 
 aspect, the Sabbath comes to every home 
 with a Divine blessing, and sanctifies the 
 days which must be given to necessary 
 toil. 
 
 IV. Finally, the Sabbat J i urges its claim 
 upon our regard as the symbol of religion 
 under all Dispensations; and is designed for 
 the culture of our higher and religious nature. 
 To cancel the Sabbath is to abrogate all 
 worship, if not to ignore the Deity by 
 whom we have been created and fashioned. 
 Even in natural religion, when man first 
 worshiped God in perfect holiness and 
 without the taint of sin, it is found. It is 
 a significant fact that the first day which 
 the created man spent upon earth, was the 
 Sabbath which the Lord God had sancti- 
 fied. As he opened his eyes on the new- 
 
l60 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 created world, he was greeted with the 
 light of the first Sabbath morn ; and in the 
 holy service of that day, as the priest of 
 nature, he gathered up the praises of all the 
 creatures and poured them as incense be- 
 fore the throne of God. As before he was 
 constituted vice-regent, with dominion 
 over the lower animals, in the act of giving 
 the names to each ; so again, he is inaugu- 
 rated in his solemn priesthood in this earli- 
 est act of representative worship on the 
 first day of the Lord. Not only so : on 
 this first day of his own being, he brings 
 the first fruits of his life and offers it as a 
 sacrifice upon the Divine altar. It was the 
 pledge that all of thought and desire and 
 worship and life itself, which should be his 
 in the years to come, they were all brought 
 in this comprehensive worship and offered 
 to the Creator. 
 
 We find the Sabbath, after the Fall, 
 still the symbol of religious homage, trans- 
 ferred from the religion of Nature to the 
 religion of Grace — showing that God will 
 still be merciful to the transgressor. It is 
 incorporated in the Decalogue, when the 
 Mosaic Economy was set up with its im- 
 posing ritual of worship — a symbol still of 
 the rest which should be the portion of the 
 believer through the redemption by Christ, 
 
SIN OF SABBATH-BREAKING. l6t 
 
 which was the burden of that typical Dis- 
 pensation. Thus it passed again into the 
 Christian Economy, becoming the memo- 
 rial of our Saviour's resurrection from the 
 dead. In the fourth chapter of the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews the Apostle elaborately 
 argues, that He (Jesus) having ''entered 
 into His rest had ceased from His works, 
 as God did from His." Thus the Sabbath 
 rest at the Creation passes down through 
 every intervening Dispensation, Jewish and 
 Christian, until it points to the eternal Sab- 
 bath in Heaven, where the glorified Re- 
 deemer will gather all His saints forever. 
 The Sabbath then is to be a day of rest, 
 not only in cessation from bodily labor, 
 but in that repose which we are to find in the 
 salvation of the soul by faith in Jesus Christ. 
 Whether in Natural or Revealed religion, 
 and under all the Dispensations of Grace, 
 it is the symbol of worship and a pledge of 
 the rest we are to enjoy in the bosom of 
 God forevermore. 
 
 Three practical suggestions will enforce 
 the obligation of the Sabbath presented 
 above. First, the Sabbath is as great a 
 necessity to us as ever it has been to others 
 in the past. The physical rest is impera- 
 tively needed by us, even more than by 
 those who lived in the more easy-going 
 
1 62 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 ages of our forefathers. Our civilization 
 is vastly more complex ; competition in all 
 the industries of society is more severe; 
 the forms of labor are being constantly 
 changed ; in all directions there is more 
 drive and push than was ever known in the 
 history of the world. As the inventive 
 genius of the time is daily substituting the 
 endurance of machinery for the sinew and 
 muscle of the living arm, lifting up new 
 forms of industry whilst abolishing the old, 
 the hold on life becomes to the laborer 
 more slippery — increasing by so much the 
 necessity for incessant toil. Do we not 
 then require the repose which the Sabbath 
 brings, above the generations preceding 
 our own ? Of all nations upon the face of 
 the earth, the American people are most 
 in need of this supplemental rest. With 
 their characteristic energy and push, there 
 is an expenditure of nervous force, which, 
 increasing with the progress of time, 
 threatens the direst results at no far dis- 
 tant period. As a single illustration of the 
 impending danger, take but the fearful 
 rate at which insanity increases in our time 
 — due in no small degree to the intense 
 strain upon the brain and the entire ner- 
 vous system. Remember, too, that evils of 
 this kind accumulate in their transmission 
 
SIN OF SABBATH-BREAKING. 163 
 
 from father to son ; and measure, if you 
 can, the inheritance we are bequeathing 
 to posterity in the transmission of only 
 this one frightful disorder. Is this the 
 time, and are we the people, to yield to 
 the greed of avarice that measure of repose 
 which the beneficent Creator has provided 
 in the peaceful Sabbath ? See in the inci- 
 dental reference to one form of physical 
 disaster made above, what resources are in 
 the hand of the Almighty to punish the in- 
 fraction of His holy law. The Sabbath, 
 like those ancient Egyptian monuments 
 whose mysterious inscriptions antiquarians 
 are now laboriously seeking to discipher, 
 is a monumental shaft proclaiming the 
 rights of God as the Creator, and of man's 
 responsibilities as a being fashioned in the 
 Divine image for the worship of the Su- 
 preme. 
 
 Again : the Sabbath is commended to 
 our special care, because assailed by com- 
 bined forces in the day in which we live. 
 The insane passion of men for the accumu- 
 lation of wealth, denounced even by heath- 
 en moralists as the accursed lust for gold 
 (" Auri sacra fames"); the sensuality 
 which would appropriate its leisure for the 
 indulgence of its lusts ; the infidelity which, 
 as in the French Revolution, would destroy 
 
164 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 the Sabbath as the bulwark of Christianity ; 
 and above all these in the sweep and pow- 
 er of its influence, the greed of soulless 
 corporations, pleading the necessities of 
 commerce for the obliteration of this sacred 
 landmark of time from the beginning : all 
 these seriously threaten the existence of 
 this holy day even in this Christian land in 
 which we live. For this reason I am the 
 more importunate with the young men of 
 this assembly, to feel the responsibility 
 upon them to rescue it from desecration 
 and possible destruction. 
 
 Beyond both these considerations, I 
 urge the importance of the Sabbath for the 
 cultivation of your religious nature. You 
 cannot thro w this aside without lowering 
 yourself to the condition of but a higher 
 brute. The educational value of the Sab- 
 bath cannot be overestimated, not only in 
 bringing men together in united worship 
 of Jehovah, but in teaching those subordi- 
 nate duties which men owe to each other 
 in the various relations of society. 
 
 As the final utterance of this Lecture, I 
 press the fact attested by the observation 
 of Christian men everywhere ; that the first 
 step to utter demoralization and ruin with 
 young men, is the desecration of the day 
 which God has reserved for Himself as a 
 
SIN OF SABBATH- BREAKING. 1 65 
 
 day of rest and solemn worship. Of all 
 the classes of young men, this observation 
 holds true, with almost unerring certainty, 
 of such as are born of pious parents, and 
 who break away from all the traditions and 
 instructions of their early youth. Peculi- 
 arly to them it is the entrance upon the 
 downward path, becoming steeper as they 
 descend : and too often they are cut off 
 mid-way in their declension, and are sud- 
 denly precipitated in the abyss below. 
 
 ^@„@s> 
 
LECTURE X. 
 
 INTEMPERANCE AND SINS OF THE 
 FLESH. 
 
 Proverbs xxiii. 31-32 — "Look not thou upon the 
 wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, 
 when it moveth itself aright : at last itbiteth like a serpent, 
 it stingeth like an adder.' 1 '' Also, 
 
 Ephesians v. 18. — " And be not drunk with wine, 
 wherein is excess. " 
 
 With confessed reluctance I entered 
 upon the discussion of vices, which im- 
 plied their prevalence in society around 
 us : it is always a distasteful office to be- 
 come the accuser of others, especially as 
 in possession of the same sinful nature one 
 may be overtaken by his own indictment. 
 In addition to this reluctance, which I 
 must express anew, there is a peculiar em- 
 barrassment in taking up the subject of 
 this evening's Lecture. It arises from the 
 fact that I desire to be understood as 
 meaning a great deal more than I dare 
 openly to utter. I wish you to perceive 
 an undertone of warning in the voice that 
 
[68 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 speaks to you to-nfght — a hidden meaning 
 in the words falling from my lips, which 
 your own penetration must discover and 
 apply. If intemperance in the use of in- 
 toxicating drinks forms the leading topic, 
 it is only one of the many sins committed 
 against the flesh. There is gluttony, for 
 example, that voracity of appetite in 
 which a man resembles a ravening beast, 
 when it falls upon its prey. There are 
 the varied forms of debauchery ; the un- 
 cleanness of which is so debasing that they 
 cannot even be mentioned by name, nor 
 discussed in detail before any public as- 
 sembly. Yet I wish them all understood 
 as included in the censure of this discourse : 
 and though it may be impossible to frame 
 the language specially for each, I must ask 
 you to carry the application over to all 
 
 THE VICES OF WHICH INTEMPERANCE MAY 
 BE REGARDED AS TYPICALLY REPRESENTA- 
 TIVE. 
 
 I. / would say then that drunkenness, 
 with all the sins of its class, offends 
 against the sanctity of the human body. 
 This body, declared by the Psalmist to be 
 "fearfully and wonderfully made," is it not 
 entitled to reverence? Stand by the ana- 
 tomist, as he takes the curious mecha- 
 
SINS OF THE FLESH. 1 69 
 
 nism to pieces. How multitudinous its 
 parts, and with what singular harmony 
 they are adjusted ! How wonderful the 
 net-work of nerves strung, like telegraphic 
 wires, along the frame and conveying all 
 reports from without to the hidden seat of 
 the senses ! Behold that mysterious power 
 which touches all the keys of this mar- 
 velously complex instrument ; sending, on 
 these wires of secret communication, to 
 the most distant member the dictates of 
 the will. Look at this body, erect in sta- 
 ture, the last workmanship of the Creator, 
 after He had fashioned the sun, moon and 
 stars, and pronounced them "very good." 
 How worthy of veneration this human 
 lorm, which God has consecrated as the 
 temple of the indwelling soul ; the shrine of 
 that image of the living Jehovah after which 
 he was formed ! How indispensable this 
 earthly frame as the medium of intercourse 
 between man and man ! How great the 
 glory with which it is invested by redeem- 
 ing grace, ennobled in its resurrection 
 from the grave, transformed by the power 
 of the Holy Ghost into the spiritual body, 
 and blessed with an immortality akin to 
 that of the soul ! 
 
 You are perhaps surprised at the 
 warmth of this eulogy, pronounced upon 
 
I70 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 that part of our being which is so often de- 
 livered over to indiscriminate and silly 
 abuse. Permit me to say that the genius 
 of Christianity is infinitely removed from 
 that Manichean sentiment which affects to 
 despise the body as the seat of sins truly 
 chargeable upon the spirit, and of which 
 the body is but the instrument and organ. 
 Nor, on the other hand, does it foster that 
 idolatrous self-love, which pampers the 
 flesh and thinks only of its adornment. It 
 is nevertheless a part of our complex 
 being ; through the possession of which we 
 are distinguished from the angels above, 
 as by the possession of spirit we are dis- 
 tinguished from the brutes below. The 
 body is so truly a part of man, that it is 
 not destroyed even in death : while the 
 structure is dissolved, its identity is pre- 
 served and manifested in the resurrection. 
 Indeed, to destroy it, would be to destroy 
 him ; merging him into a distinct class of 
 beings, from which it is intended he should 
 be separated by this union of matter and 
 spirit. 
 
 What shall we think then of those habits 
 and acts which degrade and deface the 
 body ? The Apostle declares that of 
 the Christian to be " the temple of the 
 Holy Ghost : " shall this temple be defiled 
 
SINS OF THE FLESH. \J\ 
 
 with any of the sins of the flesh, which it 
 is not lawful so much as to name ? Pass 
 them secretly through your mind, as I sug- 
 gested at the outset, and see if it be not a 
 profanation to render the body the organ 
 of these enormities. It becomes every 
 man, therefore, to reverence his body as 
 God's workmanship, given for worthy and 
 even sacred uses, and which he should 
 keep in purity in some measure even as the 
 soul. 
 
 II. Though not logically distinct, I sig- 
 nalize the fact that these sins of the flesh 
 are the source of physical disease, and are 
 therefore to the last degree criminal. In 
 one particular there is a distinction between 
 the sins committed against God, and the 
 offences committed against society. The 
 former are ordinarily reserved for punish- 
 ment in a future state : whilst the latter are 
 overtaken with early and condign punish- 
 ment in the present life. A man may be 
 an atheist, proclaiming his denial of God 
 through a long life of seeming prosperity 
 and happiness : the blasphemy is not 
 avenged by the lightning's stroke, nor 
 does the earth open to swallow him up as 
 it did Dathan and Abiram of old. A man 
 may deny the Lord Jesus Christ all his 
 
172 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 days, throwing contemptuously behind him 
 the offers of salvation made to him by the 
 Gospel ; and the Divine displeasure will 
 not be visited on him by any Providential 
 calamity. On the contrary, the offences 
 against society are subject to immediate 
 arrest by a penalty which the Creator has 
 infixed in the constitution of the human 
 frame. The reason for this discrimination 
 is obvious to every reflecting mind. The 
 sins committed directly against God are 
 acts of simple and futile insolence. The 
 arrows shot from any human bow do not 
 strike the stars, much less the throne of 
 majesty on which the Ruler of the Uni- 
 verse sits secure. " He that sitteth in the 
 heavens shall laugh ; the Lord shall have 
 them in derision." He, almighty in power 
 and supreme in authority, can afford to be 
 patient and postpone retribution until the 
 judgment of the great day. But those 
 transgressions which unhinge society, 
 must be checked ; or the disintegration 
 of society will bring it soon to utter ruin. 
 Hence the sins of the flesh are visited with 
 early tokens of the Divine displeasure. 
 You notice it in the diseases which fasten 
 themselves incurably upon those who give 
 themselves over to debauchery in any of 
 its forms. The mere naturalist may allege 
 
SINS OF THE FLESH. 1 73 
 
 that this proceeds alone from the violation 
 of recognized natural laws : it must not be 
 overlooked by whom those natural laws 
 were in the first instance ordained, and un- 
 der whose supervision they continue to be 
 enforced. It is the Divine hand imposing a 
 restraint upon the indulgence of appetites 
 and lusts which, unless checked, will de- 
 stroy society. The inspired writer marks 
 the distinction, when he says, "some 
 men's sins are open beforehand, going be- 
 fore to judgment ; and some men they fol- 
 low after." (i Tim. v. 24.) 
 
 Human legislation is at pains to express 
 abhorrence of certain crimes, which espe- 
 cially militate against the temporal welfare 
 of mankind. The murderer and suicide, 
 for example, are held in open detestation ; 
 for the reason that life is the gift of God, 
 and once taken or lost it can never be re- 
 covered. No man therefore is allowed, in 
 the madness of passion, to seize that 
 which God has given to another, and which 
 he has no power to restore. One may be 
 robbed of his wealth and may live to re- 
 cover more than he lost, as Job did ; but if 
 his blood is spilt on the ground, the power 
 does not exist on earth which can make 
 good his loss. In the case of the suicide, 
 the old English law expresses its abhor- 
 
174 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 rence by a peculiar enactment, to-wit : the 
 body of such should be buried where two 
 roads cross each other, that it may be 
 trampled on by the greatest number pos- 
 sible ; and as though denying it the privi- 
 lege of resurrection, it was ordained that a 
 stake should be driven through it, pinning 
 it to the earth in which it was laid. 
 
 If now, in the judgment of fallible men, 
 it be such a crime to take one's own life by 
 the pistol or dagger, will you tell me where 
 he comes short of the same who is slowly 
 but surely wasting his life through the 
 wanton indulgence of appetite and lust ? 
 What right has the creature to whom God 
 has given life as a trust, to sap the vital 
 force within him through unnatural indul- 
 gence ? Is the melancholy confession 
 made that he cannot reform ? Alas, to 
 what a condition of slavery is such an one 
 reduced ! But let that wretched victim 
 of appetite know that there is a Divine 
 power able to break the fetters in which he 
 is bound, and restore him to the freedom 
 he has lost. Let him but get conscience 
 fairly on his side, with full conviction that 
 he is responsible before the bar of God for 
 the most heinous of crimes ; and under a 
 clear sense of his own helplessness, let 
 him lay hold of the strength which comes 
 
SINS OF THE FLESH. 175 
 
 from above, and he will be saved. Be- 
 cause these vices lay the foundation of 
 manifold diseases, therefore it is a crime 
 to indulge in any of them. We have no 
 more right to take our own life by degrees, 
 than at once by immediate violence : and 
 no more right to take our own life than 
 the life of another. 
 
 III. T lie guilt of intemperance is seen in 
 that it is treason against the higher intellec- 
 tual and moral nature given us of God. In 
 the beautiful language of Milton, man is 
 11 endued with sanctity of reason," and by 
 this distinguished from the brute creation ; 
 in token whereof he was invested with do- 
 minion over the creatures. In addition, 
 the arbiter of right and wrong was im- 
 planted in his bosom, which we style con- 
 science. By virtue of this double gift 
 man becomes a being under law. bound to 
 render account of all his deeds at the bar 
 of eternal justice : in testimony of which 
 he is sisted, in this present life, before 
 this lower tribunal ; which is but the 
 shadow of that higher court in which the 
 Judge will pronounce the final destinies of 
 men. 
 
 But what is drunkenness save the spong- 
 ing out of those characteristics by which 
 
\j6 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 men are distinguished from the beasts of 
 the field ? What is it but to " put an en- 
 emy in their mouths to steal away their 
 brains? " Alas, it is more than to extin- 
 guish the light of reason : it blunts, and 
 for the time disables, the faculty by which 
 we recognize the authority of the Divine 
 law, thus completing the apostasy from 
 ourselves. You will recall the words of 
 Milton, which so powerfully describe the 
 foul transformation of the God-like into 
 something worse than the beast : 
 
 " Soon as the potion works, their human count'nance, 
 Th'express resemblance of the gods, is changed 
 Into some brutish form of wolf or bear, 
 Or ounce, or tiger, hog, or bearded goat, 
 All other parts remaining as they were: 
 And they, so perfect is their misery, 
 Not once perceive their foul disfigurement 
 But boast themselves more comely than before ; 
 And all their friends and native home forget, 
 To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty." 
 
 We are accustomed to glory in the dig- 
 nity of man : I willingly allow it all. The 
 Divine testimony is given, that he was 
 " made a little lower than the angels and 
 was crowned with glory and honor." 
 Those redeemed by grace are represented 
 in heaven as being nearest the Lamb, and 
 as giving the keynote to that immortal 
 song ; to which the angels, the elder sons 
 
SINS OF THE FLESH. \JJ 
 
 of God, respond as they swell the mighty 
 chorus, "Blessing and honor and glory 
 and power be unto Him that sitteth upon 
 the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and 
 ever." Of the two parts of this celestial 
 choir, who sing the praises of the Most 
 High God in strophe and anti-strophe, the 
 glorified saints alone are able to say, " for 
 thou wast slain and hast redeemed us by 
 thy blood." It is a glorious distinction to 
 have been in the beginning made in the 
 likeness and after the image of the Crea- 
 tor ; but it will require the dialect of heaven 
 to set forth the glory of redemption, 
 and the honorable destiny of those who 
 teach the angels the wonders of their sal- 
 vation. My young friends, we yield to 
 none who are wont to sing the glory of 
 man, in the rich endowments both of na- 
 ture and grace. But then this dignified 
 being owes it to his Creator and to him- 
 self to protect that glory with which he 
 has been crowned. He owes it to his in- 
 telligence, by which he is a creature of 
 knowledge ; he owes it to his conscience, 
 by which he is a creature of law ; he owes 
 it to the Divine image, in which he is a 
 creature of worship ; he owes it to that 
 destiny, which he is to fulfil beyond the 
 grave ; he owes it to the majesty of God 
 
I78 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 and to his own sense of honor ; he owes it to 
 every motive by which a rational and im- 
 mortal being can be controlled, never to 
 allow himself to be entangled in those vices 
 by which he can only be disfigured and 
 destroyed. If any one dear to me were 
 ensnared in the meshes of this fearful vice, 
 I would implore him by all the terrors of 
 the final judgment and by all the attrac- 
 tions of heaven, to burst the fetters of this 
 fatal bondage and no longer remain a slave 
 to the most cruel of masters, his own pas- 
 sion and lust. 
 
 IV. Intemperance disables from perform- 
 ing the duties of life, and exposes to the 
 commission of every crime. I need 
 not repeat what has been the burden of 
 the preceding Lectures, that life is filled 
 with sacred trusts. Every relation- we 
 sustain has its peculiar responsibilities. 
 Consult now the records of our courts, 
 and you will find at least three-fourths of 
 all the crimes committed to be the acts of 
 men who, for the time being, were dives- 
 ted of their reason by strong drink ; and 
 who, in their moments of sobriety, would 
 have recoiled with horror from them. 
 Why should a man voluntarily put him- 
 self in a condition which exposes to such 
 
SINS OF THE FLESH. I 79 
 
 tremendous hazards? Is he without guilt, 
 who, in the heat of passion or by the 
 force of evil habit, has lost the control of 
 himself? The bare suggestion is enough, 
 and need not be further pressed : the con 
 dition is simply frightful of an intelligent 
 being resigning the use of reason and the 
 control of his own will, and becoming' a 
 wild beast such as a leopard or a tiger. 
 It is the argument of prudence as well 
 as of conscience, dissuading from in- 
 dulgence of appetites which thus disable 
 from all relative and social duties, and ex- 
 pose to the commission of the most fear- 
 ful crimes to be found upon the calendar of 
 our courts. 
 
 V. Finally, I urge against intemper- 
 ance and all cognate vices, that tJiey inca- 
 pacitate for religion. Beyond dispute, 
 the duties which man owes to God are su- 
 preme. Can we worship God, when de- 
 prived of reason ? Can we accept the Lord 
 Jesus Christ as a Saviour from sin, if con- 
 science is paralyzed within us ? Is it pos- 
 sible to fulfil any of the duties of practi- 
 cal religion, without the full posession of 
 all the faculties? The highest obligation 
 resting upon a reasonable being is to love, 
 obey and worship Him in whose image he 
 
i80 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 was fashioned, and at whose bar of judg- 
 ment he must stand. What then is the 
 verdict to be pronounced against a habit, 
 which ends in stripping one of all the pow- 
 ers which constitute him a moral and im- 
 mortal being ? I do not specify other 
 vices ; though it would be easy to show 
 that they all blunt the sensibilities, and 
 render men unsusceptible of spiritual influ- 
 ences and unmindful of spiritual obliga- 
 tions. The denunciation of one is the 
 denunciation of all, as bearing upon them 
 the stamp of the Divine displeasure 
 
 But why are these counsels addressed 
 with such emphasis to the young? It 
 would be sufficient to reply that the habits, 
 this evening inveighed against, are not 
 confirmed in these, as they are in the old. 
 It is easier to guard against the invasion 
 of disease, than to conquer it when seated 
 in the frame. But there are special rea- 
 sons for urging these considerations upon 
 the young. The first is, that these vices 
 have their root in our animal nature, 
 through which the temptation assails us. 
 No man is safe from transgression, as 
 long as he carries about this body of flesh. 
 But the period of greatest peril is when 
 the physical powers are approaching 
 their maturity ; when the appetites are 
 
SINS OF THE FLESH l8l 
 
 freshest, and the passions are the most 
 clamorous for indulgence. At this period, 
 too, there is little experience of life, and 
 consequently little apprehension of dan- 
 ger ; and so the young are to be carefully 
 warned by the knowledge of others. Again, 
 a young man is under fewer restraints, 
 which afford a measure of protection to 
 the old. Those in mid-life who are sur- 
 rounded by the children of their loins, 
 have given pledges to society for their 
 good behavior. The husband and father 
 is often held in check by domestic ties, 
 who might resist the appeals to his reli- 
 gious nature. The young man is apt to 
 regard himself as free from social obliga- 
 tions : imagining himself the irresponsible 
 master of his own movements, he is apt to 
 drift into habits which at length in/, their 
 swift current sweep him into sudden ruin. 
 The danger to the young is immensely 
 increased by the fact that intemperance is 
 pre-eminently a social vice ; and the temp- 
 tations soliciting to the indulgence of ap- 
 petite are on every side. Observation 
 shows that the generous and the warm- 
 hearted are the most apt to fall under the 
 bondage of this destructive habit. Intem- 
 perance is therefore singularly insidious in 
 its approaches. It invites to cheer and 
 
l82 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 good company, and the gay saloon throws 
 open its hospitable doors for unlimited en- 
 joyment : meanwhile the meshes of invet- 
 erate habit are being woven closer, and 
 the web is drawn tighter around the un- 
 happy victim until he sinks into a dishon- 
 ored grave. Oh, the temptations which 
 everywhere are thrown upon the path of 
 the young, ensnaring their feet and luring 
 them on to certain destruction ! 
 
 '* Ha ! See where the wild-blazing grog-shop appears, 
 As the red waves of wretchedness swell, 
 How it burns on the edge of tempestuous years, 
 The horrible Light-house of Hell ! " 
 
 <§©<§)? 
 
LECTURE XI. 
 THE SIN OF GAMBLING. 
 
 Proverbs xvi. 33. — '* Fhe lot is cast into the lap ; bu 
 the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.' 1 '' Also, 
 
 2. Thessalonians iii. 10-12. — "Fur even when we 
 were uoitk yon, this we commanded yon, if any would not 
 work, neither should he eat. For we hear that there are 
 some which walk among you disorderly, working not at 
 ail but are busy-bodies. Now them that are such we 
 command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with 
 quietness they work and eat their ozvn bread." 
 
 I am happy in being relieved, after to- 
 night, from the office of censure : although, 
 as you perceive from the passages of Scrip- 
 ture just recited, I shall be led to denounce 
 now the sin of gambling. These verses 
 have been chosen as the foundation of my 
 discourse, because they present this vice 
 under two distinct aspects : the one show- 
 ing its profaneness ; the other, its contra- 
 vention of the law of labor. The guilt of 
 it consists of both conjoined. 
 
 Gambling has been briefly denned " the 
 staking and winning property upon a haz- 
 ard." The following considerations are 
 urged against it : 
 
I84 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 I. It is a profane invasion of the gov- 
 ernment and province of God. The vices 
 of men, like their virtues, grow together 
 in clusters as grapes which hang from the 
 same stem of the vine. And it would be 
 a curious speculation to trace the connec- 
 tion between them ; to decide upon the 
 principles which associate certain vices to- 
 gether in one man, or certain virtues to- 
 gether in another. Whether our philoso- 
 phy can explain it or not, a kind of intermar- 
 riage takes place in both cases, by which 
 a definite relationship is established. In 
 regard to our vices, they have a common 
 origin in the sinful nature we inherit from 
 our first parent, the single root from which 
 springs all the evil to be found in our char- 
 acter and conduct. But apart from this, 
 some secret tie seems to bind certain 
 sins together and to hold them in a unity 
 of their own. There is, for example, a 
 strange resemblance between gambling 
 and profane swearing, as though they 
 were twin shoots from the same parent 
 stem. The essence of profanity, as shown 
 in a preceding Lecture, is the separation 
 of the name of God from the perfections 
 which it symbolizes and commemorates. 
 Frivolously used as a mere expletive, it is 
 finally disassociated from all thought of 
 
SIN OF GAMBLING. I 85 
 
 God and His worship. In like manner, 
 gambling founds on the notion of chance, 
 and makes open breach with the provi- 
 dence of God. In both alike we have the 
 same profanation of the attributes and gov- 
 ernment of the Most High; and the two 
 are resolved into different faces of the 
 same sin. There is no such thing as 
 chance in the administration of a wise and 
 beneficent Ruler ; and the use of the word 
 is altogether without meaning. "The 
 lot," says Solomon, "is cast into the lap, 
 but the whole disposing thereof is of the 
 Lord: " this concludes debate; "the very 
 hairs of our head are all numbered." Its 
 only significance is that of concealing our 
 ignorance of the immediate cause by which 
 any effect is produced : 
 
 " Behind the dim unknown, 
 Standeth God within the shadow, keeping 
 Watch above His own." 
 
 Science knows nothing of chance : it goes 
 through all the province Nature, pa- 
 
 tiently seeking the cause of the phenom- 
 ena presented to the eye ; and always as- 
 suming that they are effects for which an 
 adequate explanation may be found. 
 When these two are brought together, 
 the sufficient cause and the necessary ef- 
 fect, then Science feels herself justified in 
 the conclusion which is affirmed. You 
 will observe that true science unites with 
 
1 86 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 Divine Revelation in denying that there 
 can be any such thing as chance, either in 
 the natural or moral government of the 
 Most High. As before said, the word is 
 void of significance, save as it declares a 
 matter lifted from human jurisdiction into 
 the Divine. When a case occurs which 
 cannot be decided in the exercise of hu- 
 man wisdom, the lot is employed in order 
 to remit it to the decision of Him who 
 rules the universe. It is therefore essen- 
 tially a prayer, an act of solemn worship 
 offered to the Supreme Being. If it be friv- 
 olously used, either in sport or for gain, 
 and without reverential feelings, it becomes 
 a profane act ; akin in its nature to the 
 reckless oath, which separates the name 
 of God from the attributes of His charac- 
 ter. As the latter is an assault upon the 
 personal glory of Jehovah, so is the for- 
 mer an assault upon His government and 
 providence. In both, an equal contempt 
 is thrown upon the being, authority and 
 perfections of the great and dreadful Be- 
 ing, of whom we should never think with- 
 out reverence and awe. 
 
 It does not militate against this argu- 
 ment that the events which appear to be 
 determined by the lot come under the 
 operation of the laws of nature ; for God 
 
SIN OF GAMBLING. 1 87 
 
 administers His whole providence by and 
 through these same laws which He has or 
 dained for this purpose. Undoubtedly 
 we can trace the laws by which the dew is 
 formed upon the grass and flowers — the 
 laws which govern the rising and setting 
 of the sun — the laws by which the vapor 
 is lifted from the sea and returned again 
 to refresh the parched earth : in short, it 
 is easy to trace most of the ways by which 
 the secret forces of nature are controlled 
 by the Supreme Creator for the benefit of 
 mankind. But this does not disallow the 
 privilege of prayer, simply because these 
 forces are under His control and can be 
 managed for our good in answer to our pe- 
 tition. Thus, while it may be true that 
 there are natural laws determining the face 
 of the dice as it is turned up, still they are 
 laws unknown to us and beyond human 
 reach ; and the employment of the lot re- 
 mands this to the knowledge and power of 
 Him by whom these laws were ordained. 
 It is therefore like the prayer which the 
 Christian addresses to his Heavenly Fath- 
 er, that He would hold the wind in His 
 fist in the dreaded cyclone, or hold the 
 waves in His hand on the tempestuous 
 deep. Here then is a religious argument 
 against the sin of gambling : the hazard 
 
1 88 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 which it employs is an appeal to God to 
 interpose in a given case, when that ap- 
 peal is not intended as a reverential prayer 
 and devout worship. It is therefore sim- 
 ple profanity, just like the oath of the 
 swearer. It is a noteworthy fact that 
 where our knowledge is most perfect, the 
 movements are too distant for our inter- 
 ference ; whilst the objects which are near 
 us, are under the operation of laws which 
 we imperfectly comprehend. Science 
 can tell us, for example, more about 
 the stars which are millions of miles 
 away, than it can tell about the pestilence 
 and the earthquake which are near at 
 hand. .Thus w;onderfully does God pro- 
 tect Himself and His government over the 
 creature, by making us dependent upon 
 Him in prayer for the blessings we desire 
 to obtain and the evils we desire to avert. 
 All events are under the control of law ; 
 and yet we must bow at the feet of Him, 
 to whom alone these laws are perfectly 
 obedient. Prayer is always proper, if of- 
 fered in reverence ; but never in mockery 
 either of God's being or providence. 
 
 II. Gambling is simple robbery. Only 
 by one or other of two ways can we come 
 lawfully into the possession of what be- 
 
SIN OF GAMBLING. I 89 
 
 longs to another ; it must be either by 
 gift, or by purchase. The property ac- 
 quired by any man is his, as the product 
 of his industry ; and may be disposed of 
 as he will. He may enjoy it himself, or 
 he may generously bestow it upon anoth- 
 er. Now gambling is not a gift : for the 
 stake, whether large or small, is not trans- 
 ferred to the winner at the desire of the 
 loser, or with his good will. Nor, on the 
 other hand, is it a purchase: for no equivalent 
 has passed from the winner to the loser. 
 If it be neither gift nor purchase, what is 
 it ? Upon what ground is such property 
 held ? Under what name shall we regis- 
 ter the transaction ? Is it not, in the last 
 analysis, an act of robbery pure and sim- 
 ple ? In reply to the dilemma stated above, 
 it has been argued that the gain and loss 
 in gambling are the result of a compact 
 between the parties, in which both consent 
 to the risk. This, it is alleged, renders 
 the transfer of the stake from the loser to 
 the fortunate winner constructively a gift ; 
 at least, there has been no violent wrest- 
 ing of property from the hand of the one ; 
 and no unlawful placing it in the hand of 
 the other. Thus it is speciously concluded 
 that gambling cannot be proven either a 
 sin against God, or a crime against men. 
 
I9O FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 It seems to me, however, a clear princi- 
 ple in ethics, that what it is unlawful for a 
 man to do, it is unlawful for a man to bar- 
 gain to do. No voluntary agreements 
 among men can alter the essential nature 
 of what is condemned by the testimony of 
 conscience and by the law of God. In 
 fact, this antecedent contract between two 
 or more gamesters, so far from mitigating 
 the offence, duplicates the guilt. It ren- 
 ders the offence more deliberate, and in 
 the co-operation of two wills doubles the 
 crime. There is not only the guilt of 
 doing a wrong thing, but the guilt of con- 
 spiring to do it. With forethought and 
 predetermination two or more men bar- 
 gain with each other to set aside the judg- 
 ment of God, and to construe as right 
 what He has declared to be wrong. 
 
 Property, whether it come by inheri- 
 tance or through one's own industry, is a 
 trust ; and he who holds it is, in God's 
 sight, only a steward. The proprietary 
 right is with the "Father of lights, from 
 whom cometh down every good and per- 
 fect gift : " the usufruct of which is with 
 him upon whom the gift is bestowed. As 
 there is no power of alienation, the prop- 
 erty is to be held for the uses designed by 
 the giver, and for which a strict account is 
 
SIN OF GAMBLING. I9I 
 
 finally to be rendered. What right has the 
 gamester to stake this property, of which 
 he has only the enjoyment, and pass it 
 over to another on a game of hazard ? If 
 it be a trust, and a trust to be accounted 
 for on some day of reckoning, is it not 
 sheer profligacy to throw it away, without 
 good to himself or those for whom he 
 ought to care ? Then reversing the state- 
 ment, what right has any man to take that 
 which is another's without rendering an 
 equivalent ? For the doctrine that proper- 
 ty is a trust from God makes us responsi- 
 ble for the way in which it is acquired, as 
 well as the way in which it is alienated. 
 In the gamblers' contract therefore a dou- 
 ble crime is committed ; in that both agree 
 to stake what neither has the right to 
 throw away, and to seize what neither has 
 the right to appropriate. 
 
 The matter may be illustrated by the 
 case of the duelist. By the laws of God 
 and man, no one has the right to take the 
 life of another : but two men agree to go 
 on the "field of honor," as it is sarcasti- 
 cally called, each striving to do that very 
 thing. Does the agreement between these 
 two make that right, which, without the 
 agreement, would be an atrocious crime ? 
 Has either the right to throw away the 
 
I92 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 life which God gave .; and has either the 
 right to take the life which he cannot re- 
 store ? The parallel is a just one. As the 
 duelist cannot escape the charge of mur- 
 der in taking the life on which he has no 
 right to lay his hand ; as he is guilty " in 
 esse " of a twofold murder, in risking his 
 own as well as in the intention to take the 
 life of his antagonist ; as the crime is the 
 deeper, as done with deliberative purpose ; 
 so is the gamester convicted of a crime in 
 risking the loss of his own property, and in 
 the intention of taking that which is an- 
 other's : and the solemn agreement to 
 either the one or the other of these crimi- 
 nal acts, stamps them both with a deep- 
 er guilt. 
 
 III. Gambling is an offence against the 
 lazv of labor. The Apostle declares as 
 the penalty of transgressing this law, "if 
 a man work not, neither shall he eat." No 
 state in which man is found on earth, ex- 
 empts him from the operation of this uni- 
 versal law. Even in his primitive holiness, 
 man was appointed to " dress and keep " 
 the garden in which he was placed. It 
 may have been a light labor assigned him, 
 but it was the recognition of his depend- 
 ence on the Creator. After the fall, the 
 
SIN OF GAMBLING. 1 93 
 
 curse was pronounced against the ground 
 for man's sin, "thorns and thistles shall it 
 bring forth to thee — in the sweat of thy 
 face shalt thou eat bread." From that 
 sad day to this, man has lived under the 
 necessity of labor. Let it be noted here 
 that no exception is to be found anywhere 
 to the enforcement of this law. The plow- 
 man in the field is the son of toil, so is the 
 blacksmith as his ponderous blows ring 
 out the music from the anvil which he 
 strikes.; so is the seaman, as he reefs the 
 sails of his ship in the exposure of the 
 storm. This law of labor obtains in 
 the domain of mind, no less than of 
 matter. The lawyer pleading at the bar ; 
 the judge decreeing justice from the 
 bench ; the physician in his daily round 
 ministering to the sickness of men ; the 
 merchant in his retired room touching the 
 wires which send the currents of com- 
 merce over the globe : all these are men 
 of toil — the work of mind, often more ex- 
 hausting than of the body, because it 
 wastes the energies of both. Even the 
 millionaire, supposed to be free from toil 
 because of his excessive wealth, finds full 
 employment in keeping from waste and 
 productively investing what he owns ; and 
 often confesses this to be attended with 
 
194 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 more anxious care, than the original ac- 
 quisition itself. 
 
 This curse of labor Divine grace has 
 converted into a blessing. In the exer- 
 cise of all our faculties, both mind and 
 body are invigorated ; and the employ- 
 ments in which we engage open to us con- 
 stant sources of happiness. There is a 
 principle covered here, which I must dis- 
 close. Labor becomes a blessing, when- 
 ever it blends with the purpose of God in 
 securing what He desires to bestow. The 
 two factors unite in producing a joint re- 
 sult. The Divine Being bestows, and 
 through labor we receive. Even in reli- 
 gion where eternal life is so entirely the 
 gift of God, there is not a solitary point in 
 the scheme where human agency is not 
 called into play as co-ordinate with the Di- 
 vine. If we are to be saved through the 
 righteousness of a Redeemer, there must 
 be on our part the acceptance of it through 
 faith. If God graciously pardons our sins, 
 there must be the repentance with which 
 these sins are confessed and bewailed. If 
 God pledges His grace to keep the believ- 
 er safe and land him at length in the eter- 
 nal home, it is necessary that the Chris- 
 tian keep the commandments and preserve 
 his garments unspotted in the world. Di- 
 
SIN OF GAMBLING. I 95 
 
 vine sovereignty and human responsibility 
 meet at every stage of the believer's pro- 
 gress through life. Equally so is it in re- 
 gard to the temporal blessings bestowed 
 in the administration of providence. God 
 gives the sun, the rain, the dew ; and we 
 mingle with these the industry which pro- 
 cures for us the abundant harvest. The 
 labor becomes a blessing, because in it we 
 unite with our Heavenly Father in secur- 
 ing the gifts which His munificent hand 
 bestows. It is true work, since through 
 God's concurrence it is productive. Noth- 
 ing deserves to be called work, which is 
 not productive of some benefit. Beating 
 the air with my hand is not work, although 
 it may exhaust the physical energies, be- 
 cause it results in no good to any one : but 
 if I drive the plow in the soil, or reap the 
 harvest which is ripe, I am blending my 
 agency with the appointment of God in 
 producing that which He ordains for my 
 sustenance. But what work, in this Di- 
 vine and true sense, is there in gambling - ? 
 What is done beyond the exchange from 
 one hand to another hand, without the pro- 
 duction of anything or the adding addi- 
 tional value to what has already been ac- 
 quired ? Clearly, then, gambling is to be 
 condemned as contravening one of the 
 
I96 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 most important of nature's laws, the law of 
 labor. It is an attempt to lift one's-self 
 above the uniform condition of creaturely 
 existence, and is thus in another form an 
 assault upon the providential arrangements 
 of the Most High. 
 
 IV. Gambling feeds the natural covetu- 
 ousness of men, which the Apostle denoun- 
 ces as idolatry. If I should cite the por- 
 tions of Holy Writ which condemn undue 
 love of the world, I must repeat much 
 that is contained in the Old and New Tes- 
 taments. The uniform testimony of both 
 is in words like these : ' ' labor not for the 
 meat which perisheth, but for that meat 
 which endureth unto everlasting life : " and 
 again, "lay not up for yourselves trea- 
 sures upon earth ; but lay up for your- 
 selves treasures in heaven, where neither 
 moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where 
 thieves do not break through nor steal." 
 Worldly goods are bestowed as a trust, to 
 be used for the glory of God and the ben- 
 efit of man — with a liberal percentage al- 
 lowed for our own use and enjoyment. 
 When thus employed in accordance with 
 the Divine grant, the earthly treasures are 
 changed into the heavenly treasures which 
 abide forever. Undoubtedly wealth is a 
 
SIN OF GAMBLING. igj 
 
 great temptation which few are able to re 
 sist ; for it is the source of power to those 
 who possess it. And whenever our at- 
 tachment to it is supreme, so that it dis 
 places God in our esteem, it becomes idol 
 atrous. But in what individual of the race 
 does covetousness become the ruling pas- 
 sion, as in the gambler? The love of gain 
 swallows up every affection and controls 
 every thought Hence the antagonism be- 
 tween this vice and true religion : so that 
 if the grace of God should overtake the 
 gambler, he is constrained to abandon his 
 calling. It is not possible that he shall 
 continue it and still be a child of God. Be- 
 cause the grace by which he has been sub- 
 dued strikes at the root of that covetuous- 
 ness, which in him had become the rank 
 est idolatry. Its opposition therefore to 
 the spirit and genius of the Gospel stamps 
 it as fearful sin against the Redeemer of 
 men. 
 
 . V. Gambling is seen to be a vice from 
 its disastrous consequences. It has a two- 
 fold root : first in the covetous desire to 
 accumulate wealth rapidly .and largely ; 
 and then in the love of excitement which 
 belongs to our nature. The passion for 
 gambling grows into a frenzy : the excite- 
 
I98 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 ment blazes into a consuming flame which 
 burns up the man. His moral convictions 
 and sweetest social affections shrivel in this 
 consuming heat, until they are blown at 
 length into the air as powder and dust. On 
 this account, and because of its opposition 
 to that labor upon which worldly progress 
 depends, it unhinges society, by which it 
 is universally execrated. There is not a 
 civilized community which does not put 
 the brand of infamy upon it. Our law- 
 books are full of statutes against it as an 
 evil which strikes at the very existence of 
 society, rendering it impossible that the 
 body corporate can be held together. Not 
 only so, but the indignant voice of public 
 sentiment drives it, under the pressure of 
 its reproach, to practise its dark deeds in 
 secrecy and under the cover of night. 
 Let all men become gamblers, abandoning 
 themselves to the intense greed which cuts 
 them off from their kind, and what is the 
 fate of society ? Hence the brand of rep- 
 robation everywhere put upon this vice. 
 I recall, as I speak, the startling testi- 
 mony of a noted gambler whom I person- 
 ally knew, and who was an unusually re- 
 spectable man of his class : speaking of his 
 only child and son, he openly declared : 
 " I would a thousand times rather see him 
 
SIN OF GAMBLING. I99 
 
 in his coffin and follow him to his grave, 
 than see him live the life that I daily live 
 before him." Is it strange, then, that the 
 practice should be condemned by the uni- 
 versal conscience of men and restrained by 
 the enactments of human law, seeing it is 
 thus denounced in the testimony of the 
 gamester himself? If we shall take the 
 trouble to follow this vice to the end of 
 the gamester's career, we shall find it over- 
 taken by the just judgments of heaven. 
 Ill-gotten gains are ever breaking out in 
 curses, like the leprosy in the blood. 
 Count up the raving mad-men it shuts up 
 in our asylums ; and the wretched suicides 
 every year terminating a life of unnatural 
 warfare against the human race by the last 
 atonement they can make in self-destruc- 
 tion. Put these things into the estimate 
 you form of this frightful vice, and you 
 will approximate the estimate of God Him- 
 self. 
 
 The cautions of this Lecture are ad- 
 dressed to the young men of this audience, 
 for two reasons : first, because the young 
 crave excitement ; which makes the pas- 
 sion of gaming peculiarly dangerous to 
 them. Secondly, because this vice con- 
 flicts with all proper business habits, upon 
 which your future prosperity and happi- 
 
200 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 ness depend. There is the greater need 
 for pressing this advice, as the spirit of 
 gaming appears to be invading the very 
 forms of business itself. It may be diffi- 
 cult to draw the line of separation accur- 
 ately between the hazards which attend 
 all commercial enterprises, and that hazard 
 which constitutes the definition of gamb- 
 ling. This, however, may be safely af- 
 firmed ; that when in any transaction every 
 thing is staked upon simple chance, with- 
 out commercial calculations of any sort, 
 this is gambling. To what extent these 
 hazards are run in the business transac- 
 tions of the day, I certainly would not un- 
 dertake to decide. But the difficulty in- 
 creasingly experienced of entering upon 
 business without large capital, as against 
 the heavy combinations formed to force 
 commerce in particular channels, is driv- 
 ing men into these extravagances which 
 border upon the practice of the gamester. 
 I trust there is virtue enough left in the 
 land to hold these evils in check ; or that 
 in the providence of Almighty God the 
 evils may work out their attendant cure. 
 But if all business is to be swept into the 
 vortex of this enormous vice, one shud- 
 ders at the universal wreck of society which 
 is near at hand. Because of the imminency 
 
SIN OF GAMBLING. 201 
 
 of this appalling danger, I am disposed 
 to plead with the young men now listen- 
 ing to my voice to cultivate the virtues of 
 their forefathers ; to learn how to be rich 
 by b being content ; to be satisfied with 
 small gains, building up a fortune at the 
 close of life rather than at its beginning. 
 If they do not pile up enormous wealth, 
 they will at least pass into the eternal 
 world without the regret of having violated 
 the obligations due to society and to God. 
 
LECTURE XII. 
 THE SCRIPTURES, OUR RULE. 
 
 2 Peter i. 19. — «' We have also a, more sure word 
 of prophecy ; whereunto ye do well to take heed, as unto 
 a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day-dawn 
 and the day-star arise in your hearts." 
 
 The Apostle Peter opens this" second 
 Epistle with earnest exhortations to Chris- 
 tians to cultivate the graces of the Spirit, 
 so that in their abounding fruitfulness they 
 may stand approved in the sight of God. 
 He declares his purpose to keep them con- 
 stantly reminded of these duties, taking 
 pains to have them brought to remem- 
 brance even after his decease. He is the 
 more earnest in delivering this testimony, 
 having been eye-witness of the glory of 
 Christ when He was transfigured upon the 
 Mount. The language of the text is then 
 uttered, showing how ancient predictions 
 of the Redeemer's glory had been con- 
 firmed in this fulfilment ; involving this 
 fundamental principle, that every state- 
 ment concerning the Saviour and the sal- 
 
204 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 vation of the soul, must be tested by an 
 appeal to the sacred Scriptures : " to the 
 law and to the testimony — if they speak 
 not according to this word, it is because 
 there is no light in them." The supreme 
 authority of this Holy Book is presented 
 with decisive force — that "no prophecy 
 of the Scripture is of any private interpre- 
 tation : but holy men of God spake as 
 they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 
 I am thus brought up to the subject of the 
 present Lecture, the word of god the 
 
 INFALLIBLE RULE OF LIFE TO MAN. 
 
 It is the topic above all others riveting 
 with final authority the counsels which have 
 been addressed to you on successive Sab- 
 bath evenings. They have not been with- 
 out a connection of their own, as may be 
 seen by bringing their titles together : ' ' the 
 importance of youth as the formative pe- 
 riod ;" "the elements which enter into what 
 we term character ; " "the influence of prac- 
 tical religion in moulding the same ; " "the 
 obstacles to piety in the young ; " "the ob- 
 ligations resting on those born of a godly 
 ancestry;" "the obligations arising from 
 the trusts of life ; " "the principles which 
 should guide the young in their choice of 
 amusements ; " "the four special vices by 
 which youth is assailed, Profaneness, 
 
THE SCRIPTURES, OUR RULE. 2C>5 
 
 Sabbath-breaking, Intemperance with 
 other lusts of the flesh, and Gambling. ' 
 I cannot now do better than to bind these 
 advices together with the authority of 
 God's word ; and to show how it "shines 
 as a light in a dark place," guiding you 
 through all the intricacies of life, proving 
 itself a "lamp unto your feet and a light 
 unto your path." 
 
 I. Consider then the majesty of the truths 
 therein delivered to us. There is the truth 
 concerning God Himself: in the first line 
 of Revelation we read, " in the beginning 
 God "_- a Being uncaused, underived, 
 having the ground of existence within 
 Himself. With what majesty is the an- 
 nouncement made? Without a word of 
 comment or explanation, the incompre- 
 hensible mystery is to be received through 
 the responsive echo of the mind to the 
 naked utterance. Man made in the image 
 of his Creator, is expected to recognize 
 Him as soon as presented to his thought. 
 And how august the revelation, when this 
 awful Being instantly calls all things out of 
 nothing, simply by the word of His 
 power: "in the beginning God created 
 the heavens and the earth. ' ' Without pre- 
 face of any sort, two of the sublimest 
 
206 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 mysteries are disclosed, the necessary self- 
 existence of Jehovah and the absolute cre- 
 ation of all things else that appear. Over- 
 whelming as both the propositions are, 
 the mind of the creature receives them by 
 an instinct of its own as matters of fact ; 
 and it is only when it attempts with its 
 finite line to measure the magnitude of 
 either, that it reels and staggers beneath 
 the infinite task. 
 
 Then we have the correlative truth con- 
 cerning the soul in man, the spiritual ele- 
 ment by which he is distinguished from 
 the brutes below him. As though a spark 
 from the Divine life animated the body 
 which had been fashioned from the dust of 
 the ground, the seal of immortality is 
 stamped upon him in the possession of a 
 nature henceforth indestructible forever. 
 
 And what shall be said of that eternity 
 which these Scriptures reveal ; through 
 whose vistas the imagination peers with 
 quickened vision, until it is lost in the 
 boundless duration beyond ? What a life 
 prolonged is here offered to the creature ; 
 a life continuing even through the mys- 
 tery of death and running through the 
 stretches of unmeasured eternity, by the 
 power of " Him that was and is to 
 come ? " How perfect the truth concern- 
 
THE SCRIPTURES, OUR RULE. 207 
 
 ing these high mysteries ? Truth, not such 
 as we gain by partial glimpses, gathered 
 piecemeal here and there, and woven into 
 proud philosophies as the workmanship of 
 our own thought : but truth in its complete 
 roundness — truth in its two hemispheres of 
 revelation concerning God and man, set- 
 tling down upon each other and making 
 the perfect globe — truth which the ex- 
 panding intellect shall employ its eternal 
 life in comprehending and enjoying. Ah, 
 let those testify how sweet a thing truth is, 
 who spend their earthly life in acquiring 
 it. The wealth of all the mines cannot 
 so enrich the possessor as that substantial 
 knowledge coming to us in the search for 
 truth, which is forever incorporate with 
 the mind itself. But the truth drawn 
 from the Holy Scriptures, is truth pure 
 and unalloyed — truth free from misgiving 
 and doubt — truth received through a Di- 
 vine faith, of which the knowledge is with- 
 out suspicion, the eternal food and re- 
 freshment of the soul. 
 
 If the word of God is so precious in its 
 disclosures of God and the human soul, 
 consider what it has to reveal concerning 
 the holiness and love which shall form the 
 inheritance of the saints in heaven. It is 
 a holiness without the soil of sin ; holiness 
 
208 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 of thought, holiness of affections, holiness 
 of desire, holiness of will, holiness of ac- 
 tion, the complete holiness of the com- 
 plete nature. With what aspirations are 
 we filled in the bare contemplation of this ! 
 The possibility of rising out of our infirmi- 
 ties and bewailings here into the perfec- 
 tion of our sanctified nature there, bewil- 
 ders us. Yet it is as certain, as that we 
 live and are redeemed by grace of God. 
 But this holiness draws after it an equal 
 perfection in love ; love that knows noth- 
 ing of jealousy, never wilting under a sus- 
 picion of unfaithfulness, love filling the 
 whole heart, and flowing out in ascriptions 
 of praise and adoration to Him who has 
 shed this glory upon the creature. 
 
 I have sketched only an outline of the 
 truths which are discovered in the Scrip- 
 tures : but they are so sublime as to fill 
 the soul with a sense of their importance 
 and worth. In the entire range of human 
 speculation there is nothing to compare 
 with these majestic disclosures : and if the 
 Bible only came to man as the climax of 
 human philosophy and science, as eman- 
 ating from the genius of a Confucius, a 
 Plato or an Aristotle, it would be received 
 with the homage of universal acceptance. 
 With how much deeper reverence should 
 
THE SCRIPTURES, OUR RULE. 200, 
 
 it be acknowledged, when stamped with 
 the authority and authorship of the Divine 
 Being Himself? 
 
 II. The Scriptures are the more valuable 
 as a guide \ in that the truth is delivered in the 
 form of testimony. It is not truth reasoned 
 out from premises to conclusion, subject to 
 all the errors of doubtful inference ; it is 
 truth revealed and therefore clothed with 
 dogmatic authority, as being unfolded 
 through a witness competent to deliver 
 the testimony. Look at the chances of 
 mistake in any process of deductive rea- 
 soning. Take the calculations of the 
 mathematician, as they are thrown upon 
 the blackboard ; how intricate they are ; 
 and then the almost despairing confession 
 that the slightest error in the body of those 
 figures will vitiate the result, reveals the 
 uncertainty of knowledge in the most exact 
 of all the sciences. In the Bible, we have 
 the immense advantage, that every truth 
 comes in the form of testimony ; and the 
 only question which can arise respects 
 simply the credibility of the witness. The 
 sacred Book stands before us like the earth 
 itself, the work of the Creator's hand ; 
 profound mysteries lie hid in both not 
 open to human criticism, and before which 
 
2IO FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 man's intelligence bows with reverence at 
 the manifestation of the Divine glory. 
 
 If we ask who is the revealer, whose 
 supreme authority overbears the critical 
 judgment, and makes it the passive re- 
 cipient of his testimony, the answer is not 
 only ready, but absolutely convincing: 
 He is the Second Person in the adorable 
 Godhead, "the Word that was with God 
 and was God ; " whose official distinction 
 it is to be the Revealer of the Godhead to 
 man. "All things were delivered to me 
 of my Father ; and no man knoweth the 
 Son, but the Father ; neither knoweth any 
 man the Father, save the Son, and he to 
 whomsoever the Son shall reveal Him" 
 (Matt. xi. 37). Again it is declared, "no 
 man hath seen God at any time ; the only 
 begotten Son, which is in the bosom of 
 the Father, He hath declared Him " (John 
 i. 18). Coming from the bosom of the 
 Father, He proclaims Himself the "Light 
 of the world," lifting out of the depths of 
 the Divine nature the transcendent mys- 
 teries of the being and perfections of Jeho- 
 vah, and disclosing all that the creature 
 needs to know of His counsels and designs. 
 This supernatural revelation is made in hu- 
 man language, and is instinct with all the 
 sympathies of the human heart ; so that it 
 
THE SCRIPTURES, OUR RULE. 211 
 
 can be understood as a statement of actual 
 facts, however incommensurable to human 
 reason. The competency of the witness 
 cannot be questioned ; and the language in 
 which His testimony is conveyed, bears 
 the stamp of infallibility through the in- 
 spiration of the record in which it is trans- 
 mitted. 
 
 The notable advantage here is that the 
 comprehensible and the incomprehensible, 
 the plain and the mysterious, are placed on 
 the same level as inspired truth. This 
 sweeps away the cavil against the Scrip- 
 tures, that they are so full of incompre- 
 hensible mysteries. Never was objection 
 more futile than this. Why, even in the 
 sphere of Nature mystery prevails ; it is 
 the sad condition of all human knowledge 
 that it retreats into the unknown. There 
 is not a path of science which, trodden 
 backward, does not bring one to a blank 
 wall which arrests his progress. If this be 
 so when dealing with the created and the 
 finite, how much more may mystery be ex- 
 pected in a Revelation which speaks of the 
 Infinite Jehovah in His relations to man? 
 Indeed, it would be the absence of mys- 
 tery which would be conclusive against a 
 Revelation claiming to be from heaven, of 
 which the presence of mystery is the 
 
212 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 strongest presumptive proof. The plain 
 propositions of the Bible rest upon the 
 same footing with the most inexplicable ; 
 they are both received upon the veracity 
 of the witness who testifies; and neither 
 becomes a Divine truth to us, until so ac- 
 cepted in faith. It is not a question 
 whether we fully compass what is revealed, 
 but whether we accept it as a matter of 
 fact ; it is not a question of understanding, 
 but of responding. We believe what is 
 found in the Bible, not because we com- 
 prehend it, but because it is declared to 
 us upon the veracity of Him who cannot 
 lie. We may understand it, or we may 
 not ; but the authority upon which it is 
 received, is the infallible testimony of the 
 Revealer. It is needless to argue the 
 value to short-sighted, erring man, of an 
 inspired and infallible guide. 
 
 III. The value of the Scriptures is fur- 
 ther seen in that it addresses itself to all the 
 faculties of the human soul. It speaks, of 
 course, directly to the understanding as 
 the organ of knowledge ; for there could 
 be no revelation without intelligence to re- 
 ceive it. At every step, the mind finds its 
 exercise in taking up and interpreting the 
 terms in which the truths of the Gospel 
 
THE SCRIPTURES, OUR RULE. 213 
 
 are made known. But the conscience is 
 equally addressed with the intellect. The 
 truths which man is to believe, are truths 
 which he is also to practise. Hence that 
 pregnant phrase employed by our Lord, 
 " doing the truth." The Bible covers the 
 whole field of human duty, evermore ap- 
 pealing to the conscience to distinguish 
 between the right and the wrong. It seeks 
 equally to enlist the affections ; holding up 
 before us a Being of infinite love, to whom 
 the heart of the creature should flow out 
 with unceasing delight. It no less recog- 
 nizes man in the sphere of his activity ; 
 and calls upon him, in the free choice of 
 the will, to assume and discharge all the 
 responsibilities of life. Without expand- 
 ing further what is so plain, it is easy to 
 see that no system of truth goes so entirely 
 around the circle of the human faculties, 
 as that which is taught in the Word of God. 
 You cannot fail to perceive that the con- 
 current impression made upon these differ- 
 ent faculties strengthens the conviction 
 which is thereby produced. The truth 
 thus takes hold upon the entire nature of 
 man ; and the interaction between his dif- 
 ferent powers largely protects against the 
 misinterpretation of the record, to which 
 he is constantly exposed. The error 
 
214 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 which might occur in the understanding, 
 will be corrected by the impression upon 
 the heart ; and that which might be made 
 through the affections, will be overruled 
 by the decisions of the conscience. The 
 truth is seen in its symmetry at the inter- 
 section of these lines, towards which the 
 different rays of light converge as their 
 common focus. The aberations to which 
 we are prone, are thus corrected in the 
 reflex light shed upon them from these va- 
 rious directions ; and the truth is ascer- 
 tained for us, as by a jury of inquest. 
 Because of the distinct impression made 
 upon all the faculties of the soul, the Bible 
 is of especial value as the rule of conduct. 
 
 IV. The fundamental truths of the Bible 
 receive an immediate response from the re- 
 ligious instincts of our nature. This will be 
 best understood by giving instances of 
 what perhaps I have obscurely expressed. 
 Take, for example, the being of God. It 
 is a little remarkable that the Scriptures 
 everywhere assume the Divine existence 
 as an unquestioned fact, without any at- 
 tempt to prove it. It is a truth independ- 
 ent of argument, and does not need to be 
 proved. It is as nearly allied to what we 
 term "a first truth" as can be, without 
 
THE SCRIPTURES, OUR RULE. 21 5 
 
 being itself an intuition. The inference by 
 which it is received is so immediate, that 
 the mind accepts it upon the first presenta- 
 tion. There is no need of argument, ex- 
 cept to verify to one's reason that which 
 has already been received in faith ; or else 
 to paralyze some objection which an obsti- 
 nate scepticism may choose to raise against 
 it. And it is worthy of note, that the 
 argument when exhausted has not added 
 one particle to the antecedent conviction 
 of the truth. If in the intellect of man can 
 be traced any part of that natural image of 
 God in which he was created, it should be 
 expected spontaneously to recognize the 
 Divine existence as soon as disclosed to it. 
 Those who have ascended the river Sague- 
 nay in Canada, will easily recall the three 
 mountains, known as "the Trinity," situ- 
 ated in a little bay ; and as the steamer 
 swings into position between them a pistol 
 shot is echoed and re-echoed in a thousand 
 reverberations, dying away at last in the 
 dimness of the distance. It needed but the 
 configuration of these mountains relatively 
 to each other, to awake these echoes ; and 
 the echoes needed only the original sound 
 to call them forth. This spontaneous recog- 
 nition of the Creator is but the mind's echo 
 to the truth which calls it forth. If in right 
 
2l6 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 position between the human understanding 
 and conscience and heart, a voice pro- 
 claims the name of God, Jehovah, a thou- 
 sand echoes will repeat the sacred name, 
 as from hill to hill, until they are blended 
 and lost in a perfect but silent acquies- 
 ence. 
 
 Find another illustration in the obligation 
 of obedience to the Divine law, instantly 
 recognized by the conscience ; and the 
 sense of justice responding to the penalty 
 as its necessary sanction. Strange contra- 
 dictions meet in man's experience as a sin- 
 ner before God. On the one hand, the 
 will is ever prompting to the utmost de- 
 gree of self-assertion ; and the creature 
 would fain seek to be the arbiter of his 
 own destiny. On the other hand, he is 
 constrained to bow, often with a reluctant 
 homage, to an authority higher than him- 
 self. Jehovah commands ; and conscience, 
 as the organ of law, binds the duty of obe- 
 dience upon the recalcitrant will. Were 
 it not for this instinctive recognition of the 
 Divine supremacy, it is hard to see how 
 submission to human authority could be 
 secured. The force which would be re- 
 quired to compel obedience, would utterly 
 destroy every noble quality of man's nature; 
 rendering him an automaton rather than a 
 
THE SCRIPTURES, OUR RULE. 217 
 
 free and loving subject. The illustration 
 is even stronger with the response of the 
 human conscience to the necessity of pun- 
 ishment, in case of transgression. With 
 all the sinner's recoil from the doctrine of 
 a future judgment and the final banishment 
 of the wicked from the presence of a holy 
 God, the conscience of the race has never 
 been able to thrust it aside. Man must 
 reflect, however dimly, the image of his 
 Maker in which he was fashioned from the 
 beginning; and the sense of justice in him 
 must respond to the justice that is infinite 
 in the Lawgiver. 
 
 More mysterious still is the ineradicable 
 persuasion of God's conversableness even 
 with those whom His justice condemns. 
 Reason may not explain the consistency 
 of the two ; but there would not be the 
 possibility of hope in the sinner's breast 
 without the deep underlying conviction 
 that the Divine Being may be propitiated. 
 The whole doctrine of the Atonement 
 grounds upon this necessary enforcement 
 of the penalty in case of transgression ; 
 but the revelation of it to the sinner would 
 be ineffective, if there were no antecedent 
 persuasion of the possibility of reconcilia- 
 tion with the offended Lawgiver. It is 
 one of the most striking proofs of the truth 
 
2l8 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 of Christianity, that with all the mysterious- 
 ness of its doctrines, utterly incomprehen- 
 sible to human reason, they find points of 
 attachment in the deep seated convictions 
 of the soul, where they secure a firm lodg- 
 ment. A book which obtains such ready 
 access to the heart and conscience, with 
 the vast array of truth which it delivers to 
 man, may surely be commended as the 
 sufficient guide of his life. 
 
 V. The Bible reveals truth to man in 
 every condition in which he is placed, and is 
 therefore capable of immediate verification. 
 It has a word of blessing for those who 
 are happy, pointing to the "Father of 
 lights from whom cometh every good and 
 perfect gift. " It has a word of comfort 
 for those who are in sorrow, and shows 
 
 how — 
 
 «• The broken heart 
 May, like the plants that throw 
 Their fragrance from the wounded part, 
 Breath sweetness out of woe." 
 
 It explains the discipline of life, and how 
 every trial may be overruled for spiritual 
 good. A promise stands against every 
 trouble ; which we have only to accept, 
 and thus verify its truth in our own expe- 
 rience. The challenge of Scripture is on 
 
THE SCRIPTURES, OUR RULE. 2IO, 
 
 every page : " O taste and see that the 
 Lord is good ; blessed is the man that 
 trusteth in Him." What can be more fair 
 than this ? The Book that proposes to 
 guide men to eternal life, offers itself to 
 the test of immediate and practical expe- 
 rience to be accepted or rejected, as its 
 fidelity is established or overthrown. In 
 all cases in which the test has been fully 
 made, the conclusion finds expression in 
 the words of the Apostle, "Wherefore, 
 we receiving a kingdom which cannot be 
 moved, let us have grace whereby we may 
 serve God acceptably with reverence and 
 godly fear." 
 
 VI. The Bible bears the seal of Divinity 
 upon it, since it is God Himself who is be- 
 hind the word. In saying this, I do not 
 propose to discuss the great doctrine of 
 the plenary Inspiration of the Sacred Scrip- 
 tures. What I allege is, that the power of 
 Divine truth depends upon the fact that 
 Jehovah, in His awful personality, is be- 
 hind every utterance. If, for example, an 
 orator sways an assembly, it is because he 
 stands with his truly magnetic power be- 
 hind all that he says. Another may use 
 the same words without producing the 
 same effect, because it is not the orator 
 
220 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 who is flashing the emotions of his own 
 heart upon those who listen. It is, at 
 last, the individuality of the speaker that 
 gives force to the words which fall from 
 his lips. Similar illustrations suggest them- 
 selves in all the departments of life. The 
 word issuing from the throne is a word of 
 power, because it is the King who speaks 
 it. It is the General, dressed with the 
 symbols of military authority, who gives 
 value to the order which he issues. It is 
 the authority of the Judge upon the Bench, 
 lying behind his decision, which gives it 
 the force of law. The words of the Bible 
 are words which can never fall to the 
 ground, because God Himself, in His 
 threefold subsistence, is behind them to 
 give them power. Hence it is declared : 
 "So shall my word be that goeth out of 
 my mouth ; it shall not return unto me 
 void, but it shall accomplish that which I 
 please" (Isaiah lv. 11). Again, "The 
 word of God is not bound " (2 Tim. ii. 9). 
 And again, "The word of the Lord en- 
 dureth forever" (1 Peter i. 25). If, then, 
 the truth of the Scriptures can be put to 
 the test by Him who receives it, know 
 well that every declaration in it will be 
 verified by Him who delivers it A book 
 is not to be undervalued as the guide of 
 
THE SCRIPTURES, OUR RULE. 22 1 
 
 human conduct which will be thus finally 
 authenticated by its Divine author. 
 
 In urging you, my young friends, to ac- 
 cept these holy writings as the rule of faith 
 and practice, I must remind you that you 
 must come into living contact with their 
 teachings, in order to any profit from them. 
 Until the words enter into the mind and 
 heart, they bear no fruit. Just as the seed 
 germinates only when placed in the soil, 
 and feels the influence of the moisture and 
 the sun ; so the truth floating in the air, or 
 hid in the sacred text, -is fruitless until it 
 is laid upon the conscience and the heart. 
 Thus alone can the Bible become "a 
 lamp unto your feet and a light unto your 
 path." " Wherewith shall a young man 
 cleanse his way ? By taking heed thereto 
 according to Thy word." The condition 
 is imperative : only by bringing his way 
 into harmony with the Divine precepts, 
 can he walk safely amid the temptations of 
 a sinful world. But if the light of this 
 word shine directly upon his path, he will 
 march with the firm tread of a conqueror 
 amidst all the snares of Satan, and win the 
 prize of heavenly joy. The promfse of 
 Divine aid is given to all who use this 
 word aright ; and this renders the result 
 certain. Not only does the light direct in 
 
222 FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 the way of safety, but the grace to 
 strengthen in every duty and in every trial 
 is assured. The weakest shall triumph, if 
 they draw with confidence upon the re- 
 sources of the Almighty. To each young 
 man in this assembly I address the ques- 
 tion of the Prophet : ' ' Wilt thou not from 
 this time cry unto me, My Father, thou 
 art the guide of my youth ? " 
 
 " His hand the good man fastens on the skies, 
 And bids earth roll nor heeds its idle whirl." 
 
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