riaUCllli 
 
 VERMONT 
 
 RS AGO 
 
 'NTINGTON 
 
 
 in 
 
 Lrj 
 
 if 5 1 f 1-1 n 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 Shelf M-2l5\l\ 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 26, 2nd line, read diverged from it. 
 
 Page 44, 6th line, read their hearts. 
 
 Page 52, 4th line, read instinctive, not in- 
 structive. 
 
 Page 52, last line, read with comma, not a full 
 stop after itself. 
 
 Page 66, 15th line, read homilectics. 
 
 Page 74, 23rd line, read flowers, not flower. 
 
 Page 168, 1st line, read till all these things. 
 
 Page 143, 15th line, read correlated, not cor- 
 relative. 
 
 Page 176, 12th line, read faith, not face. 
 
 Page 222, 19th line, read good and evil. 
 
 Page 295, 3rd line, read comma after thought. 
 
 Page 304, last line, read meet, not avert. 
 

 THE /'*« , 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT 
 Fifty Years Ago 
 
 REV. C. A. HUNTINGTON 
 
 Late Pastor of the First Congregational Church. Eureka, C 
 
 A chapter from the unpublished reminiscences of otic of 
 the oldest of surviving graduates, including brief 
 mention of each member of the faculty with ex- 
 tended reference to Prof. James Marsh, 
 D. D'., the distinguished metaphysi- 
 cian, followed by thirteen select 
 sermons of the autln <r written 
 in the kev of the Spir- 
 itual Philosophy. 
 
 WHITNEY & STANLEY 
 
 - on ussruis to 
 S. HUNTINGTON 
 
 BU BLI N( ;T( )N, VERM< >XT 
 
 'HOMAS HOWARD 
 
 EUREKA, C'AL., 
 
 1892 
 
 Us 
 
3K 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The chapter composing this little vol- 
 ume was originally introduced as an epi- 
 sode into the personal reminiscences of 
 the author to be accompanied by a larger 
 selection of sermons on miscellaneous 
 subjects. A class of readers to whom the 
 subject matter of this chapter, by reason 
 of its reference to the university, may he 
 of interest, would be less likely to read 
 the autobiography of one of her humblest 
 graduates. I have„adopted the plan, there- 
 fore^ of publishing by itself this tribute 
 to the Faculty and Philosophy of the 
 school in the time of my college life, to- 
 gether with a few discourses suggestive of 
 the influence of the Burlington Philoso- 
 phy upon my own modes of thought in 
 particular, and upon the settlement of 
 theological questions in general. The 
 appended discourses are written, confes- 
 sedly not in a key note in harmony with 
 the current theology fifty years ago. 
 
 i 
 
The distrust, however, to which ' the 
 spiritual philosophy gave rise then, in 
 the churches and among the clergy, lias 
 gradually abated, until doctrines which 
 were then fifty years in advance of the 
 age, are now accredited by thoughtful 
 Christians, as the natural outcome of the 
 word of God as it is revealed in Scripture 
 and in the souls of men, both of which 
 are believed to be media of Divine com- 
 munication. 
 
 To give emphasis to this leading 
 thought of harmony between the written 
 and subjective . spiritual revelation was 
 the motive that prompted the writing of 
 this humble tribute and the accompany- 
 ing sermons. 
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 To my children, to parishioners and friends 
 who have appreciated my discourses and kindly 
 requested their publication, is this volume re- 
 spectfully dedicated by the author. 
 
b UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT FIFTY YEARS AGO. 
 
 knowledgement of felt obligation to revere their 
 names, honor their memory, and hear witness to 
 their superior wisdom and unselfish devotion to 
 the welfare of every pupil. 
 
 My connection with the University brought me 
 at once into personal relations with men of the 
 highest attainments in scholarship, and of the 
 loftiest motives in the work of education. Presi- 
 dent John Wheeler, Professors James Marsh, 
 Joseph Torrey, George W. Benedict, and Farrand 
 X. Benedict, were men unrivaled in their time as 
 disciplinarians in their respective departments of 
 study. The system of education which these men 
 organized, and which had its roots deep in the 
 Platonic philosophy, for which the school was dis- 
 tinguished, was felt by students as soon as they 
 came under its influence, to be something more 
 than a drill in mathematical problems and the 
 idioms of ancient Greek and Latin. The ideas of 
 these men were seen to rise at once beyond the 
 recitations of the class room to the higher fields 
 of spiritual truth, to which the preliminary drill 
 is hut a passport. We were made to see that 
 each step in the course, if well and truly taken, 
 was a step of progress towards the ultimate solu- 
 tion of the great problem of man and his relation 
 to the infinite. We were made to realize some- 
 thing of the true meaning of life, in the very 
 
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT FIFTY TEARS A.GO. / 
 
 outset, and were inspired to use the drill of each 
 successive day, not as a stepping stone to some 
 pecuniary advantage, but as a step upward to- 
 ward the mastery of all truth and the full realiza- 
 tion of the innate powers of our being. Before I 
 had yet passed the first term of my Freshman 
 year, the business of teaching was invested with 
 a new meaning ; not by reason of my progress in 
 algebra and herodotus, but by reason of my per- 
 sonal contact with the men themselves whose 
 every word and act indicated that while their 
 feet were on the ground,' their heads were in the 
 realms of the unseen, and that the material earth 
 was but the scaffold that supported their bodies, 
 while their minds were grappling with the great 
 invisible law of things, powers of being, sources 
 of life and eternal good. The personal influence 
 of these men was more to me than all beside in 
 my college life. For, as above intimated, 1 was 
 necessarily interrupted more or less, all the way 
 through, and suffered the loss of some of the im- 
 portant studies - of the course. Yet I had rare 
 opportunities to feel the power of the men them- 
 selves, which, as Horace Bushnell says of paren- 
 tal influence, " Was like a running stream bearing 
 down upon me hour by hour," giving conscious 
 form to my convictions and purposes, as from day 
 
8 UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT FIFTY YEARS AGO. 
 
 to day I labored to meet the requirements of the 
 class room. 
 
 At this point I shall digress from the line of 
 my narrative and speak briefly of the " person- 
 nel " of the men then comprising the Faculty, to 
 whom the University of Vermont owes whatever 
 in its system of philosophy and methods of educa- 
 tion distinguished it not only from other schools 
 in Vermont, but from most of the colleges of the 
 country. 
 
 Besides the college officers named above, Pro- 
 fessor Henry Chaney, an alumnus of the Univer- 
 sity, was added to the Faculty during my fresh- 
 man year. 
 
 These six men were persons of strongly marked 
 individuality, and of high moral convictions, as 
 well as of critical scholarship, each in his special 
 department, and all, generally, in things pertain- 
 ing to the best educational discipline. 
 
 President Wheeler was an executive officer of 
 rare ability. Among men of affairs, no less than 
 among men of culture, he was always at home. 
 Sagacious in superintending matters of finance, 
 he was at the same time alert in giving directions 
 to the internal policy of the college under the ad- 
 vice and counsel of the whole Faculty. He was 
 a man of address, and whether on the platform or 
 in the pulpit, he was equal to every emergency, 
 
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT FIFTY YEARS AGO. y 
 
 and could worthily represent the college, in its 
 relation to the Church, the State, and the work 
 of education in all subordinate grades. His tall 
 and commanding person, his dignified yet affable 
 intercourse with students, together with a happy 
 faculty to inspire in them lofty aims in all their 
 studies, conspired to make his personal influence 
 over students extremely potent, even without 
 much direct teaching in the class room, which 
 duty for the most part devolved upon other mem- 
 bers of the Faculty. 
 
 In the person of George W. Benedict was seen 
 the type of a pure, high souled, well poised man- 
 hood, and of thorough, diversified, accomplished, 
 scholarship. The substratum of his character, 
 was a broad, comprehensive, practical common 
 sense, to which were added the graces of a true 
 Christian gentlemen, and a supreme regard for 
 honest sincerity in all duty and all relations. As 
 a teacher in natural science, there were few in his 
 lifetime his superiors. But to this, his chosen 
 department; his acquirements were by no means 
 limited. When occasion required, he could re- 
 lieve any of the other professors and instruct in 
 the pure mathematics, in ancient and modern 
 classics and belles-letters. He was a scholar in 
 the truest sense of the term, which fact combined 
 with his affable, paternal spirit, made him a 
 
10 UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT FIFTY YEARS AGO. 
 
 teacher revered by all pupils whose hearts were 
 capable of responding to unselfish, wisely intended 
 endeavors in their behalf. He was every inch a 
 man, a true cosmopolitan, at home everywhere, 
 in business circles, in polite society, in the class 
 room, in the lecture room, in the prayer meeting, 
 among statesmen, authors and scholars; amid all 
 surroundings he was nature's nobleman ; ami out 
 of his genial nature there went an inspiration 
 which cannot he described, but which every earn- 
 est, faithful student could feel and could not 
 forget. 
 
 Professor Farrand X. Benedict was a mathe- 
 matician, and as such, a factor in the educational 
 system of the University quite indispensible. 
 What he did not know in mathematics (accord- 
 ing to a common saying) was not worth finding 
 out. It was the law of hi- life to know every 
 thing which lie studied a- perfectly as his author 
 knew it. Whatsoever Euclid or Newton or Kep- 
 ler, or any other of the great masters developed 
 in mathematical truth, Farrand N. Benedict 
 could teach. But Ids great usefulness as a col- 
 lege officer, lay not so much in his far-reaching 
 knowledge, which embraced 1i ilds of inquiry far 
 beyond the limits of the college curriculum, as in 
 t'ne thoroughness of his methods, and the patience 
 of his drill, in the elementary subjects so funda- 
 
UNIVFKSITY OI-' VERMONT FIFTY Y KA US Alio. 11 
 
 mental to all true progress, by reason of \he wide 
 application of mathematical t<> .'ill other sciences. 
 This habit of thoroughness and of unwearied 
 patience on the part of the Professor, not only 
 gave him a very high place in the esteem of all 
 the other members of the Faculty, but endeared 
 him to all pupils who yielded kindly to the rig- 
 orous discipline of his method of instruction. 
 Superficial methods in his department were fatal 
 to all right progress in other subjects of knowl- 
 edge. Against this Professor Benedict was an 
 effectual guard. He aimed to send every student 
 from his department well prepared to apply his 
 knowledge in the acquisition of all the sciences 
 of the course. 
 
 Professor Chancy came in as an adjunct to the 
 other professors. He was a man of all work in 
 the educational hive. He could lead classes in 
 algebra, in Latin, in mechanics, in optics, or in 
 civil engineering. He was a good scholar, an ex- 
 cellent man, and an important auxiliary, afford- 
 ing much needed relief to other professors, and 
 much valuable help to the classes in different 
 parts of their course. 
 
 No word of mine can add anything to the just 
 fame of Professor Joseph Torrey, who for forty 
 years was a bright and shining light in the Uni- 
 versity. His name is familiar to scholars and 
 
12 UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT FIFTY YEARS AGO. 
 
 theologians on both sides of the Atlantic, in 
 whose libraries are found the works of Neander, 
 the great church historian, which Dr. Torrey 
 gave to the world in the English language, and 
 without which no theological library can now be 
 considered complete— but of course he was best 
 known by those who came in daily contact with 
 him in the relation of pupils. They better thafl 
 Others could appreciate the characteristics <>t Ins 
 mind. He was a model of accuracy in every 
 thing, no less in the minute affairs and duties 
 that fill up life, and in the aggregate determine 
 character, than in the great questions of truth 
 with which his mind was wont to grapple. 
 
 His scholarship was not only accurate, but it 
 was large and varied, more so, probably, than 
 that of aify contemporary scholar in any Ameri- 
 can college. He "drove more sciences abreast" 
 than any other learned man of his time and 
 country. He could read most of the languages 
 of Europe. He was an expert in botany, anato- 
 my, and physiology. His acquaintance with lit- 
 erature was comprehensive and profound. Natu- 
 rally, when a fund of *10,000 had been raised foj 
 the purchase of a library for the University, he 
 was chosen to go abroad and make the purchase. 
 In the discharge of this commission he visited all 
 the chief centers of learning, in Great Britain and 
 
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT FIFTY YEARS AGO. 13 
 
 on the continent, and succeeded in collecting out 
 of all the best literary markets of the world, an 
 aggregation, if books which George P. Marsh, in 
 his speech on the floor of Congress some years 
 later, when discussing the bill for accepting and 
 appropriating the Smithsonian fund, declared to 
 be superior in excellence to any other collection 
 of like dimensions and like cost in the world. 
 And the judgment of George P. Marsh was au- 
 thority anywhere on such a subject. 
 
 Professor Torrey occupied at first the chair of 
 Latin and Greek, but for twenty-five of the later 
 years of his life he adorned the chair of meta- 
 physics. In whatever he taught he was an ora- 
 cle of truth. And }'et he never got beyond the 
 docility of a humble learner. To the day of his 
 death he was always a laborious student, and 
 neither in study nor in teaching did he limit 
 himself to any one line of inquiry. In the Re- 
 public of letters, in the schools of art, in the labo- 
 ratory of nature, in the science of government, in 
 the history of the church and of empires, and in 
 the philosophy of mind and of morals, he was 
 equally at home. His every habit as a scholar 
 bore with authority upon the minds of his pupils 
 the authority of absolute truth. It was prover- 
 bial of him that he could teach more with fewer 
 words than any other man. A bare hint or in- 
 
14 UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT FIFTY YEARS AGO. 
 
 quiry calling attention to an inflection, a particle 
 or verbal form, would disclose the source of 
 error, the correction of which shed new light upon 
 the meaning of a whole paragraph. This the stu- 
 dent was left to discover himself without being 
 told otherwise than by a bare suggestion. In 
 matters of discipline he was dignified and re- 
 served. It was usually enough to discover by a 
 hint that Professor Torrey was displeased with 
 our conduct. No self-respecting student would 
 willingly and knowingly incur the displeasure of 
 one in whose rectitude and wisdom all cherished 
 such implicit confidence. He governed by what 
 he was, more than by what he said or did. The 
 whole tendency of his life and teachings was to 
 make every student a law unto himself, and 
 thereby reduce the college discipline to a regime 
 of autonomy. 
 
THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 15 
 
 DOCTOR MARSH 
 
 SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY 
 
 But the " esprit de corps " of the University of 
 Vermont, that which gave significance to the 
 term " Burlingtonian " applied as a cognomen to 
 individuals of the Alumni, was not original with 
 any of the men above referred to, nor was it the 
 product of the united wisdom of all combined. 
 They were all, without exception, superior men, 
 and in their respective departments teachers 
 without rivals. But they no less than their pu- 
 pils were susceptible of impressions and subject 
 to modifications in their mental conceptions un- 
 der influences external to themselves, and con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, they yielded to the 
 silent force of a single philosophic mind that 
 
16 THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 moulded them into unity of thought, and method 
 in all the processes and aims of educational cul- 
 ture. 
 
 The presiding genius that gave impress and 
 individuality to the scholarship of the Univer- 
 sity, resided in the person of Dr. James Marsh. 
 He was familiar with all the great leaders of 
 thought, both ancient and modern. But it was 
 not his Platonism, his Kantism. or his Colridg- 
 ism, that made him the master spirit among his 
 colleagues, or which gave tone to the discipline 
 and mental achievements of his pupils. It was 
 himself. So broad, so profound, so universal 
 were his researches in all that relates to human 
 thought, and to language the instrument of 
 thought in every age, that he came to be more 
 than a vehicle to convey the teachings of the 
 great masters to other minds. Himself, like the 
 great philosophers of antiquity, by inhaling for 
 a life time the atmosphere of truth in the loftiest 
 altitudes, became personally an oracle of truth, 
 and shed around himself a light so clear and so 
 commanding as to eclipse the light of all false 
 philosophy. 
 
 The influence of a great soul is best symbol- 
 ized by the silent unseen forces of nature. It 
 carries with it great minds, and small as the gulf 
 stream floats the heaviest ships and the lightest 
 
THE SI'IIMTUAI 
 
 fragments, all alike unconscious of the mighty 
 current in whose power they arc ; the stream 
 meanwhile, unconscious of its burden. The truly 
 great man influences by what he is, as the sun 
 influences by its spontaneous radiation. Some 
 such the world has produced in every age, and 
 such preeminently was the subject of this nar- 
 rative. 
 
 All who have read the memoir of Dr. Marsh 
 prefixed to his literary remains by Professor Tor- 
 rey, are prepared to justify my own estimate of 
 the man. Such was my personal intimacy with 
 him, however, while an inmate of his home, that 
 I am able to add some things not mentioned by 
 his biographer, which shed light on his superi- 
 ority as a scholar and the way in which he gained 
 that superiority. 
 
 In the early part of his course, himself, Geo. P. 
 Marsh, Joseph Torrey, and (if I remember right- 
 ly) Rums Choate, formed a club, purchased the 
 entire library of classic Greek and Latin, includ- 
 ing everything that scholars consider of any 
 value in classical literature, and set about read- 
 ing it. 
 
 All this they did independently of college re- 
 quirements : outgrowing their tutors in classical 
 knowledge, the Faculty early ceased to require 
 their presence in recitations and consented to the 
 
18 THE SPIRITUAL I'HIUiSOl'HY. 
 
 more enlarged and independent course prescribed 
 by themselves. They persevered in the plan un- 
 til their entire library was exhausted, and they 
 had made themselves masters of Greek and Ro-. 
 man literature. Thus they laid the foundation 
 of their acknowledged preeminence in philology. 
 This the Doctor related to me in no boastful 
 spirit, but as an incentive to go beyond the re- 
 quirements of the class room in my own classical 
 study. This incident is alluded to as an index 
 to the style of Ids scholarship. With him the 
 knowledge of language was the condition indis- 
 pensible to a knowledge of the soul, which is the 
 beginning, the middle, and the end, of all true 
 knowledge. Words are a transcript of the un- 
 seen in man. the picture of the inner life of. the 
 generations of the buried past. Hence philology 
 with him was the key to all wisdom. Dr. Marsh 
 made himself master of this key not as the end 
 of study, hut as the instrument by which to open 
 the sepulchres and hold converse with the wise of 
 all times and all tongues. This is the point at 
 which to begin the study of man. Language is 
 the instrument of reason. Reason is the image 
 of Cod. Philology is the avenue to anthropolo- 
 gy, and anthropology the only gateway to the- 
 ology. 
 
 Whatever language could be made available as 
 
THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 1!) 
 
 an instrument in unfolding the truth of philoso- 
 phy, of that he made himself master. The mod- 
 ern classics no less than the ancient, were 
 brought into requisition as an avenue to all 
 shades of German and French philosophy, en- 
 abling him to bring to the light of truth the 
 sophistries of modern transcendentalism, and the 
 heresies of modern skepticism. 
 
 The Platonic doctrine of innate ideas is the 
 corner stone of the spiritual philosophy, which 
 begins with the proposition that all truth is origi- 
 nal in the supreme reason, is transcribed by the 
 finger of God, and is innate in the human reason. 
 The place to begin to know God is in the soul of 
 man. Here is the starting point of all morality, 
 of all duty, of all right. Morality is the same 
 thing in every age. It did not originate with the 
 Bible any more than the laws of geometry origi- 
 nated with Euclid. He did not put his theories 
 into the soul, he derived them from it. The writ- 
 ers of the Bible did not put law into the soul of 
 man. They first studied the law revealed in their 
 own conscious being antecedent to all written 
 law, and from thence transcribed it on parch- 
 ment. 
 
 Hence the genius of Dr. Marsh's philosophy 
 like that of the ancient philosophers was intro- 
 spective, the turning of the mind inward upon 
 
20 THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 itself, "to know thyself," as the first condition of 
 knowing Him of whom " thyself" is the image. 
 
 This aphorism was made the corner stone of 
 the educational system of the University of Ver- 
 mont. That system began in the knowledge of 
 the soul itself, which was not regarded as a blank 
 sheet, or as an empty receptacle to be filled from 
 without ; but as in the acorn the germ of the oak 
 is innate, so the soul is pregnant with the germs 
 of all truth, and the business of education is not 
 to pour in from without but to educe from with- 
 in, and to evolve the full grown man in all the 
 symmetry and grace of character. 
 
 What Dr. Marsh was to the school as a teacher 
 of spiritual philosophy, he desired to be to the 
 theology of Vermont as a teacher of spiritual reli- 
 gion. The issue between the current theology of 
 his time and his teachings, was as strongly 
 marked as the issue between the utilitarian phil- 
 osophy of John Locke and the spiritual philoso- 
 phy of Immanuel Kant. 
 
 On this subject, however, he holds the following 
 language in his preliminary essay to Colridge'fl 
 " Aids to Reflection :" 
 
 " It will not follow that our religion is necessa- 
 rily wrong, or our essential faith erroneous, but 
 that the philosophical grounds on which we are 
 accustomed to defend our faith are unsafe, mid 
 
THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 2] 
 
 that their natural tendency is to error. If the 
 spirit of the gospel still exert its influence, if a 
 truly spiritual religion be maintained, it is in 
 opposition to our philosophy (meaning the cur- 
 rent empirical philosophy), and not at all by its 
 aid. 
 
 "Neither reason nor experience, indeed, fur- 
 nished any ground for believing that the living 
 and life giving power of the Divine word has ever 
 derived any portion of its efficacy in the conver- 
 sion of the heart to God from the forms of meta- 
 physical theology with which the human under- 
 standing has invested it." 
 
 His claim was that evangelical religion, if it 
 flourished at all (which he docs not question), 
 flourished not by the help of the current philoso- 
 phy but in spite of it. To understand Dr. Marsh's 
 attitude, it is first necessary to know the distinc- 
 tion between the different schools of philosophy — 
 their antropology is different. Man is a different 
 being under the different systems. One school 
 makes him to be the creature of circumstances. 
 He is what he is by reason of forces external to 
 himself. Hence it is called the Empirical School, 
 because ideas come to him from without through 
 the experience of the senses. 
 
 It is called the Natural School, because it 
 teaches that man, like the lower animals, is a 
 
THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 subject of natural law. He is what nature causes 
 him to be. He is a link in the chain of natural 
 cause and effect, a creature of necessity— not a 
 self-determining agent. 
 
 It is called the Material School, because it 
 ignores the supernatural in man, ignores any 
 Divine element in him other than understanding 
 which is common to men and animals, and which 
 is limited in its exercise to visible phenomena. If 
 it employ the term reason, it confounds its mean- 
 ing with that of instinct, which, whether in men 
 or animals, can but contrive, compare, forecast 
 and pre-arrange with reference to material things, 
 while it points to the statute book for conscience, 
 and waits for a school-master to lay down rules 
 of right and wrong. 
 
 It is called the Utilitarian School, because it 
 measures all human conduct, not by any inher- 
 ent principle of action, but exclusively by its 
 utilities, by its outcome on personal pleasure, or 
 social happiness, or the general welfare. It 
 makes no account of the spiritual motives of the 
 soul, but in the light of the understanding judges 
 of the merit or the demerit of conduct wholly by 
 its utilities. Whatever eventuates in happiness, 
 in advantage to the individual, to the church, to 
 the State, is approved as right because of its re- 
 sult, regardless of the underlying motive of the 
 
THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 2o 
 
 act — or rather the underlying motive appears to 
 the understanding from what is seen in the ex- 
 ternal result. 
 
 The original projector of this Utilitarian School 
 of thought was John Locke, whose philosophical 
 conceptions gave mold and flavor to the theology 
 of Doctor Paley. Both of these men were ac- 
 credited as leaders of the religious mind in Eng- 
 land, Scotland, and the United States during the 
 eighteenth and the early part of the present cen- 
 tury, which religious mind took on modified 
 shades of opinion under Bentham, Hartley, 
 Hobbes, Hume and John Stuart Mill, all of 
 whom, like the several children of the same 
 family, owe their paternity to the same progeni- 
 tor, but bear complexions, much modified in ap- 
 pearance, without obscuring their family origin. 
 The inevitable outcome of the philosophy of 
 Locke, when carried to its logical conclusion, is 
 atheism as taught by David Hume, and materi- 
 alism as taught by Spinoza and the pantheistic 
 school of which he was the acknowledged head. 
 
 Respecting the relation which the metaphysics 
 of Locke bore to spiritual religion, Dr. Shedd, in 
 his history of Christian doctrine, volume 1, page 
 94, speaks thus : 
 
 " The English and American theologies of the 
 eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have felt the 
 
24 THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 influence of the Locke philosophy in the modified 
 form of the Scotch school, while the earnest and 
 practical religious spirit which has characterized 
 these churches has tended to neutralize the ma- 
 terializing elements that still remain in it." 
 
 Still, as Dr. Marsh declared, true spiritual reli- 
 gion owed nothing to the philosophy of Locke or 
 to the theology of Paley. If it flourished at all, 
 it flourished in spite of their teachings, in spite 
 of all the false, unreasonable and unscriptural 
 conceptions that have their roots in a factitious 
 anthropology which ignores the fundamental con- 
 dition of humanity, viz: the autonomy of the 
 will, and makes man the passive victim of neces- 
 sity—clay in the hands of the molder— a sinner, 
 not by the independent volition of his spiritual 
 freedom, but because 
 
 " Our mother took the poison there 
 And tainted all her blood." 
 It makes him to be saved, because Divine sover- 
 eignty chose him to salvation, or lost, because 
 such was the necessity caused by a power exter- 
 nal to himself. 
 
 But the Burlington philosophy, of which Dr. 
 Marsh was the living exponent, begins in a dif- 
 ferent anthropology, and eventuates in a differ- 
 ent interpretation of man's moral relations, and 
 of God's written and unwritten communications. 
 
THE BPIR] TU Al, PHILOSOPHY. 25 
 
 First, thou, what do I mean by the different an- 
 thropology of that which is known as the spir- 
 itual school? That anthropology recognizes man 
 as a Divine being, differing from the Supreme 
 being, only as a drop of salt water differs from 
 the mighty ocean, the same in essence, compre- 
 hending in miniature all the attributes of divini- 
 ty. God breathed his own divinity into the nos- 
 trils of Adam, and he became a living soul in the 
 image of God. Himself in-breathes his own at- 
 tributes of reason, conscience, free will, into every 
 child of the race. Thus, while as sensuous crea- 
 tures, we are as beasts having instinct or under- 
 standing to guide us in our materia] relations, we 
 are at the same time endowed with reason to 
 guide, us in our spiritual relations, which, like 
 the Supreme reason, makes us morally indepen- 
 dent, and therefore, morally responsible. I can- 
 not more directly reach this important distinc- 
 tion than by quoting the following paragraph by 
 John Tullock in reference to Golridge's spiritual 
 philosophy: 
 
 "The really vital question is, whether there is 
 a Divine root in man — a spiritual center answer- 
 ing to a higher spiritual center in the universe. 
 All controversies of any importance come back to 
 this. Colridge would have been a great Chris- 
 tian thinker if for no other reason than this, that 
 
gg THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 he brought all theological problems back to this 
 living center, and showed how they diverged it. 
 Apart from this postulate, sin was inconceivable 
 to him ; and in the same manner all Bin was to 
 him sin of origin, or ' original sin.' It is the 
 essential property of the will that it can origi- 
 nate The phrase ' original sin ' is therefore a 
 pleonasm. If sin were not original, or from 
 within the will its.lf, it would not deserve the 
 name A state or act that has not its origin m 
 the will may be a calamity, deformity, disease <»r 
 mischief ; but a sin it cannot be." 
 
 The above quotation is very nearly in the ex- 
 art language used by Dr. Marsh before his classes 
 more than fifty years ago. The fault he found 
 with the current theology was, that it ignored the 
 - Divine root in man" and asserted its theological 
 dogmas without any reference to a subjective 
 Standard of judgment residing in human reason. 
 They were true because the Bible (often ol doubt- 
 ful interpretation), asserted them, or they were 
 true as propositions of an authorized creed. Rea- 
 son had nothing to do with them. Christian 
 truth, it was supposed, lay at hand in the Bible, 
 an appeal to which settled everything, and it was 
 little less than heresy to ascribe authority to the 
 ant cedent revelations of reason. 
 
 And this accords precisely with the method ol 
 
THK SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPflY. 27 
 
 the Bible. The Bible nowhere presupposes man's 
 ignorance of the truth which it discusses. It 
 never argues the being of God with men. The 
 very first verse in the Bible assumes that the be- 
 ing of God is an "apriori" truth and belongs 
 originally to the reason of man. 
 
 The fact of human sinfulness is not true be- 
 cause the Bible asserts it. It is a fact of con- 
 sciousness — coeval with transgression — and for 
 that reason is written in the Bible. The Bible pre- 
 scribes the remedy, but the fact is known to rea- 
 son without the Bible. The freedom of the will 
 is nowhere inculcated in the Bible, but every- 
 where assumed as an axiomatic truth. Man does 
 not learn it from the Bible nor from any other 
 source external to himself. Every man knows 
 without being told that he alone is responsible 
 for his actions. When God says, "come now let 
 us reason together, though your sins be as scarlet, 
 they shall be as white as snow," he invites roan 
 to the highest vantage ground possible and pro- 
 poses for him the only remedy. He does not put 
 him to school to learn any lessons in theology. 
 He does not tell him to offer sacrifices to multi- 
 ply prayers, or give alms, but he says, "come 
 now let us reason together." Give reason its 
 sway, act rationally, as you know you ought to 
 
2 g THE SPIRITUAL PHIIiOSOPHY. 
 
 act. Obey the truth as revealed in the soul be- 
 fore it is written in the Bible. 
 
 Would we know the mind of God toward us, 
 would we know our own moral maledy, and learn 
 the remedy, we must first know ourselves, for 
 only by the study of ourselves can we know God 
 in whose image we are made. This was the wis- 
 dom of the great philosophers of antiquity— of the 
 Great Teacher himself— who made all his appeals 
 to the human conscience as the ground of highest 
 authority, and of the Apostle Paul who found a 
 law in his mind ever erect and firm against the 
 law of sin in his members. 
 
 But this was not the method of the Evangelical 
 School in Dr. Marsh's day, nor of some in our 
 own dav. Theologians began at the other end of 
 the great chapter of Divine truth. They treated 
 the human soul, that Divine entity, equipped 
 With the very prerogatives and powers of the Su- 
 preme reason, as an empty casket to be tilled up 
 from without, as we pour water from one pitcher 
 into another that is empty, instead of courting 
 the free exercise of the soul's God-given attri- 
 butes, saying, "come now let us reason together," 
 let us' weigh well the Divine instincts within our- 
 selves, and draw out of the deep well of truth 
 therein abiding the living waters that spring up 
 into everlasting life. Instead of this, they 
 
THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY, -It 
 
 crammed the soul with the crude notions of hu- 
 man schools, doctrines and dogmas, the wisdom 
 of man's device. The result is, that truth, which 
 is a unit, and which is revealed alike to all souls, 
 is divided against itself. And the Gospel, which 
 ought to be, and in order to its proper mission 
 must be, a Divine diapason of loving harmony, is 
 rent by discord, and becomes the grating jargon 
 of parties and sects in disagreement. 
 
 And this all results from a false conception of 
 the being of man, and a false idea of the objects 
 of revelation. It is assumed that the Bible is. 
 given to educate man religiously, and so it is. 
 But to educate, as before asserted, does not mean 
 to pour ideas into an empty receptacle, but to 
 draw out those that are innate, as the heat, mois- 
 ture, and fertilized soil draw out the embryo 
 germ innate in the acorn. The Bible is given 
 like the powers of nature. It is not a vehicle to 
 bring to man the lumber out of which to build 
 creeds, or the stuff with which to cram an empty 
 soul, and fill it with dogmas and notions and 
 ritualistic forms. The Bible is not given to re- 
 port the being of God, or tell man of sin, of retri- 
 bution, of holiness and spiritual peace, in which 
 are involved the full meaning of heaven and hell. 
 The Bible was given to stir up, to stimulate, and 
 quicken into living consciousness, these heaven 
 
30 THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 descended realities, which belong to the soul as 
 its original furniture derived from the Supreme 
 reason, and which made it to be in the image of 
 God. 
 
 But theologians go to the Bible first assuming 
 that to be the starting point of truth, and out of 
 the literal terms of the written word cull material 
 with which to construct their self-projected sys- 
 tems of trinity and unity; of universal atone- 
 ment and limited atonement; of the divinity of 
 the Savior and the humanity of the Savior; of 
 necessity and free will; of bodily resurrection 
 and spiritual resurrection; of a second advent in 
 the flesh yet to come, and of a second advent in 
 the spirit already fulfilled; of plenary verbal in- 
 spiration, and of inspiration of meaning expressed 
 in human words, which conform each w liter's 
 statements to his own characteristic style; of 
 apostolic succession, and of no succession, and 
 many other dogmas which, however paradoxical 
 are all provable by scripture of which there is 
 much on one side as on the other.' 
 
 And yet the Bible is a unit when studied 
 the light of reason. Its spiritual meaning is to 
 be determined not by the dictionary. Tried by 
 that test, there are almost no contradictory no- 
 tions that cannot be proven by it, But tried by 
 the subjective rules of reason, all differences har- 
 
 is as 
 
 in 
 
THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 31 
 
 monize, and the church universal becomes one in 
 Christ Jesus on all points of truth relating to 
 spiritual religion. See now if this is not so. 
 
 All Christians believe in God, the one holy 
 Almighty Creator and Judge. That is a doctrine 
 of reason, and so far all agree. All Christian* 
 believe in the doctrine of sin and the necessity of 
 atonement and reconciliation. This is a doctrine 
 of reason, a doctrine universally known, whether 
 or not a written revelation be known. In this, 
 Christians the world over, Catholic and Protes- 
 tant of all denominations, are of one mind. .Ml 
 Christians believe in retribution, in God's dis- 
 pleasure at sin, and his complacency in holiness. 
 This is a doctrine of reason, and so far all are 
 agreed. All Christians believe in the golden rule. 
 This is a doctrine of reason, " apriori " in the 
 .soul, an eternal unchangeable law in which a'll 
 agree. These are the only doctrines that will cut 
 any figure in the day of judgment. These are all 
 revealed in the soul. And the Bible, so far as it 
 is the text-book of spiritual religion, interpreted 
 in the light of reason, reveals nothing else. 
 
 Did Dr. Marsh's philosophy seem to underrate 
 the Divine oracles? God forbid. What he dep- 
 recated was the theological tyranny that insists 
 on the enforcement of arbitrary mechanical sys- 
 tems of doctrine against which all reason revolts; 
 
32 THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 systems that ignore the fundamental grounds of 
 spiritual truth, and in the light of a factitious 
 philosophy literalize, materialize, and pervert all 
 the glorious imagery of the Bible which reason 
 employs as the signs of great spiritual realities. 
 •What he maintained, was that reason and reve- 
 lation were each of Divine origin, and that the 
 latter cannot be rightly understood without rev- 
 erent respect to the former. When that is con- 
 ceded the word of God will be found consistent 
 with itself and in harmony with reason. And 
 then the discords that now distract and disinte- 
 grate the church will be turned into harmony, 
 and religion pure and undefiled will liquify the 
 church militant, and recast her into the mold of 
 the church triumphant, whose celestial choir 
 sings in the same key for ever and ever. 
 
 Dr. Marsh was a great moralist, but no contro- 
 vertialist. His method in ethical discussion was 
 to state fairly both sides of a proposition, and, by 
 concentrating upon the wrong side the light of 
 true philosophy to dissolve the error as by the 
 power of a sun-glass, finding it easier to dispel 
 the shadow by pouring in light than by cutting 
 down the tree that projected the shadow. 
 
 His bearing was always so modest, and his 
 spirit so Christ-like, that the antagonism to 
 
THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. • >■> 
 
 which controversalists are usually exposed was 
 greatly disarmed. 
 
 And by so much as this was true, the system 
 of ideas which he taught found more easy access 
 to the minds of even the most ultra of the Utili- 
 tarian School. As a theologian, Dr.Marsh never 
 attempted to formulate a religious erred, but as 
 a metaphysician, he aimed to unfold the deep 
 foundations of truth abiding in the inner con- 
 sciousness on which the laws of rational interpre- 
 tation rest, and leave 1 his pupils to frame their 
 own creed in the light of the truth so manifested. 
 The church of his day was the victim of preju- 
 dice, crystallized into the unreasoning dogmas of 
 a, material, utilitarian philosophy, of the demor- 
 alizing effect of which a filial disciple of Dr. 
 Marsh, on presenting a memorial tablet to the 
 University with which to adorn its new chapel 
 and bespeak his own and the hive of all his dis- 
 ciples, speaks thus: 
 
 "in Dr. Marsh were happily combined the pro- 
 found and universal scholar, and the earnest 
 and devout Christian, philosopher, lie did a 
 great and memorable work in introducing the 
 intuitive or spiritual philosophy, so called, to the 
 young men of our country of forty and fifty years 
 ago, in an age notable for the prevalence in the 
 popular mind, in the lycenm, in pulpit, press, and 
 
34 .THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 halls of learning, of a philosophy, sensuous and 
 utilitarian, false and demoralizing, and in its 
 .teachings, largely in fact, though not always in 
 form', name, and purpose— anti-Christian. 
 
 " In this great work of restoring the sublime 
 philosophy of Plato, of Cud worth and Hooker, of 
 Bacon and Milton and Leighton, and of the pro- 
 found and majestic John Howe, to its ancient and 
 appropriate place in the university curriculum, 
 and to the no less task of exposing and refuting 
 the errors, sophistries and absurdities of this 
 sterile and debasing philosophy that everywhere 
 dominated the public mind, Dr. Marsh found a 
 congenial field of labor, and one into which he 
 was eminently fitted to enter, by Ids mental and 
 moral structure, by previous study and research, 
 and bv his wide and profound scholarship. 
 
 " But this great and characteristic life-work was 
 undertaken in the face of many adverse circum- 
 stances sufficient to have intimidated a man of 
 less clear and discriminating insight, and of less 
 positive convictions. 
 
 "Through persistent writing and teaching; 
 through the unconscious power of bis personal 
 contact; through his unsurpassed facility in in- 
 spiring young men in quest of light and truth. 
 with an irrepressible enthusiasm in the pursuit 
 and acquisition of knowledge, Dr. Marsh initiated 
 
THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 35 
 
 the great revolution in this barren and subversive 
 philosophy everywhere prevalent, but all this at 
 the peril of forfeiting the confidence of many of 
 the great and good men of his time, and of sacri- 
 ficing his position in the church and in the uni- 
 versity, which revolution has since reached many 
 of our institutions of high learning, and has 
 manifested itself in an eminent degree in much 
 of the better and sounder scholarship, theology 
 and literature of the age."* 
 
 To have projected a formal (.-reed then in the 
 light of the spiritual philosophy, and to have at- 
 tempted to substitute it in place of the creed then 
 in vogue in the churches would have been to take 
 a step fifty years in advance of his time, for 
 which the church was not prepared. It was more 
 than the church could patiently bear for him to 
 project into the theological discussions of his time 
 the aids to reflection, and by his preliminary 
 essay, endorse the Christian philosophy of Sam- 
 uel Taylor Colridge. 
 
 The most that he attempted in all this was to 
 awaken reflection on the deepest principles that 
 underlie all truth, and leave the minds so awak- 
 ened to formulate doctrine in accord with en- 
 lightened reason. With him creeds were one 
 
 *Ad(lress of Hon. William P. Pinson of class 1839 to the Board of 
 Trustees on presentation of the Marsh tablet in 1883, 
 
30 
 
 THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY, 
 
 thing and religion quite another thing. The one 
 the " letter that killeth, the other the spirit 
 
 was 
 
 that giveth life." < 
 
 In his teachings Dr. Marsh never raised any oj 
 the questions more recently mooted by what ifi 
 called the higher criticism, such as plenary in, 
 spiration, chronological, historical or scientific 
 errancy; he believed with Job that " there is a 
 spirit in man and the inspiration of the Almighty 
 giveth knowledge." To get into the mind ot hie 
 pupils the great thought involved in this aphor- 
 ism was the point at which he aimed as the " sine 
 qua non" of biblical knowledge. The truth re- 
 vealed" objectively on parchment is Erst revealed 
 subjectively in the spirit, and the objective writ* 
 ten'revelation can be understood only in the light 
 of the subjective spiritual revelation, 
 
 •' [ will put my law in their inward parts and 
 write it in their hearts, and will he their God, 
 and they shall be my people," saith the Lord. 
 (Jer xxxi, 33.) Anthropology was with him 
 the first step in the mastery of truth. To unfold 
 m m to himself was the lofty climax to which ho 
 aspired. "Know thyself." This was the end o| 
 all acquirements, the glorious acme of all lean** 
 in. To answer the ever unsilenced whispers of 
 the soul, asking, what am I? From w Leno 
 T? and whither do 1 tend? This mysterious, mi- 
 
THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 37 
 
 seen, intangible something within me, thai rea- 
 sons, that loves, that hates and aspires, that 
 longs, and refuses to die. Am I to be or not to 
 be, when the seen and tangible is sloughed off? 
 Am I to shine or be snuffed out as a candle is ex- 
 tinguished? Whence the sanctions of the unseen 
 court within me that tries me every hour, that 
 dooms me or acquits me, that lashes me with re- 
 morse, or beatifies me with smiles of approval? 
 Whence and what am I and whither am I hound? 
 To answer these yearnings of the soul Dr. Marsh 
 laid under contribution everything knowable in 
 history, in nature, and philosophy.. 
 
 ' The result of all which, inquiries was to confirm 
 the inherent convictions of the soul, man is a 
 spirit as truly as God is a sj>irit. For a limited 
 period lying between the cradle and the grave, 
 he resides in a sentient body, corresponding to 
 that of the animals. But the sentient body is not 
 the I; not the personality; not the man any more 
 than the material cosmos is God. God is a spirit 
 apart from and independent of matter. Man 
 who is declared to be in his image is in the same 
 sense a spirit. The spiritual philosophy deter- 
 mines the antecedent of the pronoun I when man 
 speaks of his true self. It is spirit; it is super- 
 natural; it is self-asserting, independent, and 
 hence absolutely and unconditionally responsi- 
 
33 THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 ble. It is entirely out of the chain of natural 
 cause and effect, so that nothing divine or human 
 can necessitate its action, save its own responsi- 
 ble will in which all its moral volitions originate. 
 By this it is not meant that causes external to 
 man cannot influence him. It is meant that no 
 power external to man can compel his spiritual 
 volitions, otherwise moral responsibility is incon- 
 ceivable, and choice is a misnomer. 
 
 Not so with the material philosophy which 
 makes man a creature of necessity. He knows, 
 and thinks, and wills only as he is acted upon by 
 forces and phenomena external to himself. His 
 sinful nature is inherited and is the result of a 
 cause over which he has no control. His under- 
 standing, which is common to men and to ani- 
 mals, the channel through which the beast knows, 
 is the only channel of knowledge which the ma- 
 terialist recognizes. He uses the term reason, 
 which belongs exclusively to spirit, indiscrimin- 
 ately with understanding the faculty of sense, 
 which is common both to men and animals, and 
 thereby confounds the most fundamental distinc- 
 tion in philosophy. One dog is more knowing 
 than another dos; one man is more knowing than 
 another man. But the channel of knowledge 
 (the functions of sense and the impressions of 
 external phenomena), is the same to both— both 
 
THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 39 
 
 have understanding — and if this were all, death 
 would end all with the man as with his dug. But 
 this is not all. God breathed into man's nostrils 
 and he became a living soul. This is not said of 
 any other form of life. Man alone, of all the 
 creatures he had made, was endowed with that 
 Divine thing called soul, which in form, essence 
 and attribute, is like God. The spiritual phil- 
 osophy takes it entirely out of nature and recog- 
 nizes its equipment with all the qualities of the 
 Supreme reason, which qualities distinguish us 
 from the bruits that perish, are the image of God 
 in us and constitute our proper humanity. Thus 
 equipped, Dr. Marsh adopts as his own, the sen- 
 timent of Colridge expressed as follows: 
 
 " Reason and philosophy ought to prevent our 
 reception of doctrines claiming the authority of 
 revelation only so far as the very necessities of 
 our rational being require. If it contradict rea- 
 son we cannot believe it, but must conclude 
 either that the writing is not of Divine authority 
 or that the language has been misinterpreted." 
 
 Dr. Marsh accepted Jesus Christ as the living 
 revelation of God to men. He is a living, walk- 
 ing, speaking bible. He is the word, " which was 
 in the beginning with God and which was God. 
 In him was light which lighteth every man " 
 (not wilfully blindfold), " and in him is no dark- 
 
40 THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 ness at all." He is the manifestation to the 
 world of the Supreme reason. All other mani- 
 festations of God are more or less imperfect, as 
 the vehicle is imperfect, Language is a human 
 instrument. Nobody pretends that language is 
 an infallible vehicle of thought, however infalli- 
 ble the thought itself. At best it is a clumsy car- 
 riage, ever and anon undergoing revision and yet 
 never perfect. But Jesus the living word, the 
 Divine manifestation no sacrilegious hand ever 
 attempts to revise. And whatever in the written 
 revelation is contrary to the Supreme reason as 
 revealed in him cannot be received as of Divine 
 authority. If it seem to contradict Christ either 
 in letter or spirit it must be uninspired of God or 
 misunderstood of men. The symbolic language 
 of the Bible employed as the vehicle of spiritual 
 truth, if literalized and materialized, is often 
 wrested from its true meaning and martialed un- 
 der a thus, '• saith the Lord," into the support of 
 doctrines contradictory in themselves and ab- 
 horrent to the spirit of the sermon on the mount, 
 That is the standard by which all sectarian creeds, 
 and all theological dogmas must be tried. When 
 the five points of Calvinism find quarter in the 
 teachings of Christ himself, then, and not till 
 then, let them claim Divine authority, however 
 strongly they seem to be fortified by the literal 
 
'NIK SPIRITUAL I'lllUisolMI Y, 
 
 phraseology of the inspired writers. To say that 
 the dogmas are revealed and must be believed, 
 however reason revolts at them, and however 
 wide their departure from the words and wisdom 
 of Christ is to expose the impassible gulf between 
 the two great schools of thought of which the 
 University of Vermont in Dr. Marsh's time was 
 the exponent on one side, and the hyper c'alvin- 
 ists of that period were the exponents on the 
 other. 
 
 The classes in the University of Vermont have 
 never been large in number, and most of those in 
 his day were small. But some of every class 
 drank in the spirit of the great Master, and went 
 forth to reflect the light that he infused into their 
 minds, and to be men of mark in whatever call- 
 ing they labored, whether in the department of 
 letters, of law, of science, or theology. And the 
 few of us now on the stage, who lived in his day, 
 can compare the theological thought then pre- 
 dominant with that of the present time, and can 
 appreciate the results of Dr. Marsh's metaphysics 
 in tempering the tone of the American pulpit, 
 conforming it with reason, and by so much elimi- 
 nating from our religious life the grating discords 
 once the lament of the saints and the stumbling 
 block of sinners. 
 
 That there has been progress in the direction 
 
42 THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 of more rational modes of thought, and toward 
 the simpler and more .spiritual formulas of the 
 Apostolic church and of the great reformers, is 
 abundantly obvious. Yet religion, pure and un- 
 defile'd, never changes. It is the same " yester- 
 day, to-day and forever.'' When we speak of 
 progress of religious thought, we do not mean 
 that conscience, hi'L' will, reason, the essential 
 constituents of our humanity change; they are 
 the same in all generations. The Divine spirit 
 hears witness with our spirit that we are the chil- 
 dren of God, however heavy the theological bur- 
 dens that men lay upon our shoulders. Religion 
 is one thing, and formulated theories are quite 
 another thing. That our fathers were less loyal 
 to God than their children, filial love forbids us 
 to think. We revere their piety, while we decline 
 the dogmatic burdens which they so patiently 
 anl so conscientiously bore. Their religion was 
 pure and undefiled in spite of the irrational phil- 
 osophy with which it was invested. 
 
 The doctrine of the resurrection was to them 
 no less than to us a great spiritual reality. It 
 meant immortality and eternal life of the disem- 
 bodied soul in spite of the materialism of their 
 oreed that loaded the pure spirit down with dead 
 men's hones and all the uncleanness of the tomb. 
 
 The doctrine of the second coming of the Son 
 
THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY, 43 
 
 of man and of the general judgment was no less 
 spiritually true and real to them, looking at it as 
 they did through the telescope of a material phil- 
 osophy which projected the whole drama as a 
 phenomenon of sense to he realized in the date- 
 less future "when time shall be no longer," than 
 to us who realize that the promise of the coming 
 of the Son of man is fulfilled already, and that 
 the judgment seat of God is within the human 
 soul, and that as soon as "the dust returns to 
 the earth as it was, the spirit returns to God who 
 gave it," who will then bring every work into 
 judgment. 
 
 They were no less loyal and loving to God, 
 " who so loved the world that he gave his only 
 begotten and well beloved Son " to redeem it, be- 
 cause taught that Adam, by eating the forbidden 
 fruit necessitated the fact, than we who believe 
 that we all sin as Adam did, not because he 
 sinned, but by the voluntary act of our own free 
 will, and hence ourselves alone are responsible. 
 They were no less reverent to God because their 
 theology failed to teach them that to God there 
 is no futurity; that He is independent of all re- 
 lations of time; that He lives in an eternal pres- 
 ent; and that what is future to us is historical to 
 Him; and, failing of this, taught them that God 
 prearranged and necessitated from eternity all 
 
44 THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 events in nature and all volitions of men, a doe- 
 trine abhorrent to reason and now obsolete from 
 the deliverances of the pulpit, though not yet ex- 
 punged from the formulas of some of the creeds. 
 
 Heaven was no less the desire, and hell no less 
 the dread of the hearts, because brought to their 
 apprehension through material conceptions which 
 converted the sign into the tiling signified, than 
 to us to whom all the sensible imagery of scrip- 
 ture relating to these great realities is but the ex- 
 ternal symbol of internal spiritual verities. 
 
 The old religion, spiritual in itself, which wor- 
 ships in spirit and in truth, is the same in every 
 age; and when we speak of the progress of reli- 
 gion, we do not mean that it changes, hut that it 
 sloughs off the heavy burdens that men hind and 
 lay on its shoulders. It castaway the ritualism 
 of the old dispensation, and in so <loin^. escaped 
 the traditions and doctrines of men that it might 
 he more free to worship Him .vho is a spirit in 
 spirit and in truth. 
 
 It east off the ecclesiastical burdens of the 
 l'anacy and all the gross materialism of the mid- 
 dle ages, when the reformers, under penalty of 
 persecution, and amid the fires of the stake, reas- 
 serted that spiritual freedom with which Christ 
 makes free. 
 
 And in these later times it is leaving behind in 
 
THE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY. 45 
 
 its spiritual progress the theological burdens of a 
 material, sensuous philosophy, and is coming 
 back to the same spiritual standard that formed 
 the stability of the Apostolic church, while the 
 traditions and dogmas of men, with which the 
 gospel ship has been so long burdened, if not 
 thrown overboard, are out of sight. 
 
 That the incipient step in this blesse 1 consum- 
 mation was taken by Dr. James Marsh, when 
 through his preliminary essay, he called the at- 
 tention of scholars in this country to Colridge's 
 "Aids to Reflection," no well informed man now 
 doubts. 
 
 And though he died in his early prime, before 
 time was allowed him to mature the well digested 
 plan of his metaphysical labors and give the re- 
 sults to the world in completed form, yet who can 
 fail to see the far-reaching influence of his short 
 and humble life in revolutionizing the theological 
 mind of this country and giving it a tendency to- 
 ward a more rational and a more spiritual con- 
 ception of Divine truth. 
 
 His pupils have been " living epistles " of the 
 truth that he taught, " known and read of all 
 men " within their sphere, and some of them have 
 risen to the highest seats of learning and of con- 
 trol in the empire of mind and of morals. Through 
 them the life work which he could not finish for 
 
(6 
 
 rHK sl'IRITUAL 
 
 lack of years has been carried on until success 
 has crowned a monument to his memory that 
 will outlast all that is material and visible, being 
 built on the abiding foundation of tilings not seen 
 and eternal. 
 
 I append the following discourses selected from 
 a great number of manuscript sermons, the accu- 
 mulation of years of pastoral labor, for the espe- 
 cial purpose of emphasizing and elucidating the 
 foregoing reflections. 
 
 It is when we come to the interpretation of 
 scripture, which is the voice of the Divine to the 
 human spirit, that the spiritual philosophy be- 
 comes to us a light indispensible to the acquisi- 
 tion of its true meaning. 
 
 fes* ^ 
 
INTERNAL AUTHORITY. 47 
 
 THE 
 
 AUTHORITY OF TRUTH 
 
 FOUND IN THE HUMAN SOUL. 
 
 And it came to pass when Jesus had ended these say- 
 ings, that the people were astonished at his doctrine. 
 For He taught them as one having authority and not as 
 the Scribes.— Matthew VII; 28 and 29; 
 
 It is the instinct of mind to require authority. 
 Sayings of any sort, whether they be propositions 
 or fact, or of philosophy, to be believed must be 
 supported by some sort of authority. 
 
 There are two kinds of authority by which 
 truth is supported, viz: External and internal. 
 Questions of fact, principles of science, laws of 
 
48 
 
 INTERNAL AUTHORITY. 
 
 economy, knowledge of things in general effect 
 the minds of men according to the weight of ex- 
 ternal evidence by which they are supported 
 Questions of moral right and duty are enforced 
 by authority internal to the mind itself. The 
 law that says thou shalt not kill is binding, not 
 only because God proclaimed it openly; it is 
 binding by a law internal to the mind; the au- 
 thority that enforces the law is within the man 
 himself God transcribed the formula from His 
 own mind and gave it to Moses, but man made 
 in the image of God, had the law written in his 
 heart independent of the formula. It was in 
 man, as it was in God, before it was written on 
 stone. Hence the written formula finds its au- 
 thority no less in the convictions of men than m 
 the behest of God. 
 
 Jesus spake with authority, and not as the 
 Scribes. As much as to say the Scribes had no 
 authority. Externally the Scribes were sup- 
 ported bv an array of highest authority. The 
 letter of the law, the traditions of the elders, the 
 authority of the government, the wisdom of the 
 schools, the power of the priesthood, and the pre- 
 cedents of the church, all combined to reinforce 
 the authority of the Scribes. And yet it is said 
 that Jesus, an obscure man, without preBtige and 
 without precedent, who said to the people, "ex- 
 
[NTERNAL AUTHORITY. 41) 
 
 cept your righteousness exceed the righteousness 
 of the Scribes and Pharisees," exceed the right- 
 eousness of these your spiritual guides and teach- 
 ers, " ye can in no case enter into the Kingdom 
 of Heaven." Tims assailing the Scribes lie spake 
 with authority, insomuch that the people were 
 astonished at His doctrine. He brought no proof 
 in support of any of His sayings; He quoted no 
 authorities; He introduced no evidence; He be- 
 labored the people with none of the logic of an- 
 alogy or of argument, but announced doctrines 
 contradictory to the Scribes, and in the face of 
 all the authority by which they were supported, 
 and at the same time overwhelmed the people 
 because lie spake as one having authority, and 
 not as the Scribes. 
 
 A question of chief importance with the 
 preacher is this: What was the ground of 
 Christ's authority? It does not answer this ques- 
 tion, to say that He was a Divine being, that He 
 spake as never man spake, and as man cannot 
 speak, and that on this account His "ipsedixit " 
 carried weight with it, which the truth coming 
 from the lips of any other man could not carry. 
 Jesus never enforced His doctrines on the ground 
 of His own divinity. In all of His teachings He 
 respected the laws of mind the same as any wise 
 human teacher must do. He did not claim for 
 
50 INTERNAL AUTHORITY. 
 
 the truth He taught, sanctions of authority be- 
 cause He spoke it, or because God commanded it; 
 but because it was true, and the evidence by 
 which He convinced His hearers, He found not 
 in external proof but in the mind of the hearer 
 
 himself. 
 
 I set out then with this proposition, that truth 
 is the absolute and ultimate ground of all au- 
 thority, and that moral truth, such truth as ad- 
 dresses itself to the moral convictions of men. 
 must find its evidence in the mind itself, in the 
 response it awakens in those convictions. 
 
 In lexicography, in law, in government, in his- 
 tory, in all science, there are standards of authori- 
 ty On wliat do those standards rest? 
 " In lexicography Worcester and Webster make 
 the law respecting the sound and sense of Eng- 
 lish words not arbitrarily by their own "ipse- 
 dixit" They are a •credited as authority only 
 because by a lifetime of philological study they 
 have come to know more of the history of words 
 and the truth of their meaning than other men. 
 Judge Blackstone is authority in the common 
 law of England onlv because he has drank deeper 
 ut the fountains of legal truth than other men. 
 
 The decisions of courts and the opinions of 
 statesmen become crystallized into precedents and 
 govern the action of future courts and legisla- 
 
INTERNAL AUTHORITY. h] 
 
 tures, only because they are supposed to be 
 founded in truth. No array of great names can 
 give authority to precedents further than they 
 come to us clothed with the panoply of truth. 
 Neither crowns, nor courts, nor legislatures, can 
 give authority to a falsehood. The fugitive slave 
 law resting upon the proposition that men of 
 color had " no rights that white men are hound 
 to respect," never had any authority with men of 
 conscience because it was lacking t he only ele- 
 ment of authority, while yet it was framed into a 
 law and supported by political parties who in- 
 corporated it as a plank in their platforms. All 
 Governmental authority to he effective must he 
 asserted in truth. The parent maintains con- 
 trol over his child, the teacher over his pupils, 
 and the ruler over his subjects, only by the au- 
 thority of truth. God Himself is omnipitcnt only 
 because all His works are done in truth. This 
 it is that commands the faith of all that love and 
 obey Him. This it is that discomfits all that 
 contradict His will and disobey His truth. Jesus 
 spake always with authority, which rested like 
 all binding authority in the sanctions of truth. 
 But the evidence of the truth He spoke He ad- 
 duced from no external proof. He consulted no 
 authorities, He quoted no precedents as the basis 
 of His claim to 1 e believed, but appealed always 
 
62 INTERNAL AUTHORITY, 
 
 to the convictions of His hearers to testify to the 
 truth of His sayings. 
 
 The propositions of the sermon on the Mount 
 are as truly instructive to human reason as are 
 those of geometry. Nobody ever quotes Euclid 
 as authority for the propositions which he enun- 
 ciated. The laws of the triangle are believed not 
 on any human authority; they are believed be- 
 cause they are eternally true, and the evidence 
 of their truth is found in the soul of the reasoner 
 himself. 
 
 Jesus had faith in men as the pianist lias faith 
 in his instrument, and who, without offering out- 
 Bide proof of his power as ;i musician, strikes the 
 keys and waits for the response from within to 
 testify to the truth of Ins claim. Tn the sermon 
 on the .Mount .lesus broke through all the so- 
 called conservatism ami conventionalism of the 
 times and went straight to the moral center of 
 things. He ignored the letter of the law and 
 gave to the people its spiritual, vital, soul-stir- 
 ring truth with authority, and all the people said 
 amen: they demanded no proof. The evidence 
 of His authority was the voice divine within 
 themselves. The germs of truth are innate in 
 the human spirit as the germs of the plant are 
 innate in the seed, and as the latter responds to 
 the elements of nature external to itself. So the 
 
INTERNAL AUTHORITY. •">■' 
 
 former responds to the voice of truth spoken 
 through the external ear. 
 
 Here as it seems to me is the preacher's start- 
 ing point. Here is the point at whieh to study 
 Christ as our model in preaching. Standing he- 
 fore the listening, inquiring, hungering souls of 
 men, how am I to move the masses and satisfy 
 their spiritual demands? 
 
 One thing is certain, I must find my model in 
 the example of my Master. I must speak with 
 authority and not as the Scribes. And I must 
 learn the value of my preaching not by compar- 
 ing it with the systematic theology of the schools, 
 with the precedents of the church, or with the 
 standards of accredited orthodoxy, hut by study- 
 ing the response it gains in the moral convictions 
 of men. The mind loves truth. It is a slander 
 upon human nature to say that the mind hates 
 the truth. Truth is the natural correlative of 
 mind, as much as light is the natural correlative 
 of the eye. If I fail to get the consciences of the 
 people in sympathy with me, if my sayings do 
 not find an affirmative response in their convic- 
 tions; if conscience revolts at my doctrines, no 
 array of outside proof will give my words authori- 
 ty. The highest of all authority is the authority 
 of the human conscience. I hold to the doctrine 
 of human depravity as distinctly as did our 
 
INTERNAL AUTHORITY. 
 
 fathers of olden time. It is a doctrine about the 
 truth of which, neither the Bible nor human 
 .consciousness admits of any shadow of doubt. 
 But the truth of depravity docs not necessitate 
 the old notion that preaching which fails to 
 offend unregenerated men, which gains their ap- 
 proval, which wins their attention and commands 
 their sympathies is daubing with untempered 
 piortar; that it is the saying of smooth things 
 that beget carnal security and spiritual indiffer- 
 ence. Whatever the honest convictions of men 
 approve as right, gives them no offense, even 
 though practically they do the wrong. The 
 practical debauiche whose conscience confesses 
 the sin and shame of his acts, receives without a 
 murmur and with conscious approval the procla- 
 mation of that lofty standard of purity that 
 Christianity erects. In his inmost being there is 
 a witness to the truth of the preacher's words, 
 and though he practically disobey the law, his 
 mind assents that it is holy, just and good. The 
 drunkard, enslaved and debased by an evil habit, 
 rinds in his heart emphatic approval when the 
 sin and suffering of drunkenness are contrasted 
 with the innocent joy of temperance. The truth 
 does not offend him, but often delights him when 
 practically too depraved and weak to obey it. 
 The covetous man practically dead to the work 
 
INTERNAL AUTHORITY. 55 
 
 of beneficence, finding in his heart, as all men 
 must, conscious assent to the truth of the golden 
 rule, accepts with pleasure the preacher's words 
 when he enforces that rule as the only condition 
 of a good life here or hereafter, although he be 
 morally too selfish to practice it. His mind is so 
 constituted — all minds are so constituted — de- 
 praved and wicked though they be, that the 
 rightfulness of that law will carry their judg- 
 ment and gain their assent. 
 
 It is not the preaching which moves the con- 
 victions of men that repel them from the preach- 
 er; it is preaching that fails to move their con- 
 victions; preaching that falls upon the ear, but 
 carries no impression to the heart on which men 
 turn their backs. Men will not listen to the dry 
 homilies of scholastic theology that have been 
 pitched in a different key every once in a hun- 
 dred years or oftener, since the beginning of the 
 Christian era. They will not listen to debates 
 and hair-splittings about " forms, and about 
 words, as the Apostle says, to no profit, but to the 
 subverting of the hearers; but if a man show 
 himself approved of God, a workman that need- 
 eth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word 
 of truth," and appealing ever to the sure wit- 
 ness, the voice "divine within the breasts of his 
 hearers for the evidence of his authority, it will 
 
INTERNAL AUTHORITY, 
 
 be said of that man as it was said of Jesus Him- 
 self, " the common people heard Him gladly." 
 
 Jesus made the conscience the court of last ap- 
 peal in all His addresses to men. When a mad- 
 dened throng would stone a poor fallen woman to 
 death, He took an appeal from the tribunal that 
 sentenced her to death to that of their own eon- 
 sciences. "Let him that hath dorte no sin cast 
 the first stone." Under this appeal, and with 
 His interpretation of the sin of adultery, every 
 hand was paralyzed, and they all, self-accused, 
 slunk away humiliated, ashamed and discom- 
 fited. He spake to them with authority that 
 found its sanction in their own breasts. 
 
 When the lawyer wanted to know what good 
 thing he could do that lie might have eternal 
 life, He told him to keep the commandments. 
 The lawyer claimed to have done this from his 
 youth up; Jesus did not dispute him, though he 
 knew, however perfectly he had done it in the 
 letter, he had not done it in the spirit. And in 
 answer to the question, "who is my neighbor?" 
 He told him the story of the good Samaritan, in- 
 troducing in a dramatic way the priest and the 
 levite, men of the lawyers own sort, who also 
 claimed to have kept the commandments. 
 " Which now of these three thinkest thou was 
 neighbor to him that fell among thieves?" The 
 
INTK11NA1, AHT1LOK1TY. 
 
 57 
 
 lawyer's own conscience is now the umpire to 
 decide the momentous question, whether or not 
 he had kept the commandments, by Loving his 
 
 neighbor as himself. Jesus did not turn round 
 to him and say, this despised Samaritan with 
 whom all the Jews refuse to have dealings, is a 
 better man than you; but out of his own month 
 he condemned him by extorting the confession, 
 " he that showed mercy on him." This little 
 drama in which the spirit of the Divine law is 
 brought to the sight of the lawyer, and by means 
 of which he stands self-convicted, did more to 
 confirm his authority in the mind of the man 
 than a volume of theological arguments could 
 have done.' The same result was brought about 
 in the case of the covetous young man who had 
 kept all the commandments and asked, " what 
 lack I yet?" Jesus did not preach to him an 
 hour about the sin of covetousness but touched 
 the keys of his conscience; "go sell that thou 
 hast and distribute to the poor and thou shalt 
 have treasure in heaven, and come and follow 
 me." When the young man heard that saying 
 he did not go away angry. The rightfulness of 
 the command he could not reject; his conscience 
 bore witness to this; he saw the hollowness of all 
 his own pretentions, and went away sorrowful. 
 But must I not preach all Christian doctrine? 
 
INTERNAL AUTHORITY. 
 
 Must I not declare the whole counsel of God, 
 whether men will hear or forbear, and is not a 
 " thus saith the Lord," a sufficient guarantee that 
 my preaching is with authority? Yes, that is 
 verily so. But I hold that there is a " thus saith 
 the Lord" in the human soul, as well as in the 
 written word, and that the response from within 
 is mere potent to convince the judgment, and in- 
 fluence the moral character, than the behest from 
 without. If the commandment from without fail 
 of a response from the voice within, then it can 
 not be said of the preacher that he spake as one 
 having authority, albeit he may seem to be sup- 
 ported by a " thus saith the Lord." Take a plain 
 case by way of illustration. The doctrine of 
 future punishment is revealed in the Bible. No 
 truth is more clearly made out from God's word 
 than this, and I have very little respect either 
 for the good sense or moral honesty of ministers 
 in orthodox churches who are pandering to the 
 popular desire to have hell abolished as a factor 
 in the Christian system. 
 
 But when I say this, I will confess that the 
 preaching .of hell as it has been done by very 
 many orthodox preachers of all denominations, 
 has been fruitful of infinite mischief, and has re- 
 pelled more men from the truth than all the 
 preaching and books of sceptical writers on the 
 
INTERNAL A UTIM )H ITY , !)!» 
 
 other side of the question put together, A literal 
 interpretation of the language of the Bible on 
 this subject fails to convey the truth of the Bible, 
 If the sign be taken for the thing signified, neith- 
 er conscience nor common sense will accept the 
 dogma, and though the preacher have the letter 
 of scripture in support of his position, he will 
 fail to be supported by the honest convictions of 
 sensible men, and nobody will accept his theories 
 as of one having authority. If the figures of 
 scripture be employed as they were originally in- 
 tended to be employed as signs of great spiritual 
 realities inseparable from the soul of the sinner, 
 necessitated by the fact of sin, and realized now, 
 and always, where sin abides, then retribution 
 will be seen as an inevitable necessity resulting 
 from a law that nothing can change, and it will 
 go home to the convictions of men as a truth that, 
 must rule tlje moral judgment. 
 
 Take another of our cardinal Christian doc- 
 trines, I do not like to accuse the Fathers harsh- 
 ly. I believe they were actuated, many of them, 
 by honest motives, But honest motives have 
 given rise to immense mischief sometimes in this 
 world- Under the plea of honest motives the 
 right of private judgment is now, and always has 
 been denied to all the votaries of the Roman 
 Catholic faith. They believe under penalties 
 
OU INTERNAL AUTHORITY. 
 
 what the Church believes, no more, no less, no 
 different. The terrors of the inquisition were al- 
 ways opposed to the behests of the individual 
 conscience, and the fires of purgatory await all 
 who assert the right to believe what the Church 
 forbids. The Fathers were loud and emphatic in 
 their condemnation of all violence done by Ro- 
 mish Priests to the right of conscience, little 
 thinking that the denunciations of heresy, of in- 
 fidelity and scepticism, ascribed to honest arme- 
 nians and Christian ministers, who bad honest 
 doubts about some of the formulas of trinitarian 
 theology, and which drove many good men out 
 of the church, was really the same spirit, and 
 only lacked the power to make itself a tyranny 
 no less intolerable. 
 
 Take as an example, tie? doctrine of the Trinity. 
 Fifty years ago the Congregational churches of 
 New England were rent in twain; one-half was 
 repelled and went off in a tangent into error by 
 reason of the persistent violence done to the hon- 
 est convictions of good men by the dogmatic for- 
 mulas promulgated and insisted upon by the or- 
 thodox ministers. Certain statements of doc- 
 trine were declared to be revealed in the Bible, 
 and whether or not they could be unfolded so as. 
 to be comprehensible to reason, they must be be- 
 lieved under penalty of Anathema Maranatha, 
 
INTERNAL AUTHORITY. Ill 
 
 Instead of accepting and inviting everybody to 
 accept the concrete, Divine human, God, man, 
 Christ, as the only satisfying portion of the sin- 
 ful soul, the only Savior of lost men, they must 
 undertake to analyze His person, to show how 
 much of it is human and how much of it is Di- 
 vine, and quarrel over the question whether He 
 is co-evil with, and equal to the Father, or sub- 
 ordinate and subject to the Father. Whether He 
 be a man manifesting the attributes of God, or 
 actually God in the form of a man. And with- 
 out settling any' of these points (for there is as 
 much scripture on one side as the other), they 
 run the whole subject into a mystery, and con- 
 fessing the impossibility to unfold the mystery 
 to the acceptance of reason; they undertake to 
 enforce belief in it irrespective of the approval of 
 either reason or conscience. The consequence, as 
 everybody can now see, has been disastrous to 
 the church and to the souls of men. Infidelity 
 has fattened by the breach, and the church has 
 lost half her moral power. No truth is more 
 clearly revealed to my mind, no truth finds 
 readier response in my heart, than the truth that 
 Jesus is a Divine Savior, that " God was in 
 Christ reconciling the world to Himself." That 
 " the word was God," that " He gave Himself for 
 us," and that " there is salvation in no other." 
 
INTERNAL AVTiKlUlTV, 
 
 As a preacher, it is my duty to set Him forth as 
 " the chief among ten thousand, the one alto- 
 gether lovely," to so preach Christ and Him cru- 
 cified as that my message shall gain the sympa- 
 thies of men. But it is no part of my duty to 
 debate with the sinner about the mysteries of tin- 
 Godhead, and repel him from me by disputing 
 questions that neither he nor I can fathom. 
 Jesus would rather have all the world call Him 
 the son of Mary, and think of Him as the son of 
 man, than have a single soul fail of His salva- 
 tion, or have His disciples split and quarrel over 
 the mysteries of His person. Faith in Himself, 
 as the only refuge of the lost soul, is the matter 
 of chief importance in His sight. 
 
 To gain this end, was the high, the only ob- 
 ject of His incarnation. " Believe on the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, and thou shall be saved. I am the 
 bread of life." Bread is good, and whether or 
 not we understand its component elements is a 
 matter of entire indifference, so long as it feed 
 our starving nature. The hungry man eats it, 
 rejoices in it, and lives by it, without stopping a 
 moment to analyze it. The bread of God which 
 came down from Heaven is the only satisfying 
 food for the human soul. To give this bread in 
 its concrete perfection to lost men is the high 
 function of the preacher, and he who stops to ana- 
 
INTERNAL AUTHORITY. 63 
 
 lyze this living bread, and debate about the ori- 
 gin of its component elements, is sure to turn a 
 feast of love into a scene of strife which ends in 
 spiritual starvation. 
 
 In every age of the church men have been 
 valiant for the faith once delivered to the Saints, 
 as its defenders have understood, and interpreted 
 it, but the faith has no fixed status. Preaching 
 has had no fixed authority for the reason that it 
 has not been tested by an unchanging standard. 
 Men have fixed their standards by the interpre- 
 tations of the word of God. But interpretations 
 have changed with every advancing step in the 
 world's progress in Christian thought and civil- 
 ization. Preaching, instead of finding its au- 
 thority in reason, the only infallible guide, has 
 assumed the prerogative of bending reason to a 
 conformity with its mutable ever varying stand- 
 ards. It has undertaken the sacriligious office 
 of laying its hand on this Divine monitor within 
 the soul of man, of stultifying its voice, of com- 
 manding it to come down from its rightful throne 
 in the soul, and fall into line with its changea- 
 ble, fallible, erring notions. The result of this is 
 always fatal to the progress of truth; fatal to the 
 moral wellfare of mankind. But let this order 
 be reversed, unfetter the human conscience, lis- 
 ten attentively to its responses, adjust your in- 
 
64 INTERNAL AUTHORITY. 
 
 terpretations according to its behests, then will 
 your interpretations be a " thus saith the Lord " 
 from without, and meet the responses of a " thus 
 saith the Lord " from within. This was the 
 method of Jesus when He unfolded the philoso- 
 phy of the moral life in the beatitudes and pro- 
 nounced everything blessed that the Scribes in 
 their selfishness tried to avoid — mourning, pov- 
 erty, hungering and thirsting for some good out 
 of and above themselves — persecution and revil- 
 ing for His sake, when He exposed the hollow- 
 ness and hypocrisy of Jewish formalities, and 
 commanded spiritual worship in the inmost 
 closet of the soul where " He that seeth in secret 
 shall reward openly;" when He convicted the 
 censorious judgment of a beam in its own eye; 
 when He showed up the worthlessness of salt in 
 the human character that had lost its saltness, 
 and of moral light that is hidden from the eyes 
 of men; when He unfolded the spirituality of the 
 Divine law, making lust to be adultery, and an- 
 ger to be murder; when He pointed to God as a 
 Father more bountiful and affectionate than any 
 earthly father; when He pointed to the narrow 
 way of virtue and to the broad way of sin and 
 destruction; also to the security and value oi the 
 treasure in Heaven; in all His matchless teach- 
 ing in that matchless sermon, how easily and how 
 
INTERNAL AUTHORITY. 65 
 
 naturally He brought the multitudes into sym- 
 pathy with Himself, while at the same time, He 
 probed their hearts to the very bottom, and left 
 no room on which depravity could find a place 
 for the sole of its foot. No other sermon so com- 
 pletely routed every refuge of lies, and laid bare 
 every hiding place of sin. And yet the common 
 people — the promiscuous crowd — heard Him 
 gladly. " They were astonished at His doctrine, 
 for He taught them as one having authority." 
 Every conscience responded, and all the people 
 said amen. 
 
 I have time, in conclusion, but for a hare ref- 
 erence to a few remarkable men in the earliest 
 and in laterjeriods, who have been distinguished 
 by the success of their preaching to move the 
 masses religiously. At the preaching of Peter in 
 Jerusalem the multitudes were pricked in their 
 hearts, and cried out, " Men and brethren, what 
 shall we do? And the same day there were 
 added unto them three thousand souls." The 
 preaching of Peter was a rehearsing of the same 
 old story of Jesus and His love that is now em- 
 balmed in song, and that every successful 
 preacher must repeat together with a direct ap- 
 peal to the convictions of his hearers as particeps 
 criminis in the tragedy of His death, " whom ye 
 with wicked hands have crucified and slain." 
 
INTERNAL AUTHORITY, 
 
 Convicting the people of their sins did not re- 
 pel them from the preacher, but drew them all 
 the closer into sympathy with him. The voice 
 within justified the charge and confirmed his au- 
 thority. 
 
 All successful revivalists of our own, and other 
 times, speak with authority, and not as the 
 Scribes. The ground of their authority, and the 
 extent of their success, is measured always by 
 the response they get from the consciences of the 
 p sople. When they cry out " men and brethren, 
 what shall we do to be saved," then, and only 
 then, can the preacher he sure that lie is rightly 
 dividing the word of truth. 
 
 " Who is sufficient for these things?" Not the 
 mechanical sermonizer whose humilities squares 
 with the creed, and ends by pouring into the 
 minds of men what God has written upon twelve 
 tables of stone, hut he who draws out and brings 
 to the light of consciousness what God lias writ- 
 ten upon the table of their hearts, and thus wins 
 the spontaneous confession that lie speaks as one 
 having authority and not as the Scribes. 
 
IHK CJfOWN 0? If TKOtSNKW |J7 
 
 The Crown of Righteousness, 
 
 Henceforth there is Laid up for me a crown of right* 
 eousness, which the Lord the righteous judge, shall give. 
 me at that day; and not to me only, hut unto all them 
 also that love His appearing, — II Timothy ; IV ; S, 
 
 Having fought a good fight, having finished his 
 course, having kept the faith, the great Apostle 
 now in the presence of the martyr's death, fixes 
 his eye on the martyr's crown, and in triumph, 
 declares " I am now ready to he offered," The 
 greatest of all practical questions is. involved in 
 this brief reminiscence of the Apostle. What 
 was it on which his eye was fixed and which he 
 denominates a crown of righteousness that gave, 
 him the victory over all his foes and bore him 
 jn triumph to the heardsman's block with exult- 
 ant joy? You and I, my friends, want to know 
 definitely what is meant by the crown of right- 
 
(38 THE CROWN OF KIOHTl'JOUKNKSy . 
 
 eousness, which was the prize of the Apostle';-: 
 high calling. In calling it a crown, he compares 
 it with that which in all earthly strifes and con- 
 flicts belongs only to the one of highest merit. 
 "They who run in a race run all but one re* 
 ceiveth the prize," and he the best one of all. In 
 earthly kingdoms the crown belongs only to the 
 highest dignities, and there is but one in a gen- 
 eration to wear it. Though there be many of 
 royal birth; many in whose veins courses royal 
 blood; many who rank high in the royal family, 
 yet there is but one to wear the crown. The 
 crown is of costliest material, the richest and 
 most ornate thing of art; it represents the highest. 
 wealth, the highest power, and the highest glory 
 of the world. It is the badge of imp-rial sover- 
 eignty, of executive authority, of royal preroga- 
 tive lie. therefore, who wears the crow.., or by 
 the rights of primogeniture is heir apparent to 
 the crown is regarded as the most fortunate of all 
 Ins countrymen. Hut there i- a kingdom, ami 
 the time of the Apostle's departure to that king- 
 dom was now at hand, whereof all the subjects 
 true and loyal wear a crown. A crown more ex- 
 cellent than all earthly diadems, representing 
 truer dignity than that which attaches to all 
 earthly royalty a crown of righteousness which, 
 in the coming of that kingdom, the Lord, the 
 
THE CROWN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 69 
 
 righteous judge, shall give unto them. In the 
 text reference is made to this crown by the Apos- 
 tolus, and it is the sheet anchor of his confidence, 
 the bulwark of his hope, the inspiration of his 
 triumphant joy in view of his exit from the battle 
 fields of the church militant to the glorious rest of 
 the church triumphant in Heaven. 
 
 In the scriptures the figure of the crown is a 
 favorite emblem by which to represent the high- 
 est achievements in wisdom and righteousness. 
 " Wisdom is the principal tiling, therefore get 
 wisdom, and with all thy getting get understand- 
 ing. Exalt her and she shall promote thee; she 
 shall bring thee to honor when thou dost em- 
 brace her; she shall give to thy head an orna- 
 ment of grace, a crown of glory shall she deliver 
 to thee. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible 
 crown, but we are incorruptible. And when the 
 Chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a 
 crown of glory that fadeth not away. Be thou 
 faithful unto death and I will give thou a crown 
 of life. Behold I come quickly, hold that fast 
 which thou hast that no man take thy crown. 
 And they had on their heads crowns of gold, and 
 they worship Him that livith forever and ever 
 and cast their crowns before the throne." 
 
 So costly and so precious a thing as the dia- 
 dem of kings being chosen as a type of that im- 
 
70 THE CROWN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 mortal crown which is the prize of the Chris- 
 tian's high calling, there must be a significance 
 in the use of the term worthy of our most serious 
 consideration. 
 
 Let us inquire, then, what is this crown of 
 righteousness for which the Saints are to strug- 
 gle and pray, to labor and fight in this life, and 
 which they are to wear eternally in the life to 
 come? The Apostle calls it a crown of righteous- 
 ness. There was no vaguements or uncertainty in 
 his mind about the Heaven that awaited him. 
 His faith which, throughout his whole Christian 
 warfare, had bourn him above all trial and suffer- 
 ing and conflict, and given him the victory over 
 the world, the flesh, and the Devil, lighting up 
 evermore the path of duty, and settling all doubts 
 in his own mind, as to the line of his duty, his 
 faith still clear, and unfailing to the last looks 
 beyond the curtain, and sees the crown of right- 
 eousness that awaited him in Heaven. All men 
 look forward across the dark valley and shadow 
 of death with hope of something better than that 
 which they experience here. 
 
 It is a principle in Christian philosophy well 
 made out by reason, and justified by all human 
 experience, that the moral character of a man 
 takes its color and odor from the object on which 
 his faith rests. If a man he a Mohamitan, it is 
 
THE CROWN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. <1 
 
 because his faith rests on the sensuality of Mo- 
 hamitanism. If a Pagan, he is such because his 
 faith allies his soul to -the senseless objects of 
 Pagan worship. If he be a Spiritualist, it is be- 
 cause his faith rests on the lying reports of nec- 
 romancy and demonology. If he be a miser, he 
 is so because his faith rests on money. * * * 
 The faith of Christians is not uniform concern- 
 ing that which we call Heaven, and as Heaven, 
 the home which all good people hope to attain, is 
 a leading and paramount object of faith, so the 
 Heaven we depict to our imagination must give 
 tone to our spiritual experience, to our religious 
 life and endeavor. I will try to illustrate this 
 point as it relates to the diverse imaginings of 
 Christians about the future reward of the good in 
 Heaven. The realities of Heaven and all spirit- 
 ual realities are brought to our conception through 
 sensible figures. This is a necessity arising from 
 the very nature of things, and from our relation 
 to sense and sensible objects. There is no other 
 vehicle through which spiritual conceptions can 
 be conveyed to us except through figures of sense. 
 The spiritual world has no language that we, in 
 our gross form of life, can understand. Hence, 
 when it would converse with us it does it by signs 
 and symbols just as we do when we try to convey, 
 the thoughts of our mind to a foreigner that can- 
 
'* THE CROWN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 not understand a word of our language. In such 
 a case, we by the use of signs and objects of sight 
 convey, or try to convey, our thoughts to the 
 mind of the foreigner. And we very well know 
 how liable lie is to take the sign for the thing 
 signified, and to get an idea through the clumsy 
 vehicle employed widely different from that we 
 intended to convey. In the scriptures all man- 
 ner of figures are employed to convey to men an 
 idea of the heavenly slate, all which figures are 
 but a mere vehicle employed to accommodate 
 our sensuous understanding and help us to a con- 
 ception of that spiritual glory that eye hath not 
 seen, nor ear heard, and that hath not entered 
 into the heart of man to conceive. We take the 
 sign for the thing signified, and our Heaven, in- 
 stead of being a'realm of spiritual good where all 
 sense, and all sensuous pleasures are forever 
 superceded; where the light of the eye is eclipsed 
 by the superior spiritual light of the sun of right- 
 eousness; where the pleasures of passion, the en- 
 joyments of appetite, and all the beauties of ma- 
 terial things are forever swollowed up in the 
 ocean of God's eternity and the enjoyment of his 
 righteousness, purity, and mysterious goodness, 
 becomes more or less a Heaven of sense, a walled 
 city with pearly gates and golden pavements, 
 with a pure river of literal water running through 
 
THE CKOWN OP RIGHTEOUSNESS. 7H 
 
 its midst, bordered by pastures of perminent 
 green, and whose banks arc lined with ever- 
 bearing fruit trees, beautiful to the eye whose 
 fruit is good for food, and whose leaves arc for 
 the healing of tbe nations. We are prone to for- 
 get that these most precious things of earth are 
 but the signs and symbols employed by revela- 
 tion to convey to our conception an idea of the 
 unutterable glory and good of a purely spiritual 
 realm of being. In our grossness and sensuous- 
 ness we rest our hearts upon the sign, we accept 
 the vehicle as our immortal portion, and come 
 short in our conception, and consequently, in our 
 spiritual experience of the true heavenly treasure 
 which the vehicle was intended to convey to us, 
 we say, if God can make us happy here by feed- 
 ing us with so many good things in this world, 
 how much more happy can He make us in Heav- 
 en by feeding us with better things of the same 
 sort there. If social life here, and domestic love 
 are sources of highest earthly joy to us, how in" 
 fmitely must these joys be intensified in Heaven. 
 If this is a world of beauty fitted up on purpose 
 to stimulate a response to the beautiful in the 
 soul of man, and to feed and satisfy the taste thus 
 engendered, what inconceivable beauty must 
 adorn the new Jerusalem, the heavenly city 
 where our love of the beautiful will be infinitely 
 
74 THE CROWN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 intensified, and all our capacities will be corre- 
 spondingly enlarged. 
 
 On Heaven thus literalized, and thus materi- 
 alized, we fix our faith. Thus portrayed to our 
 imagination it becomes the inspiration of our 
 Christian endeavor. We say to ourselves, such a 
 Heaven is worthy of our life-long labor. This is 
 a good world in which are many enjoyments and 
 many means of* happiness. That is a better 
 world because the same enjoyments are indefi- 
 nitely augmented and purified and made perfect. 
 That is a better country than this, and I will 
 most assiduously comply in my heart and man- 
 ner of life with all the conditions prescribed to 
 an emigrant to that country. Heaven is the end 
 of my toils and labors, and prayers and alms- 
 giving. Heaven is the mark of tin 1 prizes of my 
 high calling. I will be good and faithful, and 
 just, because this is the way to Heaven: the Only 
 condition on which I can hope to arrive at the 
 'golden city and gain an entrance through the 
 pearly <_ r at-s, and forever bask in a country where 
 no night is, where frosts never fade th^ flower, 
 and where spontaneous fruits forever feed the 
 nature that knows no satiety throughout immor- 
 tal existence. And it is not strange that we thus 
 speak and thus conceive of Heaven, for this is 
 the language of sermons and books that we hive 
 
THE CROWN OP RIGHTEOUSNESS, 7-') 
 
 heard and read all our days. The charge of ma- 
 terializing and sensualizing Heaven lies not alone 
 against the believers in the koran, and the savage 
 whose faith rests on imaginary hunting fields 
 across the river of death. Christianity itself has 
 fdteralized the symbols of revelation, has taken 
 the sign for the thing signified, and alas, too of- 
 ten settled its faith in a. gross materialism which 
 cheats the soul of the true goo I w'iiieh all the po- 
 etic figures of scripture are employed to indicate. 
 And just in proportion as this has been done has 
 the Christian experience been of a low, unsatis- 
 fying order. If the faith rests on a material 
 Heaven of sensuous good, and if virtue is re- 
 garded as that which is done at the command of 
 God for the sake of such a Heaven of reward, 
 what else is the Christian than a mere 1 hireling, 
 an absolute slave to self-interest, working for 
 wages? 
 
 But the faith of the Apostle rested on objects 
 of another sort. He has told us the character of 
 Heaven in these words: " Eye hath, not seen nor 
 ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart 
 of man to conceive the things which God hath 
 prepared for them that love Him." Which glo- 
 rious words (says an eminent preacher), are 
 sometimes strangely misinterpreted, as if the 
 Apostle meant rhetorically to exalt the concept 
 
76 THE CROWN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 tion of the heavenly world, as of something be- 
 yond all power to imagine or to paint. He meant 
 something infinitely deeper. The Heaven of God 
 is not only that which '' eye hath seen," but that 
 which eye can never see; its glories are not of 
 that kind at all that can be made manifest to 
 the eye in forms of beauty, or pour in melody on 
 the enraptured ear — not such as genius in its 
 most gifted hour (here called the heart of man), 
 can invent or imagine; it is something which 
 these sensuous organs of ours never can appre- 
 ciate, bliss of another kind altogether revealed to 
 the spirit of man by the spirit of (hid — joys such 
 as spirit alone can receive. Do you ask what 
 these are: "' The fruits of the spirit are love, joy, 
 long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 
 meekness, temperance" — in one word, righteous- 
 ness. 
 
 On this the Apostle fixed his eye when the 
 time of his departure was at hand, not as a step- 
 ping stone to something better beyond that eve 
 can see, and ear can hear, and that sense craves, 
 but he fixed his eye on righteousness as itself the 
 ultimate, the highest good, the end for which all 
 other ends were appointed, and to which all other 
 ends are inferior. Righteousness with him was 
 the summum bonum, the last and highest of all 
 spiritual achievements. This itself, a d not 
 
THE CROWN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 77 
 
 something beyond to which this is but a means, 
 but this as the end of all toil, and conflict and 
 sacrifice was the mark for the prize of his high 
 calling in Christ Jesus. This was the crown that 
 he saw by the eye of his faith laid up for him in 
 Heaven. 
 
 Let us contemplate the subject for a few mo- 
 ments in this light, and see if we cannot get a 
 truer glimpse of Heaven than we are wont t<> 
 conceive. The Apostle calls it a crown not of 
 stars and diamonds, but of righteousness. Here 
 let me ask what was the primary leading idea in 
 the plan of salvation? What brought the Savior 
 from Heaven to earth to sacrifice, suffer and die? 
 The answer commonly given, and the one to 
 which our minds have always been accustomed 
 in all our religious education is, that there is a 
 dreadful Hell in the next world to avoid, and a 
 glorious happy Heaven to gain, without a Savior 
 we could neither avoid the one or gain the other. ' 
 I will not contradict this answer, but I will give 
 a different one, which is this: Christ came to 
 redeem man from sin, from unrighteousness, and 
 to make him holy and righteous. " Christ is the 
 end of the law" (it does not say for happiness or 
 for Heaven), but "Christ is the end of the law for 
 righteousness to every one that believeth." Right- 
 eousness is the end of Christ's work of redemp- 
 
78 THE CROWN OP RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 lion, the very thing to be gained; itself is the sal- 
 vation that comes through the atonement, and 
 unrighteousness is the dreadful thing to be 
 avoided. To gain the one in Heaven, not simply 
 the stepping stone to Heaven, itself is Heaven. 
 To incur the other and come under its power is 
 Hell. The necessity, therefore, of an atonement, 
 is entirely independent of the question of future 
 reward and punishment. If this present life 
 were immortal; if there was no death of the body, 
 and no world but this w r orld, man being as he is, 
 unrighteous and unreconciled to God, would be 
 in no less need of an atoning Savior; in no less 
 need of salvation. The future Heaven to be 
 gained, and the future Hell to be shunned, is be- 
 gun here, and now, with every one of us. He 
 that is righteous now will receive his reward in 
 the day of judgment in these words: " Let him 
 be righteous still. He that is holy let him be 
 holy still." And on the other hand: " He that 
 is filthy " will pass under condemnation by lis- 
 tening to the dreadful sentence, " let him be 
 filthy still." Christ came to make us good; this 
 is the end of His great and beneficent mission. 
 In the words of Paul to Titus, " who gave himself 
 for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, 
 and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous 
 of good works." 
 
THE CROWN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 79 
 
 The great struggle with the Apostle, as with 
 •all good men, was a struggle with sin; against 
 this foe to himself and to God he had fought a 
 good fight, and now. having finished his course 
 and kept the faith, he looked forward with ex- 
 ultant joy to his compleie deliverance from us 
 power, to that crown of righteousness which was 
 in store for him beyond the vail. And in all this, 
 his feelings and aspirations were the result of no 
 superstitious frenzy, but were guided by the 
 soundest reason and philosophy. 
 
 Righteousness is the normal condition of the 
 soul — the element for which the soul was made. 
 Righteousness is the correlative of the soul just 
 as atmospheric air is the correlative of the lungs; 
 just as light is the correlative of the eye, and just 
 as nutriment is the correlative of the blood. To 
 be and to do what God requires the soul to be 
 and to do, is the only and necessary condition of 
 perfect blessedness and everlasting good. In this 
 state of righteousness the soul was originally 
 made, and it was in this state when in common 
 with all the things He had made, God pro- 
 nounced it very good. But the soul was made 
 free, with the power of choice, with susceptibili- 
 ties of temptation, and with an independent will. 
 Hence the possibility of unrighteousness. It fell 
 and came into bondage to evil. It fell out of its 
 
80 THE CROYVX OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 normal condition; out of the element in which it 
 was made to live and bask forever in the sun- 
 light of unalloyed blessedness. And as the fish 
 thrown from the water in which alone it was 
 made to live, struggles, and longs, and gasps, and 
 dies, so the soul in unrighteousness, is out of its 
 element. It struggles, and writhes; within it are 
 the kindled flashes of an unquenchable flame; 
 within it are the incipient gnawings of an undy- 
 ing worm. It is self-accused, self-tortured, self- 
 condemned, and with a certain fearful looking 
 foe of judgment and fiery indignation, it is self- 
 consumed, ever treasuring up wrath against the 
 day of wrath. 
 
 The scriptures everywhere reveal to us the ap- 
 palling fact that this condition of unrighteous- 
 - universal; we have all gone one of the 
 way: there is none that doeth good— no, not one, 
 and the consciences of all men corroborate the 
 testimony. The doctrine of human depravity is 
 not a doctrine peculiar to Christianity. It is a 
 central truth of natural as well as revealed reli- 
 gion. The incense of Pagan altars as well as the 
 blood of bulls and goats sprinkled on Jewish al- 
 tars, do less than the fastings and repentings of 
 Christianity, recognize the fact written in the 
 consciences of all men that we are all sinners, all 
 out of our natural element, out of the normal con- 
 
THE CROWN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 81 
 
 dition in which we were made to live and in 
 which consists the true blessedness of the soul. 
 Man alone, of all the creatures God has made, has 
 placed himself in antagonism to the laws of his 
 being. The beasts of the field, the fish of the 
 sea, and the fowls of the air, fulfil each after its 
 kind, the laws of their being. Each blade of 
 grass, and every opening flower, responds harmo- 
 niously to the laws that ordain its existence. 
 Each germinating seed of grain is a promise of 
 the full grown corn in the ear. The budding 
 acorn is a prophecy of the stately and symmet- 
 rical oak centuries to come. The lofty cedar 
 that has towered proudly to the Heavens, bid- 
 ding defiance to wind and storm for a hundred 
 years, has attained its beauty, its majesty and 
 strength, by obedience to fixed and certain laws. 
 The harmony of the spheres results from har- 
 mony with law. Revolving worlds, which per- 
 form their annual round with a punctuality 
 more precise than that denoted by the exactest 
 chronometer, travel evermore in the exact path 
 marked out by the hand of their Almighty Cre- 
 ator. Man alone has got out of his orbit, has 
 violated the law of his Maker, has resisted the 
 restraints of his goodness, and is bent on certain 
 destruction. Hence the grand and all absorbing 
 inquiry: How shall man be just with God? This 
 
82 the Crown of righteousness. 
 
 was ; lie earnest inquiry of the patriarch Job in 
 the full and sorrowful consciousness of the lost 
 and hopeless condition of the soul in this state of 
 unrighteousness and bondage to evil. It lias 
 been the all absorbing inquiry of reflecting 
 minds, under all systems of religious faith, 
 heathen and Jewish, no less than Christian. 
 Even skepticism and infidelity itself, has not uu- 
 frequently had its hours of anxious solicitude. 
 And the exclamation has been: "Oh wretched 
 man that I am who shall deliver me from the 
 body <>f this death? How shall 1 be just with 
 God?" How shall I be free from the bondage of 
 sin? " Mien and brethren, what must I do to he 
 saved?" How can my soul be righteous in the 
 sight of my God? This solicitude is portrayed 
 in all the rites, the penances and the pilgrimages 
 of heathen superstition, as well as in the types, 
 the symbols and sacrificial altars of Jewish reli- 
 gion. This want of religiousness is the greatest 
 want of human nature. A want known, and felt, 
 and deplored by men of all nations, under all re- 
 ligious systems, and in all stages of human civil- 
 ization. 
 
 To answer this great want, to satisfy this uni- 
 versal desideratum, is the glorious mission of 
 Christianity. 
 
TIIK GROWN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 83 
 
 It came to bring righteousness to the lost and 
 sinning souls to men, 
 
 '•But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus,, who of 
 God is made unto us, wisdom and righteousness, 
 and sanctifleation and redemption, 
 
 " For He has made him to be sin for us who 
 knew no sin, that we might be made the right- 
 eousness of God in him, 
 
 "For the kingdom of God is not meat and 
 drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy, in 
 the Holy Ghost, 
 
 " For with the heart man believeth unto right- 
 eousness. Christ is the end of the law for right- 
 eousness to everyone that believeth. 
 
 "They which receive abundance of grace and 
 of righteousness, shall reign in life by one Jesus 
 Christ," 
 
 To bring righteousness to a world of unright- 
 eousness and sin, not as a medium of some Letter 
 good, but as itself the absolute good, the ultimate 
 end, was the high and leading idea in the eon* 
 ception and execution of the plan of salvation 
 wrought out by Jesus Christ, Looking down 
 from the height, of His heavenly mansion upon a 
 world lying in sin and unrighteousness, upon a 
 race lost and ruined by reason of its fall from 
 primeval purit}', He entered upon his mission of 
 love, the crowning idea of which was to work a 
 
84 THE CROWN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 work of righteousness in the souls of men. To 
 be a teacher of perfect righteousness in all His 
 immaculate and wonderful life, to fulfil the law 
 of righteousness in his death, and thus render it 
 possible for the sinner to experience in his own 
 soul the blessedness of innocence, the joy of right- 
 eousness, as it' he had not sinned, and never 
 known the bitterness of unrighteousness, 
 
 A few brief reflections suggested by the forego- 
 ing ideas will conclude niy subject: 
 
 1st — 1 have desired to bring to view the spir- 
 ituality of that state of being that we oall Heav- 
 en. To free it from the signs and symbols of 
 sense and hold it forth as abstractly and purely 
 spiritual. 
 
 We call a beautiful and a pleasanl earthly 
 borne a type of II saven, an I so it is, the most tit- 
 ting of all earthly types. But it is not the house 
 in which w 'dwell, however capacious and costly, 
 however richly furnished within, and however 
 adorned with artistic beauty and taste without, 
 that makes it like Heaven. It is not the downy 
 if ease on whioh we rest our bodies, or this 
 luxuries that load our tables that mal* 
 earthly home like Heaven. Not the works of 
 art that decoi-ate our walls, the sculpture, the 
 painting- or the frescoes which please the ey i, of 
 the sounl- of music that enrapture the ear make 
 
THE CROWN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 00 
 
 our earthly home like Heaven. All these good 
 things may abide in our house and yet it may be 
 a type of the veryest Hell. That which makes 
 home a type of Heaven is independent of all these 
 sensuous things and sensuous pleasures. That 
 which makes home here like Heaven above, is 
 something that eye hath not seen, that ear hath 
 not heard, and that genius hath not conceived. 
 It is love, joy, peace, paticnca, forbearance, 
 charity, good will, the spirit of sacrifice for other's 
 good, holiness, purity, sincerity, honesty — -in one 
 word — righteousness. If these things be in yon, 
 and abound, ruling all the activities of your 
 household, and the heart of all its inmates, your 
 home is not simply a type of Heaven; it is Heav- 
 en absolutely begun below, even though your 
 house be a cot, and all its appointments be made 
 in poverty. Here, in the family circle, where 
 love is, where all the fruits of the spirit abide, is 
 found the very thing for. which Paul fought a 
 good fight. The very thing for which we all 
 strive and labor, and pray, viz: all the fruits of 
 the spirit which constitute the gems of the heav- 
 enly crown. 
 
 But an earthly home, no matter how ample or 
 how costly its appointments, where love is want- 
 ing, where jealousy, mutual distrust, and mutual 
 hate reside, is a Hell below. A pure mind, rather 
 
»b THE CROWN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, 
 
 than dwell under such a roof, would say: ° Oh 
 for a lodge in pome vast wilderness " where hu- 
 man voice is never heard, and nought of sound 
 can reach the soul save the still small voice of 
 the spirit of Go<L 
 
 2nd — If these reflections are true, there is no 
 longer any doubt or amhiguity about the signifi- 
 cance of that crown of righteousness which is laid 
 up for the good in Heaven. It is not something 
 to be put on and off like an imperial crown; to 
 be worn on great occasions and to be hid from 
 view on ordinary occasions. It is part and par- 
 cel of the soul itself, inseparable, the spring of all 
 its joy. the beginning and the end, as well as the 
 crown of its inconceivable glory. 
 
 3rd — I remark, if the crown of righteousnes- 
 waa worthy of those herculean endeavors that 
 absorbed the great life, and commanded the ex- 
 alted genius of the Apostle Paul, it is something 
 in which we all have need of an interest. We 
 know the day is not far distant when the time of 
 our departure will be at hand. Shall we have it 
 to s;iy. then, that we have fought a good fight, we 
 have finished our course, we have kept the faith, 
 and that henceforth there is laid up for ub a 
 crown of righteousness in Heaven. This, my 
 friends, is the most momentous question that 
 tin 1 human soul is ever called upon to settle. 
 
THE CROWN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 8/ 
 
 Shall I wear a crown of complete righteousnes in 
 Heaven, or shall I dwell in shame and everlast- 
 ing contempt in Hell, is a question which I must 
 decide for myself. No other can decide it for me, 
 and I must decide it here and now. I have no 
 lease of the future. While I speak, during the 
 brief moments I have occupied in these remarks, 
 a thousand souls have crossed the river of death, 
 and ere an hour, a thousand more will follow. 
 We know we all journey thither, and how near 
 our approach none can tell. If we do not bear 
 the cross on earth, we cannot wear the crown in 
 Heaven. 
 
 %0^ 
 
RETRIBUTION. 
 
 RETRIBUTION 
 
 Son, remember. — Luke XVI; 25. 
 
 The allegory of the rich man and Lazarus, is 
 given by our Lord to reveal the facts of immor- 
 tality. Either He does not know what He is 
 talking about; either He is an incompetent wit- 
 ness, unworthy to be believed in respect to any 
 of the great realities of God, of the soul of man, 
 and of the retributions of eternity, or else by this 
 allegory He actually draws aside the curtain and 
 reveals facts the most momentous of all 'that the 
 
RETRIBUTION. 
 
 human mind can contemplate. For by it He an- 
 swers the question of the ages: " If a man die, 
 shall he live again?" And confirms the assur- 
 ance of the wise man; " the dust shall return to 
 the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to 
 God who gave it." Be our conception what it 
 may of the ultimate form of being in the future 
 world, this allegory settles the question as to its 
 immediate form. It places the two characters 
 which the drama introduces immediately after 
 death in a state of conscious existence, with the 
 capacities of knowledge, of joy, of sorrow, of re- 
 flection, of judgment, of reason, and of memory. 
 We know that they left behind all that was ma- 
 terial, all that was visible. " The rich man died 
 and was buried." Lazarus also died and was car- 
 ried by angels into Abraham's bosom;" not his 
 body, not anything tangible to sense, but he, 
 Lazarus, was so carried. The allegory speaks of 
 them precisely as if they had moved from one 
 country to another. They have simply crossed 
 the boundary line and waked up in all their in- 
 dividual identity in a different country, with new 
 surroundings, but with unchanged faculties of 
 
90 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 soul. The leaving behind of their bodies is a 
 matter scarcely noticed, and would not have been 
 noticed at all but for the purpose of contrasting 
 the condition of the two men in this world. The 
 one by reason of his wealth, received the right of 
 sepulture. Nothing is said about the body of the 
 other. He is spoken of as if he went body and 
 all to Heaven. The body cuts no figure with 
 Lazarus, any more than the rags with which he 
 was clothed. Body and rags both were left be- 
 hind together. He had no longer any use tor 
 either, and yet lie and the rich man both are 
 spoken of just as they would have been if they 
 had gone bodily into the other world. All that 
 was real of them had gone. The}'' are the same 
 identical persons there as here. They have cast 
 off the garments which were here worn; they have 
 left behind the house in which they dwelt, and 
 have crossed the line retaining all that distin- 
 guished them as rational beings. 
 
 There is a radical difference between these two 
 representative characters (for they are introduced 
 to our notice as representative characters). The 
 allegory is not supposed to lie given for the pur- 
 
RETRIBUTION. 91 
 
 pose of reciting the history of ;i notable beggar on 
 the one hand, and a notable millionaire on the 
 other. But the beggar and millionaire are made 
 to represent in a dramatic way two great classes 
 of .humanity; the virtuous poor on the one side, 
 and the hard handed, selfish, covetous rich on the 
 other. The same red difference distinguished 
 them here as there, The transition by death is 
 not a transition to a differenl moral status. That 
 is the same there as. here, The only difference is 
 in appearanee, The rich man has left behind 
 him all the guises by which his true mora] con- 
 dition here was obscured; his mansion, Ins mon- 
 ey, his garments of purple and fine linen, all his 
 wealthy surroundings, and his naked soul is ex- 
 posed in its true character. So Lazarus has left 
 behind his loathsome body full of sores, and the 
 tattered garments that bespoke his poverty, and 
 with the true riches of that beatitude insured to 
 the poor in spirit, has gone direct under a con- 
 voy of angels into Abraham's bosom, which rep- 
 resents figuratively to the mind of a Jew the high- 
 est seat of celestial glory. Now. each man has 
 found his true level in that world of being where 
 
82 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 the actual is known and where there arc no dis- 
 guises. The rich man has no longer any means 
 of self-deception. He sees himself as he is seen. 
 He knows himself as he is known. Apologies are 
 all unavailing. They are now as transparent to 
 himself as to God. Ha is compelled to stand 
 upon his merits, and of them he has none. 
 
 He is now in that condition in which the good 
 or evil of his being is dependent on what he ;>. 
 While in this world he found nil his good in what 
 he had. His life here "consisted in the abund- 
 ance of th« things that he possessed." Now he 
 has nothing, and he is forced to turn his 
 thoughts inward for something to make his exis- 
 tolerable. I have nothing, what am I? I 
 have wasted my probationary life ministering to 
 my bodily lust, and in hoarding substance for 
 the gratification of the pride of my carnal heart. 
 My bodily lust, and my carnal heart, now 
 the sleep that knows no waking. It is my never 
 dying soul that lives and longs, that hungers and 
 thirsts, that is out of harmony with itself, out of 
 harmony with all its surroundings, out of har- 
 mony with God, forever tossed on the sea of spir- 
 
RETRIBUTION, " ; ! 
 
 • 
 
 4tual unrest, lashed by the surges of remorse, arid 
 stung perpetually by the scorpions of- a self?aecus- 
 
 ing conscience. . for one drop of the comfort of 
 that beatitude that the beggar now enjoys, who 
 yesterday lay at my gate, to whom I refused the 
 crumbs of my table. "Father Abraham send 
 Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger " 
 in the well of water that springs up in his own 
 soul into everlasting life, " and cool my tongue, 
 for I am tormented in the flame of this spiritual 
 fire." But "Abraham said unto him, son, remem- 
 ber that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good 
 things, and likewise, Lazarus evil things, but now 
 he is comforted, and thou art tormented. (< And 
 besides all this, between us and you, there is a 
 great gulf fixed, so that they that would pass from 
 hence to you can not, neither can they pass io us 
 that would come from thence." This language is 
 of course the language of metaphor. The impas- 
 sible gulf is a gulf of character, and the sentiment 
 taught is that fixedness, final mold and temper 
 of character was attained in this life. That there 
 is a gulf of separation between the two classes 
 into which the human family is divided, and al= 
 
RETRIBUTION. 
 
 though the gulf is not impassible in the proba- 
 tionary life, though it is possible here to get from 
 the bad side to the good side, though probation 
 is given for the purpose of encouraging repent- 
 ance and reformation, and " while the lamp holds 
 out to burn the vilest sinner may return," 
 yet beyond the boundary of probation there is 
 no such encouragement given, and the gulf is ab- 
 solutely impassible. Keep out of mind the idea 
 of geographical distance, and conceive of what is 
 intended to be taught, viz: mural distance. The 
 gulf is impassible, not by reason of any geologic 
 chasm, but by reason of a moral status in the 
 soul forever, and immovably fixed, which renders 
 its affinity with good spirits impossible. Oil and 
 water, though confined in the same vessel, and 
 shaken together by however much of physical 
 force, are nevertheless separated by an impassi- 
 ble gulf impossible for either to cross, by reason 
 of the inherent repulsion of each. So a soul con- 
 firmed in selfishness and sin, has within it a nat- 
 ural repulsion from God, from angels, and from 
 the pure and sanctified. And in the soul of the 
 just made perfect in Heaven there is a repulsion 
 
RETRIBUTION. 95 
 
 equally strong, from whatsoever defileth and 
 maketh a lie. The law of moral affinity and re- 
 pulsion begins in this world. We see it opperat- 
 ing every where in the social as well as in the re- 
 ligious world. Between the refined and cultured, 
 and the debased and vulgar, there is no affinity. 
 There is a social gulf between them which is 
 made passible only by reconstruction of charac- 
 ter and assimilation of taste and social habits. 
 The same law is more distinctly manifest between 
 the religiously devout and morally debased. The 
 design of the probationary state, and of all reli- 
 gious appliances ordained of God, is to bridge 
 over the moral chasm, and by all means draw 
 the children of men from the bad side to the good 
 side of this moral gulf. To this end every thing 
 has been done that infinite mercy can devise and 
 do. Beyond the grave we have no encourage- 
 ment to hope for a change of moral condition. 
 Into whatever form our character ripens in this 
 life in that form we remain fixed forever. " He 
 that is unjust, let him be unjust still. He that is 
 righteous, let him be righteous still; he that is 
 holy, let him be holy still; and he that is filthy, 
 
RETRIBUTION, 
 
 let him be filthy still." That is the manifest 
 meaning of the impassible gulf of separation be? 
 tween the evil and the good in the spirit world. 
 
 The rich man, therefore, by means of his love 
 of the good things in his life time, has ripened 
 into a form of character which must abide him 
 forever, and from which the pure and the sancti- 
 fied in glory must he forever separated by virtue 
 of that moral repulsion which everywhere sun- 
 ders discordant souls as by an impassible gulf. 
 The text indicates the ground of the rich man's 
 woe. It is impossible to conceive of a figure of 
 speech that could more vividly portray the ut- 
 most extreme of despair, than that put in the 
 mouth of the rich man in Hell. " Send Lazarus 
 that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and 
 cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame." 
 Abraham addresses him in accents of pity, but 
 under an evident sense of impossibility. He 
 knows that the two men are unchanged; that the 
 happiness of the one, and the woe of the other, is 
 due to what they are. The only thing that can 
 mitigate the rich man's anguish, is to be some- 
 thing that he is not, and now can not be. He 
 
RETBIBUTIOK. 97 
 
 has now crossed the boundary line of probation, 
 ripened into moral fixedness, which not even in- 
 finite compassion can alter. lie is to-day what 
 he was yesterday. Lazarus is to-day what lie 
 was yesterday. The shuffling oil' the mortal coil 
 has not changed their moral status. Yesterday 
 Lazarus was as truly in possession of the trus 
 riches as he is to-day. He experienced the beat- 
 itude of that poverty that seals the beggar's title 
 to tin- kingdom of Heaven. " Blessed be ye poor 
 for yours is the kingdom of Heaven." Yesterday 
 the rich man was spiritually as poor, as bankrupt 
 of every tiling spiritually good as to-day. The 
 only difference is that both are now stripped of 
 all disguises, and are free disembodied spirits. 
 Their moral affinities are not changed. These 
 are now confirmed and fixed beyond the possi- 
 bility of change. This is what Abraham means 
 when he cites the rich man back, " son, remem- 
 ber. " Over there Lazarus had what you now 
 want, the lack of which makes all your woe. The 
 deep well of salvation in his soul, was theni full 
 of water, even while he lay at the gate of your 
 earthly mansion, hungering for the crumbs of 
 
93 RETRIBUTION". 
 
 your table, and accepting the surgery of the dogs 
 that came and licked his sores as the only solace 
 of his bodily pain. One drop of that water I 
 know would now quench the fires that consume 
 your peace. But you have no more relish for that 
 now than when you were "clothed in purple and 
 fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day." 
 Remember how indignantly you then would have 
 spurned oil offers of good from the loathsome 
 beggar. He had then the good you now need as 
 truly as he has it now. Then tie- well of salva- 
 tion was as free to you as to him. You had no 
 taste for those healing waters then. You have 
 no more relish now than then for the water of 
 life. I can not give that water to you. Lazarus 
 can not. God, Himself, can not give it to you. 
 God can not give the bread and water of life 1o 
 any that do not hunger and thirst. You long for 
 rest, but no more now than then do you hunger 
 and thirst after right ousness which alone can 
 satisfy the soul. " Blessed are they that do hun- 
 ger and* thirst after righteousness, for they shall 
 be filled." There i-; no more affinity between 
 your soul and the good you need now than there 
 
UKTKIIH'TION, ll'.l 
 
 was when in life you rolled in luxury. The mor- 
 al gulf between you and Heaven is an impassible 
 
 gulf. Oil an<l water can not be made to unite 
 for lack of chemical affinity. Heaven and Hell, 
 jlbr lack of spiritual affinity, are divided by a line 
 of separation over which neither can pass, and 
 which has been fitly styled an impassible gulf. It 
 is not a gulf measured by space, but one meas- 
 ured by the degree of moral repulsion, which 
 proximity in space tends to intensify rather than 
 overcome, and hence to tantalize, and augment 
 the indignation and wrath, the tribulation and 
 anguish of the lost soul forever. 
 
 "Son, remember." Was there not an impassi- 
 ble gulf between you and the beggar in the other 
 world? The kingdom of Heaven in the fruition 
 of which his soul now rejoices, was then within 
 him as it is now. "As well might a camel go 
 through a needle's eye," as for you then to enter 
 into spiritual affinity with him, As you then 
 coveted gold and silver on which the love of your 
 heart was fixed for the sake of yourself, so now 
 you covet the rest and peace that belong to him, 
 for the Pake of vourself, Selfishness then, and 
 
100 RKTKIIHTIOX. 
 
 selfishness now. separates your soul from all that 
 is good. Then you dispised the humility of the 
 beggar, now you envy his joys. Then you passed 
 by on the other side while the dogs licked his 
 sores as he lay at your gate. Now you would 
 fain exchange all the purple and Hue linen of 
 earth for one hoar of the rest thai belongsHo him. 
 Then you feasted your body with luxuries, the 
 very crumbs of which you grudgingly withheld 
 from him. " Now he is comforted, but thou art. 
 tormented." You were not changed in character, 
 You are as you were. Reconstruction then, was 
 possible; reconstruction now is impossible. All 
 from what you are. 
 •' Sou. rememl er." On this main thou 
 my text. I must dwell a moment longer I efore 1 
 close. Tlie faculty of memory of all the gifts of 
 reason specially deserves our reverent r 
 This pure back-ground of the soul, comes from 
 our Creator's hand an immaculate blank, a spot- 
 in. unwritten chart, but receptive of a 
 tru • ungarbled record of all the deeds done in the 
 body. No single thought, word < r di ■ I, evi r 
 transpires that is not faithfully registered there- 
 
RETRIBUTION. 101 
 
 in. So long as the soul remains a tenant of the 
 body, its various faculties arc more or less de- 
 pendent on the vital strength of the physical or- 
 gans. The brain, which is the organ through 
 which mind acts and its volitions arc- made cog- 
 nizable,is subject to weakness, disorder and decay. 
 'With weakness and decay of the brain, comes 
 weakness of one or all the functions of the soul. 
 The failure of memory is generally the first indi- 
 cation of a disordered brain. So that we have 
 no intimation either in scripture or reason that 
 the soul will suffer the loss of any of its rational 
 powers when emancipated from the trammels 
 and weaknesses of the flesh. But the evidence is 
 that it will rise out of the earthly house of its 
 tabernacle with all its powers restored to their 
 normal integrity, to reassert their spiritual free- 
 dom and realize with susceptibilities consciously, 
 untrammeled and exalted the full measure of 
 spiritual retribution. 
 
 Conceding this — conceding that memory un- 
 clouded and clear, is to be reinstated in the soul 
 in the spirit life, and to reproduce hour by hour, 
 in a world without end, all the deeds done in the 
 
102 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 body, with all the secret underlying motives that 
 
 determine their good and their evil character, it 
 is easy to understand the solemn import of the 
 words of Abraham to Dives, ' l Son, remember." 
 
 Memory will forever interpret all the mystery 
 of your inconsolable anguish. 1 can not erase 
 from that imperishable record a single line,or 
 wipe out a single blot, (loci can not. You are 
 suffering under the necessity which you yourself, 
 pot God has willed. As He forewarned you by 
 the mouth of his prophet, He has brought every 
 work into judgment with every secret thing. 
 Your deep damnation is not the vengeance of God. 
 He is still a pitying and a merciful Father. The 
 judgment seat of God, to which you have now 
 come, is the tribunal of your own conscience; and 
 the indictment to every count of which you now 
 plead guilty, is the imperishable record of mem- 
 ory, which record was written up by your own 
 hands. No power can now efface from that rec- 
 ord what you would gladly forget, and what, if it 
 were possible to forget, would leave a blank that 
 would mitigate all your woe. 
 
 But what is the indictment to which Abraham 
 
RETRIBUTION. 103 
 
 calls the rich man's attention. " Son, remem- 
 ber." What? He makes no inventory of crirties 
 of which he has been guilty; he doe& not charge 
 him with extortion, with fraud, cruelty or din- 
 honesty. He makes no mention of his cold neg- 
 lect of the beggar, as if he desired to avoid tan- 
 talizing his already inconsolable feelings. He 
 barely cites a moral principle that lies below all 
 external acts, and that determines the moral 
 level of every man independently of all such 
 acts. 
 
 "Remember that thou in thy life time receiv- 
 edst thy good things." That is, the tilings of the 
 earthly life time are the only things that you 
 considered good. You considered nothing good 
 that did not have direct relation to your bodily 
 sensuous life. Money was a good thing, and all 
 the things that money can buy were good things. 
 Your costly house with all its adornings, furni- 
 ture, luxuries and splendors, was a good thing. 
 Your purple and fine linen were good things; 
 your well-stored larder, and the viands that 
 pampered your life were good things. The flow- 
 ers and fruits that abounded in your decorated 
 
104 RETRIBUTIONi 
 
 garden were good things. The income of your 
 farms, the rate per cent, on your stocks and 
 mortgages, and the profits on your merchandise 
 were good things. The glitter and. show of socie- 
 ty, and the crouching obeisance that wealth with- 
 out merit so often commands, were good things. 
 " Thou, in thy life time, receivedst thy good 
 things." There is no crime laid to his charge. 
 There is no intimation that his earthly property 
 was not the fruit of justifiable speculation. Such 
 speculation as every honest man may embark in 
 without tbe least harm to his soul. What, then, 
 is the point that Abraham cites as the ground of 
 the rich man's woe? " In thy life time thou re- 
 ceivedst thy good things." The only good which 
 the rich man ever conceived was material worldly 
 good. He was probably a sadducee that ignored 
 the soul and its immortal destiny altogether. Of 
 course, in this life, he was wholly oblivious of 
 possible good apart from the life of sense. But 
 his relation to all that he ever valued as good is 
 now forever sundered. While here on earth roll- 
 ing in abundance, he said to himself, " I will pull 
 down my barns and build greater, will there 
 
BETBIBUTION. 105 
 
 hoard all my fruits and my goods, and will say 
 to my soul, soul thou hast much goods laid up 
 for many years, take thine case, cat, drink, and 
 be merry." But God suddenly divorced bim 
 from all the good things of his life time, saying 
 to him, " thou fool, this night thy soul shall be 
 required of thee, 1 ' naked, impoverished, shrivelled 
 and bankrupt, he crosses the boundary of mor- 
 tality, leaving behind all his good things, to wake 
 up in despair, and to bear the voice of father 
 Abraham saying, u son, remember that thou in 
 thy life time receivedst thy good things." 
 
 ''A man's life consisteth not in the abundance 
 of the things he possesseth. What doth it profit 
 a man if he gain the whole world and lose his 
 soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for 
 his soul?" In this world the only possible good 
 to him consisted in what he hah. In the realm 
 of the unseen the only possible good consists in 
 what be is. Now, I have nothing; what AM I ? 
 The same sordid, selfish, spiritual bankrupt, for- 
 ever repelled from God, and all goodness by the 
 inherent elements of my own unregeUerated 
 nature. 
 
10K RETRIBUTION. 
 
 " And likewise Lazarus evil things." That is, 
 they were evil things from your point of observa- 
 tion. God did not pronounce them evil things. 
 The spirit of your life contradicted the Divine 
 judgment. God pronounced the highest benedic- 
 tion on the lot of Lazarus; " blessed be ye poor 
 for y.airs is the kingdom of Heaven; Messed are 
 they that mourn: they that are persecuted for 
 righteousness sake; blessed are they that^do hun- 
 ger and thirst," nut after gold and silver, not af- 
 ter purple and tine linen, not after sumptuous 
 fare, hut " after righteousness." " Blessed arc 
 the pure in heart," regardless of poverty, of rags, 
 of sores and bodily sufferings, "for they shall see 
 God." You saw nothing enviable in the lot of 
 Lazarus, then. Then, as now, he had the true 
 riches, the treasure in Heaven, compared with 
 which all your good things were hut vanity and 
 vexation of spirit. "Now he is comforted, and 
 thou art tormented " by the necessary sequence 
 of what he and you respectively aim:. 
 
 The characters cited by the text and context, 
 be it remembered, are representative characters. 
 The moral elements that determined the desti- 
 
RETRIBUTION, 107 
 
 ny of each of these will determine the destiny 
 of us all. The rich man is an extreme type 
 of all who receive their good things in their life 
 lime, who deny God, deny retribution, deny im- 
 mortality, and turn their hacks on all the provi- 
 sions of Divine grace for the recovery of their 
 souls from "the hist* of the flesh, the lust of the 
 eye, and the pride of life," and the recasting of 
 its moral temper in the mold and sympathy of 
 the good and glorified. While Lazarus is an ex- 
 treme type of the oppressed, the neglected and 
 suffering, hut deserving poor, who lay up their 
 treasures in Heaven, regarding themselves, " as 
 strangers and pilgrims here on earth, ami who 
 look for a better country — sven an heavenly." 
 
 The end that awaited the one or the other of 
 these representative characters, awaits us all. 
 Our moral reeord is fast being written up in in- 
 effaceable characters in the book of memory. 
 Soon '' the books will be opened, and we shall he 
 judged out of the things that are written in the 
 books," and the behest will be heard by each of 
 us — son, daughter, remember. how can any 
 of us bear the exposure of what is there written ? 
 
1()8 retribution! 
 
 The past of our history with all its dark stains of 
 .-in is there inscribed, and if our future wen- to 
 be immaculate and holy, we have no power to 
 erase a line or a blot of our unholy past. The 
 harvest of seed sown in the flesh, of which mem- 
 ory will make me conscious forever and ever in a 
 world without end, r must meet, " blessed thricl 
 blessed be God who giveth us the victory through 
 our Lord Jesus Christ." "The blood of JesZ 
 Christ cleanseth from all sin " If memory magi 
 nifies our sin, it at the same time magnifies ttaj 
 riches of redeeming grace, and when we look at 
 the ' hole of the pit from whence we are digged," 
 and contrast the moral degredation from which 
 we have escaped with the mighty love that raised 
 us out of it, the contemplation will elevate every 
 not:, of the song by which we hop,, to sing eter- 
 nally the triumph of redemption, 
 •' My faith looks up to th- 
 Thou ham!) of Calvary '* 
 
 Savior divine; 
 Now hear me when I pray, 
 Take all n away; 
 
 let me from this day, 
 wholly thin 
 
RETKIISl I'KiN. 1(1!' 
 
 Iii the parable of Dives and Lazarus, what en- 
 couragement is given to the rich man to hope for 
 restoration; he is not spoken of as in a state of 
 probation, and no hope of restoration is offered 
 him. On this side the curtain of mortality, of- 
 fered grace made a transition from Hell to Heav- 
 en possible on conditions. Bui beyond the vail. 
 no conditions of transition are spoken of, scrip- 
 ture gives no intimation of a moral change in the- 
 spirit land, and both scripture and reason teach 
 that, without a moral change woe is inevitable. 
 
 God forbid that I should set bounds to the pos- 
 sibilities of Divine compassion. With God all 
 things are possible. But my commission gives 
 me no right to go beyond the valley and shadow 
 of death, and promise restoration to the incor- 
 rigibly lost. On the contrary, it is my duty to 
 warn the sinner, that if he cross the boundary 
 unsaved, he must go without hope, for the sen- 
 tence is decreed. u He that is unjust, let him be 
 unjust still; and he " which is 'filthy, let him be 
 filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be 
 righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be 
 holy still." 
 
j.10 CONSANGUINITY OF THE SAINTS, 
 
 Consanguinity of the Saints. 
 
 For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is 
 in Heaven, the same is my brother and sister and moth- 
 er.— Matthew XII : 50, 
 
 Our Savior chooses the ties of consanguinity by 
 which to unfold his relationship to his disciples. 
 We can understand those ties. We need none to 
 explain to us the spiritual nature of the tie that 
 binds kindred hearts in these human relation- 
 ships. They are so strong, so vital, so inaliena- 
 ble, that we cannot consent to the thought of the 
 
CONSANGUINITY OF THE SAINTS. Ill 
 
 sundering of them. When kindred die, the tie 
 that binds our hearts to them is not broken, but 
 strengthened. We love them more when we lay 
 them in the grave than when in life they could 
 respond to our acts of love. It is a spiritual bond, 
 and the departed spirit has' lost nothing that re- 
 lates to the tie. I love my mother, my father, 
 all my deceased kindred more when I bury them 
 out of my sight; than while they were with me. 
 My faith in their immortality, and my memory 
 of their lifetime, and the relation of that lifetime 
 to my happiness, intensify the bond that united 
 us in life. The love of kindred is an undying in- 
 stinct that even death itself cannot abate. And 
 if indispensable to the good of our present life, it 
 is quite natural that we should anticipate the 
 same source of happiness in the spirit life. That 
 which is indispensable to the joy of this life, how 
 can it be dispensed with in the higher life? If I 
 do not know and identify my kindred in Heaven 
 as I know them here, how can I escape there the 
 solitude and dreadful desolation of one here, 
 whose life is made vacant by the desertion of all 
 his kindred?^ This is a question full of interest, 
 
112 CONSANGUINITY OF THE SAINTS. 
 
 and to some Christian hearts of painful anxiety. 
 Shall I never again see the sweet face of my 
 mother, of my sister and brother. They have 
 gone to the spirit land. The lineaments by 
 which they were identified here are dissolved in 
 the graves — how am* I to identity them in the 
 better land? If not at all, what is to atone for 
 my disappointment, since the recognition of kin- 
 dred is so indispensable to my happiness here? 
 
 Some thoughts bearing on this very interesting 
 question are what I have promised at this time. 
 
 On the occasion that gave rise to the words of 
 the text, while Jesus was addressing the people, 
 his mother and his natural brothers stood with- 
 out desiring to speak with him. Nobody thinks 
 that Jesus was oblivious of the tie of natural af- 
 fection, or of the courtesies which that tie always 
 imposes on a son and a brother; and yet the an- 
 swer that he made would seem on the surface of 
 the interview to imply at least indifference to the 
 claims of his mother and his brothers. His con- 
 duct was unlike that of most dutiful children to- 
 ward their nearest kindred, and we need to look 
 below the surface to find the true apology for con- 
 
CONSANGUINITY OF THH SAINTS. J US 
 
 duct so unique and singular; Instead of respond- 
 ing promptly to the call, and addressing special 
 
 attention to his mother, lie asks the surprising 
 question: " Who is my mother, and who are my 
 brethren?" And while those who heard him no 
 doubt stood amazed at a question so unexpected, 
 he turned to his disciples — those who had left all 
 to follow him, who loved and obeyed him at the 
 sacrifice of every selfish desire and purpose, and 
 who found in him complete blessedness — and 
 stretching forth his hand to them he said: " Be- 
 hold my mother and my brethren: For whoso- 
 ever doeth the will of my Father which is in 
 Heaven, the same is my brother and sister and 
 mother." The answer is unique, but profound, 
 and opens to our mind the real genius of the 
 Christian religion, and an easy solution of the 
 question of personal recognition in the future 
 state. First it gives us the key to the nature of 
 religion itself, si.:ce it puts it under the law of 
 consanguinity. Everybody can understand that. 
 If the law that binds children of the same family 
 to each other and to their mother cannot be ana- 
 lyzed and explained philosophically, it can be 
 
114 CONSANGUINITY OF THE SAINTS. 
 
 known experimentally by every child. There is 
 a power in the relationship that all feel, a power 
 that controls the heart and that effects the hap- 
 piness of every person; a power that we all know 
 by experience. If anybody asks you why you 
 love your mother better than any other woman, 
 you will not explain it by saying she is wiser, 
 better, more beautiful or affectionate than any 
 other woman; but you will answer by saving she 
 is your mother, and for that reason she te to you 
 superior to all others. No other can fill the place 
 in your heart that she fills, and the reason is, she 
 is your mother. And other ties of consanguinity 
 can be explained only in the same way. We love 
 brothers, sisters, mother by a law inherent in the 
 relationship. We know it by experience, not by 
 hearsay; not by information as we know other 
 things; we know it by responses of love natural 
 to the tie of blood, that are felt and that effect 
 our hearts. The family relation is ordained for 
 felicity; perfectly organized, complete in its de- 
 tails, it is the fittest type of heavenly blessedness. 
 Jesus teaches us in the text that religion is 
 founded in the same law; that the principle of 
 
.CONSANGUINITY OF THE SAINTB, lift 
 
 Jove that makes home blessed to all members of 
 an affectionate family, makes Heaven blessed to 
 all pure souls that do the will of our Father in 
 Heaven. Love is one principle: it binds mother 
 and child by an unselfish tie of pure love. It 
 binds the hearts of those who do the will of God 
 by taking on the spirit and copying the virtues 
 of Christ, by the same spiritual tie. Love is not 
 one thing in the earthly home and another thing 
 in the celestial glory, What makes home truly 
 blessed in the limitations of time and sense makes 
 Heaven blessed amid conditions that are free 
 from all the limitations of time and sense. Re- 
 ligion, then, true loyalty of heart to God, true 
 and sincere love to the Savior, is consanguinity, 
 The same law of love that makes the tie of kin- 
 dred here a life-long tie of affection, indispensa- 
 ble to earthly happiness, makes the tie of all 
 hearts in the great family of the redeemed in 
 Heaven. There will be no strangers there, 
 Whatever be the form of existence, we are assured 
 that it will he spiritual, and in no sense carnal, 
 and that all will belong to one family. All will 
 be as the angels of God. There will be no mar- 
 
J16 CONSANGUINITY OF THE saints. . 
 
 rying or giving in marriage. Human relation* 
 phips will all be lost in the enlarged relationships 
 of the one great family, of which God is Father, 
 Christ is Brother; to whom all are united by the 
 same bond that here connect? the hearts of moth* 
 sters, brothers in the earthly family. Who 
 is my mother? in ffeaven that question will be 
 answered as Jesus answered it in tin- text, "She 
 that <Ui ill the will of m\ Father in Heaven, 
 She," says Jesus, ( 'is my mother." lie takes the 
 place of every loyal mother's sou. Th ■ tie of love 
 between him and every sanctified mother can be 
 known only as the tie of consanguinity between 
 mother and son in Heaven. He fills that rela. 
 fcion, spiritually, to every mother that do 
 will of the Father. Then, if ever} moth< r is His 
 mother, every child is His brothel' or sister, ami 
 all are members of one family. All in the greal 
 family ot'Heaven are bound together by a bond, 
 tiie sweetness and the ten icity of which we 
 foretaste of in the consanguinity here in our 
 earthly relations, .My conclusion from these, 
 thoughts is, that the happiness of Heaven will he 
 Independent of all the ties of e;:rth : Tie | 
 
CONSANGUINITY OF THE (SAINTS. 117 
 
 love for kindred, on which our happiness here 
 depends, will all he absorbed and swallowed up 
 in the infinite ocean of love that constitutes the 
 glory of Heaven. Shall we know each other there? 
 It may be. I cannot answer yea or nay to thie 
 question. I can only say that happiness there, 
 either to us or to our kindred, depends not on 
 that question. If we do the will of Grod, we are 
 mother, sister and brother to Christ; we are 
 mother, sister, brother to each other. The spirit 
 of every mother will be just as dear to me as the 
 spirit of my own sainted mother. Love there 
 rests not on motherhood here below, but on per- 
 fect likeness of spirit to God above. That like- 
 ness fills all the conditions that in the earthly 
 state connect loving hearts by family ties. We 
 think of recognizing kindred in Heaven, because 
 that recognition makes us so happy here. All 
 are kindred there. Everybody there is brother, 
 sister and mother. I shall see a mother's face in 
 every glorified mother. The joy I anticipate in 
 seeing my natural mother there, I shall ej^peri- 
 ence in recognizing each pure spirit of whom 
 Christ will confess sonship. 
 
J.18 CONSANGUINITY OK THE SAINTS. 
 
 While wo remain in the body we must retain 
 the love of the earthly family tie. It is indis- 
 pensable to our happiness. We must think of 
 the departed spirit as our kindred. Our finite 
 "limitations here make this the only condition of 
 our present happiness. And the anticipation of 
 meeting departed friends in Heaven is also a high 
 condition of our present joy. But how will our 
 joy, when we arrive in Heaven, exceed all present 
 anticipations, on finding everybody there our 
 kindred? On finding there all boundary lines 
 that here circumscribe the individual family ob- 
 literated; where we shall be members of one 
 family, wherein all are kindred t^ ties of love 
 and attachment, of which earthly ties are but a 
 faint resemblance. Ties never to be sundered. 
 which unite the whole family of Heaven in an 
 eternal union of unalloyed, ever-increasing, ever- 
 expanding glory and blessedness. This concep- 
 tion of the relationships of Heaven gives us the 
 best idea of the Church on earth — of its true im- 
 port,/»f what it is designed to be, of what it 
 should be. It is designed to be but an enlarge- 
 ment of the earthly family, bound together by 
 
CONSANGUINITY OF THE SAINTS. 119 
 
 the same strong tie of consanguinity that con- 
 nects the hearts of children to parents, and to 
 each other. It is the incipient life of the general 
 assembly and church of the first born which are 
 written in Heaven — an antepast of the glorified 
 state above. Brother, sister, in this sacred anion 
 of Christian hearts, under a covenant of love to 
 Christ and to each other, is not an empty name. 
 It means, or is designed to mean, all that Jesus 
 expressed when he said: "They that do the will 
 of the Father, the same are my brother and sister 
 and mother." Churches differently organized are 
 but separate families of one great brotherhood. 
 In Heaven, churches, like families, will lose their 
 distinctive lines of separation. The ties that bind 
 individuals into distinct denominations here will 
 be absorbed in the broad bond of" the church of 
 the first born which are written in Heaven." The 
 only condition of that bond is the doing of the 
 will of our heavenly Father. That condition ful- 
 filled admits to the fellowship of the Saints, 
 whether on earth or in Heaven, and gives to that 
 fellowship all the meaning that belongs to broth- 
 er, sister and mother in the family. When we 
 
120 CONSANGUINITY OF THE SAINTS. 
 
 come into this Christian relation we bring the tie 
 of love that connects kindred of the same family. 
 And when we depart to the better land we shall 
 find all earthly limitations lost in the boundless 
 beatitudes of the heavenly glory, where Christ, of 
 whom the whole family in earth and Heaven is 
 named, will be the central sun. 
 
 This view of the subject justifies the conclusions 
 that earthly relationships, like all earthly inher- 
 itances, are temporary; that we go to Heaven not 
 as families to be reinstated in our earthly do- 
 mestic life, but to enter on the higher life, free 
 from all limitations of earth, with love and joy of 
 which present domestic love and joy are but a 
 foretaste: that we leave behind all our family 
 limitations, and carry with us only the capacity 
 of love which sweetened the family relation here, 
 and which will be expanded there according to 
 the enlarged sphere which it will embrace. 
 
 How precious is the religion that provides, and 
 puts within the grasp of our faith a state of being 
 founded in the law of love that sweetens all the 
 joys of our earthly life, and yet so vastly superior 
 to all we experience here as to supersede all ne- 
 
CONSANGUINITY OF Till'. SAINTS. 1 2 1 
 
 Ijeesity of the limitations so needful to our present 
 joy, and to guarantee to us an eternity of fruition 
 among an innumerable company of the redeemed 
 out of all kindreds of earth, who will truly he 
 brother, sister and mother to us in the highesl 
 and most enduring sense of those relations. And 
 how easy the terms on which this high inherit- 
 ance is promised: '' He that doeth the will of 
 my Father which is in Heaven, the; same," says 
 Jesus, "is my mother and sister and brother." 
 The bystanders who had learned to know of His 
 divine origin and power, no doubt indulged a 
 feeling of envy for Mary, the mother of Jesus, 
 and her other sons, who were his natural broth- 
 ers. It was to divert their minds from this lower 
 relationship to his earthly kindred and fix them 
 on the possibility of the higher, more blessed and 
 more permanent relation arising from moral like- 
 ness to the will of God. As a ground of promise, 
 this supersedes all ties of consanguinity, and ele- 
 vates the humblest disciple to a rank in that 
 royal family of which God is Father and Christ 
 the elder Brother. Oh how high the incentive to 
 be and to do all that the will of our heavenly 
 
122 CONSANGUINITY OF THE SAINTS. 
 
 Father requires us to be and to do! The inherit- 
 ance is but a step before us. The time is short. 
 Are we doing the will of our Father in heaven? 
 On that question must turn the decision of our 
 great future. How can we afford to withhold our 
 best affections from One thus related to all who 
 give Him their hearts, and thus become sons and 
 daughters of the Lord Almighty? 
 
A HBW HEAVKN AND A NEW EARTH j 12^ 
 
 A New Heaven and a N< k >v 
 Earth. 
 
 And I saw a new Heaven and a new earth, for felie first 
 Heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there 
 Was no more sea, 
 
 And I, John, saw the Holy City new Jerusalem com- 
 Bag down from God out of Heaven, prepared as a bride 
 adorned for her husband, 
 
 And I heard a great voice out of Heaven, saying, be-. 
 hold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will 
 dwell with them and they shall be His people, and God 
 Himself will be with them ami be their God, 
 
 And G id shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and 
 there shall he no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, 
 neither shall there be any more pain; for the former 
 things are passed away, — Revelation XXI; 1 t° 4, 
 
124 A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH, 
 
 This is the most graphic and highly wrought 
 of all poetic figures. All attempts at interpreta- 
 tion that undertake to deal with the drapery of 
 the picture, and to hold it forth as anything more 
 than the sign of great spiritual facts, only mys- 
 tify its glorious import, rob it of its intrinsic 
 beauty, and cheat the soul of that lofty inspira- 
 tion which its true signification is designed to 
 impart, 
 
 The Divine revelator borne aloft upon the 
 mount of prophetic vision, filled to overflowing 
 with the experience of that new life, the achieve* 
 merits of which culminate in the conquests of the 
 soul over the world, the fiesh and the devil, and 
 in full realization of all that which we call Heav- 
 en; breaks out in the language of the text, and 
 under imagery the most grand and soul inspiring 
 winch it is possible for poetry itself to conceives 
 He portrays the unutterable blessedness of th&t 
 new life which is the inheritance of all the re- 
 deemed and sanctified. If there be any reality 
 in the things revealed in the Bible, the renewed 
 life of the soul under a divine inspiration is the 
 most real of all things else, It is stvjed the new 
 
A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH. L25 
 
 birth. " The soul renewed in the image of II in » 
 that created it." The attainment to that Lofty 
 experience wherein "old things have passed 
 away, and behold, all things have become new." 
 If this be not a true conception, and if the dis- 
 tinction between souls thus renewed, and spirit- 
 ually inspired, and those unrenewed and un- 
 sanctified, be not a real distinction, then tin Bi- 
 ble is the most unmeaning and unintelligible of 
 all books. The text is easy of interpretation un- 
 der the conception of Heaven as consisting in the 
 spiritual attainments of the soul divinely trans- 
 formed. " I saw a new Heaven and a new earth, 
 for the first Heaven and the first earth were 
 passed away and there was no more sea." lie- 
 fore, I saw only the old Heaven and the old 
 earth. Life found all its meaning in objects gf 
 sense, all its value in the values of property, all 
 its pleasures in sensuous enjoyments, all its 
 hopes in anticipated wealth, worldly honor, or 
 worldly power. If I thought of Heaven, I thought 
 of it as a far off country, as a walled city located 
 in space, built out of matter and inhabited by 
 beings of sense, like unto the inhabitants of earth, 
 
126 A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH. 
 
 attainable only by a long pilgrimage, a journey 
 to some remote planet in the skies. Now. says 
 the revelator: " I saw a new Heaven and a new 
 earth. Old things have passed away, and behojd, 
 all things have become new/' Now I see the 
 hand-writing of God everywhere on all the works 
 of creation. The sun, the moon, and the stars, 
 the eart!) with its mighty oceans and continents, 
 its islands and lakes, its mountains and valleys, 
 its summer verdure aid its wintry frosts, are a 
 volume of God's communications to the spiritual 
 side of man's nature. 1 read in the strength of 
 the mountains of the omnipotent strength of God 
 as the fortress of the soul against all the assaults 
 of Satan and of sin; I read in the beauty of the 
 violet, of "the beauty of holiness," and in the 
 fragrance of the rose, of the divine aroma of that 
 charity that "suffereth long and is kind," re- 
 vealing itself in all manner of good works. I 
 read in the bountiful harvest of the overflowing 
 gOQjiness of God who, out of the infinite store- 
 house of His grace supplies the soul with im- 
 mortal good. I read in the unfathomable depth 
 and boundless expanse of the ocean of the inter- 
 
A NEW HEAVEN WD \ NEW EARTH. 127 
 
 painable duration and exhaustless capacities of 
 
 the soul. I read in all God's great and mighty 
 works, of His infinite grace and goodness to the 
 
 soul. "I see a new Heaven and a new earth 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness." 
 
 " And there was no more sea." The billowy 
 ocean is of all things else the must perfect type 
 of the carnally minded, selfish, unregenerated 
 man. " Like the troubled sea that cannot rest. 
 but castethup mire and dirt,"' so his sensuous lite 
 which strives only after the things that perish 
 with their using, is an ocean of uncertainty, a sea 
 of adverse currents and tempestuous winds that 
 perpetually lash and tire and toss him upon the 
 uneven surface of adventure, wherein he finds no 
 rest for the sole of his foot. Oh for some solid 
 ground, some fixed anchorage for the soul that 
 secures it from all the perils and disasters of this 
 contradictory world. He who spake to the war- 
 ring elements, saying, " peace be still," and by a 
 word, commanded a calm, thus filling the souls of 
 the despairing disciples with security and joy, 
 holds in his hands all the forces that disturb the 
 peace of our souls and make our life like the 
 • 
 
128 A NEW HEAVEN AXD A NEW EARTH. 
 
 troubled sea, Faith in Him removes all moun- 
 tains, settles all seas, and fills our soul with pro- 
 pitious winds. " And there was no more sea." 
 No more pounding upon the rocks of sin, no more 
 lashing by the surges of remorse, no more drown- 
 ing, no more shipwreck of the soul, for it has 
 found and entered into the harbor of safety. 
 
 " And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusa- 
 lem, coming down from God out of Heaven pre- 
 pared as a bride adorned for her husband." The 
 Holy City, the New Jerusalem, is here conceived 
 of not as a habitation located in the far off re- 
 gions of space to which we are to go after we die, 
 but as a movable thing coming down to us while 
 we live. The mode of expression here employed 
 by the revelator, is an accommodation of lan- 
 guage to the common conception of men. The 
 rising and setting of the sun is not the language 
 of fact, for the sun never rises nor sets, but is sta- 
 tionary, while the rolling of the earth makes its 
 relative direction now in the east, now in the 
 zenith, and now in the west. God is conceived 
 of as having a local habitation above the earth, 
 and that conception accords with His ubiquity, 
 
A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH. 129 
 
 with the fact that He is everywhere, for what is 
 upward in our conception aims at every point in 
 the entire circumference of the heavens in the 
 space of twenty-four hours. The rain always de- 
 scends, but its absolute direction in space changes 
 every moment of time. Every approach toward 
 the earth is a descent, but lines of descent are 
 never parallel, but infinitely various in direction. 
 " So every good gift and every perfect gift Cometh 
 down from the Father of Light." The Holy 
 Spirit descendeth like the showers that watereth 
 the earth. It is always conceived of in the Bible 
 as an outpouring, or as a sprinkling like the dew 
 from Heaven coming down from above. Here 
 the revelator sees Heaven itself with all its unut- 
 terable glory coming down from God out of 
 Heaven out of the regions above us. Instead of 
 waiting to die, and then by a long pilgrimage, 
 traversing illimitable space above us to get to the 
 Holy City, the New Jerusalem, all the spiritual 
 glory and blessedness portrayed under this most 
 beautiful figure, is seen coming down to us out of 
 Heaven. The Celestial city itself is brought 
 down to earth. The new life of the soul, the in- 
 
L30 A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH. 
 
 spiration of (rod in the human breast, the in- 
 dwelling of the Holy Spirit, and the consequent 
 
 vict ,y over sin thus achieved, is all then' is of 
 Heaven. With tins blessed experience, Heaven, 
 with all its joys and triumphs, is already at- 
 tained. When tin' love <>f God is consciously 
 and completely shed abroad in the soul, then the 
 Holy city, the New Jerusalem, has actually come 
 down to it out of Heaven, and it has entered 
 upon the exact enjoyment of that which is prom- 
 ised as the reward of righteousness forever and 
 ever. 
 
 •"And I. John, saw the Holy city, New Jerusar 
 leni. coming down from God prepared as a bride 
 adorned for her husband." This conception of 
 the life of God in the sold has no adequate rep- 
 resentative among all the precious things of com- 
 merce. "The gold and the crystal cannot equal 
 it. no mention shall lie made of coral or of pearls, 
 for 'the price of it is above rubies, the topaz of 
 Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither -ball it he 
 valued with pure gold." There is no beauty, no 
 value, no attractiveness among all the precious 
 things of earth that can exalt them into a just 
 
: AVION AM) A MOW 10 \i: I'll 
 
 comparison with the hew life. Only the bride 
 adorned with those graces of character thai quali- 
 ty her to honor the name and beatify the home 
 of a worthy husband, can tipify the priceless 
 boon of the New Jerusalem, the Holy city, com- 
 ing down from God out of Heaven. On tins ob- 
 ject, the value of which disdains all comparison 
 wilh -old, (ii- the thing's that gold can buy, the 
 poet fixes his mind, and the figure finds ample 
 room for the beauty, the loveliness, and the grace 
 of Heaven to culminate, There is bul one senti- 
 ment in the human breast about a 1 ride adorned 
 for her husband, adorned with the grace of a con- 
 fiding heart, a pure devotion, and a love that no 
 reverses can abate, and that is the sentiment of 
 admiration. The life of holiness, of purity, of 
 love unfeigned and of unreserved consecration to 
 duty, is as the bride a lorned for her husband — the 
 acquisition of unalloyed good. 
 
 u And I heard a great voice out of Heaven say- 
 ing, behold the tabernacle of God is with men, 
 and He will dwell with them, and they shall be 
 His people, and God Himself shall be with them 
 and be their God," The highest idea of spiritual 
 
132 A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH. 
 
 blessedness, either now or hereafter, consists in 
 near approach to God. The most joyful experi- 
 ence of the devout soul arises from personal in- 
 timacy with God. Our highest hope of Heaven 
 is the hope of seeing God, and of knowing more 
 and more of His unfathomable wisdom and good- 
 ness. In all highest states of religious experi- 
 ence in the individual soul, and in the commu- 
 nity, when all the people turn to prayer, to re- 
 pentance and to salvation, when all hearts melt 
 together in love, and when tears of religiQus joy 
 moisten all eyes, then it is that earth becomes 
 most like Heaven, for then it is that God is con- 
 sciously near. The prayer of all Christian hearts 
 that desire a revival of pure religion is. that God 
 will come down, manifest His gracious presence, 
 and take up His abode in the midst of His pec 
 pie. Then it is they sing, " Nearer my God to 
 Thee, nearer .to Thee, though it he a cross that 
 raiseth me, this all my song shall be, nearer mv 
 God to Thee, nearer to Thee." 
 
 " And I heard a great voice out of Heaven say- 
 ing, behold the tabernacle of God is with men." 
 The "Holy city, the New Jerusalem," wherein 
 
A NEW HEAVEN AM) A NEW EARTH, 1.'!.'! 
 
 God eternally dwells, has conic down to earth, 
 and its foundationals fixed in the hearts of men. 
 " Behold the kingdom of God is within you, the 
 tabernacle of God is with men, and lie will dwell 
 with them, and they shall he His people, and 
 God Himself shall be with them, and be their 
 God." Oh the glorious advent prayed for by the 
 devout of all ages, desired and hoped for by the 
 Church universal. " When, oh when, shall the 
 coming of the Son of Man be?" The revelator 
 flying aloft upon the wings of inspiration, hears 
 a great voice out of Heaven, which answers the 
 anxious inquiry : behold the tabernacle of God 
 is already with men, and He will dwell with 
 them and be their God. 
 
 "And God shall wipe away all tears from their 
 eyes." Don't let us wait till we get beyond the 
 valley of the shadow of death before we give God 
 a chance to wipe away the tears from our eyes. 
 He is here ready and willing to do it now. Did 
 you ever take into your arms a broken-hearted 
 child crushed with grief and fear, and sorrow, 
 and with your own napkin wipe away the tears, 
 and with words of comfort soothe the grief of 
 
J-O* A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH. 
 
 your sorrow-stricken child? This, more than 
 anything else that man can do, is like God. 
 Tears are all right. God does not try to prevent 
 theirjow. For the best of reasons, He Himself, 
 breaks up the fountain within us and causes it 
 to overflow. But with His own hand He wipes 
 away the tears that His mysterious providence 
 has caused. Your child is a lifeless corpse, love- 
 ly, joyous, and promising in life, it now lies cold 
 in death. Your head has become waters, and 
 your eyes a fountain of tears; but if your heart 
 be tempered with faith, God can wipe away all 
 your tears, and fill your soul with divine conso- 
 lation. If the tabernacle of God is consciously 
 with you, if you are His child, and He is your 
 God, He can interpret the dark mystery and fill 
 you with joy, even in the midst of your deep sor- 
 row, your child is a lifeless corpse, an angel 
 was wanted in Heaven, she has laid off her mor- 
 tal coil to ' accept an immortal commission in 
 glory, she can not come back to you, but you will 
 soon go to her. " I am the resurrection and the 
 life, he that believeth in Me shall never die." 
 Dry your tears, I am with you, I will never for- ' 
 
A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EAKTII. 135 
 
 sake you. For your child to die is infinite gain 
 for her. She was sweet and lovely lure in the 
 body, and on that very account all the more ob- 
 noxious to temptation and danger. The Devil 
 prepares his snares with most adroitness for such 
 victims, he loves a shining mark. She is now 
 beyond his reach, where God is wiping all tears 
 from her eyes. 
 
 "And there shall be no more death." Is this 
 prophecy fulfilled here, on this side the curtain 
 of mortality? Is this blessed assurance meant 
 for dying humanity here in this vale of tears? 
 Oh, yes. For what else is our religion valuable 
 but to -give us complete victory over our last great 
 enemy — death. If our hope be not built on this 
 divine assurance, then surely it is built upon the 
 sand. Christianity has done nothing for man, it 
 is the most shadowy and transparent of all delu- 
 sions if it have not brought life and immortality 
 to light. If it be a true telescope revealing the 
 solid realities of which all its glorious imagery is 
 but a picture, then welcome infirmity. It is but 
 the loosening of the keys that hold together this 
 fleshly prison house in which our immortal spir- 
 
136 A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH. 
 
 its are bound, and the index of its approaching 
 exit and emancipation into the freedom of a mora 
 pure and an immortal life. With the man who 
 walks by faith and not by sight, death is but the 
 rot of his weary, aching, dying body, ami the 
 complete realization of immortality and eternal 
 life. "Oh death, where is thy sting; oh grave, 
 where is the victory? Blessed be God who giveth 
 us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 And there shall he no more death, neither sor- 
 row, nor crying; neither shall there he any more 
 pain, for the former things are passed away." 
 Such is the promised victory of the Christian's 
 faith. Such the culminating glory of the new 
 life of the soul that walks by faith. But is not 
 this earthly life of ours truly styled a vale of 
 tears? A life of sorrow, of trial, of sickness and 
 of pain? Oh. yes. we make it such just in pro- 
 portion as we live in the world of sense, live at a 
 distance from God, and find the ends of our being 
 in objects of sight. Those objects always disap- 
 point us. The world betrays our trust on every 
 hand. Friends die, youth and beauty fade, 
 riches take wings and fly away, satiety and sick- 
 
V \K\V HEAVES AM) A MOW ICAKTM. 137 
 
 ness convert luxuries into loathing, the excite- 
 ments of pleasure tire us out, and become a ter- 
 ror to our exhausted spirits. The world is full 
 P trouble, sorrow, crying and pain. And unless 
 God has provided a sovereign panacea for all our 
 woe there is nothing in prospect for us hut black 
 despair. " To he carnally minded, is death" To 
 the sensuous, selfish, worldly minded, unbeliev- 
 ing man, this life is truly a living death. " But 
 to he spiritually minded is life and peace." The 
 behest of Christianity is " rejoice ever more." 
 This is the point at which religion becomes a 
 miracle. Here comes in its divine its superna- 
 tural value. "To be spiritually minded is life 
 and peace," despite affliction, sorrow, and pain. 
 P And there shall be no more death, neithi 
 row nor crying; neither shall there lie any more 
 pain." Infidelity croaks and fattens pver the 
 failure of our religion to make us happy. It bor- 
 rows its most telling arguments from our fear, 
 our despondency, our sorrow and mourning. The 
 Christian who can brave all the ills, and calami- 
 ties of his human life with a cheerful heart, and 
 who can smile at the approach of death, needs 
 
138 A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH. 
 
 no argument in justification of his religion. With 
 Him there is no more de.ath, neither sorrow nor 
 crying; neither is there any more pain, for tM 
 former things are passed away. 
 
 Z^t 
 
JNTKRNAL EVIDENCES, |.39 
 
 INTERNAL EVIDENCES. 
 
 For I know that my Ret lee in or liveth. — Job XIX : i'5. 
 
 This is one of the hold and positive utterances 
 of faith, that power of intuition which arrives at 
 conclusions, and which settles the convictions of 
 the soul independently of the external evidences 
 of truth. The religion of the Bible pre-supposes 
 spiritual communication between the Supreme, 
 everywhere present, Divine spirit, and the hu- 
 man spirit. It pre-supposes that the humble, 
 confiding,' dutiful worshiper, who desires and 
 seeks divine light and guidance, is brought ha- 
 bitually into contact and communion with the 
 
140 INTERNAL EVIDENCES, 
 
 God he worships in a spiritual way, and that 
 through this unseen channel of communication 
 he is made to know the mind of God toward him- 
 self, made to know his own spiritual status, to 
 understand the wants of his own soul, to see the 
 proper and only adequate supply of those wants, 
 made to see in what line of life and duty the true 
 interest of the soul lies, and enabled to settle the 
 balances of the moral life in such a way as to 
 have always a conscience void of offence toward 
 God and toward men. This was the case with 
 the patriarch Job, living in that early period, 
 when life and immortality, afterwards brought to 
 light in the Gospel, was but dimly shadowed 
 forth to the faith of the few who walked with 
 God, the few whose souls were illumined with 
 the light divine, he experienced those ebbings 
 and Sowings of faith incident to the darkness 
 that surrounded him, and natural enough, amid 
 the temptations and trials, the afflictions and 
 sufferings with which his cup 'of life was ever- 
 more filled. At one time, in despondency and 
 doubt, and fear, he breaks out in the language of 
 complaint: "Man that is born of woman is a 
 
INTERNAL EVIDENCES. 141 
 
 few days and full of trouble. He cometh forth 
 like a flower and is cut down; he fleet!) also as a 
 shadow and continueth not. There is hope of a 
 tree if it be cut down, that it will sprout again. 
 But man dieth and wasteth away; yea. man 
 giveth up the ghost, and where is he? And then 
 looking into the darkness of the tomb he raiseth 
 the earnest inquiry, if a man die shall he live 
 again?" 
 
 Then again, rising in the confidence of inspired 
 hope, the light divine shining within his soul, and 
 the revelations of immortality and eternal life 
 being made clear to his faith, he exclaims in tri- 
 umph: "I know that my Redeemer liveth and 
 that He shall stand at the latter day upon the 
 earth." 
 
 The subject indicated by the text, and which 
 has given rise to these introductory reflections 
 inclines me to a further consideration of some of 
 the internal evidences of the divine authenticity 
 of the Christian religion. 
 
 The question to be answered, is how do I know 
 that my Redeemer liveth? Preliminary to this, 
 however, there is another question to be settled. 
 
142 INTERNAL EVIDENCES. 
 
 on the right solution of which depends all cor- 
 rect results of the inquiry. It is this: 
 
 Am I in need of a Redeemer? Am I in need 
 of anything? Is my soul satisfied in itself? Is 
 it independent in its life? Self-existent? Self- 
 supporting? Or is it dependent for its life and 
 for the attainment of its true end upon something 
 out of itself ? I assume that my soul, and that 
 the soul <»f every human being is in want, that it 
 is dependent upon a good external to itself Hav- 
 ing made out this proposition, I will then inquire 
 what it is that the human soul needs, and see if 
 we can find the answering good for the supply of 
 our spiritual want. 
 
 That the human soul is not complete in itself, 
 that its life and perfection is dependent on some- 
 thing out of itself, I shall argue first, from the 
 analogies of nature, and secondly, from the reve- 
 lations of consciousness. 
 
 When we look into the world of nature, all na- 
 ture, organic and inorganic, into the world of 
 life, and the world of inert matter, we find a uni- 
 versal law of interdependencies. Every individ- 
 ual existence, every function of all living organ- 
 
INTERNAL EVIDENCES. 143 
 
 isms, and every power in nature, has its correla- 
 tive object. Nothing can realize the end for 
 which it was created alone. The stomach was 
 made for bread, and without it is inopperative 
 and powerless. The eye was made for light, and 
 without light, its necessary correlative, the eye is 
 blind and useless. The ear was made to realize 
 a certain result which we call sound, but that re- 
 sult is dependent upon certain nice adjustments 
 of the elements foreign to the ear itself. How- 
 ever perfect its organism it can not attain the re- 
 sult of sound alone. Separated from the air, in 
 a vacuum, where it can have no contact with at- 
 mospheric vibration, it is stone deaf. The lungs 
 of all living things are so correlative to the air 
 that instant death ensues when atmospheric air 
 is excluded. The seed planted in congenial soil 
 bursts its shell and gives birth to the shooting 
 plant in response to the correlative powers about 
 it, the heat of the sun, the moisture of rain, and 
 the nutriment of the fertilized earth. And this 
 is true every where in the world of life. Every 
 living thing is dependent every moment of its 
 being on a good out of itself, upon supplies and 
 
144 I.VTERNAL EVIDENCES. 
 
 powers external to itself, but yet precisely ad- 
 justed to its wants and made indispensable to the 
 perfection of its being and the fulfillment of its 
 appointed end. The same law pervades inor- 
 ganic nature. Neither pole of the galvanic bat- 
 tery alone is able to beget any of the electric 
 phenomena. Each pule demands the other, and 
 it is only by yielding to this demand and con- 
 necting the two by some conducting medium that 
 results are attained. To this law of correlation, 
 to this principle of action and reaction, and to 
 this alone, is due all the sublimity of the thunder- 
 storm, and all tin- mystery of the electric tele- 
 graph. The mountain is held to its firm base 
 from a.^rc to age by a power not its own, ami the 
 earth with all the planets of all celestial systemSj 
 travel their exact and ceaseless round, guided in 
 their course and saved every moment from con- 
 fusion and chaos by powers brought to bear upon 
 them from without, and on which they must for- 
 ever depend. Nothing in the created universe is 
 made to subsist alone. Everything belongs to a 
 system divinely ordained in which mutual inter- 
 dependence is the universal law. 
 
INTERNAL EVIDENCES. 145 
 
 Thus far, there is no controversy, these state- 
 ments accord with the plainest teachings of phil- 
 osophy, and are received as admitted proposi- 
 tions by all intelligent mi mis. 
 
 Is it probable now that this universal law is 
 limited. to the world of matter? Shu1 your eyes 
 to the Bible and to human experience, and look 
 simply and alone into the volume of nature. 
 Read the law of interdependences there written, 
 and ask yourself the question whether it is proba- 
 ble that this law is limited to material things and 
 to this earthly life. It' the great Architect of na- 
 ture, and author of our present being, has made 
 such nice adjustments of means to ends in the 
 order of visible things, is it fair to conclude that 
 He has left the soul unprovided for, or that He 
 has ordained for it a life of independence? If 
 the infant horn to the nourishing breast as the 
 only condition of its earthly life, must he borne 
 in its mother's arms and lean on its mother's 
 care through all its tender years, and when it has 
 attained its maturest strength must still depend 
 for life on the bounties of nature, have we any 
 right to conclude that the soul can live alone, 
 
146 INTERNAL EVIDENCES. 
 
 that it can find in its own resources the aliment 
 it needs, or that it can attain perfection and 
 bli.-s, without the aid of some power out of and 
 above itself? Would this be in keeping with the 
 nature of things as God has ordained them? 
 Would it accord with His own wise, beneficent 
 and bountiful economy? If He be a kind Father 
 in things pertaining to this life, providing for all 
 living things their meat in due season, what right 
 have we to imagine that in the realm of spirit, 
 He is any the less a Father, or any the less will- 
 ing to provide things better and more bountiful 
 for the soul. 
 
 But if any are skeptical about the wants of the 
 soul, reasoning from the analogies of nature, let 
 us inquire in the sphere of human consciousness. 
 If in the volume of nature we fail to see symbol- 
 ized our own spiritual weakness and dependence, 
 let us look for a moment into the volume of hu- 
 man experience. 
 
 When we do this, we find at once that the 
 whole outer world in the respect in which Ave 
 have been considering it, is but the symbol of a 
 more real system of interdependence and corrcla- 
 
INTERNAL EVIDENCES. 147 
 
 tion in the spiritual world. We find one pre- 
 vailing universally acknowledged fact of spiritual 
 want, a fact inseparable from human nature, as 
 truly so as hunger is inseparable from the body. 
 We find that the soul clamors for its correlative 
 good as really as the stomach clamors for bread; 
 as really as the eye demands light in order that 
 it may perform its appointed functions; as really 
 as the lungs demand the air we breathe. We 
 find that the soul of man everywhere, in all na- 
 tions, in all states of civilization, under all sys- 
 tems of religious faith, evermore demands some 
 correlative object on which to rest, some satisfy- 
 ing portion on which it may find its equilibrium 
 and be at peace. As truly as the needle seeks 
 the pole so truly does the soul of man seek some 
 object of desire, some supply of its acknowledged 
 want out of itself, as truly as the heart of man 
 seeks alliance with the maid of his love, so truly 
 does the soul of man seek alliance with some 
 spiritual correlative, some satisfying good exter- 
 nal to itself, yet evermore in sympathy with it. 
 This want is a universal want, as universal as is 
 the law of hunger or any other of the bodilv de- 
 
148 INTERNAL EVIDENCES. 
 
 sires; and it is as uniformly the same in all men 
 as is the sense of hunger. All men hunger and 
 thirst alike. All men do not seek to satisfy their 
 bodily wants in the same way. What is food to 
 one man may he poison to another, what is luxu- 
 ry to one tribe or nation of men, may be a loath- 
 ing to another. But the sense of hunger is the 
 same in all, and the desire for some sort of food 
 as the correlative of hunger is universally the 
 same. 
 
 Just so whim we come up into tin; realm of the 
 soul. All men feel a yearning want in their spir- 
 itual being. All men have a wounded conscience. 
 No mortal can claim exemption from sin or the 
 wounds that sin inflicts upon the conscience. I 
 do not assert this now. remember, upon the au- 
 thority of Revelation, \ assert it on the universal 
 confession of the race. 1 assert it as a fact of 
 human consciousness, universally acknowledged. 
 
 Otherwise, what is the import of all the reli- 
 gions of nun? What mean the idolatries and 
 superstitions, the pilgrimages and penances, the 
 smoking altars, tic costly oblations, and the self- 
 inflicted tortures of the millions who worship 
 
INTERNAL EVIDENCES. 
 
 either falsi' Gods or the true? Do they Dot all 
 speak the same language; and make the same 
 confession of want? Do they not all point to a 
 felt desire in the soul, and reach forth after some 
 real or imaginary good as a response to that de- 
 sire? It is true that the real wants of the soul 
 are misapprehended more often than otherwise 1 ; 
 it is true that the tiling asked tor is not the thing 
 that the soul needs; it is true that the spiritual 
 remedies that man has devised are a failure. It 
 is true that man has exhausted his ingenuity, 
 and has sought out many inventions. lie has 
 built his altars of sacrifice; he has slain his thou- 
 sands of rams and ten thousands of he goats: he 
 has sprinkled himself with the hlood of hulls; 
 has poured out rivers of oil, and given his first 
 horn for the sin of his soul. He has built costly 
 temples, has piled his hecatombs of bleeding vic- 
 tims, has erected the burning funeral pile, has 
 cast his offspring to the crocodile, and himsel^ 
 before the crushing wheels of juggernaut, all in 
 the vain expectation of realizing the good for 
 which his soul clamored. Is not this so? And 
 is there any doubt of the realitv of the want that 
 
150 INTERNAL EVIDENCES. 
 
 prompts the religious devotion of the world 9 Do 
 you say it is all the fruit of blind superstition, 
 that men have imagined an unreal want? 1 admit 
 the superstition of their devotions, but the want 
 in the soul that prompts those superstitions can 
 not be denied. It is as real as hunger or thirst, 
 or any bodily want. In justification of this, I ap- 
 peal to every man's individual consciousness. 
 Every man, if honest, will confess that his heart 
 condemns him, '' and if our heart condemn us, 
 God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all 
 things:' 
 
 Let us turn now to the volume of Revelation. 
 What is the testimony of the Bible from Genesis 
 to Revelation, touching the question of man's 
 sinfulness and spiritual need? "As the heart 
 panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my 
 soul after Thee, (iod. The whole head is sick, 
 the whole heart is faint, from the sole of the foot 
 even unto the head; there is no soundness in it, 
 but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. 
 For I know that in me that is in my flesh dwell- 
 eth no good thing, for the good that I would I do 
 not, but the evil which I would not that do I. 
 
INTERNAL EVIDENCES. 161 
 
 But I see another law in my members warring 
 against the law of my mind, bringing me into 
 captivity to the law of sin which is in my mem- 
 bers. wretched man that I am who shall de- 
 liver me from the body of this death." This lan- 
 guage of confession of sin and deep felt want in 
 the soul is the vernacular language of the Bible. 
 It is the burden of all its teaching, the inspira- 
 tion of all its poetry, the very foundation and 
 frame work of all its philosophy. 
 
 Be it conceded, then, that man wants a Re- 
 deemer. He wants a cure for the sin of his soul. 
 He wants the love, the sympathy, and forgiveness 
 of the great law-giver whose will he has violated, 
 whose mercy he has abused, and whose bountiful 
 gifts he has squandered. Having fed on the 
 husks and vanities and forbidden objects of time 
 and sense, his hungry soul clamors for a better 
 portion, for more congenial food. Faith looks up 
 and says: " I know that my Redeemer liveth." 
 Looking into the world of nature, it sees the same 
 Divine handiwork in all its wise contrivance. 
 The same hand that created the eye also created 
 the light, for which the eye was made. The same 
 
15- IXTERXAL EVIDENCES. 
 
 hand that created the lungs, created also the air 
 with its nice adjustments of the component 
 gasses for the use of the lungs. The same hand 
 that created the ear appointed also the delicate 
 vibrations of the atmosphere by which alone 
 music is possible. The same hand that created 
 man, seeing that it was not good for man to be 
 alone, created also the counterpart and con-da- 
 tive of himself. " In the image of God created, 
 He, Him. male and female, created He, them." 
 The same hand that ordained life for the whole 
 animal creation susceptible of hunger and thirst, 
 created also the green grass beside the still waters 
 to satisfy the wants of every living thing. 
 
 And may not the hungering, longing, thirst- 
 ing soul evermore clamoring for spiritual food, 
 and for the waters of eternal life, look up to the 
 same beneficent all bountiful hand that feeds the 
 ravens when they cry, that clothes the lillies of 
 the field, that causeth the grass to grow for cattle 
 and herb, for the service of man, providing for 
 every living thing its food in due season, may 
 not the soul look up in faith, and say: " I know 
 that my Redeemer liveth?" I know it from what 
 
INTERNAL EVIDENCES. 153 
 
 I see of the work of His hand. I see the volume 
 of nature written all over with His beneficent 
 
 goodness. " He visitest the earth, and waterest 
 it. He greatly enriches it with the river of God 
 which is full of water, He prepareth them corn 
 when He has so provided for it, He erowneth the 
 year with his goodness, all his paths drop fat- 
 ness — they drop upon the pastures of the wilder- 
 ness — and the little hills rejoice upon every side. 
 The pastures are clothed with flocks, the valleys 
 also are covered over with corn; they shout for 
 joy, they also sing." And hath He not prepared 
 also a. corresponding good for the soul? "My 
 soul longeth, yea even fainteth for the courts of 
 the Lord; my heart and my flesh crieth out for 
 -the living God. I know that my soul shall be 
 satisfied with marrow and fatness, and my mouth 
 shall praise Thee with joyful lips. What wait I 
 for but Thy blessing and the joys of thy salva- 
 tion?" The soul thus conscious of its true need, 
 and thus confident that God has provided the 
 adequate supply, exclaims in the triumph of 
 faith, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." 
 
 Then turning to the New Testament history, 
 
151 INTERNAL EVIDENCES. 
 
 and looking far back over the ages, his ear 
 catches the sound of a living voice, saying, " If 
 any man thirst let him come unto me and drink." 
 He that drinketh at earthly fountains, the best 
 and purest of them shall thirst again. "But 
 whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give 
 him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall 
 give him shall be in him a well of water spring- 
 ing up into everlasting life. He, every one that 
 thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath 
 no money, come ye buy and eat; yea come buy 
 wine and milk without money and without price. 
 I am the bread of life, the bread of God is he 
 that cometh down from Heaven and giveth life 
 unto the world. I am the bread which cometh 
 d«,wn from Heaven. He that eateth of this bread 
 shall live forever. Come unto me all ye that la- 
 bor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 
 Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. for I 
 am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find 
 rest to your souls, for my yoke is easy and my 
 burden is light. And the spirit and the bride 
 sav, come and let him that heareth say, come 
 and let him that is athirst come, and whosoever 
 
INTERNAL EVIDENCES, 155 
 
 will let him take of the water of life freely." 
 Then again the soul exclaims, " I have heard of 
 Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye 
 eeeth Thee." I see in Thee all that my soul 
 needs; I see in Thee the true correlative of my 
 spiritual being, an answering good for all the 
 wants of my soul. I want no Nicodemus now to 
 testify to me that thou art a teacher come from 
 God. I want no profane historian to corroberate 
 the testimony of the friends and disciples of 
 Jesus; I ask no demonstration of miracles to eon- 
 firm my faith in Him. I know that He is my 
 Redeemer, and although He were crucified, dead 
 and buried, " I know that my Redeemer liveth," 
 without the historical testimony to his resurrec- 
 tion. He is a full supply of all my spiritual 
 wants. He is the satisfying portion of my soul; 
 I know He is divine. 
 
 Such is the reasoning of the soul when it comes 
 into a full and conscious recognition of its rela- 
 tion to Christ. Faith takes hold of him as the 
 faith of a hungry man takes hold of bread. Such 
 a man asks neither analysis of the component 
 elements of bread, nor the testimonv of others 
 
156 INTERNAL EVIDENCES. 
 
 that bread is good; that it is the gift of God. be- 
 cause it answers every want of his hungering, 
 famishing body; he knows it is good. And he 
 knows, too, that He that made the body and or- 
 dained the function of appetite, appointed also 
 bread as the answering correlative of that func- 
 tion. When the soul looks on the dying race of 
 men, generation after generation, going down into 
 the grave of darkness and oblivion, how natural 
 to exclaim. " man that is born of woman is of few 
 days and full of trouble," and to ask the question 
 in all earnestness, "if a man die shall he live 
 again?" But when Jesus answers, " I am the 
 resurrection and the life, whosoever believeth in 
 Me,- though he were dead, yet shall he live; let 
 not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God, 
 believe also in Me, in My Father's house are 
 many mansions; if it were not so, I would have 
 told you; I go to prepare a place for you; he that 
 believeth on Me shall never die;" when Jesus 
 thus speaks in the ear of the anxious soul, it is 
 enough. The soul is satisfied and ready to ex- 
 claim, " 1 know that my Redeemer liveth," with- 
 out either the evidence of miracles or the evi- 
 
INTKKXAL EVIDENCES. 
 
 dence of history. But in addition to this clear 
 convincing soul, satisfying internal proof of the 
 
 divinity of Jesus, He gives to the world the visi- 
 ble ocular demonstration of His divine power, by 
 healing the sick, by cleansing the lepers, by un- 
 stopping deaf ears, by opening blind eyes, by 
 raising the dead to life and easting out devils. 
 He takes the powers of nature under His control, 
 saying to the tempest, "peace be still," walking 
 upon the surface of the deep and doing ten thou- 
 sand other wonderful works, and all this He does 
 to strengthen our weak faith, and help the sold 
 to lay hold onhimand accept him as the answer- 
 ing good for which it evermore yearns. 
 
 Come, then, oh sinful man, come, oh fearful 
 despairing, hungering soul, come to this Al- 
 mighty Savior. Come to the fountain of living 
 waters that your souls may never thirst. Come 
 and partake of this living bread that came down 
 from Heaven that your souls may be forever sa- 
 tiated with immortal good. Believe on Him who 
 hath said, "He that believeth on Me, though he 
 were dead, yet shall he live." Make Him your 
 choice, accept of Him as the one thing needful to 
 
158 
 
 INTERNAL EVIDENCES. 
 
 your soul. Abide in Him, as the branch abidetn 
 
 in the vine, that your soul may be filled with all 
 the fullness of God. 
 
THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. l. r )<) 
 
 The Second Coming of Christ, 
 
 When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all 
 the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit on the 
 throne of His glory. And before Him shall lie gathered 
 all nations; and He shall separate them one from an- 
 other, as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats. 
 And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the 
 goats on the left.— Matthew XXV: 31, 32, 33. 
 
 Those who literalize the text of scripture and 
 materialize the imagery of its symbolic language, 
 find in the words of our Savior above quoted 
 reference to the end of the world, when He is to 
 descend -in bodily person, to judge the quick and 
 the dead of all times, and wind up the affairs of 
 
160 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 
 
 this terrestrial world forever. Millenarians, of 
 whom there has been a large number in the 
 church from the apostolic to the present period, 
 giving to the vision of John in the twentieth of 
 Revelation, a literal interpretation, have con- 
 ceived of a thousand years of rest and triumph 
 to the church previous to the final judgment; 
 when saints and martyrs, the living and the 
 dead of every age. are to rise and to reign with 
 ChriBt a thousand years, "but the rest of the 
 dead live not until the thousand years were 
 ended." 
 
 This is called the first resurrection. Then, ac- 
 cording to the vision, Satan is let loose for a lit- 
 tle season to go nut and deceive the nations, and 
 gather them together to battle, and fire came 
 down from God out of Heaven and devoured 
 them, and the Devil that deceived them was cast 
 into the lake of fire and brimstone, to be tor- 
 mented day and night, forever and ever. 
 
 Then the dead, small and great, are seen to 
 stand before God, He being seated upon a great 
 white throne, to be judged out of the things writ- 
 ten in the open books according to their works. 
 
THE SECOND COlftlNG OF CllltlST. 161 
 
 Then death and hell were cast into the lake of 
 fire. This is the second death. And whosoever 
 was not found written in the book of life was cast 
 into the lake of fire. 
 
 Giving literal import to this mosl highly 
 Brought of all poetic imagery, it is quite easy to 
 make out a plausible theory of a millennium, be- 
 Igved in by a large portion of the Christian 
 world, the conception of which obtains its climax 
 by literalizing what follows in the twenty-first of 
 Revelation. "And 1 saw a new Heaven and a 
 new earth, for the first Heaven and the first earth 
 were passed away, and 1, John, saw the Holy 
 city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out 
 of Heaven, etc." During the early centuries of 
 Christianity many took this language as a literal 
 description of a new material Jerusalem actually 
 let down from God out of Heaven to be inhabited 
 by the Saints forever and ever. And the great 
 majority of every period of the Christian era 
 have referred the words of my text to these pro- 
 'phetic visions and others in the Old Testament 
 prophets, equally figurative of great spiritual 
 I ideas for interpretation, which is always adjusted 
 
1(52 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 
 
 in accordance with the same materialistic modes 
 of thought. 
 
 Conceive, I pray you. for a moment my hear- 
 ers, all the precious things spoken of in this won- 
 derful vision of the Apocalypse, but the hiero- 
 glyphics of spiritual language, employed sym- 
 bolically to convey spiritual ideas to the soul, 
 and to have exclusive reference to the soul, that 
 seat of empire in which Christ is King, and 
 wherein is erected a throne, the great white 
 throne from which lie dispenses judgment and 
 justice. Conceive of the Holy city, the New Jer- 
 usalem, coming down from God out of Heaven 
 prepared as a bride adorned for her husband as 
 the new life in the soul, swept and garnished for 
 the grace of salvation wherein is pitched the tab- 
 ernacle of God in which Himself dwells to he 
 their God, etc. How transcendently glorious 
 does the vision make this New Jerusalem in the 
 kingdom of God that cometh not with observa- 
 tion, and that is within the soul. How it ex- 
 hausts all the most beautiful and precious things 
 of earth in the description of its form, its materi- 
 al, its gates of pearl, of sapphire, of jasper, and all 
 
TIIK SECOND I'OMINC 
 
 haanner of precious gems, with streets of pure 
 
 gold, the Lord God Almighty with the Lamb be- 
 ing the temple of it, and with the light of God 
 and the Lamb to be the light thereof, expelling 
 
 all night, and making it eternally a lit temple of 
 the I inly Ghost. Conceive also of the lake that 
 burneth with fire and brimstone, winch in the 
 vision, is called the second death, as tin' hiero- 
 glyphic description of the unutterable spiritual 
 torture of the soul of the fearful, the unbelieving, 
 the murderers, whoremongers and adulterers, and 
 sorcerers, and idolators, and all Hers. And while 
 we are at this spiritual standpoint, let us try to 
 get at the true meaning of our subject. - 
 
 Many Christian commentators, almost with 
 one consent, refer the text to the end of the 
 world, to a general judgment day and to the com- 
 ing of the Son of Man in bodily form to pro- 
 nounce the final doom of all mankind. 
 
 We can make no intelligent progress nor ar- 
 rive at any satisfactory results without first de- 
 termining what our Lord means when He speaks 
 of coming in His glory. 
 
 It will be conceded that He had not then come 
 
164 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 
 
 in His essential glory, but in His humiliation. He 
 had appeared in the flesh, He had made Himself 
 of no reputation, and had taken the form of a 
 servant. He had consented to become a man, 
 and to be subject to all the liabilities of our hu- 
 man lot, as one of the conditions essential to His 
 mission of mercy. He was now in the world of 
 sense, to be seen by the eye of sense, to be heard 
 by the ear of sense, to eat and drink, to sleep and 
 wake, to labor and teach, to suffer and die, under 
 all tiie limitations of human experience. This 
 human arena, while it was adorned by the Sa-j 
 vior with all the dignity of Divine purity and 
 made illustrious by the glory of spiritual eon- 
 quest, by the glory of suffering, and sacrifice for] 
 the redemption of a revolted world, was not the 
 arena of His essential glory. 
 
 " When the Son of Man shall come in His 
 glory;" He has not yet come in His glory. A 
 halo of glory is about Him now which every eve 
 can see. His every word and act bespeak His 
 unearthly origin. But He is yet in His humilia- 
 tion, and the text is a plain prediction, that He 
 
THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. L65 
 
 is to come in His glory, as the Judge of the 
 world. 
 
 What then is the throne of Christ's glory, and 
 how are we to understand the prediction about 
 His being seated upon the throne of His glory? 
 The sentiments of Christians are not uniform, 
 they have never been uniform on this subject. 
 There is a great variety of conception among the 
 most Orthodox and Evangelical Christiana in re- 
 spect to the general judgment and Christ's sec- 
 ond coming, as well as in respect to the resur- 
 rection, and the state of departed spirits between 
 death and the resurrection. All these differenl 
 notions take theirfrom in accordance with the 
 principles of interpretation by means of which 
 the Bible is understood. We have all been cul- 
 tured in a school more or less materialistic. The 
 sermons and books that we have heard and read 
 all our days fixes a day in the near or remote 
 future, when Christ is to come in the midst of a 
 great retinue of visible angels in bodily form to 
 judge the world. Then at the call of a trumpet 
 all the dead of all times are to be resurrected in 
 the identical body of their life, then the soul and 
 
166 THE BECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 
 
 b >dy are to be reunited. fhen the Son of Man 
 is to be seated on a material throne visible to all 
 eyes. Then before Him are to be gathered in a 
 great ampitheater, the countless million of the 
 living and the resurrected dead, out of every land 
 and every age. whom the Judge will separate as 
 the sh phelrd divideth the sheep from the goats. 
 .-■Miii,; the sheep on his right hand and the goats 
 on the left, to receive sentence. Thru the wicked 
 .shall go away int.) everlasting punishment, body 
 and soul to suffer the reward of their deeds, and 
 the righteous reinstated in all their personal 
 identity and social relationships as when living 
 on earth, shall enter into life eternal in a mate- 
 rial Heaven fitted up ami prepared for the eter- 
 inl and blessed abode of beings thus constituted. 
 We have 1 n taught to look at this whole sub- 
 ject from a mat -rial standpoint. To materialize 
 man, to materialize the Son of God, and in 6ar 
 conception h ive stopped short of the glory, hon- 
 or, immortality, eternal life, realized by exis- 
 - in the form of disembodied spfrits. We 
 have materialized Heaven and Hell: yea the word 
 of God itself, by accepting and feeding upon the 
 
THE SECOND COMING OF C1IKTST. Ui7 
 
 verbal signs the exterior husks of the truth, 
 while ignoring the spiritual reality of which they 
 are but the vehicle. 
 
 The second coming of Christ is plainly enough 
 foretold in the Scriptures. It is no doubt a mat- 
 ter of prophecy; Jesus Himself foretold it, the 
 Apostles alluded to it often as a matter about 
 which there was no room to doubt. But mark 
 this, it is always spoken of in the New Testa- 
 ment as an event not in the remote but in the 
 near future. Jesus predicting .this event, says 
 (Matthew XVI: 27 and 28): "For the Son of 
 Man shall come in the glory of His Father with 
 His angels, and then shall He reward every man 
 according to his works. 
 
 "Verily, verily, I say unto you, there be some 
 standing here which shall not taste of death till 
 they see the Son of Man coming in his king- 
 dom." 
 
 So also (Matthew XXIV: 34), speaking the 
 same prediction, he says, " this generation shall 
 not pass till all these things be fulfilled." 
 
 In Mark XIII: 30, after relating in detail all 
 the circumstances of the same event saj^s, " this 
 
168 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 
 
 generation shall not pass till all things be done." 
 And this is again reiterated in the parallel his- 
 tory given by Luke XXI: 32, " and then shall 
 they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with 
 power and great glory. Verily I say unto you, 
 this generation shall not pass away till all be 
 fulfilled." Also in that memorable reply of 
 Jesus to the high priest, in Mark XIV: 62, " and 
 ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right 
 hand of power and coming in the clouds of 
 Heaven." 
 
 There is but one opinion among commentators 
 about the events predicted in the foregoing quo- 
 tations. All agree that they refer to the destruc- 
 tion of the Jewish temple, and the City of Jer- 
 usalem, and the final termination of the Mosaic 
 dispensation. And instead of finding in these 
 and other .Scriptures relating to the same subject, 
 the prediction of Christ's spiritual advent and the 
 inauguration of His spiritual reign in that king- 
 dom, which is righteousness, and peace, and joy 
 in the Holy Ghost, and which is within the soul 
 of human faith, commentators have by strange 
 distortion, made all these predictions typical of 
 
THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 169 
 
 the end of the world, and the beginning of a visi- 
 ble kingdom to be ushered in by the advent of 
 
 the Son of Man as the reigning prince in the 
 sphere of sense. 
 
 It is believed that Paul wrote the epistle to the 
 Thessalonians about the year 52, when he says 
 to them, '* now we beseech you brethren by the 
 coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our 
 gathering together unto Him, that ye be not soon 
 shaken in mind, or be troubled, either by spirit, 
 nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the 
 day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive 
 | you by any means; for that day shall not come 
 except there come a falling away first, and that 
 man of sin be revealed, the Son of perdition," 
 which is characterized further along as "the 
 mystery of iniquity already at work." This man 
 of sin is com m only referred to as the Papal pow- 
 er. But later and more critical inquiry finds no 
 justification of that opinion, for " the mystery of 
 iniquity " was then already at work, which is 
 now supposed to refer not to the Pope centuries 
 in the future, but to the cruel Emperor Nero, 
 who, according to Josephus, was a terror to all 
 
170 THE SECOND COMING OP CHRIST. 
 
 the Provinces, and was then in power, and it is 
 mo3t likely to him that Paul refers, when he 
 speaks of "the lawless one, the mystery of in- 
 iquity, the hinderer." After Nero's death, in the 
 year 68,. intestine commotions convulsed the Ro- 
 man Empire. As Christ had predicted, "ye 
 shall hear of wars and rumors of wars; be not 
 troubled, for all these things must come to pass, 
 hat the en 1 is n »t vet." The en 1 of wh it? X >t 
 the world, but the end of tie* L ■vitical di-p ensa- 
 tion. " For many shall come in my name and 
 shall deceive many." To this prediction John 
 refers in his First Epistle. II: 18: "Little chil- 
 dren, it is the last time, as ye have heard that 
 anti-Christ shall come; even now are many anti- 
 christs, whereby we know it is the last time." trot 
 of the world, but of types and ritual-, of the dis- 
 pensation of legal rites and cer< monials, to give 
 place to the spiritual reign of Christ. Tie 
 lation of Jerusalem was according t > the words of 
 Christ, to he immediately preceded by general 
 c i n motions in the Roman Empire. " For na- 
 tion shall rise against nation, and kingdom 
 againsl kingdom, md there shall befamin 
 
THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 1 i 1 
 
 pestilence-, and earthquakes in diver.se places. All 
 khese arc the beginning of sorrows." Nero was 
 the first Emperor that enacted penal Laws against 
 
 the Christians. Under his cruel hand Peter and 
 Paul suffered martyrdom, and John was ban- 
 ished to Patmos. Ilis savage heart lefi its im- 
 pression on the whole empire, and none could 
 look forward with hope until " he should he taken 
 out of the way." After his death the Jewish war 
 began, which in three years and a half ended in 
 the destruction of Jerusalem and the termination 
 of the Jewish hierarchy. To this it is that the 
 Apostle, whose words and predictions were leav- 
 ened by the predictions of Christ Himself,- re- 
 ferred when they spoke of the last days, or of the 
 end of the world. With them the event spoken 
 of is in the near future; it is impossible that they 
 should have reference to the final end of the 
 world, as we have always been taught to under- 
 stand them.* 
 
 Says Peter, 1900 years ago, "the end of all things 
 is at hand." And Paul also, in his epistle to the 
 Thessalonians, makes many allusions to the near- 
 
 *i:.;mi on the second Advent, 
 
172 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 
 
 ness of the coming of Christ, a thing to be antici- 
 pated in the near future, " even the coming of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ to be supreme in all hearts." 
 
 From the Scriptures quoted, and from the con- 
 clusions adduced, I feel safe in assuming that the 
 text can have no reference to the end of this ma- 
 terial world, or the return of Christ in bodily 
 presence to be seen by the eyes of men. But that 
 it refers to His spiritual reign, subsequent to the 
 winding up of the Levitical dispensation which 
 ended in the overthrow of Jerusalem. 
 
 But we have all been taught to fix the judg- 
 ment at a point in the future beyond all the cyc- 
 les of time, when the dead, with the living, small 
 and great, shall stand before God. I desire, if 
 possible, to take a more rational, a more Scrip- 
 tural, and a more truly spiritual view of this sub- 
 ject. 
 
 I do not by any means desire to lower down 
 the fearful realities of the judgment day or to 
 eliminate from the doctrine of retribution an iota 
 of its solemn import. On the contrary, I desire 
 to bring the reality more consciously near to 
 every soul. T desire to look through all material 
 
vi [ !■: SECOND COMING OF CHRIST, I 73 
 
 signs and apprehend the tiling signified. I de- 
 sire to go beyond the shadow in search ofth< 
 substance. I desire to shut the eye, to close th< 
 ear, and for the moment, paralyze all bodily 
 
 sense, that I may take account of the relatione 
 and destiny of my immaterial self; and to this 
 end I repeat the inquiry, "when does the Son of 
 Man come in His glory?" and what is it that 
 constitutes the throne of 1 1 is glory'.'' 
 
 The ancient Jews prefigured Him as a prince, 
 crowned with the diadem and hearing the seep* 
 terofa human king. The throne of His glory 
 predicted to their imagination was the seat of na- 
 tional power, and the triumphs of His reign, free- 
 dom from the thraldom of a foreign yoke, and a 
 restoration of the Jewish hierarchy, and of all the 
 rights and privileges of the Jewish religion. Lit- 
 tle less earthly and material are the conceptions 
 of those Christians who predict the second com 
 ing of the Son of Man in the visible glory of the 
 judgment day, seated upon a great white throne, 
 like the lofty peak of some snow white mountain 
 in bodily form, " which every eye can see," speak- 
 ing in audible words to the countless millions 
 
5 74 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 
 
 who have risen from the universal graveyard of 
 death, to meet him in judgment. The highest 
 throne of glory to which Jesus ever aspired in His 
 first advent to this earth, was a seat in the faith 
 of men. To be made known to the world as the 
 Divine One, as " God with us," and to make His 
 kingdom as a spiritual kingdom, coining not with 
 observation, not with outward circumstance of 
 royalty and visible power, but coming in the 
 heart of believers. Ail the expectations of the 
 materialistic Jews were disappointed when their 
 predicted king had come as the babe of Bethle- 
 hem, to be cradled in a manger, to be reared in 
 the caste of peasantry, to dwell in the humblest 
 vales of poverty, and to seek the crown of his ce- 
 lestial empire wherever there is the most of suf- 
 fering, deformity and sin among men. He was 
 a physician to the sick, He was cleansing to the 
 leprous, He was eyes to the blind, hearing to the 
 deaf, and most of all, salvation to the guilty. 
 Through these channels of Divine beneficence, He 
 made His way to the faith of the world, where 
 He fixed the eternal foundations of the throne of 
 His glory. He was a stumbling block and a rock 
 
THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 175 
 
 of offense to the Jews. They rejected him, and 
 as a nation, soon experienced the fulfillment of 
 His own prediction, "On whom this stone shall 
 fall it shall grind him to powder." The expecta- 
 tion of those who look for the second coming of 
 our Lord with material demonstrations has been, 
 and I verily believe, must forever be disap- 
 pointed. 
 
 Second Adventists have been in the Church 
 ever since the Apostle wrote; prophecy lias pre- 
 dicted the event, and interpreters of every genera- 
 tion have fixed the time of His coming (often in 
 their own day) when all eyes were directed up 
 into Heaven to see Him returning so as He as- 
 cended in the sight of His disciples after His res- 
 urrection. 
 
 Be not deceived, my hearers, Christ has al- 
 ready come in His glory with all His holy an- 
 gels, and He is now seated upon the throne of 
 His glory, and before Him are now gathered all 
 nations, and He is now dividing one from an- 
 other as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the 
 goats. This is a bold and sweeping assumption. 
 Be not hasty, I pray you, to pronounce it heresy. 
 
I'D THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 
 
 Fear not that I would lay an ax at the root of 
 that towering tree against which all our Ortho- 
 dox standards of belief upon this subject lean for 
 support, by no means. I only desire to dispel 
 the shadow of that tree, to pass beyond the tan- 
 gible signs of the judgment day, and by pouring 
 in the light of truer and more spiritual interpre- 
 tations of the word of God, endeavor to find the 
 true substance of which the literal text supplies 
 but a symbol. 
 
 The world knew not God. Christ came to 
 bring the knowledge of God into the face of men; 
 •• to this end was I born, and for this cause came 
 I into the world," said He, "that I should bear 
 witness unto the truth." The Jews, the chosen 
 people of God, were of the earth, earthly. The 
 promised good to be gained as the reward of obe- 
 dience, was earthly good in their conception, and 
 the desolations threatened for disobedience were 
 earthly desolations. They could understand 
 Christ when He predicted the destruction of Jeru- 
 salem, but they could not understand that the 
 retributions of that temporal event so fearfully 
 appalling was but a symbol of the more awful 
 
THE SECOND COMING OB 1 CHRIST. 1 77 
 
 spiritual retribution that awaited (lie souls of the 
 incorrigible, when the Sou of Man should come 
 in His »-loi-y to judge the world. Christ came to 
 break the sky of brass over their heads, to eman- 
 cipate their souls from the fetters of sense, and 
 convert the whole material world with its judg- 
 ments on the one side, and its blessings on the 
 other, into a type of spiritual realities in the 
 World to come. 
 
 Immortality was a, conception above the mind 
 of the average Jew. Christ came to bring life 
 and immortality to light, lie came to be a con- 
 necting link between the visible and the invisible 
 world. He could not inspire faith in the reali- 
 ties of the invisible by verbal reports. He could 
 not tell men about the spirit world and make 
 them believe it. He could not tell them about 
 the resurrection ami make them believe it. He 
 must needs accommodate His revelation to sen- 
 suous minds. He must needs make Himself an 
 object of sensible beholding. The invisible God 
 whom no eye hath seen or can see, must needs 
 become human, that he might show himself to 
 the world through the medium of sens,-. He 
 
178 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 
 
 must needs accommodate the doctrine of life af- 
 ter death to the clumsy apprehension of a sensu- 
 ous world by dying and living again in the sight 
 of men. In order to make the world believe in 
 the reality of the unseen, He must needs go up 
 to it in a body that the world could see. All this 
 Christ did, as 1 verily believe, to make sure the 
 foundations of His throne in the faith of men. 
 
 He told his disciples that it was expedient that 
 he should go away. To have remained in the 
 flesh as an object of sight would have defeated 
 his mam purpose, since it would have intensified 
 rather than abated their sensuous conceptions. 
 To have localized Himself here in a human body 
 would have been the beginning of a system of 
 endless pilgrimages from every part of the hab- 
 itable globe, rushing to behold, with their bodily 
 eyes the greatest wonder of the world, making 
 Him no longer an object of faith (but what He 
 most desired to avoid), an object of sight. Christ 
 came down into humanity to exalt himself upon 
 the throne of human faith. He went back to 
 heaven in visible form to carry the faith of men 
 with him, and so to become forever the Supreme 
 
iik sKciixi) c()Mi\(i ok ciiuisr 
 
 Object of faith, If be bad vanished out of their 
 |Bight, as he did at Emmaus, so that they could 
 not sec him depart and enter into the cloud, lie 
 would have lost his hold on human faith- 
 
 He went ui) to the Father as he had foretold in 
 fche sight of his disciples, and Ids promise to re-< 
 turn was corroborated by celestial witnesses in 
 white apparel, saying, " This same Jesus which 
 is taken up from among yon into heaven shall so 
 come in like manner as ye have seen him go into 
 heaven." Second Adventists claim this as un- 
 answerable in support of Christ's second ooming 
 in the flesh, They claim that the Apostles so 
 understood it. Admitting- that they did for the 
 sake of the argument, is it certain that they were 
 not mistaken? They were wry slow to appre? 
 heud the spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom, 
 £ How often the good Savior was called to rebuki) 
 the grossness of their material conceptions, and 
 how difficult he found it to make clear to their 
 comprehension in visible realities, It was expe- 
 dient that Christ should go away, and there must 
 be eye witnesses to his departure to make sure 
 his hold on the faith of the world, His promised 
 
ISO THE SECOND COMING 0) 
 
 return was divinely certified; celestial witnesses 
 were present to reaffirm his promise, Do any 
 distrust it? More than eighteen hundred years 
 have roiled away. The Son of Man has never 
 returned in the flesh; has he nol returned in his 
 glory? Is he not seated on the throne of his 
 glory? Is not the universal world of mankind 
 before him, and is he not separating then, one 
 from another as a shepherd divideth his sheep 
 from the goats? 
 
 Three thousand souls ever} hour of time, three 
 5CO re and ten thousand every day leave this 
 ...,,,, 1 ! and go to the judgment where th 
 tried by the law of faith. * He thai heiieveii; 
 hath life, and he that helieveth not hath net life 
 hut the wrath of God abideth on h in." fie n 
 shall he sit upon the throne of his glory; the 
 throne that he attaint' 1 by his incarnation, death. 
 resurrection, ascension, and by his spiritual man- 
 ifestation, and before him shall be gathered all 
 nations. Don't think of this. 1 pray yo 
 far off dateless future event, but as an i ver pres« 
 ent constant fact, and know that the human faini 
 ilv, hour by hour, in an army three thousand. 
 
THJ': SECOND COMINe OV CHRIST, Ifil 
 
 Btrong is summoned lor trial. Think not, I pray 
 you, of the resurrection as a remote event to ac* 
 crue at the end of the world. The Scriptures 
 teach no such thing. The ablest and soundesl 
 of Biblical scholars now repudiate the theory as 
 inconsistent, not only with reason, but with the 
 plainest and most approved understanding of 
 God's word. Rather believe that death and the 
 resurrection are simultaneous events, and thai 
 when freed from the shackles of the flesh, we are 
 instantly translated into the spirit realm to re- 
 ceive the reward of our deeds. 
 
 The judgment day, which is said to be the day 
 for which all other days were made, brings pale- 
 ness to every countenance. Let us pause and 
 think how very near Ave all are to it. My friends, 
 the end of the world is just at hand with every 
 one of us. Within the short space of thirty years, 
 which is the average of human life, a thousand 
 million souls pass the ordeal of the judgment. 
 When death comes, that is the end of the world 
 with every soul, and the beginning of eternal 
 good or evil. 
 
 A few words on this point will relieve your pa- 
 
182 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 
 
 tience. Let us revert to first principles. All 
 agree that the Son is co-existent with the Father, 
 and that before his incarnation as the son of 
 Mary, he was a spirit as God the Father was a 
 spirit. All agree that his crucified body was 
 raised to life, that he lived, ate, drank, slept, 
 walked and conversed, and was recognized by his 
 friends, who saw and felt of his wounds, and 
 knew that he was the veritable Jesus that was 
 crucified. All agree also that his body was under 
 his miraculous control. When occasion required, 
 he could put it out of sight. At Emmaus he van- 
 ished out of sight. On another occasion he ap- 
 peared in the midst of his disciples in a closed 
 room without the opening of a door or the utter- 
 ance of a sound. All agree that he ascended in 
 bodily appearance, and that a cloud received him 
 out of sight. Beyond that we know nothing of 
 his body. No reference is ever made to it after- 
 wards. When he appeared to Saul on the way to 
 Damascus nothing is said of bodily form. We 
 are assured that flesh and blood do not dwell in 
 Heaven. Christ's risen body was a fleshly body 
 —it went into a cloud as other bodies go into the 
 
THE SECOND COMING OP CHRIST. 183 
 
 grave. We know nothing farther. Christ was a 
 spirit. He assumed human form for a purpose. 
 It was the instrument used as other men's bod- 
 ies are used in this world for all the purposes of 
 sentient existence. Other men lay their bodies 
 in the grave when they have no more use for 
 them. Christ's incarnation was not completed 
 until he had fulfilled his purpose to go to the Fa- 
 ther. The world must be convinced by the evi- 
 dence of their senses, in order to retain his hold 
 on human faith. He went up into the heavens 
 and a cloud received him out of sight. All else 
 is conjecture. Was he excarnated in the cloud, 
 that is, did he shuffle off the mortal coil beyond 
 human sight and reduce it to vapor? Did it 
 vanish as at Emmaus? And did he then as- 
 sume the spirit form of his anti-incarnate state? 
 All these questions are left to conjecture without 
 evidence. That he ever lives, seated at the right 
 hand of the Father as our advocate and interces- 
 sor, we have assurance. Here let our faith abide, 
 knowing that in whatever form of lift; he is infi- 
 nitely glorious, not because of his external shape, 
 but because of his internal goodness; because of 
 
184 
 
 THE SECOND COMING OP CHRIST. 
 
 the unseen beauty of his holiness, and knowing, 
 too, that through faith we shall be like him, and 
 shall see him as he is. 
 
 I am aware, my friends, that the theories I 
 have advanced are open to criticism. I have not 
 been careful to follow the grooves worn smooth 
 by the current of thought in which the popular 
 Christian mind has been accustomed to run. I 
 have been able in the short limits of an ordinary 
 sermon, to do but little more than barely enunci- 
 ate the several points of my theory without stop- 
 ping to argue them, and for the purpose of leav- 
 ing them distinct in your mind, I will recapitu- 
 late the points as follows: 
 
 First, I hold that the soul is immaterial, and 
 that its happiness and its misery are internal to 
 itself, the result of no material surroundings, but 
 exclusively the result of its own moral condition. 
 The soul is in Heaven when in a state of equilib- 
 rium and peace; it is in Hell when in a state of 
 unrest, and out of harmony with itself and God. 
 
 Second, I hold that the language of Scripture 
 that relates to the future state under material 
 representations is figurative language, employed 
 
THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 185 
 
 to typify spiritual conditions, and that all inter- 
 pretations that literalize such language, tend to 
 mislead the mind and obscure the truth. 
 
 Third, I hold that the throne of Christ's glory 
 is figurative of his spiritual supremacy through 
 the power of faith, and that the design of his in- 
 carnation, was to gain such supremacy over the 
 human heart. 
 
 Fourth, I hold that the second coming of 
 Christ, always spoken of by himself and the 
 Apostles as a near event, refers to his return to 
 them in the spirit; that it was fulfilled on the 
 day of Pentecost immediately after his ascension. 
 I believe with Joseph Cook, the great divine and 
 lecturer of our denomination, and with many 
 other Evangelical teachers of our time, that the 
 Holy Spirit which descended on the disciples on 
 the day of Pentecost, is the continued life of 
 Christ in his Church, and that it is in this form, 
 and not in bodily form, that he fulfills the prom- 
 ise, " Lo, I am with you always, even unto the 
 end of the world." 
 
 Fifth, I hold that the end of the world and the 
 day of judgment for each individual soul is the 
 
18(3 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 
 
 day of the death of the body; that the judgment 
 
 is a perpetual fact, and that many thousands, 
 small any great, appear before God every day. 
 
 Sixth, I hold that the resurrection is typical of 
 the life of the soul, that the figure of a spiritual 
 bolv teaches not the resurrection of the material 
 body, but the immortality of the soul of which 
 Christ is declared to he tin' resurrection and the 
 life that it is an event simultaneous with the 
 death of the body. It is spoken of in tin- pres- 
 ent tense, and as the body -> returns to dust tbe 
 spirit returns to God who gave it." 
 
 Seventh, I hold that the end of the world 
 Spoken of by our Lord had reference to some 
 event in the near future, probably to the winding 
 up of the Levitical dispensation; and that of the 
 end of the natural universe we have no scriptural 
 prediction. 
 
 If in anything I do not sec eye to eye with my 
 Christian friends, in heart I trust we are agreed, 
 and let us pray that no differences of intellectual 
 perception, alienate that love which is the 
 cementing bond of the Church, and which should 
 cause all brethren to dwell together in unity. 
 
Til I' [DEAL MAN, (.87 
 
 The Ideal Man. 
 
 And God said, let us make man in our Image, aftei 
 our likeness: and Let them have dominion over the fish 
 of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cat* 
 tie, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing 
 that creepeth upon the earth. 
 
 So God created man in his owx image, in the image of 
 God created he him; male and female created he them. 
 Jen. I: 26, 27, 
 
 When all other orders of life hud been created, 
 each after its kind. Each species after a certain 
 ideal preconceived in the Creator's mind, then 
 God said, " Let us make man in our image, and 
 after our likeness," This is not said of any other 
 
188 THE IDEAL MAN. 
 
 creature of life. Nothing else was made in the 
 likeness of God. But everything created, whether 
 by Divine or human art. is fashioned after some 
 ideal likeness. The artist oannot produce a thing 
 on canvass or in concrete form, without an ideal 
 model previously conceived, The watch must be 
 a thought in the maker's mind before it can he. 
 come a thing of sight. And the Divine Creator 
 works under the same law. If the pedigree of an 
 individual horse be traced back in time from son 
 to sire, and from sire tograndsire, until it readies 
 its source, it will reach an ideal in the Creator's 
 mind, after which the first horse was made to be* 
 the progenitor of a species, the successive indi- 
 viduals of which should manifest in space the 
 form and functions of the original ideal. All 
 other creatures of life having been made each af- 
 ter its kind, then " God said let us make man in 
 our image." 
 
 It is not in order here to introduce the mooted 
 questions pertaining to the Godhead— whether 
 that be a unit in tripple form, or a triplet — each 
 factor of which is distinct in personality, and all 
 three of which are indispensible to the unity of 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. [S'.t 
 
 the Godhead — waving these questions, we can- 
 not, without violence to the record, hoth of the 
 Old and New Testament, ignore at least the du- 
 ality, to say nothing now of the Trinity of the 
 Godhead. St. John is very explicit in specifying 
 and naming the party of the second part in this 
 duality. He calls him The Word, or objective 
 expression of the invisible God. "He was in the 
 beginning with God, he was God. All things 
 were made by him. He was made flesh and 
 dwelt among us." Jesus says of himself, " be- 
 fore Abraham was I am," implying that he was 
 coevil with the Father and was present when God 
 said, "let us make man in our image and after 
 our likeness." The common thought of the 
 Church is that Jesus began to be human when he 
 became the son of Mary. That before the incar- 
 nation he was divine and not human. The 
 thought I wish now to evolve, is that he was al- 
 ways human. That he was the Godman antece- 
 dent to the incarnation, antecedent to the crea- 
 tion. 
 
 " He applies to himself the unique but signifi- 
 cant title, 'The Son of Man,' which is a Hebrew 
 
190 THE IDEAL MAN. 
 
 idiom, a form of expression used in the Old Tes- 
 tament to express ' Humanity.' It is equivalent 
 to and means the same as man in the general 
 sense, or ' The Humanity.' Instead of using the 
 word 'man' in the generic sense, and saying, I 
 am 'Tin: Humanity,' while you are only men 
 partaking of humanity, he calls himself the ' Son 
 of Man.' The term means humanity, not in its 
 individual members, but in its root. He means 
 to say to us, I am the principle of your humani- 
 ty, or your humanity in its principle. " I am 
 the vine, ye are the hranches." (Philosophy of 
 Trinitarian doctrine: Pease p. 102.) 
 
 Looking backward for the root element of the 
 canine or any of the animal species, we find it to 
 be an ideal in the Creator's mind, without which 
 original conception, such a thing as the canine, 
 or any other species is inconceivable. Without 
 the antecedent thought the thing were impossi- 
 ble. But there is no indication of a Divine ele- 
 ment in any of the animal species. No one of 
 them ever rose to the plane of moral character, 
 where right and wrong are known, where alone 
 sin and holiness are possible, where reason and 
 
THK IDEAL MAN. 191 
 
 speech, the instrument of reason, are in requisi- 
 tion, where conscience, the behest of God is spir- 
 itually asserted, and where moral responsibility 
 the result of a self-determining will is conceiva- 
 ble. These Divine elements are above and out of 
 possible reach of the beasts. They have knowl- 
 edge in the sphere of nature, but they have no 
 relation to the higher realm of spirit and the su- 
 pernatural. In life they act under the laws of 
 material nature, and when they die, nothing sur- 
 vives them to respond to the laws of the super- 
 natural. The life of the beast, like the life of a 
 tree, or the light of a candle being snuffed out is 
 for ever extinct. 
 
 In tracing back the genealogy of the human 
 species as St. Luke has done, it winds up thus: 
 " Which was the son of Enos, which was the son 
 of Adam, which was the son of God?" In com- 
 mon with other sentient creatures, Adam was 
 formed out of the dust of the ground, and up to 
 this point he was not human any more than the 
 dog or the horse were human. He was like other 
 sentient creatures, of no one of whom is it said, 
 '' which was the son of God?" Something more 
 
1^2 THE IDEAL MAN. 
 
 was needed to realize the proposition then under 
 advisement between God the Father and the son 
 of man, viz: to make man in the Divine image. 
 Hence, having formed man out of the dust of the 
 ground he breathed into his nostrils, and he be- 
 came a living soul— became the son of God, like 
 unto " the son of man "—the original ideal of the 
 human race, after which all the successive indi- 
 viduals of the species are each a separate mani- 
 festation, and without which, as the author above 
 quoted says, " Such a thing as the human species 
 is inconceivable and manifestly impossible." 
 
 We have seen abnormal specimens of sentient 
 life in human form from which the divine in- 
 breathing of the higher nature, for some inscruta- 
 ble reason was withheld; a semblance of a man 
 without a soul, an idiot, dragging out the life of a 
 beast on the lowest and most revolting level of 
 sentient being. And from such examples, we 
 learn that humanity, which constitutes our like- 
 nessto the Divine image, is distinct from our 
 fleshly form, is derived from its Divine original, 
 and is part of it, as truly as the branch is part of 
 the vine. 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 193 
 
 Our forms of though have always been molded 
 more or less in error on this profound and deeply 
 interesting subject. We have I n slow, to be- 
 lieve that humanity, apart from "the son of 
 man,'' is an impossible conception; that he en- 
 tered the race no less at the creation than at the 
 incarnation not to make himself human, but to 
 make mankind human. At the creation lie was 
 inbreathed as the crowning act by which man 
 became a living soul. At the incarnation he was 
 born into the race to repair the damage which 
 sin had inflicted upon that divine thing called 
 •humanity, which God breathes into the nostrils 
 of every son and daughter born in the line of our 
 first parents. 
 
 " The son of man," then, revealed in the full- 
 ness of time in the person of Jesus of Nazareth is 
 the ideal maim. He is the party of the second 
 part in the duality of the Godhead in whose im- 
 age the Creator, after deliberate council, decided 
 to make man. The root principle of all humani- 
 ty is in him. And being derived from him it 
 must partake of his own divine nature. 
 
 The catechism tells us that " our first parents 
 
194 THE IDEAL MAX. 
 
 were created in righteousness and true holiness." 
 The Bible does not tell us any such thing. It 
 tells us that Adam was formed out of the dust of 
 the ground in common with other animals, and 
 that God distinguished him from all the others 
 by breathing into his nostrils, thus causing him 
 to become a living soul — to become HUMAN — to 
 become a spirit in the likeness of God. (See the 
 following discourse on the Garden of Eden.) 
 
 The premise that I wish to establish is, that 
 humanity is no part of the animal, whether in 
 the bruit or in man. It belongs to the spiritual 
 side of our being, and was divinely inbreathed 
 when man became a living soul in the likeness of 
 God. 
 
 And another point I wish to make is, that our 
 humanity that likens us to God does not neces- 
 sarily imply holiness. It is a thing distinct from 
 moral character. It implies a living soul 
 equipped with powers capable of holiness and 
 capable of sin. The Divine inbreathing imparts 
 neither the one or the other. It imparts moral 
 power, but not moral character, which comes af- 
 terwards by the voluntary use of the spiritual 
 
rtowere, The idea that Gud created man's char< 
 a.eter as an artist creates the different shades of 
 color upon canvas implies involuntary virtues op 
 vices which involves a moral absurdity. These 
 conn 1 afterwards as the fruit of voluntary action. 
 Conceiving Adam to be a generio term typical of 
 the human race, then God breathes into the nos- 
 trils of every child of the race, and he becomes a 
 Jiving soul, neither sinful or holy, without the 
 knowledge of good or evil, and in accordance with 
 the Adamic type, the whole family of man is 
 placed on trial, each upon his own individual re- 
 sponsibility. In the lower animals, the carnal 
 instincts which are their only governing law, and 
 which are wisely ordained for good ends are self- 
 regulating. They arc under the autonomy of na- 
 ture which limits them to their natural and nec- 
 essary uses. Hence they can do no sin, "To 
 err is human." in us are the same carnal in. 
 stincts as are in the beast, ordained for the same 
 ends, viz: procreation and subsistance of life, 
 Put we are human, like unto our divine original, 
 ¥ The Son of Man," who gave us dominion over 
 the instincts of our animal nature, "the lust of 
 
JA)D THE IDEAL MAN. 
 
 the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life 
 which are not of Ihe Father, but of the world." 
 And this will accord with the language of the 
 allegory if we paraphrase " the beasts of the field, 
 the fish of the sea, and the fowls of the air," over 
 which God gave man dominion, and make them 
 symbolic of animal instinct. Besides, by this use 
 of the terms, the rationale of the whole subject 
 becomes intelligible, Nature sets bounds to the 
 works of the flesh in the lower animals. Thus 
 far, and no farther, can they go, and within the 
 natural limits, they seek natural and legitimate 
 ends. In man it is not so, Humanity involvea 
 the fearful responsibility of rational control in 
 the empire of the senses, which in us, defy the 
 antonomy of nature and run riot to the ruin of 
 the soul, except reason assert her sway and say 
 to the rebellious passions, " peace be still." 
 
 Within the breast of every son and daughter 
 of the race there abides the same option typified 
 by the experience of Adam in presence of the tree 
 of the knowledge of good and evil, and in pres» 
 ence of the tree of life, pleasant to the sight, and. 
 whose fruit is good for food, 
 

 THE IDEAL MAN. 197 
 
 On the one side is the carnal nature, under no 
 self-restraining law as in the lower animals, but 
 in us manifested by the works of the flesh, which 
 in the language of the Apostle, are these: " Adul- 
 tery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 
 idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation, 
 wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, mur- 
 ders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like." On 
 the other side are " the fruits of the spirit," be- 
 tween which and the works of the flesh, there is 
 an impassable gulf. '* These are love, joy, peace, 
 long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meek- 
 ness, temperance, against which there is no law." 
 Adhering to the thought that Adam means the 
 human race, each individual of which is clothed 
 with the fearful responsibility of voluntary choice 
 between these opposite elements of character, we 
 escape the hard lesson of the schools about origi- 
 nal sin, inherent in the blood and transmitted by 
 generation, and learn the other more rational les- 
 son which teaches that every soul is subjected to 
 the same temptation, and is liable to the same 
 fall, on the same conditions, for which himself, 
 
1 ( .»8 THE IDEAL MAX. 
 
 not the first man is responsible. (See the follow- 
 ing discourse on the fall.) 
 
 In the fulness of time, The Ideal Humanity 
 " that was in the beginning with God and that 
 was God, was made flesh and dwelt among us." 
 The story of the temptation to which he was sub- 
 jected is the story of the Garden of Eden re- 
 peated under different symbols with a different 
 result. The second Adam, while he was the Lord 
 from Heaven, was at the same time human, and 
 "■ subject to like passions as other men." The 
 high mountain to which the tempter led him, was 
 the same mountain to which he leads all men. It 
 was the mount of ambition which is in the breast 
 of every man. The first Adam was ambitious to 
 become as God's knowing good and evil, the price 
 of which was, to stultify reason and go captive to 
 the flesh under the enticements of the Devil. 
 How (fitter and how remorseful was the knowl- 
 edge so gained, every transgi*essor finds out by 
 experience. "The wages of sin is death." When 
 11 the son of man " entered the dark wilderness of 
 temptation, the forbidden fruit was transformed 
 into all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 100 
 
 of them. This was the most commanding- of all 
 possible appeals by which to carry captive the 
 sensuous nature. 
 
 We are in the habit of thinking thai he, be- 
 cause divine, could repel the tempter with a "gel 
 thee behind me," while we, because human, could 
 not, forgetting that humanity and divinity are 
 synonymous terms. Freewill, reason, conscience, 
 moral judgment, everything that constitutes our 
 humanity, and which God imparted to us when 
 he made us living souls in his own image, arc 
 not one thing in the " son of man " and another 
 thing in us. They are divine elements in Our 
 humanity as truly as in that of the Ideal Hu- 
 manity. And it will not do to assume that bis 
 was not a sensuous nature, tempted in all points 
 like as we are. We rob the temptation of its 
 highest significance, and of all its moral value to 
 us, if we say he was not subject to like passions 
 as other men, and was exempt from the dangers 
 of other men, by reason of the supernatural 
 qualities of his character. He took upon himself 
 our nature with all the liabilities of our human 
 lot. It was not the omnipotent might of a God- 
 
200 THE IDEAL MAN. 
 
 by which he overcame the Devil, but the moral 
 might of a man. And it is only in this light that 
 the temptation of the Savior can be of value to 
 us either as our example or our encouragement. 
 Up to the time of his baptism there is little in 
 his history to indicate the great future that lay 
 before him, or to show that himself was conscious 
 of it. But when the spirit lighted like a dove 
 upon him, and a voice from Heaven proclaimed, 
 " this is my beloved son," then, if never before, 
 he awaked to the full consciousness of his fearful 
 responsibility as an ambassador from the eternal 
 throne to the empire of earth in revolt from its 
 allegiance to the king of kings. How natural 
 under the crushing weight of this sudden and aw- 
 ful announcement that he should follow the lead 
 of the spirit into the wilderness and betake him- 
 self to fasting and reflection. Then came the 
 mightiest of all moral conflicts between the em- 
 pire of Satan and of sense on the one side, and 
 the empire of God and the spirit on the other. 
 The one reinforced by the irrepressible clamors 
 of hunger, begotten of forty days' fasting, under- 
 takes to prostitute the commission of the " son of 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 201 
 
 man " sent to bring the bread of (lod thatcometh 
 down from Heaven to one fallen, and sin-ruined 
 humanity. "If thou be the .son of God, com- 
 mand that these stones be made bread." 
 
 The soliloquy that followed can be imagined 
 from the brief hints of the story. 
 
 If I should convert these stones into the bread 
 that perisheth I should be deified by the sensu- 
 ous world and make sure my way to riches and 
 renown. I should become an ally to the very 
 power that I am born to antagonize. " Man can- 
 not live by bread alone." The beast that lives 
 only in the flesh can live by bread alone. But I 
 am come that they might have spiritual life, and 
 this is attainable only by mortifying the clamors 
 of sense and yielding unreservedly to the domin- 
 ion of the spirit. "To be carnally minded, is 
 death. To be spiritually minded, is life and 
 peace." 
 
 Shall I do evil that good may come? I am 
 sent as the captain of salvation to lead the re- 
 deemed of the Lord to victory over the lusts of 
 the flesh by the way of self-denials, the way of 
 sufferings, and crosses. And shall the leader in 
 
202 THE IDEAL MAX. 
 
 this holy war, abashei by the wolf of hunger 
 himself, go captive by inglorious surrender? 
 
 [f the absurdity of the suggestion entitled it to 
 his pity an 1 his scorn, h >w much more the sup- 
 position of miraculous interruption of nature's 
 laws to avert the consequences of fool-hardy ex- 
 posure of his life by precipitating himself from a 
 pinacle of the teinple which towered above the 
 grandure of the city, and commanded the sight 
 of all beholders, where divine interposition, seen 
 not only by the masses, would bring him into 
 notoriety among the hierarchsof the church, and 
 give him rec mition as a messenger come frtuw 
 God. The ami it ion of the first Adam to eat of 
 tie forbidden fruit an 1 be as Clod's knowing 
 good and evil, was by him always subordinate to 
 the la v of duty, which in this case, was chmpn*j 
 hend-d in 'Thou shalt not tempt the 
 
 Lord thy God. I receive not honor from men," 
 And when offered all th > kingdoms of the world 
 and the glory of them as the price of digression, 
 and as a bribe for the abatement of his integrity; 
 and for surrender to " the lust of the flesh, the 
 lust of the eye, and the pride of this sensuous 
 
THE IDKAI. .MAN. BQjS 
 
 life," his holy indignation rose t3 its climax ami 
 repelled the assault with an emphatic f ' get ttree 
 behind me Satan." 
 
 "Then the Devil left him and angels. came and 
 ministered unto him." 
 
 - The temptation of our Lord was not peculiar 
 any more than that of Adam was peculiar, The 
 experience of both is the experience of universal 
 humanity. If the first Adam and all his posteri* 
 ty had maintained their integrity by resisting all 
 the encroachments of their lower nature, and by 
 Subjecting their carnal instinots unreservedly to 
 the dominion of those lofty powers which liken 
 us to God, and which constitute our proper hu- 
 manity, then the conflict so signally and so dis- 
 gracefully lost, would never have been repeated 
 in the experience of the second Adam, But be? 
 cause all had partaken of the forbidden fruit, and 
 had learned by sad experience, the distinction 
 between good and evil, how terrible the forfeiture 
 of the one, and how gauling the servitude of the 
 other; then in the fulness of time, the second 
 -Adam, who is the Lord from Heaven, took upon 
 himself our nature a,n 1 accepted the liabilities of 
 
204 THE IDEAL MAX. 
 
 our humanity. When the struggle was over; 
 when the powers of the flesh personified as the 
 Devil, were vanquished and fled; when the fruits 
 of the spirit, personified as the angels, came and 
 ministered unto him, then he said to his faithful 
 followers, ''In the world ye shall have tribula- 
 tion, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the 
 world." To overcome the world — the lust of the 
 flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life — is 
 the business of divinity, whether in the God-man 
 or in us; whether in the copy or its image; 
 whether in the vine or its branches. Holiness 
 means business. It means something to do. It 
 mearvl antagonism against evil, an aggressive 
 warfare against the world, the flesh and the Devil. 
 It is impatient of inertness. It sees no merit, 
 and no truth in the song, "There is nothing 
 great or small that's left for me to do." 
 
 The manhood of the ideal man consisted in 
 overcoming the world. The moral might in 
 which he asserted the behest, '' get thee behind 
 me Satan," belongs to humanity, the dignity and 
 glory of which consists in the same uncompro- 
 mising integrity in the presence of temptation, ir- 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 205 
 
 respective of all consequences. It may entail 
 poverty more humiliating than that of " the foxes 
 that have holes, and the birds that have nests." 
 It may entail persecution and invite the hostility 
 of kings and the hate of majorities, who clamor 
 " away with him crucify him." But neither the 
 lion's den, the fiery furnace, nor the cruelties of 
 the cross, can abate the courage or paralyze the 
 tongue of the moral hero who spurns all the 
 kingdoms of the world and the glory of them 
 when offered as a bribe, and in the might of Di- 
 vine authority says, "get thee behind me Satan." 
 Strength to do this is the " sine qua non " of 
 true manhood. King David in his dying charge 
 to Solomon — his royal heir — said, " I go the way 
 of all the earth, be thou strong, therefore, and 
 show thyself a man by keeping the command- 
 ments as they are written in the law of Moses." 
 The thought uppermost in his mind was, that 
 moral character was the first condition of royal 
 greatness. He placed manhood before royalty, 
 the want of which entails failure alike upon the 
 kings and subjects. " Better is he that ruleth 
 his own spirit' than he that taketh a city." The 
 
206 THE IDEAL MAX. 
 
 power to do this is inherent in humanity. As 
 before said, the soul created in the divine image 
 is equipped with moral power — a free responsible 
 will — but moral character is the outcome of re- 
 sponsible action. Be thou strong, therefore, and 
 show thy manliness by keeping the divine com- 
 mandments. Royal prestige that comes of cun- 
 ning in diplomacy, of prowess in war, and of ex- 
 pedient statesmanship, is possible without this 
 condition, but true manliness, which is the syno- 
 nyme of Godlikeness, and which is the first con- 
 dition of true greatness, comes of the voluntary 
 exercise of the powers inherent in the living soul 
 created in the image of God. 
 
 In the fulness of time the law became life, be- 
 ing incarnated in the person of the ideal man, 
 ■' in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead 
 bodily. Be thou strong, therefore, and show thy- 
 self a man," by keeping the charge of the Lord 
 thy God, now a living, walking, speaking Deca- 
 logue, the high behest of which is " follow me." 
 I, not the cold letter of the law, the canons of the 
 church, or the commandments of men, I myself, 
 am the way, the truth and the life. I, l ' the son 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. Mi 
 
 of man," am the divine original in the likeness of 
 which ye are created. I " was in the beginning 
 with God," when in the council of creation God 
 said, " let us make man in our image." I am 
 manifested in the flesh to overcome the world. 
 Strength to overcome the world, the flesh and the 
 Devil as I have overcome it, is " the one thing 
 needful " to reduce this sin-cursed world to an 
 Eden of unalloyed blessedness. But Adam, 
 meaning all mankind, failed to " he strong and 
 show themselves men '•' — failed to assert their 
 God-given power over temptation, and say as I 
 have done, " get thee behind me Satan." Hence 
 weakness — moral " death hath passed upon all 
 men," not because one man sinned, but because 
 " all have sinned." All have partaken of the for- 
 bidden fruit in face of the warning written in the 
 soul by the finger of God. '' In the day thou 
 eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." The death 
 that follows transgression is the death of a sui- 
 cide. .'' But be of good cheer," said Jesus, " I 
 have overcome the world. I am the vine of 
 which all ye are branches. I am the resurrec- 
 tion and the life." I can restore life to the spirit- 
 
208 THE IDEAL MAN. 
 
 ual suicide, and "there is no other name under 
 Heaven given among men " that can do it. "I 
 am the bread of God that giveth life unto the 
 world." I am the vine. The elements of life in 
 the vine are the same as those in the branches; 
 the same in the parent as in the child, but the 
 strength of the one is superior to that of the 
 other. The tender branch is swayed by every 
 wind that blows, but the stock is immovable, 
 having strength to resist and overcome all temp- 
 tation. " He that abideth in me, and I in him, 
 the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without 
 me, ye can do nothing." 
 
 " Tbe branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except 
 it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye 
 abide in me. If a man abide not in me he is 
 cast forth as a branch, and is withered." Cre- 
 ated in the divine image he is yet capable of bis 
 own free will, while he cannot destroy that 
 image, to abuse, befoul, and drag it down to. Hell. 
 Dives was in the divine image, otherwise he 
 could not have been human. His moral suicide 
 did not convert him into a beast. If that were 
 possible, it were possible to quench all the fires 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 209 
 
 of Hell. The heat of those fires means the recoil 
 of the divine elements, conscience, free will rea- 
 son, which made him human. 
 
 The relationship of the ideal man to our com- 
 mon humanity thus unfolded, how it exalts him! 
 how it dignifies us! He is the divine original of 
 all humanity, the divine stock of which all we 
 [are branches, from which alone the branches de- 
 prive streng'th to overcome the world; the bread of 
 God that giveth life unto every spiritual suicide; 
 the resurrection and the life of the withered 
 branches overcome of the world, the Mesh of the 
 Devil; the good shepherd whocareth more for the 
 wandering sheep lost and starving in the moun- 
 tains of evil, than for the ninety and nine that 
 went not astray and who giveth his life for the 
 sheep. 
 
 Why am I immortal and not like the beast 
 that perisheth? because I am a branch of an im- 
 mortal vine. Why could not God send Dives 
 into annihilation instead of sending him to Hell? 
 Because God cannot do impossibilities. Dives 
 was of the " genus homo," which is a spirit in the 
 likeness of God. The spirit abides the man for- 
 
210 THE IDEAL MAX. 
 
 ever if not in the sunshine and glory of Heaven, 
 in the outer darkness of Hell. If the branch 
 abide not in the vine it is withered, but not con- 
 sumed. It is still that divine thing that thinks, 
 that knows, that remembers, that reasons and 
 suffers. God cannot convert the branch into a 
 beast and annihilate it. Though withered, it is 
 still part of an immortal vine. I can never get 
 away from myself, no more from God of whom 
 myself am an image. 
 
 " If I ascend up into Heaven thou art there. If 
 I make my bed in Hell, behold thou art there. 
 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell iq 
 the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall 
 thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold 
 me. If I say surely the darkness shall cover me, 
 even the night shall be light about me. Whither 
 shall I go from thy spirit or whither shall I flee 
 from thy presence?" Dives in Hell is still a 
 branch of an immortal vine. The great gulf be- 
 tween him and the vine, is fixed by himself. If 
 he willed to abide in the vine, then even to him, 
 lost and ruined. " the son of man" were the res- 
 urrection and the life. 
 
THE IDEAL MAN, 211 
 
 " For while the lamp holds out to burn, 
 The vilest sinner may return," 
 
 God's mercy includes all men in all times and 
 in all worlds, and Hell is possible*only because 
 some of their own free will refuse to abide in the 
 vine and feed on him who is the resurrection and 
 the life. 
 
212 THE GARDEN OF EDEN, 
 
 The Garden of Eden. 
 
 [The following is one of a series of Sundav 
 night lectures delivered in Eureka, California, on 
 Old Testament history, beginning with the crea- 
 tion and occupying those evenings for a period of 
 four months. 
 
 In this discourse Adam is taken as a generic 
 term, not as the name of an individual person, 
 but "an appellative noun for the human species: 
 its application to the first man as his proper 
 name was subsequent and secondary." (Harris 1 
 Man Primeval, pgs. 24, 25.) This idea, which 
 many Christian scholars now accept, gives new 
 
THE GARDEN OF EDEN. I'l'I 
 
 interpretation to the whole story of the garden of 
 Eden.] 
 
 And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden ; 
 and there he put the man whom he had formed. — Gen. 
 II: 8. 
 
 Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the gar- 
 den of Eden to till the ground from whence he was 
 taken.— Gen. Ill: 23. 
 
 In speaking of the creation of the world, of the 
 creation and of the constitution of man, as the 
 story is told by Moses, it has been my endeavor 
 to keep distinctly in mind the main idea and 
 purpose of the writer, viz: this, to reveal the true 
 cause of things, to reveal the supernatural and 
 the divine agency in all the ongoing processes of 
 nature. It is the province of science to discover 
 the material links in the chain of causes and ef- 
 fects in what we term nature. Moses had noth- 
 ing to do with these. These were outside of the 
 great lesson of theologic truth that lies behind 
 them all, but which in no way conflicts with any 
 of them. Science discovers that gravity causes 
 the apple to fall, and the moon and planets to re- 
 volve. Theology does not contradict this, but 
 goes back of gravity to discover and reveal an 
 
214 THE GARDEN OF EDEX. 
 
 intelligent will that controls and energizes gravi- 
 ty, whose servant it is, to perfect his designs in 
 the machinery of nature. When Moses tells us 
 that the Lord God formed man of the dust of the 
 ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath 
 of life, and man became a living soul, he does not 
 undertake to describe the mode of his creation, 
 whether by growth or development, but only the 
 source of his two-fold being. God formed his 
 body, the material is of the earth earthy. God 
 breathed into his body so formed, and he became 
 a living soul. The intermediate links in the 
 chain of cause ami effect, Moses entirely ignores; 
 they belong to science, and science is not what lie 
 is teaching, but theology, which, when rightly 
 interpeted, never conflicts with nature's laws 
 which always express God's power and will. And 
 this is what Moses is revealing to the Jews. 
 
 The same idea prevails in the allegory of Gar- 
 den of Eden. For it is an allegory, a highly- 
 wrought poetic picture employed, as all sacred 
 poetry is, to represent by means of pictures of the 
 imagination the ways of God with men. If we 
 attempt to localize the Garden of Eden, to give it 
 
91 *> 
 
 THE GARDEN OF EDEN. 
 
 geographic metes and bounds, and to literalize its 
 poetic imagery, Ave become like children who, en- 
 amored of specific parts of a picture, cut them 
 out, appropriate them, and so spoil the picture, 
 Every picture, whether on canvas or in poetic 
 figure of speech, taken in its entirety, expresses 
 living truth more real, more telling on human 
 conviction, more in keeping with the laws of 
 verity, than either the facts of history or the 
 framework of philosophy. Hence it is that the 
 ways of God with men are so generally revealed 
 under the poetic figures of allegory. The holy 
 Prophets who delivered the messages under a 
 sanction of » thus saith the Lord," finding the 
 plain letter of prosaic oration too tame and im- 
 potent to utter forth what the mouth of the Lord 
 hath spoken, soared aloft into the realm of im- 
 agination and drawing upon her most vivid and 
 soul-inspiring pictures, made them the instru- 
 ments of a hieroglyphic language which alone 
 , was equal to the divine task of expressing to men 
 the great thoughts of God. How else could Job, 
 David, Solomon, or John the Revelator, all the 
 prophets, or even our Savior himself have con- 
 
216 THE GARDEN OF EDEN. 
 
 versed with the world of the things of the King- 
 dom of Heaven. Literal fact is too tame, words 
 are too barren of vitality to be the medium of 
 spirit communication. Hence spirit, when it 
 converses with mortals, always resorts to the por- 
 traits of imagination as the word-pictures of its 
 ideals. This justifies a saying, that untaught 
 minds are prone to deny, viz: this, that fiction is 
 more pregnant with truth than fact, and inter- 
 pruts the words of the Evangelist, when he says 
 of Jesus: " Many other things spake he to them 
 with parables, and without a parable spake he 
 not unto them." 
 
 These remarks are designed to prepare our 
 minds to inquire for the real truth underlying 
 the allegory of the garden of Eden. The story is 
 a picture, and everybody with half an eye for the 
 beautiful and the true must see that the Master 
 hand that drew the picture was guided by a mind 
 that is more than human; that the brush which 
 swept the parchment on which that picture is 
 drawn was of more delicate fibre than any found 
 in the studios of human art, and that it left be- 
 hind it creations too exquisite for the clumsy 
 
THE GARDEN OK EDEN. lil i 
 
 manipulations of a human hand, too lofty for the 
 earth — horn conceptions of a human ideal. 
 
 The thought in the mind of the artist is inno- 
 cence and peace, an ideal abode which no stain 
 of wrong had ever denied a life unclouded with 
 fear, uncorroded with care, and unruffled by aught 
 of moral discord to disturb its peace or mar its 
 happiness. The symbol of this ideal abode is the 
 fittest of all conceivable symbols. Any earthly 
 home in its completeness must be in the midst of 
 a blooming garden, wherein is all manner of fruit 
 trees, permeated by streams of living water, whose 
 lawns are clothed with perennial green, and 
 whose gravelly walks are bordered by ever bloom- 
 ing flowers. The inspired artist places Adam in 
 an ideal garden planted by the hand of the Lord 
 God himself, in which is made to grow every tree 
 that is pleasant to the sight and good for food; 
 the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, 
 and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 
 If this symbolic language be literalized, it will 
 fail utterly to bring to our minds its deep and 
 beautiful meaning. It is' the language of symbol, 
 and the truth it contains is beyond the power of 
 
gig 'THE; GARDEN OF EDEN. 
 
 mere words to express. It is a portraiture of in- 
 nocence, and brings to our imagination a rational 
 being in whose soul the conflict of good and evil 
 is unknown, a being whose moral status is beet 
 typified by that of a child unborn, concerning 
 which you can predicate neither right or wrong. 
 The child. 1 efore it opens its eyes to the light be 
 clouded by the mists of wrong, or its lungs to the 
 air poisoned by the miasms of sin, is innocent, 
 but not virtuous; is harmless, but not holy. For 
 virtue is impossible without the reaction of vice; 
 
 holiness is impossible without knowing its i- 
 
 tvast^-sin. The child in embryo is perfect as an 
 embryo. Its embryo organs and ideas are nor- 
 mally perfect, but the embryo body cannot be 
 developed into manhood without reaction of forces 
 external to itself. The limbs cannot gain strength 
 to walk without the reaction of the floor on which 
 it walks. The embryo hand cannot gain strength 
 to work without the reaction of bat and ball, of 
 hoop and wheelbarrow to bring the muscles into 
 requisition. The embryo mind cannot gain 
 strength to think without the reaction of things, 
 and the relation of things that furnish materials 
 
THE GARDEN QV EDEN. 219 
 
 • for the laws of thought. The embryo soul cannot 
 •be righteous without the reaction of wrong. It 
 [must know good and evil, and by the act of free 
 [will, choose the good and reject the evil, or else 
 it cannot be virtuous. The innocence of the em- 
 , bryo child and the virtues of the righteous man 
 arc very different moral conditions. The one is 
 innocent because he is made so by a power over 
 which his will has no control; the other is right- 
 Bous by reason of reaction and conquest on the 
 side of virtue. 
 
 Adam's soul was in embryo. It knew no more 
 of right or wrong than the child unborn; being 
 the first and only human being, and having yet 
 had no contact with any evil power, having 
 known no contrast between wrong and right, hav- 
 ing felt none of the reaction of the one, he knew 
 neither the strength nor the value of the other. 
 And as there is no way to develop an embryo 
 child into manhood but by the reaction of forces 
 external to itself, so there was no way to develop 
 the manhood of Adam but by the reaction of a 
 power that would bring into requisition the force 
 of a responsible will to resist the encroachments 
 
•220 
 
 THE GARDEX OF EDEX. 
 
 of wrong. In his embryo innocence, therefore, 
 fresh from the hand of his Divine Creator, we see 
 him in the picture before us, in the midst of a 
 garden planted by the hand of the Lord God 
 himself, perfect in beauty, rich in verdure, smil- 
 ing in bloom and luxuriant in fruit. In which 
 paradise of peace, of plenty, of sparkling water 
 and shining emerald, is also growing the tree of 
 the knowledge of good and evil. And this brings 
 me face to face with the question of the ages, 
 which has always made the ways of God with 
 man so utterly past finding out. Why did the 
 Lord God plant in that home of innocence which 
 he had prepared as the abode.of the man he had. 
 made, the tree of knowledge of good and evil? 
 Why didn't he plant in its place another sort of 
 a tree, the fruit of which was not forbidden? Or, 
 dropping the figure of the allegory, why did he 
 permit sin to enter this world as an element in 
 human nature, and as a modifying power in hu- 
 man history? I may as well take the bull by the 
 horns and come to the answer directly, without 
 circumlocution. Because he could not perfect 
 his ideal without the reaetion of moral evil. 
 
THE GARDEN IK' EDK.V. 
 
 Adam was perfectly innocent without the knowl- 
 edge of good and evil, but he was no more a per- 
 fect man without that knowledge than the unborn 
 child. As I have already said, he must be de- 
 veloped in virtue, if at all, by the knowledge and 
 reactions of wrong, even at the fearful liability of 
 going wrong himself. God could make the man 
 innocent by his arbitrary act, as he makes every 
 unborn child innocent; that is one thing. He 
 could not make him holy by his arbitrary act, for 
 that is quite another thing. That implies com- 
 pulsion of the will, while holiness is inconceiva- 
 ble without absolute freedom of the will. Holi- 
 ness implies the knowledge of good and evil, and 
 comes only of reaction against sin. There is no 
 pertinence in the question why sin is in the world 
 any more than there is why the negative pole of 
 the battery is in the world? The answer to the 
 latter question is easy, for without the negative 
 the utility of the positive is nullified. Electric 
 results come of reaction of the two poles. Every- 
 thing in nature has its antithesis. If there be a 
 positive, there must be a negative. You cannot 
 conceive of the one without the other. The idea 
 
THE GARDEN OF EDEX. 
 
 of upward implies the idea of downward. The 
 idea of light implies the knowledge of darkness. 
 You cannot think of day without at the same 
 time thinking of its opposite night. You cannot 
 conceive of the rainbow without conceiving of the 
 cloud behind it. Bo cold and heat, winter and 
 summer, peace and war, right and wrong, holi- 
 ness and sin, beauty and ugliness, Heaven and 
 Hell, God and the Devil, are antithetic realities, 
 each of which is essential to the conception of the 
 other. If it be asked why Hell is permitted to 
 be, the answer is, that Heaven is impossible with- 
 out it, since Heaven consists in reaction against 
 Hell, and conquest over it. If it be asked why 
 the Devil is, the answer is, that he is a necessary 
 factor in the conception of God himself, since 
 God's highest glory and loftiest power is shown 
 in contrast with, and in reaction against, the 
 power of the Devil. God and evil are antithetic 
 terms. You cannot conceive of the one without 
 the other. Good in its simplest sense means re- 
 lease from, or victory over evil. It means release 
 from want, release from disease, release from sin. 
 It means conquest over evil. How, then, can 
 
THE GARDEN' OF EDEX. 
 
 you conceive of good, without at the same time 
 conceiving of evil? God is the supreme, the ideal 
 good, the highest conceivable antithesis of the 
 direst conceivable evil, which is personified vari- 
 ously, sometimes as the Devil, sometimes as Sa- 
 tan, sometimes as the serpent, sometimes as a 
 roaring lion, sometimes as the spirit that worketh 
 in the children of disobedience. Under whatever 
 name called, it is the negative pole in the moral 
 battery of which God is the positive, and, as in 
 galvanism, the positive can work out no results 
 without the negative, so in the realm of spirit, 
 results come of two reacting forces, neither of 
 which is conceivable without the other. 
 
 Adam, in the picture before us, is seen in em- 
 bryo. He is innocent, hut undeveloped either in 
 right or wrong, for he has no knowledge of either. 
 This knowledge is brought out in the picture un- 
 der the figure of a tree whose fruit is fair to look 
 upon and pleasant to the taste, but the use of 
 which is positively forbidden, under pain of moral 
 death. 
 
 Here we have the world in miniature; that is 
 the design of the picture. Adam, while he is the 
 
224 THE GARDEN OP EDEN. 
 
 progenitor of the race, is at the same time the 
 representative type of every individual of the 
 race. The experience of Adam is the experience 
 of every son and daughter of his posterity. Be- 
 holding him in the allegory, we behold the hu- 
 man family. Beholding the garden of Eden as 
 here portrayed, we behold the world in minia- 
 ture. Beholding the trees of the garden that are 
 pleasant to the sight and good for food, we behold 
 the endless variety of productions, and of means 
 provided by the Author of our being for the ra- 
 tional joy, and for the highest possibilities of good 
 to the human race, personal, social, physical, in- 
 tellectual, moral and spiritual. Beholding the 
 tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we behold 
 under the type of a tempting fruit every possible 
 temptation to sin in every one of its countless 
 and insinuating forms, the yielding to which 
 brings the recoil of evil into the soul. It is this 
 recoil that is called the knowledge of good and 
 evil. Adam, fresh from the hand of his Divine 
 Creator, in the immaculate innocence in which 
 he was made, knew nothing of either good or evil. 
 And every new-born child, equally immaculate 
 
THK GARDEN OF KDEN. 226 
 
 and pure, learns the fearful lesson l>y the same 
 exposure to temptation, the consenting to which 
 
 brought the curse upon Adam. Adam's fall is 
 the type, hut not the cause of my fall. We hear 
 much in the theology of the schools of original 
 sin and of its descent by natural inheritance to 
 all the posterity of out- first parents. One of the 
 first lessons of our childhood was, " that in Ad- 
 am's fall we sinned all." 
 
 But if we take the allegory of the garden of 
 Eden as a portraiture of the world in miniature, 
 and take Adam as a representative type of all the 
 successive individuals of the race, and if we learn 
 from the lesson the obvious truth that we fall as 
 he fell, but not BECAUSE he fell, then we shall 
 away with the old dogma of the creed and cease 
 to cast the responsibility of our transgression 
 upon the shoulders of Adam. We eat the forbid- 
 den fruit, not because our first parents ate there- 
 of; we eat it because we are victims of the same 
 temptation and the same weaknesses that over- 
 came their integrity in righteousness. They 
 yielded to the tempter; then, and not till then, 
 did they learn, by the bitter experiences of shame, 
 
22l> THE GARDEN OF EDEN. 
 
 and remorse, and fear, the knowledge of good and 
 evil. Then, and not till then, did earth cease to 
 be to them a paradise of beauty, of peace and of 
 plenty. Then, and not till then, was the fiat of 
 God pronounced. "Cursed be 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 
 cat bread, till thou return unto the ground, for 
 out of it was thou taken, for dust thou art and 
 unto dust shalt thou return. Therefore the Lord 
 God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to 
 till the ground from whence he was taken." Now 
 he has forfeited all right to the tree of life, which 
 henceforth is guarded by cherubim and a flaming 
 sword, lest the transgressor eat thereof and live. 
 So fearful was the forfeit of transgression on the 
 part of our first parents. In this they are repre- 
 sentatives of, but no exception to, all their pos- 
 terity. The experience of one is the experience 
 of all transgressors. The fruits of^sin are identi- 
 cal, then, and now, and always. The garden of 
 Eden is an allegorical picture of the world in 
 miniature. Every symbol employed in that pic- 
 ture, and in like moral conditions, are matters of 
 
THE GARDEN Of i:i>kn, 227 
 
 real life the world over in all time. So long as 
 the forbidden fruit of sin is untouched, untasted, 
 
 imliaixllcd; so long as the serpent is resisted, 
 baffled and overcome by the authority of righte- 
 ous indignation, saying, "Get tine behind me, 
 Satan;" so long the earth is an Eden of peace, a 
 garden full of all manner of trees whose fruit is 
 pleasant to the sight and good for food; whose 
 prysial waters irrigate all desert lands and cool 
 all thirsty tongues; whose paths are strewn with 
 Howers and whose lawns are rich with grass that. 
 makes glad the cattle on a thousand hills. It is 
 transgression — not the transgression of Adam, as 
 an individual man, for remember he is the generic 
 type of all humanity — 'but the transgression of the 
 race that has converted the paradise of earth into 
 a region of what is figuratively called in the alle- 
 gory, a region of thorns and thistles. It is by 
 Jiteralizmg the figurative language of the allego- 
 ry that we lose its very significant import, if we. 
 take the sign for the thing signified, and rest our 
 faith in the material symbols themselves, the 
 trees, fruits, flowers water courses crystals, 
 thorns and thistles, and lose sight of the spiritual 
 
228 Tin; GARDEN OF KDK.V. 
 
 realities, which they are employed to indicate, 
 then we study the picture to no purpose. But if 
 we take the beautiful and precious things of the 
 garden as but the material signs of the better 
 things that belong to man's spiritual being, 
 Which, when realized, are aide to transform the 
 ruggedest external surroundings into an abode of 
 blessedness and an Eden of joy ; if we take the 
 Bterilty of the cursed ground that doom* the 
 transgressor to a life of toil, and forever to eat 
 bread in the sweat of his face, as a symbol of the 
 inevitable unrest and spiritual recoil that is in- 
 separable from disobedience; if we take thorns 
 and thistles, not in their literal meaning, as the 
 noxious plants that incumber the ground and 
 choke the fruits thereof, but as the noxious pasi 
 sions that usurp the soul, dethrone reason, be- 
 cloud and embitter the moral life, then we see 
 that the earth is as man makes it to be. Take 
 out of this world to-day all propensity on the 
 part of man to partake of the forbidden fruit of 
 sin, and the most highly wrought imagery of the 
 beauty and bliss of the garden of Eden would be 
 realized in every part of the habitable eartb, 
 
THE GARDEN OF EDEN. L'L".t 
 
 Then all the dogs of war would be dumb; thru 
 all " swords would be beaten into plowshares, and 
 all spears into pruning hooks, and the nations 
 would learn war no more." Then all manacles 
 that fetter the limbs of the slave would fall 
 broken at his feet. Then the pirate on the high 
 seas would become a messenger of mercy, and 
 the felon incarcerated for crime would be turned 
 loose to serve in the cause of human weal. Then 
 every brothel in the world would be turned into 
 a sanctuary of religious devotions. Then the 
 rumseller's trade would be gone, and himself 
 would be converted from a vampire preying upon 
 the life blood of the weak and depraved, into an 
 honest man, willing to earn an honest living by 
 honest industry; then the sun would no more 
 shine on suffering wretchedness, crime and want, 
 " for the earth would be full of the knowledge of 
 the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the 
 sea." 
 
 The poetic imagery of the garden of Eden is but 
 a symbol of the entire world in the absence of 
 wrong. Set right the hearts of the children of 
 men the world over; give all men the moral might 
 
230 THE GARDEN OF EDEN. 
 
 of him who resisted the serpent in the wilderness, 
 and who with all the kingdoms of the world and 
 the glory of them set before him as an induce- 
 ment to transgress, repelled the bribe with scorn 
 and with a " get thee behind me, Satan;" give 
 this moral might to the children of men, and the 
 whole world would become instanter a paradise 
 of beauty, of glory, and of good, exceeding in real 
 life all the poetic painting of the garden of Eden 
 as it came from the fruitful imagination of the 
 inspired artist. 
 
 And is this glorious consummation never to be 
 realized? Sin has brought death into our world 
 with all our woe. Is there no redemption? 
 Blessed be God, there is balm in Gilead, and 
 there is a Physician there. The first Adam is of 
 the earth earthy, but the second Adam is the 
 Lord from Heaven. " He shall go out with joy, 
 and be led forth with peace. The mountains and 
 the hills shall break forth before him into sing- 
 ing, ar.d all the trees of the field shall clap their 
 hands. Instead of Hie thorn, shall come up the 
 fir tree, and instead .of the brier, shall come up 
 
liAUI'UON OK KDKV. 
 
 the myrtle tree, and it shall be to the Lord for a 
 name — for an everlasting sign that shall not be 
 cast off." 
 
 
232 THE LAW OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 The Law of Conscience. 
 
 I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many 
 things contrary to the name of Jesus of Xazareth. — Acts 
 XX VI: 9. 
 
 Paul had been accused by one Tertutlers 3 the 
 orator before Felix. Felix heard him, and will- 
 ing to show the Jews a favor, left him bound at 
 Cesarea until Festus came into the Province. 
 Then the Jews conspired to influence Festus 
 against Paul. Festus listened to Paul, but de- 
 cided that he had no jurisdiction of the matters 
 of which he was accused by the Jews, and as 
 Paul had appealed to Caesar, he decided to send 
 
THE LAW OP CONSCIENCE. 233 
 
 him to Rome. But Agrippa said unto Festus, I 
 would also hear the man myself. To-morrow, 
 eaid he, thou shalt hear him. 
 
 So the next day Paul was introduced before 
 King Agrippa, and congratulates himself that he 
 is permitted to answer before the King, who, 
 though a Roman officer, was not a Roman by 
 birth, but a Jew, and well versed in all customs 
 and questions among the Jews. For that reason, 
 says Paul, I beseech thee to hear me patiently. 
 
 The first apology he makes in his plea is, that 
 m is a religious man. That he had always been 
 a religious man, a conscientious man. He had 
 always acted under the pressure of religious con- 
 viction. "After the most straitest sect of our re- 
 ligion," said he, " I have lived a Pharisee." And 
 he does not use the term Pharisee there in the 
 bad sense that we are wont to associate with it. 
 If so, he Would not have used the term at all be- 
 fore Agrippa. By it he means that he instantly 
 served God day and night, with an honest con- 
 science. For he says: " I verily thought with 
 myself, that I ought to do many things contrary 
 to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." And now the 
 
234 THE LAW OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 question which has caused more debate than any 
 other in moral philosophy is this: Did Saul of 
 Tarsus do right in doing what he verily thought 
 he ought to do? His case is the most salient one 
 of all others by which to try this question. And 
 in the outset let it be premised that the question 
 is not one of abstract right and abstract wrong. 
 Abstractly it is wrong to do things contrary to 
 the name of Jesus, to destroy my neighbor's life 
 or property. And yet, under given circum- 
 stances; it is right to do both. 
 
 The act has no moral character apart from the 
 motive. Under one set of circumstances it is 
 criminal. I ought not to do it; under another 
 set of circumstances, it is right. I ought to do 
 it. The word ought carries with it all the force 
 of law. What a man verily conscientiously, 
 honestly thinks he ought to do. he must do irre- 
 spective of the question of abstract right. Ab- 
 stractly it is wrong to pull down my neighbor's 
 house. I am forbidden by law to do it. But if 
 by destroying my neighbor's house I can head 
 the flames that threaten a whole ward, then I 
 verily think I ought to do it, and therefore I do 
 
Ilh: LAW OF CIINSCIKNCK. 
 
 right. The absolute right is determined by the 
 conscious ought, The absolute right is one thing. 
 The abstract right is another thing. To-day I 
 verily think I ought to go north; to-morrow 1 
 
 verily think I ought to go south. On both days 
 T do right, though on the latter I go directly op- 
 posite to the way of the former. Both are right. 
 because of the OUGHT. When I verily think I 
 ought to go north, I cannot go south and do 
 right, and " vice versa." 
 
 Yesterday Saul of Tarsus verily thought he 
 ©UGHT to do many things contrary to the name 
 of Jesus of Nazareth; to-day he verily thinks he 
 ought to know nothing save Jesus Christ and 
 him crucified. Admitting that he was equally 
 conscientious yesterday and to-day. he could not 
 do otherwise than he did, without violating his 
 t'ONseiENCE, which no man can rightly do. 
 
 Conscience is the voice of God in the human 
 soul. It is an infallible voice. It does not dis- 
 criminate or decide the abstract right and wrong 
 of conduct. That is not the office of conscience. 
 Conscience is a i niversal law. It is uniformly 
 the same law. It is not one thing in the soul of 
 
236 THE LAW OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 the Christian and another thing in the soul of 
 the heathen. The latter are not condemned be- 
 cause they are ignorant of the truth or because 
 they do things abhorrent to Christians. What 
 they believe or disbelieve, what they have done, 
 or have left undone, is not the test of their char- 
 acter. God holds them and us responsible alike 
 to do what they and we respectively think OUGHT 
 to be done. The old notion that the heathen will 
 be damned in the future life because they were 
 not Christians in this life is quite untenable. The 
 test by which they will be tried is the same as 
 that by which we and all men will be tried. The 
 heathen world are divided into two classes by the 
 same distinction as the Christian world. In both, 
 the good do what they verily think they ought to 
 do; the bad do what they know they ought not to 
 do. The thing done in neither case constitutes 
 the criterion. But the conscious OUGHT. We 
 send the gospel to the heathen, not to save them 
 from Hell in the future life, but to save them 
 from the Hell of heathendom in this life. God's 
 loving kindness embraces the heathen and the 
 Christian alike, and all who have a conscience 
 
THE LAW OF COXSCIKXCK. 287 
 
 void of offense, whether heathen or Christian, are 
 accepted of him. 
 
 In a human court there is a judge and a sher- 
 iff. It is the office of the Judge to decide .ill 
 questions of equity. It is the duty of the Sheriff 
 to enforce the decisions of the Judge. The Sher- 
 iff is the righteous executor of what the Judge 
 perceives to be right. He will hang an icmaewnl 
 man just as certainly as a guilty one if the Court 
 so ordered. We can educate the Judge and he 
 may change his decisions. But the action of the 
 Sheriff is unchangeable; he does always what the 
 Judge verily thinks he ought to do. In the soul 
 the moral perception is the Judge, the con- 
 science is the Sheriff. What I perceive to be 
 right, conscience impels me to do. The moral 
 perception determines what I ought to do, and 
 what I verily think I ought to do, that the voice 
 divine within me, the Holy Spirit of God says no. 
 It may be abstractly wrong; it may be abstractly 
 right. Irrespective of that question it is abso- 
 lutely right to do what I verily think I ought 
 to do. 
 
 But there is a great practical law comes in here 
 
238 THE LAW OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 which all are in duty hound to observe. 
 
 The Apostle puts it this way: "And herein do 
 I exercise myself, to have always a conscience 
 void of offense toward God, and toward men." 
 Alive to the solemn fact that every man is bound 
 before God to do what he verily thinks he OUG-HT 
 to do, he is also bound "to EXERCISE himself to 
 have a conscience void of offense toward God and 
 toward men." 
 
 '• There is a way which seemeth right unto a 
 man; but the end thereof are the ways of death." 
 Every man knows that while conscience is the 
 infallible law of moral action which no man can 
 rightly disobey, at the same time it does not al- 
 ways lead men into the way of abstract right. 
 Abstractly it was wrong for Paul to do many 
 things contrary to the name of Jesus. Abstractly 
 it i^ wrong for the Sheriff to hang an innocent 
 man. Bat absolutely it is right for the Sheriff 
 to do it because he must execute the judgment of 
 the Court. It is not the office of the Sheriff to 
 determine the abstract question, but to do what 
 the J idol determines; that for him is right. 
 Everybody knows that Judges are fallible; they 
 
THE LAW OE CONSCIENCE. -■>■> 
 
 rule differently at different times and under dif- 
 ferent circumstances. But the Sheriff' never 
 changes his action, he simply enforces the behest 
 of the Judge. We can do nothing to educate the 
 Sheriff. His action is unerring even though he 
 take the life of an innocent man. For him it is 
 right. He has no option. He cannot do other- 
 wise without condemnation to himself. We can 
 educate the Judge. We can give him light and 
 knowledge; can bring to his mind the precedents 
 of other Courts; the rulings of other Judges, and 
 the wisdom of experience found in history and 
 thus modify his decisions in accordance with ab- 
 stract right. Then we shall have a Sheriff void 
 of offense, who will enforce no wrong decree. We 
 can educate the moral perceptions of the soul, 
 and by so doing can change the ought. Yester- 
 day Paul perceived Jesus of Nazareth to he an 
 impostor. Conscience impelled him to do many 
 things contrary to him. To-day he perceives him 
 to be the supreme object of religious faith and 
 devotion, and conscience impels him to glory in 
 nothing else but in the cross. 
 
 Conscience is the same power alwavs; its office 
 
240 THE LAW OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 is to impel him to do what he verily thinks he 
 ought to do. The ought was one thing yester- 
 day; it is another thing to-day. 
 
 To avoid disastrous consequences then, it is not 
 enough that our way seem right unto ourselves. 
 The pilot of a ship must know that his way is 
 right, otherwise there is no safety to the ship. If 
 his guides have misguided him: if his compass 
 lias become erratic, seeming right is no protection 
 to the ship. A good motive, while it protects the 
 pilot from blame, will not protect the ship from 
 disaster. The PROPELLING POWER of the ship is 
 uniform. It drives her forward or backward as 
 the pilot directs. The conscience drives the 
 man now north, now south, as he in his judg- 
 ment verily thinks he OUGHT to go. The pilot 
 exercises himself always to so set his helm that 
 the propelling power of the ship shall be void of 
 offense. That power has no choice; it is the same 
 whether the ship go north or go south. Con- 
 science has no choice; it is the same yesterday, 
 to-day and forever. It is the same power in Saul 
 of Tarsus as in Paul the Apostle, always com- 
 manding him to do what he verily thinks he 
 
T11IC I, AW OF CON60IENGB. IN 1 
 
 bug ht to do. There is then great force in the 
 expression, •• herein do I exercise myself." 
 
 The pilot that guides the helm of a ship is ex- 
 onerated from responsibility for disaster only 
 when he uses all the means within his reach to 
 make him know the way in which he ought to 
 ■B. If he neglect those means, if he ignore the 
 signal of the stars, the instructions of his chart, 
 and the hearing of his compass, and shipwreck, 
 and death result from his ignorance, he is guilty 
 of manslaughter, nor can he plead in extenuation 
 that the way seemed right unto himself. lie is 
 guilty of the crime of ignorance, which is some- 
 times the highest crime known to law. 
 
 It is ever)' man's duty to know the rigid, so far 
 as God has put it in his power to know the right. 
 To know what I ought to do, and what I ought 
 not to do. What I verily think I ought to do, 
 that my conscience impels me to do, and " vice 
 versa." This is a law of consciousness independ- 
 ent of the Bible. 
 
 Let us look at it in common life, and seek there 
 pa illustration of the principle in hand. Con- 
 testants come into courts of law impelled by self- 
 
-4_' THE LAW OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 ishness on both sides. Each party comes into 
 court with liis counsel and his witnesses, and the 
 effort is by concealment, by false coloring, by 
 forced construction to bias the judgment of the 
 Court and make it seem right to determine the 
 OUGHT in my interest. It is not the impartial 
 rioiit that either party seeks. But both parties 
 seek to make, each his own side of the case, SEEM 
 right to the Court. That done, his interest will 
 be secured, wrong or right. 
 
 This illustrates the moral conduct of selfish 
 men the world over. We bring questions into 
 the court of the soul every day for adjudication; 
 not to determine what is abstractly right ami ab- 
 stractly wrong, but by strained construction of 
 scripture and of known facts, to get consent of 
 our moral judgment to decide the ought on the 
 side of self-interest. My harvest is suffering. 
 My hay is exposed to rain. Or my rivals in 
 trade are getting advantage by doing business on 
 the Sabbath day. My family needs support, 
 OUGHT I not to gather rny crop or open my store 
 for trade on that day. I have been in my store 
 all the week and need recreation. Ought 1 not 
 
ill ic law OF CONSOIENl r. L'4.'-i 
 
 to preserve my health by going on a pleasure ex- 
 cursion instead of going to the house of God? I 
 have worked hard in the mill, early and late, six 
 days. Ought I not to rest on theseventh? Does 
 the Lord require (his at my hand, that I should 
 risk my property or my trade 9 Sacrifice needed 
 recreation or needed rest in order t<> honor the 
 Lord's day and the Lord's House? Cannot 1 
 serve him as well at home, by rest, by necessary 
 work, or by recreation in the fresh air of field or 
 forest as by going with the multitude to the 
 house of worship? Thus I reason the case with 
 my moral judgment and strive to get consent to 
 do what my interest or my preference incline me 
 to do irrespective of the ought or the ought not. 
 To bias the Court of the soul and gain its consenl 
 to what without bias it would decide ought not 
 to be, is the natural bent of human nature the 
 world over. To make our way SEEM right unto 
 o; rsklves when it is abstractly and ABSOLUTELY 
 wrong, and thus bribe conscience to impel us in 
 a way the end when of is the way of death is the 
 policy of the Devil always. 
 
 When our neighbor lies by the wavside half 
 
244 THE LAW OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 dead, bleeding, suffering, destitute, we know 
 everybody knows, we ought to go to Him , bind 
 up his wounds, pour in oil and wine, and take 
 care of him. He is a max. That's all the que&l 
 fcion we have to ask. A certain man fell among 
 thieves. He was HUMAN, hence our neighbor. 
 But when a China max, a black man or an In- 
 dian falls among thieves, and lies by the wayside 
 half dead, how many are the apologies we bring 
 into the court of the soul to justify us in passing 
 by on the other side. He's a heathen; he's filtby; 
 he's a slave; he's selfish; be works for himself and 
 his clan. He works cheaply and lives on ten 
 cents a day; we can't compete with him. He's 
 in our way. Go to, now, let us kill him. and 
 the inheritance of labor shall be ours. How liaid 
 we belabor our moral judgment to make it seem 
 ki<;ht t<> despise, to abuse, to vol) and murder oil! 
 neighbor, when he, by means no matter how 
 faultless, comes in the way of our self-interest, 
 and then especially bow naturally the tbought- 
 less, ignorant, incendiary mob get consent of 
 their moral judgment to override reason and law 
 until the wav they have made to seem right ends. 
 
THE LAW OF CONSCIENCE, 245. 
 
 in devastation, violence and death. 
 
 We the Anglo-Saxon race made it seem right 
 to enslave the African race. How copious our 
 arguments in justification of this at the bar of 
 reason. We succeeded in making it seem right 
 to do it. They bore the mark of Cain. They 
 were descendants of Ham. They were under the 
 curse of God. They had no rights that white- 
 men were bound to respect. Ought they not to 
 be made hewers of wood and drawers of water? 
 Yes, we said, and refused to let them go free 
 But though our way was thus by special plead-" 
 ing made to seem right, the end thereof was the 
 way of intestine war, rapine, anarchy mourning 
 woe and death. Here is a chance to make money. 
 Make it easily, make it fast; a chance to put my- 
 self in circumstances of comfort and competence 
 with means to help up public enterprises, give to 
 the poor, and make myself in many ways useful, 
 and I belabor my moral judgment. 
 
 Ought I not to go into it? True, there are 
 weighty reasons against it. Distilleries and the 
 whole drink business are a great evil. But a 
 worse man than I will do it if I do not, One 
 
246 THE LAW OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 more selfish, less beneficent, less public spirited. 
 Ought I not to go into it, take advantage of the 
 situation and make myself useful. Thus we get 
 tacit consent and make the way of flagrant evil 
 6eem right unto us, but the end thereof are the 
 ways of death. The sting of remorse and <i:lf- 
 cobdemnation is n<> easier for a bad man to bear 
 than for a good man. It is the gnawing of the 
 worm that never dies and the flash of the flame 
 that is never quenched, Hence the refugee of 
 Ur- to which bad men resort to make their evil. 
 jeem right unto themselves and thus get 
 the help of conscience to make a wrong way seem 
 right. But the end thereof is nevertheless cer- 
 tain death, The only proper question for the 
 good man is, M Lord, what wilt THOU have me to 
 do?" What odght I to do? Not what is safe, or 
 expedient, or profitable, What ought J to do, 
 and what ought I not to do? 
 
 God has divided the human family on that 
 line. And it is a question as momentous as eter- 
 nity on which side of it I stand. Am I belabor- 
 ing my judgment with false pretenses, and in 
 Obedience to my selfish, covetous desires, striving 
 
THE LAW OF C< ) N S( ' I KM ' K . 
 
 to make a wrong way seem right; or am I mak- 
 ing it my chief and only study, irrespective of the 
 popular frown, or the popular smile, irrespective 
 of the question of poverty or plenty to KNOW 
 what I ought to do? When that question is set- 
 tled, then he is the true hero who dares to do it, 
 regardless of all consequences. 
 
 What I verily think I OUGHT to do, after hav- 
 ing exercised myself to have a conscience void of 
 offense, that I must do, though the lion's den. or 
 the burning fiery furnace heated seven times hot- 
 ter than it was wont to be heated, stare me in the 
 face. 
 
 And this brings me to the point in which ray 
 argument culminates. It is the business of Chris- 
 tianity to find out what the people individually 
 and in the aggregate ought to do. The way that 
 seemeth right is more often wrong than right, 
 and because it seemeth right, it is none the less 
 liable to end in evil. To know the right and do 
 it is the climax of character, and the only condi- 
 tion of true heroism. What I verily think I 
 ought to do my conscience impels me to do 
 wrong or right. The real idea and intent of 
 
248 THE LAW OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 civilization is to set right human judgment as 
 to the ought and the ought not. And oh, how 
 fearful the crime of which so many are guilty, 
 the crime of perverting their own moral judg- 
 ment and striving to make the wrong seem 
 right. They are like the pilot at the helm of a 
 ship who shuts his eyes to the stars and the com- 
 pass, until the propeller drives him onto the 
 rocks, instead of exercising himself to know 
 where he ought to go, and setting his helm in 
 the way of safety, then he will have a propeller 
 void of offense. 
 
 Said a brother to me the other day, I don't 
 think people generally have any conscience. By 
 whieh he meant to say, that the question of 
 ought and ought not is not generally a govern- 
 ing question, but that of self-interest, present 
 gratification, pecuniary profit. The question is, 
 will it pay to do what I ought not to do? 
 
 Are not the prevalent facts that extort from 
 the mouth of good men such a confession regard- 
 ing the human conscience, the most appalling 
 feature of our human life? It is not true that bad 
 men have no conscience; nor is it true, that under 
 
THE LAW OF CONSCIENCE. 24'.) 
 
 the blazing light of our Christian civilization 
 anybody verily thinks he ought to run a gamb- 
 ling hell, trample on the Lord's day, rent prop- 
 erty to prostitutes, overreach his neighbor by 
 false representations in trade, or turn his back 
 on the poor who pine in want. They all verily 
 think they OUGHT not to do any of these things. 
 He who reads the thoughts of the heart knows 
 very well that conscience, however abused, de- 
 bauched, insulted and repressed in the soul of 
 wiaked men is never silent, but is ever crying out 
 in that secret chamber, " this is the way, walk ye 
 in it." The conscious ought in the soul of bad 
 men is precisely the same as in the soul of good 
 men. The difference lies in the fact that the one 
 does what he verily thinks he ought not to do, 
 and the other does what he verily thinks he 
 ought to do. If we continue to do what we veri- 
 ly think we ought not to do we incur the fearful 
 possibility of grieving away the spirit of God 
 which remonstrates through the conscience, of 
 stifling that divine behest mercifully ordained to 
 move us forward and upward in the way in which 
 we ought to go, until we, " after our hardness 
 
250 THE LAW OF CONSCIENCE; 
 
 and impenitent heart treasure up unto ourselves 
 wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of 
 the righteous judgment of God. 
 
 "Who will render to every man according to 
 hie deeds. 
 
 " To them who by patient continuance in well 
 doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, 
 eternal lite. 
 
 '• But unto them that are contentious, and do 
 not obey the truth, hut obey unrighteousness, in- 
 dignation and wrath. 
 
 "Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of 
 man that doeth evil." 
 
 There is such a thing as a PURE heart and a 
 mscien ;e. There is such a thing as a de* 
 filed conscience through the suicidal madness of 
 human depravity which hardens the soul to do 
 what it verily knows it ought not to do until 
 conscience is dehauched, repressed, abused, 
 crushed, and the soul is given over to inevitable 
 destruction. 
 
 But be assured, oh sinful man, that depravity 
 at most can but smother the voice divine for a 
 brief moment, it i. hut a question of time, (.'on- 
 
nil-: I, AW Of DONSOIENOB, 2B| 
 
 £oience eannot be stilled long. It will rise and" 
 jeassert i t s thunders in the soul, and as memory 
 will reproduce hour by hour in a world without 
 end all the refuges of lies by which we have 
 Bought to silenoe its voice in this world, it will 
 pour in the burning vitriol of its remorse upon 
 the heat and torment of the soul forever and ever, 
 Jt is the voice oj a loving (rod in this world to 
 impel ns in the way in which we verily THINK we 
 OUGHT to go, and make sure our way to the celes- 
 tial paradise. It is the voice of an angry (n-d ii, 
 the world to come to meet out to incorrigible. 
 souls the awful retribution duo to those who 
 trampled it under their feet here by doing what 
 they verily know they ought not to do, 
 
 The Apostle "verily thought he ought to do 
 many things contrary to the name of .] , 
 Nazareth," How quickly, how radically he 
 tinned right about face in ail the spirit and pur- 
 poses of his life when he came to know that he 
 OUGHT to rlo so no more. It was conscience that 
 moved him before his conversion, and it was con* 
 i?cience that moved him after his conversion. No 
 
 man is condemned for doing what he vsrilv 
 
j?82 THE LAW OP CONSCIENCE, 
 
 thinks he ought to do. after " exercising himself 
 to have a conscience void of offense." But men 
 are condemned who (under Christian light, and 
 the same under heathen twilight), persist in do* 
 ing what they know they ought not to do and 
 leaving undone what they know they ought to do, 
 
 That is what beclouds our civilization. Our 
 prisons are filled by people who do what they 
 know they eeght not to do, who crush beneath 
 the feet of their wickedness that holy monitor 
 within the soul appointed of God to impel them 
 in the way of purity, peace and blessedness. We 
 have houses of prostitution, gambling hells, drink 
 phopg, profanity, dishonesty, avarice, vice of all.' 
 kind-, not because wicked men have no com 
 science, Oh. no, no! hut because wicked men, 
 like a vicious horse, take the bits in their teeth 
 and madly rush on in the way in which they 
 know they cu,,ht not to go. They blindfold their 
 judgment and try to make it seem right, but it's 
 a failure; it dres not seem tight, but ends in 
 death. 
 
 Every day's dispatches tell us of the Judasea 
 who have resisted the remonstrances <>f an abused 
 
1'HK LAW <>K CON80IBNOJ5 255J 
 
 conscience, until they could bear its thunderings 
 no longer and have gone out and hanged them- 
 selves, or otherwise put an end to their despairful 
 lives, only to wake up in that realm of woe where 
 none can resist its power or quench the Ha me of 
 its torment that ascendeth up forever and ever. 
 
 Oh, if men would do what they verily think 
 they ought to do, and like Saul, when they per- 
 ceive they are doing what they ought not to do, 
 ask in deep earnest, Lord, what will THOU have 
 me to do? this sin-cursed world would be con- 
 verted instanter into a sanctuary of purity of 
 peace, and heavenly blessedness. Then there 
 would be a universal jail delivery, and every con- 
 vict would be on his knees asking, Lord, w hat- 
 wilt thou have me to do? Then every gambling 
 brothel would be turned into a prayer meeting; 
 every drink-shop into a house of useful industry 
 Then the Sabbath of God and the holy sanctuary 
 would be respected, and the busy world would 
 down brakes on all its tumultuous machinery. 
 Then the nations would beat their swords into 
 plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, 
 and men would have war no more, 
 
£$$ THE LAW OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 Oh God, whose voice divine within 
 Upbraids my soul for every sin, 
 And when thy word has made me know 
 The way in which I ought to go. 
 Gives me no peace if 1 refuse, 
 And the Divine behest abuse. 
 That voice divine will never cease, 
 Will never give me sweet release, 
 From the corroding, painful bite. 
 The fruit, of heeding not the right. 
 That gnawing worm will never die, 
 'Twill be my hell unless I try 
 The true, the righteous way, to know. 
 And knowing it therein to go. 
 How can I bear devouring flame 
 And dwell in everlasting shame, 
 Which conscience by its own recoil, 
 By self-coiivictjon, dread turmoil. 
 Will e'er inflict upon my soul, 
 While the eternal ages roll. 
 Help me myself to exercise, 
 And forward press to gain the prize 
 Of peace within, a conscience void 
 Of all offense, bliss unalloyed,. .->•-■• 
 
THE LAW OF CONSCIENCE. 255 
 
 This will be mine, if deed and thought 
 Be made subservient to the ought, 
 And if I do what I think right 
 In my heavenly Father's sight, 
 'Twill be accepted, I'll not fear, 
 When to the judgment I come near, 
 He'll see my motive, judge my heart, 
 And I shall have some humble part 
 Among the men of honest thought, 
 Who tried to know and do the ought. 
 Of such, not all are Christian men; 
 Some heathen feel the way, and when 
 They verily think they're right, 
 They 'ill stand approved, for lack of sight. 
 The honest motive God will spare, 
 Though wrong, 'twill his compassion share. 
 
266 THE LAW OF LOVE. 
 
 The Law of Love. 
 
 He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of 
 Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, yea, Lord; 
 thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, feed 
 my sheep. — John XXI: 16. 
 
 All possible questions touching Peter's qualifi- 
 cations as an Apostle, were comprehended in this 
 one question, lovest thou me? I shall awaken 
 your religious thought this a. m. If I can so an- 
 alyze the question as to render apparent the all 
 comprehending idea that it suggests — lovest thou 
 me. The first element to be considered, is that 
 of love. This is the starting point of all char- 
 
THE LAW OF LOVE. 267 
 
 acter whether bad or good. It is this that gives 
 to human character its distinctive quality; no 
 matter whether conformed in molds of virtue or 
 of vice, love is its mainspring. Bad men and 
 good men are moved by this element of character. 
 So that while it is true as the scripture saith that 
 love is the fulfilling of all law, it is also true on 
 the same authority, that love is the root of all 
 evil. 
 
 Abstractly considered, the element of love does 
 not determine moral character. It as often im- 
 pels men in the wrong direction as in the right 
 direction. Whether the bent be wrong or right, 
 love is the elastic force. If its power culminate 
 in the fulfillment of all law, it is all the same as 
 if it culminate in the criminal disregard of law. 
 Love carries one class to Heaven while it carries 
 the other class down to Hell. Love, then, is no 
 criterion of character. To determine this we 
 have to look beyond the propelling force. The 
 propelling force may move us now in one direc- 
 tion, now in another, now in the right way, now 
 in the way of evil. It depends altogether on the 
 object of love. 
 
258 THE LAW OF LOVE. 
 
 Hence the second element in our analysis is 
 the ohject that inspires love. And here let it be 
 premised that the object of love is personal. We 
 talk about loving money, loving the world, mean- 
 ing goods, chattels, property. But the language 
 so used is inaccurate. We do not love gold or 
 houses, or anything else impersonal. We love 
 only rational beings, with a nature like our own 
 that can reciprocate the sentiment. We speak 
 of enjoying society. By that we do not mean 
 that we love or enjoy the aggregation of people, 
 church, lodge or club. Love belongs to our in- 
 dividuality, and can be reciprocated only by in- 
 dividual persons. It is these in their personal 
 identity, 'not the aggregate whole as a society that 
 we love. We talk about love of country — by that 
 we mean love of the people that live in the coun- 
 try. The rocks and rills, the woods and templed 
 hills, we use by metonymy, or change of name 
 for the people of the country, just as we use 
 
 CROWN for KING. MITRE Or GOWN for PRIESTHOOD, 
 
 sword for military occupation. We do not in 
 exact language love any inanimate or irrational 
 object, and oar character depends wholly on the 
 
fflUE LAW OF LOVt- 2f\<* 
 
 object of our loye. If that object be self, inde- 
 pendent of all others, then our love conforms our 
 character in the mold of selfishness. Judas loved 
 himself supremely. We call it. the Bihle calls 
 jt, the love of money, whjch is the root of all evil, 
 Rut we use the- term by what is called ' pjetony 
 iny,"' The Bible uses it in that sense. Money 
 has no value, that the selfisb man should love il 
 farther than it contributes to himself personally, 
 ft makes himself better off, more independent, 
 more opulent; it fosters his personal pride, case, 
 enjoyment. He loves huiself. Tie is a selfish 
 man, puts himself before all others, betrays his 
 friends for money becayse he loves himself, and 
 money contributes to h[s self-gratification, no£ 
 because it helps any body else, but because it 
 helps himself. 
 . A1J crime begins in selfishness. Self i> the ob- 
 ject of the love that forms the mainspring of 
 character in the highwayman, in the debaucbe, 
 in the swindler, I^ove of self makes unfaithful 
 husbands, bad fathers, disobedient children, dis ; 
 eordant families, neighborhoods, states and na» 
 tions, AH possible laws of virtue are condensed 
 
jHli l HE LAW OF LOVE, 
 
 into the golden rule which prescribes the only 
 
 proper object of love. 
 
 In Christ's examination of Peter, preliminary 
 
 to his life-work as his ambassador, he inquires 
 
 only for the object of his love, because that alone 
 
 can determine the moral character of any man. 
 
 Is not every man known by his social affinities? 
 
 That's the criterion by which we judge of every 
 man. We know him by the company he keeps. 
 Lovest thou a bad woman, it is because thou art 
 & bad man. (.-rood men have no such affinity, 
 Lovest thou low, profane, dissolute society: then 
 there is but ( ne opinion about your moral char- 
 acter. Lovest thou pure, refined, cultured, Chris- 
 tian society; nobody doubts your own virtue; 
 your status in the scale of virtue is fixed by the 
 moral level of the people among whom you find 
 vour friends and intimate associates. 
 
 Jesus sets before Peter the highest object of 
 human love, when he inquires, lovest thou me 9 
 That question settled, all other questions are set- 
 tled pertaining to his moral fitness to be his 
 representative as an apostle. To love him is to 
 love the living embodiment of all law, of all 
 
PHE LAW OF UiVK, > 
 
 righteousness, of all perfection. In the heart of 
 the man that loves him selfishness can have no 
 quarter. Love to him means absolute self-abne- 
 gation and entire consecration to tin' good cri 
 other people. It means the regeneration of all 
 the motives of the selfish heart, settling them all 
 into lines parallel with the motives of the Savior 
 himself. So that what Christ loves he loves, 
 what Christ hates he hates, what Christ is and 
 does he aims to be and to do. The question 
 lovest thou me comprehends every other question, 
 and being settled in the affirmative. He is pre- 
 pared for his commission. " Feed my lambs, feed 
 my sheep." 
 
 And now it remains to analyze the command 
 thus laid upon him. The term feed is significant. 
 It implies more than appears on the surface. It 
 implies hunger on the part of the lambs and 
 sheep, an unsatisfied want in universal humani- 
 ty, a starving condition, a great and suffering 
 lack of something out of ourselves to quiet the 
 clamors within us, and harmonize the warring 
 elements of the world around us. This universal 
 desideratum in human nature is called death, 
 
362 THE LAW OF LOVE. 
 
 and the answering good, the divine antedote. is 
 -called life. In his commission to Peter he is 
 thinking of humanity in this state of want, per- 
 ishing for lack of the bread and water, of which, 
 if they partake, they shall hunger not, neither 
 thirst any more. Hence the commission is. " feed 
 my sheep." He says of himself, " I am the good 
 shepherd, my sheep hear my voice and follow 
 me, and I lay down my life for the sheep." 
 
 ki It is expedient that I go away." Who will 
 be the good shepherd? Who will feed the tender 
 Jambs, and lead the sheep into green pastures 
 and beside the still waters when. I am gone? The 
 world is starving for the bread of God that 
 cometh down from Heaven. I am that bread of 
 life. The world wants me. 
 
 It is wrenched with selfishness. Selfishness is 
 the root of all its bitterness, the firebrand of all 
 •ts woes, the instigator of all its crimes, the rivet 
 of all its slaver}', the food of the worm of remorse 
 that never dies, the fuel of the incipient flame 
 within the soul that is never quenched. Selfish- 
 ness spreads all the clouds of heathenism that 
 darken f '"- J gentile world 1 am the light of life, 
 
THE LAW OF LOVE. 263 
 
 the world wants me. 
 
 As the Father hath sent me even so send I you 
 to give the bread of life; give me to starving hu- 
 manity. There is only one type of character 
 that can do this — that is a Christly character, 
 " Lovest thou me?" Am I, my aims, my de- 
 sires, my perfect unselfishness, my crucifixion to 
 the world and all worldly aims. Am I, the one 
 commanding object of your love? .Yes. Then 
 you are qualified to be the medium of my ap- 
 proach to hungering humanity and to bring the 
 bread of God to the lambs and sheep of my flock, 
 not by what you teach, but by what you are. 
 Not by the syllogisms of logic, but by the exhi- 
 bition in your own person of him who is the way, 
 the truth and the life. 
 
 The sheep and lambs are not hungering for a 
 theoretic knowledge of the component elements 
 of the bread of God any more than a starving 
 man is hungering for knowledge of the chemical 
 combinations that enter into the manufacture of 
 the bread he eats. It is bread in the concrete 
 that he wants, for that alone can keep him from 
 starving. So humanity is not hungering for 
 
264 THE LAW OF LOVE. 
 
 platitudes, or for the scholasticism, or the hair- 
 splittings of theological science. As well when 
 they ask for bread give them a stone. Perishing 
 humanity asks for no analysis of the bread of 
 God. It is enough to know that the concrete, 
 Divine human, God-man Christ, can fully and 
 perfect]} 1 - answer the cravings of the soul. As 
 bread he is accepted. The soul feeds on him, and 
 is filled with all the fulness of God, without ask- 
 ing how he stands related to the Father and the 
 Holy Ghost, without asking how much of his per- 
 son is human and how much is divine. 
 
 Without asking whether he suffered a penal 
 death to satisfy the demands of justice, or a vol- 
 untary death to cleanse away sin and win the 
 sinner by the power of his love. All these ques- 
 tions are irrelevant to the soul hungering for the 
 living bread. 
 
 I want something to respond to the yearning 
 wants of my hungering soul. Something that I 
 can love, and that can give back a response of 
 love. That is not the systematic theology of the 
 schools. That is not catechism, or creed, or dog- 
 ma, it is the person of the Divine Human Christ. 
 
THE LAW OF LOVE. ZbO 
 
 I want him personified to me by one that loves 
 him. One so transparent that Christ is seen 
 through him in all his divine loveliness. There 
 lave been many wise teachers in the world whose 
 sayings were good and true. Confucius uttered 
 many truisms and advised the world to be gov- 
 erned by them. How much have those truisms 
 done to save the people of China. With all that, 
 Confucius taught (and he taught much that was 
 true) the people of China are starving for the 
 ©read of Cod, and Christ is saying to us, feed 
 them. He does not ask us, loVest thou the tru- 
 isms that I or Confucius, or Socrates taught, but 
 lovest thou me. The truisms of Confucius are 
 very like those of the sermon on the Mount, and 
 Confucius commanded respect' for them. As the 
 result of his life and teachings we have Chinese 
 character, Chinese civilization, Chinese religion. 
 And we are sending them missionaries to feed 
 "them the bread of God, for lack of which they are 
 perishing. Tins bread is Christ. And the mis- 
 sionary is asked, lovest thou me. as a living per- 
 son? Otherwise feeding them with the sermon 
 on the Mount will not satisfy their spiritual 
 
260 THE LAW OF LOVE. 
 
 want. I am the way — not my ethical teachings. 
 I as a personal living, divine, almighty eternal 
 friend, who was dead, but yet alive, ever present, 
 ever the same living personal Savior, from whom 
 alone come the responses of love which the soul 
 craves. 
 
 Lovest thou me? Thou knowest all things; 
 thou knowest that I love thee. Then, and only 
 then, and on that condition, feed my sheep. 
 
 This is the preliminary test of qualification, no 
 less with respect to those who preside in the 
 schools of letters and science, than to those who 
 teach inthe school of religion. All teachers are 
 commissioned to feed the lambs and lead the 
 flock in the green, pastures of wisdom. Teachers 
 of mind in any of the fields of thought to which 
 the human soul is invited, poorly appreciate the 
 high possibilities of their sacred calling who find 
 the ultimatum of their work in the impartation 
 of mental power to grapple with the mysteries of 
 the Rule of Three, the complications of algebra, 
 or the reasonings of geometry; who think wisdom 
 consists in storing the memory with facts of his- 
 tory or phil >sophy. Every teacher in whatever 
 
THE I, AW OF LOVE, 267 
 
 department of learning, is ordained to feed the 
 lambs either with the food of virtue, or else with. 
 the poison of unbelief. And this means every 
 parent, schoolteacher, college professor, platform 
 lecturer, as well as gospel preacher and Sunday 
 school worker. And in examining their qualifi- 
 cations we instinctively ask, first of all, what is 
 the ruling all controlling object of their love. We 
 do not care to inquire about a teacher's church 
 relations, his ethical notions, or his theological 
 opinions, We only want to know the object on 
 which his heart is "set. That determines his 
 character, and character in the teacher by a law 
 inherent in itself begets character in the taught, 
 whether in the family, the school, or the church. 
 Lovest thou me? If I could answer that ques^ 
 tion with the assurance of the disciple to whom 
 Jesus addressed it, '.' Lord, thou knowest that 1 
 love thee/' my commission to feed his lambs 
 would need no indorsement even though critics 
 refuse assent to my doctrines. Not the d/xrtrineg 
 bf the mind, but the love of the heart determines 
 the fitness of the teacher to feed the lambs of the 
 0OCk- Theology reduced to logical form ill the 
 
CHE LAW OF LOVE, 
 
 brain is one tiling. Theology reduced tu practi- 
 cal life, having its seat in the love of the heart is 
 quite another thing. This is the theology that 
 begins in faith, the faith which works by love, 
 which purifies the heart, which overcomes tin 1 . 
 world, and which alone can prepare tin- disciple-. 
 of our Lord for the great commission; " Go ye 
 into all the world, preach the gospel to every 
 creature," not by the logic of words but by the 
 eloquence of love. 
 
 Give mi- the grace my Lord to know. 
 Give me tin- grace himself to show. 
 Himself the object of my love, 
 
 all my acts and motives prove; 
 For by my fruit my love is known. 
 By no truisms can it be shown, 
 Himself, not truth, nor law, nor creed, 
 Himself is ail 1 crave or need, 
 For if he hold the highest place 
 In my affections, then his grace 
 Will mold my life, will be my law, 
 All nutriment from him I'll draw. 
 How much 1 want, how great my need, 
 flu k of God, the lambs to feed, 
 
THE LAW OF LOVE. 8S8 
 
 Tis not the knowledge I've acquired. 
 
 Nor fame to which I have aspired, 
 
 My wisdom will but folly prove, 
 
 Unless supremely him I love. 
 
 The world was full of truth before 
 
 The Savior came. He brought no more, 
 
 He bore witness to the truth, 
 
 And questioned doctors in his youth, 
 
 But to the prophets added nought. 
 
 Nor to the law a single thought. 
 
 On it as on a rock he stood, 
 
 Because 'twas holy, just and good. 
 
 All that was true in Socrates, 
 
 In Plato and in Pericles, 
 
 That with the prophets harmonized. 
 
 And was by Moses legalized; 
 
 He witnessed and confirmed it all, 
 
 And his command to great and small 
 
 Was, do and teach what Moses taught. 
 
 And what the Holy prophets thought, 
 
 But all they taught you find in me — 
 
 In me the truth the life you see. 
 
 The holy law you cannot keep, 
 
 With it, you cannot feed the sheep; 
 
"'70 THE. LAW OF LOVE. 
 
 Iii me. the law 's reduced to bread, 
 With which alone the lamb* are fed. 
 Lovest thou me? and dost thou find 
 < r n mk food for the starving mind: 
 The truth 's the husk that holds tin 
 Itself, is not the living bread. 
 Who feeds on husks without the wheal. 
 Will starve for lack of bread to eat. 
 The BREAD and not the HUSK we need. 
 With which the lambs and sheep to feed; 
 Confucius gave the husks no 
 Than Job, but failed the. world to bless, 
 Because not truth but life we love, 
 And he ignored life from above, 
 He was a realist so called 
 Within the world of sense installed, 
 ( 'ommandings and forbiddings he 
 Relied on. but could not 
 Beyond the veil the unseen One, 
 Whose name to love, doth law outrun. 
 His question was, dost thou not know 
 The truth evolved from things below? 
 That's but the husk it does not feed 
 The immortal soul in starving need, 
 
THE LAW OF LOVE. 
 
 We want an object we can love; 
 
 We want response from One above; 
 
 Onr love fulfills the laws demands 
 
 Before it utters its com Mian Is; 
 
 It outruns truth and goes before, 
 
 To recreate and to restore; 
 
 While yet the truth is not half told, 
 
 Love does the character remold. 
 
 Lovest thou Myself? My sheep then feed 
 
 Of the command you have no need. 
 
 Your spontaneity is law, 
 
 Because from me your life you draw. 
 
 I am the truth, the living bread; 
 
 'Tis yours before the world to spread 
 
 The banquet, and ray sheep bring in, 
 
 And all the lambs astray in sin. 
 
 They're in the deserts far and near. 
 
 And in the mountains dark and drear: 
 
 Go to the highway and the hedge; 
 
 Go to the distant mountain ledge; 
 
 Go everywhere the welcome tell, 
 
 And all the wandering ones compel 
 
 To throng the banquet Christ has spread, 
 
 And feast their souls on living bread. 
 
272 THE GOLDEX RULE. 
 
 The Golden Rule. 
 
 Thou shalt love 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.— Mathew XXII: 37-40. 
 
 Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men 
 should do to you, do ye even so to them for this is the 
 law and the prophets. — Mathew VII: 12. 
 
 It was the uniform habit of Jesus, when asked 
 the question, " What must I do to be saved?" to 
 give an answer that commended itself to the 
 common sense of the enquirer. He never pre- 
 
THE GOLDEN RULE. 273 
 
 scribed any hard conditions, but such as find ap- 
 proval in the common mind, and such as are free 
 from mystery. He prescribes no penances, no 
 round of observances, or of laborious duties, and 
 no detailed formalies of Christian doctrine. 
 
 But on all occasions emphasizes love as the one 
 great commandment, and the indispensable con- 
 dition of moral good. This simple law of reli- 
 gion silences all opposition. It takes all cavil 
 out of the mouth of unbelief. It leaves no ground 
 for infidelity to stand upon, because love is ad- 
 mitted to be the deepest principle of character, 
 and when its object is the ideal of absolute per- 
 fection, its exercise begets results in the soul of 
 man that all men admit to be good. This is the 
 essence of a religion, the quality of which nobody 
 can call in question. It is not essential to this 
 point that the personal identity of the Christians' 
 God be proved; let that be ideal if you please, 
 only admit that the ideal is perfect — infinite in all 
 great and good attributes; an ideal, to the like- 
 ness of which man cannot approach without be- 
 coming purer, happier, and in all conceivable re- 
 spects better. The love of that ideal is Christ's 
 
THE GOLDEN RULE. 
 
 invariable condition of salvation. This is the 
 first and great commandment, to love goodness, 
 be it personified in the being of a living God, or 
 be it an abstraction comprehending the ideal 
 qualities of the infinite God, this is immaterial. 
 To love goodness itself is the highest ascent of 
 character, no obiect of love can be conceived of 
 higher, and the good resulting to the soul frana 
 the love of that object is the highest obtainable 
 good. " Love worketh no ill to his neighbor." It 
 begets goodness, and this is never a passive, but 
 an active principle, and its action terminates not 
 in itself. It works outwardly; it is the inevitable 
 law of its action to bestow itself on others. Love 
 toward God necessitates love toward our neigh- 
 bor, and our neighbor means any member of the 
 human family. He that fell among thie 
 whom the good Samaritan bestowed love, was a 
 max. that is all we are told about him. We 
 know nothing of his color or character, of his ori- 
 gin or antecedents-; we only know that he was 
 iu max; a certain man went down from Jerusalem 
 to Jericho and fell among thieves. Being a man] 
 he is our neighbor, and love to God implies love 
 
THE GOLDEN fll'l v , 27h 
 
 to him. All claims to the former in the absence 
 bf the latter go for nothing, The false-hearted- 
 ness of the religious pretences of the Priest and 
 Levite was proved when they passed by on the 
 other side. Love to Ck>d would have detained them 
 as it did the Samaritan in acts of love to suffer- 
 ing humanity, regardless ol every other question, 
 save the one question, is he a man? Our Savior 
 tells ub that this principal of love constitutes th< 
 essence of all religion. lv *hi these two com- 
 mandments hang all the law and the prophets." 
 The whole system <>f Christian theology is com 
 prehended in this one simple law of love. This 
 nobody finds fault with. All agree, bad men and 
 good men agree, that so far religion is good. 
 Every month is stopped here, and all the world 
 is silent before God, 1 come then to a standstill. 
 What need have 1 to argue the value of a prin- 
 ciple that is by universal consant good, or vindi- 
 cate a power that underlies ail human happi- 
 ness. My duty as a preacher ends with an ap- 
 peal to accept and come into full and cordial 
 sympathy with the religion of Jesus Christ, all 
 which is condensed into the golden rule, If lm . 
 
27fi THE GOLDEN RULE, 
 
 man life be a failure, and not worth living with- 
 out love as the basis of character and as the only 
 condition of good, then why not surrender the 
 whole soul to the dominion of this heaven-born 
 power and be forever blessed, 
 
 But while with one breath the world admits all 
 that we claim for Christianity as expressed in the 
 text, with the next breath it holds it responsible 
 for the antagonisms, the debates, the ill blood 
 and the cruelties that have cursed humanity in 
 all ages. 
 
 And interpreting the wordB of the Prince of 
 Peace when he says, " I oame not to send peace 
 on earth but a sword," as the tocsin of war, it 
 pronounces against the religion that he taught as 
 an evil and not a blessing, But it is easy to 
 show that this conclusion is the result of blinds 
 ness and of depraved understanding, Love to 
 God, and love to our neighbor, always implies 
 spiritual sympathy with God, likeness of char- 
 acter, likeness of feeling, and purpose to maintain 
 the principles of his holy law. 
 
 A man cannot love God and at the same time 
 ee>:inive at wickedness in his fellow man. and if 
 
THE GOLDEN RULE. 
 
 he connive not at wickedness — wickedness is cer- 
 tain to antagonize him. Love to our neighbor 
 implies no complicity with our neighbors' wrong, 
 but positive discountenance of it, which inflames 
 passion, and engenders strife and ill will. Con- 
 scientious resistance to the whiskey power which 
 almost nobody at this day pretends to justify, be- 
 gets the hate of the guilty parties that are identi- 
 fied with it. So it was with the slave power, and 
 so it is with all wrong. When Jesus says " He 
 came not to send peace on earth but a sword, and 
 that a man's foes shall be they of his own house- 
 hold." he intends simply to forewarn his disci- 
 ples that there is no affinity between sin and 
 holiness; that there is a natural and eternal re- 
 pulsion between righteousness and unrighteous- 
 ness, and that the more entire and unreserved 
 the love of the heart towards God and man the 
 stronger that repulsion becomes, and this fact is 
 interpreted as a belligerent spirit on the part of 
 Christianity, to which is ascribed the manifold 
 evils, the records of which interline the whole his- 
 tory of the Christian era. Men look back over 
 the records of the religious wars, persecutions, in-* 
 
??S FHE GOLDEX RULE. 
 
 quisitions and crusades, of the last two thousand 
 years and try to believe that the world would 
 have been better and happier without Christiani- 
 ty, that on the whole it has cost more than it is 
 worth, and therefore it ought to he discouraged 
 from further extension as a means of the world's 
 civilization. All admit that its essence as ex- 
 pressed in the text is unimpeachable. But be- 
 cause it conflicts with human depravity — because 
 it cannot connive at the sins and selfishness of 
 men — it is counted as a foe to the peace of society-, 
 and on the whole an evil, rather than a good in 
 the world. 
 
 But we must look below the events of history 
 to determine whether Christianity be good or 
 bad, We must look into its heart as we look 
 into that of a man to determine the moral char- 
 acter of his a-ction. And when we decide that 
 any system of ideas is bad, that any religious or- 
 ganization or religious law, called Christian, is 
 bad. we must first inquire whether it be truly or 
 falsely called Christian. 1 shall not be disputed 
 when I assume that all is not Christian that is 
 palled Christian, The burden now upon me is to 
 
ink GOLDEN RULE. 279 
 
 show that Christianity rightly so called is good — 
 good in its essence, good in its requirements, good 
 in all its effects on man, on society, on the world. 
 The text is a clear, comprehensive, condensed 
 statement of what Christianity is. 
 
 As the pure gold which is disseminated in mi- 
 nute particles and veins, through the unsightly 
 rocks of the mountain, is extracted by powerful 
 machinery and condensed into a pure ingot of 
 untold value, so the essence of Christianity under 
 the divine discrimination of the Son of God is 
 extracted from all the savings of the divine ora- 
 cles, from all the law ami the prophets, and con- 
 densed into a form, which, by the universal con- 
 sent of manking, is called the Golden Rule. 
 
 Whatever is different from this you have a 
 right to oppose and to condemn. But you have 
 no right to condemn Christianity. Whatever 
 history shows to have been wrong in the name of 
 Christianity, and contrary to the Golden Rule, 
 you have a right to denounce and condemn. But 
 whatever history shows to have been done in 
 keeping with the spirit of the Golden Rule, you 
 are bound to approve, for by universal consent 
 
280 THE GOLDEN RULE. 
 
 that is right, Obedience to that leads nobody 
 astray. Here is the divine standard to which all 
 sentiments must be referred, and by which all 
 character and conduct must be tried. And when 
 I assert that Christianity seen from this stand- 
 point (and it can be seen from no other) is ab- 
 solutely, unconditionally, eternally good, I am 
 not called upon to apologize for, or defend the 
 countless wrongs done in all ages in the name of 
 Christianity, any more than I am called upon to 
 vindicate the spurious imitations of United States 
 coin or counterfeit notes made in imitation of 
 solvent currency. Neither the mint nor the bank 
 is responsible for the frauds committed in their 
 name. Nobody respects sound money the less 
 because honest people have been cheated with 
 bad money, and nobody proposes to stop coining 
 good money because bad men' put in circulation 
 spurious imitations. The main lever in infidel 
 sophistry is, to hold Christianity responsible for 
 the crusaders, the revolutions, the inquisitions, 
 the persecutions, the hypocrisy, and wickedness 
 carried on in the world under the cloak of reli- 
 gion. I am not here to apologize for anything 
 
THE GOLDEN RULE. 281 
 
 wrong in the church or out of the church. Chris- 
 tianity is one thing, and wrong doing is quite 
 another thing. And wrong doing within the pale 
 of the so-called Christian Church, is no less wrong 
 on that account. The degenerations of the church 
 from the high and holy standard of the Apostolic 
 age do not argue the degeneration of Christianity. 
 The church did degenerate in different epochs 
 and was guilty of many grave offenses, but truth 
 never degenerates, it is eternally the same, and 
 its instinct is to remonstrate against and resist 
 wrong. Right and wrong are and forever must 
 be antagonistic. Christianity itself is antagonism ; 
 this is not denied. But will you hold Jesus 
 Christ and his holy teachings responsible for the 
 consequences for the conflict? He cannot make 
 a truce with wrong; such a truce as everybody 
 knows would be fatal to all that he came to ac- 
 complish. Jesus himself went to the cross be- 
 cause he refused to teach for doctrine the com- 
 mandments of men; because he would expose the 
 hypocrisy of the Pharisees, and refuse all com- 
 plicity with wrongs and abuses in the name, 
 either of law or religion. And will you hold 
 
_'■;_' THE GOLDEN RILE. 
 
 Jesus responsible for that crnel tradgedy because 
 he refused to make a truce with the maddened 
 throng that cried, away with him, crucify him. 
 and condemn as an evil the love and loyalty of 
 his divine heart because wickedness revolted 
 against it? Will you say religion in the heart of 
 the prophet Daniel, was an evil because it doomed 
 him to the lion's den. when he would not make a 
 truce with his enemies who commanded him to 
 neglect the worship of the living God. or charge 
 upon Shudrach Meshack and Abednego the ven- 
 geance that heated the burning fiery furnace 
 seven times hotter than it was wont to be hi 
 b ■■ tuse they w ire too religious to fall down and 
 worship the golden image that the King had set 
 up? Will you hold the holy martyrs responsible 
 for the fires of the stake or the cruellies of the 
 scaffold, and say that but for the inflexibility of 
 their Christian faith, history would never have 
 been called upon to record the sickening st< 
 their death? is right, any the less right, be- 
 cause wrong is eternally at war against it? Is 
 Heaven to be impeached because the angels of 
 darkness strive in vain to scale its holy battle- 
 
i,im<;\ mi B, 
 
 ments and invade the sanctum sanctorum of the 
 blessed? Xay, verily it is the essential condition 
 of love to God, and love to man, to stand in for 
 the right as God has declared it, and to stand in 
 against all manner of wrong, But mark you, the 
 weapons of the Christian's warfare are not carriaj 
 but spiritual. ' Put up the sword within thy 
 sheath, " was the command of Jesus to Peter 
 when he smote off an ear from the high Priest's 
 servant, " They that take the sword shall per- 
 ish by the sword," and immediately he undid the 
 rash violence by miraculously restoring the ear 
 and healing the wound, The sword as a weapon 
 of Christian antagonism was unknown in the 
 Apostolic Church, The (4old.cn Rule approves 
 only of spiritual weapons. If any organization, 
 called a church, and claiming to be Christian in 
 later times, undertook to promulgate its doctrines 
 by the force of arms (and many such there have 
 been), the moment it did that it ceased to be a 
 Christian organization. And I am not here to 
 defend any such organisation as good. If called 
 Christian,, it is falsely so called. All warfare 
 that is carried on under tlje banner of the cross 
 
284 THE GOLDEN Rl'It 
 
 i? by no means Christian warfare. The crusades 
 led on by Peter the hermit, for the recovery of 
 the holy sepulchre from the possession of infidels 
 of the Holy Land, never had any justification in 
 Christianity, properly so called, and yet in his- 
 tory the crusades were called a Christian war, 
 and infidelity cites, that insane, superstitious 
 campaign, as one of the evil results of the gospel 
 of the Prince of Peace. 
 
 You tell me truly that more than half thf 
 nominally Christian world is held in ignorance 
 by a tyrannical Priesthood to whose oppressed 
 ts, the Bible is a sealed book, .aid the 
 rights of conscience are denied, I am not here 
 to defend that as a Christian system. When 
 Christianity, which commands all men to search 
 the Scriptures, degenerates into a blind force to 
 blot out the light of the Bible and tyrannize ovei 
 conscience, it ceases to be Christian, and becomes 
 an ally of Satan to lead men to perdition. If the 
 papal inquisition be called Christian, it is falsely 
 so called.' T<> hold it up as an evidence thai 
 Christianity is evil is no more pertinent than to 
 condemn the sun because dark spots upon its 
 
'HE GO), DEN RULE, 
 
 disk obscures its light. You tell me truly that 
 the fires of martyrdom have not been confined to 
 Popery that Protestantism as well as Popery has 
 taken the sword and has its record of blood. My 
 reply is, that Protestanism has no more right 
 than Popery to lord it over God's heritage, as 
 saith the Scripture. All appliances of power 
 over conscience are anti-Christian. If Protes- 
 tanism has at times admitted within her pale 
 wicked men and forbidden practices, that fad 
 does not change either the letter or the spirit of 
 the Golden Rule. The wrong done is anti-Chris- 
 tian, and Christianity remains the same uncor- 
 rupted, holy, soul-saving principle. You tell me 
 that the Pilgrim Fathers, those sainted sires of 
 our New England life and civilization, hung 
 witches, persecuted Baptists, and Quakers, and 
 did other unjustifiable things. What of that? Is 
 Christianity a failure on that account ? The 
 prejudices of those men had been cast in the 
 mold of English jurisprudence which hung 
 witches all the same as murderers, The law of 
 England framed after the Levitical law of the 
 Jews, had justified it time out of mind, And it 
 
286 THE GOLDEN RILE. 
 
 is not strange that the Puritans did not outgrow 
 the superstition at onee By emancipating them- 
 selves from English tyranny they did not hecome 
 instantly free from English superstition. But 
 Christianity is none the worse on that account. 
 There is not a word in the New Testament to 
 justify any of the acts of the Puritans that you 
 and I and everybody now condemn. Is there a 
 descendant of the Puritans now that docs not 
 blush with shame and sorrow at the mention of 
 that dark chapter in New England history? How 
 black it looks in comparison with the light, the 
 love and compassion, that shines out of the face 
 of Jesus Christ as reflected by the Golden Rule. 
 This is what I am defending, and not the mis- 
 takes of misguided men. 
 
 You tell me truly that the Protestant Church 
 is subdivided in form, and assume that if it truly 
 represented its divine head it would be a unit. 
 In answer, I reply, that the Grand Army of the 
 Republic is divided in form. Is it any the less a 
 unit 9 When it comes into action does it not 
 fight the same enemy, and defend the same Hag? 
 Poes it not support the same constitution, obey 
 
THE GOLDEN RULE. 287 
 
 the same commander, and share the same glory? 
 Subdivisions in form do not necessarily imply 
 subdivisions in spirit or purpose. They are the 
 offspring of religious freedom which is the crown- 
 ing glory of Protestantism. I am not here to ex- 
 cuse sectarian strife. But isms do not necessi- 
 tate strife or imply jealousy. Methodism means 
 simply dissent from Ecclesiastical oppression, 
 and the exclusiveness of a State Church that had 
 grown opulent, proad, and spiritually paralyzed. 
 This dissent on the part of John Wesly gave to 
 the world the great Methodist Church, the right 
 arm of our common Protestanism, which could 
 no more be spared out of the Christian system of 
 to day than ironclads could be spared from the 
 navy. The same may be said of Presbyterianisnl, 
 of Congregationalism, and of other sections of the 
 Protestant Church. I have no plea to offer in 
 justification of sectarian strife. All attempts at 
 the aggrandizement of sect at the expense of 
 truth and righteousness, break fellowship with 
 Jesus Christ and forfeit the right to be called 
 Christian. 
 
 Be it conceded that grevious wrongs have been 
 
288 THE GOLDEN RULE. 
 
 done in the name of Christianity, that there is 
 much of hypocrisy, of can't and heartless formali- 
 ty in the different churches on the part of indi- 
 vidual members. I will be fair and admit what 
 is justly claimed by sceptical men. Let the 
 whole inventory of charges be collated and piled 
 together into one thick black cloud, and when 
 placed before the face of the Son of Righteousness 
 as seen in the Golden Rule, they are no more to 
 obscure its glory, than a telescopic speck upon 
 the disc of the natural sun in the heavens. 
 
 If Christianity be an evil and not a blessing, 
 then wisdom requires that it be eliminated from 
 the literary, the social, and moral life of the 
 world. Begin the work of elimination in the re- 
 public of letters. Take out of the literature of 
 the world for the last two thousand years the 
 Christian element, and what have you left? He 
 is a pour scholar that does not know that Chris- 
 tianity is the only fire that ever blazed in the 
 soul of true poetry. All the noble and heroic ut- 
 terances of heathen bards even, were Christian in 
 spirit, and derived their lofty conceptions of vir- 
 tue from the same unseen divine efflatus that 
 
THUS GOLDEN RULE. 28.9 
 
 breathes in the Golden Rule. Tell me the name 
 of the poet within the Christian age whose works 
 have survived their author and reached a second 
 edition, who sung in the key of infidelity, and ig- 
 nored the inspiration of Gethsemane and the 
 holy logic of the Golden Rule. Eliminate from 
 Shakespeare, from Wordsworth, from Milton, 
 from Tennyson, from Burns, from Whittier, Bry- 
 ant and Longfellow, or even from Byron, the in- 
 spiration that comes from the cross, and you have 
 nothing left that is worth preserving. 
 
 Infidel historians have written the records of 
 human events. But if you eliminate from those 
 records the part that Christianity has pla}^ed in 
 the moulding of human affairs, and its confessed 
 power in the amelioration of human life, the vol- 
 umes and their authors would have gone together 
 long ago into the grave of oblivion. Eliminate 
 Christianity from your processes of education as 
 infidelity has tried, and is trying to do, remove 
 from your seats of learning in Europe and Ameri- 
 ca, men eminent alike in Christian scholarship 
 and Christian piety, and substitute in their place 
 men who deny God in nature, in history, and in 
 
290 THE GOLDEN RULE. 
 
 the human conscience, and exclude the light of 
 the Christian Scriptures as the highest s >urce of 
 wisdom for the use of the world, then what check 
 have you left against human depravity, and what 
 hope of virtue for the rising generation? 
 
 Eliminate Christianity from the law of the 
 land. This is possible only by the repeal of all 
 the statutes on which rest the security of life, 
 liberty and property. For all just law is a trans- 
 cript of the decalogue and the Golden Huh-, am- 
 plified and made applicable in judicial proceec^ 
 ings. Christianity writes it upon the heart, and 
 its unseen power in the conscience makes man a 
 law unto himself, and is more potent than all 
 written statutes or courtly decisions. If then we 
 cannot spare Christianity out of the literature. 
 the learning or the law of the world, without a 
 backward step into barbarism, from what de- 
 partment of life can it be spared? We cannot, if 
 we would, eliminate it from our domestic life. 
 The light of Christianity shines into all oug 
 homes and quickens all our consciences whether 
 we will or not. We can no more exclude it than 
 we can exclude the light of the natural sun. 
 
iiik (JOLDEX RULE, 291 
 
 While we Jive under the light of the Christian 
 Scriptures, which shines out from all our civiliza- 
 tion, that light will bless our homes in spite of 
 our unbelief, "He causeth his sun to shine on 
 the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on 
 the just and on the unjust." If within any un- 
 believer's home there resides the virtue of tem- 
 perance, of chastity, beneficence and charity, it 
 is because there shines into that home, and into 
 the conscience of its inmates the light of Chris- 
 tianity, These are all Christian virtues, and owe 
 the power by which they are enforced to the gos- 
 |el of Jesus Christ as it is preached in all Chris- 
 tian churches, Why, then, refuse to own the 
 power that saves us and our children from moral 
 ruin? Why not come into full and cordial sym- 
 pathy with the good that comes from Cod through 
 faith -in Jesus Christ, without which human life 
 is not worth living? For I tell you he is a poor 
 scholar in the school of morals, who has failed to 
 learn that Christianity is not only the best, but 
 the only true code of morals ever given to the 
 world, He is a poor scholar indeed, in the school 
 of religion, who has not learned that all other re* 
 
U92 I'HE UOl.DKN RULE, 
 
 ligions are a failure, and that Jesus Christ is the 
 only name under Heaven whereby we can be 
 saved. Pie is a poor interpreter of the signs of 
 the times who thinks Christianity is waneing- 
 and that its light is going out. Never did that 
 light shine with brighter promise than to day. 
 Never was the host of God's elect so united and 
 invincible as to day. numerical weakness on the. 
 Pacific Coast and subdivisions in external form 
 to the contrary notwithstanding. Never did the 
 little stone cut out of the mountain without hands 
 enlarge itself as to day, and promise to fulfil its 
 prediction to fill the whole earth, " Ethiopia is 
 stretching out her hand unto God, and the islands 
 are waiting for his law," Japan is filling our 
 Christian colleges with her youth, and China is 
 represented in every part of our industrial life 
 and is learning how to recast the oriental civiliza- 
 tion in Christian molds. Christianity within the 
 last twenty years has unfettered four millions of 
 the enslaved in this country, and exalted them to 
 the dignity of citizenship, and is loosening the 
 rivets of human bondage everywhere. Barrier.-. 
 are felling before the advancing gospel, Tin- 
 
THE GOLDEN BXTLE, 298 
 
 crescent has opened all her gates, and put it in 
 the power of Christian England to protect the 
 missionaries of the cross in every part of the Ot- 
 toman Empire. And the starving millions of 
 India are begging for the crumbs that fall from 
 Christian tables. The highway of the Lord is 
 being cast up everywhere. "The Gentiles ac- 
 cept the light and kings the brightness of his 
 coming." The day of Jubilee is approaching 
 when every yoke shall be broken, when the gos- 
 pel shall have free course and be glorified, and 
 when 
 
 " Jesus shall reign where ere the sun 
 Does his successive journeys run; 
 His kingdom stretch from shore to shore 
 Till sins and tears oppress no more." 
 
 ^ifeii^ 
 
•H}4 RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 Rational Religion. 
 
 Come, now, let us reason together. Though your sins 
 be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow.— Isaiah 
 £: 18. 
 
 I wish, in the concluding chapter of this hum- 
 ble volume, to turn my hack on all theological 
 literature, to silence the voice_ of Christian doc- 
 trine, as it is formulated by the different branches 
 of the Christian Church, and listen to the voice 
 divine as it -peaks to the inner consciousness of 
 my soul 
 
 Criticism of late has much to say of the errancy 
 and the inerrancy of Scripture. Whatever is said 
 
U \Tin\ w. RELIGION. 295 
 
 of the text of Scripture "which is given by in- 
 spiration of God," it cannot be said thai there is 
 any errancy in the divine thought that is infal- 
 lible. 
 
 But human language, which is the chosen vehi- 
 cle of the divine thought, is a clumsy, imperfect 
 vehicle. The thought it undertakes to convey is 
 divinely inspired. But the grammar is not in- 
 spired; that being human and not divine is liable 
 to be very errant. 
 
 Sometimes the thought which it conveys is so 
 obvious that "he that runs ma,- read, and the 
 wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err of its 
 meaning." To the men of all generations it con- 
 veys the same truth and needs no interpreter 
 save the still, small voice within the soul which 
 reaffirms the written word. 
 
 But the meaning of other portions of Scripture 
 is less obvious. It has been differently under- 
 stood in different periods of the world's history, 
 and by different men of the same period equally 
 honest and equally intelligent. Revisions in 
 translation and modifications of idiom have often 
 been resorted to and yet as a vehicle of the divine 
 
29(3 RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 thought the written text is confessedly imperfect, 
 while yet the thought which it embodies when 
 manifested to reason is found infallible. 
 
 The words selected to indicate my present 
 theme invites us to the vantage ground of reason 
 for a consideration of the one all-controlling sub- 
 ject with which religion has to deal. 
 
 Come, now, let us reason together about that 
 great matter which puts the whole human family 
 under indictment and arraigns every individual 
 of the race at the bar of divine justice for trial; 
 on account of which it is written in history that 
 it repented the Lord that he had made man upon 
 the earth, and which caused the fountains of the 
 great deep to be broken up for the drowning of 
 the world dead in trespasses and sins, which 
 evoked the law from Sinai, warnings and en- 
 treaties, expostulations and threatenings from the 
 mouth of the holy prophets, and finally brought 
 the son of God clown into our depraved humani- 
 ty to repair its ruin, and at the expense of his 
 own most precious and immaculate life be the 
 Savior of the world. 
 
 Our sins arc the procuring caus*e of all the woe 
 
RATIONAL RELIGION. 207 
 
 that flesh is heir to, but for which all the shad- 
 ows that becloud our human life would be turned 
 into the sunshine of a cloudless Heaven, and the 
 Bong of " peace on earth and good will to all 
 men " would be sung forever and ever. " Come, 
 now, let us reason together" about our sins. The 
 fact of their being and of their blighting power is 
 a fact of consciousness. The indictment is writ- 
 Ten by the finger of God in the heart of all men, 
 who, with universal consent have entered the 
 plea of guilty, so that without the testimony of 
 revelation, we know that "death hath passed 
 upon all men for all have sinned." 
 
 All men " find a law in their members warring 
 against the law of their mind and bringing them 
 into captivity to the law of sin, which is in their 
 members," and whether expressed or unex- 
 pressed, the confession is pertinent to all. " Oh 
 wretched man that I am who shall deliver me 
 from the body of this death?" How shall I be 
 just with God? 
 
 A full and satisfactory response to this uni- 
 versal inquiry, is the high and only end at which 
 true religion aims. To this end preachers of 
 
 
£93 RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 righteousness were called in the patriarchal age, 
 . and prophets were ordained in the Leviti- 
 cal age, and the ministry of the Christian gospel 
 on the part of apostles and teachers was estab- 
 lished under Christ in the Christian age. all in 
 every age working with the same motive ami as- 
 pirins: to the same end, viz: this to answer the 
 question of the human soul. "How shall I be 
 just with God? Though your sins be as scarlet 
 hall hi' as whit- as snow, though they be 
 red like crimson, they shall be as wool." 
 
 An 1 now the great milter of concern to the 
 ainner is to know the condition on which this 
 1 consummation can he realized. How can 
 the deep stains of guilt in my soul he washed! 
 out? How van I he as if I had never sinned? 
 How <an 1 be acquitted and justified before God? 
 This question is not peculiar to any one age or 
 nation. It is instinctive to the human race of 
 every age. and of every type of civilization, and 
 lias given rise to every conceivable form ot reli- 
 gious rites from the cruel immolation of human 
 victims on the bloody altars of pagan idolatry to 
 the penances, the oblations, the ritualistic, fasts, 
 
feasts and ceremonials of both Jewish and Chris- 
 tian devotions. 
 
 But in the chapter from which the text is 
 taken, God repudiates all the externals of reli- 
 gion, which for ages had ministered to the sensu- 
 ous and unsatisfying demands of a cold, legal and 
 unspiritual obedience, and invites the laboring 
 and heavy laden, borne down under the weight 
 of conscious guilt, saying, " come, now, let us rea- 
 son together." He sends them not to the Tal- 
 mud, or to the traditions of the devout and 
 learned. But calls them directly to himself, to 
 hold spiritual counsel and be instructed in the 
 way of peace. 
 
 ''To what purpose is the multitude of your 
 sacrifices unto me? Saith the Lord, I am full of 
 the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed 
 beasts, and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, 
 or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to 
 appear before me, who hath required this at your 
 Bands to tread my courts? Bring no more rain, 
 oblations, incense is an abomination unto me, the 
 new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assem- 
 blies., I cannot away with; your new moons and 
 
800 RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 your appointed feasts ray soul hateth. And 
 when ye spread forth your hands I will hide 
 mine eyes from you, when ye make many prayers 
 I will not hear." 
 
 What, then, shall I do? How simple the re- 
 sponse. Wash you, make you clean, put away 
 the evil of your doings from before mine eves, 
 cease to do evil, learn to do well. Seek judg- 
 ment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, 
 plead for the widow. "Though your Bins be as 
 scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though 
 they be red like crimson, they shall !><• as wool." 
 
 This is the divine idea of religion, the only 
 idea that reason can accept as of divine authority-. 
 The external rites of religion, the formulated doc- 
 trines of religion, the organized machinery of re- 
 ligion, so far as they .-culminate in the end that 
 God by the mouth of his holy prophet announces 
 as the mark for the pride of our high calling, viz: 
 to 'make us cease to do evil and learn to do well, 
 are worthy of our acceptance. And so far as 
 they aim at some other end and come short of 
 this, they are useless to men, and abhorrent 
 alike to reason and to God. 
 
RATIONAL RELIGION, 301 
 
 The text and centext is the gospel according to 
 Isaiah, and it is in order here to remark that it is 
 the gospel according to Christ and the Christian 
 Apostles. For there is but one gospel of salva- 
 tion approved of God, and whether preached by 
 patriarchs and prophets of the olden time, or by 
 saints and apostles under the New Testament 
 dispensation, it culminates in the same spiritual 
 result, viz: loyalty of heart and conformity of life 
 to the law and will of God. 
 
 The prophet Mica reduces the whole gospel to 
 an aphorism, when he says, " he hath showed the 
 oh man what is good, and what doth the Lord re- 
 quire of thee but to do justly to love mercy and 
 walk humbly with thy God!" And this he says, 
 after first intimating the insufficiency of all ex- 
 ternal rites. Whether under the law or under 
 Christ, there is but one method divinely approved 
 by which to overcome evil in human character, 
 and beget the fruits of spiritual salvation, and 
 that is by an appeal to reason. The invitation 
 to all men is, "come, now, let us reason together." 
 Give reason its sway. Do what you know yon 
 ought to do; "cease to do evil; learn to do well." 
 
303 RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 If there be in .Scripture language any thing 
 that seems to justify the sentiment that God pre- 
 determined the moral destiny of his creatures 
 and by his own arbitrary power necessitated their 
 conduct to conform their history to the plan thus 
 decreed, then there must be errancy either in the 
 thought of the writer, or else in the language 
 which he uses as the vehicle of his thought. 
 
 Proverbs, twentieth chapter, first verse, reads 
 thus: "The King's heart is in the hand of the 
 Lord; as the rivers of water he turneth it whith- 
 ersoever he will." 
 
 [f by that statement, the writer means, thai 
 God arbitrarily controls the volitions of the King, 
 and necessitates his action, as the power of gravi- 
 ty necessitates the course of a river in a pre- 
 scribed channel, then he contradicts the known 
 laws of reason, and there must be errancy either 
 in his thought or his language. If he means 
 simply to say. that God is wiser than men, and 
 that in appealing to the reason of the King, he, 
 by the use of motives more spiritual and more 
 convincing than those that men are able to use, 
 can lead him to go in the way in which he wo ild 
 
RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 have him to go, then the law of moral action <>n 
 God's part, though more effective in degree, is the 
 Same in kind us the same law on man's part. 
 God can no more force the heart of the Kingthan 
 one man can force the heart of another man. The 
 human spirit is as free as the Divine Spirit. This 
 is the condition "'sine qua non " to moral respon- 
 sibility, without which reason is dethn ned, and 
 man is reduced to a link in the chain of natural 
 car.se and < ffect, over which lie has no more con- 
 trol than the ox which hears the yoke lias over 
 the driver that wields the goad. 
 
 The Psalmist in predicting the advent of the 
 Mesiah, says, " thy people shall be willing in the 
 day of thy power," and commentators have in- 
 ferred from this language, that God, by arbitrary 
 power, forces the volitions of his people, and com- 
 pels them to be willing. But reason holds every 
 man morally responsible, and refuses to accept 
 either credit »or discredit for volitions or action 
 not original in man's own independent will, and 
 the thought of commentators, though seeming to 
 find sanction in the words of the inspired poet, 
 must be errant and not in harmony with the di- 
 
3)i RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 vine thought. 
 
 But commentators who teach the passiveness 
 of the human will and its enforced subjection to 
 the Divine will, draw their strongest argument 
 from the history of Pharao in that wonderful 
 drama which prefaced the exodus of the children 
 of Israel out of Egypt. 
 
 The story runs thus: The Lord commissioned 
 Moses to demand of Pharaoh the release of his 
 chosen people, and at the same time assured him, 
 saying, I will harden his heart that he shall not 
 let the people go. Then follows the history of 
 twelve successive plagues, each of which caused 
 the heart of Pharaoh to relent and promise to let 
 the people go But God again, and again, and 
 again, hardened Pharaoh's heart, and caused him 
 to go back on his promise and refuse to let them 
 go, until finally the work of the destroying angel 
 created a panic, which set on foot the hosts of 
 Israel in a march toward the Red Sea, when God 
 again hardened the heart of the Egyptians, the 
 whole rank and file of whom started in pursuit to 
 witness the miraculous deliverance of the chosen 
 people, and to avert the doom which was prear- 
 
RATIONAL RBLIGtoN. 805 
 
 ranged in the counsels of Heaven. Every act in 
 the drama was apparently necessitated of God as 
 part of the Divine plan. Each actor was acting 
 under.the irresistable will of God. And yet the 
 same commentators hold Pharaoh responsible for 
 his disobedience by resorting to the old paradox 
 of Divine Sovereignty on the one hand, and man's 
 free agency on the other, to reconcile, which cal- 
 vinistic theologians have in vain exhausted all 
 their resources time out of mind. 
 
 Reason revolts at the whole theory and puts us 
 upon a dilemma, one horn or the other of which 
 we must choose. Either the story is untrue, or 
 else the language must be so modified as t<> re- 
 lieve it of the gross absurdity of compulsion on 
 the part of God, and moral i-esponsibility on the 
 part of Pharaoh. 
 
 If God arbitrarily hardened Pharaoh's heart 
 that he should not let the people go, and then 
 brought retribution upon him for the disobedience 
 that himself had instigated, then there is no lan- 
 guage, or logic, or device under Heaven that can 
 reconcile the theory with the known truth that 
 righteousness and justice are the habitation of 
 
;; 1-3 :: vrroXAL RELIGION. 
 
 his throne, and that mercy and truth are the 
 stability of his empire. It involves an absurdity 
 at winch all the instincts of the rational soul re- 
 volt, and compels a solution of the language of 
 history which shall conform it with the known 
 laws of reason. "Come, now, let us reason to- 
 gether." God is infinite in his being. He is sub- 
 ject to none of the limitations of time or of space 
 that circumscribe our purposes. We who live in 
 time, and whose experiences are all a succession 
 H events related to each other in the order of 
 past present and future, do not understand the 
 vast scope of the Infinite mind who lives in on ■ 
 
 . ! present. We who can occupy different 
 p >sitions in space only in succes ive periods of 
 time, do no; r a lily comprehend how infinity can 
 occupy all positions in spac-3 at the same time, 
 God, who lives in absolute space is independent 
 of the measurements which we apply in the sub- 
 divisions of space, lie is also independent of 
 calendars and chronometers, by which we fix 
 
 in time. As he is everywhere in infinite 
 space, so he is in infinite duration. Of himself 
 he never speaks in the past or future tense. He 
 
KATIONAI. RELIGION, 307 
 
 never says I was yesterday, or J will be to-mor- 
 row. God is to-day lie is forever. He is no 
 elder now than at the dawn of creation. He will 
 be no older at the end than at the beginning of 
 time. "To him there's nothing; old appears. To 
 him there's nothing new." If all the experience 
 of our three score and ten years could he con- 
 densed into one day then one day would he to us 
 as three score and ten years. We should he as 
 tfoung at the end as at the beginning. 
 
 With God, '"a, thousand years are as one day, 
 •and one day as a. thousand years," then why not 
 ten or a hundred thousand? lie lives in all eterni- 
 ty, the whole of which is present reality. Gethscm- 
 ane is with God. A present fact when Adam was 
 created, a present fact now. It never was. It 
 never will BE. It always is. 
 
 Without this understanding of God's ubiquity 
 and his independence of time making it true that 
 all duration is to him as one day, and one day as 
 all duration, it is impossible to interpret the Bihle 
 so as to escape fatalism on the one hand, and en- 
 tire freedom from moral responsibility on. the 
 other. 
 
RATIONAL KELIGIOX. 
 
 But there is a better and truer conception of 
 revealed truth. Be it conceded that man is just 
 as independent in his volitions as God is. Be it 
 conceded that no events are future with God; 
 that every act and purpose of every man, with all 
 their consequences, are present realizations, and 
 in his mind are matters of history, long before 
 known in time, then it is plain that God can talk 
 about them as matters of history long before the 
 parties to them were born. That is what is 
 meant by living in eternity. It is ;is if time were 
 annihilated. God's knowledge is independent of 
 time. With him there is no succession of days, 
 and years, and cycles. It is "he that sitteth 
 upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants 
 thereof are as grasshoppers that stretcheth out 
 the heavens as a curtain and spreadeth them as 
 a tent to dwell in." He is outside of the diuri al 
 and annual revolutions that make our calendar. 
 He is independent of all time and lives in all 
 eternity. But though so high and so ubiquitoae, 
 he saith, " to this man will I look even to him 
 that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth 
 at my word." Such a man was Moses; putting 
 
RATIONAL RELIGION. iiUM 
 
 himself within the limitations of time and space 
 in which Moses dwelt, he spoke to him in lan- 
 guage, and employed modes of thought that a 
 finite mind could understand. 
 
 When he said to him, I will harden Pharaoh's 
 heart, that he will not let the people go, concede 
 the thought that the events about which he talked 
 as in future time, were as actual history already 
 accomplished in his mind. To God there is no 
 past; there is no future, but eternity is all pres- 
 ent to him. Then, what is prediction to Moses is 
 to himself actually transpiring now. 
 
 When he tells Moses I will harden Pharaoh's 
 heart, it is all the same as if he had said, you 
 can rest assured of this one thing, Pharaoh's heart 
 will be hardened, and he will not let the people 
 go, I will be responsible for the fact, for with me 
 it is an accomplished fact, but with you a future 
 event. God does not predict future events be- 
 cause he has predestinated them, but because all 
 events are present to his infinite comprehension. 
 If men are doomed to evil it is by reason of their 
 own voluntary choice and not by reason of any 
 necessity growing out of God's foreordination. If 
 
310 RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 the language of the Bible teach a different lesson 
 it is because of the human element in revelation 
 which fails often, because human, to be a true 
 vehicle of the divine thought. It is the office of 
 reason which is no less inspired of God than the 
 sacred oracles, to discern below the verbage of 
 human speech the spiritual message which alone 
 is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, and for in- 
 struction in righteousness. 
 
 Moses was commissioned to go and reason with 
 Pharaoh who held under the yoke of bondage a 
 million, less or more, of the children of Abraham, 
 whose redemption, according to promise, was about 
 to be accomplished. The sudden emancipation 
 of such an army of slaves by voluntary act on 
 the part of the King was too much to be ex- 
 pected, and Moses was forewarned of the desper- 
 ate resistance with which his message would be 
 met. God could not make the King willing in 
 the day of his power by any moral necessity. He 
 is supreme over nature. He could obstruct, and 
 cripple the purposes of fhe King, and bring sud- 
 den destruction upon him by natural causes, but 
 he could not crush his will or compel his obedi- 
 
RATIONAL RELIGION. 81 1 
 
 ence. He could drown the old world in a flood 
 of waters, and stamp out their wickedness. That 
 is one thing. To compel their volitions and make 
 them willing to obey him is quite another thing. 
 He could commission Noah, a preacher of righte- 
 ousness, to reason with them. That is the ut- 
 most that God can do to turn men unto righte- 
 ousness. 
 
 The Apostle Paul preaches the doctrine of elec^ 
 tion in the ninth of Roman?, where ha combats 
 the Jewish notion that salvation belongs to the 
 house of Tsrael exclusively, and vindicates the 
 chances of the Gentiles on the condition of faith. 
 
 " He will have mercy on whom he will have 
 mercy," and the Jews have no more claim to 
 mercy than the Gentiles. " He will have mercy 
 on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will 
 be hardeneth." If this language means that God 
 arbitrarily hardeneth some, and makes them ves- 
 sels for destruction, it contradicts not only the 
 known laws of reason but the plain declaration 
 of other inspired writers. " For God is not 
 tempted of evil, neither tempteth he any man. 
 But every man, when he is tempted, is led away 
 
6VI RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 of his own lust and enticed." 
 
 And though the language seems to indicate 
 passiveness on the part of men, like clay in the 
 hand of the potter, who makes one vessel to honor 
 and another to dishonor, it cannot mean more 
 than the right of God to be impartial in showing 
 mercy. The Jew has no right to honor because 
 he is a Jew. He is made of the same clay as the 
 Gentile. The question of honor or dishonor de- 
 pends not on nationality but on faith. And on 
 that condition the potter can make the outcast 
 Gentile a vessel unto honor. 
 
 But leaving this much mooted and much 
 abused subject, let us reason together for a mo- 
 ment upon the subject of atonement. 
 
 The writers of the Old Testament conceive 
 of God as one like unto themselves, and of 
 his judicial dispensation like that of a human 
 ruler. He is represented as an angry God threat- 
 ening vengeance upon his disobedient subjects, 
 and " visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon 
 the children unto the third and fourth genera- 
 tion." And commentators by literalizing. and 
 materializing the metaphors of Scripture which 
 
RATIONAL RELIGION. 313 
 
 are largely impregnated with the human element 
 and without the aid of reason, fail as a vehicle of 
 the divine thought, reduce the divine jurispru- 
 dence to the level of a human court, and the 
 spiritual retribution consequent on disloyalty of 
 heart to the Divine Government, to the phenome- 
 nal punishment which a human court inflicts as 
 atonement for overt crime and as a terror to evil 
 doers. Overt transgression is the only transgres- 
 sion of which a human court can take cognizance. 
 But the judgment seat of God is all out of human 
 sight. It is fixed in the soul itself, and its retri- 
 butions arc unseen and spiritual, clue not only to 
 the culprit in prison convicted of overt crime, but 
 to multitudes exempt from all phenomenal pen- 
 alty, but who, by looking to lust, by indulging in 
 hatred, in covetousness, in spiritual wickedness 
 of any kind, have committed adultery, or mur- 
 der, or idolatry in the heart. The penalty goes 
 with the spiritual motive as a natural sequence, 
 and in the divine court the unseen motive is the 
 only thing on trial. As the motive is unseen and 
 spiritual so is the penalty. 
 
 But commentators who materialize the divine 
 
jurisprudence must needs incorporate into their 
 theological systems a phenomenal penalty. The 
 law has been broken, and the dignity of the Law 
 Giver can be vindicated only by the retaliatory 
 pain of the transgressor. Either he or his sub- 
 stitute must suffer penalty as the condition in- 
 dispensable whereupon God can be just, and jus- 
 tify the sinner. So the good Savior, the immacu- 
 late Son, holy, harmless, undefined and separate 
 from sinners, is subjected to a malefactor's death 
 in order to satisfy the broken law and vindicate 
 the Divine honor. Then follows the song: 
 
 "There's nothing great or small 
 That's left for me to do, 
 
 Jesus paid it all — 
 
 All the debt I o.ve." 
 The gospel, according to Isaiah, says we have 
 much to do. " Wash you. make you clean, put 
 away the evil of your doings. Then your sins, 
 though they be as scarlet, shall be as white as 
 snow." 
 
 But some one will interrupt me here ami say 
 3 r ou are a moralist, you are going to be saved by 
 your own good works, and not by the cross. Not 
 
RATIONAL RELIGION, 315 
 
 quite so, my friend. The cross of Christ means 
 one thing to you. It means quite another thing 
 to me. 
 
 When Dam on d volunteered to be a hostage for 
 his friend Pythias under sentence of death, he 
 did it to save Pythias, and if need be lose his own 
 life in the undertaking. His motive was to save, 
 not to suffer penalty. He was actuated solely by 
 love to Pythias. To save him he was willing to 
 risk the stroke of execution. Pythias, you re- 
 member, was faithful to his promise, and returned 
 at the appointed time to suffer the penalty. This 
 act of fidelity on his part, and of love on the part 
 of Damond, so wrought upon the heart of Dyoni- 
 eius, that he reprieved the prisoner and sent the 
 two friends away rejoicing under the royal bene- 
 diction. Jesus did not, like Damond, offer 
 himself as a hostage to a King who was up in his 
 wrath and must have a victim. The Father de- 
 sired the pain neither of the sinner or his substi- 
 tute. He wanted " all men to be saved and come 
 to the knowledge of the truth." and he sent his 
 son into the world as he sent the prophets before 
 him to reason with the world, that the world 
 
316 RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 through him might be saved. Jesus tells us in 
 plain language why he came into the world. "To 
 this end was I born, and for this cause came I 
 into the world, that I should bear witness to the 
 truth," and as John says, to manifest the love of 
 the Father. Says he: "I proceeded forth and 
 came from God. And now ye seek to kill me, a 
 man that has told you the truth which I have 
 heard from God." His first sermon, which is the 
 key note of the whole gospel, reasons of righte- 
 ousness of temperance, and of judgment to come, 
 " except your righteousness exceed the righteous- 
 ness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye can in no 
 case enter int > the kingdom of Heaven." 
 
 The great end of his mission was to strip from 
 religion all its material investments and hyp-air- 
 ing in a Hood of spiritual light to expose the rot- 
 tenness and perfunctory deadness of the dominant 
 classes, b >th in church and state, and emancipate 
 the human mind from spiritual bondage into fch& 
 freedom with which himself makes free. He did 
 not come to reconcile God unto the world. "God 
 was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself." 
 And he makes the same appeal, both in the Old 
 
RATIONAL RELIGION, 317 
 
 and New Testament. " Come, now, let us reason 
 together " to the end, that your sins may be blot- 
 ted out. Isaiah and Jesus come with the same 
 message. They renounce alike the hollow cere- 
 monials of religion, and demand the spiritual 
 service of the heart. 
 
 Of this the ruling classes were intolerant and 
 instigated the masses to cry out, " away with 
 him, crucify him," and when the maddened 
 throng had finished the cruel deed of murder, 
 then, and not till then, did the voice of reason 
 avail to break the obdurate hearts of the guilty 
 parties, and mold them for salvation. The voice 
 of reason was more irresistable in his death than 
 in his life, and when no other power divine or 
 human was able to turn them unto God, the flow 
 of innocent blood which stained their souls, and 
 the dying prayer for their forgiveness that greeted 
 their ears, wrought out a result which no other 
 power on earth or in Heaven could effect. Crest 
 fallen, terrified and convicted through and 
 through of a crime from which no other name 
 under heaven among men could save them ex- 
 cept that of the bleeding victim at their feet, they 
 
818 RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 wring their hands, and cry out in anguish ©f 
 
 heart, " Men and brethren, what shall we do? 
 Repent, and be baptized in the name of this same 
 Jesus, for the remission of sins.' 1 
 
 Thus it is that the blood of Jesus Christ 
 eleanseth from all sin. It is no better than water 
 spilt upon the ground unless it work out a spir- 
 itual result in the hearts of men. And atone- 
 ment is nothing to us without consciousness that 
 our sins make us " particeps criininis " in the 
 guilt of " crucifying him afresh and of putting 
 him to an open shame/' 
 
 But when convicted of sin that is spiritually a 
 thorn in his crown, a nail in his hands, and a 
 spear in his side, then as we are won to him, as 
 our only refuge, we can with deep meaning say, 
 " I am saved by the blood of the crucified one. 
 He was wounded for my transgressions. He was 
 bruised for my iniquities, the chastisement of my 
 peace was upon him, and with his stripes I ana 
 heated." 
 
 But once more. "Let us reason together'' on 
 the subject of the New Birth. 
 
 The moral transformation of the sinful soul 
 
RATIONAL RELIGION. 319 
 
 under a supernatural influence^ is better realized 
 experimentally, than explained theoretically. 
 Every man who turns practically from a course 
 of life that his conscience disrespects, to one that 
 puts him in harmony with himself and with the 
 known laws of righteousness, with a settled reli- 
 gious purpose to continue loyal to God and to his 
 own moral convictions, has been born again in a 
 practical sense. But the formula as Jesus stales 
 it to Nicodemus, is an abstruse metaphysical 
 proposition as difficult to explain in terms of lan- 
 guage, as was the recovery of sight to the man 
 that was born blind. He could only say, where- 
 as I was blind, now I see. 
 
 The common orthodox conception of religions 
 conversion is that the subject of it is passive; that 
 his spiritual blindness is natural, he was born 
 blind, and as helpless of recovery as were the 
 eyes of him that was miraculously restored to 
 sight. And theologians philosophize about total 
 depravity, and human helplessness, and super- 
 natural relief, taking the condition of the man 
 blind from his birth as typical of the spiritual 
 condition of all men, and make out a plausible 
 
320 
 
 RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 theory, which is incorporated as a main item in 
 the confession of the church. 
 
 But the New Testament has no sympathy with 
 fine spun theories. It does not assume that men 
 are horn spiritually blind. One man was born 
 ocularly blind, and Jesus, to convince the Phari- 
 sees of his own supernatural power, restored him 
 to sight. The human race are not born ocularly 
 blind. And the one man so born does not typify 
 the moral condition of the race. A light shines 
 in the soul of every rational being, and a voice 
 divine says to every one, this is the way, walk ye 
 in it. Tlu New Testament always addresses men 
 as responsible agents and tells them to work out 
 their own salvation, and assures them that this 
 is possible, for the reason that they don't have to 
 w<»rk alone, for it is ''God that worketh in them 
 to will and to do." 
 
 The Divine Spirit surrounds us all as the air 
 we breathe, and as atmospheric air vitalizes our 
 bodies, so the Holy Spirit vitalizes our souls. 
 But neither body or soul can be vitalized without 
 voluntary action, and the Scriptures command 
 action: "Wash you, make you clean, put away 
 
BATIONAI RELIGION. 321 
 
 %he evil of your doings, work out your own salva- 
 tion." 
 
 Neither the Prophets or Christ ever preached a 
 new birth in answer to the question, what shall 
 1 do to be saved? Jesus never formulated the 
 doctrine but once in all his earthly life. He 
 preached as Isaiah, and as John the Baptist did. 
 He reasoned like St. Paul of righteousness, of 
 temperance, and a judgment to come. When in- 
 quired of by a certain lawyer what he should do, 
 he referred him to the commandments as summed 
 up in the Golden Rule which ho illustrated by 
 the parable of the Good Samaritan, and said, ' v go 
 and do thou likewise." Take your example not 
 from the Priest and Levite who passed by the 
 man that had fallen among thieves, but take 
 your example from the outlawed Samaritan with 
 whom the Jews would have no dealings, who 
 went to the man by the wayside despoiled of his 
 money, of his raiment, and left wounded and half 
 dead, set him on his o,vn beast, took him to an 
 inn and took care of him, going down into his 
 pocket for the bottom penny to pay for the care 
 of him in Ins absence when he went away. "Go," 
 
322 RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 said he, to the lawyer, " and do thou likewise." 
 
 And to the young ruler who had kept all the 
 commandments from his youth up, he said. " Sell 
 that thou hast and distribute to the poor, and 
 thou shalt have treasure in Heaven.'' lie did not 
 tell either of these men "ye must be born again," 
 but " love thy neighbor as thy self." And the 
 Epistles of Paul emphasize the same conditions 
 of discipleship. "That they do good that they 
 be rich in good works ready to distribute, ready 
 to communicate," that is. be socially frien lly with 
 their neighbors. 
 
 When John preached the baptism of repent- 
 ance, he said nothing of the new birth, but told 
 all to .'* bring forth fruits meet for repenta 
 And when they asked specifically " what shall w* 
 do," he said, " let him that hath two coats give 
 to him that hath none, and he that hath meat 
 let him do likewise.'' When the publicans who 
 had a bad reputation for extortion asked, " what 
 shall we do," he told them to "exact no more 
 than was due." And when the soldiers asked the 
 same question, he told them to "do violence to 
 no man. and be content with their wages." In 
 
RATIONAL KICLHIION, 828 
 
 the language of the Prophets; " Cease to do evil, 
 learn to do well. Do justly low merry ami walk 
 humbly with thy God." 
 
 In all this he does not ignore the work of the 
 Holy Spirit though he says nothing about it. He 
 speaks to them as if there were no Holy Spirit, 
 knowing full well that every right volition is re- 
 inforced by the voice divine in the soul. Once, 
 and only once, did Jesus formulate the mysteri- 
 ous postulate of the new birth, 
 
 Nicodemus, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, a ruler 
 of tin 1 Jews, holding the highest rank in the 
 councils, both of Church and Slate, eminent alike 
 for his learning and his personal purity, came by 
 night to Jesus to reason with him, and to confess 
 that he was convinced of his divine mission, 
 >L We know that thou art a teacher come from 
 God." 
 
 In this case Jesus must needs get a purchase 
 under the self righteousness of the Pharisee, who 
 had kept nil the commandments and could defy 
 criticism of his outside life, tried by the law of the 
 Pharisees. He was a gentleman of culture, and 
 Jesus could do no less than reciprocate bis cour- 
 
6'li: RATIONAL RELIGION, 
 
 tecy. rf he had said to Nicodemus, " wash yooi 
 make you clean, put away the evil of your do- 
 ings," it would have been an impertinence, If 
 he had said to him as he said to the lawyer] 
 keep the commandments and thou shalt live, it 
 would have been as ill timed as to exhort the 
 Lord Bishop of London to respect the Rubric, 
 On the outside of his life Jesus could hot propose 
 amendment without doing violence to the rules of 
 common courteoy. Hence avoiding invidious, 
 comparison between the religion of Nicodemus 
 which was ceremonial and legal, with that spir- 
 itual religion which begins in the heart, and 
 whose beatitudes are all unseen and spiritual, he 
 exhorts to no religious duty, but proceeds to 
 enunciate a principle that underlies all true re- 
 ligion, without the practical operation of which 
 true religion is inconceivable. The aphorism 
 under which it was propounded was a surprise to 
 Nicodemus, but it opened the way to the convent 
 Hatimi that followed, without seeming protrusive, 
 Jesus mentions two elements as conditions of 
 the new birth. " Except a man be horn of water 
 and of the Spirit he cannot sec the kingdom of 
 
RATIONAL RELIGION. 325 
 
 God." By some, this is supposed to refer to the 
 rite of Christian baptism, and such make that 
 rite a condition of the new birth. But water bap- 
 tism is not the thing referred to. Nicodemus had 
 been born of water. lie was a clean man. He 
 had practiced all the ceremonial purifications 
 known to the Levitical code, and in these cere- 
 monial rites his religion ended. External rites 
 were a matter of conscience with him. He verily 
 thought he ought to do them, hence for him, it 
 was right to do them. 
 
 This, as one condition of a satisfactory frame 
 of mind, ought he to have clone. If conscience 
 impelled him to fast twice a week and pay tithes 
 of all he possessed, to offer incense and make 
 many prayers, this ought he to have done, but 
 not to leave the other condition of the new birth 
 undone. Except a man be born of water, be ex- 
 ternally blameless, and also of the Spirit, that 
 divine unseen life giving power without the con- 
 trolling guidance of which all ceremonial rites 
 become hypocrisy, he cannot see the kingdom of 
 Grod. . Nicodemus with all his wisdom, could not 
 understand it. He had never learned this great 
 
32(3 RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 lesson in Christian ethics. With consummate 
 adroitness Jesus led him along step by step 
 through the maze of his self-righteousness until 
 he prepared his mind for the fundamental doc- 
 trine of faith, without which, with however much 
 of outside legal religion, it is impossible to please 
 God, or experience the new birth. " As Moses 
 lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so 
 must the Son of Man " — the living embodiment 
 of all law, who is "the way, the truth and the 
 life, be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him. 
 should not perish but should have eternal life." 
 But Jesus never belabored the inquiring sinner 
 with the mysteries of the new birth. When Zac- 
 cheus, the publican, conscious of his guilt and 
 anxious for his soul, climbed up into a tree to see 
 Jesus over the heads of the people that thronged 
 him. Jesus did not say to him. "ye must be 
 born again." but ordered him to " come down for 
 this day I must abide at thy house." So he went 
 home with Zaccheus to accept his hospitality and 
 to reason with him to ' ; do justly, to love mercy, 
 and to walk humbly with God," while the Phari- 
 sees pointed at him the finger of scorn saying, 
 
RATIONAL RELIGION, o27 
 
 "he eateth with publicans and sinners." But 
 Zaccbieus was born again, probably without ever 
 having heard a word of the theorem of the new 
 birth. For he said, " behold Lord, I give half 
 my goods to the poor, and if I have wronged any 
 man by false accusation, I restore him four fold." 
 
 He did not tell the harlot, whom the people 
 were about to stone to death, " ye must be born 
 again." He told her to '' go and sin no more." 
 
 And that is the way to preach the gospel. The 
 way the Prophets, the Apostles, and Christ him- 
 self preached. And the Church, after wrangling 
 for centuries over doctrines and dogmas, and 
 creeds, after subdividing itself up into rival fac- 
 tions, and warring parties, a spectacle over which 
 angels weep and devils rejoice, is learning in this 
 latter day of progress, to stack their arms as de- 
 nominational sects, to furl their banners written 
 all over with obsolete and contradictory symbols, 
 and spread to the breeze the banner of the cross 
 bearing the golden rule of the " Prince of Peace," 
 in letters of living light, and under this glorious 
 ensign to martial Christian hearts out of all sects, 
 ranks and parties of the people, in battalions of 
 
328 RATIONAL RELIGION". 
 
 divers Christian organizations. The Y. M. C. A's., 
 the Y. W. C. A's., the Y. P. S. C. E's., the Epworth 
 Leagues, and many other forms of Christian ac- 
 tion, into which young men and maidens, boys 
 and girls, fathers and mothers, enter without 
 shiboleth, password or regalia to " fight the good 
 fight of faith, and lay hold on eternal life," coun- 
 selling all of every age to break off their sins by 
 righteousness and their iniquities, by showing 
 mercy to the poor, as saith the Prophet Daniel. 
 That's the only theolog}' of the young men's 
 Christian Association and other societies of Chris- 
 tian endeavor. It's the only theology of Chris- 
 tianity. '" Show mercy to the poor. Love God 
 with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." 
 That is righteousness, and whosoever obeys that, 
 breaks off his sins, is born of the Spirit, shows 
 mercy to the poor in which all divine religion 
 culminates. In the day of judgment no mention 
 will be made of any other theology. Then we 
 shall hear nothing about the new birth, about 
 atonement, or trinity, or divine sovereignty, or 
 baptism, or apostolic succession. The only ques- 
 tion raised will relate to the sole virtue of show- 
 
RATIONAL RELIGION. 329 
 
 INO MERCY to the poor. The poor will then have 
 changed places with the rich, with the aristocracy, 
 with the masters and haughty money kings. The 
 poor will then he on the hench speaking through 
 the lips of " the Son of Man " himself. " I was 
 hungry, thirsty, naked, sick in prison, and ye on 
 the right hand showed mercy to me. Come ye 
 blessed." While ye on the left hand showed me 
 no mercy, " depart ye cursed." But did we not 
 build the sepulchers of the Prophets; did we not 
 build cathedrals and colleges, "and in thy name 
 cast out devils, and do many wonderful work." 
 This ought ye to have done, and not to have left 
 the other undone. Under the very eaves of your 
 cathedrals and colleges abide squallor, hunger, 
 cold, nakedness, and the extremes of human woe. 
 You looked on the victims of poverty and passed 
 by on the other side. " Depart from me, I never 
 knew you." 
 
 There was one class, and only one to which 
 Jesus said, " ye must be born again." To all 
 others he preached love to God, and mercy to the 
 poor. He said he came not to call the righteous 
 but sinners to repentance, and to sinners he said, 
 
330 RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 " go and sin no more." But to the Pharisees, of 
 whom Nicodemus was a representative type, ho 
 said, "ye must be born again." We never heat 
 him inveigling against any other class. He came 
 to seek and to save sinners with whom the Phari- 
 sees could have no dealings for fear of contango* 
 nation. But the Pharisees, Scribes and Doctors 
 were so righteous, so very orthodox, religiously 
 precise and socially exclusive, that they were ab- 
 solutely outside of the pale of his grace. He 
 could do nothing for them without that radical 
 supernatural reconstruction of moral character 
 which he designates the new birth. So dead were 
 they to the elementary virtue of Christian mor- 
 ality, that there seemed to be no terms sufficient- 
 ly expressive by which to indicate his holy in- 
 dignation. 
 
 " But woe unto you. Scribes and Pharisees, 
 hypocrites, for ye shut up the kingdom of Heaven 
 against men; for ye neither go in yourselves, 
 neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. 
 
 "Woe unto you. Scribes and Pharisees, hypo- 
 crites, for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, 
 which indeed appear beautiful outward, but arc 
 
RATIONAL RELIGION, 33] 
 
 within full of dead men's bones, and of all un- 
 cleanness, 
 
 " Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous 
 unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and 
 iniquity." 
 
 Such were the men to whom Jesus announced 
 the doctrine of the new birth. To publicans and 
 harlots, and self-convicted sinners, he opened the 
 way to the new life without any mysticism. "Go 
 and sin no more," and ye shall ha*ve treasure in 
 Heaven. But the Pharisees, the sanctimonious 
 religionists, they must be born again. 
 
 Well, the Pharisees are not all dead yet, and 
 hence the doctrine of the new birth is not obso- 
 lete, 
 
 The subdivision of the church universal into 
 separate organizations adapted to the traditional 
 modes of thought and action of different nation- 
 alities and civilization^, is as natural and as use- 
 ful as the subdivisions of military or of educa- 
 tional methods. That is one thing, while secta- 
 rianism, which holds everything subordinate to 
 the numerical strength of our church, and to the 
 predominance of our creed and our forms of wor- 
 
832 RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 ship, is quite another thing. There may be more 
 Pharisees in some sects than in others. In all 
 the churches there are undoubtedly some as ob- 
 noxious to reproach as those whom Jesus de- 
 nounced, ; ' who neither enter the kingdom of 
 Heaven themselves, nor suffer those that are en- 
 tering to go in." What is it that keeps so many 
 good people out of the church — people of con- 
 scientious respect for the truth as it is in Jesus — • 
 whose moral character no stain of dishonor ever 
 defiled, and if in the church, would religiously 
 avoid every act that could by any means dis- 
 honor a Christian profession? 
 
 All such people outside of the church would 
 not render the same reason for withholding their 
 names from its roll. But it is safe to say, that if 
 in the policy of all the sects, they could see noth- 
 ing but an honest purpose to " break off their sins 
 by righteousness, and their iniquities by showing 
 mercy to the poor," that the majority of good 
 men would not. as now. be outside the pale of the 
 church. Thomas Jefferson in his lifetime, was 
 counted an infidel, and orthodox writers classed 
 him as such in history, But this is the testimony 
 
RATIONAL RELIGION. 333 
 
 which, with his own hand he put on record: "1 
 consider the doctrines of Jesus as delivered by 
 himself, to contain the outlines of the sublimest 
 system of morality that has ever been taught; 
 but I hold in the most profound detestation and 
 execration, the corruptions of it which have been 
 invented by priestcraft, and established by king- 
 craft, constituting a conspiracy of church and 
 State against the civil and religious liberties of 
 mankind." It was not the doctrines of Christ 
 that repelled Jefferson from the church, but the 
 iniquity of the Pharisees, which put in his mouth 
 the reproaches of John the Baptist, who de- 
 nounced them as a generation of vipers. And so 
 long as the church continues to house Pharisees, 
 who, blind to the real and only true end of reli- 
 gion, carry on schemes of propagandism for per- 
 sonal grandeur and sectarian glory, no marvel if 
 good men withhold time, talent and money from 
 its support. 
 
 A thousand million of the human family are 
 dragging out a forlorn and hopeless existence for 
 lack of the bread of God that giveth life unto the 
 world. Jesus Christ commissioned his disciples 
 
334 RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 to go into all the world and say to the victims of 
 moral depravity, suffering the bitter consequences 
 of their own sins, " come, now, let us reason to- 
 gether. Break off your sins by righteousness, 
 and your iniquities by turning unto the Lord, 
 though they be as scarlet, they shall be white as 
 snow, and though they be red like crimson, shall 
 be as wool." 
 
 How pitiable the poverty of the church's pre- 
 tensions that wastes its time and its golden op- 
 portunity to show mercy to the poor with years 
 of fruitless labor to revise an obsolete creed 
 which bears no more relation than the Talmud 
 to the moral amelioration of mankind; and in 
 the institution of heresy trials against her best 
 and wisest men because of their search after new 
 and more rational interpretations of the divine 
 word. 
 
 But heresy trials are no new thing. The class 
 to which Jesus said, " ye must be born again," 
 were the original inventors of heresy trials, and 
 Jesus himself was the first victim of their law- 
 less clamor, "away with him, crucify him." 
 Their progency have been in the church ever 
 
RATIONAL RELIGION. 335 
 
 since giving validity to inquisitions, to persecu- 
 tions, to the fires of the stake, to the cruelties of 
 the scaffold, and in later times to ostracism and 
 ecclesiastical tyranny. And except the men of 
 this class be horn again, be new created in all the 
 spirit and temper of their minds, they cannot see 
 the kingdom of God, but will continue to be a 
 stone of stumbling and rock of offense in the way 
 of those that would enter therein, and a hin- 
 drance to the car of religious progress laden with 
 light and salvation for the perishing sons and 
 daughters of woe everywhere. 
 
 The late Dr. Bnshnel of the Congregational 
 Church, one of the purest men of New England, 
 and as a theological scholar and writer without 
 a rival, and the eminent Dr. Briggs of the Pres- 
 byterian Church, are representative victims of 
 heresy trials, and of pharisaic intolerance in our 
 own time, in whose experience we can read the 
 tribulation of hundreds of humbler and loss noto- 
 rious, but clear headed and conscientious preach- 
 ers, who for the sin of searching after truth as for 
 hid treasure between the lines of the Bible under 
 the guidance of reason, have suffered less of 
 
336 RATIONAL RELIGION. 
 
 standing and usefulness at the hands of a class 
 of men in the church who always turn a deaf ear 
 when the appeal is made, " come, now, let us rea- 
 son together," and persist in cramming down the 
 throats of the people theologic dogmas at which 
 all the instincts of the rational soul revolt, and 
 which the Bible spiritually discerned contradicts. 
 This is what keeps good men out of the church 
 and hinders the reign of truth and righteousness 
 in the earth more than all the crimes of depraved 
 men, and the sophistries of infidel writers com- 
 bined,