A 
 
 TREASURY OF ILLUSTRATTO?^ 
 
 BY / 
 
 HENRY WARD BEECIIER 
 
 EDITED FROM HIS 
 
 PUBLISHED WORKS AND UNPUBLISHED 
 
 REPORTS OF HIS SPOKEN WORDS B Y 
 
 JOHN R. HOWARD 
 
 AND 
 
 TRUMAN J. ELLINWOOD 
 
 WITH AN INTKODUCTION BY 
 
 NEWELL D WIG LIT HILLLS 
 
 " Though reasons av the. pilUirs of 
 the fabric, yet siwilitudex are the 
 winciows which yirv the hest liphts." 
 
 —Thomas Fulleb. 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 London and Edinburgh 
 

 Copyright : 
 By John R. Howakd and Truman J. Ei.linwood, 
 
 April, 1904; 
 By T- B. Ford & Co. in 1S75 ; 
 By "H. W. Bekcher in 1882, 1885 ; 
 By Fords, Howard, & Hulhert in 1883, 1887; 
 By Truman J. Ei.linwood in 1S92; 
 By Eunice W. Beecher in 1S95, 1897; 
 By William C. Beecher in 1897, 1900, 1901, 1902. 
 
 LIBR*RV nf CONGRESS 
 
 Two Oooles Received 
 
 SEP 1 1904 
 / Cooyrtsrht Entry 
 
 CLASS 0- %^<a. Na 
 
 0{ vT J' ^ ^ 
 
 ' COPY B 1 
 
Introduction 
 
 THE teacher of men must himself perceive the truth, and then 
 convey to others what has thus become his own. He must be 
 both a seer and a sayer, whether he sees with the material or 
 the spiritual eye, and whether he speaks in words, tones, forms or colors. 
 The power and permanency of his work depend upon the scope and 
 accuracy of his seeing, on the one hand, and the sincerity, sympathy, and 
 felicity of his saying, on the other. The function of saying includes also 
 a further act of seeing ; for the prophet, poet or artist must know not only 
 his own theme, as it appears to himself, but also the nature and use of his 
 instrument of expression, and the minds of those whom he seeks to lead 
 to his own standpoint, that they may receive his vision. 
 
 In this double equipment, Henry Ward Beecher was supremely great. 
 Phillips Brooks and Charles Spurgeon called him the Shakespeare of the 
 modern pulpit, doubdess in recognition, not merely of the richness and 
 variety of his gifts, but chiefly of the Shakespearean faculty of perceiving 
 the aspects of many-sided human life and character, and of presenting 
 their relations in images which remain when the steps of argument and the 
 theories of philosophy have faded away. 
 
 These expositions by illustration are characteristic of genius and in- 
 spiration. The Bible is full of them. Job, without arguing tediously the 
 omnipotence of God, depicts it in volcanoes, thunderstorms, strange mon- 
 sters of sea and land, and the orderly procession of the stars. Moses 
 compares the brief earthly life of man to a story soon told, a flower soon 
 withered, a vapor soon dispersed. David sings the Shepherd Psalm, and 
 fixes forever in universal consciousness the sense of Divine providence. 
 Paul summarizes the relativity of our knowledge, by saying "we see in a 
 glass, darkly," — forestalling and correcting in advance the modern agnos- 
 tic, who professes not to see at all ; and reveals in a flash the true theory 
 of evolution, when he says that the whole creation has travailed in suc- 
 cessive births from the beginning, each new generation being an upward 
 step, divinely ordained "in hope." Above all, Jesus Christ, in parable 
 and picture, gives revelations of truth and types of character which sur- 
 vive all changes of language, social organization and intellectual system. 
 
 vii 
 
viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 Samaria is buried in mounds of earth, where archseologists may dig for 
 souvenir-bricks; but the Good Samaritan we know and recognize, as we 
 do the Pharisee and the Scribe, Dives and Lazarus, the unjust steward, or 
 the sower of the seed. 
 
 Secular literature exhibits the same principle. The highest genius is 
 pictorial ; the works that abide are pictures. Homer's Iliad is a gallery 
 of pictures ; Dante's threefold epic of the unseen world is another. And 
 so it is with Shakespeare, and all the rest of the sons of fame, to whom 
 not only certain classes of specialists but all men of all times pay glad 
 reverence. Others there have been, indeed, — a glorious company, — whose 
 contributions of invention, statesmanship, learning or criticism have mightily 
 influenced their own and later times, without surviving in individual form 
 to be reckoned among the world's eternal masterpieces. No doubt we owe 
 more in the aggregate to this host of thinkers and actors than to the few 
 crowned ones. But the question of merit and reward does not concern 
 me here. I would only point out the recognized, universal and imperish- 
 able supremacy of the genius which sees and says, pictorially. 
 
 Without attempting now to discuss this principle in its application to 
 other departments, let us seek its ground and reason in the domain of 
 oratory and literature. This is indeed its widest sphere, because a much 
 larger number of men can understand and be moved by language than by 
 any other form of communication, except direct exhibition to the senses. 
 That is the universal convincing and compelling mode. " Seeing is believ- 
 ing," is a profound general truth; and it follows, in the use of speech, that 
 when men are made clearly to "see" a proposition, they are disposed to 
 believe it. Moreover, what has been seen can be remembered, that is, 
 recalled and seen again, by most men, much more easily than a bare train 
 of thought. And even an argument can be kept in mind nmch belter, if 
 connected with a picture or summarized in a pictorial saying. In this 
 respect, an illustration is reasoning and philosophy made easy, — not that 
 it supersedes the careful, slow process of demonstration or analysis, but 
 that it relieves us so often from the necessity of traveling again the 
 long road, by giving us the itinerary in epitome, and a monument to mark 
 the point already once reached and determined. But a true illustration 
 may do for us even more than this. Being a picture, it sets forth the truth 
 in perspective, expressing relative values, and emphasizing essential features. 
 Mere argument cannot always do that : for a chain of logic is no stronger 
 than its weakest link; and the work of the patient reasoner, carefully 
 observing and connecting facts, may be so closely confined to details as to 
 exclude wide prospects. On the surveyor's map, one piece of land looks 
 like another. Even if it shows that there is a mountain here, or a forest 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 there, it gives no such hint of the landscape as the merest sketch of the 
 mountain or forest would furnish. So the investigator, recorder, philos- 
 opher or theologian is needed to give us our bearings ; but the poet- 
 prophet, seeing and saying, must give us our views. 
 
 It does not follow that mere seeing of visions is the proof of a true 
 poet, or that every utterer of "views" is a true prophet. Scripture itself 
 mentions more false prophets than true ones, and tells us more than once 
 of false prophets who were sincere. The gre^^t prophets of Judah were 
 thinkers and statesmen as well as seers. And the prophets of every age 
 have stood upon facts, while they discerned principles ; have recognized 
 their immediate surroundings, while they scanned far horizons. 
 
 To the test of this conception, thus incompletely and imperfectly 
 stated, let us bring the genius of Henry Ward Beecher. 
 
 Many so-called theologians and superficial critics used to say that 
 Mr. Beecher knew nothing about theology. The grounds of this judgment, 
 so far as it had any grounds, seem to have been, that he made himself 
 understood by plain people ; that he presented habitually the central truths 
 of the Gospel, in their perspective relation to all others ; and that his 
 hearers carried away with them, and repeated as household words, the 
 pregnant illustrations in which his expositions culminated. Such a criti- 
 cism confounds clearness with shallowness, and reticence with ignorance. 
 It is very true that Mr. Beecher did not often preach formal 
 theology, in guarded systematic statement ; but he knew it thoroughly. 
 Trained in the home of the great theologian, Lyman Beecher, where the 
 subtleties of New England theological controversy were the table-talk of 
 the household, and living for five years in the atmosphere of a heresy-trial, 
 he was at thirty a real, though untitled, doctor of divinity, familiar with 
 all the arguments for and against not only the general scheme of doctrine 
 which we now loosely accept as "orthodox," but also the varieties and 
 sub-varieties which are now well-nigh forgotten. The Five Points of Cal- 
 vinism, the positions of the Arminians, the Restorationists, etc., were his 
 theological alphabet-blocks, with which he could play and spell out the 
 innumerable permutations and combinations of them into "semi" and 
 "sub" and "supra" and "ultra" varieties. But this juggling with 
 theoretical subtleties seemed empty, to his earnest spirit, and he decided 
 that they did not furnish the proper material for the preacher who sought 
 to bring men to Christ, This decision was largely wrought in him by a 
 memorable vision, in which the love of God in Christ was the central, 
 luminous element. Like Paul, he obeyed the heavenly vision, and preached 
 thenceforward Christ crucified, the incarnation of suffering love. Like 
 both Christ and Paul, he crowned his arguments and appeals with pictures. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 If any man doubts that these " mere illustrations " carried deep insight and 
 thought, and covered the essential truths of Christianity, let him look 
 through the collection herewith published, and be convinced. 
 
 Yet Mr. Beecher's sermons are not mere series of illustrations, any 
 more than " Hamlet " was, as the young man who saw it for the first time 
 said, "a mere string of quotations." The illustrations are the parts most 
 quoteil, of course. But I venture to say that the seven hundred published 
 sermons of Mr. Beecher are exceptionally abundant in the statement of 
 sound doctrine. 
 
 As in all departments of rhetoric and oratory, so also in the art of 
 effective, pertinent and worthy illustration, Mr. Beecher carefully and 
 patiently trained himself. The apparent ease and spontaneity of his mature 
 years had been won by long and patient practice ; and to the end of life, 
 he was constantly gathering fresh material both from nature and from 
 human life. He knew that an illustration should recommend an unfamiliar 
 truth by appeal to a familiar one ; that explaining one new proposition by 
 another, equally strange, was only to create two difficulties, instead of one. 
 He was not prone to quote from books which his hearers had not read, or 
 adduce experiences with which they could not instantly sympathize. 
 
 Dr. Rossiter W. Raymond (to whom I am indebted for much helpful 
 suggestion) has given elsewhere a very striking account of the three 
 habitually recurrent states of Mr. Beecher's mind, — that of study and 
 acquisition, that of creative activity, and that of mental relapse and rest. 
 It was in the first stage that he lived most of the time, associating with 
 books or nature or men, and mentally laying up facts and experiences which 
 might be available as media of sympathy, and therefore of power, in his 
 work as a preacher. By such accumulations, his sermons grew in his mind. 
 But he did not usually deliver a sermon until it had come before him as a 
 picture. Then all the pertinent thoughts and illustrations emerged from 
 their hiding-places, drawn by the pictorial associations of his theme; and 
 in the supreme hour of utterance he saw what he said ; and what he said, 
 his hearers saw. How to make them do so, was his constant study. For 
 this he entered shop and factory, forest and field, fished with fishermen, 
 shod horses with blacksmiths, talked roses with gardeners and oaks with 
 foresters and battles witli soldiers. 
 
 I possess a large number of Mr. Beecher's manuscripts — one or more 
 for every one of his fifty years of ministerial life. Nothing is more inter- 
 esting than to note how, after elaborating a proposition in writing, he has 
 subsequently condensed it, or replaced it with a single stroke of illustration, 
 revealing the whole field like a stroke of lightning. In one manuscript he 
 had filled two pages with an argument against the ultra-Calvinistic doctrine 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 of the Divine justice. No doubt, if he had been getting out a book on 
 theology, he would have let the passage stand. But apparently he looked 
 it over and decided that it was too abstruse to be taken in by the ear 
 at a single hearing and appreciated so thoroughly as to change the 
 hearer's previous notions. At all events, he crossed out the whole of it 
 and wrote instead one line: "God is not a bundle of thunderstorms! " 
 Another passage, similarly canceled, was replaced with : "The heart of 
 God is the world's hospital ! " And again, an argument for fearless ap- 
 proach to the Throne of Grace is summed up in this : " God does not sit 
 like a threatening cloud in the sky ! and man does not need to approach 
 him under an umbrella of excuses." Such pictorial phrases are winged 
 words, that fly whither arguments could not reach. They have lighted at 
 one time or another on every pulpit in the United States, inspiring some, 
 and in some degree modifying all, of the preaching of the Gospel among 
 us. Who can measure the suggestive and perpetual value of such pithy 
 sayings as these ? 
 
 " A text is the gate to a sermon. Some ministers swing on the gate 
 instead of going in to explore the garden." 
 
 "The Bible is like a telescope. If a man looks through his telescope 
 he sees the world beyond; but if he looks at his telescope he sees nothing 
 but that." 
 
 Mr. Beecher's sermons did not begin to be published regularly (except 
 in certain daily and weekly papers which recognized their value), until 
 he was fifty-five years old. After that time (1868) about six hundred were 
 printed; in the period between 1840 and 1868 one hundred occasional 
 discourses appeared. A study of both series discloses a progress in method 
 and felicity of illustration. But there is always wonderful vitality and 
 appropriateness in his illustrations. They are never extracts from a scrap- 
 book, selected as likely to be oratorically effective, and carefully "led 
 up to " in the preceding text of the sermon. They spring out of the theme 
 itself, and the analogies which his quick sense has detected between spiritual 
 truth and the sun, the clouds, the rain, the flowers, the homes and occupa- 
 tions of men, the experiences and fancies of children, and the joys and 
 sorrows of human love. During several years in which Mr. Beecher was 
 traveling and lecturing a great deal, his illustrations were taken with 
 notable frequency from factories, shops, and various industries. I believe 
 the reason was that, when he went to a city to lecture, he visited, if pos- 
 sible, its leading manufactories, and learned as much as he could about the 
 work in which the people were most interested. 
 
 The general type of his sermons was that of a preliminary statement 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 of doctrine, followed by a practical application. His illustrations were 
 perhaps most numerous under the latter head, but they were freely employed 
 wherever they would effectively enforce the truth. It has long been recog- 
 nized by men of culture and common sense that Mr. Beecher never told 
 stories or made jokes, in order to raise a laugh. His dramatic instinct 
 and vivid imagination often provoked a smile, when he did not expect it ; 
 and he certainly did not exclude wit and humor as means of moving men, 
 or deem them barred from a proper use in the pulpit. His well-known 
 declaration, "All the bells that God has put in my belfry shall ring!" 
 comprises his theory on that head. But only fools could fail to recognize 
 that the corruscations of his vivid oratory were, as has been well said, 
 " but the sparks from a locomotive," and that the mighty train of a serious 
 purpose thundered on, undisturbed by them. 
 
 Another characteristic of Mr. Beecher' s illustrations is their absolute 
 sincerity. This is not so common a virtue in the use of figurative language 
 as might be supposed. The employment of poetic phrases because they 
 sound well, is too often indulged without consciousness of their real mean- 
 ing. Hence "mixed figures," which are at bottom moral faults. When 
 Wendell Phillips once said in Boston Music Hall, "The time is coming 
 when Liberty will stand by every newborn child, and drop in its cradle 
 the schoolhouse and the ballot-box," his language was not rhetorically 
 sincere, for it implied, what could not be true, that he was telling some- 
 thing that he mentally saw. Mr. Beecher never could have said that, 
 because he always saw what he described. And another form of sincerity 
 in illustration which characterized him was his really knowing what his 
 illustrations implied that he knew. This virtue is rarer yet. Our poets 
 and orators are forever drawing upon scenes, trades and sciences for similes 
 and analogies which betray their ignorance to experts. Mr. Beecher never 
 could have written the hymn which has disgusted so many sailors by its 
 declaration that the Christian, in the midst of tempest and breakers, doesn't 
 mind the billows' shock, because he is "anchored to a rock" ! He knew 
 what he was talking about. When he took a simile or analogy from a 
 particular trade, the men of that trade in his congregation "sat up," and 
 appreciated the point with instant approval. That was, in fact, his def- 
 inite purpose ; to capture men by an intelligent sympathy, and thus to lead 
 them from the knowledge they had already to the higher truth they needed. 
 
 This collection of Mr. Beecher's illustrations has-been made from both 
 published and unpublished sources. Mr. Truman J. Ellinwood, whose 
 stenographic notes comprise the latter, and are, indeed, the basis of a large 
 part of the former, was for thirty years engaged in reporting Mr. Beecher's 
 sermons, addresses, and prayers, and acquired by such constant practice an 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 accuracy which the best expert could not attain through occasional op- 
 portunities only; so that Mr. Beecher announced in the "Plymouth 
 Pulpit" pamphlet that he would hold himself responsible for no other re- 
 ports. Mr. John R. Howard was for twenty years Mr. Beecher 's literary 
 adviser, and publisher, and intimate friend. For a long period, he revised 
 for publication all the sermons issued in "Plymouth Pulpit," and most of 
 them bear the titles given by him, Mr. Beecher rarely seeing the discourses 
 after preaching them, until they came to him in the pamphlet form. In pre- 
 paring this volume, the editors have gone through all of Mr. Beecher's 
 books, as well as Mr. EUinwood's manuscripts, selecting the passages best 
 suited for suggestion, meditation or comfort, and especially for homiletic 
 use, Mr, Howard being responsible for the compilation, arrangement, and 
 editing. The book is indeed a treasury of genius and inspiration. To 
 Christian workers, Sunday-school teachers, theological students and young 
 preachers, it will be invaluable. No man who studies it can fail to find 
 himself mentally and spiritually enriched and stimulated. A superficial 
 examination will yield innumerable precious gems for quotation, if that be 
 what is desired ; but a deeper study will do far more, by teaching the 
 student how to make and use his own illustrations. The arrangement of 
 subjects is psychologically interesting and helpful ; and the collection as 
 a whole sets forth with practical comprehensiveness the great principles 
 of Mr. Beecher's teaching, as it appears in the forty volumes of his works, 
 many of which are now out of print. 
 
 Remembering the golden days when, as a college student, I first dis- 
 covered the volumes of Mr. Beecher's sermons, and the rapture with which 
 I read and pondered and walked in the woods to dream and brood, hardly 
 knowing whether my feet touched earth or no, I envy to-day the young 
 men into whose hands and hearts this book is to fall, thrilling them to a 
 wider and deeper life. That they may be, as I have been, uplifted and 
 inspired by its wonderful pictures, is my prayer and hope. 
 
 Newell Dwight Hillis. 
 
Preface 
 
 MANY volumes of "selections" have been made from the great 
 preacher's outpourings, but all upon the merely general lines 
 of gathering admirable passages. This began early in his 
 Brooklyn ministry. A parishioner of his, looking over an illustrated 
 "Annual " issued by one of the great religious societies, which had been 
 prominent in opposing Mr. Beecher and his ideas, was struck with a cer- 
 tain familiar tone of some anonymous passages, quoted for aptness or 
 beauty or spiritual helpfulness in this "Annual," and showed them to Mr. 
 Beecher, asking if they were not from him. He read them, smiled humor- 
 ously, and said : " Yes, but what of it ? They like some of the doctrines 
 but disapprove the doctor, and could not consistently use his name. They 
 are welcome to publish all they are willing to : the more, the better." The 
 natural feeling of a proprietary interest in his own productions never 
 hampered the man : his springs were deep and never- failing. The various 
 gatherings of "Thoughts," "Gems," "Pungencies," etc., accompanied 
 his whole course. 
 
 But probably the most notable gift of this exuberant mind was his 
 imagination, and his facile use of it in argumentation. Aside from his om- 
 nivorous reading, — a study of nature, of men, and of life, a clear percep- 
 tion, and a genius of intuition, gave him a vast range of facts, which his 
 fancy presented in vivid images for exemplifying statements of principle. 
 His illustrations often condensed his most powerful arguments. 
 
 This volume offers some of Mr. Beecher's Illustrations, — a few 
 thousand selected from the numberless multitude, — in the belief that they 
 will be suggestive not only to students, ministers, teachers, and public 
 speakers, but to the devotional reader also. They are arranged, entitled, 
 and indexed according to the theme or thought to be illustrated ; but they 
 are indexed also according to the illustrative image used : so that they may 
 be approached along either line. One may desire suggestion for illustrat- 
 ing a theme he is treating ; or he may have in mind a picture from nature 
 or human life and seek a line of usefulness for it as an illustration : the two 
 indexes will cover the two classes. If merely general inspiration is wanted, 
 
 XV 
 
PREFACE 
 
 the reader may browse at will. Sometimes an illustration might have been 
 classified under one or more other topics ; but choice had to be made. 
 
 A reviewer remarked that Mr, Beecher's prayers were often richer 
 than his sermons j and a cultivated and well-known preacher, after listening 
 to him one Sunday, was struck with a figure used during the prayer, 
 "which," said the hearer, "he ought to have kept for his sermon, it was 
 so illuminating." But such things dropped from Mr. Beecher like rain 
 from the clouds, not by premeditation, but out of illimitable reservoirs 
 when the atmospheric conditions were ready. Many of the illustrations in 
 this volume are taken from his prayers. Besides, the range for selection 
 has been over innumerable sermons, (not only those printed in volumes, 
 but also pamphlet-issues, old newspaper reports, and unprinted steno- 
 graphic reports), and a large number of lecture-room talks, lectures 
 to special audiences, public addresses, pulpit notices, remarks at 
 funerals, private conversations, and other utterances, published and un- 
 published, when, either by regular arrangement or by chance, a record 
 was made. 
 
 The difficulty has been to restrict selection to illustrations, and to be 
 restrained from including the innumerable "good things," which, however 
 terse, graphic, or otherwise fine, are not really figures of speech — although 
 their picturesqueness often almost makes them seem to be so. This volume 
 merely gathers some precious specimens from the mines of sense, wit, 
 ethical instruction and lofty spirituality, which that great mind and 
 greater heart have left as a heritage, to those who are wise enough to avail 
 of them. 
 
 All the copyrighted material in this volume is used under arrange- 
 ment with the owners. 
 
Division of Themes 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 NO. 
 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 Infancy and Childhood -^ 
 
 43 
 
 Youth 
 
 
 
 
 • '3 
 
 70 
 
 Man and Woman 
 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 99 
 
 Romantic and Wedded Love . 
 
 
 
 
 28 
 
 129 
 
 Mother — -Father — ^Home Life 
 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 177 
 
 Health and Sickness 
 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 222 
 
 Bereavement and Sorrow- 
 
 
 
 
 53 
 
 273 
 
 Old Age ...... 
 
 
 
 
 63 
 
 288 
 
 Death 
 
 
 
 
 67 
 
 3H 
 
 Immortality and Heaven 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 
 
 
 72 
 
 357 
 481 
 
 504 
 
 536 
 592 
 623 
 
 710 
 
 797 
 831 
 
 952 
 
 Mental, Emotional, and Moral Qualities 
 
 Joy and Happiness . 
 
 Work 
 
 Business Activity 
 
 Prosperity and Wealth 
 
 Poverty and Adversity 
 
 Faults and Vices 
 
 Excellences and Virtues 
 
 Social Relations 
 
 Society, Influence, Sympathy, Character, Repu 
 
 tation. Friendship, Common Pains and Advan 
 
 TAGES, Mutual Judgments, etc. 
 Civic Interests ...... 
 
 Government, Patriotism, Public Life, etc. 
 xvii 
 
 87 
 114 
 
 118 
 
 125 
 
 137 
 
 143 
 
 160 
 
 175 
 182 
 
 206 
 
xvui 
 
 DIVISION OF THEMES 
 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 NO. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IOI6 
 
 The Spiritual Nature 223 
 
 1107 
 
 God 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 239 
 
 I218 
 
 Jesus Christ 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 262 
 
 1297 
 
 The Holy Spirit 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 280 
 
 I33I 
 
 Conscience, Temptation, and £ 
 
 IN 
 
 
 
 
 . 288 
 
 1433 
 
 Religion .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 307 
 
 1539 
 
 Spiritual Birth 
 
 
 
 
 
 329 
 
 1604 
 
 Spiritual Growth . 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 343 
 
 1679 
 
 Spiritual Life 
 
 
 
 
 
 357 
 
 1766 
 
 Unselfish Love 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 375 
 
 180I 
 
 Prayer .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 382 
 
 1834 
 
 The Bible 
 
 
 
 
 
 388 
 
 1970 
 
 Doubt and Belief 
 
 
 
 
 
 419 
 
 1987 
 
 Fear and Hope 
 
 
 
 
 
 423 
 
 2006 
 
 Faith .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 427 
 
 2039 
 
 The Sabbath and Worship 
 
 
 
 
 
 434 
 
 2071 
 
 The Church 
 
 
 
 
 
 440 
 
 2178 
 
 Theology 
 
 
 
 
 
 463 
 
 2266 
 
 Preaching .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 482 
 
 2355 
 
 Reforms .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 501 
 
 2383 
 
 Benevolence .... 
 MISCELLANE 
 
 ovs 
 
 
 
 
 507 
 
 Education and Literature 
 The Human Race 
 
 2412 
 
 2458 
 
 2545) 
 TO y Nature 
 
 2585 J 
 
 515 
 524 
 
 543 
 
 Index of Thoughts, with Illustrations 
 Index of Illustrations, with Thoughts 
 Index of Titles .... 
 
 553 
 
 597 
 641 
 
Portraits of Mr. Beecher 
 
 y 
 
 From a Photograph by Rockwood, in 1885 (aged 72) . Frontispiece 
 
 From a Daguerreotype, in 1856 (aged 43) Title Page 
 
 From a Photograph by Whipple, in 1853 (aged 40) . Facing Page 87 
 From a Photograph by Rockwood, in 1870 (aged 57) " " 223 
 
To his undying fame the world and his 
 me77iory stajid i?i no need of witnesses. 
 
 William Ewart Gladstone. 
 
NATURAL LIFE 
 
NATURAL LIFE 
 
 /. INFANCr AND CHILHOOD 
 
 1, The Baby.— The birth of a child 
 is the birth of love in the family. It is 
 to the mother as if there had flown in at 
 the open window, from some fragrant 
 honeysuckle or rose, a little bird.to sit on 
 the window-sill and sing to her strange 
 melodies from the unseen world. It 
 seems a gift of God, musical and lov- 
 ing. She takes it as a thing perfected, 
 as it were an angel visitor sent to her, 
 
 2. The Mother's Eye, — When did a 
 child ever look ugly to its mother ! 
 Larks doubtless think their feather- 
 less, discolored, yellow-mantled squabs 
 more beautiful than full-grown hum- 
 ming-birds, 
 
 3, Lessons from the Cradle. — This 
 little preacher lies in the cradle teach- 
 ing us to love that which is not lovely, 
 but which has in it elements that prom- 
 ise a future disclosure of loveliness ; 
 teaching us to seek not our own good, 
 but the good of another ; teaching us 
 to give our proud strength utterly to 
 the weakness of unrequiting child- 
 hood, even in its earliest days. 
 
 4. God's Love and His World. — 
 There is not this side of the Cross of 
 Christ anything that is so perfect an 
 illustration of love in the administration 
 and economy of God in this world, as 
 the birth and development of the child 
 in the family. By day and by night, 
 through sickness and through health, 
 during all the gradations of unfolding 
 growth, there is the joy of the mother 
 in overruling self for the sake of her 
 Httle one. Though she be the flower 
 and pride of every assembly, the mo- 
 ment the fountain is opened, and the 
 mother-soul is awakened, how blessed 
 
 is the cottage ! and how willingly and 
 cheerfully all the gay trappings of 
 fashionable life are given up ! She 
 devotes her very life to the child ; and 
 as it grows older she still serves it, and 
 becomes its wisdom and righteousness; 
 he r experience is made over to the child, 
 and she clothes it with herself, as we are 
 told to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 As it goes on increasing in stature and 
 knowledge she watches it, guides it, 
 inspires it and helps it to the end. 
 
 5 . Christ' s Valuation of Humanity, — 
 A little child, according to the canons 
 of the market, is just about the most 
 worthless thing going. He cannot 
 sow, nor reap, nor spin. He does not 
 understand even the benefits that are 
 bestowed upon him. A child stands 
 as near to the seed-form as he can ; 
 he is only an acorn. No matter 
 whether he grows to be an oak or not, 
 he is nothing but a seed, an acorn. 
 He is the lowest in society. And yet, 
 says the Saviour, this lowest thing in 
 human life, a little child, is so sacred 
 before God, that whoso accepts him in 
 the fullness of the recognition that he 
 is God's child, shall be counted to 
 have received God himself ; and who- 
 ever despises him, or causes him in any 
 way to stumble, had better never have 
 been born. Such is the teaching of 
 Christ as to the value of human na- 
 ture : — not as to the value of fully de- 
 veloped and educated human nature, 
 that stands in the economies of human 
 hfe in all its usefulness ; but take the 
 lowest form of it, its zero, and yet, in- 
 trinsically, it has such a value that on 
 no other occasion and in regard to no 
 
NATURAL LIFE 
 
 other person were there such words 
 uttered as by the Lord Jesus in regard 
 to a little child. 
 
 6. Prophetic Love. — The mother 
 thinks she has an orator on her knee, 
 though he can scarcely speak a word. 
 She foresees it in her love and hope. 
 The child is fractious and irritable ; 
 but she says, " That is a fine nervous 
 system, and it will be very sensitive by 
 and by to all that is beautiful and rare." 
 She can stand the irritableness of the 
 child and its fractiousness, because she 
 foresees what they mean for the future. 
 Where there is maternal love, there is 
 no service so low, no sickness so 
 severe, no taxation so burdensome, no 
 fact that seems so blind, but that love 
 pierces it, and for that which the child 
 is to be the mother glories over it. 
 
 7. The Joy of Sacrifice. — When a 
 mother is going through weariness, 
 and wearing out night by night, and 
 the little child hovers like an aspen- 
 leaf quivering in the wind of death, 
 ready to go every moment, and any 
 one would take the sweet burden of 
 watching from her, does not she say, 
 " No, no, no — nobody but me " ? and 
 is she not conscious of an inward un- 
 definable joy ? 
 
 Or, when, at night, on the disturbed 
 border, some Indian foray has carried 
 the torch to the house, and the mother 
 and father are driving their httle flock 
 before them, and the father turns at 
 almost every step to destroy one or 
 another of the foe, is he not at that 
 moment, when every muscle is nerve, 
 and every nerve is a flame of fire, con- 
 scious that he is forty men, as it were ? 
 No man is ever in such a state of ex- 
 altation as when he is putting his life 
 in peril for something that is dearer to 
 him than life. 
 
 8. Learning by Experience. — How 
 beautiful is the child in the mother's 
 eyes, even in its first estate, though it 
 
 is a mere nothing then. Wrapped up 
 in that child, though yet unfolded, 
 are twenty or thirty strong, intense, 
 immeasurable powers. When little 
 by little he comes to himself, he is, as 
 it were, a chest of tools. I3ut let a 
 father turn his child, at five years old, 
 into a shop where there is a chest of 
 some thirty tools, of which he knows 
 nothing, and tell him to use them all. 
 He handles them just as it happens, 
 and of course suffers for his ignorance. 
 He snatches up one and cuts himself, 
 and throws it down again ; he tries 
 another with the same result ; and he 
 learns, by and by, not to take a chisel 
 by the wrong end. He soon finds out 
 that the proper use of a gimlet is not 
 to pierce his hand. By repeated mis- 
 takes and mishaps, and it may be by 
 an occasional exhortation, he learns to 
 use those tools as they were designed 
 to be used. 
 
 9. First Animals and Then Men. — 
 Children are animals before they are 
 men : they are little beasts of prey; they 
 are monkeys ; they are pigs ; they are 
 all kinds of creatures endowed with 
 instincts, indulging sometimes in this 
 passion and sometimes in that. When 
 they begin to act they do not manifest 
 much moral sentiment. That is of a 
 subsequent growth. They are unripe. 
 We are not, therefore, to think they 
 are coming to the gallows because they 
 falsify and go to the sweetmeat jar in 
 childhood. If you are faithful they 
 will not always lie and steal. If you 
 take occasion to instruct and train 
 them aright you need not be alarmed 
 lest they will end badly because there 
 seems to be such a perverse bias to 
 their minds in the beginning. 
 
 10. Child-training Continuous, not 
 Spasmodic. — We must inspire our chil- 
 dren with higher conceptions of the 
 dignity of right-living, and of the nobil- 
 ity of real manhood. And it caniiot 
 
INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 
 
 be done by a word dropped here and 
 there. It cannot be done by a little 
 instruction imparted now and then. It 
 must be done when you are kneading 
 the batch. There is many a dish that 
 you cannot put pepper and salt into 
 after it is cooked. They must be put in 
 while it is hot. And so it is in bring- 
 ing up children. All the essential in- 
 stincts of a nobler manhood are to be 
 melted and worked into them while 
 they are growing up. 
 
 11. A Little Questioner. — When a 
 child is born it feeds on the mother. 
 All that necessary economy which goes 
 before the child's experience resides in 
 the mother. When the child is so 
 grown that its mind begins to be hun- 
 gry, it eats the mother's mind, just as 
 before it ate the mother's milk. It is 
 dependent on the mother's thought for 
 its own thinking. It has all the ap- 
 paratus for thinking, but no thoughts of 
 its own. It is a little questioner, ask- 
 ing, " What is that?" and "Who is 
 that?" and "Why is that?" and 
 "Where is that? " gathering knowl- 
 edge from the mother's knowledge. 
 The mother precedes and prepares ; 
 the child comes after and devours. It 
 is a much more gracious method of 
 eating than the red-mouthed lion's 
 way, but it is in the nature of feeding 
 upon the mother's hfe and thought. 
 
 12. Education and Training. — " Train 
 up a child in the way he should go, and 
 when he is old he will not depart from 
 it." It does not say Educate the 
 child, but " Train up the child." To 
 educate a man is to tell him what to 
 do, while to train him is to see that he 
 does it. Training is the rubbing of 
 education into muscle and bone. If 
 you tell a child what is good it does 
 not follow that he will not depart from 
 it ; but if you train him into being good, 
 he will not depart from it. If you tell 
 him that he must be orderly he may 
 
 not be ; but if you see that he is or- 
 derly till he is grown up he cannot get 
 rid of the habit of being so. If you 
 tell him that he must not lie, that he 
 must speak the truth, it is not certain 
 that he will obey ; but if you see that 
 he forms a habit of being ashamed of 
 lying, the habit of speaking the truth 
 will be so wrought into his mind that 
 he will never depart from it. Habits 
 formed in childhood are faster than 
 colors dyed in the wool. 
 
 13. Children. — The limbs reach 
 down, and the green leaves kiss the 
 children over and over again. So 
 would I, if I were a green leaf, and 
 not consider myself so green after all. 
 
 14. Happiness a Means of Grace. — In 
 dealing with children, have confidence 
 in them. Do not try to corner them. 
 When I was a child I was cornered 
 many a time, and made to lie. I knew 
 I was right, but I was whipped until I 
 confessed that I was wrong. If a child 
 has done a wrong thing, as far as pos- 
 sible avoid bringing on an issue by 
 which fear of a frown or the whip shall 
 make him dodge into deception, and 
 try to hide. That is characteristic of 
 the animal-nature. It is true of the fox 
 and of the hare, and it is true of the 
 child. Therefore take care of your 
 tenderness. You may drive the chil- 
 dren into sin by sternness and severity, 
 whereas by kindness and gentleness 
 you can lift them over the hard spots 
 in their experience, and set them down 
 intact on the other side. Make the 
 children about you happy, and be 
 happy yourself. The aspect of happi- 
 ness in every virtuous household is a 
 means of grace. 
 
 15. Learning to Speak Truth. — The 
 conscientious mother is overwhelmed 
 with grief ; and when the husband 
 comes home, she says, " My dear, 
 Charley has told a he ! " Yes, he has. 
 Probably he has told a hundred ; and 
 
NATURAL LIFE 
 
 he will tell a hundred more. For telling 
 the truth is Hke archery ; and no boy 
 hits the mark the first time. He does 
 not know how to aim. He has got to 
 learn. And I will assure you it is a 
 great education to learn how to tell tiie 
 truth. There are a great many people 
 who never learn it all their hfe long. 
 
 i6. Forgiveness of Children. — Sup- 
 pose a child has told an untempted lie, 
 and the mother is to deal with her. She 
 calls the child to her knee, with a sad 
 but serene countenance, and reasons 
 with her. The child's obstinate pride 
 is aroused, but the mother deals with 
 her mildly and moderately, though 
 justly ; and yet the hour goes by leav- 
 ing the mother's face not unclouded. 
 The child is in such a state that if the 
 mother should smile she would take it 
 to be a compromise with the lie ; and 
 the mother says, " No, no, no, my 
 daughter." She holds the child off 
 until she is satisfied that the child's 
 abhorrence of her wrong is genuine, 
 and she does it for the child's own 
 sake ; but the moment the child, in a 
 flood of tears, rushes to the mother 
 and says, " I am sorry ! I am sorry ! 
 I confess it all ! I confess it all ! " — the 
 moment the child's mind is changed 
 so that kindness shown to her will not 
 be interpreted by her as a justification 
 of the lie — that moment the mother's 
 arms are thrown about the child, and 
 she kisses the tears from her eyes. 
 
 Now, that is forgiveness. It is a 
 restoration of the stream of confidence 
 between soul and soul, mind and mind, 
 heart and heart. 
 
 17. Want of Strength not Wicked- 
 ness. — A child is not to be regarded as 
 wicked, primarily, that is simply feeble 
 in the direction of any moral faculty, 
 any more than a child is to be re- 
 garded as wicked that is born lame, 
 or maimed, or blind or deaf; though 
 such a child should have more care 
 
 and more education than one more 
 happily organized. It is required of 
 us according to what we have, and 
 not according to what we have not. 
 There may be many parents who sup- 
 pose themselves to have very wicked 
 children because dull and slow in cer- 
 tain moral directions. They have 
 children that will require at their hands 
 much attention, and these children, 
 by reason of their defects, may be- 
 come more wicked; but the mere want 
 of strength in any faculty, intellectual 
 or moral, is not wickedness in a child. 
 
 18. Boys. — A boy is a piece of exist- 
 ence quite separate from all things else, 
 and deserves separate chapters in the 
 natural history of man. The real lives 
 of boys are yet to be written. The 
 lives of pious and good boys, which 
 enrich the catalogues of great publish- 
 ing societies, resemble a real boy's 
 life about as much as a chicken 
 picked and larded, upon a spit, and 
 ready for delicious eating, resembles 
 a free fowl in the fields. With some 
 few honorable exceptions, they are im- 
 possible boys, with incredible good- 
 ness. Their piety is monstrous. A 
 man's experience stuffed into a little 
 boy is simply monstrous. And we 
 are soundly sceptical of this whole 
 school of juvenile pate de foie gras 
 piety. Apples that ripen long before 
 their time are either diseased or worm- 
 bitten. 
 
 19. Courtesy Due to Children. — 
 Thousands of parents govern their chil- 
 dren simply and solely for their own 
 luxury and convenience, and take no 
 pains to smooth the tones of their voice 
 or to measure their action. I have seen 
 children insulted so grossly by parents 
 that nature in me said, " The parents 
 ought to be severely punished," while 
 grace in me said, " No, they only 
 ought to be reproved and taught l)et- 
 ter." Because God lent a little child 
 
INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 
 
 to you He did not lend it to you to be a 
 rug for you to wipe your feet on, nor to 
 be a slave to run of your errands, and 
 for you to practice your cruelty and 
 irritableness on. That child was God' s 
 before it was yours. 
 
 20. Lies to Children. — A lie told to 
 a child is a monstrous thing. I abhor 
 it. And yet hes are told to children 
 as thick as cloves are stuck in hams 
 when dressed for public occasions. 
 Your child is sick, and you bring him 
 a potion, and say: "It is good, my 
 dear," when it is as bitter as gall. 
 You are not only a liar, but a fool. 
 The child learns, in a little time, not 
 only that the medicine is not good, but 
 that truth is not to be regarded. You 
 not simply give the child an odious 
 dose of medicine, but you give him a 
 more odious dose of morals. You in- 
 oculate him with the spirit of lying in 
 the beginning. We cannot be too care- 
 ful to speak the truth — and, above all, 
 to children. 
 
 21. The Gift of Love. — What can 
 that little five-year-old do to help her 
 mother, or to reassure her spirit in any 
 way, compared with the relief and 
 support which can be afforded by the 
 benign and wise right-minded man to 
 whom she goes for all counsel, and 
 who has a large range of life, from 
 which he can bring that which is 
 strength to her, and a staff for her to 
 lean on ? . . . But has that httle child 
 nothing for the mother? Is its infe- 
 riority really a bar to its making gifts, 
 and to its conferring pleasure ? I tell 
 you, when the older sister comes 
 home, and sits down at an instru- 
 ment of music, and, in the most bril- 
 liant way renders some notable sym- 
 phony, though the mother is greatly 
 pleased — yet. let the little five-year-old 
 burst into the room, with arms ex- 
 tended, and see how quickly the 
 mother's attention is withdrawn from 
 
 the music, and is directed to the child! 
 And does not the child bring some- 
 thing to the mother — something that is 
 worthy of the mother's notice? 
 
 22. Filial Liberties. — When I go 
 abroad, now advanced in years, and 
 find that preparation has been made 
 for me, and that respectful and kind 
 attentions are shown me, I do not fail 
 to appreciate these things. If I am 
 cordially received by the husband of 
 the family, and if, one by one, I am 
 greeted by the children, this daughter 
 and that son coming and shaking hands 
 with me, one saying what he has re- 
 membered, and another saying what 
 he has remembered, I am not insensible 
 to the honor that is bestowed upon me. 
 But they forgot the little fellow. He 
 has been out in the nurse's arms; and 
 hearing something going on, he breaks 
 away from her and comes running in, 
 and eludes the mother who would 
 catch him up, and climbs into my lap, 
 and talks of his hoop, of his marbles, 
 or of something else. Dear little fel- 
 low — he is the one in the whole family 
 that I like best— the little prattler ; the 
 one that takes liberties; the one that 
 makes me as a father to him. 
 
 23. The Father's Presence. — First, 
 the child learns to love his father as a 
 person in the household; but as he 
 grows older he begins to see his father 
 in the handwriting that hes on the sec- 
 retary, in the chair that stands in the 
 corner, in the hat and coat that hang 
 on the nail, in the cane, in the gar- 
 den, all through the house, and around 
 about it — everywhere that his father 
 has thought, and shown his taste, and 
 performed his labor. He sees his 
 whole personality. 
 
 I well remember being waked up, 
 on dreamy moonlit nights, by the 
 whippoorwill. Its wild, strange song 
 fluted through the air, and I was 
 seized with I know not what inspi- 
 
8 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 ration. My soul exhaled, and I quiv- 
 ered with a kind of pleasant terror. I 
 would fain have called out, but that I 
 did not dare to hear my own voice in 
 tiie silence. The light of the moon, 
 streaming through the window and 
 filling the room, brought tears, half 
 of pleasure and half of terror, which 
 ran down my cheeks. Presently I 
 heard my father's " Hetn!" in the 
 adjoining room, — and then it was all 
 peace. Just that simplest inarticulate 
 sound, that brought quick through my 
 fancy a sense of my father's presence, 
 dissipated all terror. I was myself 
 again in an instant. From this least 
 hint and sign of personality, how quick 
 the whole person came ! 
 
 24. Judgments of Law and of Love. 
 — Look at the way in which we see 
 our neighbors' children. There never 
 were such rogues ! There never were 
 such little lying wretches ! There 
 never were such mischief-making 
 children ! My observation is that 
 every village in the United States has 
 in it the worst children in the world. 
 When you bring to bear upon your 
 neighbor's children any other stand- 
 ard of measurement than that of ten- 
 der, fostering love, you look at them 
 with hard criticism, and the judgment 
 of the law ; and they cannot stand it. 
 
 Yet how is it with the father and the 
 mother when they look upon their own 
 children ? With what patience do 
 they endure the animal period, the 
 brute period, the deceitful period, the 
 fox period, the wolf period, the serpent 
 period ! 
 
 25. Sympathy of Moods. — You know 
 the old Latin proverb that says : 
 
 Si vis me Acre, dolendum est 
 Primum ipsi tibi. 
 
 •• If you want to make men cry you 
 must cry first." Whenever you see 
 any one in tears you instantly feel a 
 
 pathetic mood come on you. Or if 
 you go into a house of merriment, and 
 brilliant jests are flying through the 
 air like rockets, you begin to laugh 
 even before you know what the jest 
 is. The feehng of mirth in another 
 begets the same in you at once. So 
 it is all the way through. I have 
 known parents who, because their 
 children have been angry, have got 
 angry too. " You little rascal ! " they 
 say. " What do you mean by losing 
 your temper? Take that!" When 
 the child is angry, that is the time for 
 the parent to be gentle ; when the 
 child is selfish, that is the time for the 
 parent to subdue him by pouring 
 generous treatment over him. If you 
 want anybody to be anything, be that 
 yourself in their presence, and they 
 will incline to it. 
 
 26. Sunday and the Children. — 
 When I was a boy Sunday began at 
 the going down of the sun on Saturday 
 night. The next morning, when 1 got 
 up, 1 used to feel the power and pressure 
 of the stillness that prevailed, or of the 
 strange sounds that rolled through the 
 air. When I went to the breakfast table 
 I felt that I must not smile ; and the 
 first thing I heard was the question, 
 "Do you know your catechism?" 
 That was always the skeleton in my 
 closet, — especially when my dinner 
 hung on it, the loss of which, to a 
 growing boy like me, was a serious 
 matter ! In many ways religion was 
 made a torment to me. Yet my father 
 and mother were far in advance of 
 their time in the gentleness with which 
 they treated their household. But I 
 can remember how I used to stand in 
 the west window and look at the sun, 
 and yearn to have it go down. It 
 seemed to me that there was nothing 
 so lazy as the sun on Sunday ; but 
 when it did go down it brought 
 emancipation. 
 
INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 
 
 My recollection of this is very vivid, 
 and I should be extremely sorry to 
 think that a child of mine watched to 
 see the last sand go out of the Sab- 
 bath, and felt that it was iron sand, 
 and associated Sunday with fetters 
 and manacles. It is a day of the 
 Lord, and it ought to be full of sweet 
 songs and rare pleasure. 
 
 27. Children and the Old Testament. 
 — Many parents do not dare to let their 
 children go to the Old Testament. 
 They say there are in it many things 
 which shock the refinement of modern 
 Christians, and which they do not 
 want their children to see. There are, 
 it is true, many things in the history 
 of the race which are not agreeable ; 
 so there are many things in the growth 
 of every child that are not agreeable. 
 Therefore we take him to the nursery, 
 and do not show him in the parlor. 
 But these things are necessary parts 
 of life though they do not belong to 
 polite society. There are parts of the 
 Old Testament which do not belong 
 to polite literature, but which belong 
 to life, notwithstanding. Life has 
 knots and twists in it which must be 
 taken account of in a true delineation. 
 Old Cromwell wanted to be painted 
 with the wart which was on his face ; 
 and the Old Testament paints the 
 warts on the faces of its heroes. If 
 parents are fastidious about the Old 
 Testament, the consequence is that 
 their children are weakened unless 
 they get its reflected light, and are not 
 half so strong as they would otherwise 
 be. I would rather take my child by 
 the hand, and walk with him straight 
 from Genesis to the last book of the Old 
 Testament, and read every bit to him, 
 unfolding and explaining it, than to 
 have him deprived of the power which 
 comes from familiarity with it. 
 
 28, Parable and Fable as Teachers. 
 — Does a mother, when she has grown 
 
 old, repent herself of the thousand 
 little artifices by which she has at- 
 tempted to get truth into the mind o-f 
 the child? She reads a fairy story, 
 and the child is perfectly bewildered, 
 delighted, dazzled with it; but is it 
 true ? No, it is not true ; and yet it is 
 true : that is, it is not true in the lower 
 realm of fact, but in the higher realm 
 of imagination it is true. It never 
 happened ; but then, it conveys an 
 idea of happenings of a certain sort. 
 You make up a little fable, an un- 
 tedious novel, and rehearse it to your 
 children ; and they ask, " Is it true ? " 
 You can say, "Well no, it is not 
 true;" or you can say, "Yes, it is 
 true." Do you not know that some- 
 times an untruth is truer than a truth ? 
 — truer, I mean, not in the thing itself, 
 but in the impression it produces on 
 persons' minds. The history of the 
 world shows that in the divine develop- 
 ment of a system of instruction pre- 
 cisely those methods were employed 
 for the purpose of unfolding and carry- 
 ing up men's ideas, and elevating the 
 standard of their inward manhood, to 
 a higher plane, which are employed 
 in every rational family. 
 
 29. Childhood Disciples. — There is 
 but one period of the year in which you 
 can graft well. It may be possible to 
 graft successfully at other times ; but 
 there is one period when you must 
 make the transfer if you would take a 
 bud from one tree, and graft it into 
 another, and have it produce its kind, 
 and do the best that it is capable of 
 doing. There is but just one season 
 when the bark Ufts easily, and the staff 
 is in the right condition. 
 
 There is a time, also, when the little 
 human natures bud easily, and graft 
 easily. It is possible to graft them at 
 other times, by extra elaboration ; but 
 more than half of the grafts will blow 
 out, as the saying is. There is a 
 
lO 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 period, however, in which ninety-nine 
 out of a hundred will stick and grow. 
 For all the adaptations of the child at 
 that time are such as to incline it to 
 borrow its life from another. It is but 
 the transfer of that which is its need 
 and instinct from the blessed Saviour. 
 And then it becomes a Christian 
 child. 
 
 30. Young Souls. — When once 
 china or porcelain has been inscribed, 
 and put into a furnace, and baked and 
 glazed, you cannot rub the inscription 
 off. It is too late then. If you want 
 to rub it off, you must do it while the 
 ware is in the " biscuit." When 
 children come into our hands they 
 are in the "biscuit," and we can in- 
 scribe on them what we please. 
 
 31. Present Duties for Children. — It 
 was only yesterday that I saw robins 
 that had just been fledged and coaxed 
 out of their nests by their parents, and 
 that found it easier to settle down in 
 the grass and on the ground than to 
 fly in the air. But grass and ground 
 are no place for birds ; cats, vermin, 
 and all manner of dangerous enemies, 
 boys included, are around about them 
 there ; and I beheld the parents' en- 
 deavor to make them fly. With what 
 clamor, with what vexation, with what 
 torment, did they afflict their offspring 
 till at last they provoked them out of 
 the grass! As the young birds, with 
 feeble and unpractised wings, slowly 
 lifted themselves up, the old birds swung 
 around them with continued clamor, 
 and, bearing them up, apparently with 
 a thousand touches, conveyed them 
 to the branches of high trees, and 
 taught them to fly from tree to tree — 
 not down but up, rather. So, some- 
 times stringently, always patiently and 
 helpfully, will the wise parents of boys 
 and girls hold them to duties for the 
 present grievous, but afterwards to be 
 their joys in life. 
 
 32. Possibilities in Culture. — There 
 are a great many plants which, if you 
 take them in their wild state, show 
 simply that they have the capacity and 
 foundation for culture. Some of the 
 choicest of our garden flowers in their 
 wild state were very simple things. 
 
 Look at the gorgeous family of roses. 
 You shall not find in a state of nature 
 roses that parallel the Teas, the Per- 
 petuals, and the Mosses. These are 
 all developed by culture. They have 
 been brought to a high degree of 
 beauty and fragrance, and some to 
 an excessive degree of fragrance ; 
 whereas in the state of nature they 
 were simply sweet and pretty. Natu- 
 ral roses are comparatively humble by 
 the side of these cultivated ones ; and 
 it is culture that has made the differ- 
 ence. Yet there was in the wilding 
 the power of development. And the 
 child will respond as well as the rose. 
 
 33. Sensitiveness of Children. — Your 
 child is so sensitive that you cannot 
 speak to it that it does not cry ; and 
 you say, " I never shall bring up this 
 child: it is all baby." You asked 
 God to give you children, and you 
 prayed that you might have children 
 full of sensibility to all that was good 
 and true and noble. He granted your 
 request. He gave you a child with 
 sensibility to love, to justice and to 
 patriotism ; but in order to do this he 
 had to give you a child that had a 
 sensitive constitution, that would cry 
 quick and laugh quick, that was like a 
 May morning and that was the pre- 
 cursor of a glorious summer and of an 
 autumn full of rich fruit. What you 
 call sensitiveness is perhaps the first 
 development of genius in the child. 
 Do not mistake the preparation of 
 good things as being faults in your 
 children. 
 
 34. Long Words to Children. — Long 
 words in regard to spiritual subjects 
 
INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 
 
 1 1 
 
 are no more to a child's understand- 
 ing than hailstones on a slate roof are 
 to plants under that roof. You cannot 
 make children understand anything 
 without appealing first to what they 
 have in them, and then from that to 
 something a little larger, from that to 
 something still larger, and so on. 
 
 35. Teaching Truth by Fiction. — 
 You wish to produce in your child's 
 mind a conception of justice, and you 
 make animals talk. You say, "There 
 was a lion — one of those good lions, my 
 dear — and he was walking one day in 
 the woods ; and what did he see ? He 
 saw a poor httle innocent lamb by a 
 stream ; and there was a wolf — a bad 
 wolf — and the wolf was saying to the 
 little lamb, ' What are you drinking 
 out of this stream for ? ' and the little 
 lamb said, ' I did not know as I was 
 doing any harm.' ' Yes,' said the 
 wolf, ' you did know that you were 
 doing harm, and I will tear you to 
 pieces.' And the lion walked up and 
 said . to the wolf, ' Stop ! you shall 
 not hurt that lamb ; he has rights as 
 well as you ; ' and the lamb was 
 saved." 
 
 Thus you show the child how a just 
 monarch protects innocence on the one 
 side from craft and violence on the 
 other. Yet there was never a lion 
 that did so, and never a wolf that 
 stopped to argue with a lamb before 
 eating it up. But that fiction conveys 
 to the child's mind a vivid conception, 
 such as you could never give him by 
 any abstract statement, of equity be- 
 tween man and man, between the 
 strong and the weak, between the high 
 and the low. Christ employed that 
 mode of teaching. He taught by 
 fiction. 
 
 36. Lessons Taught by Children. — 
 Never in all after life shall we repay 
 the lessons which our children teach 
 us. They inspire enterprise, indus- 
 
 try, frugality and courage, as nothing 
 else does. From rude and painful 
 strife with nature men obtain relief in 
 the love which they find when they 
 come back to the household. The 
 buried miner, from whose face the 
 sunlight is shut out, comes forth at 
 twilight weary and begrimed, with no 
 expectation of honor or wealth, but 
 cheerful and hopeful. He is going 
 home, where the little children live. 
 He returns again to his most unwel- 
 come task in the morning, still with 
 no expectation of honor or wealth, 
 but only that through his patient toil 
 the dear ones may live on. 
 
 37. Conversion of Children. — Many 
 persons are afraid of children's con- 
 version. As though the conversion of 
 a child that is free from the cares and 
 burdens which you carry like a hump 
 on your back was not more likely to 
 be genuine than yours, if you give it 
 fair play ! When little children think 
 they are converted people say, " What, 
 converted so small ? Christians so 
 young ? Let us be careful. We will 
 not take them into the church yet. It 
 will not do to bring them along too 
 fast. If they hold out we will receive 
 them." 
 
 Suppose, a child being born, the 
 doctor should say, "My dear father 
 and mother, it is uncertain whether 
 or not this child will live, and I ad- 
 vise you to put it out on the front 
 door-steps and leave it over night. If 
 it lives in the open air in January you 
 may be sure that it has a good consti- 
 tution, and you will be warranted in 
 bringing it in and taking care of it." 
 Thus you do a devilish work, and 
 hope that God will do a good one. 
 Those periods when children feel 
 drawings towards higher things, and 
 hear the call of God, are just the pe- 
 riods when you should take care of 
 them. It is not hard to make a tree 
 
12 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 grow right if you begin to train it 
 when it is young, but to niai<e a tree 
 grow right after you have allowed it 
 to grow wrong till it is old is not an 
 easy matter. 
 
 38. A Child-Christ in the Child- 
 Heart. — Many people, in bringing up 
 their children in the nurture and ad- 
 monition of the Lord, look with great 
 suspicion on early Christian experi- 
 ences. They are afraid of abnormal 
 growths. They do not believe in 
 children being really Christians, be- 
 cause they do not see in the child that 
 which they would look for in a ripe 
 Christian. But if they would look for 
 a babe Jesus in a little babe, they 
 would find that there. And if they 
 would treat the babe Christ as they 
 would treat the babe boy, or the babe 
 girl, and nourish it, and carry it in 
 their arms, and rear it, step by step; 
 if they would treat it as a little child 
 embosomed and arm-encircled ; if 
 they would shield it as it goes through 
 all temptation and all trial, they would 
 make straighter Christians, better 
 branched Christians, more fruitful 
 Christians, than those that are made, 
 at last, out of old and bad growths, by 
 lopping away the pernicious boughs. 
 There never will be the ripest and 
 most symmetrical characters in the 
 Church of Christ till we learn to 
 bring them up from the seed in the 
 spirit of the blessed Master, 
 
 39. Undue Anxiety for Children. — 
 Parents may be so anxious for the 
 welfare of their children that they have 
 very little peace, joy, or trust in God. 
 In order that our hearts may ring out 
 to our children in the sweet music of 
 true religion, those hearts must not be 
 touched by worry. If you lay your 
 hand upon a bell when you strike it, 
 it is muffled, and the sound does not 
 come forth. Take off your hand, and 
 let the bell sound out sweet and clear. 
 
 The heart must not be muffled by 
 anxieties, fears and torments. 
 
 40. Children and God's Handiwork. 
 — I shall never forget what the chap- 
 lain once said to me when I was at 
 Mount Pleasant Academy. I was ac- 
 customed to go with a burly EngHsh 
 gardener, three or four times a week, 
 and spend an hour or two in the gar- 
 den where he worked, to delight my- 
 self with the flowers. The chaplain, 
 knowing what my habit was in this 
 respect, spoke to me one day on the 
 subject with a kind of solemn delicacy, 
 saying, " Do you think an immortal 
 being is spending his time worthily in 
 looking after such trifles as these?" 
 I did not know how to answer him 
 then. If I had known what I know 
 now, I should have said, "God spends 
 his time in making them every year, 
 and I am sure that I do not go far 
 viTong in spending my time looking at 
 them." I should be glad to have 
 every child under my care grow up 
 with the feeling that God made the 
 flowers; that he made the butteifly, 
 the worm, the insect, the ant; that he 
 has a thought in the air overhead, and 
 in the ground underfoot ; that wher- 
 ever there is life or organic creation, 
 there has been the touch of God's 
 hand. 
 
 41. Heredity. — A child whose par- 
 ents have lived in obedience to God's 
 law starts with a better chance for 
 righteousness than any other. A par- 
 ent says, with the most cursed selfish- 
 ness known to humanity: "If I in- 
 dulge in drinking or in lusts I am my 
 own worst enemy." I beg your par- 
 don; you are the worst enemy to your 
 children. They inherit your indul- 
 gences; they are cursed when they 
 start on the stream of life, whose 
 width and length no man can com- 
 pute, for God says: " I will punish," 
 that is the vote of nature, " and visit 
 
YOUTH 
 
 '3 
 
 the iniquities of the fathers upon the 
 children unto the third and fourth 
 generation." The children of thieves 
 are born with an impulse to steal; the 
 children of drunkards are born with a 
 shattered nervous system, and with an 
 appetite that is as hot as hell. God 
 says to parents, " If you want your 
 children to do well, by all the love 
 that nature and grace give to a man 
 for his offspring, take care of your- 
 self." 
 
 42, The Invisible Ministry of Chil- 
 dren. — I can conceive of an artist who 
 should paint, as some people write 
 with invisible ink. He goes through 
 a newly builded or a newly appro- 
 priated house, and works, and seems 
 to be marking on the walls ; but from 
 his pencil nothing comes, no fresco 
 either on the ceiling or on the sides of 
 the rooms. He continues to work for 
 days, and weeks, and months, during 
 the winter weather, and then departs. 
 And on some beautiful day in June, 
 when the air comes to exactly the right 
 temperature, and the constituent ele- 
 ments are happily coincident, by 
 some chemical action the artist's work 
 is disclosed, and the house is filled 
 
 with exquisite pictures, above, on 
 either hand, all around. We walk in 
 a trance of beauty; that which we be- 
 hold is like the reproduction of a 
 dream, or the incarnation of a poem. 
 The house glows. 
 
 Now, our children are little artists; 
 and by their quips and pranks, by 
 their mirth, by their earnest love, by 
 their strange manner when knowledge 
 dawns upon their mind, by their mo- 
 ments of devotion, by their little pat- 
 tering prayers, by the ten thousand 
 ways in which they carry their daily 
 life, they are filling the house, they are 
 filling the air, with pictures which are 
 never so beautiful as afterwards, when 
 they are gone. Thus the dress that 
 they wore, the book that their fingers 
 thumbed and from which they got 
 their first instruction, the place where 
 they sat and looked up with a merry 
 laugh, the couch that was theirs, the 
 hymn that they sang — all these things, 
 which were transiently marked by us, 
 but which we had perhaps forgotten, 
 begin to blossom out. Our memory is 
 frescoed with the rarest and sweetest 
 and most delicate of all conceivable 
 truths and feelings. 
 
 II. rOUTH 
 
 43. The Critical Season. — Long be- 
 fore the Amazon reaches the ocean, it 
 has grown so wide that from the chan- 
 nel no shore can be seen on either side. 
 It is still a river, but with all the signs 
 and symptoms of becoming an ocean. 
 There is a period, beginning not far 
 from fourteen, in young lives, when 
 childhood is widened suddenly, and 
 carries its banks so far out that man- 
 hood seems begun, though as yet it is 
 far off. The stream is ocean deep. 
 Upon this estuary of youth the cur- 
 rents are shifting — the eddies are 
 many. Here are united the strength 
 
 of the sea and the hindrances of the 
 land. 
 
 44. Misjudgment of the Young. — 
 The class of '34 of Amherst College, 
 from which I graduated, came to- 
 gether; and to look upon the boys 
 that were, and to see how the man 
 that was the butt, that was at the end 
 of the class, has after all been an im- 
 mense success in life, is a matter of 
 interest. I remember one man, who 
 was so poor that he had but one suit 
 of clothes, and they, I should think, 
 were five years old; who was a dullard 
 with his books, but endlessly good- 
 
H 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 natured, and therefore endlessly the 
 mark for the pranks and frolics of the 
 young fellows ; who had no genius, 
 but did have that kind of plain good 
 sense, and that homely knowledge of 
 men and things, which are not con- 
 spicuous. That man went into a par- 
 ish, where he soon established himself, 
 and for now nearly forty years he has 
 maintained himself in the same place 
 with growing influence and reputation. 
 
 Right by the side of him was one of 
 the most brilliant young men in the 
 college. All his associates admired 
 his wit and versatility. He was an 
 object of universal praise, and he bore 
 almost unlimited sway in his class. 
 After his graduation, he betook him- 
 self to the law ; and from that time he 
 steadily worked downward. At last 
 he died, having succeeded in nothing; 
 and his friends were obliged to pay his 
 funeral expenses, and to make some 
 provision for his household. 
 
 Thus, when we come together at 
 these annual gatherings of our college 
 classes, often the last are the first, and 
 the first are the last. 
 
 45. Youth's Voyage Beginning. — 
 As sons and daughters approach the 
 age of manhood and womanhood par- 
 ents begin to experience new and dif- 
 ferent anxieties. The whole future of 
 daughters is dependent, in a measure, 
 upon the companionships they form ; 
 and parents go with them to their ma- 
 turity very much as inland people go 
 to the seacoast when they are about 
 to send their children across the 
 ocean. So long as they are out of 
 sight of the sea it is a poetic thing to 
 them ; but when they draw near and 
 behold that some storm is on the 
 shore, the solemn, distant sound 
 thereof fills them with dread. As their 
 child embarks and goes out upon the 
 troubled waves, what wild and fearful 
 shapes their imagination takes! A 
 
 parent who is just launching a child 
 upon the sea of life without any 
 knowledge of what that child's fate is 
 to be, feels much as if he were send- 
 ing a child out upon the ocean without 
 any knowledge of what the ocean 
 may do, or what shall befall the child. 
 
 46. Opening of Young Manhood. — 
 The human soul, in this its real wak- 
 ing, is like the dawning of spring in 
 the forest. All things good and bad 
 are quickened alike. The dove comes, 
 and the hawk also ; the singing thrush, 
 and the cawing crow; harmless insects, 
 and stinging ones ; innocent worms, 
 and noxious reptiles ! The spice-bush 
 and the nettle ; the fragrant blossoms, 
 and ill-scented, poisonous weeds, all 
 move together and break forth into 
 life. But as every day the returning 
 sun, moving higher, brings on the 
 summer, the things comely and useful 
 gain ascendency, and the forest and 
 the field nourish treasures for the joy 
 of man and beast. Here and there is 
 a noisome morass which summer only 
 makes pestilential. At remote inter- 
 vals rare spots may be overgrown 
 with poisonous plants or waste weeds ; 
 but these things are exceptional ; and 
 summer brings, in vast excess over 
 incidental evil, the richest stores of in- 
 estimable benefit. 
 
 All natures come to their manhood 
 through some experience of fermenta- 
 tion ! With some it is a ferment of 
 passions ; with some, of the afi"ec- 
 tions ; and with richly endowed na- 
 tures it is the ferment of thought and 
 of the moral nature. 
 
 47. Right Use of Appetites and 
 Passions. — As the difference between 
 right and wrong lies in the different 
 ways of using things, the best cure for 
 wrong-using is right-using. When, 
 having stood for weeks in his stall, 
 the overfed steed is fractious, the way 
 to subdue him is not to chastise him. 
 
YOUTH 
 
 15 
 
 It is not the whip or the cudgel that 
 he wants, but the harness. Let him 
 walk before the plow. Working is 
 better than the groom's anger or whip 
 to cure the intense development of his 
 vitality. 
 
 In respect to our appetites and 
 passions, that are constantly liable 
 to run away with us, if we undertake 
 to cure them by simply checking them, 
 evil results will follow; for although 
 there is to be proper restraint in all 
 things, yet the sure effect of an at- 
 tempt to stop up the vein of a great 
 natural appetite or passion is to make 
 an explosion. And the way to over- 
 come that evil which lies in excessive 
 forces and tendencies is to find out 
 something in which the application of 
 those forces and tendencies will be 
 legitimate and useful, and work them 
 there. 
 
 48. Virtue, of Slow Growth. — Virtue 
 is like rye, which we have to sow one 
 year and reap the next ; which has to 
 lie over a good while. A man cannot 
 grow virtues as he can mushrooms. 
 Virtue is a thing that comes slowly. 
 Virtue means conduct. It means 
 habit. It is positive and affirmative. 
 It is not merely not sinning; it is going 
 higher yet. You that have been vi- 
 cious in youth cannot be virtuous in 
 old age without a long probation. 
 
 49. Position Does Not Make the 
 Man. — The impression is that if you 
 can put a boy into this groove or that, 
 the groove carries honor. It is sup- 
 posed that the position will do more 
 for him than he can do for himself. 
 It is presumed that if a man goes into 
 a liberal profession, he will be a liberal, 
 large, fertile man. This is a false idea, 
 and one which has proved to be a 
 curse to many and many a young 
 man. For, as soon as it is found that 
 there is a pigmy in the profession, he 
 is dropped out of it. There are five 
 
 hundred thousand blossoms on one 
 apple-tree, and perhaps three hundred 
 of them bear fruit. And do you notice 
 how it is with that big tree of the law ? 
 It blossoms all over every year with 
 candidates. There are a multitude of 
 abortive blossoms, and only here and 
 there one bears fruit. 
 
 50. Natural Bent to be Heeded. — 
 If the father is a, and the mother is 6, 
 the child is not necessarily ad; and 
 yet parents think it must be so. There 
 are whole generations behind father 
 and mother, and they are nothing, 
 often, but a lens that catches the 
 scattered rays of light, and brings 
 them to a focus. There are the 
 grandfathers, the great-grandfathers, 
 and the great-great-grandfathers, of 
 whose dispositions the child partakes. 
 The consequence is that it is unlike 
 the parents, and father and mother 
 are perpetually asking, "Where did 
 that trait in the child come from?" 
 If a child has a strong tendency away 
 from business in a family where the 
 parents are both practical, they set to 
 work to weed it out. God has given 
 them a little poet that is being fledged 
 to fly and sing and take the air for its 
 realm; but the father and mother mean 
 that it shall be a banker, and say, 
 " What is this unprofitable tendency 
 in our child?" The mother is firm, 
 the father is stubborn as a mule, 
 and they blindly use their strongest 
 faculties, or their habits which are 
 like faculties, to oppress and tyran- 
 nize over the child ; and if they do 
 not ruin him they make his life much 
 less happy than it should be. 
 
 51. Desiring and Choosing. — Choos- 
 ing takes, not the thing alone, but the 
 whole apparatus by which it is to be 
 obtained. Choosing is not only de- 
 sire, but the machinery by which de- 
 sire becomes reality. Choosing al- 
 ways carries with it something more 
 
i6 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 potential than mere susceptibility. So 
 that when a man says, " I choose 
 such a thing," it is as if he said, 
 " I think that thing to be not only 
 desirable, but more desirable than 
 other things that are inconsistent with 
 it; and so much more desirable, that 
 for its sake I will give them up, and 
 will apply all the forces that are nec- 
 essary to getting it." There are a 
 great many young men and young 
 women who desire to be cultivated 
 and educated. And if you were to 
 ask them, " Do you choose to be edu- 
 cated ? " they would say, "Certainly, 
 I do choose to be educated." But 
 no, they do not. They desire to be 
 educated; but it is one of those de- 
 sires which everybody is subject to. 
 Myriads and myriads of desires we 
 have which never ripen. And among 
 all the multitude of desires that men 
 have, there is only here and there one 
 that amounts to a choice. 
 
 52. Youthful Exposure to Vice. — 
 You can conceive how one might, 
 by early exposure to infectious dis- 
 eases, lay the foundation, in every 
 organ, of weakness and after-suffering 
 through this whole hfe; and yet, no 
 exposure of that kind can be com- 
 pared with such exposures to vicious 
 and criminal indulgences as shall pre- 
 pare mischief and misery for all one's 
 life — in soul and body too. 
 
 53. Unheeded Warnings. — A man 
 would not go into a plague hospital 
 and innoculate himself with the plague 
 when he knew that ninety -nine of 
 every hundred that took it would die; 
 but you do ! No man seeing twenty 
 or thirty men attempting to walk along 
 the face of a cliff, and all falling over 
 and perishing, would follow them; but 
 you do! No man seeing the flame 
 and the furnace heat of the building, 
 and one fireman falling through, and 
 another, and hearing the word, 
 
 " Stand off! " would go in ; but you 
 rush in, even though the others per- 
 ished before you. Here are men that 
 think they can go down into the house 
 of death, amid the lures of corruption 
 there, and come out unscathed ; you 
 are rotten already ! Men think they 
 can play the part of a rascal and be 
 prosperous in life; the halter is around 
 their neck ! They think that they can 
 drink, and cast off the danger; they 
 are on the broad road, and not far 
 from infamy ! 
 
 O, slow of heart to believe the testi- 
 mony of mankind, the testimony of 
 your own experience, and the solemn 
 word of God ! 
 
 54. Amusement Discriminated. — It 
 is with amusement as it is with food, 
 whatever thing hurts you is, to you, 
 sin. If you are so constituted that 
 beef is very stimulating and fever-pro- 
 ducing to you, it is sinful for you to 
 eat that kind of meat. Why ? Not 
 on account of any physiological doc- 
 trine in regard to beef, but on account 
 of the fact that beef Xwxns you. And, 
 in reference to amusements, when, 
 from the peculiar circumstances or 
 education or position of a young man, 
 it is found that any amusement is 
 leading him away from morals and 
 respectability and industry, that is 
 enough. The general doctrine of 
 amusement is for the community ; and 
 if for any reason a particular amuse- 
 ment should be foregone by any 
 young man, it does not alter the doc- 
 trine for the community, but only 
 changes its application to him individ- 
 ually. 
 
 55. Enlargement of Recreations. — 
 Our Young Men's Christian Associa- 
 tions have bowling alleys and billiard 
 tables in them. Why, twenty-five 
 years ago a billiard table in a Young 
 Men's Christian Association would 
 have been worse than a bomb lit and 
 
YOUTH 
 
 17 
 
 going off. A gentleman went to New 
 Haven (taking thither a son, and 
 promised that two or three others 
 would follow if this one turned out 
 well), and a professor of the college 
 was showing the admirable rooms and 
 apparatus. Among other things he 
 took him into the bowling alley. The 
 gentleman said, " You do not mean, 
 sir, that this is under the authority of 
 your institution ! Forty-four years ago 
 I was expelled from this college for 
 playing in a bowling alley. Times 
 have changed." 
 
 56, Gambling. — A man may have 
 some chance in a game of chance, but 
 in gambling saloons chances are not 
 allowed. A man who gambles for a 
 living is nothing but an incarnate 
 thief, a cunning thief, a perpetual 
 thief — first, last, and all the time a 
 thief. And his business is to steal. 
 He has made stealing a profession, 
 and is practised in it. He is ac- 
 quainted with men's dispositions, and 
 knows how to take them. And here 
 comes in one of these green young 
 men. He is exactly like a little fly 
 exploring a big black-bellied spider's 
 web, that says, " It does not look as 
 though there was very much to be 
 afraid of here ; I do not see anything 
 that I cannot manage ; at any rate, I 
 will try," and pitches in. And after 
 he is once in, you hear one faint buzz, 
 and that is the end of him ! 
 
 57. Legibility of Evil Courses. — I 
 would that the young knew how 
 clearly these things are written. 
 God's handwriting is very plain and 
 very legible to those who have eyes to 
 see. There is not an intelligent phy- 
 sician that does not read, as he walks 
 through the street, the secret history 
 of the hves of those whom he meets, 
 and that, too, without following them 
 in their midnight career. 1 care not 
 to have men come to me and state 
 
 their secret courses ; I can read it in 
 the skin and in the eye. There is not 
 one single appetite or passion that has 
 not its natural language, and every 
 undue indulgence of that appetite or 
 passion leaves that natural language 
 more or less stamped upon the skin, 
 upon the features, upon the expression 
 of the face, or the carriage of the 
 body. There is always some token 
 that tells what men are doing, if they 
 are doing anything to excess. Pride 
 has its natural language ; mirthful- 
 ness has ; goodness has. Nobody 
 doubts this. So have the passions 
 their natural language. Men think 
 that if they commit their wickedness 
 in secret places, or in the night, that it 
 is not known. It is known, although 
 no man may ever say to them, " Thou 
 art guilty ! " 
 
 58. Resist Beginnings. — When you 
 stand and look at the sweeping flames 
 of a prairie on an autumnal day, 
 stretching leagues away, or at night, 
 throwing a lurid light into the broad 
 heaven above, you do not suppose 
 that those vast flames were put there. 
 The negligent hunter, after his even- 
 ing meal, sat smoking his pipe ; he 
 knocked a spark out of it, and it 
 kindled, and grew, and he watched 
 it, thinking that he might at any mo- 
 ment subdue it by the stroke of his 
 boot ; but it escaped him, and ran, 
 and spread here and there and every- 
 where, and swung on, and the wind 
 caught it and nourished it, and it 
 laughed and roared and crackled as it 
 sped along, growing wider and more 
 fierce, consuming harvest, fence, hut, 
 and hovel. It took care of itself after 
 it was once kindled. It had in itself 
 multiplying power. Evil always has: 
 put it out early ! 
 
 59. Irregular Habits and Immoral- 
 ity. — For newcomers to large cities 
 there comes an utter breaking up of 
 
i8 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 the accustomed order of life. They 
 who have been accustomed to observe 
 stated hours now find no regularity. 
 All hours are mingled. The day 
 sleeps and the night wakes. To-day 
 excitements burst over all bounds, like 
 fires racing before winds on prairies ; 
 to-morrow the fires are ashes, and the 
 soul lies like a wide blackened heath, 
 and by dangerous means seeks to res- 
 urrect itself from its jaded sensibili- 
 ties. The wild extremes of excitement 
 — the too much of to-day and the too 
 little of to-morrow — all tend towards 
 moral collapse. Regularity is not 
 morality, but irregularity is very apt 
 to border close upon immorality. 
 
 60. Youthful Excesses. — Men are 
 accustomed to look upon the excesses 
 of youth as something that belongs to 
 that time. They say that of course 
 the young, like colts unbridled, will 
 disport themselves. There is no harm 
 in colts disporting themselves, but a 
 colt never gets drunk. I do not object 
 to any amount of gayety or vivacity 
 that hes within the bounds of reason 
 or of health, but I do reject and ab- 
 hor, as worthy to be stigmatized as 
 dishonorable and unmanly, every such 
 course in youth as takes away strength, 
 vigor, and purity from old age. Every 
 man that transcends Nature's laws 
 in youth is taking beforehand those 
 treasures that are stored up for his old 
 age ; he is taking the food that should 
 have been his sustenance in old age, 
 and exhausting it in riotous living in 
 his youth. 
 
 61. Dissipation. — The victim of ex- 
 citement is like a mariner who ven- 
 tures into the edge of a whirlpool for a 
 motion more exhilarating than plain 
 saiHng. He is unalarmed during the 
 first few gyrations, for escape is easy. 
 But each turn sweeps him further in ; 
 the power augments, the speed be- 
 comes terrific as he rushes towards the 
 
 vortex ; all escape is now hopeless. 
 ... A noble ship went in ; it is spilt 
 out in broken fragments, splintered 
 spars, crushed masts, and cast up for 
 many a rood along the shore, 
 
 62. Bad Habits. — A physical habit 
 is like a tree that has grown crooked. 
 You cannot go to the orchard, and 
 take hold of a tree that has grown 
 thus, and straighten it, and say, 
 "Now, keep straight! " and have it 
 obey you. What can you do ? You 
 can drive down a stake, and bind the 
 tree to it, bending it back a little, and 
 scarifying the bark on one side. And 
 if, after that, you bend it back a little 
 more every month, keeping it taut 
 through the season, and from season to 
 season, at last you will succeed in 
 making it permanently straight. You 
 can straighten it, but you cannot do it 
 immediately ; you must take one or 
 two years for it. 
 
 63. Ashamed of Christian Parentage. 
 — Had Raphael reared children, and 
 taught them in the spirit of his own 
 genius, how impossible it would have 
 seemed to us that they could have 
 gone blushing out into the world to be 
 ashamed of the gifts and rare develop- 
 ments which would make them like 
 their immortal parent ; but how often 
 do young people who have been reared 
 upon the knee of a saintly mother, 
 from whose heart many an earnest 
 prayer has ascended to heaven in their 
 behalf, who for their good has rebuked 
 their vagrant imaginations and re- 
 strained their wayward impulses, and 
 who has faithfully instructed them in 
 truth and rectitude and good sense 
 and duty — how often do such children, 
 during the period which intervenes 
 between their childhood and their 
 manhood, find themselves ashamed 
 of the presence in them of those 
 elements which are their glory and 
 honor ! 
 
YOUTH 
 
 19 
 
 64. Beginning Life Aright. — Where 
 I first settled in the ministry the 
 ground was low, and subject to over- 
 flow sometimes from the great Miami, 
 sometimes from the Ohio, and some- 
 times from both. The houses, that 
 were built in the early days of pov- 
 erty, were low ; and generally twice a 
 year — in the autumn, and in the spring 
 when the snow melted on the moun- 
 tains — the Ohio came booming down, 
 and overflowed ; and men were 
 obliged to emigrate. They found 
 themselves driven out of their houses. 
 Their cellars were submerged, and 
 frequently the lower stories of their 
 dwellings would fill with water. And 
 they betook themselves to the table- 
 land a little back, in boats. Why did 
 they not settle on the table-land at 
 first ? Then they would not have lived 
 so low that when the freshets came 
 and the river overflowed they would 
 have to scamper, or be drowned, like 
 a parcel of vermin. 
 
 Men build low in moral things, with 
 a like result. Why do they not settle 
 so high that freshets cannot touch 
 them ? The lower range of men's 
 faculties subjects them to incursions 
 and disturbances ; whereas, if they be- 
 gan life by acting from higher consid- 
 erations of duty and truth, they would 
 be immovable, and nothing could 
 drive them from their position. 
 
 65. The Past Still Exists. — You 
 think that one hour buries another ; 
 but it is not so. You think that you 
 have parted forever from the things 
 which have passed by you. No, you 
 have not. There is much in your life 
 that you think has gone which you 
 never shall part from. It has stepped 
 behind you ; and there it waits. That 
 which you have done is with you to- 
 day ; and that which you are doing 
 will be with you to-morrow. When 
 the mason carries up the wall, the 
 
 course of brick which he laid yester- 
 day is the foundation on which he is 
 laying another course to-day. And 
 all that you do to-day on the structure 
 which you are building will remain as 
 a basis for that which you do to-mor- 
 row. Young man and maiden, take 
 heed how you build ! That which you 
 are doing, the work which you are per- 
 forming, you do not leave behind you 
 because you forget it. 
 
 66. Discouraging Young Christians. 
 — Suppose I were, on such a day as 
 to-day, when there are a thousand 
 outbursting tokens of the coming 
 spring, to sit down and say, " Well, I 
 presume there will be, at least one- 
 third of the time this season, cold east 
 rains ; and they will blight ever so 
 many strawberry blossoms. Probably 
 they will come about the time the 
 cherries are blooming, so that only a 
 few of those will set. And doubtless 
 there will be more aphides this summer 
 than there have been in any previous 
 summer to eat up the tender plants. 
 Then it is more than likely that there 
 will be great quantities of rose-bugs 
 and apple-tree borers. Besides, there 
 may be a drought that shall kill the 
 plants, or there may be winds that 
 shall shake the fruit off before it is 
 ripe. Everything, I do believe, will 
 go against me this summer." 
 
 That is about the way some Chris- 
 tians talk to young people when they 
 are beginning to live a new life. 
 " Now, my young friends, look out. 
 There are a great many ups and 
 downs in religious experience. You 
 will meet with a great many tempta- 
 tions. You must expect to bear a 
 great many burdens. You do not 
 know what wrestlings you may be 
 called to go through." 
 
 67. Young Christians to be Joyful. 
 — When the young come to me, gay 
 and happy, as if they felt that they 
 
20 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 were willing, for the sake of not being 
 lost forever, or for the sake of pleasing 
 God, to cut off their locks, to put 
 away their smiles, to look hereafter 
 very sober and downcast, not any 
 more to be gay, to be very reserved 
 and silent, I say, " Go away ! I do 
 not want crows. I want birds of para- 
 dise, canary-birds, larks. I want 
 singing birds. And you cannot have 
 your plumage too gay." 
 
 68. Faith in the Church. — Young 
 men, do not cast off the bonds of an 
 early education. Do not throw away 
 your faith, even if it is like gold in 
 quartz. Do not throw away the quartz 
 if it holds the gold. Do not be 
 ashamed of religion. Do not be 
 ashamed of churches. Some churches 
 are like some characters, less finished 
 than others. Some churches are like 
 railways that run but a very few miles 
 an hour, while others run much 
 further in the same length of time ; 
 but it is better to go on any railway 
 
 than to go afoot ; and it is a great deal 
 better to go afoot than not to go at all. 
 I do not say that all things are just 
 alike ; but this I do say : when you 
 come to a comprehensive view of 
 churches, they are made up of those 
 who beheve that men must grow, that 
 they must be set free from the bond- 
 age of the flesh, and that they must 
 vindicate their claim as sons of God 
 and heirs of immortality. Join them. 
 69. Youth and Immortality. — An- 
 tiquity dreaded old age. The saddest 
 things in Grecian hterature are those 
 that indicate a longing for perpetual 
 youth. It was a blind groping after 
 immortality. What the ancients wished 
 was that they might never grow old. 
 Running all through fabulous history 
 was the idea that the gods gave to 
 their favorites the power of being im- 
 mortal. But what was that, compared 
 with what Christianity conceives to 
 be immortality — eternal youth in 
 heaven ! 
 
 ///. MAN AND WOMAN 
 
 70. Adam as a Type. — Whatever 
 may be set aside in the story of Adam, 
 this remains : That man was not cre- 
 ated an immutable and untemptable 
 being, fixed as a crystal. A dove 
 holds fast to the creative idea : it is a 
 perfect dove from the beginning to the 
 end. An eagle begins an eagle and is 
 always an eagle. Everything runs 
 after its nature unerringly, without 
 mistake, except man. He is a fallible 
 being. He has it in his power to 
 make his condition, and to avoid evil ; 
 but he is temptable and mutable. He 
 is placed in circumstances such that 
 he has larger sovereignty, with ple- 
 nary power to determine his own lines 
 of action. He is organized on a 
 higher range than the mere animal. 
 This statement is the fact in the alle- 
 
 gory ; and it is a fact transcendent. 
 Adam, who is represented as being 
 temptable, liable to sin, and yet as 
 having power to choose between good 
 and evil, stands for the human race, 
 as the prototype, the allegorical man, 
 the first parent. He has a numerous 
 posterity. 
 
 71. Goodness the Measure of Man. 
 — We measure things by the point 
 wherein their superiority lies. The 
 swine we estimate for fatness; oxen 
 for strength and flesh ; dogs for scent 
 and sagacity ; horses for speed and 
 endurance. 
 
 Now, man is to be measured by that 
 which makes him man, in distinction 
 from everything else ; and that is not 
 foot, nor hand nor body, nor appetites, 
 nor passions, nor economic or com- 
 
MAN AND WOMAN 
 
 21 
 
 mercial power. These are not the 
 things that make him man. It is that 
 which has been stamped on him — 
 God's image — that makes him man. 
 That part of his nature which intro- 
 duces the moral element, right and 
 wrong ; the spiritual element, invisible 
 realities ; and the benevolent element, 
 the very divinity of love. Here man 
 must be measured. 
 
 And our substantial judgment of 
 what we are, what our character is, 
 and what we are worth as men, is to 
 be formed upon this high moral de- 
 velopment, — You are worth just how 
 good you are / 
 
 72. Grandeur of Man. — There are 
 men that never seem so noble and 
 strong as when God has stripped them 
 of all their possessions, and left noth- 
 ing but themselves ; and the grandest 
 thing there is this side of the throne 
 of God is a man. If it be a thing that 
 will carry one's name imperishable 
 down the ages with Praxiteles, Phid- 
 ias, Canova, or Thorwaldsen, merely 
 to have made a simulacrum of a man, 
 and have clothed it in beauty, how 
 much more to be the man himself, in 
 the clarity of reason, in the glory of 
 moral nature, with a true conscience, 
 with a beaming love, with absolute 
 fidelity, with simplicity and truthful- 
 ness, walking among men a bene- 
 factor on every side, gathering that 
 he may distribute, ripening his fields 
 that he may have grain to give, to 
 eat, and to sow again ! A man is the 
 grandest thing this side of God — 
 should be, for he is the son of God, 
 and the heir of immortality. 
 
 73. Beautifying of Character. — I 
 have been edified greatly in watching 
 the process by which china is deco- 
 rated. The gold that is used in its 
 decoration is ground, and it looks, as 
 you gaze upon it, as if it were the 
 blackest lampblack. When the artist 
 
 takes the vase and cup into his hand, 
 and applies the gold to them, it is as 
 if he had besmeared them with black 
 ink. And when, after they have been 
 removed to the kilns, and stacked up, 
 and scorched, and burned for hours 
 in a relentless fire, they are taken 
 forth, the gold has changed a Httle, 
 but it still looks more like lampblack 
 than like gold. But when the oper- 
 ator has thoroughly rubbed and pol- 
 ished it, all the black is gone, and 
 only the bright, radiant gold is seen. 
 And when men are ground enough, 
 and burned enough, and rubbed 
 enough, they will look bright. There 
 are many men that are being ground, 
 and daubed black, and burned, and 
 burnished, in this world. If you were 
 to go into the shop and see the work 
 as it is going on, and then into the 
 showroom and see the glorious 
 achievement, you would not suspect 
 that one was the result of the other. 
 
 74. Human Variability. — A lily hits 
 the mark every time. There is no 
 difficulty in planting the seed and 
 having a lily that will with certainty 
 send up its stem and open its pure 
 white flowers. No lily -seed ever 
 opens a duck or a hawk or a black- 
 bird, but always a pure white lily- 
 blossom. Is it so with men ? Plant 
 the seed. Up comes a malignant, 
 ugly, selfish, embruted creature. 
 Plant again. Up comes a round, 
 laughing, gay, joyous, sunshiny crea- 
 ture. Plant again. Up comes an 
 intensely practical creature. Plant 
 again. Up comes a low, sensuous 
 nature. Plant again. Up comes a 
 singing poet. Plant again. Up 
 comes a genius for music or painting. 
 As we plant, men unfold every con- 
 ceivable diversity of qualities. If we 
 plant lilies, the result is the same the 
 world around, with no essential va- 
 riation : but men, when developed 
 
22 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 from tlic seed, manifest traits wliich 
 cIifTer from those of their immediate 
 progenitors often as widely as it is 
 possible for human nature to differ. 
 
 75. Humanity and Cultivation. — 
 What are men thinking about when 
 they despise human nature, or disbe- 
 lieve in it ? The richest plum that 
 hangs templing from the bough sprang 
 from the loins of the sloe, ages ago, 
 sour and acerb in the woods ; but 
 culture has brought it up to what it is 
 now. Out of the loins of the crab-ap- 
 ple, with its bitter sharpness, came all 
 that generous catalogue of fruits which 
 make our orchards so rich and beau- 
 tiful in autumn. Out of the loins of 
 the wild animals of the woods have 
 come forth the tame animals that fill 
 our barnyards and fields. We know 
 that culture in certain directions will 
 produce an improved breed of sheep. 
 Culture took from the race-course 
 the fleet courser, and changed him to 
 a trotting animal. It is purely breed- 
 ing that has done this. We have 
 schools for the short-horned or the 
 long-horned Devonshire, or the milk- 
 giving Jersey. They are all the re- 
 sult of the discovered fact that animals 
 are capable of being developed one 
 way or another. It is a low, humble 
 school ; but men believe in that. 
 They believe in development in stock ; 
 and yet they do not know, when they 
 enunciate this principle as applied to 
 stock, that it is a principle which is 
 universal in God's creation. And, is 
 mankind, that is created in the image 
 of God, and is the crown of all vital 
 creation on earth, to be supposed to 
 be unsusceptible of that which we see 
 practised in every field and forest 
 throughout every state and nation on 
 tlie globe? Can I make a dove be- 
 come the patriarch of the varied forms 
 of dove life, — the fantails, the pout- 
 ers, and the wide-flying couriers of 
 
 the air, — and can I not make men 
 different from what they would be if 
 they were left in a state of uninspired 
 nature ! 
 
 75. Perfected Manhood the Idea of 
 Creation. — Responsible individualism 
 is the constituent element of govern- 
 ment and of society, whether you re- 
 gard society as framed of God, or as 
 fashioned of man. It is not, then, the 
 design of things that a man should 
 simply go right ; because if to go 
 right had been all that was meant, it 
 would have been far easier to make 
 all men go right by making them dif- 
 ferently. No puppet goes wrong. 
 Make a doll, put the machinery to it, 
 and turn the crank, and it will go just 
 as you mean it shall, every time, for a 
 hundred times, and never make a mis- 
 take ; but it is a puppet when you 
 have got through — no more, and no 
 less. People seem to think that to 
 live about right is all that is required. 
 Not at all. That is not the end. Liv- 
 ing right is only the means to an end. 
 It is an incident to something greater. 
 The divine idea in the creation of the 
 world, seems to me to be the develop- 
 ment of manhood — bulk of being, va- 
 riety of being, power of being. 
 
 77. Man's Varied Aspects. — A tree 
 is a tree to everybody, but it is not 
 alike to all. It is one thing to a lum- 
 berman, who looks upon it and thinks 
 how much it will cut, and of its value 
 in the market, quite irrespective of 
 everything else. It is another thing 
 to a poet, who sees it lift itself up on 
 some mountain ridge, clean against 
 the sky, black in the evening, and 
 radiant all day long; to him it is 
 like a hymn or a vision. To another, 
 a weary traveler, hot and hungry, a 
 tree is an arbor, a hostelry of enter- 
 tainment ; and he sits down under its 
 boughs with great delight. Another 
 is an orchardist, and the tree that he 
 
MAN AND WOMAN 
 
 23 
 
 looks upon is fruit-bearing. Another 
 man is a landscape-gardener ; and to 
 him a tree is simply one element in the 
 composition of that noblest sphere of 
 pictorial art where the earth is the can- 
 vas and trees and vines are pigments, 
 and the landscape is the picture. But 
 there comes a botanist, who may or 
 may not have sympathy with all these. 
 He studies the inward structure of the 
 root, and its functions ; the bark, and 
 its functions. The wood, the earth, 
 and all the parts that go to make the 
 tree are to him a living organism, 
 complex, cooperative. 
 
 All these, and many others, looking 
 upon the tree, see a dififerent thing. 
 To each of them it is something, ac- 
 cording to that in the man and in the 
 manner which sees it. 
 
 Now, if a tree reveals itself with so 
 many manifestations, how much more 
 a man, in bodily structure, in social 
 relations, in civic relations, in com- 
 mercial or constructive relations, or 
 still more from the psychological 
 standpoint ! 
 
 78, Liberty, Obedience to Law. — 
 Did you ever think what a complex 
 creature a man is, that he can live in 
 the center of some six or eight sys- 
 tems, wheel within wheel, government 
 within government, and become so 
 used to it that he can move in the 
 midst of all these varying laws and 
 requirements almost without thinking, 
 automatically ? Yet such is the educa- 
 tion of human hfe that it gives to men 
 the power of moving right in a vast 
 factory of whirhng wheels and spin- 
 ning bands, and clanking looms, and 
 all manner of machinery. Men learn 
 it ; and the general education of life is 
 such that when a man has come to 
 maturity he carries himself so that he 
 does not violate this law of the body, 
 that law of social neighborhood, this 
 law of civil government, and that law 
 
 of business. He puts on, as it were, 
 harness after harness, and restraint 
 after restraint : and the more he puts 
 on the stronger and freer he is ; for 
 liberty is obedience to law all the 
 world over. 
 
 79. Manhood the Beauty of Man. — 
 There can be no doubt (though there 
 have been disputes among archaeolo- 
 gists on the subject) that the Greeks 
 colored and gilded the statues which 
 adorned their temples. And undoubt- 
 edly those statues were more magnifi- 
 cent for being colored and gilded. 
 But now that time has rubbed off the 
 paint, and they are without a particle 
 of embellishment, and are simple 
 marble statues, they are exquisite 
 still. That is the case with a man 
 whose force lies in his essential good- 
 ness and real manliness. Wealth may 
 make him more beautiful ; but strip 
 him of wealth, and he does not lose 
 anything. The man is there yet. 
 
 80. The Ideal Man.— When you 
 consider the intricacy of a construc- 
 tion like Babbage's calculating ma- 
 chine, it tires your brain and you give 
 up attempting to form a conception of 
 it. When you consider the problems 
 which are involved in a great astro- 
 nomical calculation, they are so many 
 and so intricate that unless one has 
 rare genius and long practice they are 
 insoluble to him. But no physical 
 problems such as these are compara- 
 ble to the difficulty which there is in 
 the development of absolute power 
 and cooperative harmony in the ideal 
 perfect man. 
 
 81. The Sin Against the Holy Ghost. 
 — This is not a sin which one can com- 
 mit by accident, and without knowing 
 it. " The unpardonable sin " is not a 
 single act, but a comprehensive state 
 of mind : that is, a sin which applies 
 to the whole condition to which a man 
 has brought himself by repeated per- 
 
24 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 vcrsiuiis, and in whicli you may say 
 his moral condition is broken down. 
 
 No man ever becomes dissipated at 
 once. No man, no matter what his 
 experience may be, can become ut- 
 terly dissipated in a week — and still 
 less in a day or an hour. But a man 
 can, by days, and weeks, and months, 
 and years, become so dissipated as to 
 have broken down his whole bodily 
 constitution ; as to have sapped and 
 sucked dry the brain ; as to have im- 
 paired every nerve ; as to have over- 
 strained every organ. Every part of 
 a man's body may be utterly de- 
 stroyed by dissipation. 
 
 Now, there _is a dissipation of the 
 soul which corresponds to the dissipa- 
 tion of the body. It comes on by the 
 perversion of a man's reason; by the 
 perversion of his moral sympathies ; 
 by the perversion of his choices ; by 
 the perversion of his judgment in re- 
 spect to things right and wrong. It is 
 a gradually accumulating process. It 
 is not a single act. It is the compre- 
 hensive result of a long series of vari- 
 ous acts. 
 
 82. Cruelty of Man. — I do not know 
 of anything else that is so cruel as 
 man. Lions are not ; tigers are not ; 
 wolves are not ; serpents are not. A 
 lion was made to eat meat ; but he 
 never kills any more than he wants, 
 and he does not kill that for cruelty. 
 He makes use of his power simply for 
 the purveyance of his own necessities. 
 It is only man that revenges. It is 
 only man that studies cruelty, and 
 makes it exquisite, and prolongs it, 
 and carries it out with appliances of 
 art. From the despot on the throne 
 to the despot of the household, the 
 race has carried vengeance, bitter- 
 ness, wrath, hurtfulness, as character- 
 istic of the whole. There has been 
 enough blood shed by the hand of 
 man to bear up the navies of the 
 
 globe. When a lion sheds blood, he 
 laps it up. When man sheds blood, 
 he does not eat it ; it falls to the 
 ground, and cries for vengeance. 
 The earth has been wet with blood. 
 Tears have flowed like rivers. This 
 has not occurred merely once in some 
 great cycle. It has been the constant 
 history of mankind. Time has walked 
 ankle-deep in tears and blood on the 
 face of the earth from the beginning. 
 
 83. The Evil Life.— A bad man, 
 whose life is a failure in all its moral 
 purposes — what is that ? It is like the 
 burned districts in Charleston — which 
 was the saddest sight I ever saw in my 
 life. I walked up and down its streets, 
 and took a lesson which, if I were to 
 live a thousand years, would never die 
 out of me. It was a city of my own 
 land. I loved it as I love my own. 
 The fire had devoured it. There 
 stood the stacks of chimneys, gaunt 
 against the avenging sky ; and there 
 stood the tottering walls ; and there 
 huge heaps of noisome materials, 
 where reptiles resorted ; weeds grew 
 rankly, and the dried stalks of last 
 year's weeds grimly stood thick all 
 around. Street after street was marked 
 with emptiness and desolation. Such 
 seems to me to be the life of many a 
 man, all the ways of whose life are 
 cumbered with the wrecks of the past, 
 and all of whose plans at last shall 
 perish as with an eternal fire and 
 desolation. Oh, to live so, and to die 
 so, and then to take the fate of the 
 other life as best you may — how 
 piteous ! 
 
 84. Smooth Natures Admirable but 
 not Attractive. — One loves to see a 
 strong man regulated and good, but 
 regulation ought not to stand in the 
 place of great natural impulses in the 
 right direction. We want the heart to 
 think for the head as well as the head 
 for the heart. A man whose banks 
 
MAN AND WOMAN 
 
 25 
 
 have been laid for him by nature, 
 stone by stone, smooth and even, is a 
 canal, whose waters are economically 
 regulated, just enough for profitable 
 use, and not a drop more. Every 
 wave and swell is combed out, every 
 wrinkle is smoothed, and every drop, 
 seemingly, is walking down to the 
 mill with a sense of its duty to turn the 
 wheel around. Canals are very good, 
 but men do not sing or make poems 
 about canals. 
 
 85. Unheroic Heroes. — A character 
 that is perfectly round and balanced is 
 never so interesting in its details as 
 one that is fitful. Not that landscape 
 which is smoothest is the most taking 
 to the eye, but the roughest and the 
 rudest. And characters that are well 
 knit together do not catch men's ad- 
 miration as those do that have chasms, 
 and falls, and chfifs — strong qualities. 
 It is always easier to live with a round 
 and well-balanced mind, but we admire 
 the other sort, and make heroes of 
 them. So it is that the young and in- 
 experienced are perpetually tempted 
 to make heroes of men that are not 
 heroic and that are unfit to be im- 
 itated. And hence it has come to be 
 a saying that the faults of strong men 
 are the things that are the easiest 
 copied. 
 
 86. Spirit Races, beyond Man. — No 
 one is prepared to say that there are 
 not spiritual conflicts between realms 
 of spirits which render it absolutely 
 necessary that we should have a 
 superhuman guide and leader. We 
 are not the only people that were ever 
 created. The habit of God's mind 
 seems to be to take a germ, one root- 
 idea, and to prove what infinite vari- 
 ations it is susceptible of. Take the 
 root-idea of ferns. In all the varieties 
 of ferns there is a substantial unity, 
 but the ways in which God writes that 
 idea are many. . . . 
 
 As a theme in music, consisting of 
 a few distinct notes, which are heard 
 plainly at first, when it is elaborated 
 on the organ is only recognized now 
 and then, sometimes as though it were 
 the voice of a bird flying and hum- 
 ming through the air, sometimes as 
 though it were the sound of horns, 
 sometimes as though it were the tone 
 of a sweet flute, and sometimes as 
 though it were all of these combined, 
 but always with variations, so you 
 will find that God, in every depart- 
 ment of his creation, though he began 
 with a single thought, in carrying it 
 out evolved endless variations. 
 
 When we come to man, are we not 
 to suppose that the same thing is true ? 
 Is it not reasonable to suppose that 
 the divine creative capacity was not 
 exhausted in making the numerous 
 races of the globe ? Are we to sup- 
 pose that what we see in this world 
 is the sum of the literature which God 
 has produced from the alphabet in 
 which this was written ? 
 
 87. True Manhood. — The Stoics 
 held that the true type of manhood 
 was that of one who had so trained, so 
 seared, so hardened the heart, that it 
 was like the inside of a blacksmith's 
 hand, grown thick and callous, so that 
 it had no feeling in it. The absence 
 of suffering was the Stoical idea of 
 greatness of nature. But the Chris- 
 tian idea is the great power of victory 
 in suffering. The Christian was sym- 
 bolized by God in the burning bush — 
 the bush unconsumed. The Christian 
 idea of human nature was that of a 
 man who, inspired by the Holy Ghost, 
 stood in the midst of trial and danger 
 stronger and happier while suffering. 
 
 88. Faith in Womanhood. — I tliink 
 I am more grateful to God for the 
 sense that came to me through my 
 mother and sisters of the substantial 
 integrity, purity and nobility of woman- 
 
26 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 hood tluin for almost anything else in 
 this world. After a long life 1 can say 
 that I have not lost faith in woman. 
 The longer I live the more chivalric is 
 my regard for them. I should look 
 upon it as a fatal symptom of canker 
 in my soul if I fell from my confidence 
 in the general trustworthiness, hon- 
 esty, honor and chastity of woman- 
 hood. Therefore, when I hear young 
 men, or men in middle life, or old men, 
 cast gross aspersions on the character 
 of women, I feel as though I were in a 
 den of hissing serpents. My soul, 
 come not into communion with such 
 men, abhor them, pass them by, for 
 they are themselves far down in cor- 
 ruption ! 
 
 89. Reverence for Women. — Do 
 you know why so often I speak what 
 must seem to some of you rhapsody, 
 of woman ? It is because I had a 
 mother. If I were to live a thousand 
 years I could not express what seems 
 to me to be the least that I owe to the 
 fact that I had a mother. Three 
 years old was I, when, singing, she 
 left me, and sang on to heaven, where 
 she sings forever more. I have only 
 such a remembrance of her as you 
 have of the clouds of ten years ago — 
 faint, evanescent ; and yet, caught by 
 imagination, and fed by that which I 
 have heard of her, and by what my 
 father's thought and feeling of her 
 were, it has come to be so much to me 
 that no devout Catholic ever saw so 
 much in the Virgin Mary as I have 
 seen in my mother, who has been a 
 presence to me ever since I can re- 
 member. I can never say enough of 
 woman for my mother's sake, for my 
 sisters' sake, for the sake of them that 
 liave gathered in the days of my in- 
 fancy about me, in return for what 
 they have interpreted to me of the 
 beauty of holiness, of the fullness of 
 love, and of the heavenliness of those 
 
 elements from which we are to in- 
 terpret heaven itself. 
 
 90. Woman's Influence. — There is 
 something wanting in the air when 
 you get west of the Alleghany moun- 
 tains on a sultry day of summer. The 
 air east of the mountain is supplied 
 with a sort of pabulum from the salt 
 water of the ocean, by which one is 
 sustained in the sultriest days of mid- 
 summer. Now what this salt element 
 is to the air, that is woman's influence 
 to the virtue of a community. You 
 breathe it without knowing it. All you 
 know is that you are made stronger 
 and better. And a man is not half a 
 man unless a woman helps him to be ! 
 
 91. The Women at the Sepulcher. 
 — As in many cases, their hearts 
 proved surer and better guides than 
 their reason or their thoughts; for as 
 a root scents moisture in a dry place, 
 or a plant even in darkness aims 
 always at the light, so the heart for- 
 ever aims at hope and at immortality. 
 And it was a woman's heart here that 
 hung as the morning star of that bright 
 rising of the Sun of Righteousness. It 
 was love and fidelity that first found 
 out the resurrection, and it was not 
 the love of the disciple band — not 
 even of John; but the deeper and 
 more tender love of woman was the 
 pioneer of discovery. 
 
 92. Strength of Men and of Women. 
 — Man assumes, the world over, arch 
 supremacy. He forms his own judg- 
 ment, and determines that woman is 
 the inferior and weaker vessel, while 
 he is the superior and stronger vessel. 
 If you measure the base, man is the 
 stronger ; but if you measure the 
 top, woman is the stronger. If you 
 measure the roots, man has the 
 greater power; but if you measure the 
 branches, woman has the greater 
 power. In the solar flood, out where 
 the leaves play with God's sunhght, 
 
MAN AND WOMAN 
 
 27 
 
 and the blossoms fill the air with fra- 
 grance, woman is the stronger. Her 
 moral nature and her affectional na- 
 ture are stronger than man's. We 
 men may be stronger than women in 
 will and executive force; we deal with 
 matter and worldly things as they do 
 not; but those forces which deal with 
 sentiments and moral truths are 
 stronger in them than in us. Women 
 are constitutionally stronger in relig- 
 ious tendencies than men. It is not 
 because they are weak but because 
 they are strong that they are gathered 
 under the ministrations of religion in 
 greater numbers than men are; and it 
 is not true that only such men are re- 
 ligiously inclined as are weak of un- 
 derstanding. 
 
 93. The Developing Woman. — A 
 woman's nature will never be changed. 
 Men might spin and churn, and knit, 
 and sew, and cook, and rock the 
 cradle for a hundred generations, and 
 not be women. And woman will not 
 become man by external occupations. 
 God's colors do not wash out. Sex is 
 dyed in the wool. . . . Power and 
 versatility will not change the social 
 nor the moral qualities which we ad- 
 mire in woman. Letting God take 
 care of that nature of things which 
 man is powerless to change, all that 
 we ask is that power may be given to 
 virtue, and that those ways may be 
 free by which power is to be reaped. 
 
 94. Consecration of Natural Gifts. 
 — My second mother (the only one 
 that I knew) was the stateliest, and 
 the devoutest, and the most crystal- 
 line, and the loftiest of women. She 
 was undemonstrative in affection; but 
 she was my very ideal of propriety, 
 and elegance, and perfection, and 
 taste. And yet I remember that one 
 day when my father was playing on 
 the violin (it happened to be an old 
 melody that she was famihar with) 
 
 in a neighboring room, and we were 
 sitting in the dining-room, she came 
 out on the floor (for she had been a 
 belle, and had often tripped the light 
 fantastic toe) and lifted her hands 
 gracefully, and commenced dancing 
 around the room. I had never seen 
 such a thing in that house before. I 
 looked on with astonishment. The 
 color came to my cheeks, and the 
 light to my eyes. And I have thought 
 that if that mother had danced a little 
 oftener, and said the catechism a little 
 less often, it would have been a thou- 
 sand times better for me. 
 
 If you have gifts, whatever they 
 are, of beauty, consecrate them. If 
 you have the gift of art, consecrate it. 
 If you have the gift of eloquence, 
 consecrate it. If you have the gift of 
 poetry, consecrate it. If you have 
 the gift of emotion, consecrate it. If 
 you have any gift, whatever it is, 
 make sure that you root it in genuine 
 sympathy, and that you exercise it. 
 
 95. The Beauty of Woman. — God 
 did not make so much of nature with 
 exquisite beauty, or put within us 
 a taste for it, without object. He 
 meant that it should delight us. He 
 made every flower to charm us. He 
 never made a color, nor graceful, fly- 
 ing bird, nor silvery insect, without 
 meaning to please our taste. When 
 he clothes a man or a woman with 
 beauty, he confers a favor, and we 
 know how to receive it. Beauty, 
 with amiable dispositions and ripe in- 
 telligence, is more to any woman than 
 any queen's crown. 
 
 96. Heroism of Silence. — There is 
 many a woman who is heroic because 
 she can hold her tongue. Ah ! do 
 not laugh. You tie a man to the 
 stake, and let Indians dance about 
 him, and stick slivers into him, and 
 with torches light them, and if he 
 bears his suflfering patiently, do not 
 
28 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 you see that he is heroic ? And lei a 
 woman stand where every inch of her 
 nature, which is exquisitely sensitive, 
 is subjected to the extremest torture, 
 and let her in spite of it all manifest a 
 disposition which is inexpressibly 
 lovely, and stand patiently, and 
 "having done all, stand," — is not she 
 heroic? There is many and many a 
 heroine by reason of the virtue of si- 
 lence. 
 
 97, Glory of Love's Servitude. — 
 When the wounds of the sick are to 
 be dressed, or when the offal of the 
 hospital is to be borne away, if a man 
 is hired who makes that his business 
 for money, we put one estimate upon 
 it. The under-hirelings of a hospital 
 are looked upon as drudges. But 
 when Florence Nightingale walks 
 through the wards of Scutari, and 
 with her own hands dresses the 
 wounds of the sick, and bears away 
 the offal of the hospital, or when, in 
 our own land, a Miss Barton, or a 
 Miss Woolsey, or any other of a thou- 
 sand angelic women, performs these 
 offices, tears drop from men's eyes in 
 admiration, and we all feel that there 
 are no words to express the gladness 
 of our souls. The thing done is the 
 
 same, whether done by a curmudgeon 
 or by a saintly woman ; but, in the 
 one case, it is done from the noblest 
 love, from the most self-sacrificing 
 humanity, and in the other, it is done 
 for money, and by a man that cares 
 only for the money. There are 
 offices which seem disagreeable, but 
 which, when done from a higher 
 and nobler reason, so crown the 
 head, that they who do them seem 
 to wear an aureole around their 
 brows. 
 
 98. Womanly Strength. — Many a 
 man has married a doll, and dandled 
 her, and carried her ; he was a great 
 engine working night and day for her 
 support : but when bankruptcy struck 
 him, and he lost his reputation, and 
 was oppressed with fear lest she should 
 break down, he became the babe, and 
 the doll became the bearer. Lifting 
 herself up in the midst of their trouble, 
 by words of faith and by calm cour- 
 age, she became the bishop and or- 
 dained the husband to a new ministry 
 and to a holier one. I tell you these 
 silent forces in the heart — the graces 
 of courage and of patience — are full 
 of elements which are unrecognized 
 in this life. 
 
 IV. ROMANTIC AND WEDDED LOVE 
 
 99. Love's Beginning. — On earth 
 there is nothing more beautiful than the 
 first breaking of the ground of young, 
 strong, new, pure love. No flower 
 that ever blossomed, however fair; no 
 fragrance that any flower ever emitted, 
 however sweet; no bravery of the sky; 
 no witchery of art; nothing that man 
 ever invented or imagined, is to be 
 compared with the hours of dawning 
 love in the young soul. And it is a 
 shame that men should be taught to be 
 ashamed of that which is the prophecy 
 of their highest being and glory. 
 
 100. Young Love. — First comes ac- 
 quaintance — that is May; then friend- 
 ship — that is June; then brother- and- 
 sisterhood — that is July; and then love 
 — that is August. But July and August 
 are so much alike that no one can 
 tell where one stops and the other 
 begins. 
 
 1 01. True Lovers. — Woe be to the 
 poverty of our language, that we have 
 no words to express the differences in 
 the realm of love, from the topmost an- 
 gelic nature to the poorest and basest 
 nature. One single word is to serve 
 
ROMANTIC AND WEDDED LOVE 
 
 29 
 
 various uses, and impotent para- 
 phrases are employed to eke out in- 
 termediate meanings. But not they 
 who have the gush of fancy, and still 
 less they that have the wild flush of 
 passion, are true lovers. They are 
 true lovers where every faculty in one 
 finds a corresponding faculty in the 
 other; where the understanding and 
 the moral sense of one are enriched 
 by the understanding and the moral 
 sense of the other; where the spiritual 
 affinities of one are strengthened by 
 the spiritual affinities of the other; 
 where the sweet and pure social affec- 
 tions are fed and pleased. They are 
 lovers whose concordant, concurrent 
 beings are like two parts of music, 
 rising, and floating, and twining, and 
 mingling to make one harmonious 
 whole. 
 
 102. Love of Man for Woman. — 
 The most solemn hour of human ex- 
 perience is not that of death, but of 
 Life — when the heart is born again, 
 and from a natural heart becomes a 
 heart of Love ! What wonder that it 
 is a silent hour and perplexed? Is the 
 soul confused ? Why not, when the 
 divine spirit, rolling clear across the 
 aerial ocean, breaks upon the heart's 
 shore with all the mystery of heaven ? 
 Is it strange that uncertain lights dim 
 the eye, if above the head of him that 
 truly loves hover clouds of saintly 
 spirits ? Why should not the tongue 
 stammer and refuse its accustomed 
 offices, when all the world — skies, 
 trees, plains, hills, atmosphere, and the 
 solid earth — spring forth in new col- 
 ors, with strange meanings, and seem 
 to chant for the soul the glory of that 
 mystic law with which God has bound 
 to himself his infinite realm — the law 
 of love ! Then, for the first time, 
 when one so loves that love is sacri- 
 fice, death to self, resurrection, and 
 glory, is man brought into harmony 
 
 with the whole universe ; and hke him 
 who beheld the seventh heaven, hears 
 things unlawful to be uttered ! 
 
 103. The Higher Life in Human 
 Love. — In the spring it is not the root 
 that starts the leaf and the bud ; it is 
 the bud that starts the root. When 
 the sun, shining on the outermost 
 branches, excites in them renewed 
 excitabihty, they draw for sap, and 
 vessel after vessel, all the way down 
 to the root, awakes its neighbor. Thus 
 it is the top that creates activity in 
 the bottom, and not the bottom that 
 creates activity in the top. And in 
 love it is the higher supernal element, 
 which lies nearest to God, that, 
 awakening, sends its vivific influence 
 clear down to the very root of life 
 itself. 
 
 104. Harmony Essential in Mar- 
 riage. — The man and woman that are 
 to be married, should be put to the 
 test of being able to bridle their 
 spirits. Two persons that cannot 
 agree with each other, and cannot 
 agree with those outside of them, are 
 not fit to be married. They light the 
 torch of discord. The match is a 
 sulphurous match, and is stenchful 
 and suffocating, that lights their love. 
 Persons that are in such close and 
 intimate relations as those of the 
 household should be concordant. 
 
 105. Love Above Passion, — How 
 pitiful it is to see men build too low ! 
 I cannot bear to see the young gather- 
 ing together and building their nests 
 as the birds do. On my lawn I see the 
 larks and other birds building in the 
 grass, and know that before their 
 young are fledged the remorseless 
 mower, with revolving strokes will 
 sweep the ground, and the nests will 
 be utterly destroyed, and the young 
 cut and wasted. And do I not see 
 men building their nests just so? Do 
 I not see love beginning to nestle in 
 
30 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 the flowers ? But the flowers them- 
 selves are rooted in the dirt down low, 
 close to the foot that easily shall crush 
 them. No love is fit to be called by 
 the name of love that has not in it 
 something of the other world, and 
 much of immortality. It must rise 
 above an instinct or passion. It must 
 have in it faith and hope. It must be 
 a love that is served by the reason, 
 by the imagination, by all that there 
 is in the soul. 
 
 1 06. Godless Love. — My young 
 maiden friend, love is not a passion, 
 but a growth. The heart is a lamp, 
 with just oil enough to burn for an 
 hour ; if there be no oil to put in 
 again, it will go out. God's grace is 
 the oil that fills the lamp of love. If 
 there be one thing above all others 
 that every woman should say to her- 
 self in the beginning of her married 
 life, it is this : "I cannot be respected 
 and loved, as I must needs be to be 
 happy, unless I can bring something 
 more than myself. It must be God in 
 me that shall maintain me in that dig- 
 nity and fullness of influence and im- 
 pressiveness that shall win and keep 
 my husband's love." A godless 
 woman entering into the marriage 
 relation goes as a lamb to the slaugh- 
 ter ; wreaths of flowers may be around 
 her neck, but the knife is not far 
 off. 
 
 107. Brief Attachments. — We have 
 a glimpse of the love of self-renuncia- 
 tion in the earlier stages of that which 
 terminates in wedded love. Every 
 ingenuous young man and maiden, 
 when they come together with a sin- 
 cere and honorable affection, know 
 some hours in which each is quite for- 
 getful of self. Their thought of life is 
 to honor each other, and to lift each 
 other up, and to glorify each other. 
 And that is the nearest to the angelic 
 experience that these persons ever 
 
 come. Alas ! that such love should 
 be like the hyacinth. It throws its 
 blossom up early in the spring ; and it 
 is quickly gone, sweet as it is. Before 
 ever May is half-passed the blossom is 
 shrunken, a few brown leaves lie with- 
 ering on the ground, and all the rest 
 of the summer nothing but the bulb 
 lies in the dirt. And so unworthy, so 
 poor, so mean, is the termination of 
 too many, too viany, of those attach- 
 ments which began in honor, which 
 went on in beauty, and which showed 
 some touches of genuine love, in that 
 there were hours, or days, in which 
 true hearts loved with a desire to serve, 
 and not to be served. 
 
 108. Growth of Love. — Love comes 
 to us at first vague, like the warm 
 breath of the summer air when it be- 
 gins to sigh along the ways of spring. 
 Soon the buds will begin to appear ; 
 then will come forth the early flowers, 
 a few ; then ranks and multitudes of 
 later flowers will be seen ; by-and-by 
 the fields will be sheeted with them ; 
 at length summer will wreath herself, 
 in valley and on mountain, with rich 
 harvests ; and at last the season will 
 go out triumphing in the abundance 
 of its fruits. And so is it with devel- 
 opment of the feeling of love in us. 
 When we are young, it is a mere flush ; 
 and as we advance in age it grows, 
 and first puts forth buds, then a few 
 flowers, then multitudes of flowers, 
 then promises of fruit, and at last a 
 plenitude of fruit. The ideal is for- 
 ever advancing. 
 
 109. Wedded Love. — Love is the 
 river of life in this world. Think not 
 that ye know it who stand at the little 
 tinkling rill — the first small fountain. 
 Not until you have gone through the 
 rocky gorges, and not lost the stream ; 
 not until you have stood at the moun- 
 tain passes of trouble and conflict ; not 
 until you have gone through the 
 
ROMANTIC AND WEDDED LOVE 
 
 31 
 
 meadow, and the stream has widened 
 and deepened until fleets could ride 
 on its bosom ; not until beyond the 
 meadow you have come to the un- 
 fathomable ocean, and poured your 
 treasures into its depths — not until then 
 can you know what love is. 
 
 no. The Ideal of Love. — Love is as 
 gold in the rock. The mountain is 
 but stone, and the gold is rare and 
 scarce, and is found in veins here and 
 there. So in this life it is in loving. 
 We are too proud, too coarse, too 
 selfish, too ungenerous ; we are not 
 magnanimous enough. Love runs in 
 veins through us ; and we are to take 
 the experiences of love when it is in 
 its most perfect moments, in its ec- 
 static state, as it were purified gold, 
 seven times purified and made clean — 
 we are to take these as our ideal. 
 Then we are to lift up, by the imagina- 
 tion, our conceptions to a state in 
 which our character will turn on this 
 feeling, not occasionally, but as an 
 ordinary experience. Nay, we should 
 rise up so completely into the influence 
 of the purity and disinterestedness of 
 this feeling that it shall control all the 
 other feelings, and harmonize them, 
 till the conscience, and the reason, and 
 the moral sentiments all are penetrated 
 with the summer of love, as the whole 
 atmosphere to-day is penetrated by 
 the warmth, and fragrance, and beauty 
 of nature. 
 
 III. Early Marriages. — If the young 
 man is willing to seem poor when he is 
 poor, if the young woman being poor 
 is willing to live poorly, if they are 
 wiUing to plant their lives together like 
 two seeds and wait for their growth, 
 and look for their abundance by and 
 by, when they have fairly earned it, 
 then it is a good thing to come early 
 into this partnership. Characters 
 adapt themselves to each other far 
 more easily in the early periods of life 
 
 than afterwards. They Avho marry 
 early are like vines growing together 
 and twining round and round each 
 other ; whereas, multitudes of those 
 who marry late in life stand side by 
 side hke two iron columns which, 
 being separated at the beginning, 
 never come any nearer to each other. 
 
 112. Choosing a Life-Partner. — 
 Natural traits are more powerful than 
 artificial ones. A young woman may 
 have an excellent experience in re- 
 ligion, and yet make a very poor 
 wife. When my venerable old presi- 
 dent, Dr. Humphrey, was lecturing 
 once, in college, he said : " In selecting 
 your partners for life, first choose per- 
 sons of naturally good dispositions — 
 persons that are naturally cheerful and 
 gentle. You will, perhaps, be sur- 
 prised," he added, "to hear a minis- 
 ter of the Gospel put cheerfulness and 
 gentleness before piety ; but I am of 
 the opinion of Baxter, who said that 
 the grace of God could live with per- 
 sons that he could not." 
 
 113. Mere Feeling to be Avoided. — 
 The law of feeling is strictly a law of 
 use. Feeling, without anything to do, 
 so far from being the life, is really the 
 death of love. Well, it may exist, 
 with great economy, for a short time, 
 as a mere emotion. If you give your- 
 selves up to the influence of the feel- 
 ing of love merely, you will have a 
 real intoxication for a short time, and 
 that will be the end of it. You must 
 understand that feeling, to last long, 
 must develop itself in the line of con- 
 duct. While you may not disdain the 
 hilarity of disclosive feeling, you must 
 understand that it cannot be long- 
 lived unless it enters into the judgment 
 and fancy, and fills the moral being, 
 the whole life, and works for the ob- 
 ject loved in a thousand ways. Then 
 it is immortal. It is the very blood of 
 your life. 
 
NATURAL LIFE 
 
 114. Love Needs Nourishment. — A 
 perfect union of hearts seldom takes 
 place. It never does at sight. Peo- 
 ple do "love at sight;" but it's just 
 as the flint strikes fire. No flint makes 
 a conflagration. All you can gel from 
 a flint is a spark by which to make a 
 larger fire. Persons have an idea that 
 love feeds itself. Nothing feeds itself 
 so little. When left to itself nothing 
 starves so quick, or burns out so soon, 
 so that only ashes remain, as love. 
 That which men think they need least 
 to nourish and care for needs more 
 nourishing and care than anything 
 else in the world — namely, the ele- 
 ment of love. There is nothing that 
 demands so much attention as the 
 preparing of minds that love to love 
 more perfectly, and throughout the 
 whole scale of the faculties. There- 
 fore, if those that are united outwardly, 
 and in some points inwardly, are wise, 
 they will both study and labor that 
 this union may be carried through all 
 parts of the mind. 
 
 115. Measure of Love. — If you ask 
 a man, " How much do you charge 
 for a month's work ? " he will instantly 
 tell you ; but if you should say to 
 him, " How much do you think your 
 love for your wife or your children is 
 worth per day?" he would laugh you 
 to scorn. You cannot introduce into 
 the sphere of affection the law of 
 equivalents ; for while in the commer- 
 cial and material kingdom you pay 
 with matter for matter, in the social 
 realm you pay with love for love. 
 
 n6. Counterparts in Married Life. — 
 I need not say that the Rebekah who 
 was courted at the well, who took the 
 rings and bracelets, who went home, 
 and, facing her parents, told them just 
 what had iiappencd, who accepted a 
 suitor that was five hundred miles off, 
 and who, when appealed to as to 
 whether she would stay a few days or 
 
 go immediately, said, " I will go" — I 
 need not say that she was not a woman 
 that would be very severely governed 
 by the mild, sweet-tempered Isaac. I 
 have no doubt that there was govern- 
 ment in that family, but I do not think 
 Isaac maintained it ! . . . The law 
 of counterparts was in force then, as it 
 is now. We love that which we do 
 not have but which others do have, 
 and which makes up and completes us. 
 A strong, vigorous man likes a sweet, 
 delicate, twining woman for his wife. 
 A vigorous, strong, manly woman likes 
 a quiet, peaceful, unobtrusive man for 
 her husband. 
 
 117. The Wife's Influence. — It is a 
 proverb that a man is what his wife 
 will let him be. It is true that now 
 and then there are men so strong that 
 they control : but after all there is no 
 art, nor cunning, nor device, nor 
 strength, nor wit, nor wisdom by which 
 a man can keep the heat of summer 
 or the cold of winter from sifting 
 through the cracks of his house ; and 
 a woman's influence in the household, 
 if she be not stormy and violent, if she 
 be gentle, and especially if she be art- 
 ful, sifts itself into a man's life as sum- 
 mer air or wintry frost into a house. 
 There is nothing to resist it. One can- 
 not fight the circumambient atmo- 
 sphere ; and yet a man might as well 
 attempt to put it from him as to at- 
 temj)t to put from him that influence 
 which is in his bosom ; which is at his 
 board ; which is in his morning ; which 
 is in his noon ; which is in his night ; 
 which comes at all unwatched mo- 
 ments and at all times of weakness ; 
 which has a pressure that is well-nigh 
 atmospheric. 
 
 118. Uncertainties in Wedlock. — 
 How many there are of great excel- 
 lence who deserve a better fate than 
 they have found in their household ar- 
 rangements ! So notorious is this that 
 
ROMANTIC AND WEDDED LOVE 
 
 33 
 
 it has been said that marriage is a 
 lottery, and that some draw prizes 
 while others draw blanks. But blanks 
 are not so hard to bear, often, as the 
 numbers that are drawn. 
 
 iig. Disappointments in Wedded 
 Life. — There comes a time when the 
 maiden departs from her father's 
 house. She is called, she answers, 
 she departs. Ah ! how many visions 
 of angels have there been ! but they 
 were not God's angels. How many 
 have gone out walking on flowers a 
 little way, to find that the flowers 
 changed to thorns ! How many have 
 gone out from their father's house 
 borne on the seraphic experience of 
 love, scarcely touching the ground for 
 joyfulness, to find little by little that 
 love flowed away like a summer's 
 brook, and left in its place but the 
 bare channel and the gravel ! 
 
 120. Ideals Under Trial. — So long 
 as life is all smooth with men, it is not 
 difficult for them to maintain their 
 sentimental thought and spiritual in- 
 spirations. It is when sentiment must 
 be cultivated by moral endeavor that 
 men fail. The experience of many 
 persons who in girlhood and boyhood 
 are full of the choicest aspirations, 
 hungering and thirsting after higher 
 things, is, alas ! in later hfe, like a 
 house the morning after an illumina- 
 tion and a feast. Every pane of glass 
 had its candle ; but long before mid- 
 night every candle has burned into its 
 socket, and run down into darkness ; 
 and in the morning there is but the 
 unburned tallow and the remnant of 
 wick. Thousands there be who look 
 out triumphing over the glory of their 
 home, thinking what a life shall be 
 kindled up by the heavenly luster of 
 their affection ; but when they tread 
 the way of life, and selfishness, and 
 envy, and jealousy, and disappoint- 
 ment, and poverty, and afflictive sor- 
 
 row, blight their affection, and they 
 feel the yoke and the burden, and cry 
 out day and night, " Who shall deliver 
 me from the body of this death? " then 
 how they change their social ideals ! 
 
 121. Wives and Husbands. — 
 "Therefore, as the Church is subject 
 unto Christ, so let the wives be to 
 their own husbands in every thing. 
 Husbands, love your wives, even as 
 Christ also loved the Church, and 
 gave himself for it." I hear these 
 passages quoted a good deal to show 
 that wives ought to be subject to their 
 husbands. I never hear persons say 
 that a man ought to be to his wife such 
 an one as the Lord Jesus Christ was to 
 his church — such an one that by the 
 amplitude and grandeur of his good- 
 ness, by the richness and gentleness 
 of his soul, he should pour over the 
 object of obedience such a divine and 
 blessed light that whether she would 
 or would not she could not help look- 
 ing up and rejoicing, and adoring. As 
 Christ loved the church, and loves the 
 church, so, husbands, love your wives. 
 And the next time you want to read a 
 passage of Scripture on the duties of 
 wives to husbands, begin at that ! 
 
 122. Wedded Infidelity. — A husband 
 and his wife live together in the most 
 intimate relations that can exist be- 
 tween two souls in this world ; and 
 when one betrays the confidence of 
 the other it is between them that you 
 find the bitterest feeling of revenge, 
 because a blow from such a one is 
 like a blow from the inside of a for- 
 tress. We expect the enemy outside 
 to fire upon us ; but we do not expect 
 friends inside to betray us. We feel 
 most grievously blows that are struck 
 by intimates. We have opened our 
 life to them, and that they should 
 strike us seems like the grossest base- 
 ness and treachery. Therefore, " A 
 brother offended is harder to be won 
 
34 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 than a strong city," according to the 
 wisdom of the wisest. Where an of- 
 fence readies the center of Hfe, its 
 effects are difficult to be obliterated. 
 
 123. Permanency of Marriage. — It is 
 clear that our Lord belonged to neither 
 of the two schools which existed 
 among the Jews, — the lax school of 
 Hillel, or the rigid school of Shammai. 
 He rose higher than cither. He made 
 the outward relation permanent, on 
 account of the true spiritual nature of 
 marriage, it being the fusion or real 
 unity of two hearts. Having once 
 been outwardly united, they must 
 abide together, and even when they 
 found themselves in conflict must learn 
 to be one in spirit by the discipline of 
 living together. If they enter the 
 wedded state unprepared, the house- 
 hold is the school in which they are to 
 learn the neglected lesson. 
 
 124. Wealth Without Love is Pov- 
 erty. — If a wedded pair have a house 
 built, and silver and gold in it, and if 
 they have all the florescence of art on 
 the walls, and money flowing in like 
 the waters of Euphrates on them, and 
 all the service of music on every side, 
 and are without mutual love, they are 
 paupers — absolutely paupers. While 
 if they have the glorious enfranchise- 
 ment of true love and these things be- 
 side, then they are like the candle, 
 and their circumstances the candle- 
 stick. But woe be to the man that is 
 nothing but a candlestick ! 
 
 125 No Marriage in the Resurrec- 
 tion. — Useful as it is, it ceases and 
 does not go on into the other life ; and 
 it seems very natural, since man is a 
 double being, born for this lower life, 
 in transition and formation for a life to 
 come, that a portion of the powers or 
 faculties which fit him especially for 
 this lower life, when they shall have 
 performed their function, will, as it 
 were, like the calyx of a flower, 
 
 wither and fall back, and that into the 
 other life wc shall carry only those 
 parts of our nature, which are highest 
 and noblest, and which have relation to 
 the spiritual rather than to the physical. 
 
 126. Homes Built by Hearts. — 
 When birds build their nests, they 
 first gather rude sticks and pliant 
 twigs, and bend them to shape ; and 
 then with mud, or glutinous secretions, 
 they fill up the interstices. On this 
 foundation they lay feathers and soft 
 grasses and hair. When all is gath- 
 ered and laid down, they settle them- 
 selves into the rounded nest ; and, 
 turning about and about, they smooth 
 and finish the nest with their own 
 breast. So it is with men that make 
 homes. It is the bosom that does it 
 finally, and not the bill nor the claw. 
 
 127. Feeling in Action. — In mar- 
 ried life man and woman walk down 
 through the years, and love deepens, 
 although its expression in the form of 
 emotion may be almost entirely want- 
 ing. As the rain falls upon the 
 ground, and sinks, and disappears, 
 but comes up in the greenness of the 
 grass, and adds beauty to the blossom 
 and the fruit ; so the rain of love, de- 
 scending upon human hearts, is lost 
 to sight, but comes up in action, and 
 develops itself with power in events 
 and deeds, 
 
 128. Love in Service. — I have seen 
 brooks that had nothing to do, and 
 that flowed all day and all night full 
 of water. I have seen other brooks 
 that, though they seemed to have the 
 same sources of supply, every day as 
 they flowed down, grew shallower and 
 shallower. Where was the water ? It 
 went into the race on one side of the 
 channel, and down into the mill, 
 where it was set to work ; and far be- 
 low it came back into the channel. 
 
 I look at many people, and I see 
 that their emotions do not turn wheels. 
 
MOTHER— FATHER— HOME 
 
 35 
 
 I know others who do not seem to 
 have much feehng, but in whom all 
 the practical elements of life suck up 
 that thought and that feehng which 
 exist in them in the form of a latent 
 force. They are absorbed in the af- 
 fairs of daily hfe. And so it comes to 
 
 pass that frequently the best house- 
 hold is not that where they have the 
 most hallelujah, but that where they 
 have the most order and system 
 and kindness, and all that which is 
 developed in the lower forms of 
 good. 
 
 V. MOTHER— FATHER— HOME LIFE 
 
 129. Motherhood. — From the ear- 
 liest days women have called them- 
 selves blessed of God when life begins 
 to palpitate within their bosom. Every 
 one of a deep nature seems to herself 
 more sacred and more especially un- 
 der the Divine care while a new life, 
 moulded by the Divine hand, is spring- 
 ing into being. For, of all creative 
 acts, none is so sovereign and divine. 
 Who shall reveal the endless mus- 
 ings, the perpetual prophecies, of the 
 mother's soul? Her thoughts dwell 
 upon the unknown child, — thoughts 
 more in number than the ripples of 
 the sea upon some undiscovered shore. 
 To others, in such hours, woman 
 should seem more sacred than the 
 most solemn temple ; and to herself 
 she must needs seem as if overshad- 
 owed by the Holy Ghost ! 
 
 130. Nobility of Motherhood. — No 
 orator, no singer, no artist-worker, is 
 to be compared with the mother who 
 is carving the image of God in the soul 
 of her little child. No mother need 
 long to go out of the household, as if 
 that were an obscure place. The Gate 
 of Heaven is inscribed over every 
 humble family. 
 
 131. A Goodly Parentage. — It is a 
 great thing to have been put into this 
 life through a right gate. If it be a 
 golden gate, covered all over with 
 glorious inscriptions and legends and 
 memories of past goodness, no man 
 can thank God enough. Did your 
 mother travail in faith and prayer? 
 
 Were you born amid supplications? 
 Were songs, not of angels, but of one 
 scarcely less than angelic, round about 
 your advent ? Were you baptized in 
 your cradle before priestly hands made 
 aspersion of water ? Did you come 
 forth into life from out of a household 
 of faith ? It is no small thing that God 
 nested you thus, and that he gave you 
 such a parentage and such a begin- 
 ning in life. 
 
 132. Transformation by Mother- 
 hood. — There is a gay, giddy girl. 
 Everybody says, " Radiant as a beam 
 of light, and as evanescent." One 
 predicts that she will come to this, and 
 another that she will come to that — 
 for the prophets of evil are more nu- 
 merous than the prophets of hope in this 
 world. At length, her time comes. 
 She did not know what her capacities 
 were, because she did not know her- 
 self; but when love finds her, and 
 wakes her up to her true life, and she 
 becomes a wife and a mother, how all 
 her gayety, all her vanity and all her 
 frivolity are gone! How, rather, do 
 they change themselves, and rest upon 
 her like dew upon flowers ! How 
 utterly is she transformed, and in the 
 nursery how this mother becomes a 
 new being ! Now all look upon her to 
 admire — even those who once spoke 
 disparagingly of her. She has learned 
 in the state in which she is to be con- 
 tent. 
 
 133. Divine Slavery. — The day is 
 drawing to a close. Through all the 
 
S''' 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 hours of it a slave has been moving 
 about the house ; and now, as tvvihght 
 comes on, hear the slave singing a 
 hymn. And what is it that she is 
 singing to ? It is a little nothing, 
 called a baby. And who is this slave ? 
 It is one fit to be an angel, in royalty 
 of gifts and in richness of cultivation. 
 It is Mrs. Browning, the poetess, noble 
 in understanding, versed in the lore of 
 ages, deep in nature, full of treasure 
 such as no king, no court, and no pal- 
 ace ever had. She sings. And when 
 the little child is uneasy she serves it. 
 When the child tires of the pillow and 
 the cradle, it makes a pillow of her. 
 And when she is weary, if the child 
 does not wish to go, she still holds it. 
 And when at last it will lie down, she 
 still wakes for fear that the child will 
 awake. In every single hour of the 
 night she hears its call. Not a 
 whimper or sound from the child 
 escapes her notice. And she is up 
 before the morning star. And, though 
 weary, all day again this slave serves 
 that little baby, — that little uncrowned 
 despot of the heart ! 
 
 Ah ! there is no slave out of heaven 
 like a loving woman ; and of all lov- 
 ing women there is no such slave as a 
 mother. But remember what kind 
 they must be. " By love serve one 
 another." That is the coin that buys 
 such slaves. 
 
 134. Ideal and Real Growth. — If 
 every child might live the life predes- 
 tined in a mother's heart, all the way 
 from the cradle to the coffin they 
 would walk upon a beam of light, and 
 shine in glory. Alas ! some are born 
 like the dandelion— glowing bright, 
 soon changing to a fairy globe, and 
 by the first wind dashed out and 
 gone ! 
 
 Paint the man as the mother's 
 thoughts do ; then paint him as he 
 really lived ! Hang the two portraits 
 
 side by side, and write, IV^ai he was 
 to be ! and then, What he was! Life 
 has no sadder contrast. 
 
 135. Love Lightens Labor. — If one 
 were sent to take care of the poor, 
 miserable, wounded soldiers lying in 
 the plague-stricken hospitals on the 
 plain of Solferino, he would say to 
 himself, " Money would not hire me 
 to do it, but I must do it because it is 
 my duty. Here are men who are suf- 
 fering and need attention, and I am 
 bound to look after their wants." 
 But let me find my own son among 
 those unfortunate creatures, and, no 
 matter how loathsome might be the 
 offices to be performed towards him, 
 could money buy from me the privi- 
 lege of ministering to his necessities? 
 Could any motive induce me to leave 
 his sight day or night ? That which I 
 should do in the one case through 
 conscientiousness, or from a sense of 
 duty, and which would be a disagree- 
 able task, I should do in the other case 
 through love, and it would then be a 
 pleasure to me. I should do it with 
 delight. There would not be hours 
 enough in which I might serve in love 
 my wounded son. 
 
 136. The Primal Source of Love. — 
 I was at work among my grapevines, 
 when my attention was attracted by 
 two robins that were making a great 
 racket. I was sure by their actions 
 that they had young ones, that they 
 thought to be in danger. And I said, 
 "Why, you old fools! I won't hurt 
 you nor your little birds." Just then, 
 I heard a noise that I recognized ; and 
 I said, " The cat is here." And sure 
 enough, looking down, I saw the cat 
 curled up under the trelHs. It was 
 the sight of him that had set the birds 
 all agog. " What is he doing here ? " 
 I asked. He had no business there — 
 and all the more, because I had just 
 written an article saying that my cats 
 
MOTHER— FATHER— HOME 
 
 37 
 
 had been so brought up that I did not 
 believe any of them hunted birds! In 
 my indignation, I seized him by the 
 neck, and walked off with him to the 
 other side of the cherry orchard, and 
 gave him an opportunity to see how 
 it would seem if he was flying ! 
 
 Well, about a rod from where I had 
 been standing, in a dwarf cherry-tree 
 crotch, two feet from the ground, there 
 was the nest of these birds ; and in it 
 were four robins. The cat had gone 
 out there, and of course did not know 
 that the nest was there, or it would 
 have been destroyed. The birds, to 
 whom nothing was so precious as that 
 nest and its contents, inspired by the 
 feeling of fear, were flying round about 
 the cat to deceive him as to where the 
 nest was, and endeavoring to draw 
 him off as far as possible from their 
 young, at times perilling their own 
 lives, that they might save them from 
 destruction. 
 
 When I see these things, I say, 
 " Where did that instinct of love come 
 from, which we see throughout the 
 world ? Birds take care of birds ; and 
 as you rise in the animal kingdom the 
 instinct becomes stronger and stronger. 
 And where did it come from ? We see 
 the same feeling exhibited among hu- 
 man beings under the name of the 
 parental instinct. And what are these 
 various manifestations but so many 
 fingers pointing upward, and saying, 
 "The great God that made us and 
 taught us to love, is himself the greater 
 Love." 
 
 137. Sound Bodies a Parental Ob- 
 ligation. — There is many a man who 
 will quench his fiery appetite with the 
 cup, though that appetite will inad- 
 vertently become a disease in the 
 child. There is many a man that 
 means to bequeath a foi-tune to his 
 children, and will suffer for their sake, 
 that they may have more of life's 
 
 goods than he had, and yet he will not 
 withhold his illicit passions, and will 
 transmit to those children natures that 
 will burn as if set on fire of hell ! 
 Thus, by dishonoring their own bodies 
 they dishonor also the bodies before- 
 hand of their children. They give, as 
 it were, not a temple, but a squalid 
 hut, for their children to dwell in. 
 
 138. Like Begets Like in Mental 
 Action. — We see how it is in nature. 
 Wheat tends to reproduce wheat. So 
 reasoning makes a man reasonable. 
 Loving begets love. Taste inspires 
 taste. Sympathy invokes sympathy. 
 Anger makes men angry. Hating 
 makes men hate. What you bring to 
 your pupil or your child he will 
 accept at your hand. Gentleness, 
 patience, goodness, of every sort, are 
 indispensable for those who would be 
 teachers or are parents. 
 
 139. Mother and Child. — The mother 
 is God's natural inspiration of youth ; 
 and if she, by singing or telling 
 stories or in any other way, brings be- 
 fore the mind of the child noble men 
 and noble principles, and keeps the 
 child on the side of honor and in- 
 spiration, he can scarcely when he is 
 old depart from her instruction. He 
 may for a time seem to lose sight of it, 
 but ah ! those patterns that are woven 
 into the very heart by the side of the 
 cradle do not fade out. Even though 
 they are temporarily hid, the colors 
 remain. It is a living form in itself 
 that the mother has wrought there. 
 And when the hour of adversity comes 
 the man has a distinct conception of 
 what it is that he has fallen from, and 
 comes back to it. 
 
 140. Punitive Love. — Men think 
 that if you preach that God is love you 
 take away all possible spring of fear. 
 Not at all. There is nowhere a more 
 powerful and righteous administration 
 of pain and penalty, than in the gov- 
 
38 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 ernment of a wise parent wlio loves 
 the child so that it will not suft'er 
 wrong in him. There is the whole of 
 Mount Sinai in the hand of the weep- 
 ing mother, and a whole Mount Cal- 
 vary in her heart ; and the child gets 
 them both. 
 
 141. Judge and Father. — Here walks 
 the stern judge with unrelaxed brow, 
 and in a time that tries men's souls the 
 culprit trembles before him, laden 
 with crime. There is no escape for 
 him. The attempt to balk the course 
 of justice by bought attorneys is met 
 at every step by him, and judgment 
 goes on to conviction, and from con- 
 viction goes on to condemnation, nor 
 has he any power to turn off the sen- 
 tence. It is very severe ; and the poor 
 miserable culprit says, " There is no 
 chance for me ; everything has been 
 made to turn against me. The worst 
 man that lives on the earth is this un- 
 feeling and heartless judge, who has 
 doomed me to imprisonment, and, it 
 may be, to death." 
 
 The judge lays off the robe ; he 
 goes out of the court ; and as he draws 
 near to his own house, what are the 
 voices he hears? The chirp of the 
 babe, and the laughter of the little 
 children. As he goes in he is sur- 
 rounded by his children ; and they 
 take off his hat ; and they rifle his 
 pockets to see what he has brought 
 them, and he laughs and is merry 
 among them. To them he is all joy 
 and all bounty, the sweetest, dearest 
 man in the world. Even his wife 
 thinks so, and the children know it is 
 so. What has become of him ? They 
 have brought him to the level in 
 which that part of his character can 
 come out, and they dwell there for- 
 evermore. The culprit chose to take 
 the lower, and harder, and sterner ele- 
 ments for his God ; he has got them, 
 while to those who have risen high 
 
 enough to take the love element, and 
 subject themselves to it, or be obedient 
 to it, to them there is no terror on his 
 brow, there is no lightning in his eye ; 
 and he is the all-clasping God of the 
 tenderest love. His loving kindness 
 and tender mercy are towards all who 
 fear him with a wholesome love-fear. 
 
 142. The Parents' Task. — The child 
 is not to be either violently punished 
 or suspected, though he steal ; though 
 he rob ; though he be caught in dirty 
 and bestial tricks. Why, we were 
 born of the dust, and the dirt sticks to 
 us, in a large measure, a good ways 
 up. And for children beginning as 
 they do, and where they do, it is not 
 the less necessary that they should be 
 drilled. It is all the more necessary. 
 But it throws a light upon the task of 
 the parents. You are not to think that 
 you have another Nero in your cradle, 
 you are not to think that you have 
 another Catiline, when the child goes 
 wrong. He is to be trained to the right. 
 
 143. Perplexities of Parentage. — To 
 take a ship and sail through Hell Gate 
 of a dark night, when the tide is just 
 ugly, and everything is forbidding, is 
 considered a somewhat perilous under- 
 taking. But to take the helm of a 
 child, of a full nature, made up of 
 contrary feelings, and steer it through 
 the hell gate of life, which comes be- 
 tween fifteen and twenty years of age 
 — there is no such pilotage as that. 
 No parent ever took a child through 
 this devious passage without a hun- 
 dred times feeling, " Ah ! it would be 
 some comfort if the child only under- 
 stood what I am attempting to do 
 for it." 
 
 144. Chastening Love. — As the sur- 
 geon does not hesitate to use instru- 
 ments to take out the ulcer, and if 
 need be to burn it out, so the parent 
 should not hesitate to do whatever is 
 necessary to reclaim the child, though 
 
MOTHER— FATHER— HOME 
 
 39 
 
 it cause the child pain. That is a 
 wise parent who so loves the child 
 that he cannot endure to see faults in 
 the child, and corrects them out of 
 him. Love is like the old surgery, 
 which took blood, that the fever might 
 go, and that life might come. Love is 
 no moonshiny, weak, pale light, car- 
 ing for nothing. Love is a revelator ; 
 love discriminates between right and 
 wrong. It likes the right, and hates 
 the wrong, and helps men out of the 
 wrong and into the right. 
 
 145. The Anger of Love. — I tell 
 you there is no such indignation pos- 
 sible as the indignation that means 
 rescue, help, hope, and betterment. 
 You might as well say that a summer 
 shower has no thunder as to say that 
 love has no anger. It is full of it, or 
 may be. Has love no specialty or 
 discrimination in removing error, nor 
 any continuing, intense regard for 
 specific and exact truth .'' God has it, 
 and we are like him. We are his 
 children, and know it by that. Love 
 is simply that which overhangs all 
 these powers, which gives them qual- 
 ity and direction, and gives to us a 
 larger power through these lower in- 
 struments. 
 
 146. Law and Love. — When the 
 stern father overtakes the child that is 
 at fault, and anger is on his brow, 
 anger also is in the heart of the child. 
 The intense firmness of the father 
 kindles intense obstinacy in the child, 
 and he will not bend, nor break, nor 
 confess. But when the sun goes 
 down, and the pain is over, and the 
 obdurate child is gathered with the 
 household in the evening ; when the 
 twilight comes with all its softening 
 influence, and he is alone with his 
 mother, who loves him and wipes 
 away the tears that she cannot keep 
 from her eyes, and puts her arm 
 fondly around him, and only looks at 
 
 him, and utters no word of reproach, 
 — Oh, how does that child, with a tur- 
 bulent tide of feeling, burst into tears, 
 and say, "Mother, I did do it — I did 
 do it!" What the father's authority 
 failed to extract the mother's look 
 brought out. 
 
 147. A Mother's Forgiveness. — Do 
 you want a reason why the mother 
 forgives her child the tenth and twen- 
 tieth time ? Does not everybody know 
 that it is because she is mother ? 
 What do you mean by this, except 
 that her affections are like a well that 
 never dries, and that, though you 
 draw ten thousand bucketfuls, always 
 has a bucketful more, because the 
 water runs in as fast as it is taken 
 out? In a mother's heart is loving- 
 kindness and forgiveness evermore. 
 
 148. The Divine Fatherhood. — One 
 thing is certain, nothing can wean the 
 father's and mother's hearts from the 
 child. They abhor the wrong courses 
 of the child as much as any one, and 
 as much as any one they see and de- 
 plore the disastrous consequences that 
 will follow if the leprosy is not purged 
 away. Nobody feels so sensitive to 
 the faults of another as they who love 
 that other; and none love as parents 
 do : and yet they are drawn towards 
 the child while they see and hate its 
 faults ; and there is nothing that they 
 would not do to help it and save it. 
 
 And does not the Divine nature, 
 looking down upon our sinfulness and 
 immaturity and unloveliness, feel to- 
 wards us as the parent does towards 
 the erring child ? 
 
 149. The Prodigal's Return. — Why 
 did not the companions of the prodigal 
 go with him back to the father? He 
 was not father to them. The prodigal 
 recognized, under all his woe and 
 want, that there was one that was 
 father to him ; and up out of his deg- 
 radation, up out of his vices and 
 
40 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 wickedness, he lifted himself. And 
 why ? Because his thoughts ran bade 
 to his father's house. It was /a//ic-r 
 that vitalized hope, and inspired cour- 
 age, and brought him back on his 
 errand of repentance and restoration. 
 
 150. The Mother and the New Birth. 
 — Let it not be the father that shall 
 first lead the child to the Cross. No, 
 no ; the father did not bear it. He 
 suffered no pain. He went through 
 no fiery hour of anguish. He lost but 
 little of bodily strength to nourish it. 
 He has not hung over it with un- 
 wearied weariness through days and 
 nights. The mother did these things. 
 And if there is anything that is pre- 
 cious the mother should have it. And 
 therefore it seems to me as though 
 every mother should take the child by 
 the hand in the new birth. Let her 
 that went through all the anguish of 
 the first birth have the inexpressible 
 joy of leading the child to Christ for its 
 new birth, that it may think as long as 
 it lives (and that will be as long as 
 God lives) "I was converted through 
 my mother." 
 
 151. The Madonna a Typical 
 Mother. — I have my house full of ma- 
 donnas. I suppose I have thirty or 
 forty fine engravings of the Virgin 
 Mary — the Spanish from Murillo, the 
 Italian from a variety of artists, some 
 from the old Flemish school, and 
 some from the French school ; and 
 my servants, who are mostly Catho- 
 lics, I presume think if I am not a 
 Catholic I am pretty near one. I 
 look upon these pictures as represen- 
 tations of the Divine Mother, and so 
 do they ; but they think of Mother 
 according to the teachings of their 
 church, and I think of mother accord- 
 ing to the universal instincts of hu- 
 manity. 
 
 152. The Memory of a Mother. — A 
 man may go over all the world ; he 
 
 may become a pirate, if you please ; 
 lie may run through every stage of 
 belief and unbelief; he may become 
 absolutely apostate ; he may rub out 
 his conscience ; he may destroy his 
 fineness in every respect : but there 
 will be one picture that he cannot ef- 
 face ; living or dying there will rise 
 before him, like a morning star, the 
 beauty of that remembered goodness 
 which he called " Mother." 
 
 153. Revelations of Parentage. — 
 Parents not only hold themselves, in 
 all their occupations and pursuits, 
 subject to the wants of their children 
 in their infancy, but they begin to feel 
 that there is an influence which shapes 
 their business, their habits, and their 
 very character, on account of the ef- 
 fects which such shaping will have 
 upon their households. No man 
 knows himself till he has been called 
 to stand in the relation of parent. 
 Until then, one is like an unopened 
 and unread book, or like a book read 
 only on the title-page, or in the table 
 of contents. Chapters and chapters 
 there are in his own nature which no 
 man reads or knows anything about 
 till he is taught by his little child. 
 
 154. Training to Independent Char- 
 acter. — A child rightly brought up will 
 be like a willow branch, which, broken 
 off and touching the ground, at once 
 takes root. Bring up your children 
 so that they will root easily in their 
 own soil and not forever be grafted 
 into your old trunk and boughs. 
 
 155. The Household. — To found a 
 household is more than to build a 
 church, and to be entrusted with the 
 education of children is to have more 
 than an altar or a pulpit. 
 
 156. Home Influence. — The power 
 of a home shows. It never lets go its 
 hold. A mother has often reeled in a 
 boy by the line of love, and a father's 
 memory has brought many back. 
 
MOTHER— FATHER— HOME 
 
 41 
 
 157. Willingness to Begin Humbly. 
 — I tell you, there are pleasures which 
 many young married people miss. I 
 would not give up the first two years 
 of my married life for all I have now. 
 I live in a big house, with a brown 
 stone front, and very fairly furnished : 
 but, after all, among the choicest ex- 
 periences of my life were those which 
 I passed through in Indiana, when I 
 hired two chambers up-stairs ; when 
 all my furniture was given to me, and 
 was second-hand at that ; and when 
 the very clothes which I had on my 
 back had been worn by Judge Birney 
 before me. We were not able to hire 
 a servant. We had to serve our- 
 selves. It was a study every day how 
 to get along with our small means — 
 and it was a study never to be forgot- 
 ten. I owe many of the pleasures 
 which have run through my life to 
 being wiUing to begin where I had to 
 begin, and to fight poverty with love, 
 and to overcome it, and to learn how 
 to live in service and helpfulness, and 
 in all the thousand ingenuities which 
 love sweetens and makes more and 
 more delightful. 
 
 158. The Family Make the Home. 
 — You can see great progress in a 
 house from the scaffolding to the 
 walls, and from the walls to the inte- 
 rior finish. Yet all these are nothing 
 until the house is populated ; until the 
 grandsire and the venerable matron 
 sit by the fireside ; until the father and 
 mother hold rule of love over the 
 children rioting through the house ; 
 until every day spins a golden thread, 
 and life is made up of the fabric that 
 comes from the weaving of it. 
 
 159. The Price of Peace. — When in 
 the peace and serene joy of the tran- 
 quil household children sit around 
 about the encircled table, how little 
 do they know that all their delight 
 and all their sweet peace has been 
 
 purchased by midnight vigils, by ma- 
 ternal tears, by parental strivings 
 with God. We that buy our joy and 
 peace by trouble sow seeds. Tears 
 are God's seeds. They come up joys. 
 It might almost be said that groans 
 are the key-notes of joy on earth. 
 Weakness is the beginning of 
 strength ; humihty of exaltation ; 
 shame of glory ; toil of ease. 
 
 160. Large Families. — A child is 
 not aggrieved because his brother and 
 sister are older than he : he is glad of 
 it. They are just what he needs. 
 When he wants to go up he must 
 have a ladder ; and the family is that 
 ladder. The child next older is the 
 first round, the child next older than 
 that one is the second round, and so 
 on till you come to the parent, who is 
 the highest of all. Blessed be the 
 child that lives in a family organized 
 according to the principle that supe- 
 riority is to minister to inferiority ! 
 
 161. Potency of a Christian House- 
 hold. — I regard a man and woman 
 that come together in the marriage 
 state as coming together in the most 
 sacred of all possible conjunctions be- 
 fore God ; and when they lay the foun- 
 dations of a household, they are silently 
 laying the foundations of a more en- 
 during influence than any other that 
 can be established in society. As their 
 children multiply and grow up, and 
 exchange all the immunities for a 
 refined, civilized, and Christian life, 
 they become a power for good to 
 those around about them. Frequently 
 a Christian household in the midst of 
 a community is more potent than a 
 Christian church. 
 
 162. Home-Life the Test of Char- 
 acter. — As we see great strong men, 
 burly in their strength, dashing here 
 and there in their enterprises, wise in 
 the carriage of themselves, and ac- 
 complishing great successes in one and 
 
42 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 another way ; and as we find, also, 
 that they are honorable, just, disposed 
 to be kind and good to their fellow 
 men, we still have not come to the re- 
 ality of them. Go home with them ; 
 open the door of their house, and see 
 the flocking of the children ; look at 
 that ineffable light that comes over 
 their faces as love rises up and informs 
 every feature ; take the littlest ones, 
 the beginners advanced above the 
 cradle, the older children ; and yet we 
 find that even that is not the very 
 center. Deeper than that, and be- 
 hind it all, is that love which means 
 absolute unity. 
 
 163. Home Blessings Radiated. — 
 Oftentimes it is the case that a person 
 can do work as a candle does, which 
 gives light to all that are in the room, 
 but, not stopping there, throws light 
 through the window and along the 
 road as well. What mothers and fa- 
 thers do in their homes may be re- 
 flected far beyond the human sphere 
 to which they are confined, and bless 
 many others besides their own families. 
 
 164. Home-Character Tells. — I re- 
 member one very excellent woman, in 
 many respects saintly, a lover of meet- 
 ings, a lover of prayer, and a lover of 
 good people. She was universally 
 thought to be a pattern Christian, ac- 
 tive and useful. But her son, an edu- 
 cated and intelligent man, was an out- 
 and-out skeptic ; and I used to won- 
 der at it. He went through two or 
 three revivals of religion, but they 
 seemed to produce no impression upon 
 him. I made some particular inquiries 
 as to what was the matter, and finally 
 some one said to me, mentioning the 
 familiar name by which this woman 
 was known, " She is very irritable and 
 inconsistent at home ; and it is what 
 he has seen in her home-life that has 
 impressed his mind that neither she 
 nor anybody else is practically a 
 
 Christian." There was that tempter, 
 that impcriousness, that self-seeking, 
 at home that overshadowed any Chris- 
 tian virtues which she might have. 
 
 165. The Christian Fragrance. — I 
 love the smell of the Chinese honey- 
 suckle. A man does not need to see 
 it to know that it is in blossom. He 
 knows it is in the garden when he is 
 passing without looking over the fence 
 or through it. He cannot help know- 
 ing that it is there. And there are 
 certain things that I see happening in 
 society which I know a Christian had 
 something to do with. I go into some 
 houses, and though 1 see neither father 
 nor mother, but simply the arrange- 
 ment of things, and the conduct of the 
 children, I say, "There is a honey- 
 suckle here. I know it. There is a 
 fragrance here." 
 
 166. Unity of Spirit. — Every house- 
 hold will tell you that the family may 
 be one, and yet that all the members 
 of it may be dispersed over the con- 
 tinent. Yea, they may have gone out 
 to institute new households, under dif- 
 ferent economies and laws and lan- 
 guages ; and yet there may be sub- 
 stantial unity between them. Perhaps, 
 on the other hand, some of you have 
 observed cases in which a family have 
 lived under one roof without a particle 
 of unity, or as wide apart as if there 
 were a continent or an ocean between 
 them. For, bringing men together by 
 the body does not make them one ; 
 nor yet is it necessary to unity. In 
 short, the only thing which can unite 
 men is that interior, subtle, invisible 
 spirit which constitutes the soul ; for 
 men are united by the interior. Who- 
 soever dwell so that they intersphere 
 each other by their nobler elements, 
 are one ; and whosoever, uttering the 
 same creed, and performing the same 
 ordinances, dwell apart in their 
 thoughts and enthusiasms of heavenly 
 
MOTHER— FATHER— HOME 
 
 43 
 
 life and holy duties, are widely sepa- 
 rated. 
 
 167. Home-Selfishness. — How many 
 households are there which every 
 week, and perhaps every day, are 
 scenes of ranlcHng, and irritation, and 
 discomfort, and disputation, and from 
 which happiness is mostly banished ! 
 Now and then there is a radiant hour ; 
 but there are more gloomy, east-wind 
 hours than there are of the other sort. 
 •• This house is mine," says the man ; 
 " and if one cannot do what he has a 
 mind to at home, where can he?" 
 Nowhere ! The wickedest thing that 
 a man can do, is to conspire to do 
 what he has a mind to do, unless he 
 has a mind to do what he ought to. 
 We ought not to live to please our- 
 selves : " For none of us liveth to 
 himself." 
 
 168. The Tongue, at Home. — A 
 great many persons who are just in 
 many things are unjust in speaking. 
 A great many men who are cautious 
 in their demeanor abroad, at home 
 and in their own household are heed- 
 less, and even rash. There are Chris- 
 tian heads of families who shoot across 
 the table from day to day words which 
 stir up the worst feelings that men can 
 have. Many children are brought up 
 in the midst of provocations and quar- 
 rels. Many and many a household 
 has no free chimney which carries 
 away the smoke of these conflicts, and 
 the smoke falls down, leaving harm 
 where it rests ; and there is a settled 
 condition of unhappiness as the result. 
 
 169. Sin of Bad Temper. — Many 
 business men bottle up their temper 
 during the day, and save it till they 
 get home at night, and then make it a 
 household confection — a luxury of the 
 family ! This may seem like a small 
 thing. It is small just as an aphis is 
 small. In the summer aphides mul- 
 tiply by milHons, and cover the leaves 
 
 of plants, and weigh them down, and 
 suck the hfe-juice out of them ; and, 
 though each one is small, a million 
 of them put together are not small. 
 So it is with faults of temper. 
 
 170. Quarreling, as Preparation for 
 Heaven. — Suppose you were expecting 
 now, every hour, to be called before 
 God, and there was no longer any use 
 of self-deception or disguises, how 
 would you look upon those quarrels 
 that have put you at odds with each 
 other? Some families there are in 
 which a quarrel never dies out. Or, 
 if not in the household, then between 
 family and family, neighbors and 
 neighbors, fed, it may be, of envy and 
 jealousy, or some remembered wrong ; 
 the heart murky, unwilling to believe 
 any good of an adversary, rejoicing to 
 hear evil ; picking at faults, magnify- 
 ing them, refusing to soften them, not 
 taking into consideration who and 
 what the person is, or what his temp- 
 tations are, or what is justice, or what 
 is truth, but simply indulging in fierce 
 antagonism. How would such quar- 
 rels look as a part of your garment 
 with which to go before God ? 
 
 171. Evil Temper. — Hear men talk 
 about the seducer. They tell you how 
 he creeps, how his eye gleams, how 
 he sweetens his words, how he throws 
 one web after another into the snare 
 that he is weaving, and how at last he 
 seizes and destroys his victims, hav- 
 ing found before him a garden of 
 Eden, and leaving behind him a des- 
 olate wilderness. Everybody is ready 
 to damn him. No words of condem- 
 nation are so masterful that men will 
 not apply them to this kind of destroy- 
 ing the household. But there may sit 
 in the household one who never eats 
 too much, who never drinks too much, 
 and who never steals, but whose 
 mouth is an open crater and whose 
 words are lava from a hateful heart. 
 
44 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 The children cannot live there hap- 
 pily, the servants cannot live there 
 happily, nobody can live there hap- 
 pily ; they are in a constant tumult 
 from week to week and from month to 
 month ; and at last some combustious 
 quarrel breaks out and the household 
 is destroyed. One's ugly temper may 
 work destruction in a household as 
 much as another's salacious appetites. 
 
 172. Love to God Means Love to 
 Man. — A young woman came to me 
 in great anxiety of mind, and waited, 
 and waited, and waited for the ordi- 
 nary development of religious instruc- 
 tion to bring peace and rest in Jesus 
 Christ, which came not with days and 
 weeks ; until at last I made up my 
 mind that there must be some secret 
 sin in the way of her full enjoyment 
 of religion. And on investigation I 
 found that for three months she had 
 not spoken to her father, although 
 every day she had sat at the same ta- 
 ble with him, in consequence of a 
 quarrel which had occurred between 
 them. My advice to her was, " Quick ! 
 go home, and never come to me again 
 till that quarrel is settled, so far as you 
 can settle it, and until you have for- 
 given your father. You must have a 
 forgiving disposition, or you cannot be 
 a Christian." She followed the ad- 
 vice, and with reconciliation came joy 
 and peace. 
 
 173. The Home-Lover. — If you look 
 at a watch, that which you see is the 
 absolutely powerless part of it. The 
 hour and minute hands that plod 
 around regularly have no power in 
 themselves ; and if you look under, 
 and see the wheel that is next to them, 
 that wheel has no power in itself. 
 One and another and another of the 
 various parts of the watch are neces- 
 sary ; but not until you come to the 
 barrel in which is the spring do you 
 find where the force is in that watch. 
 
 Now, it is the household that is the 
 spring in many a man's heart. 
 
 174. Family Prayer. — I would rather 
 have, as evidence of piety in appli- 
 cants for church-membership, the as- 
 surance that they have daily house- 
 hold prayer than the assurance that 
 they are right on every point in the 
 whole creed. That is soul-evidence. 
 In the prayer of the household I think 
 our affections have, as it were, a ce- 
 lestial bath, where they cleanse and 
 purify themselves. 
 
 175. Heavenly Associations with 
 Earthly Loves. — Father and mother 
 and children, around the daily altar, 
 learn to love each other with some of 
 those tendencies that make love im- 
 mortal. When our love is painted 
 upon the horizon of time, it fades and 
 dies out, and is but a fresco in water- 
 colors, that we soon cease to behold ; 
 but when we learn to associate our af- 
 fections with the divine and eternal 
 they grow immortal from the very be- 
 ginning. For father and mother and 
 children every day to twine together 
 their affections for each other, is to 
 consecrate their hearts one to another 
 for all eternity. 
 
 176. Sharing Home-Happiness Out- 
 side. — Generosity is generally the spirit 
 of horticulture. If a man has fine 
 fruit, he is crazy to give it away, and 
 he runs all over the neighborhood to 
 find somebody to enjoy it with him. 
 If a man has an abundance of choice 
 flowers, he is not stingy with them. 
 He enjoys them by giving them 
 away. You say, "That is Sl natitral 
 feeling." Well, what is a religious 
 feeling but a natural feeling raised up 
 and spiritualized and sanctified.'' I 
 would have your homes made, not 
 less, but more; but in making them 
 engines of happiness, see that other 
 people participate in that happiness as 
 well as you. 
 
HEALTH AND SICKNESS 
 
 45 
 
 VI. HEALTH AND SICKNESS 
 
 177. The Healthful Man. — A man 
 in health is a fountain, and he flows 
 over at the eye, at the lip, and all the 
 time, by every species of action and 
 demonstration. 
 
 178. Health, Mainspring of Civili- 
 zation. — A watch will keep time if it 
 is broken in the wheels, and all the 
 way through, provided you will keep 
 your finger on the pointer and push it 
 round all the while ; but of itself it 
 cannot keep time. So a sick man 
 may be kept up to a certain average 
 of virtue, but it can be done only by 
 a continual series of volitions; whereas 
 it is health which makes volition un- 
 necessary, that is the proper founda- 
 tion for right action in life. And it is 
 more and more so as civilization goes 
 on. 
 
 179. Action a Health-Giver. — Ac- 
 tivity, whether of mind or body, is as 
 indispensable to health as motion to 
 the purity of water, or to the cleansing 
 of the air. 
 
 180. Eating is Engine-Running. — 
 Eating is to the work of the human 
 body just what the firing up of an en- 
 gine is to traveling. Eating is a 
 means to an end. It is not a habit 
 nor a social custom merely. It is not 
 a question of luxury. Do men eat 
 stupidly, and simply because they are 
 hungry ? You eat to make working 
 force ; and as the engineer keeps his 
 eye all the time on the steam-gauge 
 to know the number of pounds of 
 pressure, and to regulate it : so does 
 a man eat, or so ought he to eat, all 
 the time gauging himself. 
 
 181. Marvels of the Body. — God 
 made the human body, and it is by 
 far the most exquisite and wonderful 
 organization which has come to us 
 from the Divine hand. It is a study 
 for one's whole life. If an undevout 
 
 astronomer is mad, an undevout physi- 
 ologist is madder. The stomach, that 
 prepares the body's support ; the ves- 
 sels, that distribute the supply ; the 
 arteries, that take up the food, and 
 send it round ; the lungs, that aerate 
 the all-nourishing blood ; the muscle- 
 engine, the heart, which, without fire- 
 man or engineer, stands night and 
 day pumping and driving a whole- 
 some stream with vital irrigation 
 through all the system, that unites 
 and harmonizes the whole band of or- 
 gans ; the brain, that dwells in the 
 dome high above all, like a true roy- 
 alty ; — these, with their various and 
 wonderful functions, are not to be 
 lightly spoken of, or irreverently 
 held. 
 
 182. Duty of Health. — We are first 
 to take care of the body, as the most 
 precious gift that God has given us, 
 aside from the soul ; and a man has 
 no more right to squander his body, 
 and waste it, than an heir, coming 
 into his father's estate, and finding 
 beautiful pictures on the wall, and 
 magnificent statues in every niche has 
 a right to deface the one or to slash 
 the other. 
 
 183. Degrees of Health, — I have 
 often seen what are called over-shot 
 wheels, where they have a very small 
 and weak stream. They get a wheel 
 of large diameter, and the buckets are 
 made in a peculiar form, sloping from 
 the mouth up. Then comes a little 
 trickling stream which pours down 
 into the big buckets its slow accumu- 
 lation of water weight, and it begins 
 to turn the wheel very moderately 
 and gradually, and so it goes. That 
 is about the condition in which aver- 
 age men are working, with just enough 
 power to turn an over-shot wheel. 
 But if you have a great, full, strong 
 
4 ft 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 Stream, the mere impact of which on 
 the wheel is enough to turn it, then 
 the wheel is made under-shot, and 
 the water comes dashing against the 
 breast and bottom of it, and around it 
 goes, promptly and rapidly. The 
 miller says, "What do I care? I 
 have got the whole stream. There is 
 no use in economizing my water ; I 
 will let it flow," and the water runs 
 all the time. There are very few 
 men that can afford to run on an un- 
 der-shot wheel. 
 
 184. Care of the Body. — I like to 
 hear an engineer talk to his engine. 
 I think the next things to men are 
 machines like locomotives. If they 
 should, by some accident, be trans- 
 muted and become endowed with 
 thought and intelligence, they would 
 make grand men ! When I am trav- 
 eling, the cars hardly ever stop for 
 wood and water that I do not go out 
 and see what the engineer is doing 
 with his engine. I notice how closely 
 he inspects the machinery. I have 
 sometimes crept under the wheels my- 
 self when something had given away 
 and the damage was being repaired, 
 and seen with admiration, how clean 
 the very bottom of the engine was 
 where nobody looked at it ; how all 
 the axles and boxes, and other parts, 
 were cleansed and in order ; and I 
 have often said to myself, " I wish I 
 could make my people take as good 
 care of their bodies as this man has 
 taken of his iron horse to-day." 
 
 185. Vital Functions Agreeable. — 
 The functions on which life itself 
 mainly depends are clothed with the 
 greatest amount of enjoyment and 
 pleasure. No man forgets to eat, to 
 drink, or to sleep. All of them come 
 flowing with pleasure ; they please us. 
 God gives the example of pleasing 
 men. The eye and the ear are over 
 against a constitution of nature which 
 
 tends to give pleasure. It may be 
 said that this, by a process of evolu- 
 tion, is a mere conjunction of things ; 
 but the tendencies of evolution origi- 
 nated in God, and so through these 
 mediums, it may be said, the eye has 
 adjusted itself to like beautiful forms 
 and colors, and the ear to take on 
 sweet pleasure in sounds. 
 
 186. Eating on Principle. — When 
 riding on a locomotive, last week, and 
 talking with the engineer, as I had the 
 privilege of doing, I could not but 
 think how much wiser men were about 
 iron and steel machines than about 
 fleshy and osseous machines. The re- 
 lation of the pump to the capacity of 
 the boiler ; the relation of the furnace 
 to the size of the flues ; the relation of 
 the cylinder, or of the steam generated, 
 to the work to be done — all these 
 things were in the engineer's mind. 
 He was continually watching every 
 part, and opening and shutting valves 
 on every side, so as to keep every part 
 in its proper condition. The stoker, 
 or fireman, was applying or withhold- 
 ing food, so as to keep the engine in 
 just that state in which it would work 
 best, according to whether we were 
 running on an up-grade, on a down- 
 grade, or on level ground, and ac- 
 cording to the number and weight of 
 the cars being drawn. 
 
 How many are there who watch 
 their furnace to see that they get in 
 neither too much nor too little fuel ? 
 Men shovel in food without any regard 
 to what it is going to do ! If it is the 
 Sabbath day, when they are quiescent, 
 when they have less air and exercise 
 than on other days, and when their 
 stomachs are not in a condition to di- 
 gest as much food as on other days, 
 they eat a double portion. If it is a 
 day when they are to undergo severe 
 taxation and work, and when they can 
 least afford to go without food, often- 
 
HEALTH AND SICKNESS 
 
 47 
 
 times they become anxious, and neg- 
 lect to eat because they are so. Our 
 food is a means to an end. It is 
 simply the fuel with which we are to 
 raise steam for carrying on the pur- 
 poses of life. A man should eat on 
 principle as well as pray on principle. 
 
 187. Importance of Stomach to 
 Head. — Your head is a machine, while 
 your stomach is the furnace by which 
 to generate steam, and if you do not 
 take care of the furnace the machine 
 will not work to any purpose. No 
 machine, however exquisite may be 
 its construction, is of any account un- 
 less the motive power by which it is to 
 be carried is adapted to it. And the 
 motive power of the head is that which 
 the stomach does for it. 
 
 188. Physical Retribution. — In that 
 salvation propounded by Christ Jesus, 
 there is amnesty for the past, in so far 
 as it is related to the mind and will of 
 God. The pardon of sin never ex- 
 tends to those transgressions that take 
 hold of natural law. If a man, in 
 drunken fury, has hewn off his hand, 
 the penalty is not averted. If a man 
 in a quarrel has had his face scarred, 
 there is no pardon that restores the 
 comehness of his countenance. The 
 violation of natural law is inevita- 
 bly followed by a corresponding 
 penalty. 
 
 189. Limited Forgiveness in Nature. 
 — The principle of repentance, in its 
 ruder forms, runs through even phys- 
 ical things. A man may in regard to 
 a great many matters transgress the 
 law of health, knowing that if he stops 
 and turns about, nature will forgive 
 him. For instance, a person, through 
 misconduct, has brought on indiges- 
 tion, and he puts himself on a rigid 
 diet ; and taking, day by day and 
 hour by hour, his penalty, he gets 
 back to a state of health, and by and 
 by comes to feel as though he had not 
 
 transgressed. Thus, there is to a 
 limited extent forgiveness in physical 
 and material laws, prefiguring the 
 larger sphere of forgiveness in personal 
 matters, as between us and God, or 
 between us and each other. 
 
 1 90. Sureness of Causality. — Pe n al- 
 lies are often so long delayed, that 
 men think they shall escape them ; 
 but some time they are cei'tain to fol- 
 low persistent violation of law. When 
 the whirlwind sweeps through the for- 
 est, at its first breath, or almost as if 
 the fearful stillness that precedes had 
 crushed it, the giant tree with all its 
 boughs falls, crashing, to the ground. 
 But it had been preparing to fall for 
 twenty years. Twenty years before, it 
 had received a gash. Twenty years 
 before, the water commenced to settle 
 in at some crotch, and from thence 
 decay began to reach in with its silent 
 fingers towards the heart of the tree. 
 Every year the work of death pro- 
 gressed, till at length it stood, all rot- 
 tenness, only clasped about by the 
 bark with a semblance of life, and the 
 first gale felled it to the ground. 
 Now, there are men who for twenty 
 years have shamed the day and 
 wearied the night with their debauch- 
 eries, but who yet seem strong and 
 vigorous, and exclaim, " You need 
 not talk of penalties. Look at me ! I 
 have reveled in pleasure for twenty 
 years, and I am as hale and hearty to- 
 day as ever." But in reality they are 
 full of weakness and decay. They 
 have been preparing to fall for twenty 
 years, and the first disease strikes 
 them down in a moment. 
 
 191. Moral Teaching from Physical 
 Pain. — The cramps following the ad- 
 ministration of strychnine are a medi- 
 cal lecture. The pains resulting from 
 intoxication are a temperance lecture. 
 The troubles which come from riotous 
 debauch all of them speak in the 
 
4S 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 nomenclature of God's moral law, and 
 all of them teach virtue, more or less 
 taking sufTering for their text. 
 
 192. A Living Sacrifice — the Body. 
 — A patriot may perceive that his 
 country may live by his dying, and he 
 may offer himself for the welfare of his 
 country, and the offering is a most 
 noble one. Nothing can be conceived 
 that is more noble than the despising 
 and treading under foot the body under 
 such circumstances. Nothing is fit for 
 a gift except that which is worth keep- 
 ing. By as much as the body is beau- 
 tiful and powerful and noble in its 
 right uses, it becomes fit to be offered 
 up to God, in one's country, or in one's 
 household. 
 
 But what a wicked thing is the other 
 kind of sacrifice which men make of 
 their bodies ! What an awful thing it 
 is for a man to count himself only fit to 
 associate with the animal kingdom ! 
 How many men there are who are 
 burning secret fires of death within 
 them ! How many men there are 
 whose passions are poison ! How 
 many whose whole system has been 
 unstrung! How many who gluttonize 
 life away ! How many who consume 
 their Hves with intoxicating drinks ! 
 How many men there are who, by 
 various excesses, are taking out the 
 pabulum of their bodies and destroy- 
 ing themselves! And by as much as 
 it is noble to make a living sacrifice 
 of the body for a noble cause, by so 
 much, it is despicable to make a living 
 sacrifice of the body to lying courses 
 and wicked ways. 
 
 193. Appetites and Passions. — We 
 often inveigh against the passions and 
 appetites ; but they are God's funda- 
 mental forces in this world. You 
 might as well take the spring out of a 
 watch as to take the appetites out of a 
 man. All society would collapse and 
 be worthless without them. Regula- 
 
 tion, not annihilation, is what the pas- 
 sions and appetites want. 
 
 194. Bodily Health for Mental Vigor. 
 — Never outrun health. A broken- 
 down scholar is like a razor without a 
 handle. The finest edge on the best 
 steel is beholden to the services of 
 homely horn for ability to be useful. 
 Keep an account with your brain. 
 Sleep, food, air, and exercise, are 
 your best friends. Don't cheat them, 
 or cut their company. 
 
 195. Stimulants. — The best fire in 
 winter is exercise, and the poorest is 
 whiskey. He that keeps warm on 
 liquor is like a man who pulls his 
 house to pieces to feed the fireplace. 
 
 196. Wrecked Health.— When health 
 has given away everything is gone. 
 The man is like a ship that has been 
 driven ashore. It may not have 
 broken one single timber, but it lies 
 high and dry. The voyage is done, 
 and the ship, as a ship, is dead, — only 
 it cannot fall to pieces, but lies shrink- 
 ing and warping on the sand. Such 
 are multitudes of persons in the matter 
 of health. 
 
 197. Out-door Life. — You might 
 dispense with half your doctors, if 
 you would only consult Doctor Sun 
 more, and be more under the treat- 
 ment of these great hydropathic doc- 
 tors, the clouds ! 
 
 198. Ventilation. — An audience 
 gathered together in ordinary assem- 
 bly-rooms not only have no considera- 
 ble portion of air which they should 
 have, but in about fifteen minutes the 
 fresh air has been all used up once, 
 and as there is very little resupply it 
 will very soon be breathed over twice, 
 three times, four times, five times, and 
 in less than an hour every man, 
 woman, and child in this assembly 
 will have in him something of every 
 other man, woman, and child. This 
 vaporous intimacy with each other's 
 
HEALTH AND SICKNESS 
 
 49 
 
 interiors is not wholesome, and yet it 
 is almost universal. The filth of it 
 never seems to have struck anybody 
 at all. If you sat a man down to 
 your table, and told him that ten men 
 had eaten from that knife and fork and 
 plate before he came in, he would not 
 tolerate it for a moment ; yet they will 
 go on breathing each other over and 
 over and over again without the slight- 
 est reluctance. But nobody thinks 
 about it, and of all creation the men 
 who think less about it than any others 
 are architects. They make clean the 
 outside and beautify the house, but 
 within it is full of dead men's breaths, 
 or the dead breaths of men. 
 
 igg. Recreation and Work. — Re- 
 laxation is oftentimes more productive 
 than work itself. There be those who 
 attempt to augment business by cheat- 
 ing their sleep ; but nature always as- 
 serts her rights. There be those who 
 undertake to perform tasks without 
 any intermediate relaxation ; but 
 amusements and relaxations are the 
 very things that make our hours prof- 
 itable. For he who carves so steadily 
 that he has no time to sharpen his 
 knife, works with a dull tool, and can- 
 not make much headway. 
 
 200. Wrong Use of Pleasure. — 
 Pleasure ought to be like a bath. 
 One of the rules of hydropathy is, 
 " No use of water that makes you feel 
 worse is to be allowed; " and no in- 
 dulgence in pleasure that makes a 
 man feel worse is allowable to him. 
 
 201. Moderation in Work and in 
 Play. — As to the matter of waste of 
 time, I do not think there is any more 
 waste of time in amusement than in 
 business. A man who works eighteen 
 hours a day wastes time as much as a 
 man who plays ten hours a day. I 
 see men in my congregation who, I 
 believe, are spendthrifts, not of money 
 or property, but of their own vital 
 
 economy. They are burning up in 
 twenty years might and influence 
 which God meant should last forty or 
 fifty years. They are carrying in 
 their lamps quadruple wicks which 
 will not last long. So if excess is an 
 argument against amusements, it is 
 also an argument against business. 
 But the rule is this : Judgment, con- 
 science, and moderation in all things. 
 
 202. The Death of Sleep. — Personal 
 influence as developed in man is in its 
 lowest form, on account of the small- 
 ness of our nature and its undeveloped 
 and unregulated condition ; but what 
 an amazing power it must have when 
 it is the being of God that exerts it ! 
 So small is man that it is not safe to 
 let him burn on, and he stops to die 
 that he may live again. Every twenty- 
 four hours there are deaths and resur- 
 rections, as it were, by sleep, resting 
 and cleansing the old life, to bring in 
 the new life of the next day. 
 
 203. Use Through Waste. — It is 
 remarkable how the principle of the 
 use and waste of one thing for another 
 pervades creation. One third of our 
 time is thrown into the sea of sleep. 
 It dies, that the other two thirds may 
 live to be of worth. For every two 
 hours hving, and full of strength, 
 there has been one sacrificial hour 
 that laid itself down for them. 
 
 204. Sleep, a Forgetting. — God has 
 made sleep to be a sponge by which 
 to rub out fatigue. 
 
 205. Sleeping. — Never gauge the 
 duration of your sleep by the time any 
 one else sleeps. Some men will tell 
 you that John Wesley had only so 
 much sleep, Hunter, the great phys- 
 iologist, so much, and Napoleon so 
 much sleep. When the Lord made 
 you, as a general thing, he did not 
 make Napoleons. Every man carries 
 within himself a Mount Sinai, a re- 
 vealed law, written for himself sepa- 
 
50 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 rately. You nuist administer sleep to 
 yourselves according to your tempera- 
 ment, your constitution, and your 
 wants. Something you may know 
 presumptively, but principally you 
 must learn by experience. 
 
 206. Bodily Exercise. — Because 
 Paul, looking upon that idea of man- 
 hood which consists in throwing the 
 javelin or the disc, in wrestling, etc., 
 thought " bodily exercise profited 
 little," they don't beheve in pamper- 
 ing the body, or taking exercise ; they 
 say "the body must be put under." 
 Yes, you have got to put it under, just 
 as a man puts a horse under himself 
 when he wants to ride well and fast 
 and far. But the body is part and 
 parcel of God's gift to man, encasing 
 the soul. The soul itself depends a 
 good deal on what the body is. 
 
 207. Recreation Necessary. — When 
 the clock, performing day by day its 
 duty, has ticked off six days, and the 
 seventh day comes, it still measures the 
 remaining time that is in its machinery. 
 Each of the ticks with which it con- 
 tinues to resound is almost nothing ; 
 and yet one hour elapses, and another, 
 and another, and another, and an- 
 other, until, by and by, the last hour 
 is reached, and the last half hour, and 
 the last quarter of an hour, and the 
 last minute, and the pendulum swings 
 irresolutely, and ticks on one side, and 
 ceases ; and the clock has run down. 
 It did not need that one should throw 
 a cannon ball at the clock, to destroy 
 its timekeeping power ; it did not need 
 that a club should strike it on its face : 
 it ran down, tick after tick, by second- 
 strokes. 
 
 A man's life is going out in the 
 same way ; and men need to wind 
 themselves up by recreation. 
 
 208. Physical Means of Grace. — 
 Prayer, meditation, singing, social 
 religious meetings, activity in doing 
 
 good to others — these are eminent 
 means of grace, and are to be ob- 
 served by all with thanksgiving and 
 assiduous fidelity ; but horseback 
 riding, gymnastic e.\ercises, walking, 
 climbing, boating — these, too, may be 
 means of grace. They may not be, 
 but they may be if they are properly 
 used. They give health, and health 
 gives an easy performance to very 
 many of the Christian duties and 
 Christian graces. There is many a 
 man that by the help of the Bible and 
 the saddle has gone to heaven with 
 comparative ease, who would not have 
 gone there easily by the help of either 
 alone. It is taking care of the inward 
 life by spiritual instrumentalities and 
 taking care of the outward life by 
 physical instrumentalities that is to 
 make the whole man, and the whole 
 man's life. 
 
 209. Clean Athletics. — There ought 
 to be so many clubs under moral and 
 Christian influences that it shall be the 
 fault of every young man if he joins a 
 bad one. And that is true of all 
 athletic games, of all gymnastic asso- 
 ciations, of all clubs for ball playing, 
 of bowling alleys. The time has come 
 when, if a man goes to a bad place, it 
 is because he chooses to associate with 
 bad company. There is not more 
 natural thirst in rolling tenpins than in 
 hoeing in a flower-garden. There is 
 no more necessity of dissipation in 
 connection with this pastime than there 
 is in connection with work on a farm. 
 If intemperance is the danger, it is to 
 be met by having places where intox- 
 icating drinks are excluded. 
 
 210. The Body for Earth. — It is 
 born for the dust. Its nature was 
 stamped upon it when it was framed. 
 The tomb can never be overleaped by 
 any one in his body. The sepulcher 
 stands as a sieve to sift the world, and 
 no man shall bear flesh and blood 
 
HEALTH AND SICKNESS 
 
 51 
 
 through it. Every man bids farewell 
 to the physical part of himself at the 
 bounds of the grave. 
 
 211. Spiritual Poverty. — He is rich 
 who is inwardly rich. He is poor who 
 is inwardly poor. They that care for 
 the body only, are like gardeners who 
 fill their conservatory with flower-pots, 
 and these with compost, but forget to 
 put seeds therein, or flowers. Dirt 
 and pottery are all the flowers they 
 have. 
 
 212. Illness. — God's flower-bed is 
 oftentimes your sick bed. Joy, pa- 
 tience, and faith that looks beyond the 
 visible, are better than any outward 
 achievement. 
 
 213. Pain by Divine Intention. — 
 Sensibility is the evidence of the ex- 
 istence of nerve ; and nerve-life is the 
 distinguishing difference between the 
 vegetable and the animal. As you go 
 down and nerve decreases, so capacity, 
 and so quantity of existence, decreases. 
 Or, taking the reverse, as you go up 
 from the very lowest development of 
 life, you will find that you come to a 
 new development of that existence 
 which we call nerve, but which is the 
 ground and root of sensibility, whether 
 of pleasure or of pain. Pleasure and 
 pain are the two factors of sensation ; 
 and they grow first to consciousness ; 
 then to volition ; then to character ; 
 and so to final ripeness. 
 
 Pain is not, then, a discord, nor an 
 accident. It is a part of the original 
 constitution of things. If you imagine 
 a being, as the world has been made, 
 that has no pain, you imagine a being 
 that has no existence as a sentient or 
 possibly intelligent creature. 
 
 214. Teaching of Sickness. — There 
 are many men whom nothing will 
 humble so quickly and completely as 
 sickness. Take a great, square-built 
 man, who, with his immense broad 
 sides, sweeps like a frigate down the 
 
 street, and scorns help, aiding every- 
 body, and receiving help from none, 
 — and let him fall a prey to disease, 
 and hang like a rag without power to 
 open his mouth, or to knock a fly off 
 his face when it alights there ; let him 
 find himself so reduced that he is ab- 
 solutely like a child, and it humbles 
 him. It makes him feel that he is re- 
 duced to nothing. Sometimes sick- 
 ness is better than sermons or reflec- 
 tion to make men feel how little they 
 are, after all, and to teach them the 
 necessity of falling back for strength 
 upon some power higher than them- 
 selves. 
 
 215. Teaching of Physical Pain. — 
 It teaches men patience ; it teaches 
 men to bear valiantly. Many and 
 many a man has been burned at the 
 stake without so much suffering as a 
 man has had in his bed through ten 
 or fifteen years' suffering and pain, 
 and if during all that time while the 
 body anguished, the soul is learning 
 self-control, endurance, bravery, faith, 
 even physical pain becomes a mis- 
 sionary and a minister of grace. 
 Cheerfulness under physical suffering 
 is a wonderful victory, repining is a 
 defeat. I suppose that there is more 
 martyrdom of a quiescent kind than 
 there ever was of a flaming. I would 
 rather be broken on the wheel out- 
 right — horrible as it is, yet it has this 
 benefaction in it, it is immediate and 
 you get through it pretty quickly — 
 than have the gout. A gouty man is 
 broken on the wheel through days and 
 nights with no terminable period be- 
 fore him, again and again with recur- 
 rent anguish. A man who being a 
 martyr in suffering for a principle is 
 inspired with heroism, and can go to 
 the stake and bear torments is not so 
 great as the man that without pub- 
 licity and without any great moral end 
 in view nevertheless has courage and 
 
52 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 endurunce to bear up under these 
 various bodily tortures. 
 
 216. Sickness, Remorse of Body. — 
 With very few exceptions sickness is 
 the testimony of God to a man tliat he 
 has violated natural law. Sickness is 
 a punishment for the abuse of the 
 body, just as remorse of conscience is 
 punishment for the violation of any 
 known law of conduct. God meant 
 that the world should be full of healthy 
 men, and it is a flagrant sin for a man 
 to fall from obedience to the laws of 
 health. 
 
 217. The Temple of God. — Far be 
 it from me to say that all sickness is 
 disgraceful. Much of it is honorable. 
 They that have made a living sacrifice 
 of their body to love or patriotism 
 have offered up the noblest thing that 
 one can well offer. As in our streets 
 there are many men whom we almost 
 envy because they limp ; as there is 
 many an empty sleeve that fires the 
 heart as no physically perfect man 
 could ; so there are those who have 
 broken down in the service of love and 
 the cause of humanity, for whom we 
 feel reverence, and whom we honor. 
 But they that are prematurely old by 
 reason of an unnecessary waste of 
 life ; they that by neglect, by defile- 
 ment through the passions, have un- 
 roofed this temple, and broken its fair 
 cornices, and shattered its beautiful 
 statues, and cast down its pillars, 
 have indeed degraded the temple of 
 God. 
 
 218. Love-Light in Darkness. — 
 When the mother gives away her 
 daughter at the altar, she does not 
 feel towards her half the motherliness 
 which she does when she is trying to 
 save her on the couch in the trial of 
 death. It is in darkness that love 
 flames, and has wondrous power, 
 
 219. Heroism in Sickness. — Some 
 of God's most heroic soldiers are the 
 
 bed-ridden. Look at that sweet child 
 of eighteen, full of aspiration and 
 hope, to whom has been denied, not 
 loving father, not loving mother, not 
 sisters and more than anxious broth- 
 ers, but health. She has made a 
 weary fight for one year, for two 
 years, for three years, and at last she 
 says, " If God has planted me to grow 
 as a nightshade here ; if I am to be a 
 flower in the forest, that knows no 
 sun ; if it is here that God wants me 
 to show patience and zeal, then I am 
 content with my lot ; I accept it, and 
 I will ask and expect nothing more. 
 Let this be my sphere of duty, and let 
 my life be spent on the bed, the 
 couch, the cot, if God wishes it. If 
 sickness be God's will, even so. His 
 will be done, not mine." 
 
 The time of the singing of birds has 
 come to such a heart. To such a 
 heart spring has come, and summer 
 is not far off. 
 
 220. Help, when Needed. — To-day 
 I walked in the rooms of my dear 
 brother and neighbor Camp, where 
 the body of his eldest boy lay await- 
 ing burial, and I put myself in the 
 father's place. I said to myself, 
 " Suppose it were my eldest boy, or 
 my youngest, that lay there? " As I 
 looked upon the lifeless form, I said 
 to myself, " How many things I can 
 bear ! but could I bear that ? " Then 
 I thought, " Can I turn my eyes up, 
 open, frank, clear, cool and consider- 
 ate, and say, • Lord Jesus, do as you 
 please. Here are the boys— take 
 your choice ' ? " Could I do it ? No, 
 blessed be God, I could not. The 
 time has not come ; till it comes I 
 cannot ; but I have no doubt that if 
 the time does come God will give me 
 grace to do it. 
 
 221. Time for Resignation. — My 
 darling child lies sick — my only 
 daughter ; and am I, as a minister of 
 
BEREAVEMENT AND SORROW 
 
 53 
 
 God and an exemplar to men, in sub- 
 mission to the will of my Master, to 
 say that this sickness is unto death ? 
 Because the physician says she will 
 not recover, and the nurse says she 
 can not recover, and my own fears say 
 she may not recover, am I to say " It 
 is the will of the Lord she should die ; 
 the will of the Lord be done " ? No ! 
 I will fight death to the last ; and 
 when I have made good battle with 
 all the love, and wisdom, and pa- 
 tience, and fidelity I possess, and the 
 
 shadow has fallen, and I am defeated, 
 then I accept the event ; it is proved 
 a true prophet at last ; but I would 
 not believe it until 1 had tested it. 
 Then I say, " It was the will of tlie 
 Lord she should die ; the will of the 
 Lord be done." Not when the storm- 
 cloud first comes do I accept it as an 
 expression of the will of God, but 
 when it has done its last work — that 
 is the revelation. Facts threatening 
 are not revelations ; facts accom- 
 plished are. 
 
 VII. BEREAVEMENT AND SORROW 
 
 222. Joy in Grief. — Sorrows are 
 like seeds planted for a little while, but 
 always breaking up towards the light 
 after a short time. They die first, and 
 then live again; and every sorrow ought 
 to carry in it the germ-form of joy. 
 
 223. Loss of Children. — I have 
 sent children on before me. Once, 
 wading knee-deep in the snow, I 
 buried the earliest. It was March, 
 and dreary, and shivering, and awful. 
 Then the doctrine that Christ sat in 
 an eternal summer of love, and that 
 my child was not buried, but had gone 
 up to One that loved it better than I, 
 was the only comfort I had. If I 
 thought that my children, dying, went 
 out to wander little pilgrims in dark- 
 ness, and that they went wandering, 
 they knew not where, in all the realm 
 of spirits, I could not be consoled, 
 and only stoicism could cover the 
 wound which it could not heal ; but 
 since I know that God loves my chil- 
 dren, that he has said, " Of such is 
 the kingdom of heaven," and that he 
 wants them to be permitted to come 
 to him, though it is with pain and 
 sorrow that I yield them up, I am not 
 without hope and consolation. 
 
 224. Joy in Affliction. — Some mourn- 
 ers that I see at funerals I am deeply 
 
 sorry for. Their rain is turned to ice. 
 This chilled grief may be beautiful, as 
 in winter ice-clad trees are beautiful, 
 when the sun shines upon them ; but 
 it is dangerous. Ice breaks many a 
 branch ; and so I see a great many 
 persons bowed down and crushed by 
 their afflictions. But now and then I 
 meet with those who sing in affliction. 
 Then I thank God for my own sake as 
 well as for theirs. There is no such 
 sweet singing as a song in the night. 
 You recollect the story of the woman 
 who, when her only child died, in 
 rapture looked up, as with the face of 
 an angel, and said, "I give you joy, 
 my darling." That singular sentence 
 has gone with me years and years, 
 down through my life, quickening 
 and comforting me. If it had not 
 been spoken, or if it had not been re- 
 ported, it would have been lost to you 
 and to me. 
 
 225. Present Grief, Future Glory. — 
 Sorrow and pain and disaster are 
 woven in the loom of God ; and in 
 the end we, too, shall be permitted to 
 discern the fair pattern, and under- 
 stand how that which brought tears 
 here shall bring righteousness there. 
 
 226. Tears. — " May not I cry, 
 then?" Yes, just as the night does. 
 
54 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 and in the morning it is dew. Tiicrc 
 is not a flower that docs not look 
 sweeter for it. True tears make souls 
 beautiful. True sorrows are, after all, 
 but the seeds out of which come 
 fairer joys. 
 
 227. Bearing Afflictions. — Many, 
 when they lose their children or 
 friends, are made bitter by their be- 
 reavements, and say. "Why was I 
 robbed ? What have I done that (lod 
 should strike me?" They complain 
 of God's dealings with them. They 
 are vulgar ; they are low ; they are 
 insensitive. Afflictions, in the cases 
 of such persons, oftentimes leave them 
 worse than they find them. But oth- 
 ers, instead of being like clay which 
 is made harder by fire, are like wax 
 that is made softer, and when afflic- 
 tions visit them, oh, what wondrous 
 truths come out of tears ! what pre- 
 cious lessons come out of aching 
 hearts ! They learn things that they 
 never knew before, and can walk in a 
 humble way behind the psalmist, and 
 say, " Yea, Lord, it is good for me 
 that I have been afflicted." 
 
 228. Relief of Tears in Sorrow. — 
 At first, grief was too great. They 
 were winter-stricken. The very rigor 
 of their sorrow would let nothing flow. 
 But as warmth makes even glaciers 
 trickle, and opens streams in the ribs 
 of frozen mountains, so the heart knows 
 the full flow and life of its grief only 
 when it begins to melt and pass away. 
 
 229. Enrichment by Trouble. — 
 " Man that is born of a woman is of few 
 days, and full of trouble." It comes 
 to us all : not to make us sad, but to 
 make us sober; not to make us sorry, 
 but to make us wise ; not to make us 
 despondent, but by its darkness to re- 
 fresh us, as the night refreshes the 
 day ; not to impoverish us, but to en- 
 rich us, as the plough enriches the 
 field, — to multiply our joy, as the seed 
 
 is multiplied a hundredfold by plant- 
 ing. 
 
 230. We Shall Know Hereafter. — 
 I shall not forget, while I have con- 
 scious being, the look of grief and 
 reproach which my little child gave 
 me, in his anguish, when he was dy- 
 ing. He had always run to me for 
 relief, and I had given it ; but now, 
 when mortal anguish was on him, why 
 did I not help him? What could I 
 say ? What could I do, but stand by 
 and tremble in agony ? I could not 
 tell him that he was not old enough to 
 understand ; and if he had been ever 
 so old I could not have told him why 
 I could not relieve him, and act the 
 part of a father. So I think Jesus 
 stands by, often, and is absolutely 
 unable to let us know why it is that 
 he is deahng with us as he is. He 
 cannot impart it to us. We are 
 not susceptible of receiving instruc- 
 tions respecting the great beyond, the 
 infinite and eternal, in which he is 
 acting, and which is prefigured by the 
 part which our hfe is performing, and 
 with reference to which the events of 
 our earthly career are arranged and 
 conducted. All that he can do is to 
 say again, as he has said before, 
 " What I do ye know not now, but ye 
 shall know hereafter." 
 
 231. Departed Children. — Do you 
 ever notice the dandelion when it first 
 comes up in the spring, and is nothing 
 but a mat of little, flat and notched 
 leaves lying snugly on the ground? A 
 few days of summer sun will bring out 
 the plaited bud, nippled in the soil. 
 In a few days more it will lift itself 
 higher, and open its golden circle. It 
 is now born ; and so are our children 
 born to us. Wait yet a few days, and 
 that blossom is shut up. Its beauty is 
 gone. Wait a few days again, and 
 out it comes once more. But now it 
 is an airy globe, white as pearl, and 
 
BEREAVEMENT AND SORROW 
 
 55 
 
 exquisite in form as no compass could 
 score it. An ethereal globe it is ; the 
 wind could blow it away. And such 
 are our children who have died ; they 
 have gone from us, beautiful to tlie 
 last. Through all ages they shall 
 live, and bud, and blossom. They 
 have been wafted away to the celestial 
 sphere. 
 
 232. Joy After Sorrow. — After the 
 storm has brooded all day long, and 
 hung low, so that the clouds shut out 
 all forms, and there was but gray and 
 haze, you have often seen the wind 
 shift, and roll away the clouds, and 
 the clouds bank themselves up and 
 sweep out, so that at last the sun, to- 
 wards sunset, struck them at the 
 proper angle, and all that had been so 
 dark and gloomy through the day be- 
 gan to light itself up, and stood like a 
 heavenly portal glowing wide, and the 
 glories began to flash out on those 
 banks that now had lifted themselves 
 up into the very brightness of heaven. 
 And yet it was the same thing that at 
 one time made the darkness, and at 
 another time seemed to be the glory 
 of heaven itself. 
 
 The sorrows and trials and mischiefs 
 of this world are dark enough in the 
 passing and in the brooding ; but the 
 time is coming when the light of God's 
 countenance shall be so let in upon 
 them that they shall be marvels and 
 magnitudes of glory and of beauty. 
 
 233. Suffering, the Test of Love. — 
 To-day we are called on for a renewed 
 expression of fealty and fidelity. The 
 taking of this bread and the drinking 
 of this wine is emptiness itself, unless 
 we can quicken our faith and our 
 thought by some such identification 
 with Christ as shall give meaning to 
 these materials. Are you broken as a 
 loaf is broken ? Is your heart wrung 
 as the cluster of grapes is wrung out 
 into wine ? Is the very blood, almost. 
 
 of suffering wrung out of you ? Christ 
 the Sufferer, Christ the Burden-Bearer, 
 Christ — though he first crowned him- 
 self least and lowest — is your master ; 
 and are you willing to follow him in 
 the way of suffering, in the way of 
 strife, and make proof of what love is, 
 not by the joyousness of a flaming 
 love, but by the power of love to bear, 
 to endure, to suffer? 
 
 234. " Not Joyous, but Grievous." — 
 God IS not like foolish parents, who 
 take the spoon of noxious medicine, 
 and put it to the lips of the child, and 
 say, lying, "Take it, my dear: it is 
 sweet and good." God is like an 
 honest parent, who says to the child, 
 "It is very bitter, my dear ; but you 
 must take it, for it will make you feel 
 better by and by." So it is of be- 
 reavement and of all such sufferings. 
 
 235. Revelations of Grief. — Astron- 
 omers have built telescopes which can 
 show myriads of stars unseen before ; 
 but when a man looks through a tear 
 in his own eye, that is a lens which 
 reaches to the unknown, and reveals 
 orbs which no telescope, however 
 skilfully constructed, could do : nay, 
 which brings to view even the throne 
 of God, and pierces that nebulous dis- 
 tance where are those eternal verities 
 in which true hfe consists. 
 
 236. Christianity not Stoicism. — 
 Some seem to think that a man, to be 
 a Christian, ought to be able not to 
 suffer when suftering comes ; but the 
 ache of suffering is a part of its medi- 
 cine. You might as well say that 
 manliness requires that a man should 
 drink bitter draughts, and not taste 
 them, and call them sweet, as to say 
 that Christianity requires that a man 
 should bear suffering, and say that it 
 is not suffering. It requires no such 
 thing. It does not even require that 
 we should illumine suffering so that 
 for the present it shall seem joyous. 
 
ff' 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 The Cluislian, when his companion is 
 taken from him, is not leqiiired to say, 
 " I am so wondertuUy strengthened 
 that I have no suffering." A mother 
 is not called upon, when she has given 
 up her child to God, to say, " I suffer 
 none." You have a right to suffer. 
 
 237. What Sorrow Does for Us. — 
 A vine planted in a rich soil tends to 
 outgrow its fruit. It grows rank, and 
 runs and rushes over the trellis. Then 
 comes the vintner with his pruning- 
 knifc, and cuts it back. He will not 
 suffer it to bear leaves alone, but com- 
 pels it to bear grapes. And so, when, 
 according to the tendency of our na- 
 ture, we grow rank, and bear leaves 
 in abundance, but no fruit, we are put 
 upon a course of discipline, we are cut 
 back, and are brought into some sort 
 of proportion. We need to be cut 
 back, and suffering is the pruning- 
 knife that does the work. 
 
 238. Earthly Sadness, Heavenly 
 Joy. — All day and all night for two 
 long weeks I lay stretched in my 
 wretched berth in the steamship, mak- 
 ing my hideous, purgatorial passage 
 from Europe to America. The berth 
 was so short that I could but just 
 straighten myself therein, and so nar- 
 row that I could but just keep myself 
 thereon. The concomitants were all 
 after the same scant pattern. And do 
 you suppose I ever stretched myself 
 out there that I was not reminded, by 
 my limitation, of that which I had 
 been used to, and which I was seek- 
 ing in my own home? Do you sup- 
 pose I ever looked through that bull's- 
 eye window without thinking of my 
 own ample window that overlooks the 
 bay ? Do you suppose I ever smelled 
 the damp, sticky furniture of the close 
 cabin that I did not think of my own 
 airy chambers, and the sweet breath 
 of heaven in my own halls? There 
 was not one discomfort that did not 
 
 suggest a comfort. There was not 
 one unpleasant thing that did not sug- 
 gest something pleasant. 
 
 And as it is in a voyage upon the 
 ocean, so it is in the voyage across the 
 sea of life to the heavenly land. Our 
 experiences and sufferings are but so 
 many hands that point us to the other 
 world, saying, " There it shall not be 
 as it is here ; for here it is imperfect, 
 there perfect ; here sorrowful, there 
 joyful ; here weak, there strong ; here 
 crumbling, there undccaying ; here 
 sinful, there holy ; here exiled, there 
 children at home." 
 
 239. Affliction, and its Comfort. — I 
 have known a woman who, because 
 her children were taken from her, 
 went forth to embrace and adopt 
 within the wide margin of her heart 
 children that had no parents. She 
 multiplied her household and filled and 
 filled again the places that were left 
 vacant in her own cradle. Pouring 
 out thus her divinity, she rose towards 
 the origin of divinity in man towards 
 God. He that afflicts also consoles 
 and comforts. Some of the greatest 
 works of charity, in the form of hos- 
 pitals, of monuments in cemeteries, 
 and of mighty colored windows in 
 cathedrals, have been testimonies of 
 hearts that have been pierced and 
 have sought to come out of their sor- 
 row by doing something to benefit or 
 console other men. The moment men 
 begin to feel that affliction is sent to 
 make them comforters of others who 
 are in affliction, the remedy in them- 
 selves has begun, their wound has 
 commenced to heal, and their ache 
 diminishes. 
 
 240. Sorrows Intermittent. — Our 
 troubles are not at all times alike troub- 
 lesome to us. Even the sea ceases its 
 motion at times, and its surf forgets to 
 murmur. Griefs and cares, bitter mem- 
 ories, and heavy troubles intermit their 
 
BEREAVEMENT AND SORROW 
 
 57 
 
 tyranny, to come again with redoubled 
 oppressions. Like tides, sorrows seem 
 sometimes to flow out and leave the 
 sands bare. But again they some- 
 times rush in upon us like tides, as if 
 they feared that something should 
 have snatched from them their lawful 
 prey. 
 
 241. " Blessed Are They That 
 Mourn." — For perfect beings sorrow is 
 not needed ; but to creatures like men, 
 seeking to escape the thrall and bur- 
 den of animal life, sorrow is helpful. 
 As frosts unlock the hard shells of 
 seeds and help the germ to get free, so 
 trouble develops in men the germs of 
 force, patience, and ingenuity, and in 
 noble natures " works the peaceable 
 fruits of righteousness." A gentle 
 schoolmaster it is to those who are 
 " exercised thereby." 
 
 242. Praise Lightens Trouble. — You 
 will say, " How shall a man praise 
 God who seems to himself to be in 
 continuous trouble?" Look at the 
 history of David, and see how you 
 will do it. You will find that in some 
 of the Psalms the soul begins in a 
 minor key, and by and by rises to the 
 major key, and then flies away. If a 
 man is in trouble, let him go to God in 
 his trouble, till he gets a sense of the 
 Divine loving, pitying, sympathetic 
 nature, and see if there does not spring 
 up in him a spirit of praise. 
 
 243. No choosing of Losses. — There 
 is many a man who builds his house as 
 the old Egyptians built their pyramids. 
 Nothing should shake them — no, 
 nothing. But what was in the middle 
 of them? Coffins, and the dust of 
 royalty. And there is many a man 
 whose fine house contains only coffins 
 and the dust of departed loved ones. 
 Where is that wife ? Where are those 
 children ? Where is that brother or 
 that sister ? Where is that friend ? 
 The man's heart has been desolated ; 
 
 and he says, "If God had taken 
 everything else, and left them, I would 
 not have called it affliction." That is 
 it ; he did not ask you what you would 
 rather part with. You had been going 
 on, and building up, forgetting that 
 there was a point where your career 
 came within the bounds of the divine 
 government ; and when the finger of 
 God was laid upon that which was 
 precious to you, you thought that the 
 day of judgment had come, such was 
 the pain and anguish which you ex- 
 perienced. 
 
 244. Meaning of the Sepulcher. — 
 Christian brethren, do you know how 
 to be glad, and to make others glad, 
 in the midst of trouble? Do you 
 know how to be peaceful in the midst 
 of deepest bereavements ? Do you 
 know how to seek Christ in the very 
 tomb ? Do you know how to employ 
 the tomb as the astronomer employs 
 the lens, which in the darkness re- 
 veals to him vast depths and infinite 
 stretches of created things in the space 
 beyond ? Do you know how to look 
 through the grave and see what there 
 is on the other side — the glory and 
 power of God ? Blessed are they to 
 whom Christ hath revealed the mean- 
 ing of the sepulcher. 
 
 245. Softening the Heart by Trouble. 
 — They used to engrave, you know, 
 on copper-plates ; but these wore out 
 so quick that there had to be some- 
 thing invented to take their place. So 
 Perkins, our countryman, introduced 
 the practice of engraving on steel 
 plates. But steel was so hard that it 
 was with great difficulty that pictures 
 could be cut upon it. The conse- 
 quence was, that the plates were 
 softened by a chemical process, and 
 while they were in that stnte, the pic- 
 ture was cut upon them ; and then 
 they were put into a furnace and har- 
 dened. So when God wants beautiful 
 
5« 
 
 NATURAL LIKE 
 
 pictures, lie softens a man with trouble, 
 and etches all over him ; and when 
 his nature has received and solidified 
 tiie pictures as of his own substance, 
 he is in a condition to print from. 
 This process, which is so beneficial in 
 its results, is one of the most disagree- 
 able blessings that ever come to us, 
 
 246. Assassination of Lincoln. — 
 Never did two such orbs of experience 
 meet in one hemisphere, as the joy and 
 the sorrow of the same week in this 
 land. The joy of final victory was as 
 sudden as if no man had expected it, 
 and as entrancing as if it had fallen a 
 sphere from heaven. It rose up over 
 sobriety, and swept business from its 
 moorings, and ran down through the 
 land in irresistible course. Men em- 
 braced each other in brotherhood that 
 were strangers in the flesh. They 
 sang, or prayed, or, deeper yet, many 
 could only think thanksgiving and 
 weep gladness. In one hour, under 
 the blow of a single bereavement, joy 
 lay without a pulse, without a gleam, 
 or breath. A sorrow came that swept 
 through the land as huge storms sweep 
 through the forest and field, rolling 
 thunder along the sky, disheveling the 
 flowers, daunting every singer in 
 thicket or forest, and pouring black- 
 ness and darkness across the land and 
 upon the mountains. Did ever so 
 many hearts, in so brief a time, touch 
 two such boundless feelings? It was 
 the uttermost of joy ; it was the utter- 
 most of sorrow ; — noon and midnight 
 without a space between ! 
 
 247. Sorrow a Revealer. — In so 
 great a congregation as this, where 
 there are so many thousands that by 
 invisible threads are connected with 
 this vital teaching-point, sorrow be- 
 comes almost a literature, and grief 
 almost a lore, and we are in danger 
 of walking over the road of consola- 
 tion so frequently that at last it be- 
 
 comes to us a road hard and dusty. 
 We arc accustomed to take certain 
 phrases, as men take medicinal herbs, 
 and apply them to bruised, and 
 wounded, and suffering hearts, until 
 we come to have a kind of ritualistic 
 formality. It is good, therefore, that 
 every one of us, now and then, should 
 be brought back to the reality of the 
 living truth of the Gospel by some 
 hcartquake — by some sorrow — by 
 some suffering. 
 
 248. Effect of Sorrow. — Sorrows 
 work upon the soul as late rains do 
 upon vegetation. All night a cold 
 rain falls, and in the morning the 
 leaves are gone. The coverts are no 
 longer shady, trees hold up bare 
 branches, and the air with every pufif 
 of wind is filled with leaves, languidly 
 descending to the ground. After the 
 first shock and excitement of grief, 
 which sometimes carries the soul high 
 up towards serene experiences, comes 
 the reaction. The nerve of pleasure 
 is paralyzed. All objects report them- 
 selves to the senses in somber colors. 
 Values are changed or destroyed. 
 Life is empty and effort useless. In 
 thoughtful natures next arise anxious 
 questionings. The breaking up of the 
 heart seems, for a time, to overturn 
 the conclusions of the reason itself. 
 Men doubt their most settled beliefs, 
 and bold skepticisms invade the secret 
 calm of Faith. While the nobler 
 sentiments are silent and torpid, there 
 spring up in their place sudden repul- 
 sions and capricious disgusts. 
 
 The valley and shadow of Death is 
 not dreadful to those who pass through 
 it, but to those who follow after but 
 may not pass through ! 
 
 249. Persistence in Sorrow. — There 
 are those who think it is wrong to let 
 their sorrows die out. If they find 
 that their pain is becoming alleviated, 
 they blow the embers again, and rake 
 
BEREAVEMENT AND SORROW 
 
 59 
 
 out the coals from the ashes that 
 threaten to hide it. They are almost 
 alarmed at themselves when now and 
 then some old joy breaks out. They 
 seem to feel that there is a sacred 
 duty of sorrow, and that midnight 
 ought to be their symbol and signal. 
 
 250. Limited Value of Sorrow. — 
 The ascetic doctrine of Christianity, 
 while it did a certain good work in a 
 certain poor way, as a type of uni- 
 versal Christianity was a wretched 
 thing. 
 
 Sorrow is very much like the acids 
 which men use to make etchings with. 
 They take a plate, and, covering it 
 with a wax film, mark the lines of the 
 picture with a little scratcher through 
 to the copper, and they pour acid on, 
 and then leave it just long enough for 
 it to eat in a little bit, and wash it off" ; 
 but if they let the acid stand all day 
 and all night it makes a great black 
 blur, and no picture. In the spirit 
 life God etches pictures on us by bit- 
 ing sorrows, here and there ; but if 
 we think, " It was sorrow that did me 
 good, it was because I was made sor- 
 rowful that I was blessed, and if a 
 man would be a Christian he must be 
 steeped in sorrow," that is letting the 
 picture stand in acid all day and all 
 night, and there will be no picture. 
 
 251. Recalling Griefs. — Never re- 
 member the past to renew your grief, 
 but only to renew your courage. 
 There be many persons that sit 
 on their grief as miserable fowls sit 
 upon eggs that are spent ; and the 
 longer they sit the worse they are. 
 When a grief has had its way, let it 
 go ; make no rest for it ; warm it with 
 no feathers ; abandon it. Sufficient 
 unto the day is the grief and the 
 trouble thereof; and certainly do not 
 cosset your griefs, nor pity yourself. 
 
 252. Sorrow not Typical of Chris- 
 tjaijjt^, — Sorrow and suffering may be 
 
 made instruments of reformation — 
 nay, of manhood, but, on the other 
 hand, sorrow is not the type of Chris- 
 tianity. When a man is sick by dis- 
 turbance or interior arrangements, he 
 loathes food, his head swims, fever 
 beats in every vein, and he takes 
 nauseous medicine, a good deal of it 
 usually. Yet nobody wants to have 
 medicine about his table as a dish, as 
 if it were the best thing a man could 
 eat every day. It is good relative to 
 recovery from a worse state, but not 
 to set forth a type. In the ministra- 
 tion of God's providence in this world, 
 tears and heartbreak, and all forms of 
 moral or social suffering are good for 
 what they do to a man who is sick or 
 out of the way, but when he is brought 
 by suffering into some affinity with tlie 
 right way, not suffering is the type of 
 the right way, but joy, peace, hope. 
 
 253. Benumbing Effect of Suffering. 
 — Sometimes there are illusory effects 
 of trouble. There is an element of 
 exhaustion, and there is a reactionary 
 element, by which those in suffering 
 are wrongly judged. Frequently, 
 when persons seem to have grown 
 harder, they are not harder. They 
 have merely lost the power of much 
 feeling. A person is not necessarily 
 hard because he does not feel. His 
 want of feeling is often nothing but 
 nature insisting upon suffering no 
 more till it has had an opportunity to 
 recuperate itself. I have known per- 
 sons who, after great trouble, could 
 not read the Bible, and did not wish 
 to pray, or go to an assembly of God's 
 people. Singing was discord in their 
 ear. And so it was with them some- 
 times for weeks and months. But it 
 was simply nature attempting to re- 
 store their wasted energies. There 
 was no moral character in it. 
 
 254- Joy in Trouble. — There is a 
 joy that rises higher than any suffer- 
 
6o 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 ing ; there is a happiness that can 
 have an undertone of sorrow and an 
 uppertone of ecstasy ; and wliile there 
 is a great variety of enjoyments — the 
 scale is long — no man has touched 
 the ecstasy of happiness who has not 
 been able to find it while under great 
 sorrows and crushing griefs. No man 
 ever made wine until he had crushed 
 the cluster, and the heart-wine never 
 is expressed till after the affections 
 have been crushed. 
 
 255. Between Sorrow and Gladness. 
 — It overwhelms me to baptize chil- 
 dren bearing the names of my own 
 children that are in heaven, although 
 many years have rolled between their 
 going and my present thought and 
 feeling. When the bereavement was 
 fresh upon me, I was as one that stood 
 half-way in darkness and half-way in 
 the light. With my upper nature I 
 felt, "The Lord gave, and the Lord 
 hath taken away: blessed be the name 
 of the Lord ; " I loved God, and 
 thanked him and blessed his name ; 
 there was nothing that I could not say 
 easily and sincerely in his praise ; but 
 I dropped out of that feeling every 
 moment. It was as though I were 
 beating hither and thither like a pen- 
 dulum. I vibrated between sorrow 
 and gladness. In thinking the matter 
 over I came to this consciousness : 
 " Heartache is good for you." There- 
 fore I said, " Ache, heart, and take it 
 out in aching." I did not try to stop 
 grieving. I let the tears run down my 
 cheeks as freely as they would. Wak- 
 ing in the night, I had, I was going to 
 say, my sorrow as a luxury. When 
 1 saw other people's children, and 
 thought of my own, and anguish took 
 hold of me, I said, " It is good for you 
 to suffer. Christ sits as a refiner, and 
 is trying the gold ; and when it is 
 enough refined he will cease trying 
 it." 
 
 255. Comfort in Trouble. — It is re- 
 corded of the wife of one of our gen- 
 erals in the West — General Wallace, 
 who fell at the battle of Pittsburg 
 Landing — that, hearing that he was 
 wounded, she went forth to seek him, 
 and that not until she reached that 
 dismal and disastrous place, and found 
 his body, did she learn that he was 
 dead. After the body was placed 
 upon the steamboat, and the descent 
 of the river had begun, she gave way 
 to inconsolable grief, from which she 
 was aroused by the groans of the 
 wounded that were on board. Little 
 by little she forgot her own sorrows, 
 and devoted herself to ministering to 
 those poor men in their distress. From 
 that moment during the whole of the 
 Iiospital voyage she overcame her bit- 
 ter grief. How? By prayer? By 
 withdrawing herself to her own cabin ? 
 She did it by binding up the wounds 
 of the suffering ; by bearing the cup 
 to fevered lips ; by wiping the brow 
 that was covered with the sweat of 
 death ; by pouring consolation into 
 the ears of young men who longed for 
 father and mother to whom to utter 
 their last words. She comforted others, 
 and forgot her own trouble. And yet 
 she was a widow — and that is a word 
 that compasses a world of unreveala- 
 ble trouble, 
 
 257. Mourning for Death. — The very 
 slender hold which Christ has taken 
 of our life is nowhere else shown so 
 much as in the wantonness of our 
 grief and surprise at the death of our 
 beloved ones. Why should they not 
 die ? Were they given to us that we 
 might sequester them ? Does no one 
 else love our children but ourselves? 
 Are we to employ our love as chains 
 and bonds, that we may bind them 
 forever to the earth ? I have never 
 seen any man hanging crape upon 
 trees because the blossoms had fallen, 
 
BEREAVEMENT AND SORROW 
 
 61 
 
 tliat the fruit might swell ; but I see 
 people putting crape upon their doors, 
 and upon their own persons, because 
 summer had come sooner to their chil- 
 dren and their companions than they 
 thought. 
 
 258. Bearing of Trouble. — True pa- 
 tience always sees, or believes in, some 
 benefit to arise from bearing trouble. 
 In other words, it is a moral exchange, 
 suffering being the price that one pays 
 for a greater good to be enjoyed by 
 and by. The coin which we give for 
 higher elevation is iron, and hard to 
 circulate ; but the product is golden. 
 The endurance of suffering is that 
 which turns everything it touches into 
 gold. It is the philosopher's stone 
 that transmutes to a higher form all 
 that is low and groveling in us. 
 
 259. Meaning of Sorrow. — You do 
 not know what is going on, you do 
 not know all the meaning of your sor- 
 row ; God does. Do you suppose that 
 the wool on the sheep's back knows 
 what it is coming to when it is sheared ? 
 When it was scoured and washed and 
 spun, and twisted of its life almost ; 
 when it went into the hateful bath of 
 color; when it was put into the shuttle, 
 and was thrust back and forth, back 
 and forth, in the darkness, and out 
 came the royal robe, it did not know 
 what it started for ; yet that is what it 
 comes to — kings wear it. 
 
 260. Lost Cares Precious. — Ah ! 
 our cares, even, are dear to us, 
 though we may not know it when we 
 are in the midst of them. I remember 
 me when, with impatient voice, I com- 
 manded the children to cease the 
 racket of their sport. Could I not be 
 permitted to read ? Must my house 
 be as a bedlam ? — I would to God that 
 I had children to cry there now. I 
 wish there would something make a 
 noise there now. Was your little babe 
 so troublesome that you sometimes 
 
 wondered that God should make it 
 fretful all night, so that you must 
 needs rise every hour to nurse it and 
 to care for it? and did you begin the 
 cant of the nurse, and talk about your 
 weariness and great pain in taking 
 care of the child ? Peradventure God 
 heard you ; for he took it to himself. 
 He never begrudges the care of any- 
 thing. And then, when you saw the 
 child's little shoe, and its little things 
 that were put away in the drawer, 
 how, in the anguish of your soul, you 
 said, " Oh ! if it were a thousand times 
 as much pain and care to me, would to 
 God that I might have it back again ! '" 
 
 261. Suffering, a Ripener. — Dr. 
 Spurzheim used to say that no woman 
 was fit to be a wife and mother till she 
 had been educated in suffering. I say 
 that no man or woman is fit for the 
 highest offices of friendship and of life 
 until he or she has had a full experience 
 of suffering. I do not say that there are 
 not admirable people who never have 
 suffered ; but I say that they would be 
 more admirable, good as they are, if 
 they had suffered more. I do say that 
 suffering is necessary to turn the acids 
 of life into sugar — to make the saps 
 sweet. I do say that suffering should 
 be to human dispositions what the 
 early frosts of autumn are to the al- 
 most ripened leaves, which turn them 
 into gorgeous colors, and fill the whole 
 sky with the tokens of coming death 
 and glorious beauty. 
 
 262. The Lost Baby Kept. — When 
 the young mother sheds the first glow- 
 ing leaf in autumn, and the babe is 
 carried from her arms and buried, and 
 she, like some fragrant bush in the 
 morning covered with dew, shakes 
 tears from every twig, because I, too, 
 do not measure every one of her sighs, 
 and every one of her sobs, do 1 not 
 sympathize with her? For I say to 
 myself, "What is this loss but the 
 
 I 
 
62 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 making of a greater nature in yon ? " 
 She buries the babe to keep it. So 
 only do we keep our children, as 
 children, when we put them away 
 from us in infancy, and see them no 
 more until we meet them in heaven. 
 They remain shrined in the imagina- 
 tion, little children forever. 
 
 263. Chastening — Now and After- 
 ward. — " No chastening for the pres- 
 ent seemeth to be joyous," not only, 
 but none « joyous. It is grievous. 
 
 "Nevertheless—!" That "never- 
 theless" always seemed to me like a 
 golden door thrown open to a man 
 who stood in a dreary, stained 
 passage, and disclosed to him a gor- 
 geous parlor full of all brightness and 
 beauty. " Nevertheless, afterward it 
 yieldeth the peaceable fruit of right- 
 eousness unto them that are exercised 
 thereby." 
 
 264. Exercised by Sorrow. — It is 
 said that sorrow worketh. Look at 
 some of those exquisite and extraordi- 
 narily rare workings in iron at old 
 Nuremberg (one of the most charm- 
 ing, I think, of the cities of Europe), in 
 the cathedral. Do you suppose the 
 iron was just pinched out into shape ? 
 How many strokes did it receive ? 
 How many hittings did it undergo on 
 the anvil ? How was it beaten here 
 and there ? How was it bent forward, 
 and backward, and forward, and back- 
 ward again ? How was it distorted 
 and contorted? How w^as it worked 
 and worked till by and by it was cov- 
 ered with little specules as multitu- 
 dinous as those in frost-pictures, and 
 more delicate and more permanent ? 
 They were wrought out by incessant 
 workings in the fire, and on the anvil, 
 under the hammer. Suffering makes 
 a man, or spoils him. A good many 
 are spoiled in the making. 
 
 265. Dear Ones Gone. — 1 go, in the 
 autumn, and sow my seeds through 
 
 my garden — for many of them nnist bo 
 autumn-sown ; and when the spring 
 comes, and I visit my grounds again, 
 I shall find not what I sowed. 
 
 I threw the brown-black seeds into 
 the dirt ; there stands the glowing spike 
 all a-blossom. I sowed to the flesh : I 
 shall reap of the spirit. I gave dust 
 to dust. God wrapped in his arms my 
 child. He tended my dear ones. He 
 loved into sweeter beauty my friends. 
 They are nobler than when I elected 
 them. And in the heavenly land they 
 wait. What? How looking? In 
 what occupations ? We know not pre- 
 cisely ; but this we know, generally : 
 that faith, hope, love, and all that can 
 be evolved out of them in human ex- 
 perience, are forever unchanged, ex- 
 cept to grow brighter and Ijrighter. 
 
 266. Rejoicing Amid Sorrow. — As 
 in storms, sometimes there are mo- 
 ments when the clouds part and let 
 through the whole gusii of the sun, 
 and change in a moment the terror to 
 sublime beauty ; so out of anguish, 
 often, the soul rises to a vision of that 
 which sorrow does for men, and of 
 what is its real interior and after na- 
 ture. In these high moods we look 
 back upon sorrows as if they had been 
 no sorrows. 
 
 267. Cleansing Power of Great 
 Troubles. — In the sultry insect-breed- 
 ing days of summer, how insects 
 abound ! Every tree is a harbor for 
 stinging pests. Wherever you sit, 
 they swarm around and annoy you, 
 and destroy your peace and comfort. 
 By and by there come those vast 
 floods of clouds that bring tornadoes, 
 and that are thunder-voiced ; and 
 up through tlie valleys, and over the 
 hills and mountains, sweep drenching 
 and cleansing rains. And when the 
 storm has ceased, and the clouds are 
 gone, and you sit under the dripping 
 tree, not a fly, not a gnat, not a pesti- 
 
OLD AGE 
 
 63 
 
 lent insect is to be seen. Tlie winds 
 and rains have driven them all away. 
 Has it never been so with those ten 
 thousand little pests of pride, and van- 
 ity, and envying, and jealousy, and 
 unlawful desire, that for days have 
 teased and fretted you, and kept 
 you in conflict with conscience, and 
 affection, and all the higher faculties, 
 until God sent upon you some great 
 searching sorrow, some overwhelming 
 trouble ? And in those hours he gra- 
 ciously sustained you, and lifted you 
 up towards himself, so that, although 
 you suffered unutterable affliction, you 
 felt that it had cleansed you from jeal- 
 ousies, envies, vanity, pride, the 
 whole swarm of venomous and sting- 
 ing insects that had beset you. 
 
 268. Maturing JJnder Sorrow, — 
 There are many fruits that never turn 
 sweet until the frost has lain upon 
 them ; there are many nuts that never 
 fall from the bough of the tree of life 
 till the frost has opened and ripened 
 them : and there are many elements 
 of life that never grow sweet and 
 beautiful till sorrow touches them. 
 
 269. The Sorrow of Humanity. — 
 The whole creation has been travail- 
 ing and groaning in pain until now. 
 There is a great deal of joy yet, there 
 is a great deal of success yet ; but the 
 wail can always be heard if one has an 
 ear to hear, and will listen to the un- 
 dertone of sorrow. I remember going 
 down on Long Island a few years ago, 
 and reaching, about sundown, a place 
 where I was to speak. Stepping up to 
 the door, I heard the whole heaven 
 murmur with a deep, wonderful sound. 
 
 I was thirty miles from the ocean ; 
 but my host said, "That is the sea 
 breaking on the shore ; we have just 
 had a storm." As the storm sub- 
 sided, still there was that everlasting 
 moan. Night and day the ocean is 
 not still. And so it seems to me, 
 often, that it is with human life itself. 
 There is an underlying moan and bass 
 to all the melodies of hfe. 
 
 270. Bereavement, Expansion of 
 Life. — There is many and many a 
 man who never knew that there were 
 more than twenty-five thousand miles 
 in the universe until love sent him a 
 mourning pilgrim seeking after the 
 absent one. Then he learned that 
 there was an infinity. For, when a 
 soul stricken through and through, 
 goes mourning, and saying, " Where 
 is it ? where is it? '" and the sun says, 
 " Not in me," and night says, *' Not 
 in me," and the grave mutely says, 
 " Not in me," and God says, " Here," 
 and the Spirit and Bride say, " Come," 
 — oh ! then the heart learns circum- 
 navigation and largeness, and has re- 
 stored to it in the long run, in the 
 augmented sense of love, and in the 
 power of augmented moral being, 
 more than has been taken from it. 
 Absence is for a day, but knowledge 
 is for eternity. 
 
 271. The Baptism of Suffering. — 
 O, the cleansing of suffering ! God 
 grant that we may have the cleansing, 
 and not the baptism alone ! 
 
 272. The Night of Sorrow. — Afflic- 
 tion, like the blackness of night, is in- 
 dispensable to the outshining of the 
 stars. 
 
 Fill. OLD AGE 
 
 273. Blessedness of Age. — When 
 the burdens of life press us down, and 
 seem to crush us into the very earth, 
 we hear Thee say. Come unto me, all 
 
 ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
 and I will give you rest. And the 
 very thought of Thy willingness and 
 of thy power brings refreshing rest, 
 
64 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 as we wilt under the fierce sun all the 
 day through ; but as the evening 
 draws near, and cool breezes come 
 from the sea, as we toil in the midst 
 of the fierce attritions of life, its rival- 
 ries and fiery temptations, and our 
 years are consumed, and we draw 
 near to the end of them, there set off 
 from the other land, far beyond our 
 sight, those sweet influences in which 
 is all the strength of God ; and out of 
 which Thou hast made manifest what 
 Thou art. 
 
 274. Weakness and Joy of Old Age. 
 — I have seen the eagle in his own 
 sphere. How strangely does it stir a 
 man's soul to see one of those birds 
 of light lying afloat, as it were, in the 
 upper ocean, slowly swinging, as if 
 but his thought kept him there, and 
 not his wing-beat. And I have seen 
 that same bird tied and caged, caring 
 not to plume his feathers, and his 
 wings all drooping. How utterly un- 
 like that bird of God in the heavens is 
 this miserable bird of man in the 
 cage ! 
 
 It is pretty much that way with men 
 that have been in the thunder of 
 youth, and in the power and freshness 
 of manhood, and that at last go drag- 
 gled and drooping and all disheveled 
 into a piping, pining, complaining, 
 suffering, helpless, and hopeless old 
 age. Is that the eagle ? That is the 
 eagle! Is it not piteous? "Oh! to 
 die early," you say. No, no! there 
 is a better view than that. Does 
 earthly joy sound far distant, like the 
 very memory of a dream to you ? 
 Listen, then, to those sounds that 
 come wafting over from the other 
 land — joys that are undimmed forever 
 at the right hand of God. 
 
 275. Perfectibility. — There are no 
 perfect persons in this world until 
 very late in life — if then ! In early 
 life men are like fires of snapping 
 
 wood, burning in imperfect chimneys, 
 puffing out a good deal of smoke, 
 oftentimes throwing coals of impa- 
 tience clear out into the room. And 
 when at last the fire has burned out 
 and gone to ashes or red coals, and 
 the danger is gone, comfort comes. 
 There are persons almost intolerable 
 in early life that, after age comes, and 
 quietness, become very beautiful and 
 very charming. And the other way, 
 there are many persons that are like 
 sweet wine when young, but the fer- 
 mentation is not checked and they 
 turn out vinegar. We frequently 
 spoil what we have, and then mourn 
 to think we have it not. 
 
 276. A Good Life. — A noble life, 
 begun early and completed wisely, 
 looks to me like a fair building which 
 taste erects. The left hand is taste, 
 and the right hand wealth. Although 
 when the house is being built men do 
 not see exactly what is meant, be- 
 holding dirt thrown out, the materials 
 scattered around, and the workmen's 
 chips and shavings, the mortar and 
 the lime surrounding and the scaffold 
 hiding it, yet, when the building is 
 completed, the scaffolding taken down, 
 the soil and dirt removed, and the 
 household are moved in, and the 
 lights burn in the windows, and there 
 is music in every room, and love con- 
 secrates every hall and passage, how 
 beautiful then is that accomplished 
 building ! Such is the life of a good 
 man. 
 
 277. Late Maturity in Life. — The 
 aster has not wasted spring and sum- 
 mer because it has not blossomed. It 
 has been all the time preparing for 
 what is to follow, and in autumn it is 
 the glory of the field, and only the 
 frost lays it low. So there are many 
 people who must live forty or fifty 
 years, and have the crude sap of 
 their natural dispositions changed and 
 
OLD AGE 
 
 65 
 
 sweetened before the blossoming time 
 can come : but their hfe has not been 
 wasted ; it has been growing. 
 
 278. Work, to the End of Life. — 
 On the first of January let every 
 man gird himself once more, with his 
 face to the front, and take interest in 
 tlie things that are and are to be, and 
 not in the things that were and are 
 past. Be in sympathy with the time. 
 Concern yourself with all that is going 
 on. Some persons talk about a man 
 having passed through a stormy life, 
 and sitting now at the end of his life 
 in quiet, preparing himself for heaven. 
 Heaven does not want any such 
 preparation as that. That is the best 
 preparation which a man makes when 
 he is using the whole force of his 
 being in his day and time. I love 
 those streams that run full, clear to the 
 ocean. Some men there are who are 
 like mountain streams, torrent-fed, 
 that boom in the spring, with won- 
 drous glory of fullness and power, and 
 go rushing through the earlier months, 
 but slacken their speed, and by mid- 
 summer are only a trickling reminis- 
 cence of the river. I like to think of 
 streams like the old Merrimac, that 
 begin work up near their head-waters, 
 and never run a league without turn- 
 ing some mighty wheel of industry, 
 and have no vacation to the end, but 
 go into the sea with the very foam on 
 their surface. 
 
 279. Weakness of Old Age. — How 
 beautiful is a tree full and round with 
 wide-spreading branches ! How beau- 
 tiful are those evergreens that stand, 
 to-day, in New England, immortal em- 
 blems of the old Puritan manhood and 
 love of liberty, and that are green the 
 year round without variableness or 
 shadow of turning, so far as their 
 color is concerned, but whose form 
 changes with every winter. They 
 cannot long preserve their present 
 
 symmetry. For now, soon, there will 
 come those ice storms, and the over- 
 loaded branches will be unable to hold 
 up the weight of snow and ice that 
 settles down upon them; and, stiff 
 with cold, one will crack, and there 
 will be a gap on one side of the tree ; 
 and another will crack, and there will 
 be a gap on another side of the tree. 
 
 Where is the man that has come to 
 manhood who cannot bear witness 
 that his branches have been broken, 
 sometimes on this side, sometimes on 
 that ; sometimes in his property and 
 sometimes in his reputation ; some- 
 times in his loves and sometimes in 
 his friendships ? There are few that 
 have advanced anywhere near to old 
 age who can say that the storms of 
 life have not remorselessly wrestled 
 with him, and borne down his boughs. 
 And some men stand all through the 
 latest part of their earthly existence 
 like ragged and disheveled trees 
 on the mountainside, winter-beaten, 
 winter-bruised and winter-cracked. 
 
 Now is such a career worth having, 
 if this is all of human experience ? If 
 it were all, I should almost feel the 
 latent contempt which the apostle im- 
 plies. 
 
 280 . Obscuration of Faculties. — After 
 a life of eighty-seven years, my dear 
 and venerable father entered, last night 
 at 5 o'clock, into his rest. He has lived 
 far beyond the average life of man, 
 and lived the whole of his life as 
 simply virtuous, as nobly Christian, as 
 heroically active as any man, I think, 
 of whom we have had any account in 
 history. 
 
 For a year and a half his mind has 
 been greatly impaired, and at times 
 entirely obscured. As men, prepared 
 for a voyage, pack up their things, 
 and, being detained, dwell in un- 
 furnished apartments, desolate — so he 
 sat, his rarest and noblest faculties 
 
66 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 scilod iij). It w,»s, thcrctorc, a con- 
 trast all the brighter and sweeter when 
 these faculties, unused for so long a 
 time, opened again in the transcendent 
 glory of the heavenly state. His 
 future life is in heaven : his earthly life 
 is in the churches. 
 
 About two years ago, recovering 
 from a sickness, he called to those 
 about him to read him t/uxt passage. 
 After reading numberless ones — for he 
 could not indicate which it was — after 
 long tryings by one and another, they 
 fell, in God's good providence, upon 
 this : 
 
 " I am now ready to be offered, 
 and the time of my departure is at 
 hand. I have fought a good fight ; I 
 have finished my course : I have kept 
 the faith ; henceforth there is laid up 
 for me a crown of righteousness, which 
 the Lord, the righteous judge, shall 
 give me at that day." 
 
 And then they went on to read, 
 " and not to me only " when he inter- 
 posed, in his energetic way : " I have 
 nothing to do with the rest — tliat is 
 mine — that is my testimony — write it 
 down — that is my testimony ! " 
 
 That was his last substantial testi- 
 mony ; and I think he was as worthy to 
 make it as the one who first uttered it. 
 
 281. Right Standards. — An old 
 man, who began enthusiastically with 
 high moral sentiments and purposes, 
 whom life has hewn and maimed and 
 diminished and soured like a worn out 
 fruit-tree, and made censorious and 
 deprived of all impulse for virtue, for 
 beauty and for disinterestedness ; the 
 man who began with all the sentiments 
 of youth bright and glowing, but has 
 vulgarized himself and stands in his 
 old age indifferent, morally, gravitat- 
 ing and gravitating down — there is not 
 under the broad heaven another sight 
 or scene more pitiful than that, ex- 
 cept it be a young man, without im- 
 
 pulse, in tlic spring antl freshness of 
 life, with no sprouting, and no aspi- 
 ration, and no romance, without out- 
 burst, without generosity. If he be- 
 gins so, how will he end ? Our stand- 
 ards of life should begin right, and they 
 should grow more and more as we 
 come up to them. 
 
 282. Hope of Heaven, in Old Age. 
 — How desolate must old age be to 
 the man who has no heaven beyond ; 
 who stands trembling with infirmities, 
 declined in ear, and eye, and tongue ; 
 his hand palsied, his memory gone — 
 looking back across the dreary stretch 
 of life that he has just passed over, 
 and forward with fear to the life of 
 which he thought so little ! How 
 glorious for an old man to stand, as 
 Moses stood, upon the top of the 
 mount, looking across the Jordan into 
 the promised land, and viewing the 
 fair possessions that awaited him ! 
 Moses died, and did not go over ; but 
 the old man shall die, and go over, 
 and shall find it in that day a land 
 rich, beautiful, and glorious. 
 
 283. Approach of Age.^ — Old age 
 comes as autumn and winter come. 
 Then the trees grow thin and bald at the 
 top, as men do, and one by one, all 
 things retreat to the root ; the fields 
 become bare ; the hillsides take on a 
 russet color ; all nature strips herself. 
 As one casts aside his raiment for 
 sleep, so all things betoken the ad- 
 vance of autumn and the coming of 
 winter. We know these things in re- 
 spect to the year and the things be- 
 neath us ; we do not recognize them 
 as true in respect to ourselves. But 
 they are as true of us as of the year. 
 
 284. Beautiful Age. — I have seen 
 the aged linger, so round, and rich, 
 and bright, and beautiful, as to make 
 youth seem poor in treasure when 
 compared with old age. It is a great 
 thing so to have lived that the best 
 
DEATH 
 
 67 
 
 part of life shall be its evening. Oc- 
 tober, the ripest month of the year, 
 and the richest in colors, is a type of 
 what old age should be. 
 
 285. Complete Life. — Old age is a 
 part of the scheme of life, which was 
 designed to be beautiful from begin- 
 ning to end. It is the close of a sym- 
 phony, beautiful in its inception, roll- 
 ing on grandly, and terminating in a 
 climax of sublimity. It is harmonious 
 and admirable, according to the 
 scheme of nature. The charms of in- 
 fancy, the hopes of the spring of 
 youth, the vigor of manhood, and the 
 serenity and tranquillity, the wisdom 
 and peace of old age — all these to- 
 gether constitute the true human life, 
 with its beginning, middle, and end — 
 a glorious epoch. 
 
 286. Approach of Death. — Autum- 
 nal days are the most beautiful days 
 of the year, and they ought to be the 
 most beautiful days in a man's life. 
 In October things do not grow any 
 more, they ripen, they fulfill the destiny 
 of the summer, and the thought of 
 autumn is that it is going down, going 
 forth. When all things in nature 
 know and feel that death is coming 
 near, do they sheet themselves in 
 black as pagan Christians do? Do 
 they turn everything to hideous 
 mourning as pagan Christians do ? 
 They cry : " Bring forth our royal 
 garments," and the oak puts on the 
 habiliments of beauty, and all the 
 herbs of the field turn to scarlet and 
 
 yellow and every color that is most 
 precious ; and the whole month of 
 autumn goes tramping towards death, 
 glowing and glorious. It is only men 
 tiiat make death hateful and gloomy 
 and black. 
 
 287. A Lovely Old Age. — Have you 
 never, in a summer morning, seen the 
 sun come nimbly up only to make 
 battle with the clouds ? It is obscured 
 when it first rises ; but by ten o'clock 
 it is seen again. By eleven o'clock it 
 is obscured once more. Through all 
 the forenoon it is stormy and cloudy 
 by turns. All the afternoon there are 
 dense vaporous clouds which shroud 
 the sun's glory. And yet, as he 
 draws near to the horizon the clouds 
 lift, and with full-orbed majesty he 
 descends into the open space, and 
 looks back across the whole earth ; 
 and he is never so radiant as just be- 
 fore he sets. Having triumphed over 
 the day, having come out victorious 
 over the storm, he goes down in won- 
 drous beauty. 
 
 So have I seen men and women go 
 through sorrows and conflicts, through 
 storms and suffering, during their 
 mortal life, with here and there an ex- 
 perience of joy, till they came to their 
 last years, when God said to them, 
 "Stand a little while, my child, and 
 shine ; " and they stood, luminous, to 
 teach men how real is the transforma- 
 tion of the soul, by love, into the like- 
 ness of God ; and how beautiful was 
 holiness as exemplified by them ! 
 
 IX. DEATH 
 
 288. Death, a Grade. — When a man 
 emerges through the gate of death into 
 the other land he is not perfect. No 
 miracle is wrought on him. He goes 
 from the school to the university. 
 
 289. Uncertainty and Certainty of 
 Death There is not far from youth 
 
 that hidden certainty of death. I am 
 speaking to some that I shall never 
 speak to again. You are marked. 
 You are going away, and my eye 
 shall never rest on you again. There 
 are some of you now within a hand- 
 breadth of the grave, and yet it doth 
 
68 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 not appear wliu it is. It I were to say 
 that some sharp-shooter, hidden, 
 would launch the fated bullet into the 
 midst of this assembly, with what ter- 
 ror would the whole of you rise ! and 
 yet Death stands with bow drawn 
 back to the uttermost, and that arrow 
 is just on the string that will speed 
 to some of you. You seem strong 
 to-day. To-morrow you shall be 
 weak. 
 
 290. Wholesome Thinking About 
 Death. — Some of you will die soon, 
 and some of you will live to be forty 
 or fifty years old ; but you do not 
 know which will go nor which will 
 remain ; and it is good for us all, once 
 in a while, to stop and listen to the 
 beat of the surf on the shores of 
 eternity. It is well once in a while to 
 cleanse ourselves of the fascinations 
 and allurements of this world by bath- 
 ing in the still and solemn waters of 
 imagined death. Oh, what coolness 
 it will give to the fever of men ! Oh, 
 what a check and restraint it will be to 
 heated passions! Oh, what modera- 
 tion it will impart to over-excited im- 
 aginations and desires ! 
 
 291. Near to Death. — Suppose word 
 should come to us to-day, " Put thine 
 house in order," what would we do 
 with our house ? What changes would 
 we make? There are some men's 
 houses that are like newly-built dwell- 
 ings, all of whose chimneys smoke. 
 There are their unsubdued passions, 
 their selfishness, the creations of their 
 pride, their unreasonable demands, 
 their unregulated dispositions, and one 
 thing, I think, would open the windows 
 and let all the smoke out — " Put thy 
 house in order, for this day thou shalt 
 die." 
 
 292. Appearing Before God. — If, to- 
 day, there sliould come flying hither a 
 messenger wlio should say, "One 
 hundred members of this congrega- 
 
 tion, now assembled, are to die this 
 year," no matter whether any desig- 
 nation of persons was made, no matter 
 in what month, or in what part of the 
 year it should take place, every man 
 would say, " It may be I." There 
 are some of you that will unquestion- 
 ably go before the end of the year. 
 No man can tell who. . . . To 
 learn suddenly, when we are engaged 
 in a sultry summer day, that some 
 great and honored personage is, with- 
 out warning, about to come to our 
 dwelling — what haste ! what change 
 of garments ! what hurried prepara- 
 tion of the household ! But when it 
 is no man, however honored, but God, 
 into whose presence we are soon to go, 
 how natural that we should look at the 
 habiliments of the soul, and at every- 
 thing within us and without us, as we 
 never would at any other time — as 
 perhaps we never could at any other 
 time ! What new measures and tests 
 should we apply to ourselves ! 
 
 293. Forethinkings About Death. — 
 It is not desirable that we should live 
 as in the constant atmosphere and 
 presence of death ; that would unfit 
 us for life ; but it is well for us, now 
 and then, to talk with death as friend 
 talketh with friend, and to anticipate 
 the experiences of that land to which it 
 will lead us. These forethinkings are 
 meant, not to make us discontented 
 with life, but to bring us back with 
 more strength, and a nobler purpose 
 in living. 
 
 294. Refreshment in Thought of 
 Eternity. — You are, after a long, 
 weary summer's day, suffocated with 
 heat, grimed with dust, covered with 
 perspiration, and fretted of skin. You 
 are permitted to go down to the shore 
 of the ocean, and bathe in its trans- 
 lucent waters ; your body is cleansed, 
 and cooled, and reinvigorated ; and 
 you return along the shadow of the 
 
DEATH 
 
 69 
 
 evening, grateful, and sliongci" than 
 you went. 
 
 God's ocean of eternity is so near 
 that the soul moiled with trouble may 
 cast itself in, and bathe its troubles 
 away, and return to its life again, 
 bright, clear, inspired, strong. 
 
 295. The Hope in Death. — I am 
 not sorry when my corn is cut down 
 in autumn. It is one of the most 
 beautiful of crops. There is no more 
 pleasing sight in the world, I think, 
 than a field of Indian maize. Yet, 
 when it begins to wither, to shrink up, 
 and the wind makes harsh whistlings 
 through it, I do not feel bad. Why ? 
 Because the ear is there, and it is 
 ripe, and I have my grain. And if I 
 want to, I can plant it again the next 
 spring, and have another harvest the 
 next autumn. 
 
 And when a man is all withered and 
 shrunk, and dies out of the refuse 
 heap of life, if I am sure that the corn 
 is in him, and that in the other life it 
 will be planted again, and will spring 
 up, and grow and ripen, then there is 
 no occasion for me to feel bad. 
 
 296. The Natural Death. — A true 
 man should keep time like a clock, that 
 goes on through a whole twenty-four 
 hours, and until the very last beat : 
 and when at last the weight touches 
 the floor, there is no explosion ; there 
 is no disruption ; the pointers are 
 there ; the dial still shows its fair face ; 
 every wheel is still in its place ; the 
 clock has simply run down, and si- 
 lently, quietly, it stops. All the fair 
 framework is left just as it was. Such 
 should death in old age be — only that 
 the s-oul ceases to keep time here, that 
 it may begin to keep time where there 
 is no running down, and where eternity 
 shall be marked by hours of joy and 
 minutes of pleasure forever and ever. 
 
 297. The Act of Dying. — Dying is 
 hke the folding of the flower. It is a 
 
 gentle wind dropping away. It is a 
 tide flowing out to the depths beyond. 
 It is a taper going out. It is a spark 
 extinguished. It is a silent bird at 
 twilight shooting through the sky, half 
 rosy-lit, to its nest. 
 
 298. Beauty of Death. — To me, the 
 gate to the grave is the pearly gate. 
 Death, to me, is no slamming door of 
 darkness, behind which sprites gibber, 
 to frighten men. I abhor a death that 
 looks black. I abhor all the monu- 
 ments which represent grief as a child 
 of midnight nursed by sorrows that 
 the night breeds. Dying is translation. 
 
 299. The Ease of Dying. — I look 
 forward more and more, of course, 
 every year, to dying. Death is no 
 longer a disagreeable topic to me. 
 On the contrary, life is not half so at- 
 tractive as it once was. I suppose I 
 know just how an apple-stem feels 
 when the apple is ripe and ready to 
 fall. It feels all the time that the 
 apple is letting go. And I feel many 
 fibers of my stem letting go. Some- 
 times I have been almost superstitious 
 in the thought that the emotions I 
 have experienced in this regard were 
 foretokens and indications of ap- 
 proaching dissolution. If it be so, 
 blessed be God. It is better to depart 
 and be with Christ, than to live even 
 here and with you. I cannot conceive 
 any ministerial life to be more happy 
 or to be more eminently favored than 
 mine has been and is. If there is an- 
 other place that can be better than 
 such a one as mine, surely it must be 
 heaven, where Christ dwells in all his 
 glory. 
 
 300. Repose of Death. — You can- 
 not find in the New Testament any of 
 those hateful representations of dying 
 which men have invented, by which 
 death is portrayed as a ghastly skeleton 
 with a scythe, or something equally 
 revolting. The figures by which death 
 
70 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 is rcprebciitocl in tlie New Testament 
 iiro very diffeieiil. One of them, 
 whicli 1 lliinlc to l^e exquisitely beauti- 
 ful, is tliat oi faltini^ aslicp in Jesus. 
 
 301. The Peace of Dying. — When a 
 little child has played all day long, and 
 become tired out, and the twilight has 
 sent it in weariness back to its mother's 
 Icnee, where it thinks it has come for 
 more excitement, almost in the midst 
 of its frolicking, and not knowing 
 what influence is creeping over it, it 
 falls back in the mother's arms, and 
 nestles close to the sweetest and soft- 
 est couch that ever cheek pressed, 
 and, with long breath, sleeps ; and she 
 smiles and is glad, and sits humming 
 unheard joy over its head. So we fall 
 asleep in Jesus. We have played long 
 enough at the games of life, and, at 
 last, we feel the approach of death. 
 We are tired out, and we lay our head 
 back in the arms of Christ, and quietly 
 fall asleep. 
 
 302. Jewish Vievir of Death. — In 
 reading the Old Testament we are im- 
 pressed with the mournfulness which 
 was felt, in the early times to which it 
 refers, with regard to the death of all 
 except such as were gloriously slain in 
 battle, or such as were old, and went 
 out like a burnt-out wick. There was 
 then no illumination of the act of 
 dying. Men did not die with the 
 rising sun ; they died, as it were, with 
 the setting sun, when darkness rolled 
 towards midnight. 
 
 303. Glory of Death. — Is not dying 
 as much a part of God's mercy as 
 being born? When the apple-tree 
 blossoms you laugh, and you do not 
 cry when you pick the apple ; but 
 when man blossoms man laughs, and 
 then, when God picks the fruit, he 
 cries. Fool, that understands so lit- 
 tle ! Wiicn will you recognize that 
 whicl\ constitutes your highest good ? 
 Glorious is the hour when God says, 
 
 " Come up hither ; " and yet you look 
 upon that hour with fear and dread. 
 
 304. Solitariness of Death. — Moses 
 on Nebo stood alone; and who, dying, 
 does not stand alone .'' That is the 
 one act in which there can be no com- 
 panionship. Though a million are 
 around about us, the moment comes, 
 in passing away, when we are as soli- 
 tary as if we dwelt in the great desert 
 of Sahara, or in the very midst of the 
 ocean itself; and if Moses had given 
 up his breath to God surrounded by 
 myriads of his people he would have 
 been as much alone as when he stood 
 upon the summit of Mount Nebo on 
 the top of Pisgah, to deliver up his soul. 
 
 305. A Hope for the Death-hour. — 
 As birds in the hour of transmigration 
 feel the impulse of southern lands, and 
 gladly spread their wings for the realm 
 of light and bloom, so may we, in the 
 death-hour, feel the sweet solicitations 
 of the life beyond, and joyfully soar 
 from the chill and shadow of earth to 
 fold our wings and sing in the summer 
 of an eternal heaven ! 
 
 306. The River of Death. — When 
 engineers would bridge a stream, they 
 often carry over at first but a single 
 cord. With that, next, they stretch a 
 wire across. Then strand is added to 
 strand until a foundation is laid for 
 planks ; and now the bold engineer 
 finds safe footway, and walks from 
 side to side. So God takes from us 
 some golden-threaded pleasure, and 
 stretches it hence into heaven. Then 
 he takes a child, and then a friend. 
 Thus he bridges death, and teaches 
 the thoughts of the most timid to find 
 their way hither and thither between 
 the shores. 
 
 307. Preparation for Death. — As in 
 autumn the very earth prepares for 
 death, as if it were its bridal, and all 
 the sober colors of the summer take 
 higher hues, and trees and shrubs and 
 
DEATH 
 
 71 
 
 vines go forth to their rest, wearing 
 their most gorgeous apparel, as end- 
 ing their career more brightly than 
 they began it ; so let our spirits cast 
 off somber thoughts, and sable mel- 
 ancholy, and clothe themselves with 
 all the radiancy of faith ; with every 
 hue of heavenly joy. " Blessed are 
 the dead that die in the Lord." 
 
 308. Death Not an Exile. — Having 
 lived much in the West, I have seen 
 many emigrants arrive there, who, on 
 account of poverty or misfortune, or 
 from the hope of bettering their al- 
 ready comfortable circumstances, were 
 in search of homes in-that region. I 
 have seen them piled out on the thor- 
 oughfares when the weather was 
 bleak, and where they were strangers 
 among strangers ; and I have thought 
 that their reception must seem to them 
 rather a cold one. And if dying was 
 to be thrust out of life, and to emi- 
 grate to a land where we had no 
 friends, where there were none that 
 knew us, and where we knew nobody, 
 it would be a sad thing indeed. But 
 if our names are known in heaven ; if 
 tliey are written in the Lamb's book 
 of life ; and if Jesus Christ has ever 
 been our Head, our Leader, our Me- 
 diator, administering in our behalf, and 
 preparing a place for us, that where he 
 is we may be also, then heaven will be 
 familiar to us, and dying will not be so 
 much to be deplored after all. 
 
 309. Death is Life. — O ! lift up your 
 eyes and look beyond. If you are 
 afraid of death, dismiss from you the 
 fear. Silence all these echoes of pa- 
 ganism. Let death have its own ap- 
 propriate colors. As the sun goes 
 down it banks the heavens around 
 about it with most radiant colors, and 
 the sun going down here, is rising al- 
 ways somewhere else, for sunset is 
 sunrise. When we look upon death, 
 do not let us disfigure it by speaking 
 
 gloomily of the tomb. I am not 
 going into it, God forbid ! You cannot 
 get nic under ground. What you will 
 put lliere is not I. When I leave the 
 cars that bring me from Boston hither, 
 I do not leave myself behind ; I leave 
 the vehicle that brought me here. I 
 belong to the body by the earth life, 
 but by the ministrations of society and 
 the subtle, invisible spirit of God that 
 hovers everywhere as the sunlight, 
 there has been developed in me some- 
 thing higher and nobler. I belong 
 above. 
 
 310. Death, Going Home. — By such 
 glorious images as these God is pleased 
 to represent our departure from the 
 present life. The Lord Jesus Christ 
 shall come to our poor old weather- 
 stained school-house in this world, and 
 say to us, "Vacation time! Come 
 home ; you are wanted there ! " 
 
 311. Living and Dying. — To live, 
 is to try to be a man ; to die, is to be- 
 come one. To live, is to be in the 
 twilight ; to die, is to find the morning 
 breaking into noon. To live, is to be 
 in the ore ; to die, is to be stamped with 
 the image and superscription of God. 
 
 312. Transplanting of Death. — Long 
 before winter would let me plant out 
 of doors, I planted under glass, and 
 depended upon artificial heat, and 
 waited for the time when I might re- 
 move my early plants ; as soon as I 
 dared I set them in the open air, in 
 some sheltered nook where the frosts 
 should not touch them ; but now in 
 these June days, I have taken them 
 into the broad, exposed garden, and 
 put them where they are to stand and 
 blossom ; and they did not weep when 
 I put them there. God has raised us 
 under glass, and nurtured us here, 
 that we might bear transplanting to 
 another and better sphere. 
 
 313. Sudden Death. — When one is 
 ready to depart suddenness of death is 
 
72 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 a blessing. It is a i)aiiiful sight to sec 
 A tree overthrown by a tornado, 
 wrenched from its foundations, and 
 broken down hke a weed ; but it is yet 
 more painful to see a vast and venera- 
 ble tree lingering with vain strife 
 against decay, which age and infirmity 
 
 have marked for destruction. The 
 process Ijy which strength wastes, and 
 the mind is obscured, and the taber- 
 nacle is taken down, is humiliating 
 and painful ; and it is good and grand 
 when a man departs to his rest from 
 out of the midst of his labors. 
 
 X. IMMORTALirr AND HEAVEN 
 
 314. The Background of Life. — 
 When a man look his son to Joshua 
 Reynolds, or some other English 
 painter, to have him learn the art of 
 painting, he said that he hoped the 
 boy might be of some assistance to the 
 painter by painting his backgrounds 
 for him. The painter replied, " Any- 
 body who can paint my backgrounds 
 for me needs no instruction from me ; 
 for the background is the foundation 
 of the whole picture." Now, eternity 
 is the background on which every- 
 thing beautiful or right is to be painted, 
 even if we desire to have it in the full- 
 ness of its earthly fruitfulness. 
 
 315. Love Teaches Immortality. — 
 We can imagine without violent shock 
 the decadence and sleep of every fac- 
 ulty but love. If a man does not be- 
 lieve in immortality, let him apply his 
 doctrine to reason, and he says, 
 " Stars go down, and why not the 
 reason ? It may go down into dark- 
 ness, or it may rise somewhere else in 
 another personality." All the facul- 
 ties of the soul might come up in order, 
 and one after another might be im- 
 agined to be consigned to the sleep 
 that all shall find if there be no life 
 hereafter. But no man ever loved his 
 mother, and consigned her with any 
 tolerance to an everlasting sleep. No 
 man ever loved his wife, and buried 
 her, saying, with any composure, 
 "There is no immortality for her." 
 No man over bore his child to the 
 grave, though it were one that he 
 
 could carry in the palm of his hand, 
 that everything in his nature did not 
 rise up, and say, " Let me find it 
 again!" No man ever proudly loved 
 a heroic father, and consented that 
 that father should go to extinction. 
 The flame of love, once shining, no 
 one can endure to believe will ever go 
 out. Love, therefore, teaches the 
 soul to long for, and to believe in, a 
 better land. 
 
 316. Worth in the Other World. — 
 No man can afford to invest his being 
 in anything lower than faith, hope, 
 love — these three, the greatest of 
 which is love. If you invest in every- 
 thing else, presently it is bankruptcy, 
 though it may not be in this hour. 
 Woe be to that man who freights his 
 ship, and sends her across the sea to a 
 distant port, to find out that his wares 
 are not marketable ; that they lie a 
 dead loss on his hands. Woe be to 
 that man who freights himself, and 
 comes at last into the port above, to 
 find that all that he is, and all that he 
 has, is worthless in that sphere. 
 
 317. Earth-Judgments in Heaven. — 
 God will never receive us upon any 
 invoice sent from this world. Every 
 man is to be unpacked, examined, re- 
 appraised, mostly thrown away ; and 
 that which is least esteemed here is to 
 be measured most and judged most, 
 and the reverse ; so that the last shall 
 be first, and the first shall be last. 
 The ton thousand who go without a 
 procession to the grave, whom no man 
 
IMMORTALITY AND HEAVEN 
 
 73 
 
 knows to have died and no man 
 misses, may have their procession on 
 the other side, and armies in triumph 
 shout them home ; while men who are 
 followed to the grave by a long pro- 
 cession, who are buried with much 
 state, and who fill the world for a time 
 with the sound of their fall, may be re- 
 ceived on the other side silently and 
 without procession. And happy is it 
 for them if they do not rise to shame 
 and everlasting contempt. 
 
 318, Perils of the Future. — A man 
 wants to go from Scio, in Greece, back 
 to New York. His heart aches to see 
 his father, his mother, his family, his 
 wife, or his sweetheart. Here, bound 
 right to the port of New York is a 
 swift ship, with a good commander, 
 and all on board healthy, who urge 
 him to go with them. "Well," he 
 says, " I must go, but I am going 
 round by the way of Constantinople ; 
 and then by the Italian coast." " But 
 they have got the plague there!" 
 " Yes," he says, " but I have reason- 
 able assurance that though I may be 
 stopped in Constantinople by the 
 plague I shall get over it. When I 
 get on, and go round into the Italian 
 cities as far as Venice, very likely I 
 shall be taken down again with chills 
 and fever, and shall lie by there with 
 mortal pains, for, it may be, a year ; 
 but in the course of five years I hope 
 to get back to New York." In just 
 such a way there are a great many 
 men who, when I say, "There may 
 be a probation after death," say, 
 " Well, then, I shall get to heaven 
 finally, shan't I?" Yes, you may, 
 through purgatory ; but why do not 
 you take ship and go straight there ? 
 Why endure suffering ? Fools! to treat 
 your souls so ! Fools beyond all other 
 fools that live upon the face of the 
 earth. You would not treat your 
 bodies so. You would not treat your 
 
 merchandise so. You would not treat 
 a brute beast as you treat your soul in 
 such matters as these. 
 
 319. Heaven-Sickness. — The child 
 at school at the beginning of the term 
 zealously prepares his little bow and 
 arrows, his traps and springs, his 
 riddles and puzzles, and what not. 
 Then they are choice treasures to him, 
 and he mourns if anything befalls 
 them ; but when the last days of the 
 term come, how generous he is in dis- 
 tributing them! He tosses them to 
 one and another of his companions, 
 saying, " Here, you may have them if 
 you care for them : I do not want 
 them any more." He is glad to get 
 rid of them. The things that a month 
 or two ago he guarded sedulously in 
 his treasure-chamber now have no 
 value to him ; for the hunger of home 
 is on him. What homesickness is to 
 the child away at school, that to the 
 soul is heaven-sickness, which sets us 
 free from the ten thousand joys and 
 sorrows of this world, if we really are 
 heaven-sick. 
 
 320. Immortality Enlarges Hori- 
 zons. — A man without a belief in the 
 future is like a man who does not 
 breathe more than half an inch in his 
 lungs ; he is short of breath, as it were, 
 like a man with the consumption : but 
 the moment he believes in endless ex- 
 istence he is like a man who breathes 
 freely and fully. A man who has no 
 belief in immortality is like a man in a 
 prison ; but a man who believes that 
 ere long the stroke of death which 
 shatters him will shatter the material 
 elements by which he is confined in 
 this life, and make his horizon bound- 
 less — how large a manhood there is in 
 him ! What a refuge to him is the 
 thought of the everlasting ! 
 
 321. Visions of the Invisible.- — We 
 thank Thee both for those things which 
 are making the stature of our life, and 
 
74 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 for tliosc evanescent experiences which 
 come as the morning breaks on the 
 night witli overwhehning hght. For 
 those joys that come upon us as far-off 
 music that wakes our slumbers, for 
 that conscious nearness to the invisible 
 which at times almost brings sight it- 
 self, and for the victories of later years, 
 as well as for the hope of yet greater 
 revelations of life in immortality, how 
 can we enough thank Thee ! We are 
 sons of God ; it doth not yet appear 
 what we shall be. 
 
 322. Intimations of Heavenly Joys. 
 — All the things we would know of 
 heaven are hidden from us, because 
 we are not yet able to understand 
 them. Not that Thou dost not reveal 
 them ; but the revealing falls upon us 
 as the sunlight on the stone that hath 
 in it no seed and no life. 
 
 Yet we thank Thee that at times 
 there come glimmerings ; and, as they 
 that in the twilight summer evenings 
 hear afar off the dying swell of music, 
 and yet may not know whence it 
 comes, nor what makes it, nor what is 
 the theme, so there come to us, wait- 
 ing and watching, wafted notes ; and 
 we love to believe that they belong to 
 the great symphony that chants forever 
 more above our heads, 
 
 323. Earthly Preparation for Heaven. 
 — When men in earlier days went 
 westward (and my boyhood remem- 
 bers the flow of emigration to Ohio— 
 the long train of white covered wagons, 
 the teams long strung out, the multi- 
 tudinous articles of household ware) — 
 if a man went with nothing, walking 
 all the way, he could scarcely expect 
 when he reached his destination to 
 have very much to begin on. Every 
 man that was at all prosperous, thought, 
 " Let me take enough to set up my 
 house, and to begin my life in the 
 distant land, with some degree of com- 
 fort and prosperity." It is wise in an 
 
 emigrant. Now, every noble trait, 
 every noble habit, every heavenly dis- 
 position which you can attain in this 
 life, you are carrying across the wil- 
 derness, and into the new settlements 
 above ; and the man who is there with 
 much to begin with will be more glo- 
 riously happy than he who goes in there 
 so as by fire, escaped, but with noth- 
 ing in his hands, 
 
 324. Conceptions of Heaven. — 
 Bring me, if you please, one of Titian's 
 most magnificent pictures— the Mar- 
 tyrdom, or the Assumption, or any of 
 those masterpieces on which his fame 
 stands. I look at it, and say to my 
 companion, " What is that? " "That," 
 he says, " is the Virgin." " What is 
 that deepest and most glowing of 
 reds? " "That is her gorgeous robe." 
 "What is that exquisite blue farther 
 up, on her shoulders ? " " That is her 
 scarf." "What is that green that I 
 see behind her?" "That is a tree, 
 with leaves on it." " What is it that 
 I see through the tree?" "That is 
 the sky." No, it is not. I go up to the 
 picture and scrape it, and that red is 
 nothing but pigment ; and that blue is 
 nothing but a little metal and oil. 
 There is no robe and no scarf there at 
 all. I scrape off one of the leaves, 
 and there is no juice in it. It is metal 
 and oil, and that is all. And that sky 
 — you can pinch it, and scratch it, and 
 crumble it in your hand. It is all dirt 
 — nothing but dirt. And yet, out of 
 these base substances, by the cunning 
 hand and imagination of the artist, is 
 wrought a picture such that, when you 
 look upon it, you never will think of 
 what it is made up of — you will not see 
 the pigment, nor the metal, nor tlie 
 oil. These things, to the looker-on, 
 are garment, are face, are flesh. They 
 seem to be a living being clothed in 
 beautiful garments, though in reality 
 they are but dead matter. 
 
IMMORTALITY AND HEAVEN 
 
 75 
 
 All the world is a vast pallet, and 
 all liunian experiences are so many 
 pigments, and the method of teaching 
 which God pursues, in the New Testa- 
 ment, is that he, as the sublime Artist, 
 takes this pallet of universal experience 
 and draws in gorgeous colors the lines 
 and lineaments of the heavenly state. 
 The things which he uses are all 
 earthly, and are not to be reproduced 
 in heaven, though the things which 
 they represent to us are heavenly. 
 The materials out of which our con- 
 ceptions spring are earthly experi- 
 ences ; but the effect of the concep- 
 tions, when combined with the Spirit 
 of God upon the imagination of man, 
 is to reveal to him, and bring him into 
 sympathy with, the invisible and 
 spiritual life, as it could be done by 
 no philosophical process. He who 
 knows aught of heaven, therefore, 
 knows it altogether through the ex- 
 perience and interpretation of his im- 
 agination. 
 
 325. " Abundant Entrance " into 
 Heaven. — St. Peter, speaking of men 
 who are pursuing all the Christian vir- 
 tues, says that if these things abound 
 in them, an exceeding abundant en- 
 trance shall be ministered unto them 
 of God's glory ; and by that latent fig- 
 ure (for there is a latent figure ex- 
 pressed in the Greek, which is not 
 shown in our translation), it is de- 
 clared that men who do a great work 
 in this world, when they come up to the 
 gate of heaven, will have a conqueror's 
 reception. When the warrior returned 
 from illustrious victory, when the mon- 
 arch returned from some provincial 
 subduing, and drew near to the city, 
 all the bands went out, and the whole 
 body of citizens went crowding forth 
 to meet him, far along the road, to 
 give him the most illustrious reception, 
 with sounds of music. So, says St. 
 Peter, men who are rich in the great 
 
 Christian virtues, when they go back 
 to heaven, shall have a triumphal, a 
 conqueror's entrance. 
 
 326. The Heavenly Welcome. — 
 Lord, we are traveling home. Let not 
 the watchman sleep at the gate when 
 we come to knock. Give us an ex- 
 ceeding and abundant entrance into 
 the kingdom of thy glory. 
 
 327. A Prophecy of Future Life. — 
 We are perpetually receiving seeds in 
 our temperate zone, from foreign zones : 
 seeds from South America, and seeds 
 from the Orient. They have great 
 promise in them ; some of fruit, some 
 of esculent vegetable, and some of 
 blossom : and the torment of our sum- 
 mer to those who are enthusiastic in 
 regard to such things, is that it is not 
 warm enough nor long enough to 
 bring forth their excellence. The 
 flower will not blossom ; the fruit will 
 not develop its saccharine nature. 
 Men plant these seeds, and nourish 
 them till they begin to develop all the 
 habits of their respective species, and 
 throw out buds which give promise of 
 fruit, and excite confident expectation. 
 Witii great care the gardener protects 
 the plant from the first frosts, hoping 
 thereby to enable it to come to ma- 
 turity. But at last winter smites it be- 
 fore it has even blossomed, and he 
 cannot but say, "The growth of this 
 plant was not completed ; it was sus- 
 ceptible of further development ; but 
 I could not carry it any further because 
 the season was not long enough nor 
 warm enough." And all the reason- 
 ing in this world could not convince 
 him that God created that plant to 
 stop growing where it did. He says, 
 that it stands to reason that this 
 partly developed plant was meant 
 somewhere to have a summer long 
 enough for its full development. 
 Human life in this world is a seed 
 whose development here stops far 
 
76 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 short of those possibihties which are 
 foreshadowed in its experiences. 
 
 328. Growth in Earth and Heaven. 
 — There will be another climate, 
 another soil, and a nobler growth ; but 
 there will ht growth. That which you 
 have not learned here, you must learn 
 there. 
 
 In Labrador, the missionary, at the 
 beginning of a short summer, sows the 
 seed of the vine. It comes up, and 
 gets a little start, and is taken out of 
 the soil and husbanded during the 
 winter, to be put out again when the 
 next brief summer sets in. But in the 
 course of the ten years of this mission- 
 ary's life in that cold region, the vine 
 does not get more than three or four 
 feet high, and never shows any symp- 
 tom of bud, or blossom, or cluster. 
 The soil is too cold, and the summer 
 is too short. At length, the mission- 
 ary is recalled to his native land, and 
 he takes this vine, the pet of his leis- 
 ure, and brings it down into our south- 
 ern latitudes, and plants it. It is now 
 the same vine ; it has the same root ; 
 but it is not the same sky that is over 
 it. Look long, O Summer ! Look 
 warm, O Sun ! Search and find where 
 the hidden things in the vine are. Be- 
 hold, how it begins to shoot up ! See 
 what a stately growth it is having ! 
 Look at the branch upon branch 
 which it is throwing out ! Observe 
 the smell in the air ! See the blos- 
 soms, and after the blossoms, the 
 clusters which the autumn shall see 
 hanging impurpled and ripened ! But 
 it took another soil and another sun to 
 produce it. It never would have 
 reached that state in Labrador. 
 
 329. Happiness of the Immortal. — 
 We hail and bless the good fortune 
 that hath been vouchsafed to our loved 
 ones who have departed. While the 
 world walks with heavy tread, they 
 move with a light step ; and though 
 
 our hearts are sometimes sad, they re- 
 joice as the angels of God. 
 
 330. " Not Unclothed, but Clothed 
 Upon." — Are we marching only to the 
 grave, and have we no consolation ex- 
 cept that of the Thanatopsis of Bryant — 
 that we go not as slaves driven, but as 
 those that lie down to sleep ? I mar- 
 vel how one could have written only 
 that, stopping just short of the mag- 
 nificent thought of the Apostle — " Not 
 that we would be unclothed, but 
 clothed upon." As if men had been 
 beggars here and had worn tattered 
 garments which still they were willing 
 to wear, if need be ; but beholding the 
 other robes — the celestial apparel — 
 they longed for it, and made haste to 
 be unclothed ; disrobing, not for sleep, 
 but for glory ! 
 
 331. A Resurrection Type. — Have 
 you ever watched the dandelion as it 
 lay with golden blossom snugged in 
 the grass of the meadow? If you 
 pluck one, how coarse the stem is ! If 
 you examine the blossom, the crowded 
 congregation of golden petals, it is not 
 beauteous, it is coarse, though the 
 effect is at a distance bright and beau- 
 tiful. But when it has perfected itself 
 as a blossom, and all its petals are 
 shed, and the seed begins then to 
 spring up, how in one ripening hour 
 do you see the fairest, the most airy 
 and evanescent globe of seed, follow- 
 ing the blossom, that you can find in 
 the whole vegetable kingdom ! I 
 never see a dandelion that 1 do not 
 think, "There you are, man, living in 
 the world ;" and I never afterwards 
 see that airy and exquisite globe of seed 
 that I do not think, " There you are 
 resurrected." That is the man when 
 he is here on earth, and this is the man 
 when he is perfected. How, in a mo- 
 ment, is he translated from the coarse, 
 low form of the blossom, into this airy, 
 almost spiritual beauty of the seed ! 
 
IMMORTALITY AND HEAVEN 
 
 77 
 
 332. Heaven in the Heart. — You 
 might put a blind man in the Louvre 
 of Paris, and he might walk among 
 the acres and prairies of pictures there, 
 and not be conscious that he had seen 
 the stroke of one artist-hand. You 
 might bring a deaf man within the 
 sound of all the bands of heaven and 
 of earth, and there would be no music 
 to his consciousness. And if a man 
 is not prepared to enjoy the felicities 
 of heaven, those felicities will be noth- 
 ing to him. Heaven is not heaven 
 except to those who have the initiation 
 of it in themselves. They carry it in 
 their own heart first. 
 
 333. Eternity to Show Earthly 
 Work Many of you seem to your- 
 selves to have done little on earth. 
 You do not know what you have done. 
 God writes you a check, and seals it 
 up, and gives it to you to carry to the 
 bank, and you will not know how 
 much it is till you are paid, and then 
 you will be surprised. You do not 
 know what you have done in your 
 own family, or to the poor, or for those 
 that live next door to you. You may 
 teach your servant to read the word 
 of Hfe, and he directs his attention to 
 the salvation of his poor heathen fel- 
 lows, and through him many are saved, 
 and in the other world how your work 
 will open up ! 
 
 334. Future Joy a Present Help. — 
 It was a whole lifetime that we lived 
 in those four years of the Civil War — 
 yea, a hundred lifetimes. A man 
 might Hve twenty centuries, and not 
 in all of them have as much experi- 
 ence as was crowded into those dark 
 four years. And yet, when the tidings 
 of victory came, all the past was as 
 nothing ; and ever since, the thunder 
 of cannon, the clash of swords and 
 the groans of the wounded have been 
 dying out and receding further and 
 further, till they have well nigh gone. 
 
 Wounds that could not well be healed 
 have become less and less sensitive, 
 and our whole land is steadily coming 
 together, and being knit together, in 
 spite of hindrances, and in spite of the 
 many things that would better not 
 have been ; and before ten years have 
 rolled around the great flame of war 
 which has passed over us will have 
 been well nigh forgotten. So, only 
 let me know that after the conflicts of 
 every kind in this life — all jarrings, all 
 disputes, all superstitions, all cruelties, 
 all idolatries, all unfaiths or unbeliefs, 
 all crimes, all vices — only let me know 
 that after these, I shall stand and look 
 back upon time, and shout, " Thou art 
 worthy. Lord God Almighty, because 
 thy judgments are just and true, and 
 all nations shall be gathered under 
 thee," and I am content. The dark- 
 ness shall be but as a troubled night. 
 The day comes, and where is the 
 night ? where are its dreams ? 
 
 335. Disclosures of the Future. — 
 Have you never seen how when they 
 were finishing the interior of buildings 
 they kept the scaffolding up? The 
 old Pope, when he had Michael 
 Angelo employed in decorating the 
 interior of that magnificent structure, 
 the Sistine Chapel, demanded that the 
 scaffolding should be taken down so 
 that he could see the glowing colors 
 that with matchless skill were being 
 laid on. Patiently and assiduously 
 did that noble artist labor, toiling by 
 day, and almost by night, bringing 
 out his prophets and sibyls, and pic- 
 tures wondrous for their beauty and 
 significance, until the work was done. 
 The day before it was done, if you 
 had gone into that chapel and looked 
 up, what would you have seen ? Posts, 
 planks, ropes, Ume, mortar, slop, dirt. 
 But when all was finished the work- 
 men came, and the scaffolding was 
 removed. And then, although the 
 
78 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 floor was yet covered with rubbish 
 and litter, when you looked up it was 
 as if heaven itself had been opened, 
 and you looked into the courts of God 
 and angels. 
 
 Now, the scaffolding is kept around 
 men long after the fresco is com- 
 menced to be painted; and wondrous 
 disclosures will be made when God 
 shall take down this scaffolding body, 
 and reveal what you have done. 
 
 336. The World not Our Home. — 
 It is only when a man considers this 
 world as a schoolhouse, and not a 
 dwelling, that it will serve the purpose 
 it was intended to serve. The academy 
 is not a place to live in. We go into 
 it that in due time we may come out 
 prepared for a higher sphere. 
 
 337. Contentment v^rith Mortality 
 Unnatural. — It does not make any dif- 
 ference to an apple-blossom whether 
 there is an apple behind it or not; but 
 it does make a difference to a man 
 whether he is anything after this life or 
 not. It does not make any difference 
 to the insects, to the ephemera of crea- 
 tion, whether they perish or not— there 
 is too little of them ; but for a man 
 who is full of sublime qualities, whose 
 sphere in this life has already become 
 sovereign by the attainments which he 
 has achieved, whose thoughts soar 
 above the earthly realm, whose emo- 
 tions belong to another sphere, whose 
 conceptions are of a volume, a vast- 
 ness, a grandeur and a dignity which 
 take hold on things spiritual and 
 heavenly — for him to look upon him- 
 self in this incomplete state and say, 
 " I am willing to go back to dust," is 
 unnatural. 
 
 338. Annihilation, Unnatural Idea. 
 — Harriet Martineau said that she 
 could conceive, with perfect tranquil- 
 lity and even with a species of enjoy- 
 ment, that she might go out, and have 
 no longer individual memory or iden- 
 
 tity, existing simply as material to be 
 reconstructed in the form of other 
 beings ; but I think that by this very 
 expression she put herself apart from 
 her kind. I cannot conceive of any- 
 thing more colorless, anything that 
 touches the mind so little, in so few 
 places, and yet so painfully, as the be- 
 lief that when we have wound up our 
 short existence here that is the end. 
 
 339. The Earthly and the Heavenly. 
 — We behold how the precious seed is 
 sown in this life, and how it is har- 
 vested, and taken to the granary 
 above ; but what it shall be when it is 
 sown again under fairer skies, and in 
 a better clime, we know not. This 
 we know, that we are sons of God. 
 
 340. Joy in Helpful Work. — If he 
 that gives a cup of cold water to a lit- 
 tle child in the name of Christ shall 
 not fail of his reward, how much less 
 he that opens springs in the desert, 
 that strikes the rocks in the mountains 
 so that they gush forth, that digs wells 
 from which men through generations 
 can drink. Do the little that you can ; 
 do more if you can ; and when at last 
 you return with joy upon your head 
 to enter in at the gate, there shall 
 throng forth from it so many that you 
 cannot count them of those who were 
 refreshed in the hours of sorrow and 
 weariness of the way by your labor, 
 and they shall come with rosy hand 
 and joyful lip to greet you and to 
 bring you before the throne of the 
 Saviour. 
 
 341. A Thought of Future Life. — 
 While man is living in this life sub- 
 ject to all its ailments and down-puU- 
 ings and hindrances of every kind, 
 who can conceive what he will be 
 when his spirit wings its way upward, 
 and leaves these encumbrances behind 
 which have had so much to do with 
 sinning in this life? The body, and 
 all that belongs to it, will sleep in the 
 
IMMORTALITY AND HEAVEN 
 
 79 
 
 grave, and the spirit will go forth in 
 might and symmetry, and will indeed 
 be a " new creature." 
 
 Consider, too, the social element. 
 Consider what a power there is in it 
 of development. How much music 
 inspires music ! How easy it is for 
 the current to go where single drops 
 could not move ! Men tend, I think, 
 in all great periods of development, to 
 go forward by a certain enthusiastic 
 movement of the whole. Now, trans- 
 fer that quality to spirits whose ele- 
 mentary faculties have been developed 
 and perfected, who are cut loose from 
 the hindrances of the body, and who 
 are translated to another sphere where 
 all of society is alike — where there is a 
 common intelligence, a common moral 
 sentiment, and a common social life ; 
 where there are none to molest or 
 make afraid ; where none sin and 
 none attempt to sin ; where the whole 
 public sentiment in which the soul 
 lives and moves is one of rectitude, 
 and purity, and love, and aspiration, 
 and glorifying worship. 
 
 342. Hunger for Continuance. — 
 There are mute, inexplicable feelings 
 connected with the mere extension of 
 time which belong to the higher de- 
 velopment of manhood in us. Fran- 
 gible things are of less value than 
 things that are infrangible. Things 
 that last are of more value, on the 
 same plane, than their congeners are 
 that do not last. 
 
 Who can equal the pictures which 
 are painted on the panes of glass in 
 our winter rooms ? Where can you 
 find a Lambineau, or any painter who 
 can give mountain scenery such as we 
 have for nothing, every winter morn- 
 ing, when we wake up, and such as 
 the sun outside, or the stove inside, 
 destroys before ten o'clock? These 
 pictures are not valued as are those 
 which are painted on canvas, and 
 
 which are not half so good ; but the 
 element of enduring is with the latter, 
 while the element of evanescence is 
 with the former. Though the pictures 
 on the pane are finer than those on 
 the canvas, they lack the element of 
 time, on which value so largely de- 
 pends. The soul craves, hungers for, 
 this quality of continuance as an 
 element for measuring the value of 
 things. 
 
 343. Life Without Immortality. — 
 We are building a crystal character 
 with much pain and self-denial ; and 
 is it to be built as bubbles are blown? 
 What is finer in line than the bubble ? 
 What is more airy ? Where are pic- 
 tures more exquisite, where are colors 
 more tender and rich and beautiful — 
 and where is there anything that is 
 born so near to its end as a bubble ? 
 Is the character which we are building 
 with so much pain and suffering and 
 patience, with so much burden of con- 
 science, and with so much aspiration ; 
 is the character which we are forming 
 in the invisible realm of the soul — is 
 that but a bubble ? Is that only a 
 thin film which reflects the transient 
 experiences of a life of joy or sadness, 
 and goes out? Then, what is life 
 worth ? The finer men are the better 
 they are, if they are forever : but the 
 finer men are the worse they are, if 
 they are only for a day ; for they have 
 a disproportion of sensibility to suffer- 
 ing over and above present remuner- 
 ation and conscious enjoyment. 
 
 344. Mortal and Immortal Vision. — 
 At midnight, undertake to examine a 
 landscape with a candle, carrying it 
 around to each particular thing, and try 
 thus to get an idea of the whole scene. 
 That is the way we are exploring in 
 this life. But let a thunder-storm 
 come up, and a flash of lightning open 
 the whole country — hill, valley, cliff, 
 every part — to instantaneous view ; 
 
8o 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 and we see it instantly. That is the 
 way we shall think, in the other life. 
 
 345. What we Shall Be. — Consider 
 the force of human reason, by which the 
 whole physical universe is being now 
 unbarred ; by which the most distant 
 orbs are being searched, weighed, 
 analyzed ; by which we are unwrap- 
 ping the sun, and taking off coat after 
 coat ; by which we know more about 
 the sun itself than oftentimes men do 
 of the province in which they live on 
 earth. What an education ! What 
 an outstretch of thought ! What de- 
 velopment of the reasoning, searching 
 power of the mind ! Who could have 
 suspected it in the days of barbarism ? 
 No man could then have told that. 
 And who now can foretell what new 
 development the human reason is 
 capable of .-' As from the lower stages 
 you could not suspect the higher, so 
 from the present stages you cannot 
 anticipate those which are yet to come. 
 Now we think ; but in the higher 
 forms of thinking there is the intuition, 
 the jump, as it were, the flash of 
 thought, with which our present think- 
 ing is not to be compared. We call it 
 intuition, we call it inspiratioti, we call 
 it names ; but names are not things. 
 There is evidently the hint of a 
 wondrous disclosure of power in the 
 direction of reason " in the ages to 
 come." We do not see it here. We 
 cannot know it. We can only know 
 what is the perpetual suggestion of it. 
 
 •' We are the sons of God ; but it doth not 
 yet appear what we shall be." 
 
 346. The Soul's Anchor. — Here is 
 the anchor: The hope of immortality 
 through Jesus Christ, which is "as an 
 anchor to the soul, sure and steadfast, 
 and which enters into that within the 
 veil "—into the very holy of holies. 
 
 With this central and controlling 
 power established, any soul may safely 
 
 swing in any circuits it pleases, within 
 due measure. Once let a man's soul 
 get anchored upon God, and he may 
 swing round in wide circuits of 
 speculation and doubt, and he will 
 not be materially hurt. He has an 
 anchor that brings him up in due time. 
 But a man that has no faith, a man 
 that is without God, a man that is 
 destitute of an anchor, and that drifts 
 a wanderer in God's universe — woe 
 be to him ! How helpless is a man 
 that has no faith in himself, and not 
 much trust in men, and no definite 
 belief, and no God, and no hope ! 
 
 347. The Hereafter. — What eagle 
 ever went sorrowing after its shell when 
 once it was born ? While it is an egg, 
 the shell is its protection, and in the 
 walls of that little globe it has its 
 safety ; but when once it has broken 
 the shell, and come out, and become 
 an eagle of the heaven, it never goes 
 sorrowing back to the nest again, 
 though when it was but an eaglet, and 
 unfledged, it hugged it so. 
 
 In all your thoughts of this life, 
 where God has nested us, and where 
 we are fed and developed, remember 
 that the things which are now dear to 
 you, while they are things good and 
 desirable, are many of them transient ; 
 but that part of your nature which 
 sorrow is meant to develop, that part 
 which love is ripening, that part out 
 of which comes the truest joy, that 
 part which leads to all that is sublime 
 in character, and is transcendent 
 and divine, and allies you to God — 
 remember that this grows apace, and 
 waits in those that have gone before. 
 How beautiful it will be when we shall 
 find, not what we have lost, but that 
 which has been saved and nurtured 
 for us ! 
 
 348. Earthly Conditions Forgotten 
 in Heaven. — When freshets sometimes 
 surprise villages, and threaten to 
 
IMMORTALITY AND HEAVEN 
 
 8i 
 
 overwhelm them, happy are they that 
 can go in boats to the further shore ; 
 and happy, also, are they that can get 
 there even by swimming upon planks 
 and logs, for to escape from their peril 
 is what they seek. Though the short 
 voyage on a plank or log, with many 
 changes from solid to liquid, is not 
 particularly agreeable, yet he that 
 makes it forgets when he has reached 
 the shore, and abandoned his plank 
 or log, how he got across. And in 
 this hfe it makes much difference 
 what our body is, but when this life is 
 ended we shall not remember whether 
 we were homely or handsome, stalwart 
 and strong, or weak and effeminate. 
 
 349. Future Disclosure of Char- 
 acter. — If you go into the great 
 manufactories at Lowell and Law- 
 rence, that which you see is that which 
 you never see elsewhere ; and that 
 which you see elsewhere is what you 
 almost never see there. You see 
 there, not colors, but dirty dye-vats ; 
 wool rather than thread, or thread 
 rather than fabrics. Instead of seeing 
 rolls of finished carpeting or cloth, 
 you hear the rattling of looms, 
 spinning-jennies, and other ma- 
 chinery. These things, which absorb 
 your attention, you leave behind you, 
 when you go out ; whereas it is in 
 New York, in London, in the great 
 commercial mart, that you see the 
 fabric which is produced by them. 
 
 Now this world is a great rattling 
 manufactory, and all these physical 
 things are but the stationary engines 
 and looms. They are the things that 
 men never carry with them from this 
 world. And yet, how important they 
 are ! Our life, as it were, is placed in 
 a loom, and woven by these things. 
 It rolls up, and is hidden, as fast as 
 it is woven ; and it is to be taken out 
 of the loom only when we leave this 
 world. We shall see the pattern of it 
 
 only when we abandon the things 
 which act upon us here. 
 
 350. Man's Need of Another Life. — 
 How can you bear the infirmities of life, 
 the sufferings of the body, and the chaf- 
 ings of the soul, which it is impossible to 
 escape here below ? These things are 
 so many light-fingered robbers, that 
 filch perpetually something of our 
 being ; and, if I have nothing but this 
 life, spare me from it. It is not long 
 enough, if this is all that there is to 
 me. It but kindles expectation ; it 
 but sharpens sensibility ; it but renders 
 me capable of greater misery. It can- 
 not satisfy my capacity for enjoyment. 
 But, O, if I have another life ; if God 
 is mine ; if heaven is mine ; if all the 
 noble redeemed in heaven are my 
 elder brethren ; if every step here is 
 carrying me nearer home — what to me 
 are burdens and troubles ? 
 
 351. Earth and Heaven. — When a 
 man is on the sea, and is seasick, he 
 says, "I would not go through this 
 another day for ten thousand conti- 
 nents, if I could help it " ; but when 
 he reaches land and sees one thing 
 that is worth seeing, he says, " I 
 would go ten voyages for the sake of 
 seeing this." It is not wise for a man 
 to put too much emphasis upon the in- 
 cidental experiences of this life. 
 
 352. The Lost Shall be Found. — 
 Whatever we lose here that is worth 
 weeping for we shall find again. 
 When man reaps there is something 
 for the gleaner's hands behind him. 
 He shakes out many kernels for the 
 soil, and drops many heads of wheat 
 for the gleaner. But when God reaps 
 he loses not one kernel, and drops not 
 one single heavy head of grain. And 
 whatever that is good has been taken 
 from you — every straw, and every 
 kernel, and every head — shall be 
 garnered. Only that will remain in 
 the earth which you would fain give 
 
82 
 
 NATURAL LIFE 
 
 to the earth, while that which the 
 heart claims, and must have if it live, 
 awaits you. Great are the joys that 
 are before you, but they do not lie 
 level with the earth. 
 
 353. A Tokerj of Love. — These two 
 uses of precious stones — that by which 
 monarchs conferred honor upon their 
 favorites, and that by which lovers 
 gave token of their afifection for each 
 other, with names inscribed, and 
 known only to love — are here blended. 
 And this, I apprehend, is the origin of 
 the figure of our text, " To him that 
 overcometh will I give a white stone, 
 and in the stone a new name written, 
 which no man knoweth saving he that 
 receiveth it." What is meant by a 
 white stone I do not know, but I pre- 
 fer to think that it was an opal — the 
 most human of all stones. The dia- 
 mond is the more spiritual — there is 
 less of color and more of suggestion in 
 it; but the opal has in it more sym- 
 pathy, more feeling, more wondrous 
 beauty, more of those moods that be- 
 long to the human heart ; and of all 
 the stones that are worn to signify 
 human affection, none is to be com- 
 pared to the opal. And methinks, 
 when God makes this promise of the 
 white stone, it is as if he said, " I will 
 cut your love-name in an opal, and as 
 your King and Lover I will give it to 
 you, and no man shall know the 
 meaning of that name but you your- 
 self." 
 
 354. Things Hoped for in Immor- 
 tality. — We may hope that when we 
 bid adieu to our mortal life, we shall 
 leave behind some things which are 
 necessary to the exigencies of our 
 condition here, but which will not be 
 necessary to our state there. Our 
 imagination, our reason, our affec- 
 tions, and our moral sentiments, we 
 shall doubtless carry with us ; our 
 identity will remain ; and I suppose all 
 
 our faculties will be substantially the 
 same : but the conditions of our life 
 will be so different that we shall be 
 like men taken from poverty into 
 abundance ; from winter into sum- 
 mer ; from a cold climate and a frozen 
 soil, into a soil never locked by ice, 
 and skies that never know frost. Our 
 life there shall be ampler, fuller, no- 
 bler, than it is here. 
 
 355. " Things Which God Hath 
 Prepared." — The darkened sphere of 
 this terraqueous globe lies or moves 
 within a vast spiritual sphere which is 
 filled full of extraordinary develop- 
 ments and phenomena. There is a 
 glorious kingdom which human lan- 
 guage is inadequate to describe ; and 
 we are the heirs of it. We are heirs 
 of God jointly with Jesus Christ our 
 Elder Brother. It is something too 
 large to be depicted, far beyond any 
 eye, or ear, or mental conceptions. 
 
 No man ever looked into the stellar 
 universe, however strong a glass he 
 might have, who did not feel that 
 there was distance upon distance, dis- 
 tance upon distance, and that though 
 there might be a glass that could 
 resolve and define the hitherward 
 planets, none ever was built or would 
 be built that could probe the universe 
 to the utmost bound, and know what 
 this vast thing meant — whence it came, 
 and whither it went. So it is in re- 
 gard to this thought of the apostle. 
 There is that going on which is be- 
 yond our senses, beyond time, beyond 
 matter ; and though faith may get 
 glimpses of it, though the imagination 
 may as it were flash out something to 
 show us what is taking place, no 
 thought can resolve it. We shall find 
 it out when we get there, but never 
 before with any fullness of vision or 
 any ample power of interpretation. 
 
 356. Splendor of the Future. — Im 
 agine an Esquimaux striving to form 
 
IMMORTALITY AND HEAVEN 
 
 83 
 
 some idea of the tropics from the 
 missionary's description. What has 
 he to form an idea from but the moss 
 and stinted shrubs that scarcely grow 
 higher than his feet, and the flowers 
 that blossom in the midst of northern 
 glaciers ? Would he form a concep- 
 tion of the briUiant fruits of the tropics ? 
 He must grub the ground for berries, 
 which are all the fruit that the frigid 
 zone knows. And from the creeping 
 vine of the wintergreen-berries, from 
 the huckleberries, and such like things, 
 he is to form his ideal of those mag- 
 nificent parasitic plants which fill the 
 tropical forests. These little berries 
 are his oranges and bananas and pine- 
 apples. He attempts, shivering in the 
 
 midsummer, under the iceberg, to 
 form a conception of the everlasting 
 pomp and glory of the equatorial 
 region. And when he has formed a 
 conception of it, he cheers himself, 
 and sighs, and wishes he could see it. 
 But what does he know of it ? 
 
 And that which is to be when you 
 shall have left these mortal bodies, 
 when you shall have experienced the 
 sensations of the new life, when you 
 shall have unfolded and come into the 
 realm where things are no longer 
 symbols but reahties ; when the phys- 
 ical shall have ceased, and the spiritual 
 shall have been ushered in — that will 
 surpass any ideal that your highest 
 imagination has ever pictured. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE 
 
BEECHER AT FORTY 
 Photograph by Whipple. 1853 
 
SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 XI, MENTAL, EMOTIONAL, AND MORAL 
 
 ^ALITIES 
 
 I, Mental Qualities. 
 
 357. Effects of Life on the Soul. — 
 Nothing moves in this world that it 
 does not exert an influence on the uni- 
 verse in some degree. The flight of a 
 bird, the faUing of a leaf to the earth, 
 the vibration of a note, anything 
 which causes the least impact, changes 
 the whole universe, as streams that 
 run to the sea and empty themselves 
 into it change the sea, and change the 
 channel from the top to the bottom. 
 The sea roars and murmurs, and then 
 wipes its brow, and is calm again ; but 
 it is never the same sea. The waves 
 striking the shore, and retreating, 
 never leave it as it was. 
 
 Now, if it is so in hard matter, if it is 
 so in visible and physical things, how 
 much more is it so in such mobile and 
 subtle elements as those which consti- 
 tute the soul's life ! How much more 
 is it so with the soul which changes at 
 a glance or a thought, which is more 
 mobile than a thermometer, and which 
 is more sensitive than any barometer ! 
 Yet men are not conscious of it. 
 
 358. The Man of Few Talents. — 
 If I had been made a firefly, it would 
 not become me to say, " If God had 
 only made me a star, to shine always, 
 then I would shine." It is my duty, 
 if I am a firefly, to fly and sparkle, and 
 fly and sparkle ; not to shut my wings 
 down over my phosphorescent self, be- 
 cause God did not make me a sun or 
 a star. 
 
 359. Self- Judgment. — If all other 
 men were but four feet high, a man of 
 five feet would be considered a giant. 
 If he puts his standard low enough, 
 
 87 
 
 a man always can judge favorably 
 about himself. 
 
 360. Common Sense Better Than 
 Uncommon. — Although cake is de- 
 cidedly better than bread, once in a 
 while, yet for every day eating bread 
 is a great deal better than cake. God 
 never made anything that was so good 
 to drink all the time as cold water. 
 If it be milk, if it be any of the long 
 catalogue of artificial drinks, still the 
 best taste for all the time is no taste at 
 all, in the mouth. Water gives that, 
 and nothing else does. 
 
 And so it is in regard to the econo- 
 mies of the mind. The best sense 
 for all work and for all time is com- 
 mon sense. Discrimination, quick 
 judgment, just judgment, in minute 
 things, operating all the time — that is 
 the best. 
 
 361. Intellect and Emotion. — We 
 come into the knowledge of truths of 
 fact and matter by the mediation of 
 our senses ; but there is a higher realm 
 than that of fact and matter. There 
 is an invisible realm where emotion, 
 where sentiment, where spirituality re- 
 side. We come into communion with 
 that realm by the understanding, 
 through the mediation of our personal 
 emotions and feelings. 
 
 Take a little air, or strain, which an 
 organist may give you. Let him, by 
 and by, after playing it on one or two 
 small stops, introduce another stop — 
 a hautbois or a wood-flute, for in- 
 stance ; and you will see that while 
 the air remains, there is a new quality 
 in it. Let him introduce another stop, 
 and another ; and you will see that it 
 
88 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 is still the same melody and harmony, 
 but that something additional has 
 made it richer, sweeter, stronger. 
 
 Now, it is so with the human mind. 
 The intellect is looking at things ; and 
 if all the emotions were shut off, and 
 were not allowed to color them, how 
 barren, how unrich they would be ! 
 But you draw one emotion, and in- 
 stantly the things perceived through 
 the intellect are affected by that emo- 
 tion. As in playing a tune, every ad- 
 ditional stop that is introduced adds 
 a new quality to the sound, so the 
 understanding is modified, changed, 
 enriched, by this or that emotion. 
 
 When the intellect is thus electrified, 
 magnetized, polarized, it comes to a 
 recognition of the greater truths of 
 affection and sentiment. For in- 
 stance, a man who is absolutely with- 
 out love for children or pets will sit in 
 a nursery where children are playing, 
 without any sort of feeling ; but put 
 me where those children are, and I 
 am a-sparkle all over, because I love 
 children. The moment my percep- 
 tive reason and my reflective reason 
 are shot through with the magnetism 
 of this emotion of love for children, 
 I become competent to perceive 
 thoughts and feelings and relations 
 which I never could have perceived 
 by any ordinary process of thinking. 
 It is the thinking power, waked up 
 and acting through the color of an 
 emotion, that brings one into relation 
 to truths belonging to that emotion. 
 
 362. The Image of God. — If one 
 should send me from abroad a richly 
 carved and precious statue, and the 
 careless drayman who tipped it upon 
 the sidewalk before my door should 
 give it such a blow that one of the 
 boards of the box should be wrenched 
 off, I should be frightened lest the 
 hurt had penetrated farther, and 
 wounded it within. But if, taking off 
 
 the remaining boards and the swath- 
 ing-bands of straw or cotton, the 
 statue should come out fair and un- 
 harmed, I should not mind the box, 
 but should cast it carelessly away. 
 
 Now, every man has committed to 
 him a statue, moulded by the oldest 
 master, not of Cupid, or Venus, or 
 Psyche, or Jupiter, or Apollo, but the 
 image of God ; and he who is solicit- 
 ous only for outward things, who is 
 striving to protect merely the body 
 from injuries and reverses, is letting the 
 statue go rolling away into the gutter, 
 while he is picking up the fragments 
 and lamenting the ruin of the box. 
 
 363. Human Spirit Unequally De- 
 veloped. — In point of fact, not one- 
 fifth part of the average of the mind 
 of man is developed at all. If the 
 human body were to be developed as 
 the human mind is, we should have 
 monstrous feet, and monstrous legs, 
 and monstrous hands, and a mon- 
 strous stomach, and a little button of 
 a head surmounting them. We have 
 all the basilar instincts in power among 
 men. Whatever implies appetite, or 
 passion, or force, or executiveness — 
 all cunning, all deceitfulness, all those 
 tendencies by which the lower animal 
 nature either conserves or defends 
 itself — these elements are strong in 
 men without schooling. The social 
 instincts are next strong, but irregular ; 
 they are without any systematic de- 
 velopment. The intellect is compara- 
 tively feeble here. Only parts are de- 
 veloped ; and those are parts that have 
 some relation to physical and profita- 
 ble uses. But the moral nature of 
 most men is almost terra incognita. 
 That part of the human soul which 
 lies the most nearly in communion 
 with God is the most desolate. 
 
 364. Mind Should Dominate. — We 
 do not blame a man, when a sliver 
 enters the flesh, and excites the nerve, 
 
MENTAL OUALITIES 
 
 89 
 
 and the inflammation extends through- 
 out the whole system, if he is fevered ; 
 we do not blame him, under such cir- 
 cumstances, if the distemperature of 
 the whole nervous system makes him 
 insensitive to pleasure, — for what if the 
 sun does shine to him who has the 
 gout? What if showers do descend, 
 to the man who sufifers from neural- 
 gia? What if the flowers bloom on, 
 and the seasons send forth all their 
 treasures, and the morning and even- 
 ing are made glorious by the shooting 
 of splendors along the horizon, to a 
 man of a diseased nerve ? They bring 
 him no gifts, and they have no joy for 
 him. This is true of the body ; but 
 ought it to be true of that which is 
 superior to the body — the mind itself, 
 that is meant to be master of its own 
 economy, and the commonwealth of 
 the soul ? 
 
 365. Impulses to be Guarded. — 
 While I sit writing, I say to myself : 
 " The moment I have finished this 
 sentence I will take the blotting paper 
 and prevent, as I turn the leaf over, 
 blotting the other page ; " and in fin- 
 ishing the sentence I quite forget it ; 
 and yet, as I am about to turn over 
 the leaf my hand goes out for some- 
 thing. What it is I do not know ; and 
 I stop and think, "What did I reach 
 my hand out here for?" I feel that 
 there must be some reason, and I at- 
 tempt to recall it ; and at last it dawns 
 on my mind, and I say, "Why, I 
 thought when I was writing that sen- 
 tence that I would put the blotting 
 paper on here." I had forgotten it in 
 my mind, but in my hand I had not. 
 What has my brain done to my hand ? 
 It has, as it were, made a brain in it, 
 so that when detached from the foun- 
 tain and center of thought it would 
 seem to have in its feelings a sort of 
 subordinate repeating brain-power. 
 The hand tends to do what the brain 
 
 impresses upon it. Be careful of brief 
 impulses : they may come to mischief. 
 
 366. Trained Perceptions. — I was in 
 the Stock Exchange in New York one 
 day, and twenty lunatic asylums let 
 loose would not have made more 
 racket ; but when the confusion was 
 going on I stood by the side of the 
 secretary, and I saw him writing in a 
 book, as fast as he could, definite 
 things. There were the bellowing 
 bulls of Bashan, shouting, hallooing, 
 yelling, in every direction, and I could 
 hear nothing but a terrific crash of 
 sounds ; and I said to him, after the 
 Babel had subsided a little, " How 
 can you understand that? " Said he, 
 "I have got accustomed to it, so that 
 I know just what is said — who buys, 
 what is bought, and how much. 
 These proceedings will be heard from, 
 and you will see that my record is cor- 
 rect." He said, "You can under- 
 stand it a little if I illustrate it by a 
 familiar instance. Suppose a mother 
 is at a party, and her babe is in the 
 adjoining room ; and suppose, by and 
 by, in the midst of the great buzz and 
 hum of conversation and laughter, that 
 babe cries, that one sound will be 
 heard by her above all the noise in the 
 room, and she will go immediately to 
 the relief of her little one. I have 
 trained myself so that one sound in 
 this tremendous noise weighs in my 
 ear more than all the other sounds, 
 and I put down the thing that I know 
 is important." 
 
 367. Trained Calmness. — A man is 
 like a horse. An unbroken horse will 
 run away on some fright. An intelli- 
 gent and well-broken horse will not. 
 And a man that is well-trained, in time 
 of trouble stands still and holds him- 
 self steadily. A man that is not well- 
 broken just at that time breaks the 
 halter, and rushes down the steep 
 precipice, it may be, or sticks fast in 
 
90 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 the morass, and does damage to him- 
 self and all that he carries. There 
 are very few men that have ever been 
 well-broken. 
 
 368. Lower Powers in Higher Life. 
 — Just as you might conceive of a 
 steam-engine running in the basement 
 of a building, and, by bands and 
 straps, turning one wheel here and an- 
 other there for the carrying on various 
 kinds of business in the rooms above, 
 so we may conceive of combativeness 
 and destructiveness as producing 
 effects in the higher realms of life. If 
 you find a man without combativeness 
 — which gives vigor of attack, and de- 
 structiveness — which furnishes conti- 
 nuity of effort, then you find a man like 
 grain which has not enough stiffness 
 in the stem to enable it to stand up, 
 and which will break and fall and rot 
 on the ground. 
 
 369. Mind-Hunger. — I sometimes 
 ask a driver who has gone almost 
 every day for years past conspicuous 
 buildings, " Will you tell me what that 
 building is?" "I cannot," he says ; 
 " I do not know what building it is." 
 "Did you ever ask anybody?" 
 "No." "Did you ever see it?" 
 "Yes, I have seen it." "Did you 
 ever feel any curiosity to know what it 
 was?" "No." He has been so 
 busy looking after passengers and 
 taking the pay that he has never 
 thought or had the curiosity to ask 
 about such a thing as that ! Old-fash- 
 ioned drivers in New England knew 
 every fence-post, every stone in every 
 fence, every house, every man, and 
 his father, and his grandfather, and 
 how they married, and how much they 
 were worth, and all about them ; and 
 no man could ride with him that he 
 did not squeeze him like a sponge, and 
 get out of him everything that was in 
 him. It is called curiosity ; but blessed 
 be curiosity ! I like it when it is the 
 
 result of hunger — thought-hunger and 
 mind-hunger. 
 
 370. Mind-Force and Muscle-Force. 
 — Here was Esau, who represented 
 brute force, which is always at the 
 moment strongest, but at the end 
 weakest. And here was Jacob, timid, 
 cautious, politic, and thoughtful. At 
 the first, such a man always seems to 
 be inferior ; but in the end he always 
 comes out ahead. So it was with these 
 two patriarchs. To the end of his life 
 Esau was a man of valor ; and if Jacob 
 had resorted to force Esau would have 
 swept away all his possessions : but 
 Jacob managed him. When he re- 
 turned from his uncle Laban's with 
 flocks and herds, Esau came with 
 bands to meet him ; but Jacob was too 
 much for Esau. If they had gone to 
 battle Esau would have smote Jacob 
 hip and thigh ; but diplomatic Jacob 
 fixed it all right. He talked so 
 smoothly that he concihated Esau, 
 they made up their quarrels, and one 
 went down to Edom, and the other 
 went back to Palestine. 
 
 Now, in the history of the world 
 does not strength of muscle perform 
 an inferior part ? Is it not thought, is 
 it not foresight, is it not connected 
 thought, is it not persistent thought, is 
 it not brain, that in the end governs? 
 Muscle is very good, but it takes the 
 second place. It may be first-born, 
 but its birthright is gone just as soon 
 as the brain has a chance to manage 
 and contrive. It is thinking-power 
 that governs. 
 
 371. "We Know in Part." — I was 
 struck with a remark that a man once 
 made to me. To my mind he was a 
 marvel of learning. He seemed thor- 
 oughly educated in every direction. 
 As now there is not a tree in the forest 
 which, if you tap it, will not run sap, 
 so there was not a side on which you 
 could touch him where his knowledge 
 
MENTAL QUALITIES 
 
 91 
 
 did not seem complete. I said to him 
 one day, " If I knew a tithe of what 
 you know, I should think myself very 
 fortunate." Said he, " Henry, I seem 
 to myself like a basket in which are 
 being carried away the fragments of a 
 hotel — a bit of this, the fag-end of 
 that, and all sorts of things jumbled 
 up together. I do not know anything 
 except little fragmentary parts of this, 
 that, and the other." This remark 
 made a deep impression on my mind, 
 lodging there like a seed in the soil ; 
 and I have learned, not by knowing 
 so much myself, but by seeing how 
 little they know who know a great 
 deal, that no philosopher, no scholar, 
 no poet, no inspired priest, no man of 
 any considerable understanding, ever 
 lived who did not feel in the end, " I 
 have opened the faculties of my intel- 
 lect a little way ; but I have not de- 
 veloped their full power." 
 
 372. Genius not to be Suppressed. 
 — A genius may be defined to be a 
 man full of tendencies that are not 
 only of a kind but also of a strength 
 which shall enable them to burst the 
 external shell or the rind, and grow; 
 and when you talk about an undevel- 
 oped genius you talk about an un- 
 hatched egg, that very soon turns the 
 other way ! Men that have genius 
 have power to develop that genius. 
 There are a great many persons who 
 think they are geniuses, though they 
 stand hke unlighted candles on the 
 shelf. If they were lighted and gave 
 out a hght, you might call them so; 
 but as they neither give out hght nor 
 can kindle themselves, and are noth- 
 ing but tallow and wick, they repre- 
 sent a great many persons that think 
 they might be geniuses if they only 
 had been born rich, or if they only 
 had education. Thousands of people 
 mistake susceptibility to the effects 
 produced by genius for the power of 
 
 producing those effects themselves. 
 When a man has genius he knows it, 
 and the world knows it, too. 
 
 373. Obligations of Genius. — Gen- 
 ius, so far from having its prerogatives, 
 its inspirations and its rights alone, has 
 its duties, too. How contrary to this 
 has been the public sentiment of the 
 world ! Men refuse to lay the law of 
 Christian integrity upon such men as 
 Byron. He was a great genius. All 
 the more corrupt and wicked was it 
 that he employed genius in such a way 
 as to disturb the purity of mankind. 
 If men were to do to-day the things 
 that Goethe allowed himself to do, 
 how many there would be to rise up 
 and say, " You are not to expect from 
 a great genius such a narrow way of 
 living." We ought to expect from 
 genius a nobler way of life than from 
 anybody else. In the proportion in 
 which men of genius surpass their fel- 
 low-men, they must be the nurses, the 
 guardians, the teachers, the example 
 and the inspiration, of their fellows. 
 
 374. Influence, Independent of Cir- 
 cumstances. — Go into that little closet- 
 room, not as large as this platform, in 
 which Jonathan Edwards wrote his 
 Treatise on the Will, in a cane-bot- 
 tomed chair (a man promised to give 
 it to me, but did not keep his word), 
 and would you say that in such a 
 room, about eight feet square, with no 
 furniture but a chair and a table, it 
 was not possible for a man to write an 
 immortal treatise ? You would have 
 him sit on a meeting-house steeple, 
 and write under the broad canopy of 
 heaven. You would have the place 
 where he worked bear some proportion 
 to his magnificent treatise. But what 
 a man can do does not depend upon 
 the place he is in. His head and 
 heart determine this. You may put 
 him where you please, he does not 
 care. It does not make any difference 
 
92 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 whether a bird sits on the highest or 
 on the lowest bough of a tree, his song 
 fills the air all around about. He 
 sits, to all intents and purposes, wher- 
 ever his song goes. 
 
 375. Imperfection of Great Men. — 
 " But, father," said Rose, "is it not a 
 pity that one so good should not be 
 better ? ' ' 
 
 " Certainly it is. What then ? We 
 are glad to gather thirty bushels of 
 wheat from an acre of ground, but 
 there were two tons of straw and chaff 
 required to grow the wheat. Would 
 you have a man all grain ? Yet, 
 worshiping is natural ; and our first 
 drift, when one affects us well, is to 
 begin shaping him in our thoughts to 
 an ideal perfectness. Then comes the 
 shock of disclosure. Everybody is 
 imperfect; and strong natures, strong 
 enough to overturn old errors, and 
 fight great battles, are likely to be too 
 strong to walk safely in harness and 
 drag our phaetons and chaises! " 
 
 376. Selfishness of Culture. — The 
 burglar is at the door. The children 
 lie asleep. Treasure is scattered 
 about the house. The householder, 
 peering down and seeing the burglar, 
 hurries on some scanty garments, and 
 slips out at the back-door, and takes 
 himself off, for fear that something 
 might hurt him ! Are there not men 
 who are so refined, who are so cul- 
 tured, that they have the very attar, 
 or at least the very concentrated es- 
 sence, of selfishness, and live in a per- 
 petual negation of risk, and in con- 
 tinuous indolence ? They hazard 
 nothing. All they do is to keep 
 themselves respectable. It is base, it 
 is cowardly. 
 
 377. Dangers of Refinement. — As a 
 man wandering up in the Swiss moun- 
 tains out from the lower and warmer 
 valleys, finds that he is leaving popu- 
 lation further and further behind him, 
 
 and that it becomes snowy and cold as 
 he rises; so there are men in society 
 who become as cold as a glacier or 
 the ever-snow-clad peaks of the moun- 
 tains. And though these men are in 
 a hundred respects superior to those 
 with whom they compare themselves, 
 yet there is one fatal point in their 
 case, and that is, that they have taken 
 all this superior culture and all these 
 refining influences, and the result of 
 them in their lives, to separate be- 
 tween themselves and God. And I 
 say to those who are the most deli- 
 cately organized ; who are the most 
 susceptible to taste ; who have an eye 
 that in a day sees more beauty than 
 the clown sees in an age ; whose lip 
 is full of rapture over the marvels of 
 antiquity ; who have commerce with 
 that which is rich, and fine, and 
 noble ; but who leave out from their 
 view God and their fellow-men — I say 
 to them, The publican and the harlot 
 are more likely to be changed, and to 
 return to God, than you are. 
 
 378. Equivalents in Temperament. 
 — Nobody is without his equivalents. 
 If a man is very impulsive, he says, 
 " O, if I could be as cool as that man 
 is ! " The equator is always talking 
 about icebergs, and icebergs are al- 
 ways talking about the equator. If a 
 man is very phlegmatic, he says, " It 
 takes me longer to get a-going than it 
 does my neighbor to get through. I 
 wish that I was quick." The other 
 says, " I am hke powder and 1 go off 
 like powder. I wish I was cool like 
 this man." Nobody, I say, is without 
 his equivalents. If you are phleg- 
 matic, you have disadvantages which 
 an impulsive man has not ; but you 
 also have advantages which he has 
 not. You have your platform, and he 
 has his ; and you are not to stand 
 looking and coveting each other's pe- 
 culiarities. 
 
MENTAL QUALITIES 
 
 93 
 
 379. Imagination. — The imagina- 
 tion — divinest of mental faculties — is 
 God's self in the soul. All our other 
 faculties seem to me to have the brown 
 touch of earth on them ; but this one 
 carries the very livery of heaven. It 
 is God's most supernal faculty, in- 
 terpreting to us the difference between 
 the material and the immaterial, and 
 the difference between the visible and 
 invisible ; teaching us how to take 
 material and visible things and carry 
 them up into the realm of the invisible 
 and the immaterial, and how to bring 
 down immaterial and invisible things, 
 and embody them in visible and ma- 
 terial symbols. 
 
 380. Human Experience Transitory. 
 — The mind itself, the noblest work of 
 God on earth, appears to run through 
 periods, just as flowers do. It is in 
 the bud, and is weak because it has 
 not yet come to itself ; then it blos- 
 soms, and comes to maturity ; and 
 then it seems to fade out again, or to 
 pass back into that great nothingness 
 from which everything appears to 
 come forth. Our thoughts come, and 
 crease time as meteors crease the sky, 
 and then disappear in the darkness 
 again. Our very affections seem, like 
 lamps, to burn out. And if we look 
 back upon the sum of the experience 
 of just one generation, nothing seems 
 so fugacious, so unsubstantial, so ut- 
 terly unsatisfying, as the unrecorded 
 life of thrice ten myriad hearts that 
 throbbed, and loved or hated, feared 
 or hoped, trusted or mourned betrayal, 
 only one generation ago. 
 
 381. Complexity of Man's Nature. — 
 Put a partly trained workman in the 
 midst of that great city of sounds, the 
 organ. Some of those mighty pipes 
 are so large that he cannot tune and 
 manage them. There are so many, 
 and he is so ignorant of them, that no 
 sooner does he go in and work at one. 
 
 and come out to the key -board to try 
 it, than, though that may be proxi- 
 mately correct, when he draws another 
 there is discord elsewhere. When he 
 finds that there is a clashing and bat- 
 thng of sounds in the instrument, back 
 he goes to rectify the fault of the of- 
 fending pipe ; and in doing that he 
 produces conflict somewhere else. So, 
 as soon as he gets one stop right, 
 others are deranged. He is incompe- 
 tent, with his want of knowledge and 
 experience, to manage this complex 
 instrument, which is the fruit of ages. 
 It is only by long years of study and 
 practice that he can become familiar 
 with it in all its parts. 
 
 Man is vaster and more complex 
 than any cathedral organ. His facul- 
 ties are more potential than any 
 sounding pipes. His nature, above 
 and below, is more capable of infinite 
 expansion. He learns himself slowly. 
 And now, after we have learned for 
 five or six thousand, and it may be 
 for ten or fifteen thousand, years, we 
 have but just begun to learn what is 
 the capacity of the human mind, and 
 what are those relations which are in- 
 creasing as fast as we increase. 
 
 382. Complexity of Life — There is 
 many a man who could play a tune 
 on the organ with one finger, picking 
 it out, as it were, who is not able to 
 take a very complicated harmony, re- 
 quiring both hands and both feet, and 
 carrying all the parts on successfully 
 to the end ; and life is so vast and 
 complex that though a man is compe- 
 tent to any individual part of it, yet if 
 he has to take the whole of it to-day, 
 to-morrow, in sickness, in health, when 
 pressed by business, when beset by 
 temptations, when under the influence 
 of excitements in the community, when 
 stimulated by joy or depressed by sor- 
 row, when carrying burdens or when 
 buoyed up by prosperity, when sub- 
 
94 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 jected to all the moods and tenses of 
 human life — then can he do it ? 
 
 383. Inharmonious Faculties. — Some 
 people's heads are mere lodging- 
 houses of faculties ; each lodger minds 
 his own business, and meddles as lit- 
 tle as possible with others. After a 
 whole life, it cannot be perceived that 
 the social affections have derived the 
 least influence from the moral senti- 
 ments by whose side they have lived 
 scores of years. And the reverse, also, 
 is witnessed, when the affections have 
 neither softened nor warmed the moral 
 sentiments, nor seemed to have had 
 any intercourse with them. Many 
 men's passions act without curb or in- 
 fluence from the reason, and are lim- 
 ited and restrained only by their own 
 selfish interests. 
 
 384. Hidden Thoughts.-The thoughts 
 which you hide are the most precious. 
 The shells which the sea rolls out on 
 shore are not its best. The pearls 
 have to be dived for. 
 
 385. Ineffective Thinking. — How 
 much men think day by day that is 
 only thinking ! In my orchards to-day 
 there are, I believe, on single cherry- 
 trees thousands of blossoms ; and prob- 
 ably all but about a hundred or two 
 of those will drop without a cherry 
 having formed under them. Men are 
 like such trees. They breed thoughts 
 by the millions, that result in action 
 only in the scores and the hundreds. 
 
 386. Empty Meditation. — Medita- 
 tion is largely a running of the mind- 
 mill ; and it does not do any good to 
 run the mill when there is no grist in 
 it. Yet many "meditate" who have 
 nothing to meditate on. The great 
 majority of men are unable to supply 
 themselves with food for continuous 
 reflection. 
 
 387. The Soul to be Protected. — We 
 protect the eye, the nerve-woven skin; 
 we learn to be vigilant without volition 
 
 for the body, and even when absorbed 
 in thought there is yet a subtle piloting 
 of the body by the mind, I know not 
 how ; we see the stone without seem- 
 ing to see it ; we avoid the ditch with- 
 out knowing that we noticed it ; we 
 lift the foot with a regulated gradation 
 to meet the varying surface of the 
 road, quite unconsciously ; we instinc- 
 tively discern the qualities of things, 
 and accommodate ourselves to them. 
 
 But the soul is more sensitive than 
 the body. It has a greater surface, it 
 has more branches, it has more arms 
 and feet, it has more nerves, it has 
 more injurable attributes, than the 
 body. It carries them, too, amidst 
 flying missiles countless, endless in 
 succession. When the fire touches 
 gauze, it is too late then to interfere ; 
 you must not let it touch it. When 
 the rap is given to the crystal vase, it 
 is too late then to save it ; you must 
 keep it free from the blow. When the 
 frost has struck the flower, watching 
 is then remediless ; you must keep it 
 where the frost cannot reach it. We 
 must keep sensitive things free from 
 rude contacts. That is true wisdom in 
 practical hfe. And so of hundreds of 
 moral things. We must keep them 
 away from evil, so that it shall not 
 overtake them. A man must carry 
 himself, not so as to repent of harm, 
 but so as, by constant vigilance and 
 forethought, to prevent harm from be- 
 falling him. 
 
 388. Clear and Cloudy Mental 
 Weather. — The execution of a deHcate 
 task depends chiefly on the fine con- 
 dition of a man's faculties. On some 
 days the mind comes up out of sleep, 
 like the sun in a clear October morn- 
 ing. There is neither cloud nor haze. 
 The thoughts and feehngs move in 
 unison, and the tongue, touched from 
 within, like a magnet, draws to itself 
 fittinjr words and sentences. 
 
MENTAL QUALITIES 
 
 95 
 
 Then come the cloudy days. Ill- 
 assorted thoughts procure for them- 
 selves a disagreeable utterance. We 
 spoil whatever we touch. We do 
 nothing lightly, deftly, wisely. The 
 astronomer must defer his observa- 
 tions when clouds are in the sky. In 
 some of the more delicate operations 
 of mechanics, the workman will not 
 touch a tool on days when, as he says, 
 "his hand is dead." What lawyer 
 has not lost cases because he came 
 before the court and jury with his 
 head wearied and his whole body 
 jaded by long-continued and exhaust- 
 ing excitements? What doctor has 
 not lost patients by being called, after 
 sleepless nights, with a stupid brain, 
 to a case requiring insight, precision, 
 and instant action ? What minister 
 has not spoiled a good subject by a 
 poor sermon, because the Sabbath 
 had come round and he must preach, 
 in spite of catarrh and influenza? 
 
 389. Faculties Brighten by Use. — 
 As in the body the muscles which you 
 are accustomed to use most come to 
 have a spontaneity, while those that 
 have been Httle used are comparatively 
 slow and clumsy, so in the mind. The 
 parts which you use most you use the 
 best and most skillfully, while those 
 which you use but little or not at all, 
 you use the worst and least skillfully. 
 
 390. Compensation in Character. — 
 We usually stretch the skirts of one 
 good quality to cover the blank made 
 by the absence of a dozen others. 
 
 391. Multiplicity of Thoughts. — It 
 would be easier for a man to count 
 the drops of a river that flows by him, 
 deep and rapid, than to count the 
 thoughts and feelings and fancies that 
 make the river of life which proceeds 
 from the soul. 
 
 392. Mind- Work at Night. — There 
 is a reason why students prefer the 
 night to the day for their labors. 
 
 Through the day their thoughts are 
 diverted into a thousand streams ; at 
 night they settle into pools, which, 
 deep and undisturbed, reflect the 
 stars. But night-labor in time will 
 destroy the student ; for it is marrow 
 from his own bones with which he fills 
 his lamp. 
 
 393. Thinking and Praying. — Did 
 you ever know a person who could 
 pray down an arithmetic ? Did you 
 ever know one, who, going to school 
 and finding himself puzzled by a tough 
 problem, could get it solved by asking 
 God to solve it for him? Did you 
 ever know anybody to accomplish 
 anything intelligently except by intel- 
 ligent head-work? 
 
 394. The Fertile Mind Natural 
 
 genius is but the soil, which, let alone, 
 runs to weeds. If it is to bear fruit 
 and harvests worth the reaping, no 
 matter how good the soil is, it must be 
 ploughed and tilled with incessant 
 care. 
 
 395. Thinking in a Murk. — The old- 
 fashioned way of preparing a sermon 
 was when a man sat down with his 
 pipe, and smoked and "thought," as 
 he called it ; and after two or three 
 hours, in which he has been in a 
 muggy, fumbling state of mind, he at 
 last comes out with the product of it 
 for the pulpit. It is like unleavened 
 bread, doughy, dumpy and heavy ; 
 hard to eat, and harder to digest. 
 There has been nothing put in it to 
 vitalize it. 
 
 396. A Noble Thought. — A man 
 might frame and let loose a star to roll 
 in its orbit, and yet not have done so 
 memorable a thing before God as he 
 who lets go a golden-orbed thought to 
 roll through the generations of time. 
 
 397. Wise in His Own Conceit. — 
 The opinion of Solomon is not shared 
 by men very generally. Conceit is 
 very much in repute. People who are 
 
96 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 conceited by no means think they are 
 fools : they think that Solomon was 
 one. 
 
 398. Self-Absorption. — Do not be a 
 spy on yourself. A man who goes 
 thinking of himself all the time, with 
 critical analysis, whether he is doing 
 this, that, or any other thing, — turning 
 himself over as if he were a goose on 
 a spit before the fire, and basting him- 
 self with good resolutions, — is simply 
 belittling himself. 
 
 399. Mistakes. — As the axe is made 
 sharp by that which it loses on the 
 grindstone, so men are made sharp by 
 that which they lose through blunders 
 that fit them for the next encounter. 
 
 400. Self-Examination. — Men pull 
 down their hats when they don't want 
 folks to recognize them, and sometimes 
 men want to disguise their own famil- 
 iar faults, not to recognize them ; but 
 after all there are hours when every 
 man is honest with himself, and sits in 
 judgment on his courses. Is not this, 
 the end of a year, time for a change ? 
 
 401. Self-Revelation. — There will 
 come a time when what you spent 
 your life in thinking will appear upon 
 the canvas. Every day your hand 
 dips the brush, and every faculty that 
 you act under, and every motive, gives 
 the color, and though you know it 
 not, every man is thinking his own 
 portrait. The canvas is above ; the 
 man is working beneath. There will 
 come an hour when every man shall 
 stand in the presence of the all-reveal- 
 ing light, and shall see himself— aj he is. 
 
 2. Emotional Qualities. 
 
 402. Thought and Feeling. — There 
 is much contention among men 
 whether thought or feeling is the bet- 
 ter ; but feeling is the bow, and 
 thought the arrow, and every good 
 archer must have both. Alone, one is 
 as helpless as the other. 
 
 403. Belief With the Heart.— The 
 great bulk of the questions about 
 which men are to believe or not to be- 
 lieve have reference to a kind of truth 
 that you never can judge by pure, cold 
 intellect. In other words, all social 
 and all moral truths depend upon the 
 affections. A man who carries a 
 purely mathematical mind to the read- 
 ing of John Milton is a fool. A man 
 who should read Tennyson as a micro- 
 scopist would examine an insect, to see 
 just what and no more is there, how 
 preposterous his conduct would be ! 
 In investigations of matter, quantities 
 and qualities of matter, close and care- 
 ful intellectual research is necessary ; 
 but in matters of imagination, poetry 
 and art, cold intellect is as dead as a 
 mummy three thousand years old. 
 
 In the largest department, then, be- 
 lief depends upon the feelings. I do 
 not mean that it excludes the intellect. 
 I do not mean that intuition and feel- 
 ing are evidence alone. I mean that 
 the investigating intellect is obliged to 
 be in harmony and in communion with 
 the feehngs that dominate the depart- 
 ment where the truth lies. There is a 
 great deal of mathematics in the sci- 
 ence of music, yet music itself cannot 
 be appreciated by the mere man of 
 science without the sense or faculty of 
 music in him. 
 
 404. Faults of Full Natures. — As 
 all good soils naturally run to weeds, 
 so all rich natures naturally run to 
 faults. It has sometimes been said 
 that we cannot help loving men be- 
 cause they are full of faults ; and there 
 is more in that than we may at first 
 suppose. Activity with mistakes is 
 better than inactivity without mistakes. 
 Life with the steam hissing all the time 
 is better than death under any circum- 
 stances. Life carries with it the lia- 
 bility to error ; and so men that are 
 ahve are continually at fault. If the 
 
EMOTIONAL OUALITIES 
 
 97 
 
 water in a bucket is shallow enough, 
 it will never spill over, but if it is full 
 to the brim it will spill over many 
 times — for an even bucket of water 
 never spilled over one side that it did 
 not spill over the other side also. 
 
 405. The Heart Uses the Head. — 
 When any single feeling is strong in 
 us, and kindled to white heat, the in- 
 tellect perceives the truths which that 
 feeling interprets, with a clearness and 
 amazing accuracy which nothing else 
 ever gives. The understanding is to 
 the heart just what a field-glass is to 
 the man that stands behind it and 
 looks through it. In regard to all 
 truths which begin in the feelings, the 
 intellect is a mere medium. For in- 
 stance, all questions belonging to taste 
 depend upon xho. feeling of taste, and 
 the intellect only interprets that feel- 
 ing. All truths of justice depend upon 
 ihe feeling of justice, and the intellect 
 merely interprets that feeling. All 
 truths of worship depend upon the feel- 
 ing of veneration, and tfie intellect 
 only expresses that feeling. All truths 
 that spring from love and benevolence 
 can be expressed by the intellect only 
 so far as it has been imbued with these 
 feelings. In the department of social 
 and moral truth, the intellect knows 
 nothing except what it has been taught 
 by the feelings. 
 
 406. Sordid Sense, Judging Senti- 
 ment. — The disciples were sitting 
 about — those strange men who, hav- 
 ing consorted with Jesus for so many 
 months and years, never could under- 
 stand anything which was not right 
 on the surface. They had Judas for 
 spokesman ; but it is represented here 
 as being the action of them all. These 
 were practical men, men who had good 
 sense. These were men who would 
 laugh at sentiment. These were men 
 who believed in things: and as to 
 feelings, they thought no more about 
 
 them than the farmer thinks of the 
 birds which fly around through his 
 trees and in the air. They are of no 
 account to him. They do not lay 
 eggs for him. They cannot be sold at 
 market. They do not sing for him. 
 They are all very well ; but what are 
 the birds to him ? So the disciples sat 
 there and looked on at that [action of 
 Mary Magdalene] ; and the only thing 
 they thought of was money. There 
 was a royal heart doing obeisance to 
 a royal heart ; and it was done, too, 
 with wonderful suggestiveness to any 
 one who had the sensibility to perceive 
 it, and who could be in sympathy with 
 any such act ; it was felt and honored 
 by the Saviour himself, in a grand and 
 glorious recognition. But here sat 
 these very men whom he had been 
 teaching on the mount and by the 
 sea, in sermon and by parable, and 
 by his own conduct ; and they came 
 down stupidly to this, occurring near 
 the end of his mission, and could not 
 understand it at all. They judged it 
 from the standpoint of merchandise. 
 
 407. Feeling Before Reason in 
 Higher Truth. — In regard to the truths 
 of matter, it is certain that the less 
 emotion there is, the more undisturbed 
 will be that process by which, facts 
 having been observed and coordi- 
 nated, the relations of those facts, or 
 the deductions of them, will be se- 
 cured. In the lower category of 
 truth, then — that of facts of matter 
 and their relations to each other — the 
 emotions are a disturbing force in rea- 
 soning. 
 
 But in the higher forms of truth, re- 
 lating to thoughts of the mind and 
 things of the spirit — moral, social, af- 
 fectional, esthetic truth — conviction 
 depends far more on the feelings than 
 on the presentation of reasons or dy- 
 namic quaUties. . . . What is just, is 
 not apprehended by reason of an Intel- 
 
98 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 lectual statement of what it is, but 
 from a peculiar experience of con- 
 science. A thing is beautiful, not ac- 
 cording to rules and statements, but 
 according to an esthetic experience 
 in the man himself. You cannot make 
 a man laugh because he ought to 
 laugh. You may analyze a jest, or a 
 flash of wit, and present it to a man, 
 saying, " Here are the elements of 
 mirth ; and these being presented to 
 you as I now present them, if you are 
 a rational being you will accept the 
 statement of them, and laugh;" but 
 nobody laughs so. People laugh first, 
 and afterwards think why they laugh. 
 The feeling of mirth is first excited ; 
 and afterwards the intellect analyzes 
 that which produced the laughter. It 
 converts into an idea that which was 
 first an emotion or an experience. 
 
 408. The Power of Feeling. — As 
 streams of water turn mill-wheels, 
 night and day, themselves slender, 
 yet powerful in their accumulation, so 
 trickling heart-streams turn the great 
 wheel of life's purposes. 
 
 409. Delicacy. — Delicacy is a spring 
 which God has sunk in the rock, which 
 sends its quiet waters with music down 
 the flowery hillside, and which is pure 
 and transparent, because it has at the 
 bottom no sediment. 
 
 410. Emotion and Motion. — Al- 
 though emotive men are sensitive to 
 feeling, the unemotive men never use 
 their feeling as a cascade to fill the air 
 full of flying drop and vapor ; they 
 use it rather as a mill-stream with 
 which to turn the wheel of purpose 
 and activity. 
 
 411. Extremes of Emotional Na- 
 tures. — The liability of men to have 
 moods will never change, any more 
 than the liability of the ocean to have 
 tides will change. If a man is so 
 made that his blood courses in his 
 veins like tides in the Bay of Fundy, 
 
 how can it be otherwise than that 
 when the tides go out he shall be on 
 the sand ? 
 
 412. Unwritten Realities. — If all the 
 emotions that rise in every soul through 
 one single livelong day could address 
 themselves either to the eye or to the 
 ear, how many dramas that are never 
 written would there be ! How many 
 concerts that are never heard would 
 play in the air ! What hope, what 
 fear, what sorrow, what joy, what 
 tenderness of love, what rudeness of 
 anger, what despotism of pride, what 
 throngs of ever-weaving fancies, what 
 strange thoughts of things, or quahties 
 of imagination, what faith, what enor- 
 mous productiveness there is in the 
 silence of every human soul, and how 
 the unwritten realities of human life 
 put to shame, whether in fearfulness 
 or in grandeur, all that literature ever 
 indited ! We lose, we waste the most 
 precious part ; and human life, like an 
 unstopped vase of effervescent and 
 perishing quahty, exhales and throws 
 off into the absolute and the eternal 
 the very best portions of itself. 
 
 413. High Feelings Transitory. — 
 I have walked for hours in the red and 
 yellow sea of the Louvre galleries, 
 feeling a kind of sacred intoxication 
 such as to render me almost uncon- 
 scious of my bodily state ; but being 
 too much to last, it soon passed away. 
 ... In its first form, a feeling, 
 where it is an intense, vivid, conscious 
 emotion, subsides quickly. It is a 
 blaze, not a coal. 
 
 414. Evanescence of Experiences. — 
 Where is all that gay plumage which 
 the trees lifted up some six months 
 agone ? Where is all that purple 
 garniture of the fields that delighted 
 every eye that looked upon it? The 
 fields are bare and russet, and the 
 trees hold up their branches against 
 the sky, without leaf or blossom of 
 
EMOTIONAL QUALITIES 
 
 99 
 
 fruit. Look back upon those ten 
 thousand experiences which you passed 
 through last year. How many of them 
 can you revive ? How many of them 
 could you now recite ? If narrated to 
 you, how like the history in a novel 
 would they be to you ! We are 
 neither as happy nor as miserable as 
 we think. 
 
 415. Shallow Natures. — There be 
 people who have ripples, but never 
 waves ; who have surface feelings, but 
 never depths of feeling. They never 
 have deep convictions or deep emo- 
 tions ; yet they are always shimmering 
 and moving. They are persons that 
 are like farms that have only had 
 surface-plowing three or four inches 
 deep, under which is a hard-pan 
 through which neither root nor mois- 
 ture can break, so that what is planted 
 thereon has a sprinkling growth, and a 
 meager existence. 
 
 416. Great Feelings for Great Oc- 
 casions. — I can understand, how in 
 battle, a son, seeing the fatal stroke 
 descending upon his father, might 
 rush in and take it himself; or how 
 father and mother might go into a 
 burning house to save a child when 
 the chances were ninety-nine in a 
 hundred that they would perish. I 
 can understand how a mother might 
 deliberately calculate that her life will 
 be sacrificed if she nurses her child 
 through a fatal malady, that while the 
 child will barely escape, she cannot 
 possibly escape, and that she may say, 
 " I am glad to lay down my life for 
 my child." Such cases are excep- 
 tional, but they may occur. If, how- 
 ever, a person thirteen years old were 
 to be examined for admission to this 
 church and it should be said to him, 
 " Now, my dear young friend, do you 
 think you would be willing to lay 
 down your life for the members of 
 this church ? " he might, if he ba«f been 
 
 taught to answer parrot-like, say, 
 " Yes, sir," not knowing what else to 
 say ; but if he spoke truly he would 
 say, " No, I would not." He would 
 not, and you would not. I call for 
 volunteers. How many of you are 
 willing to lay down your lives for the 
 brethren ? You all sit still, I observe ; 
 and you do right. You have not 
 reached the state in which you feel 
 such willingness. Yet there is pro- 
 vision in you for the development of a 
 feeling like that. It is possible for a 
 man to rise to a state of exaltation and 
 disinterested love in which he could 
 easily give his life for another. 
 
 417. Sharing the Good Things. — 
 A person says, " I will put this clump 
 of flowers under the parlor window." 
 No, no ; put them by the gate. A 
 thousand will see them there, where 
 one would see them in that other 
 place. A person says, " I will put 
 this plant back where nobody can 
 reach it." Well, do ; but put two close 
 to the fence, where they can be 
 reached. I like to see little hands go 
 through the pickets and pluck off 
 flowers. And if you say, " That is 
 stealing," then let it be ; understood 
 through all the neighborhood that it is 
 not stealing. There are some who 
 seem to have such a sense of property 
 that if they had a hundred magnolia 
 trees in full blossom on their premises, 
 they would want the wind to blow from 
 the north and south and east and west, 
 so that all the fragrance would come 
 into their own house ; whereas the true 
 spirit would be a desire that a thou- 
 sand others should be blessed by these 
 bounties as well as themselves. 
 
 418. Deep Emotion not Common. — 
 I recollect being strongly impressed, 
 on reading the account of an old 
 castle in Germany, with two towers 
 that stood up mighty, and far apart, 
 between which an old baron stretched 
 
 LofC. 
 
lOO 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 large wires, thus making a huge 
 <EoHan harp. The summer breezes 
 played through these wires ; but there 
 was no vibration. Common winds, 
 not having power enough to move 
 them, split, and went through them 
 without a whistle. But when there 
 came along great tempest-winds, and 
 the forests rocked, and the heaven 
 was black, and the air resounded, 
 then these winds, with giant touch, 
 swept through the wires, which began 
 to ring, and roar, and pour out terrific 
 melodies. So God stretches chords in 
 the human soul, and ordinary in- 
 fluences do not make them vibrate ; 
 but now and then great tempests 
 sweep through them, and men are 
 conscious that tones are produced in 
 them which could not have been pro- 
 duced except by some such handling. 
 
 419. Poor Contentment. — There is 
 a sense in which a man, looking on 
 the present in the light of the future, 
 and taking his whole being into the 
 account, may be contented with his 
 lot ; that is Christian contentment. 
 But I tell you, that if a man has 
 come to that state in which he says, 
 " I do not want to know any more, or 
 do any more, or be any more," he is 
 in a state in which he ought to be 
 changed into a mummy ! Of all 
 hideous things mummies are the most 
 hideous ; and of mummies, those are 
 the most hideous that are running 
 about the streets and talking ! 
 
 420. Patience is Self-Control. — Cour- 
 age is brilliant, ready to meet and resist, 
 to put on the whole armor of God, and 
 go forth to battle and overcome ; or 
 being set upon vehemently, to be able 
 to stand a blow. There is something 
 rather lustrous in that. There is a hero- 
 ism in it. But patience — what is there 
 in that ? Yet it is really the quality by 
 which a man holds himself equal to 
 his circumstances. It is that supreme 
 
 quality by which a man reins in his 
 forces, places himself willingly where 
 God, by his providence, allots him ; 
 where he has that consideration for 
 himself, as a child of God and an heir 
 of immortality, that no condition upon 
 earth can daunt him. 
 
 421. The Patience of the Dull. — 
 Suppose a man should take a babe 
 and lay it down to sleep by the side 
 of a crocodile, in a place that was 
 infested by mosquitoes and gnats and 
 sand flies ; and suppose when the 
 child, bitten by these insects and 
 suffering with pain, waked up and 
 began to fret and cry, the crocodile 
 should say, " My dear child, what is 
 the matter ? Why are you so irritable ? 
 I do not feel anything. I can keep 
 my patience." Many men are covered 
 with thick shells, and are good na- 
 tured because nothing hurts them. 
 Such men ought not to be censors of 
 those who suffer at every pore. 
 
 422. Changing Moods and Powers. 
 — Did you ever attempt to row a boat 
 on the East River when the tide was 
 one way, and you wanted to go the 
 other? I lay an hour off the Navy 
 Yard soon after I came to live here. 
 I thought I was making good prog- 
 ress ; but I noticed that there was a 
 great similarity in the appearance of 
 the vessels lying about me, and on 
 looking at the shore I found that in 
 an hour I had not advanced a foot. 
 
 I have seen men do the same thing 
 on streams, not of water, but of resolu- 
 tions. Many a man works hard to 
 keep good resolutions without making 
 a step so long as the tide is against 
 him. And blessed be God for the 
 hour that changes the tide. I ran 
 down from the Navy Yard very quick 
 when the tide turned so as to be with 
 me instead of against me. And 
 blessed are those periods when that 
 tide runs towards heaven which has 
 
EMOTIONAL QUALITIES 
 
 loi 
 
 been running towards hell, and has 
 carried men far down with it. 
 
 423. Man's Need of Restraint. — 
 You may take the finest Messenger 
 colt that ever lived, and he never will 
 be valuable unless he goes into the 
 trainer's hands. Pass by the yard. 
 See him with the surcingle tight about 
 him. See him with martingales on, 
 and with his head brought down by 
 them. See him with bit in mouth, 
 and guiding-reins behind. See how 
 fractious he is. He has lost his 
 liberty ; but he is on the way to find 
 it. He never would know what he is 
 if it were not for that harness — for a 
 harness is an instrument not for 
 hindering an animal's strength, but 
 for developing it. And as by break- 
 ing you keep a colt whole, and have 
 every part of him unwasted, not lost, 
 so it is by being broken in, by having 
 their wildness of nature restrained, 
 that men come to their real selves. 
 
 424. Just Anger. — A man that does 
 not know how to be angry, does not 
 know how to be good. A man that 
 does not know how to be shaken to 
 his heart's core with indignation over 
 things evil, is either a fungus or a 
 wicked man. " Abhor that which is 
 evil" is the divine command, just as 
 much as "Cleave to that which is 
 good." High and gusty passions 
 that sweep through the soul are some- 
 times like fierce summer storms that 
 cleanse the air, and give the earth re- 
 freshment by strong winds and down- 
 pelting rains. Men are better for 
 knowing how to be angry, provided 
 the sun does not go down on their 
 wrath, and provided it is justified by 
 the occasions of it. If a man hates 
 meanness and dishonor, he may be 
 angry at them ; if it is men's sins, and 
 not their faults, not their foibles, not 
 their unintentional offences, not their 
 piques of his pride and vanity that 
 
 make him angry. Soul-destroying 
 wickednesses among men — these 
 should excite your anger. I would 
 that men were fretful less and angry 
 more. 
 
 425. The Passions. — When they 
 were storing that great cavern of Hell 
 Gate with explosive tubes for clearing 
 away the rocky obstructions in the 
 channel, there were to be three thou- 
 sand handled by two hundred or a 
 hundred and fifty men ; and they all 
 knew that if any man dropped one the 
 whole would explode in a moment and 
 they would perish ; and with what 
 care and circumspection did every 
 man of them labor ! If it did not 
 turn the hair of the superintendent 
 gray it ought to have done so, to 
 watch the work ! But skill and great 
 care accomplished all safely. If men 
 felt that they were bearing explosive 
 materials within them, if they had a 
 sense of the training that is needed in 
 certain parts of their nature, and if 
 they joined training to prayer, then 
 they might hope to have some answer 
 to their petitions when they prayed, 
 
 426. Lustful Fires. — Many employ 
 their time in fostering passions and 
 malign desires, which are to turn 
 their life into a volcanic region 
 scorched and burned. 
 
 427. The Torment of Revenge. — If 
 Dante were here, and he wanted to 
 go to hell, I think he would go down 
 into hearts that were built large for 
 love, but that are closed by the 
 crater of revenge, where love has 
 turned, not to hate, but to a kind of 
 subtle torment. Right there you will 
 find a gate which, if you open it, will 
 disclose to you hell below. 
 
 428. Training of Character. — When 
 a steed is first brought into the ring to 
 be broken, he is wild and fiery ; he 
 snorts at the sight of the bridle and 
 saddle ; he is restless under the rider ; 
 
102 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 there is nothing at which he does not 
 shy ; his gait is irregular : but patient, 
 firm, dihgent training by and by 
 subdues him. so that he becomes 
 docile, and his original frantic efforts 
 become nimbleness and fine action. 
 He is not changed so that he has 
 other than a quick, sensitive disposi- 
 tion ; but his quickness and sensitive- 
 ness are disciplined to such an extent 
 that he is steady and easily manage- 
 able. He is " broken," not in his na- 
 ture, but in the way in which he 
 carries that nature. You must learn 
 how to direct the elements of your 
 being aright, and then you must make 
 your physical, intellectual, social and 
 moral powers cooperate. 
 
 429. Training Untractable Natures. 
 — A hot, irritable nature may not be 
 converted into an even and calm one, 
 but a man who has a great deal of 
 nerve, who is like a flame of fire, who 
 is constitutionally quick and imperious, 
 can teach his faculties to work in such 
 a way as to make his quickness and 
 imperiousness a_benefit, not a curse. 
 
 430. Man's Faculties to be Regu- 
 lated. — In the stalls of the human 
 soul, in all the lower range of 
 faculties, there is not one steed for 
 which there is not harness or bridle, 
 and which, being bitted and trained, 
 a man cannot ride and drive. 
 
 431. Formative Influences. — The 
 most noisy and ostentatious influences 
 of summer are not those which chiefly 
 shape its destiny. It is the sum of 
 small and even inconspicuous things, 
 acting in gentle continuity, that gives 
 tone and character to the year. Frosts, 
 that in summer become dews ; dews, 
 that in winter are transformed to 
 frosts ; tiny mosses and silken grasses; 
 the up-sucking of moisture by hidden 
 and silent roots ; the fall of outworn 
 leaves, and their conversion to mould ; 
 the silent power of remote orbs, that 
 
 sheet the earth with light, pierce it 
 with heat, that move the tides, and 
 swing the globe itself around its cir- 
 cuit — these undemonstrative and mod- 
 est influences — silent, precious, in- 
 visible attractions — are the great 
 workers of Nature. Nor is the 
 analogy wanting in the soul of man. 
 The influential agents which determine 
 destiny are often so soft and subtle 
 that the very touch is not felt, nor the 
 presence discovered of things which 
 change or fix the mind's moods, and, 
 with constant recurrence, fashion the 
 character. 
 
 432. Self-Portraiture. — That motive 
 which is all the time inspiring you to 
 work is the chisel that is cutting out 
 your portrait. The higher the motive, 
 the finer becomes the sculpturing hand 
 which is fashioning your features. If 
 the motive is the highest, the linea- 
 ments are being formed to represent 
 all the beauty of divine nobility. 
 
 433 . Self-Recognition. — At a friend's 
 house lately, I saw what was appar- 
 ently a little book lying on the table, 
 and I took it up. On the outside was 
 The Portrait of an Angel. On opening 
 it. I found that it was a mirror. And 
 O. what an angel I saw in it ! If a 
 man takes the mirror of an ideal Chris- 
 tian manhood and looks at himself in 
 it, what he sees himself to be is not 
 exactly his pattern of a man in Christ 
 Jesus. 
 
 434. Energy of Goodness. — A man 
 may have a mild and languid con- 
 science like an autumnal October day 
 that just shines and ripens nothing ; 
 but if he have combative energy it 
 will give to his conscience an edge 
 and a cutting power that will make it 
 regent. A man may have a sweet 
 good nature that is full of nothing but 
 moonshine ; but if he is energetic the 
 informing power underneath it may 
 make his benevolence walk to and fro 
 
EMOTIONAL OUALITIES 
 
 103 
 
 up and down the earth in the midst of 
 mercy and benefaction, like the efful- 
 gent sun of June. 
 
 435. Power of Intensity. — These 
 higher moods are those in which one 
 mind dominates another. Love and 
 faith at white heat are irresistible. 
 One reason why the Apostles had such 
 power wherever they went was, that, 
 having no fastidious taste or thought 
 about the form or proportion of any- 
 thing, they had this lunging power, 
 and they were hot all over, all the 
 time, and everywhere men caught fire 
 at their sacred touch. 
 
 We see this exemplified in* society. 
 Hundreds of men, who are rich in 
 learning, ponderous in mental equip- 
 ment, ample in philosophical power, 
 admirable in proportion, who are at a 
 low degree of temperature, and who 
 labor all their life, achieve but little. 
 And you shall see right by the side of 
 them men who have no comparison 
 with them in native power — certainly 
 not in culture — but who have sim- 
 plicity, straightforwardness, and above 
 all i7ite7isity, and who are eminent for 
 their success in accomplishing results. 
 It is the fervidness of their spirit. 
 
 436. God, the Mover ; Man, the 
 Actor. — If God inspires you, he in- 
 spires you to use your faculties. He 
 does not use your faculties for you ; he 
 does not tell you what to do with 
 them ; he wakes you up to use them 
 for yourself ; and you are responsible 
 for the character of the results which 
 are produced by their use. And you 
 are not to confound the impulse with 
 the results to which that impulse leads 
 you. Not every mill brings out good 
 fabrics that has a good water-power 
 turning the wheel, or a good engine 
 carrying the machinery ; God supplies 
 the motive power for the machinery, 
 but you are the spinners and weavers. 
 The pattern that comes out of the 
 
 loom — the fabric — is yours. That 
 which stimulates is Divine. 
 
 437. Influence of Soul on Soul. — 
 When, in the hour of battle, the leader 
 fills his followers with an enthusiasm 
 that seems like a secret fire, it is said 
 that he infuses himself into them — and 
 it is near enough to Hfe to be accepta- 
 ble as a figure or as a mode of speech. 
 What is it but this : that he has in him 
 the power of piercing the souls of men 
 with the enthusiasm which is in him- 
 self, and developing in them what was 
 there before, but what they had not 
 the power to develop in themselves, 
 or would not develop ? It was there, 
 or he could not have developed it. 
 An enthusiast has the power to excite 
 enthusiasm. He excites it. The cre- 
 ative force is in the mind itself, which 
 was preadapted to all its own exigen- 
 cies ; and all that the enthusiast does 
 is to kindle the fire, the fuel of which 
 was already prepared in your soul. 
 
 438 . Universal Desire of Excitement. 
 — Men are conscious that in their 
 higher moods the faculties excite them 
 deeply, and open up ranges of power, 
 and create experiences which they 
 would never have suspected, judging 
 from the average experience of ordi- 
 nary Hfe. Men seek this exhilaration. 
 It may seem very strange to say that 
 dissipation itself, and the revelries of 
 life, wild and corrupt, are only blind 
 and stupid reachings after this higher 
 life ; but it is so. Men are conscious 
 that there is more in them than is 
 brought out by ordinary things ; and 
 they are all the time seeking in a 
 blind, and crude, and often mischiev- 
 ous way, to touch that hidden inward 
 power, and bring it out. They seek, 
 it may be wrongly, to bring out the 
 lower power in its inflammation, or 
 they may seek to bring it out by 
 wrong agencies. At any rate, they 
 bring it out in unregulated ways. But 
 
104 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 the strife alter it shows that there is in 
 man this mysterious, hidden, inward 
 power, greater than that which be- 
 longs to common everyday life. This 
 is the motive of the chase. This is 
 the motive of war. 
 
 439. Energizing Power of Excite- 
 ment.— All men are conscious of the 
 opening up in some of their faculties 
 of great powers which do not belong 
 to their ordinary exercises. For ex- 
 ample, there are few of you who have 
 not known what swell and energy 
 there is in anger, and how much more 
 every part of a man's nature seems to 
 be intensified under its influence. A 
 man in the ordinary drawl of a good- 
 natured life seems half the time not a 
 man ; but when he is roused up with 
 indignation that touches him to the 
 very bottom, he feels as though he 
 had in himself the being of at least 
 twenty men. Such is the energizing 
 power of even so low a passion as 
 anger. 
 
 440. Climate and Brains. — Our cli- 
 mate is stimulating. There is more 
 oxygen in our air. It has some im- 
 portance in this, that anything that 
 gives acuteness, vivacity, spring, to 
 the substance of the brain prepares it 
 for education and larger intelligence. 
 A dull, watery, sluggish brain may do 
 for a Conservative ; but God never 
 made them to be the fathers of prog- 
 ress. They are very useful as brakes 
 on the wheel down hill ; but they 
 never would draw anything up hill. 
 
 441. The Law of Feeling. — A pri- 
 mary emotion will have an influence 
 on the life as long as the exciting 
 cause is present, and no longer ; but 
 a feeling in the secondary form is dif- 
 fused through life, and works in it 
 perpetually. It is less pleasurable in 
 the secondary state than in the pri- 
 mary state, but it is ten thousand times 
 more efficacious and useful. The law 
 
 of feeling, then, is that it has two 
 states, in the first of which it is a mere 
 emotion, and in the second of which 
 it harnesses itself as a motive power 
 to a practical purpose and becomes 
 an efficient laborer in daily life. 
 
 442. Emotion in Action. — Here are 
 in a great battle thousands of men 
 wounded and scattered all over the 
 field, and the calmest, the coolest, the 
 most unfeeling men on the whole 
 ground are the surgeons. Pale, cold 
 are they. They are perfectly col- 
 lected. Their voice does not tremble. 
 They are decisive, and at times almost 
 fierce. ' What is it? Do not they feel 
 humanity ? Probably there is no man 
 on the whole ground that feels it so 
 much. But the intensity of their feel- 
 ing transmutes itself into instant activ- 
 ity. And the sign that they feel is 
 what they are going through, or what 
 they are doing. There is no room for 
 more feeling. They change it into 
 the better form in which right feeling 
 should always seek to develop itself — 
 action. 
 
 443. Reaction of Feeling. — Dana 
 relates of himself that when, after hav- 
 ing been absent from home about 
 three years, before the mast, on a 
 perilous voyage, the vessel was near- 
 ing his native land, he fed deHciously 
 on the prospect of soon seeing those 
 he loved ; but that when she came 
 into port, and a boat was sent to take 
 him to the shore, he could hardly pre- 
 vail upon himself to go off and meet 
 his friends. He had passed the acme 
 of feeling, and was under the influence 
 of that reaction, with its accompany- 
 ing numbness, which comes after an 
 excess of emotion or excitement. 
 
 444. Happiness and Nerves. — Men 
 of a phlegmatic temperament and who 
 live in indolence, are measurably 
 happy; they experience a low degree 
 of enjoyment. But how much happi- 
 
MORAL QUALITIES 
 
 105 
 
 ness can belong to such a mood as 
 they must be in — essentially torpid, 
 with no resiliency ? If the tow is 
 corded and strained tight, and then 
 struck, it gives forth a tone ; but if 
 you strike the uncorded tow as it lies 
 in a heap, you get no sound from it. 
 The nerves of some men are, as it 
 were, flaccid, and they have no power 
 to vibrate or respond to the touch. 
 The human mind is in its best condi- 
 tion for producing enjoyment when it 
 is intense. 
 
 3. Moral Qualities. 
 
 445. Neither Good nor Bad. — Men 
 are afraid of extremes. They think 
 the " golden mean," as it is called, — 
 and oftentimes it is mean enough, — is 
 the safest. It may be, where the ques- 
 tion is one of mere expediency, where 
 no moral principle is involved. But 
 where is it a mean that stands between 
 right and wrong, where it is a mean 
 that stands between honor and dis- 
 honor, where it is a mean that stands 
 between courage and cowardice, 
 where it is a mean that stands be- 
 tween selfishness and benevolence, 
 where it is a mean that wants the 
 benefits of both sides without the re- 
 sponsibility of either, then it is a point 
 of unmanhness. Zero begins halfway 
 between right and wrong ; and when 
 a man stands on zero in moral things, 
 you may understand about where he 
 is. He is in that point in which — 
 changing the figure — God is pleased 
 to say to him, " Because thou art 
 lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I 
 will spew thee out of my mouth." So 
 much for a man's popularity in heaven 
 who takes the "golden mean" be- 
 tween moral extremes ! 
 
 446. Duty and Destiny. — He who 
 is false to present duty breaks a thread 
 in the loom, and will find the flaw 
 when he may have forgotten its cause. 
 
 447. Good in Every Man. — If a tree 
 bears wholesome fruit, we do not eat 
 the entire tree ; we only eat the fruit. 
 So it is with men : we do not eat 
 them all. There are no perfect folks 
 in this world ; or, if there are, I have 
 never met them. Men's lives are to 
 be taken in their best and highest 
 form ; and there is something that is 
 good in each one. 
 
 448. Rough Outside, Sweet Inside. 
 — There are people of all degrees and 
 classes of goodness and badness, but 
 nobody is perfect. And among these 
 there is a very large class whose out- 
 side is bad, and whose inside is good. 
 Like chestnuts, they are hard to deal 
 with, but are excellent when they are 
 out of the burr. 
 
 449. Moral Training. — Most men, 
 I think, in respect to questions in life, 
 are as I am in counting money. I 
 count only for confusion. The first 
 time going over, the amount is a hun- 
 dred dollars ; and, to make it sure, I 
 count again, when it is a hundred and 
 ten ; and, as there must be an error 
 somewhere, I count again, and it is 
 ninety-five ; and the longer I count 
 the more utterly uncertain I am wliat 
 the sum is. So it is with men in refer- 
 ence to their moral judgments of af- 
 fairs. They go over, and over, and 
 over them, because there is a funda- 
 mental want of moral accuracy, aris- 
 ing from a want of training and right 
 habit in that regard. 
 
 450. Regulation, not Destruction. — 
 Imagine a dove saying, " I dislike 
 this glossy green on my neck," and 
 trymg to remove it. It may rub the 
 feathers ofl", but they will speedily 
 come green again. It cannot eradi- 
 cate the color from its feathers. The 
 sunflower will be yellow, however 
 much it may prefer to be violet. 
 Everything will have its own pecuHar 
 form, its own peculiar color, its own 
 
io6 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 peculiar juices, its own peculiar odors, 
 and its own peculiar constitution. 
 God meant that it should be so ; he 
 watches to see that it is so ; he holds 
 things down in their places, and you 
 among them, and your faculties in 
 you. He gives you liberty to control 
 one faculty by another, but he never 
 gives you liberty to rub out one figure. 
 The problem you are to work out in 
 life requires that you should use every- 
 thing put into you. 
 
 451. Variations, and Steadfast Pur- 
 pose. — It is no small thing for a man 
 to have a rule in his mind by which 
 to judge every part of his life, even 
 though every part of his life may not 
 always conform to that rule. 
 
 If you have stood by the pilot of a 
 ship, and watched him as he steered 
 it, you know that such is the build of 
 the shio, such is its equipoise, and 
 such is uie unequal motion given to it 
 by the waves and winds, that no man 
 can hold it exactly to its course. No 
 sooner is it brought into steering line 
 than it is carried to the right or to the 
 left. One minute it is too far inland. 
 The next minute it is too far in the op- 
 posite direction. The pilot is obliged 
 to be constantly turning the wheel to 
 meet the various forces that oppose 
 him. The steering of a ship is marked 
 by a succession of imperceptible zig- 
 zags ; a man's life certainly is, whether 
 a ship's steering is or not; but where 
 the voyage is as wide as the breast of 
 the Atlantic, where it is the whole of 
 our earthly existence, and where a 
 man has a definite purpose which 
 constitutes his steering-line, and he 
 comes to that in the end, it amounts 
 to a straight voyage. 
 
 452. Mutual Judgments. — There are 
 some men whose thinking powers are 
 preponderant ; they think as easily 
 as a bird flies: but when they would 
 apply their thoughts to practical 
 
 things, they are like birds that try to 
 walk, and only hop, making little 
 progress, and that with fitful awk- 
 wardness. There are others that think 
 very little, but feel a great deal. Their 
 great hearts, filled with emotions, are 
 like full reservoirs or swollen streams. 
 Their life proceeds from feeling. 
 There are still others that have not 
 much power of thought nor of feeling, 
 but great passional power. Then 
 there are those who are characterized 
 by great energy — who have rude, 
 quartz-crushing, pile-driving natures. 
 It is the supremest conceit for one to 
 assume his own disposition and tem- 
 perament as the measure of other 
 men, judging their conduct, not by 
 the influences which the actor felt, but 
 by the motives which the critic would 
 have felt. 
 
 453. The " Personal Equation " in 
 Moral Judgments. — You will take no- 
 tice how careful men are in forming 
 their beliefs on scientific subjects. 
 , , . When a star in transit passes 
 a given line, and a man records the 
 time exactly of its striking the line, it 
 will happen that a dull brain did not 
 see it for a measurable period of time 
 after a sensitive and quick brain. 
 Some men are quicker, some men are 
 slower, some intermediate ; and the 
 astronomer is obliged to have a " per- 
 sonal equation" of his own pecuUar- 
 ities of quickness or slowness, accord- 
 ing to rules that have been established, 
 so that in making the additions or sub- 
 tractions, he always takes it into ac- 
 count as a part of his calculations. 
 
 This is for the sake of physical ob- 
 servations. Who ever thought of 
 making a personal equation in the 
 judgment of men on great moral ques- 
 tions or questions of art ? Men go 
 blundering into these great depart- 
 ments, every man thinking he can un- 
 derstand as well as every other man. 
 
MORAL QUALITIES 
 
 107 
 
 454. Moral Intuition. — Where any 
 faculty exists in great strength, or 
 where under particular excitement it is 
 carried above the level of its ordinary 
 unfolding, it becomes luminous in this 
 sense — that it throws a light before re- 
 flection upon the path of reflection. 
 Before thought it guides thought, so 
 that all the way through hfe we find 
 that there is this intermingUng on the 
 part of superior organizations or on 
 the part of ordinary organizations in 
 their superior moments — revelations 
 made to them. Take the case of 
 music. A man who has in him the 
 genius of music, standing in the midst 
 of an orchestra of one hundred per- 
 formers, discerns discord — a half tone, 
 or discord even less — and he not only 
 sees it in the vast measure and move- 
 ment of various instruments, and in 
 the progress of the thought through 
 sound he not only perceives it in- 
 stantly, but he sees where it came 
 from ; he knows the very instrument 
 that produced it. /might stand there 
 years, and never dream of it. . . . 
 That which to a common man seems 
 as if it was not very rude, to a sensi- 
 tive and exquisitely loving nature is 
 painful to the last degree. It is the 
 higher intuition, the higher judgment 
 of the finer and the larger faculties of 
 the mind or in the larger organization, 
 — it is out of these that come what we 
 call intuitions, and in the lower forms 
 they pervade society. It is from prac- 
 tical experience and teaching when we 
 are young, coming to a state of mind 
 in which we can apply a principle to 
 courses of conduct and moral intui- 
 tions, the highest of all — it is from 
 these sources that the intellect knows 
 and teaches the emotion or conscience 
 what is right and what is wrong. 
 
 455. Measure of Achievement. — 
 It is not right to measure a man who 
 is far down in the scale of endowment 
 
 and privilege by one who is far up in 
 these regards. Every man must be 
 measured by what he himself is. In 
 the spring, I take a rose that seems to 
 have lost almost all its vitality, and to 
 be struggling for shoots ; and I carry 
 it to Mr. Turner [Mr. B's Peekskill 
 farmer], and say, "Give it a fair 
 chance to grow." And he opens the 
 ground, and gives it a generous quan- 
 tity of rich earth, and it begins to 
 throw out shoots, and it grows through 
 the summer and reaches a height of 
 six inches, and by autumn it is really 
 blossoming. But suppose I should 
 look down at this stunted rose, and 
 then up at the large one, and say, 
 "This is no rose at all, compared 
 with that one which has grown nearly 
 six feet, instead of six inches " ? You 
 must measure those roses by what they 
 were when they started, and by the 
 chances which they had for growth, 
 and not by what others have accom- 
 plished under better conditions. 
 
 456. Credit for Effort Rather than 
 Result, — Here is a man who has been 
 living all his life long just on the edge 
 of swearing. Oaths have been perpet- 
 ually hissing in him like steam re- 
 pressed in a boiler ; and he has kept 
 them under. There is a man who 
 never thought of an oath. And I 
 think, as God measures, that there is 
 more credit due the man who did not 
 swear when he wanted to all the time, 
 and held in with pain and watching 
 and self-exertion, than to the man who 
 did not swear only because he did not 
 want to. The former man has ex- 
 pended more power to maintain an 
 average decency than many men who 
 stand far above him do to maintain 
 their higher estates. I do not say that 
 he is as good a specimen of manhood 
 as they are ; I am now speaking of the 
 quality of merit, of the kind of meas- 
 ure, which is involved, and which de- 
 
io8 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 pends upon us, and not upon what we 
 have received — not upon our original 
 endowment. 
 
 457. Imperfection. — An orchestra 
 that should play through the whole of 
 ])cethoven's Eighth Symphony and 
 only chord five or six times from be- 
 ginning to end, would hardly be con- 
 sidered first-class performers. An oc- 
 casional discord can be tolerated, but 
 such an absence of concord that per- 
 fect harmony is touched but five or six 
 times in the playing of the whole piece, 
 is intolerable. Now, our life touches 
 concord only once in a while, and all 
 the rest of the time it plays in dis- 
 cord. 
 
 458, Grades of Motive. — A water- 
 fowl can walk on the land ; and it is a 
 very good way to get along, as dis- 
 tinguished from a stone's way of get- 
 ting along — which is to stand still. 
 And yet, when a duck's legs are in the 
 water, they become the wings of the 
 sea ; and how much more graceful a 
 duck is in the water than on the land ! 
 The swimming is no prejudice to the 
 walking ; it is more graceful and 
 potential than the walking. But when 
 the hunter's cry is heard, and the bird 
 drops the one and the other, and tries 
 the upper ocean, and rises far above 
 the fowler's aim and reach, and wings 
 its way whithersoever it will, then fly- 
 ing is better than either swimming or 
 walking. And yet, flying is no preju- 
 dice to swimming, as swimming is no 
 prejudice to walking. 
 
 Now, there will be a time when men 
 will act by the highest development — 
 moral intuition ; but that will not be to 
 the prejudice of acting by the next 
 lower — principle. And acting by 
 principle is not to the prejudice of act- 
 ing by the lowest guide — that of cus- 
 toms or rules. They all cohere, or 
 adapt themselves severally, in their 
 functions, to the varying wants and 
 
 conditions of human life and human 
 development. 
 
 459. Moral Sense Taught, not In- 
 tuitive. — Homer's hero is Ulysses, the 
 cunning, the slippery, the deceitful. 
 That in that time was considered one 
 of the qualities of a true manhood, 
 but to-day no man should dare call 
 himself a man who voluntarily or in- 
 tentionally deceives anything or any- 
 body. In Sparta it was a virtue to 
 steal if you could do it without detec- 
 tion — it was a kind of dexterity. And 
 so the child is taught what is right and 
 what is wrong, and, for the child, that 
 is right which it is taught to be right, 
 and that is wrong which it is taught is 
 wrong, and there is no moral sense 
 that is acting in his mind in the earlier 
 periods and before reflection qualifies 
 instruction. 
 
 460. Physical Beauty and Moral 
 Depravity. — What a painful contrast 
 we often see where whatever can be 
 done by the architect's hand, well 
 paid, is done to rear the mansion, the 
 palace ; where whatever taste can do 
 is done to collect all books and all 
 pictures ; where whatever the uphol- 
 sterer can do is done to cover the floor 
 with picture-carpets ; or where what- 
 ever the artist can do, is done to the 
 ceihng to make it, if possible, as beau- 
 tiful as the floor of heaven ! But if the 
 man who walks in the midst of all 
 this treasure is himself selfish, carnal, 
 grasping, hating, jealous, unlovely, 
 the outward form of physical beauty 
 stands in an eternal contrast to the 
 walking homeliness of a man that has 
 developed his animal life, but not the 
 spiritual, efflorescent higher life. 
 
 461. Artistic Goodness. — There is 
 an esthetic element in the develop- 
 ment of moral character which is to 
 the ethical just what art is to fine 
 physical development. I mean that 
 in the development of the higher 
 
MORAL QUALITIES 
 
 L09 
 
 forms of human character there is the 
 beauty of fineness, of harmony, of 
 symmetry, of proportion, of that which, 
 in manufacturing, we call finish. 
 
 Give without grudging. It is not 
 enough that you simply give. You 
 must do it beautifully. Your gener- 
 osity must not be clownish, but fine. 
 
 When the cutler brings his goods to 
 market, he may have the best of steel 
 in the blade, and the best of horn in 
 the handle, and every part may be 
 riveted strongly ; but if the blade has 
 not been poUshed ; and if there be no 
 finishing work on the handle, he can- 
 not sell his stock. It is just as good 
 for practical purposes as though it 
 were finished ; but people do not want 
 it. They want their blades polished, 
 and their handles finished ; and they 
 are so used to having goods sand- 
 papered and burnished, that they will 
 not take them unless they are so. 
 There must be art in them. This is 
 carried so far that when articles are 
 good for nothing, art is put on the out- 
 side to make them seem good for 
 something. And men buy things for 
 the sake of their looks. The idea of 
 perfection lies in the direction of the 
 esthetic — and as much so in social 
 and moral elements as in physical 
 things. 
 
 462, Moral Quality of Heroism. — 
 The heroes of the world have been 
 like early pictures. If you look at the 
 pre-Raphaelite pictures in the galleries 
 of Italy, and what I think to be more 
 significant, the early Flemish and 
 German pictures — for the German na- 
 ture was more sincere and deep than 
 the Italian nature ; the northern na- 
 tions of Europe were more highly de- 
 veloped morally than the southern — 
 you will see that the artists were feeling 
 after a beautiful thing. Although the 
 drapery looks like tin for stiffness and 
 angularity, and although the postures 
 
 are some of them excessively stiff, 
 and the grouping childish, you cannot 
 stand before Van Eyck's pictures — I 
 could not — without tears in your eyes. 
 They were beautiful, in spite of all the 
 infelicities of an early school of paint- 
 ing. And so it has been with the 
 heroes of every age of the world. Go 
 back to those men whom nations have 
 reverenced, and set aside the bad 
 painting, and you will find that their 
 characters turned on some moral 
 quality, and that the nation was 
 thrilled, and history was made radi- 
 ant by it ; because the heart answers 
 to every exhibition of moral excellence 
 or moral truth. 
 
 463. Superiority of the Moral Ele- 
 ment. — In a civilized community, when 
 all excitement is gone, when time has 
 been given for men's feelings to settle, 
 he rises to the top, he stands highest, 
 who exhibits the most of the moral 
 elements. 
 
 In our own history, Aaron Burr was 
 a keener thinker than George Wash- 
 ington. He was a far more ingenious 
 man, a far more active man ; and if 
 he had been a moral man, and had 
 maintained normal relations with him- 
 self, with his fellow-men, and with the 
 laws of rectitude, he would have been 
 an abler man. Washington was a 
 man of good sense, but he was not a 
 man of genius in any direction except 
 that of conscience. He was a man 
 of singular equity, of great disinter- 
 estedness, and of pure and upright in- 
 tent. Sagacious he was, by the light 
 which comes from integrity. He en- 
 dured, having faith to believe that 
 right was right, that right was safe, 
 and that right in the end would pre- 
 vail. That which made Washington 
 the greatest hero of our Revolution- 
 ary struggle, was the light of the 
 moral element that was in him — not 
 any intellectual genius which he pos- 
 
no 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 sessed ; not any peculiar social endow- 
 ments ; not any rare tact in adminis- 
 tration, nor any remarkable executive 
 power. And if you look back upon 
 those names in our history that have 
 best stood the test, you will find that 
 they have been men who were fruitful 
 in the highest moral elements. And 
 as time goes on, those men who lack 
 these elements sink lower and lower 
 till they set below the horizon ; and 
 those men who possess them rise 
 higher and higher, till they reach the 
 meridian, with undying splendor to 
 shine upon history and the world. 
 
 464. The Earth-View of Moral 
 Truth. — I consider a mole's opinion of 
 the structures and uses of my hya- 
 cinths to be very much like most 
 folks' notions of moral truth. The 
 moles see the bottom and nothing 
 else. Imagine a mole forming a 
 philosophical theory of my bulbs. In 
 mole's language, whatever that is, he 
 would say : "A hyacinth is a vege- 
 table creation put underground for 
 the benefit of moles. It is round, of 
 a sweetish taste, quite juicy, and 
 wholesome for moles. It has been 
 held by some moles that a hyacinth 
 has an existence above ground, and 
 speculatists have gone so far as to say 
 that this root is only a kind of starting 
 point, while the best part of the plant 
 is above ground. But there is no evi- 
 dence of that, and it is doubtless a 
 vagary of the imagination." 
 
 465. Taking Account of One's-Self. 
 — The wise business man, with a com- 
 plicated system of departments of 
 business, keeps each department sep- 
 arate, and then every year he knows 
 whether that department is going 
 back or forward, or is standing still. 
 There is no business that has so many 
 departments in it as a man's own 
 nature ; and it is every Christian 
 man's business to know whether, on 
 
 the whole, he is gaining by training, 
 by using, or whether he is stationary, 
 or whether he is going back. The 
 law of growth is not a permission, it is 
 not optional ; it is a duty. 
 
 466. Insubordinate Mind-Servants. 
 — Suppose a man should neglect his 
 business, and give unlimited power to 
 his clerks, and they, in his counting- 
 room, should go on signing papers, 
 filling up checks, running him into 
 debt, tying up his affairs, and he 
 should know nothing about it ? You 
 have not less than forty clerks ; and 
 there is not a day in which one or an- 
 other of them does not use pen and 
 ink that carry judgment in God's day 
 of reckoning. They are writing what 
 they please. Many of them are con- 
 fidential clerks. One is Pride ; an- 
 other is Vanity ; another is Lust of 
 Power ; another is Greed of Gain ; an- 
 other is Self-indulgence. If they go 
 on unrestrained, those clerks will 
 break you, as sure as there is a God 
 in heaven. Your eternal affairs are 
 becoming involved, your spiritual in- 
 terests are being hazarded, and you 
 know nothing about it. 
 
 467. Truthfulness. — Truth is the 
 backbone of honor, of trustworthiness, 
 of manhood itself. A man who does 
 not care for the truth is no better than 
 a jelly-fish. He has no stability ; no 
 firmness ; no integrity ; no organizing 
 substance. 
 
 468. Steadfastness. — The anchor is 
 useless to the ship in summer and in 
 calm days : yet there comes, by and 
 by, a time when the heaven is full of 
 storms, and the sea is boisterous and 
 cruel ; and then on casting out the 
 grasping anchor to the bottom of the 
 sea the chain holds, for there was not 
 one flaw in it. One bad link in it and 
 it would part, and the whole would go 
 with a rush, and the ship would be 
 destroyed. So men are built, link by 
 
MORAL QUALITIES 
 
 111 
 
 link, virtue by virtue, quality by qual- 
 ity, and each of them is bound, as it 
 were, inseparably to the other. As the 
 old proverb has it, no chain is stronger 
 than the weakest place in it. 
 
 469. The Durable Character. — A 
 ship, in a heavy gale, strains, and 
 springs a leak, and founders. Men 
 say, "The gale which caused that 
 ship to founder began in the ship- 
 yard. It would not have strained and 
 sprung a leak if it had been properly 
 built." Those timbers that were put 
 in because they were cheaper, were 
 elements of weakness that weakened 
 the whole craft. The defects were 
 covered up with paint and putty, as 
 defects usually are ; and she looked as 
 well, in the harbor she lay as well, 
 and in a calm she went as well, as any 
 other ship. But when the hurricane 
 came down, the well-built craft went 
 safely through the gale, while this one 
 that was poorly built foundered. The 
 trouble was not that this one was not 
 handled as well as the other, but that 
 she was not built as well. 
 
 One man lays out his life-plans with 
 moderation — that is, with relation to 
 his own capacity ; with relation to 
 what a man ought to want, ought to 
 do, and ought to be ; with a keel of 
 equity, and with ribs of truth and 
 righteousness — and he is always build- 
 ing as under the eye of the eternal 
 Father. Another man, not meaning 
 to do wrong, lays out his life-plans 
 under the inspirations of overeager de- 
 sire of greed : not of stealing and lying 
 and dishonor, but of greed, of the 
 immoderate use of his secular, worldly 
 feelings. By and by comes the period 
 of trial and suffering. Five, or ten, 
 or twenty years may elapse before it 
 comes ; but however remote that 
 period may be, the weakness that in 
 the one case was incorporated in the 
 original plan, inheres in the structure, 
 
 and it falls beneath the storm, while 
 the other that was properly organized 
 survives. 
 
 470. Single Traits No Test of Char- 
 acter. — A man dwells in his house in 
 the plenitude of his wealth and refine- 
 ment, and every child loves him ; all 
 the servants admire him and are won 
 to the greatest fidelity towards him ,• 
 and his neighbors know how good he 
 is — for they have experienced his 
 bounty ; and yet when a burglar un- 
 dertook to break into this man's house 
 he was met by the owner with a pistol 
 in his hand. But would it be right to 
 take your idea of the character of that 
 man from the burglar's opinion of him ? 
 If you were to go to the prison and say 
 to the burglar, " What do you think 
 of him?" He would say, "He is a 
 grim old devil ; you think well of him ; 
 but you ought to see him as I saw him. 
 If you had seen the fight between him 
 and me the other night I guess you 
 would have seen what the old hypocrite 
 was." The man in his conflict with 
 the burglar developed a trait in his 
 character that had lain latent, and that 
 might have lain latent all his life long. 
 It was alternative, occasional, special ; 
 and would it be right to draw the por- 
 trait of his character from that single 
 attribute and development in him.'' 
 Would it not be right rather to judge 
 of that man's character from all his 
 relations, and from the sum of various 
 traits, including his self-denial, his 
 bounty, his helpfulness and his over- 
 flowing kindness? 
 
 471. Disproportionate Natures. — 
 They have just launched their new- 
 fangled battery at Charleston. It is 
 said that it settles down seven feet 
 on one side ; and it will settle seventeen 
 before they have done with it ! The 
 way they are attempting to fix it is by 
 putting ballast on the side which is 
 highest. So it is with men. One is sunk 
 
112 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 down at the bow, and lifted up at the 
 stern ; another is lopped over on one 
 side, and keeled up on the other; 
 another is top-heavy, the spars being 
 too much for tlie hull ; and vice versa. 
 Men are born with great disproportion. 
 Some have immensity of physical 
 force, and comparatively little brain 
 force ; while others have an overmas- 
 tering brain, and a slender body. 
 Some have easy and powerful diges- 
 tion, while others have almost none 
 at all. Some have great caution, 
 while others are entirely destitute of 
 caution. Some have strong moral 
 tendencies and no intellection, while 
 others have large intellection and no 
 moral tendencies. And who, looking 
 at these facts as they are portrayed in 
 life, does not see that men are born 
 disproportioned, without symmetry ? 
 Now the problem of Christianity is to 
 equalize this disproportion. 
 
 472. Varieties of Daring. — When 
 one is strongly inspired by any emo- 
 tion, affection, or sentiment, and fol- 
 lows its leading without regard to con- 
 sequences, he has the courage which 
 belongs to that feeling. There are a 
 great many feelings that exist in great 
 power, and inspire men with daring. 
 There is a generosity-courage ; there 
 is a love-courage ; there is an honor- 
 courage ; there is a courage of appro- 
 bativeness ; there is a conscience-cour- 
 age ; there are spiritual courages many. 
 These not only differ as between them- 
 selves, but they differ in different in- 
 dividuals. There is many and many 
 a man that would lay down his life 
 without fear, and turn out his heart's 
 blood as easy as he would turn water 
 from a goblet, who would stammer 
 and blush in giving adhesion to a sim- 
 ple truth, or to a faith not believed by 
 his associates. 
 
 473. Physical and Mental or Moral 
 Courage. — Courage is a noble trait. 
 
 There is not another quality which has 
 as much honor given to it in the world. 
 When a man cheerfully puts to risk his 
 life and limb, his being, for the 
 achievement of a worthy end, the 
 whole world instinctively admires him. 
 Even his enemies praise him. There 
 is no other one that is so universally 
 esteemed as the truly courageous man. 
 
 And yet, physical courage is only 
 the lowest form of courage. It holds 
 the same relation to the higher forms 
 of courage, that physical qualities do 
 to mental qualities. Hercules and 
 Socrates were the two most courageous 
 men in antiquity ; but one was a cour- 
 ageous brute, and the other was a 
 courageous man. And the courage 
 of Socrates was as much nobler than 
 the courage of Hercules as mind is no- 
 bler than body. If it be noble to fol- 
 low the lower impulses — and it is, 
 where they lead in the right direction 
 — how much more noble is it to dare 
 to follow moral sentiments against 
 danger! The lower impulse, where 
 the body is put in peril, is noble — let 
 us not take anything from that ; but 
 how much nobler it is to dare to fol- 
 low against risk the affections and 
 higher feelings, wherever they may 
 lead ! I would not discredit the lower 
 form of courage ; nor would I super- 
 sede it, even by the higher. The per- 
 fect man has both bodily courage and 
 mental courage. 
 
 474. Men Judged by Their Own 
 Standards. — A man who is a rollicking 
 good fellow, good-natured and never 
 troubled by conscience, says to his 
 soul: " I have much laid up ; I have 
 pulled down barns and built greater, 
 and am ready to make merry ;" this 
 man, living for the flesh and for the 
 current time, is not censured by the 
 community. He is permitted to go 
 through society and is called a good 
 fellow, a very nice fellow. And if he 
 
MORAL QUALITIES 
 
 113 
 
 does not die in debauch, but dies re- 
 spectably, he has a respectable minis- 
 ter to his funeral, who will beflower 
 him all over with the graces and one 
 thing and another. We embalm men 
 when we bury them. But let a man 
 who professes to walk with religious 
 fervor and zeal do half these things, 
 and one would think that a monster or 
 dragon had infested the community. 
 Men judge their fellows by the various 
 standards which they themselves de- 
 sire and set up for their own walk and 
 conduct in life. So that a selfish man 
 is not ordinarily condemned for selfish- 
 ness. That is his measure. 
 
 475. Importance of Basilar Ele- 
 ments. — When the painter lays on the 
 first and foundation colors, they are 
 not to stand there crude and rude. 
 He goes on with a thousand fine 
 strokes, overlaying and overlaying 
 them. What for? To wipe them 
 out ? No. They are the foundation 
 which is to make the final picture 
 stand. They give body to it ; and, 
 shining through, they give it a sort of 
 subtle luster which the surface-colors 
 alone could not give. And so it is in 
 true manhood. We rise higher than 
 the basilar elements ; but we never 
 want them destroyed. We want the 
 hidden power which they shoot up 
 through. We want them to give en- 
 ergy, and breadth, and color, and 
 warmth to all the moral sentiments. 
 
 476. Toughness of Fiber. — If you 
 were to hear some men's experience, 
 you would think that they grow as the 
 white pine grows, with straight grain, 
 and easily split — for I notice that all 
 that grow easy split easy. But there 
 are some that grow as the mahogany 
 grows, with veneering knots, and all 
 quirls and contortions of grain. That 
 is the best timber of the forest which 
 has the most knots. Everybody seeks 
 it, because, being hard to grow, it is 
 
 hard to wear out. And when knots 
 have been sawn and polished, how 
 beautiful they are ! 
 
 477. Nobility Before Decoration. — 
 The habit of acting from the highest 
 considerations is that which makes a 
 man noble. The recognition of nobil- 
 ity may be conferred upon men, but 
 not nobility itself. The king lays a 
 sword on a man's shoulder and calls 
 him a knight ; but he was a knight 
 before he was knighted, or he would 
 not have received the title. It was 
 the heroic endurance, the death-defy- 
 ing courage, the skill and coolness 
 with which he achieved his notable 
 deeds, that made him a knight. He 
 was in himself royal and noble, and 
 the king said to all men, " I see 
 it," when he laid his sword on his 
 shoulder. 
 
 478. Achievement Demands Further 
 Achievement. — We are like men that 
 travel in mountainous countries. That 
 which seems to be the topmost hill is 
 no sooner ascended than there is seen 
 beyond it one that is still higher ; and 
 no sooner is that reached than, behold, 
 another that is higher yet looms up in 
 the distance. So life is one perpetual 
 series of ascents ; and no man ever 
 gets beyond the necessity of self- 
 denial. He enters upon it, not only 
 more frequently, and under more 
 difficult circumstances, but more com- 
 plexly. It is the condition of every- 
 thing in life which is desirable, that it 
 must come with effort. 
 
 479. Three Tests of Character. — 
 It is very hard to find a man of good 
 sound timber that will stand the 
 pressure of circumstances, that is 
 without a flaw, that cannot be shaken, 
 that will bear the stress oi opportuinty, 
 iemptation, and impunHy. A man that 
 can resist these three things and stand 
 proved in truth and honesty is beyond 
 all price. 
 
114 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 480. Character-Building. — VVe read 
 in fairy talcs of liow cities have been 
 built in a single night ; and we 
 imagine to ourselves how, while we 
 sleep, ten million constructing fingers 
 might carry up the walls, and sur- 
 mount them with golden domes, and 
 how whole cities might stand in the 
 morning where the night before there 
 was only a wilderness. But some- 
 thing more strange than that would 
 be, is actually going on in you. 
 There is not a thought that is not 
 striking a blow ; there is not an im- 
 pulse that is not doing mason-work ; 
 there is not a passion thrust this way 
 or that way that is not a workman's 
 
 thrust. The imagination in all direc- 
 tions is building. Here is a great 
 structure going up point by point, 
 story by story, although you are not 
 conscious of it. It is a building of 
 character. It is a building that is to 
 stand. And the word of inspiration 
 warns you to take heed how you 
 build it ; to see to it that you have a 
 foundation that shall endure ; to 
 make sure that you are building on 
 it, not for the hour in which you live, 
 but for that hour of revelation, that 
 hour of testing, when that which 
 hath been done shall be brought 
 out, and you shall be seen just as 
 you are. 
 
 XII . JOT AND HAPPINESS 
 
 481. Mirth. — Grim care, morose- 
 ness, anxiety, — all this rust of life ought 
 to be scoured off by the oil of mirth. 
 It is better than emery. Every man 
 ought to rub himself with it. 
 
 482. Wit and Humor. — This world 
 would be a great groaning machine if 
 God had not sent humor to make its 
 wheels run smooth, and sparkling wit 
 by which to light a torch that should 
 guide a thousand weary feet m right 
 ways. 
 
 483. Laughter. — No man can ex- 
 plain to another why he laughs. 
 There is is nothing more absurd than 
 to ask a man " what there is funny in 
 that story." Stories, like percussion 
 bombs, must explode when they 
 strike, or they are good for nothing. 
 Stories that don't go off are poor 
 stock. 
 
 484. To Surmount Trouble. — Some 
 steamers are built so that they do not 
 rise over the wave; they jam their 
 nose right into it, as if they would 
 plough the ocean. The consequence 
 is, their decks are always wet and 
 everybody is always sick. There are 
 
 other steamers that lift themselves to 
 everything that comes, and ride over 
 the waves, and are as sweet as a 
 cradle. It is a great thing to teach 
 men how to ride over trouble. 
 
 485. The Sense of Humor. — Some 
 men are so organized that as the eye 
 of the feline tribe enlarges at night, 
 and gathers every particle of light, 
 and sees where others cannot see, in 
 like manner, every element of wit and 
 humor around them seems to be taken 
 in by them, and they see it every- 
 where, and air the time. Blessed are 
 such men ! They have springs and 
 cushions under them, while other men 
 go in jolting ways, and find their life 
 a series of bumps and grindings and 
 attritions. 
 
 485. Power of Cheerfulness. — A 
 clieerful workman is worth a shilling 
 a day more than one that is not cheer- 
 ful. Men that have spring and elas- 
 ticity of spirit make better members 
 of society than men who have not, 
 even in a lower sphere. And if you 
 rise to a higher sphere, the same thing 
 is true. There is not one duty that a 
 
JOY AND HAPPINESS 
 
 115 
 
 Christian is called to perform, there is 
 not one thing that he is encouraged to 
 undertake, there is not one victory 
 that he is exhorted to achieve, in 
 which he will not find more potency 
 in joyful than in sad states of feeling. 
 A mind-stroke kills the devil, often. 
 You can give a flash of zeal, a stroke 
 of faith, which will annihilate the force 
 of a temptation. 
 
 487. Mosaic Provision for Joy. — 
 Wesley said that we had given our 
 best songs and music to the devil, and 
 that he thought it right to make re- 
 prisals and get them back again. To 
 a large extent the Church has lost its 
 hold upon the imaginative and social 
 elements of life, provision for which 
 has been universally made in the con- 
 stitution of men ; largely, religion has 
 lost its hold upon them : but Moses, 
 that wise old man of the desert, 
 wrought them into his system; and 
 not only at these festivals, but else- 
 where, the people were instructed to 
 observe them. The people were made 
 happy, they were kept happy, and 
 happiness was inculcated as a duty. 
 . . . Among the Hebrews dancing 
 was made a part of the religious cere- 
 monial in such a sense that it was al- 
 lied to religious feeling; and, more- 
 over, religious feeling and the whole 
 economy of religion were to produce 
 amusement, gratification, happiness, 
 over and above that which came from 
 mere religious instruction, from gen- 
 eral social intercourse, or home life. 
 
 488. Outward Show not Inward 
 Quality. — I have seen Cremona vio- 
 lins, brown, black, split and splintered 
 in fifty places, mended again and 
 again, as homely to the eye as any- 
 thing can possibly be, and yet worth a 
 thousand dollars apiece — not on ac- 
 count of what they are to look at, but 
 on account of the capacity they have 
 of producing extraordinary musical 
 
 sounds. It is their intrinsic quality of 
 tone that makes them so valuable. 
 Then I have seen violins edged with 
 silver, inlaid with gold, covered all 
 over with mother of pearl, and per- 
 fectly gorgeous to a baby's eyes, that 
 had no quality or capacity for produc- 
 ing real musical sounds, and were 
 well-nigh worthless to a musician. So 
 I have seen persons who have at- 
 tempted to be happy by overlaying 
 themselves with exterior adornments 
 and pleasures, but who were like a 
 violin without music in it, notwith- 
 standing the splendor on the outside. 
 
 489. Hunting Happiness. — When 
 men set out to gain pleasures, they are 
 like boys that run after butterflies. 
 When you run after a butterfly, the 
 wind that you make shoves him from 
 you, and the faster you run the 
 stronger is that wind; but, if you are 
 going after something else, and a but- 
 terfly passes near you, with sudden 
 turn and down-stroke you can catch 
 him. Now, if a man sets out to be 
 happy, he may as well say, " Good- 
 bye, satisfaction;" but if a man sets 
 out to be a jtiati, and to do the things 
 that are noble, and just, and right, 
 and true, everywhere and under all 
 circumstances, butterflies will follow 
 him, and light on his head, and back, 
 and all over him ! He will be happy 
 that does not care about being happy. 
 It is the rebound of other people's joy 
 that makes your soul glad. 
 
 490. Happiness from Within. — A 
 child may put its hand on a harp that 
 has been chorded and tuned, and 
 music will come out of it; but a giant 
 might smite against the body of an 
 oak tree, and there would be no sound 
 of music. There is no music in it. It 
 is the quality of the thing struck that 
 determines whether it is musical or 
 not. The chords are in us, of no- 
 where. If you have not the nature in 
 
ii6 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 you which teiuls to llic prDtluctioii of 
 happiness, all the influences which 
 you can bring to bear will not make 
 you happy; pleasure will bring no 
 melody; riches will bring no deep- 
 seated joy; and honors and aspirations 
 will yield no happiness. 
 
 491. Cheerless Soul-Culture. — Men 
 take care of their souls very much as 
 some farmers take care of their farms. 
 They need something for their sheep, 
 and they put in food for them ; they 
 need something for their oxen, and 
 they put in crops for them ; they need 
 something for their pigs, and they 
 raise corn for them ; but what do they 
 do for their wives and children that 
 love beauty ? They have a little 
 flower-garden stuck away in some 
 obscure spot where they cannot raise 
 anything else, and where are a few 
 marigolds and hollyhocks and other 
 flowers struggling to blossom, and they 
 call that a garden ! The farm is cov- 
 ered with vigorous crops growing for 
 the animals, but those things which 
 minister to the love of beauty in their 
 households are neglected. 
 
 So religious people often have in 
 the soul a little spot, somewhere hid 
 away, in which there is some love of 
 beauty, some cheerfulness, some hope, 
 some elasticity ; but all the rest of 
 their lives is characterized by fear and 
 conscience and burden and toil and 
 suffering and trouble. This is poor 
 husbandry. It is feeding the bottom 
 of your experience and leaving the top 
 to starve. 
 
 492. Joyless Religion. — " Rejoice 
 in the Lord." This is Paul's estimate 
 of Christian faith and Christian re- 
 ligion. It is a joy-breeder. But this 
 certainly has not been the result of 
 observation. Multitudes of times 
 children do not feel that religion is a 
 joy-inspiring thing. Men of the world 
 do not look to the church as being 
 
 the organ and representation of the 
 highest joy. 
 
 The fault I find with persons in be- 
 coming Christians is that they are so 
 stingy themselves of their own joy, 
 that they partake of so small a portion 
 of the divine bounty which is pre- 
 pared for them ; that they have a harp 
 of a score and more of strings, and are 
 drumming on one, and that this is not 
 anything like a chord. Their harp 
 strings are all slack ; and my in- 
 junction and exhortation is, develop 
 every faculty, bring it into its legiti- 
 mate sphere, and thus bring music out 
 of yourself and out of every part of 
 yourself ; for a true Christian faith is 
 the most joyful experience in the 
 world. 
 
 493. Happiness from Health, — 
 Gardeners know that fumigations of 
 tobacco are inadequate devices for 
 getting rid of aphides that cluster on 
 plants. The truest remedy for these 
 things is to make the plant outgrow 
 them. Give it nourishment so that 
 it shall grow faster than they can take 
 possession of it, and its growth will 
 deliver it from all insect invasion. 
 And there are ten thousand insect, 
 pestiferous temptations, that creep in 
 and trouble the soul, which can be 
 most easily overcome by moral growth, 
 — a thousand evils that do not touch a 
 happy man, which cluster upon an un- 
 happy man. 
 
 494. Personality, — I remember that 
 when I was yet in my college days, 
 and had my first recognized sickness. 
 Dr. Gridley came to see me, and 
 sitting on the foot of my bed, told 
 stories about my father and about his 
 experiences, and got me into a frame 
 of laughter and perspiration, and for- 
 got to give me any medicine, and left 
 the room, and I was nearly well. There 
 be men who carry in themselves all 
 the medicine that one's heart needs. 
 
JOY AND HAPPINESS 
 
 117 
 
 There are those who, coming into the 
 sick-chamber, make a man sicker 
 yet ; and there are those that, coming 
 into the chamber of despondency, of 
 care, of sadness, and fear, cause the 
 temperature, one knows not why, to 
 rise, and more light to come in at the 
 window. 
 
 495. The Soul's Longing for Joy. — 
 As plants follow the light, and, when 
 they sprout in dark cellars, point their 
 pale cheek towards any single ray that 
 chances to find its way in through 
 some crevice, so the soul reaches 
 towards that which is radiant and 
 joyful. 
 
 496. Happiness, Not Having but 
 Being. — The power of being happy 
 does not consist in what you have. 
 
 " A man's life consisteth not in the 
 abundance of the things which he 
 possesseth." 
 
 It depends upon how many chords 
 there are in a man's heart which 
 vibrate to the touch of joy ; and a man 
 who is obese in a lower prosperous 
 life is all the time covering up those 
 noblest chords from which the highest 
 happiness resounds ; while a man 
 who lives for a noble end by noble 
 motives, and keeps his conscience 
 clear and clean, has touched in him, 
 by airy hands, chords that give forth 
 music such as is never known to the 
 lower nature. 
 
 497. Happiness Made Manifest. — 
 Happiness is almost always like a 
 generous hickory fire — a bank of coals 
 with a considerable flame on the top 
 of them. The coals are the hottest 
 part and the best part of the fire, 
 although they are not the most. We 
 like the crackling of the wood, up- 
 shooting a continuous flame ; that 
 which aspires, and forms pictures in 
 the chimney's throat, we call fire ; 
 but, after all the heat comes from that 
 which lies half covered by ashes. 
 
 498. Pleasure. — Simple pleasures as 
 contrasted with what they have had, 
 and want to have, and mean to have, 
 men count as no pleasures ; and yet 
 they are thousands of times better 
 than those violent pleasures which, 
 like storms, cut up the ground, and 
 destroy the crops, instead of nourish- 
 ing them. It is dew which con- 
 denses in mere drops, and falls imper- 
 ceptibly on leaf and flower, and kisses 
 the plant, and touches it with sweet 
 nourishment ; it is rain, that comes 
 through long days gently, little by 
 little, as the earth can suck it up and 
 use it — it is these that bring blessings ; 
 whereas torrid storms bring ripping 
 and rending and destruction. 
 
 499. "Joy to the Lord." — I have 
 a vivid recollection of what going 
 to church was in my boyhood on 
 Litchfield hill — especially in winter. 
 It was a bleak place. The winds held 
 jubilee. Tribes of winds repaired to 
 that hill, not three times a year, but at 
 all times of the year. And the church 
 was in some respects a cheerless place. 
 There was little or no provision for 
 comfort or for decoration. Beauty 
 was a thing scarcely thought of. It 
 was not sought to promote joy. The 
 plan of procedure was quite unlike 
 that of the Hebrew commonwealth, 
 which looked upon joy not simply as 
 an accompaniment to religion, but as 
 part and parcel of it. The Jews 
 sanctified joy, and made it serve the 
 Lord. 
 
 500. Cheerfulness in Religfion. — 
 Many persons suppose that a Christian 
 is like a man who is looking in a dark 
 pit all the time. They think that there 
 must have been a mistake made in the 
 creation of the mind. But God, when 
 he, in infinite creative wisdom, looked 
 round about and selected the traits for 
 the human soul, salient, magnificent 
 among them he put imagination, which 
 
ii8 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 is in the niind what a diamond is upon 
 the bosom, sparkhng and throwing its 
 hght upon every side. And when he 
 put imagination there, he meant that 
 it should sparkle. And wit, with its 
 concomitants of humor, mirth, and 
 conviviahty in intellectual things, was 
 likewise placed in the mind by Divine 
 intention ; as was also hope. And 
 these three traits — hope, wit, and im- 
 agination — go to constitute what we 
 call the buoyant temperament. 
 
 Now, God wants the whole soul. If 
 he had not wanted your wit, he would 
 not have put it into you. If he had 
 not wanted your imagination, he would 
 not have put that into you. If he had 
 wanted no stars in the firmament, no 
 stars would have been there. If there 
 is a flower in the world, God wants 
 that flower. And if there is a trait in 
 the human mind, he wants that trait. 
 You may abuse it ; you may employ 
 it in infelicitous ways ; but that has to 
 do with the question of regulation and 
 education. I aver that the perfect man 
 is the man that has developed all the 
 radiant, joy-breeding, joy-dispersing 
 traits of his nature. It is a shame to let 
 these traits go to the hands of the 
 adversary, and exclude them from 
 Christianity. 
 
 501. Joys Awaiting Us. — There are 
 joys which long to be ours. God sends 
 
 thousands of truths, which come about 
 us like birds seeking entrance ; but we 
 are shut up to them, so they bring us 
 nothing, but sit and sing a while on 
 the roof, and then fly away. 
 
 502. Happiness-Making. — A little 
 attention makes some people happy. 
 . . . There is many a man in this 
 audience who could make happiness 
 follow him as phosphorescent light 
 follows a ship's wake on the sea : but 
 most of you are so genteel that you do 
 not think it would be proper for you to 
 have to do with others unless you 
 have been introduced ; and some of 
 you say, "It is not for us to mix with 
 the vulgar herd"; and others are 
 timid and sensitive, and hesitate on 
 that account. But there is not one of 
 you that is not honored and beloved 
 of God in the proportion in which you 
 let your light shine so that other men 
 may walk in the path which you make 
 luminous. 
 
 503. Worldly and Christian Joy. — 
 Worldly joy is like the songs which 
 peasants sing, full of melodies and 
 sweet airs. Christian joy has its sweet 
 airs too ; but they are augmented to 
 harmonies, so that he who has it goes 
 to heaven, not to the voice of a single 
 flute, but to that of a whole band of 
 instruments, discoursing wondrous 
 music. 
 
 Xni. WORK 
 
 504. Industry. — We are born into 
 a world which pays few premiums to 
 lazy men. Providence seems to de- 
 sign that no man shall gather who 
 does not sow and tend. 
 
 505. The Zeal of God's House. — 
 Among the last things which that 
 dear old man, my father, ever said in 
 this lecture-room was on the subject 
 of dying. It came up in the midst of 
 some such conversation as we have 
 
 had this evening. He rose, and stam- 
 mering for lack of the memory of 
 words, with great tenderness and 
 reverence he said, " If God should 
 ask me which I would rather do, die 
 and go to heaven, or live my life over 
 again " — [then he seemed seized with 
 a qualm of conscience, as if he might 
 be asserting his own will] ; "if he 
 should tell me that it was right and 
 proper, and that I might choose be- 
 
WORK 
 
 119 
 
 tween going to heaven, or beginning 
 my work over again, I' d 'list in a 
 minuted He was an old war-horse ; 
 and after he was turned out to rest he 
 never heard the trumpet or the drum 
 that he did not want the saddle and 
 bridle on, 
 
 506. Work the Measure of Man. — 
 Generally described, work may be 
 said to be mental activity directed to 
 the accomplishment of some definite 
 object. When we speak of man, 
 everything that belongs to him as a 
 sentient creature must be carried back 
 to his mind. A man is what his mind 
 makes him. His body may be ranked 
 as you rank the tools of a mechanic. 
 The carpenter uses his saw, his ham- 
 mer and his plane ; but he may do 
 without them. Being tools they do 
 not constitute a part of him. His 
 hand and foot are only other tools. 
 The physical man may be considered 
 as only a sort of accidental append- 
 age. It is the mind that makes and 
 measures the man, by what it accom- 
 plishes. Therefore work belongs to 
 him, first, second and last, as an 
 organization of mental nature. 
 
 507. Genius Needs Industry. — Gen- 
 ius needs industry as much as industry 
 needs genius. The works of Bacon 
 are not midsummer-night dreams, but, 
 like coral islands, they have risen 
 from the depths of truth, and formed 
 their broad surfaces above the ocean 
 by the minutest accretions of persever- 
 ing labor. The conceptions of Michael 
 Angelo's genius would have perished 
 hke a night's fantasy, had not his in- 
 dustry given them permanence. 
 
 508. The Labors of Genius. — It is 
 certainly true that men who are organ- 
 ized highly work more easily and more 
 fruitfully than others ; but it is not 
 true that they do not have to work 
 much. It is not true that men 
 ever have results, even if they are 
 
 men of genius, for which they do not 
 labor. 
 
 The eagle gets over the ground a 
 great deal faster and easier than the 
 ant ; but the ant gets over the ground. 
 And the eagle, although he gets over 
 more ground in a second than the ant 
 does in an hour, does it by work of 
 wing, employing muscular power, just 
 as the ant does. So the highest na- 
 tures, although they get over the 
 ground much faster than the lower 
 and more common natures, do it in the 
 same way. Their power is greater, but 
 it is under the same laws. And a man 
 who is never so much a genius is not 
 released from the responsibility of 
 study, of practice, of education, and 
 of applying means to ends. A man 
 may be a genius in poetry ; but the 
 most eminent poets have been the 
 hardest students since the world be- 
 gan. He may be a genius in military 
 affairs ; but no man ever trained him- 
 self more assiduously in military affairs 
 than Caesar, or Napoleon, or Fred- 
 erick, or any other of the greatest 
 generals. It is work that furnishes the 
 fulcrum by which genius labors. 
 
 509. The Value of Training. — I re- 
 member that in Indianapolis I had a 
 house built. I wanted to economize 
 in every way I could, and meant to 
 paint it myself; and I did. I got 
 along well enough until I came to the 
 gable end, which was two and a half 
 stories high. When I began to paint 
 there I was so afraid that I should fall 
 off from the platform that I nearly 
 rubbed out with my vest what I put 
 on with the brush ; but in the course of 
 a week I got so used to climbing that 
 I was as nimble as any painter in town. 
 
 No man has learned a lesson who 
 thinks of it at all as a lesson. No man 
 has learned a trade who has to stop 
 and say, " How ought I to guide my 
 hand? " 
 
120 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 510. Success Exacts Effort. — There 
 is an impression tliat God gives some 
 men the right to go through without 
 paying toll. No, there are no "dead- 
 heads" in Nature. Nobody rides there 
 without paying. There are no men 
 who run the gate, under any pretence, 
 in Nature. What, not men of genius? 
 No, not men of genius. What, not 
 men of rare endowments? No, not 
 men of rare endowments. Great men 
 are great workers ; and men who pre- 
 tend to know without working are im- 
 postors, I do not care who they are. 
 
 511. Great-Mindedness in Humble 
 Callings. — There is no man who can- 
 not bring great-mindedness to any 
 calling in which he is embarked. It 
 does not need that a man should be 
 born a United States Senator ; for he 
 that is on the shoemaker's bench may 
 make himself a statesman [Henry 
 Wilson, of Massachusetts]. Nor does 
 it need that a man should be born a 
 geologist ; for he that works in a stone 
 quarry may make himself one of the 
 most eminent of philosophers [Hugh 
 Miller]. Where a man begins to work 
 is where he begins ; but it does not fol- 
 low that that is where he ends. The 
 point of criticism is, that a man should 
 suppose his trade to be the measure 
 of what he is to be ; that he should 
 look upon himself as shut up in it ; 
 that he should admit that he must be 
 no bigger than that trade. 
 
 512. Indolence. — The mischief of 
 indolence is not that it neglects the 
 use of powers and the improvement of 
 the opportunities of life, but that it 
 breeds morbid conditions in every part 
 of the soul. An indolent man is like 
 an unoccupied dwelling. Scoundrels 
 sometimes burrow in it. Thieves and 
 evil characters make it their haunt ; 
 or, if they do not, it is full of vermin. 
 A house that is used does not breed 
 moths half as fast as a house that. 
 
 having the beginnings of them, stands 
 empty. Woe be to them who take an 
 old house, and carry their goods into 
 it! A lazy man is an old house full 
 of moths in every part. 
 
 513. Quid Pro Quo. — This world 
 is constructed upon the ground of the 
 responsibility of men to work out for 
 themselves whatever they obtain. It 
 is not designed that men should have 
 without giving an ecjuivalent. Life 
 and strength are bought by the exer- 
 tion of the appliances of men. Knowl- 
 edge is not distilled as dew from the 
 heavens. Men have to search for it 
 as for hidden treasure. 
 
 514. Labor, Among the Hebrews. — 
 One of the proverbs of the old Jews 
 was, "Whoever brings up a child 
 without a trade brings him up to 
 steal." However high a family was 
 in social position, it was the habit of 
 the Jews to teach every boy a trade, as 
 he might see the day when it would be 
 necessary for him to labor with his 
 hands. ... It was sought to give 
 every man the capacity to take care of 
 himself, so that there should be no 
 poor people in the land. So success- 
 fully was this policy carried out that it 
 has been said that the word beggar 
 does not exist in the Hebrew tongue. 
 Hear that, Ireland ! Hear that, Italy ! 
 And all this sprang, not from climate 
 or condition, but from the application 
 of the Mosaic economy to the educa- 
 tion of the people. 
 
 515. The Law of Success. — As one 
 who has read in the Arabian Nights of 
 the man that fell down a precipice and 
 found himself in a field covered with 
 diamonds which he could have for 
 the picking up ; so young men come 
 to New York almost thinking it is a 
 place where they will have only to fill 
 their pockets and be rich. 
 
 They are greatly mistaken. You 
 take as large a population as that of 
 
WORK 
 
 121 
 
 New York, averaging it through the 
 country, and you will find the law of 
 productive industry to be the same in 
 both city and country. You are con- 
 centrated here. But according to the 
 law of political economy the chances 
 of success are the same. Luck, or 
 chance, which is the basis of the fool's 
 philosophy, has no more to do with 
 permanent prosperity in these cities 
 than anywhere else. 
 
 516. Nothing for Nothing. — When 
 I was put to school some of the most 
 serious passages of my life were con- 
 flicts between my teachct and myself 
 as to whether I would acquire a knowl- 
 edge of mathematics. I did, but not 
 altogether automatically. And, in 
 whatever department a man would 
 seek knowledge, nature gives nothing 
 for nothing. Nature insists upon it 
 that there shall be a price paid for 
 knowledge ; and whoever gains it pays 
 for it with some weariness, with some 
 abstention from things pleasanter for 
 the time being, and with some mental 
 and bodily application that requires 
 intenseness of will. 
 
 517. The Providence of Work. — 
 " Behold the fowls of the air . . . 
 your heavenly Father feedeth them." 
 Well, what was the meaning of Christ ? 
 Not, surely, what hes on the face of it, 
 or at least what we have usually been 
 accustomed to gather from the face of 
 it. It is very true that the birds do not 
 plow nor reap ; that they do not sow 
 nor gather into barns : but it is per- 
 fectly true that according to their or- 
 ganization they do exert themselves 
 for their food and drink. Do you sup- 
 pose a bird, sitting on his nest, would 
 have grain brought up to his bill, or 
 would have water supplied to him ? 
 No ; he has to go and get the grain. 
 His store is uncultivated nature ; seeds, 
 fruits and the flowing streams provide 
 him with necessary food ; but the bird, 
 
 according to his organization, and ac- 
 cording to the laws that belong to bird 
 life, is obliged to develop himself and 
 exert himself to get it. When he does, 
 he gets it. He finds God's provi- 
 dence, and it is adapted to his own 
 construction and need. 
 
 518. The Providence of Work. — 
 " Consider the lilies of the field," says 
 Jesus. They do not reap nor plant ; 
 and yet God clothes them with beauty. 
 Very good ; the flower has to develop. 
 There is not a single flower in all the 
 wilderness, nor in all gardens, whether 
 of the Orient or here on our continent, 
 that does not work for a living. It 
 sprouts from the seed. It sends down 
 its roots, and every one of these roots 
 is a purveyor hunting underground 
 here, there and everywhere ; develop- 
 ing, spreading out, sucking within and 
 sucking without, dissolving the min- 
 eral, pumping here for the juices that 
 are to run up, and searching for water 
 yonder. The willow finds moisture, 
 even though you should not be able 
 to. In darkness the long vine reaches 
 out to the hght, seeks it, and at last 
 finds it. Every plant that lives and 
 comes to perfect plant-life is a worker, 
 only on the plane to which he belongs 
 with his limited development, and 
 with his limited organization. It finds 
 that God so orders the affairs of this 
 world that when it works according to 
 its nature it is provided for. The re- 
 mark of Jesus is not dissuasion from 
 active industry ; but God has so made 
 this world, and he so governs it, that 
 as birds and flowers in their way flour- 
 ish, so man will flourish if he will 
 adapt himself to his condition as birds 
 and plants adapt themselves to theirs. 
 
 519. Thoughts and Things. — A 
 man has lived an indolent life. In 
 youth he did not work because " Pa " 
 was rich, and therefore he had a right 
 to be a fool ! When he comes to be 
 
122 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 twenty-five or thirty years of age liis 
 father fails, and he finds himself with- 
 out bread, and without habits of in- 
 dustry. No one is so unhappily situ- 
 ated as a man of refinement who has 
 been brought up not to do anything. 
 He knows how to think, but he does 
 not know how to turn a thought into a 
 thing. He knows how to reason, but 
 he does not know how to produce. 
 But he who has to earn his living 
 must learn to convert thoughts into 
 things, and change the invisible into 
 the visible and practical. 
 
 520. Power of the Weak, — Wine 
 can do nothing compared with the 
 raindrop in its simplicity. There is 
 no power in it. Though it drench the 
 earth with its red flood, nothing would 
 grow the better therefore. But the 
 simple rain, the very emblem of noth- 
 ingness, apparently, or organized rain, 
 the wingless snow, that can drop and 
 fall, but cannot fly, why, what power 
 is there in that? Nevertheless, the 
 rain and the snow have their work, 
 and they are among the mightiest 
 agencies of God to produce vitality in 
 the animal kingdom, and life through 
 the vegetable kingdom in this world. 
 What a fit figure it is of that invisible 
 truth, the regency of (iod's morality, 
 and of God's spirituality, as they are 
 developed feebly and scatteringly 
 among men ! 
 
 521. High Destiny of Humble Work. 
 — Imagine how Solomon's Temple was 
 built, that went up in Jerusalem with- 
 out sound of the hammer. In the 
 umbrageous forest of old Lebanon, 
 many and many a day-laborer worked, 
 cleaving and sweating, cleaving and 
 sweating, cleaving and sweating, in 
 obscurity, and wondering of what con- 
 sequence all his work could be. As 
 they toiled, day after day, at the huge 
 butt of some century-crowned cedar, 
 with the rude instruments of their 
 
 time, till at last it came down with a 
 crash ; and as they topped off the 
 limbs, and sawed up the vast trunk 
 into various forms, they said to them- 
 selves, " We are slaves, laboring here 
 among the mountains unrewarded." 
 And not far from them, in the gorge, 
 were men that wrought in stone. In 
 another place were workers in metal. 
 Some did one thing, and some an- 
 other ; but none knew the plan of the 
 Temple, none knew what they wrought, 
 till on a certain day, when they all 
 trooped to Jerusalem. It was the day 
 on which the dedication was to take 
 place. And when they gathered 
 there; when the hewer of wood, the 
 carver of stone, and the worker in 
 metal, from the various seclusions 
 where they had wrought, each on his 
 separate part, came together to see 
 what had been made with all the dif- 
 ferent parts, they saw in the columns, 
 in the cornices, in the decorations, in 
 all the paraphernaha of the wonderful 
 Temple, the result of their toil. They 
 stood entranced, and wondered that 
 out of things so insignificant in the 
 mountains, there should come such 
 glory in Jerusalem. 
 
 God has sent some to the cedar for- 
 est, some to the stone quarry, some to 
 the dark and dank places of this 
 world, but he is collecting materials 
 which will glow with untold splendor 
 in the Temple that he is building for 
 the New Jerusalem. 
 
 522. Humble Helpers. — Now, when 
 the cathedral is done, the little girl 
 has a right to say, " I helped to build 
 that! " You show me what you did. 
 " I carried the dinner-pail to my fa- 
 ther while he worked!" Well, she 
 was a worker, too. 
 
 523. Foundation-Work. — You will 
 often see, in passing through the 
 streets in New York, laborers down 
 two stories below the surface of the 
 
WORK 
 
 J 23 
 
 ground, amid the dampness of the 
 opened earth, or the ruins and cinders 
 of conflagrations, digging, excavating, 
 heaving up various masses that are to 
 be carried away. When their part is 
 done other laborers, in the midst of 
 that damp and cold and unwholesome 
 region, lay the foundations, and carry 
 them up to the surface of the ground, 
 and then abandon them and go to an- 
 other like uncongenial sphere, leaving 
 the work to be carried on by another 
 set of men. The apostle in speaking 
 of himself says that he laid foundations 
 and other men built thereon. There 
 are preachers of the Gospel who are 
 like a man that works under ground 
 on the foundation of a building till the 
 sunlight kisses him, and then goes to 
 another place to prosecute the same 
 uncongenial work. There are men 
 that are digging for the foundations, 
 there are men that are laying up stone 
 in damp and disagreeable places, 
 there are underground, subterranean 
 workmen, all about us. God does not 
 forget them because you do not no- 
 tice them. 
 
 524. Good Work in Unseen Places. 
 — It is related (I do not know with 
 how much truth) that when Phidias 
 was carving the statue of Diana to be 
 placed on the Acropolis, he was work- 
 ing at the backside of the head, and 
 was bringing out with his chisel every 
 filament of the hair, as far as it could 
 be done in marble ; and it was said to 
 him, " That figure is to go up a hun- 
 dred feet, and is to stand with its back 
 to the marble wall, and who will ever 
 know what work you put there?" 
 "But," replied he, "the gods will 
 know;" and worked on. Do not 
 hesitate to put your best work in the 
 lowliest places ; for if others do not 
 know it, God will. 
 
 525. Fidelity to Duty. — If one has 
 his garden on the street, how carefully 
 
 he clears every bed of weeds ! With 
 what care he trims his alleys and 
 walks, and ties every drooping or 
 weak-stemmed flower to its support ! 
 How is everything presented so that 
 it shall be comely in its aspect to men ! 
 That is not wrong ; it is perfectly right 
 to desire to please men by doing 
 handsome and thorough work ; but if 
 a man is fit to meddle with flowers he 
 would do as much for every one of 
 them if there were not another human 
 being on the face of the earth, as he 
 would if he knew that they would be 
 gazed upon by hundreds of eyes, from 
 the love he has for his work, and from 
 his sense of the fitness of faithfulness 
 and beauty to the task that he has in 
 hand. 
 
 526. Seemingly Unfruitful Work. — 
 " My word shall not return unto me 
 void, but it shall accomplish that 
 which I please, and it shall prosper in 
 the thing whereto I sent it." This 
 gives, or ought to give, I think, a 
 great deal of comfort to men that are 
 working in hard places, in frontier 
 settlements, in missions, in new places. 
 It would seem as though the work of 
 myriads of men was really squandered. 
 They seem to be sowing seed, not 
 upon the Nile, to find it again abun- 
 dantly, but in mid-ocean, where it 
 sinks, and rots, and comes to nothing. 
 But the word of the Lord has a vitality 
 that will not be extinguished. 
 
 527. Obscure Work. — The bud 
 that is breaking to-day you could 
 take between your thumb and finger, 
 but let it grow this summer, and then 
 see what the bud is when it bears 
 branches, and those branches bear 
 other branches ! And yet these are 
 all contained in the little bud ! Now, 
 all the good that we do in this world 
 is a bud in the garden of the Lord, 
 which will in the future grow and 
 spread and bear abundant fruit, and 
 
1^4 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 yield grateful fr.igr.ince. Because you 
 are working in obscure places, and do 
 not see the results of your labor, do not 
 suppose that your life is thrown away. 
 
 528. Patient Labor. — There are 
 ministers whose shoes' latchets I am 
 not worthy to unloose — men who 
 royally give their lives with patience 
 and grandeur, in obscurity, and with- 
 out the remuneration either of praise 
 or present prosperity ; and who die 
 sadly, saying, " It seems as though 
 my life had been in vain." Oh, faint 
 heart ! God will show you another 
 picture when you stand in Zion and 
 before him. Your life has not been 
 in vain. God is covering in the various 
 seeds that you have sown, and water- 
 ing them with your tears, and there 
 will be a precious harvest even on 
 earth, while in heaven you will come 
 with your bosom full of sheaves. 
 
 529. Pleasure in Homely Toil. — Let 
 a man adopt his business, and identify 
 it with his life, and cover it with pleas- 
 ant associations. For God has given 
 us imagination, not alone to make 
 some men poets, but to enable all men 
 to beautify homely things. Heart- 
 varnish will cover up innumerable 
 evils and defects. Look at the good 
 things. Accept your lot as a man 
 does a piece of rugged ground, and 
 begin to get out the rocks and roots, 
 to deepen and mellow the soil, to en- 
 rich and plant it. There is something 
 in the most forbidding vocation 
 around which a man may twine pleas- 
 ant fancies, out of which he may de- 
 velop an honest pride. 
 
 530. Indolence a Corrupter. — Houses 
 that are given over to impure air and 
 mould and dust, will fall to pieces 
 faster than houses that are used. And 
 so it is with the human mind. There 
 is no way in which it can be deterio- 
 rated faster, or brought into morbid 
 conditions sooner, than by indolence. 
 
 531. Work Makes Possible Better 
 Work. — No man is more conscious 
 than I am of the imperfections of my 
 work. But the soil on my farm at 
 Peekskill, that results from the de- 
 struction of infinite things that hitherto 
 had existence, is still grinding them 
 up, and all my plants live on the death 
 of something else. My little services 
 will be ground up to make soil for 
 somebody else who will see better 
 things and better fruits than I have 
 seen. 
 
 532. The Laborer and the Machine. 
 — Every machine, although when first 
 invented it seems to supersede the la- 
 borer, has the effect to raise him one 
 step higher. Every time an iron 
 muscle is invented, it gives emanci- 
 pation to a human muscle. When- 
 ever you enslave a machine that you 
 have a right to hold in bondage, you 
 set free ten thousand slaves that you 
 have no right to hold in bondage. 
 
 533. The Cloud of Witnesses. — In 
 our dusty modern times, in our hard 
 materialism, we have swept out of our 
 sky pretty much everything that we 
 cannot see. We believe in telescopes, 
 and in everything that the telescope 
 believes in, but in nothing else. 
 
 The Apostle Paul had a wonderfully 
 populous heaven above his head. All 
 the hosts of God, to his thinking, 
 were at work. He believed that the 
 ransomed did not go into everlasting 
 indolence and call it rest. He be- 
 lieved that the heaven was thronged 
 with spirit-workers, and that they had 
 sympathy with the work ; that they 
 liked it not only, but were commis- 
 sioned to help perform it ; and that 
 time, and all the cope, were filled full 
 of God, and God's workers. And he 
 felt that he was ever working in the 
 midst of this great and royal company, 
 never unattended, never alone. And 
 when he was upon the sea, or in the 
 
BUSINESS ACTIVITY 
 
 125 
 
 wilderness, or in the persecuting city, 
 more were they that were for him than 
 they that were against him. All the 
 way through he worked with a mag- 
 nificent sense of companionship. 
 
 534. " Thou Shalt not go Over." — 
 Moses, in being withheld from the 
 promised land, is the prototype, the 
 representative, of those noble men in 
 every age who have wrought all their 
 life long to pave the way for the suc- 
 cess of those that came after them — of 
 the men that laid right foundations ; 
 as Luther, who died without seeing 
 the results of his labor ; of men who 
 perished on the scaffold to give liberty 
 of thought to their fellow-men, dying 
 without beholding the change ; of 
 missionaries who planted the seeds of 
 civilization and religion, but reaped 
 none of the fruits of those seeds ; of 
 inventors who made valuable discover- 
 ies, and died poor that others might 
 take what they had accomplished and 
 carry it out to success. The victory 
 
 of one man is founded on the defeat 
 of a predecessor, time and time again, 
 in this life. 
 
 535. Immortality of Spiritual Labor. 
 — The things which we do here perish 
 in the doing, almost. When we write 
 our names in time, it is as when men 
 write their name upon the sand. The 
 ocean is at it almost before they leave 
 it. The waves roll over it and soon 
 obliterate it. Such is fame in this 
 world. The world is too full to re- 
 member everybody. Almost every- 
 body must be forgotten. Only here 
 and there are the names of men per- 
 petuated, and generally they are men 
 who do not expect it. The work which 
 will be remembered is that which is 
 registered above. You must strike 
 clear through beyond the physical, 
 you must make an impression on the 
 living hearts, the palpitating souls, of 
 men. And to do this, devote your 
 whole self — your body, your talent, 
 your property. 
 
 XIF. BUSINESS ACTIVITY 
 
 536. Duty of Activity. — No man 
 has a right to be a puddle. Every 
 man is bound to have a life that 
 flows, and cleanses itself by its own 
 activity. 
 
 537. Tasks and Time. — The hus- 
 bandman says, " If my ground does 
 not receive the seed early in the 
 spring, I shall have no harvests in the 
 autumn. I know the measure of the 
 summer, and I must sow and labor 
 accordingly." 
 
 And the spirit of the New Testament 
 in its economic exhortations is this : 
 Life is given to man for certain pur- 
 poses. These must be accomplished 
 within a given bound. It is important, 
 therefore, for one to keep constantly 
 before him — or so constantly as may 
 be needful — the fact that life does not 
 
 go on forever, and that we must from 
 day to day measure our tasks and ac- 
 complishments by the time that is being 
 expended, or that has been expended, 
 or that remains for expenditure. 
 
 538. False Ideals. — We are like 
 men who go by their watches, but 
 never set their watches by any regu- 
 lator. We are continually regulating 
 our lives by standards so false that 
 they amount to no regulators at all. 
 
 539. The Market and the Church. — 
 Trinity church, looking down Wall 
 Street, repeats the shining letters of 
 the ten commandments cut in gold ; 
 but what do the exchangers care ? 
 Wall Street is more than a match for 
 the stone steeple that points heaven- 
 ward before them. They never look 
 higher than the clock ; and three 
 
126 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 o'clock is more important to them than 
 the judgment day ! 
 
 540. Difficulty of Living Aright. — 
 It is a small thing for that fool to walk 
 across a cable with the roar of Niagara 
 under him, carrying some booby like 
 himself on his back, though ten thou- 
 sand other fools go to gape and stare 
 at liim. But for a man to walk across 
 the thread of daily life, carrying, not 
 another fool, but a soul with immor- 
 tality in every faculty, potent, wonder- 
 ful in scope and power and suscepti- 
 bility, so as to keep it in balance, is 
 not a small thing. 
 
 541. Man's Ineptness. — Hardly any- 
 thing that men have ever done in this 
 world that was worth remaining has 
 been done at once. Here has been 
 the garden ; and here has been the 
 gate ; and men wanting to get in have 
 begun just at one side, and have 
 butted their heads against every single 
 picket all around the enclosure until 
 they got back to the gate again ; and 
 then they stumbled in by accident, 
 after every conceivable effort, and 
 happened to hit the golden mean, and 
 called it a "discovery." 
 
 542. The Law of Value. — The foun- 
 dation of all value is not what a thing 
 cost in making it, but what is inherent 
 in it of thought and skill. The gross 
 things everybody can produce with 
 very little thought, and they are the 
 cheapest. The things which cannot 
 be developed except by experimental 
 education bring a higher price in so- 
 ciety, because they have more of a 
 man in them. All the way through it 
 follows, not any notion of the time and 
 the labor that is required to produce it, 
 but this law — What part of the man 
 was used in producing it? And to 
 what part of a man is such property 
 addressed? If, as in many theories 
 among the socialistic tendencies of the 
 day, it is the time and labor of pro- 
 
 ducing the thing, then the blundering 
 workman ought to have the highest 
 wages, because it takes him a good 
 deal longer to do it, and he has to put 
 in more work ; but it is not that. It is 
 the quantity and quality of brain that 
 has been mixed with matter that de- 
 termines what property is, and what 
 its relative value. Though this law is 
 constantly interfered with, as all laws 
 are, by confusions and misunderstand- 
 ings in the application of it, it is fun- 
 damental. 
 
 543. Ill-Gotten Gains. — Do not be 
 led astray by any appearance. If 
 wicked men prosper, do not give up 
 your belief that morality is safer than 
 wickedness. If men who are abso- 
 lutely rotten shine by the phosphores- 
 cence of decay, and dazzle your eyes, 
 remember that their feet shall slide. I 
 am just as sure that ill-gotten gains 
 will destroy the getter, and that im- 
 morality inflated into prosperity will 
 by and by collapse like an over-blown 
 bladder, as I am of my existence. 
 
 544. Goodness to be Active. — No 
 man ever will be a better man by se- 
 clusion, or a worse man by engaging 
 actively and enthusiastically in the 
 right things of human life. As stran- 
 gers and pilgrims would pass through 
 a plague-district, not stopping, if they 
 could avoid it, but hastening on, and 
 taking care to touch no infected thing; 
 so some would pass through this life. 
 But no man is appointed to pass 
 through this life as if it were plague- 
 stricken and infectious. And any 
 man that undertakes to go through 
 the world acting on the principle that 
 it is a sin, on the whole, to have much 
 to do with the secular vocations and 
 duties of life, not only will have in- 
 finite troubles and inconsistencies in 
 his own conduct, but will not under- 
 stand the first letter of the spirit of en- 
 lightened Christianity. 
 
BUSINESS ACTIVITY 
 
 127 
 
 545. Spiritual Value of Secularities. 
 — The outward life is to the inward 
 very much what the chaff is to the 
 wheat. When the wheat is growing, 
 the chaff is a bosom full of milk from 
 which the little baby kernels suck their 
 food; but when wheat is grown, the 
 chaff dries up because its function is 
 gone. And so the husk of corn — that 
 stateliest grain that grows on the face 
 of the globe — all through July and 
 August is the provider of the food on 
 which the kernels live, but when the 
 corn is ripe, the husk is no longer of 
 any use. And outside business in life, 
 looked at in connection with the final 
 results of Christian character, may 
 seem very poor — it may be regarded 
 as like chaff and husks; but as in the 
 order of nature chaff and husks feed 
 the grain, so in the order of God's 
 moral providence the outside life helps 
 the inside life. 
 
 545. Misuse of This World. — If a 
 man were to take a watch, and try to 
 use it as a compass, to steer a ship by, 
 he would say, " How unsatisfying this 
 watch is ! " Yes, to steer a ship by, 
 but not to tell the time by. And when 
 a man uses this world for things that 
 it was not meant to be used for, it is 
 an unsatisfying world ; but when a 
 man uses it for the things that it was 
 meant to be used for, it is a satisfying 
 world, — it is a glorious world. It is a 
 very good world for the purposes for 
 which it was built; and that is all any- 
 thing is good for. 
 
 547. Seclusion not Religion. — When 
 God wanted sponges and oysters, he 
 made them, and put one on a rock, 
 and the other in the mud. When he 
 made man, he did not make him to be 
 a sponge or an oyster; he made him 
 with feet, and hands, and head, and 
 heart, and vital blood, and a place to 
 use them, and said to him, "Go, 
 work ! " And the man that does not 
 
 go and work is not a man in the end; 
 while the man that puts the vigor and 
 enthusiasm which God inspires into 
 the life that now is, becomes a man 
 indeed. 
 
 548. Quality in Activity. — A fly is 
 more active than a bee. It is amaz- 
 ing how active the fly is. To look at 
 him, you would think him a master 
 mechanic. He buzzes all summer 
 long. And yet he is not worth his 
 keeping. The bee buzzes too, but his 
 buzzing means something. He pro- 
 duces much and eats little. The fly 
 produces nothing and eats much. 
 There may be an activity which, 
 though it has few results, is more ef- 
 fective than an activity that has many. 
 And a nature may work out few ef- 
 fects, and yet each one of these may 
 be so clothed with high moral feelings 
 as to exceed in value more numerous 
 results that are not thus clothed. 
 
 549. Life a March. — Men move 
 and march, and we must keep step, 
 and forever move and march. We 
 are strangers and pilgrims. We are 
 not settled. We never shall be, in 
 this world. Nothing is finished here. 
 Every step is in preparation for the 
 next. The whole of this Hfe is one 
 grand march towards hfe indeed, and 
 life in earnest. 
 
 550. Shirking the Call of Duty. — 
 A piece of iron that refuses the fire 
 will remain iron and 'useless. To the 
 iron that refuses the anvil is refused 
 all function ; iron that will not be 
 familiar with the grindstone will never 
 have a cutting edge ; and men that 
 refuse duty, courage, enterprise, for 
 fear that they shall lose pleasures of 
 safety and security and seclusion, are 
 born animals, and animals they die. 
 
 551. Low Grade of the Inactive 
 Life. — A savage floats down life like a 
 leaf on a stream. Whatever stream 
 is under him determines which way 
 
128 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 he shall go. An African or Hottentot 
 likes his own indolent sensations, 
 organizes nothing, plans nothing, ad- 
 ministers nothing, lays up nothing, 
 and lives with rare simplicity — an 
 everlasting proof, against all foolish 
 philosophers, that simplicity is the 
 lowest possible condition of human life, 
 but one step above the brute, while the 
 dignity, the purity, the nobleness of 
 manhood lie in the other direction. 
 
 552. Happiness in Achievement. — 
 Our happiness is organic, and de- 
 pends upon conditions of activity : not 
 a mere aimless moving, but coherent, 
 organized, intelligent activity ; not 
 such activity as leads the intolerable 
 fly in the days of summer to buzz 
 with amazing appearance of doing, 
 and yet doing nothing, nor that kind 
 of incessant pottering which springs 
 from no motive and accomplishes 
 nothing ; but that activity which is an 
 application of lawful means to proper 
 ends, such as builds the beaver's 
 dam. Beginning at the lower ranges 
 of happiness, a man will be happy in 
 the proportion in which he achieves, 
 or hopes to achieve. 
 
 553. Blessedness of Work. — Blessed 
 be the man whose work drives him. 
 Something must drive men ; and if it 
 is wholesome industry, they have no 
 time for a thousand torments and 
 temptations which they would other- 
 wise have. 
 
 A ship that has headway steers 
 easily ; but while it lies drifting in the 
 tide you cannot steer it at all. It 
 swings back and forth, and you have 
 no control of it. First the stern is 
 "on," then the bow, and then the 
 broadside. And so it is with idle 
 men. A man that has nothing to do 
 is drifting and whirling around, and is 
 liable to go on this mud-bank, or on 
 that sand-shoal, or what not. He 
 cannot manage himself. 
 
 554. " Fervent in Spirit." — Fer- 
 vency is entirely reconcilable with the 
 most industrious and enterprising 
 business life ; but it is more than 
 enterprise and industry. Much is re- 
 quired of a man of which he is not 
 capable when his feelings are cold. 
 You cannot weld together two pieces 
 of iron unless they are hot ; but when 
 they are at a white heat you may 
 weld them firmly. Many elements 
 that will not dissolve in cold water 
 will in hot water. There are many 
 things that you can do at a heat that 
 you cannot do in coldness. There 
 are many things that you cannot un- 
 derstand in a sluggish cold state 
 which you can understand in a state 
 of warmth and excitement. There 
 are many things that a man cannot 
 believe or do except when his soul is 
 roused up and his imagination is 
 flashing, and he is fervent in every 
 part of his being. In the most fervent 
 life things become easy, and they also 
 become comprehensible. 
 
 555. Activity Outruns Trouble. — In 
 riding, it is sometimes the case that 
 you go just slow enough to carry the 
 dust with you, and so move in your 
 own dirt. It is exactly so on the 
 great road of life. Men go just fast 
 enough to keep their cares and 
 troubles along with them ; while, if 
 they would drive a little faster, their 
 dust would roll far behind them, and 
 they would keep themselves clean. 
 It is good to be active erfough to leave 
 behind you the temptations by which 
 you are surrounded. 
 
 556. Business Unfavorable to Medi- 
 tation. — Astronomers will tell you that 
 it is very difficult to establish an ob- 
 servatory in a great city. Why ? 
 Because the thunder of the vehicles 
 upon the pavements is such that there 
 are oscillations going on all the time, 
 slight trembles, so that you cannot 
 
BUSINESS ACTIVITY 
 
 129 
 
 measure with absolute accuracy. 
 Thus it is when men are so whirled in 
 business that they cannot make clear 
 and critical observations of things that 
 require calmness of heart and of 
 mind. 
 
 557. Partnership with God. — You 
 are to be a scholar, a professor in sci- 
 ence, a statesman, a lawyer, a physi- 
 cian, a merchant, an inventor, a hus- 
 bandman : no matter what the things 
 are, you select your business in life ; 
 but is there any partnership between 
 you and God in your business ? Hav- 
 ing selected these things, do you hold 
 your methods of maintaining your life 
 and character among men with a dis- 
 tinct understanding with yourself that 
 the way pointed out by the providence 
 of God, by which you can become a 
 better man yourself and rich towards 
 God, is developing in yourself the 
 divine qualities ? 
 
 558. The Time for Patience. — A 
 man has a large business. He has 
 been prospered. A bad debt comes 
 in. Others come in, here and there. 
 There have been indorsements which 
 he knew nothing about. He is threat- 
 ened with bankruptcy. He rises up 
 with giant strength, and lays grip on 
 his affairs, determined to straighten 
 them out. But the knot is tied so 
 hard that neither teeth nor fingers can 
 unde it, and every struggle ties it 
 tighter. He fights manfully the battle 
 from month to month, and comes 
 nearer and nearer defeat in bank- 
 ruptcy. And what with the feverish 
 excitements of the day and his restless 
 feelings by night ; what with the 
 wounding of his pride, the damaging 
 of his self-interest, and the disap- 
 pointment of his hopes, he is sick at 
 heart, and is suffering extreme an- 
 guish. And if you go to him and say, 
 " My brother, let patience have its 
 perfect work," he says, "Oh, yes! it 
 
 is very well for you who do not suffer 
 to tell me to be patient. I wish you 
 had to go through what I have gone 
 through during the last six months. I 
 think that then you would know what 
 patience means." Nevertheless, the 
 very best thing in this world for that 
 man is patience, and the best thing that 
 you can say to him is, " Let patience 
 have its perfect work." And what 
 will be its perfect work ? When that 
 man can look bankruptcy in the face, 
 and look God in the face, and say, 
 "Thy will be done," then patience 
 will have had its perfect work in him. 
 
 559. Money : the Heart : the Brain. 
 — It used to be raised as an objection 
 against revivals of religion that they 
 set men crazy ; that religion addled 
 their heads. Ah! Ten men go crazy 
 after money, where one man goes 
 crazy in religious excitement. And 
 yet nothing is said in the papers about 
 that. There are many men belonging 
 to business circles in New York who 
 " step out." And what is the matter? 
 "Softening of the brain." Harden- 
 ing of the heart is very apt to end in 
 softening of the brain. 
 
 5 60 . Generous Dread of Bankruptcy. 
 — When a man falls in a community, 
 it is seldom that he goes down alone. 
 He stands like a huge tree in a forest. 
 Vines have crept up upon him, and 
 other trees that stand near have inter- 
 locked their branches with his, so that 
 if he falls he will tear branches from 
 some, and overturn and crush others. 
 It is this carrying down of others that 
 makes many noble-hearted men dread 
 bankruptcy more than anything else. 
 I suppose that men never put forth in 
 any situation in life more heroic and 
 more prodigious efforts than under such 
 calamities and pressures. The history 
 of them will never be written. The 
 best histories never are written. The 
 greatest heroes of the battlefield do not 
 
130 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 equal in heroism, I believe, men that 
 stand in New York to-day. The self- 
 denials, the disinterested thoughts, the 
 feelings of exquisite tenderness, of the 
 street, and the store, are not known 
 in this world. God is witness of them, 
 and only God. 
 
 561. Manliness in Bankruptcy. — A 
 man that is bankrupt when his prop- 
 erty goes has not been a man. To be 
 a true man, surrounded with true 
 riches, one should be able to say : " I 
 am richer inside than laniouiside." 
 There is many and many a man who, 
 like an athlete, does not go into the 
 arena for high conflict until he has 
 stripped himself of all encumbering 
 clothes, and stands in his nakedness, 
 that every muscle may have free play 
 in his conflict with some adversary. 
 There are men that never seem so 
 noble and strong as when God has 
 stripped them of all their possessions, 
 and left nothing but themselves. The 
 grandest thing there is this side of the 
 throne of God is a man. 
 
 562. Evil for the Sake of Good. — 
 You know that the devil spins silk as 
 well as hemp or flax ; and when he 
 wants to catch a trout that will not 
 bite where it can see the line, he spins 
 a line so small that it cannot be seen, 
 and puts the bait upon it, and the fish 
 is caught. And if there is ever an in- 
 visible line, with bait at the end of it. 
 and with the devil at the end of the 
 rod, it is when a man is going to make 
 money badly for the sake of using it to 
 do good with. If there is ever a time 
 when Satan laughs, and says, " I have 
 caught a gudgeon ! " it is then. 
 
 563. Moral Principle in Affairs. — 
 When night is on the deep, when the 
 headlands are obscured by the dark- 
 ness, and when storm is in the air, 
 that man who undertakes to steer by 
 looking over the side of the ship, over 
 the bow, or over the stern, or by look- 
 
 ing at the clouds or his own fears, is a 
 fool. There is a silent needle in the 
 binnacle, which points like the finger 
 of God, telling the mariner which way 
 to steer, and enabling him to outride 
 the storm, and reach the harbor in 
 safety. And what the compass is to 
 navigation, that is moral principle in 
 our affairs. 
 
 564. Present-Day Scepticism. — I put 
 you on your guard against the scepti- 
 cism of our time. And do you think 
 that I am about to enlarge upon the 
 scepticism of Rousseau, of Diderot, of 
 Voltaire, of Bolingbroke, of Hobbes, 
 and of Hume, — that was swept away 
 with their ashes, and is buried ? The 
 great scepticisms of our time are, — 
 market scepticism, political scepticism, 
 and religious scepticism. Men who 
 feel that it would be wicked to sacri- 
 fice great pecuniary interests for the 
 sake of principle ; men who think it 
 would be a tempting of Providence to 
 refuse profitable business speculations, 
 to leave profitable situations, or to re- 
 fuse dividends of evil ; men whose 
 consciences will not permit them, as 
 the members of a corporation, to ex- 
 pose its wickedness ; men who stand 
 in the market and feel that they have 
 a right to do anything that wins, — 
 these men are infidels. You need not 
 tell me that they believe in the Bible ; 
 they believe in the Bible just as 1 be- 
 lieve in birds' nests in winter, — nests 
 that have no birds in them. They be- 
 lieve in an empty Bible, — a Bible of 
 the letter, and not a Bible of the spirit, 
 which says to a man, "Sacrifice your 
 right hand before your integrity," 
 
 565. Crafty Devices in Business. — 
 Where society is organized as it is 
 with us, business is sharp and com- 
 petitive ; and, aside from the ambition 
 to acquire property, comes also the 
 feeling of rivalry ; each man measures 
 himself with other men about him ; 
 
BUSINESS ACTIVITY 
 
 131 
 
 men are perpetually striving against 
 each other. And under the stimulus 
 of this element of competition, life 
 being regarded as a game, nobody 
 supposes that he is any less honorable 
 because he conceals his intentions, — 
 as, in a game of chess, letting his op- 
 ponent think that he is bearing down 
 with all his forces on certain men, 
 while in fact he is seeking to check- 
 mate him on another part of the 
 board. As in a game of chess, no- 
 body thinks any harm is done by the 
 exercise of craft, so men think crafty 
 devices in business are all right. Men 
 rejoice in their smartness, and tell of 
 their httle tricks and strifes, of their 
 crafts and conflicts. 
 
 566. Christianity in Business. — 
 What if some religious humorist, an- 
 gelic or spiritual, could to-night get 
 access to the great resorts of men, and 
 what if to-morrow morning, on going 
 to their places of business, they should 
 find, over their counting-rooms, and 
 desks, and counters, in large and radi- 
 ant letters, "Look not every man on 
 his own things, but every man also on 
 the things of others." How many 
 would say, "Who has written this 
 here ? Rub it out instantly. Business 
 is business. I will have no such texts 
 as that in this place. The man who 
 attends to his own business is the man 
 that prospers." Young men, do not 
 believe that infidelity ! 
 
 567. Other Men's Crookedness. — It 
 is said to a banker, in reference to a 
 transaction in which he has taken ad- 
 vantage of another man in business, 
 "You did not let him know?" He 
 says, "Of course I did not let him 
 know." "You deceived him?" 
 "Yes, of course I deceived him." 
 " Do you think that the way to pros- 
 per?" " I have always done so, and 
 I have always prospered." Well, let 
 him understand that his managing 
 
 clerk is in the habit of deceiving the 
 bank officials in regard to the entries, 
 in regard to the bookkeeping, and 
 does he like it? Does he say, " It is 
 immaterial : the bank will not suffer " ? 
 He says, "A man that will deceive 
 will lie ; and a man that will lie will 
 steal ; and such a man is not fit to be 
 a managing clerk in a bank." No 
 employer will tolerate dishonesty in 
 those whom he employs. In other 
 words, when you come to the testi- 
 mony of men directed by wise self- 
 interest, they bear witness that it is not 
 safe to have dealings with others who 
 do not conform to the law of right- 
 eousness. 
 
 568. Self-Deception in Crooked Busi- 
 ness. — To a man looking at a sum of 
 money, to be gained by devious ways, 
 every dollar would be a lens, and 
 would show him a picture. Through 
 one he would see houses ; through an- 
 other he would see paintings and 
 statues ; through another he would see 
 honors ; and he would say to himself, 
 "With this wealth I could surround 
 myself with all these things ; and if I 
 get it, after I have provided for the 
 wants of myself and family, I will 
 found schools, and hospitals, and 
 churches, and pay the Lord back in 
 this way." O, how the devil loves 
 to make a pulpit of a man's ear, and 
 talk to him of such things ! I never 
 saw a man that bribed himself in this 
 way, who would not betray his prom- 
 ise, falsify, and perjure himself. When 
 a man goes into a foul business, prom- 
 ising how good he will be, and what a 
 good use he will put the proceeds of 
 that business to, O, how devil-duped 
 he is ! 
 
 569. Business Danger-Signals. — 
 Young men, suppose you were trying 
 to enter, with your regiment, the lines 
 of the enemy, and suppose you had to 
 pass over ground where you knew 
 
»32 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 they hud planted torpedoes, and sup- 
 pose as quick as one explosion had 
 blown out a company, another rushed 
 forward and met the same fate as the 
 former one, and another, and another, 
 would you go over that ground if you 
 could help it ? Would you not seek 
 some way in which to flank these dan- 
 gers so as, if possible, to escape? 
 And yet here goes one man down to 
 ruin by reason of some commercial 
 venture with other people's funds — 
 the last man you would believe that 
 could be persuaded to run such a risk. 
 Here goes another man who stood at 
 the very top, in respect to honesty, 
 among men. And here goes another. 
 How many men must be destroyed 
 before it will dawn upon you that you 
 are not smart enough to set yourselves 
 against integrity in commerce ? 
 
 570. Dangers of Smartness. — Haste 
 to be rich is a great danger to men be- 
 cause it tempts them to employ illegiti- 
 mate means — sleights, craft, disingenu- 
 ous ways, violations of honesty. Men 
 feel that they can jump laws ; they 
 feel, too often, that they are smarter 
 than the experience that is traditional. 
 . . . They think they are weaving 
 cordage : but they are only running 
 spiders' webs up and down their ship ; 
 and the first storm will break and de- 
 stroy the whole of them. It appeals 
 to a certain conceit — a subtle element. 
 " Seest thou a man wise in his own 
 conceit? There is more hope of the 
 fool than of him." The moment a 
 man thinks he knows more than has 
 been ascertained in ages gone by, the 
 moment a man thinks all the lessons 
 of all mankind about which the public 
 now are agreed, are for fools and weak 
 men, but not for him, that moment he 
 builds in great haste, and with great 
 waste. 
 
 571. Dishonest Success Transient. 
 — In general, I do not believe that a 
 
 man succeeds and keeps success once 
 in a million times, who has not some 
 sort of conformity to truth and honesty 
 at the bottom — who does not conform 
 to them more than he varies from 
 them. Many men are like dande- 
 lions, whose blossoms are at first 
 golden, but soon lose their rich color, 
 and are most frangible and transient. 
 I see men to-day open their golden 
 colors in life, and fan their success un- 
 til it globes as fair as this floral orb ; 
 and to-morrow I look for them, and the 
 place that knew them knows them no 
 more forever. The young that are 
 pressing forward watch these men, 
 and seeing only their first estate, say, 
 " We are told that a man cannot suc- 
 ceed if he lies or is dishonest ; but 
 does not that man lie ? and has he not 
 succeeded ? Does not that man cheat ? 
 and has he not succeeded?" Ah! 
 you must wait till men have run 
 through their courses. 
 
 572. Folly of Dishonesty. — I have 
 no doubt that the devil overreaches 
 himself and cheats himself; but in any 
 transaction between you and him, he 
 is longer-headed than you are. And 
 if a man sells his principles for secular 
 prosperity, he shall find in the end 
 that the writings drawn and the prom- 
 ises made were all spurious. Honesty 
 is the best policy ; and of honesty, 
 that which has the most of God in it is 
 the best. 
 
 573. Worse than Law-Breakers. — 
 He crushes one here and another 
 there, saying, "I must take care of 
 Number One ; and if you would do as 
 I do, you would get along all right." 
 He has no sense of the obligations of 
 humanity. He would not put a pin 
 into a man — not at all ; but he would 
 put di plan into him, and pierce him to 
 the heart. He would not put his hands 
 into a man's pocket ; but he would 
 take stocks in the street, and influence 
 
BUSINESS ACTIVITY 
 
 133 
 
 ilieinin such a way as to destroy five 
 hundred men, without even crying, 
 "Stand from under!" He goes 
 through life making his commercial 
 power the means of tripping men up to 
 their ruin. 
 
 Such men are not producers — they 
 are confusers. They are not working 
 in society to increase embodied thought 
 or skill. They are not building up 
 tlie community in any way. They jise 
 men. " In allowable ways," it is said. 
 Allowable? Yes, so far as cold law is 
 concerned ; but the man that hugs the 
 law hugs damnation ! The law? Do 
 you suppose that the law can ever be 
 enough to measure honor? Can it 
 ever be more than enough to mark its 
 coarse features ? A man that does not 
 live higher than the law, a man that 
 has not more truth, more honesty, 
 more purity, than the law requires, is 
 scarcely fit to be ranked among our 
 fellow-men. 
 
 574. Selfish Service. — Have you 
 ever seen ants swarm over the rosy 
 flower-buds of the opening peony ? 
 How they caress it ! How nimble are 
 their thousand tickling feet, as round 
 and round the circular bud they go 
 nursingly ! Is it that ants love flowers ? 
 No ! It is that they may lick up the 
 sugary secretion which exudes from 
 the flower-bud. And so there be 
 many that serve men, not because 
 they love them, but because they fain 
 would suck their substance out of 
 them. 
 
 575. Greediness and Emptiness. — 
 There is a fish called a sciilpin. Nine- 
 tenths of it are mouth, and one-tenth 
 body, as I recollect it when a boy. 
 Its chief business, apparently, con- 
 sists in eating everything. And after 
 it has eaten, nothing comes of it. It 
 has a big tail, to propel itself with, a 
 big head, a big mouth, and a very 
 active stomach with which to do the 
 
 work of digestion quickly. But it is 
 good for nothing, it furnishes no food. 
 It is a do-nothing, gormandizing fish. 
 There are many men who are said to 
 have the power of making wealth. 
 They have. And they are scu/pin 
 men. They have an enormous maw, 
 which they open and shut quick and 
 often, devouring all that comes in 
 their way. Nobody can surpass them 
 in acquiring property. But what pur- 
 pose does this wealth serve ? Do they 
 use it as a means for benefiting so- 
 ciety ? Is it employed as a sword 
 with which to defend the weak ? Is it 
 an architect that builds ? Is it a seed- 
 sower that distributes ? Or, is this 
 quality merely the capacity to take in 
 — to ingurgitate, ingurgitate, ingurgi- 
 tate? If so, then when misfortune 
 comes, and a man loses all his wealth, 
 what is left of him ? Nothing, liter- 
 ally nothing. 
 
 576. Damages of Money-Getting. — 
 I think the most miserable people I 
 ever saw were men who were rich and 
 nothing else — men who had burned up 
 everything in them that was good, in 
 order to make wealth. They had 
 generosity when they began, but gen- 
 erosity is a spendthrift. It helps men 
 with the right hand and with the left. 
 Generosity in a man who is deter- 
 mined to get money is like a gaping 
 seam in the side of a ship, and must 
 be calked up. Magnanimity is soon in- 
 convenient to those who are de- 
 termined to get moneys and so is cut 
 down, as a tree is cut down, by the 
 roots. Large tastes, besides being ex- 
 pensive, consume time by diverting 
 the attention from money-making pur- 
 suits ; and it is a maxim among men 
 who are determined to be rich that 
 although fine things and things re- 
 fining may be well enough for some, 
 a real business man must not allow 
 himself to be turned aside by them. 
 
134 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 577. Emptiness of Money-Getters. — 
 Mere money-makers go on from ten 
 years to ten years, until they come to 
 be forty or fifty years of age, and are 
 rich, and " can do what they have a 
 mind to." No, they cannot. They 
 are hke old campaniles, steeples or 
 towers, out of which the bells are gone, 
 and which are empty. An old ignorant 
 man that has given the forces of his 
 life to making money, and to nothing 
 else— what is society to him ? What 
 are friendships to him ? What is love 
 to him ? What is praise to him, except 
 the sordid praise of money-lovers? 
 
 578. Wrong Earthly Training. — 
 Those powers which are to frame your 
 glory and joy hereafter, are too often 
 either neglected or perverted. They 
 are warped and misdirected. The 
 eyes of a man's conscience are put 
 out. His tastes are blunted. His 
 sensibility is dried up. So fierce are 
 men to save themselves in this life, 
 that they use up that part of them- 
 selves by which they are to live for- 
 ever and forever. So that when men 
 go to the other world, I think ten 
 thousand times ten thousand of them 
 will find themselves exiles, without 
 business, unable to speak the lan- 
 guage, destitute of the means of hve- 
 lihood, and good for nothing, utterly. 
 
 579. Misfits in Life. — In cities, and 
 in business, the proportion of men that 
 have mistaken their calling is larger 
 than anywhere else. I see men every 
 day that are in situations for which 
 they are not at all calculated. There 
 are multitudes of young men that 
 want to be rich in merchandise. They 
 will not put their lily hands where the 
 sun can brown them. They were 
 born, they say, for better things. 
 Many of them were born for the poor- 
 house, and they will be there in the 
 end ! They may meet with a measure 
 of success for a time, till the sap of 
 
 youth is gone out of them, and then 
 they will be fit only to be cast out, and 
 to be trodden under foot of men. 
 
 If you transplant a tree in the spring, 
 the sap in it will carry it half through 
 the summer, though its roots may be 
 dead. It will throw out leaves, and 
 appear like a sound tree for a good 
 part of the first year. But the next 
 year it will die. And every man, 
 when he starts in life, has enough of 
 the sap of youth to carry him a certain 
 way, though he may have mistaken 
 his calling ; but in the course of ten 
 years, when that sap is expended, and 
 he is rootless and branchless, where 
 will he be ? 
 
 580. Unmanliness of Complaint. — 
 As a man has been educated, so must 
 he pursue life ; and to murmur at his 
 occupation, to look wistfully at some- 
 thing else, to spend his time in think- 
 ing what he would like to do, to cover 
 some other pursuit with his imagina- 
 tion, and make fancied flowers grow 
 upon it, and see abundant and varied 
 fruit hanging from its boughs, while 
 making his own business as barren and 
 hateful as possible, and rising in the 
 morning to say, " Must I go to work 
 again?" and going home at night to 
 curse the day's work — this is unmanly 
 and mean. 
 
 581. Soul-Destroying Greed. — The 
 soul is an instrument more grandly 
 made than any harp that ever came 
 from human hands; and God, who 
 knows what are the melodies of heaven, 
 has strung it. Wondrous are the chords 
 thereof ; and when men spend their life 
 in destroying one and another of them, 
 in old age their wandering hands go 
 aimlessly through the empty spaces ; 
 and there is no sound there. 
 
 582. Excessive Activity. — Great 
 men like Count Cavour in Italy, Bis- 
 marck in renovated Germany, Bright 
 in young England, and Lincoln in our 
 
BUSINESS ACTIVITY 
 
 135 
 
 own calendar — it is right that they 
 should have wasted the very fountains 
 of Hfe to bear up their times. A great 
 work God gave them to do. They 
 live long lives who live much, and 
 these men lived the life of a thousand 
 ordinary men, though they all broke 
 themselves down by excessive tax- 
 ation. 
 
 That is not the law of the private. 
 It is contrary to the duty of the mass 
 of men. And yet, there is many a 
 man in this congregation who is sin- 
 ning against God every day of his life 
 by excessive industry. There is many 
 a man and many a woman here who 
 is breaking God's laws in nature, and 
 breaking them in society, and breaking 
 them in social relations, by an unwitting 
 exhaustion through excessive activity. 
 
 583. Vacations of the Workers, — 
 How many merchants there are who 
 are breaking down ! A man ought to 
 break down every year for two 
 months ; and when a man does break 
 down it is a good thing for him to 
 break down very low. It is said that 
 Antaeus always gained strength by 
 touching the ground ; and it is a good 
 thing for a man to stretch himself full 
 length on the ground, sometimes, and 
 smell his mother-earth. 
 
 584. Business and Religious Feel- 
 ing. — There is many a man who does 
 not suspect it, but when he says, " I 
 do not speak in meetings; I have had 
 no great experience ; I do not wish 
 you to call upon me to pray ; I have 
 no gifts in prayer," it is as if I were to 
 take a sponge full of water and drip- 
 ping, and squeeze it till there was not 
 a single drop of water in it, and then 
 ask the sponge, " How do you feel?" 
 and it should say, " Dry and arid. 
 There is no moisture in me." No, it 
 is all squeezed out. Here are men 
 who take their hearts, that are just as 
 full of feeling as anybody else's, and 
 
 squeeze them so dry that there is not a 
 drop left. Business has got it all. 
 And they come to meetings, and say, 
 " 1 have no experience to give. There 
 is nothing in me." Why should there 
 be ? If you have used it all up for 
 this world, of course you have none 
 for the world to come. 
 
 585. Recreation Neglected. — Mer- 
 chants, business men, lawyers, min- 
 isters, all sorts of toiling and laboring 
 men, have too little relaxation. We 
 are like a violin, going from one con- 
 cert to another, all day long, without 
 once being unstrung. We are forever 
 at concert pitch. It is a fact growing 
 out of city life, that the intensity of our 
 business takes away our relaxation and 
 enjoyment. Laughing, singing, cheer, 
 buoyancy, — these, and the various 
 other means by which men rest them- 
 selves without vohtion, are almost un- 
 known to us. We are a world too 
 sober. We are a world too unlaugh- 
 ing. We do not romp enough with 
 our children. We are not children 
 enough ourselves. 
 
 586. Retiring from Business. — I 
 believe that an upright, honest man, 
 doing a fair business, has more enjoy- 
 ment while he is doing it, than when 
 it is done. While a man is doing 
 business, he is plump and succulent as 
 a thrifty plant, covered with leaves 
 and flowers or fruit ; but when he re- 
 tires from business, he is like a last 
 year's mullein stalk, leafless, and 
 flowerless and fruitless. And woe be 
 to a man in this life, and of our Amer- 
 ican stock, who thinks that he can 
 enjoy himself by standing still. He 
 will be like an empty candlestick. 
 
 587. Spiritual Indolence. — A worm, 
 a butterfly, a sack of juice — these are 
 the three forms of insect life. And 
 how many men are there that are 
 worms in their beginnings, who, when 
 they have gone through their crawling 
 
'3f' 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 l)ciio(i, wing llicii" way in the summer 
 warmth for a time, and tlicn go back 
 substantially into a chrysalis state ! It 
 is a most wicked thing for a man with 
 great capacities to go out of the active 
 affairs of life in the full strength of 
 manhood, and refuse to have any par- 
 ticipation in the events of time which 
 he sees go thundering on. 
 
 588. Virtues of Business Men. — 
 Over against the faults of our business 
 men, which in due time and on proper 
 occasions I must rebuke, I love to put 
 their virtues. Over against those sins 
 that belong to commercial life, I love 
 to put their deeds of generosity and 
 true ChrisUan beneficence. It is the 
 merchant's ship that pierces the polar 
 ice to bring back the lost navigators, 
 or to enrich natural science ; and it is 
 the merchant's ship that carries the 
 missionary to the tropics to rescue lost 
 sinners. 
 
 Say what you will of their faults ; 
 say what you will of the petty vices of 
 petty traffickers ; say what you will of 
 the lordly wrongs committed by im- 
 petuous merchant princes, justice re- 
 quires also that you should say that 
 the whole world is indebted to them, 
 and that should they fail to-day, and 
 be swept out of society, in all the earth 
 tiie lamp of science would burn dim, 
 literature would have to throw out new 
 roots for support, learning would cry 
 for bread, and religion herself would 
 no longer go eating and drinking her 
 liberal abundance as now, but would 
 walk in the wilderness like John, with 
 raiment of camel's hair, a leathern 
 girdle about its loins, and its meat 
 locusts and wild honey. 
 
 589. Moral Intelligence of Com- 
 merce. — Commerce knows that igno- 
 rance is unthrifty. Commerce knows 
 that education, on the globe-scale, 
 tells over the counter, and tells in the 
 scales of the merchant. Commerce 
 
 knows that industry thrives where 
 government is free, and is smothered 
 where government is despotic. Com- 
 merce knows that, next to the inge- 
 nuity that produces, it needs men that 
 consume ; and while, in respect to cer- 
 tain elements, for limited periods of 
 time, it knows that a slave population 
 may engorge more rude material than 
 a civilized community, it also knows 
 that, taking the world in its entirety, 
 the more men are educated and de- 
 veloped the more wants they have, 
 and the more wants they have the 
 more demand there will be on the 
 anvil, on the loom, in the studio, in 
 every place where men minister to 
 their higher wants. And commerce 
 has learned, not only that the higher 
 wants demand a higher form of sup- 
 ply, but that this higher form of supply 
 is more profitable to the maker as well 
 as to the user. It is the interest of 
 commerce that the whole world should 
 be taught order, industry and intelli- 
 gence, and that the whole world 
 should rise ; for the bodily want will 
 never be less. That which commerce 
 should seek is to increase the wants 
 that are higher than bodily wants, and 
 then supply them. 
 
 590. The Transparent Character. — 
 Qualities of truth and honor, which 
 the world appreciates and admires, 
 and which the Bible recognizes and 
 commends, constitute one of the de- 
 velopments of a Christian character. 
 If you have these qualities, men, after 
 they have associated with you for 
 years, will bear this testimony respect- 
 ing you : " He is like a glass bee-hive. 
 You can always see what his motives 
 are. He is full of honey. The more 
 you know him, the better you will like 
 him. He is true and honorable." 
 
 591. The Golden Mean. — The full- 
 est and best life must be sought in the 
 Temperate Zones. Cold and heat, in 
 
PROSPERITY AND WEALTH 
 
 137 
 
 excess, are alike, in shutting men up 
 and reducing their power over nature. 
 The action of nature upon the human 
 organization, and of man upon nature, 
 constitute the business of hfe. It is 
 change that keeps ahve the sense of 
 quality. It is small things that make 
 things large, and large things that 
 make others small. Summer would 
 not be half so sweet if there was noth- 
 ing but summer. It is the winter that 
 makes the summer wonderful. . . . 
 
 Let others have the Equator ; give 
 me the Temperate Zones ! And if 
 any shall say this is true, not of out- 
 ward nature alone, but of human con- 
 ditions in life, and that neither ex- 
 tremes of poverty nor excessive 
 wealth are to be chosen, but that tem- 
 perate zone of affairs, midway between 
 the golden Equator and the barren 
 Poles, I shall not resist the applica- 
 tion. It was said long ago, " Give me 
 neither poverty nor riches." 
 
 XF. PROSPERITT AND WEALTH 
 
 592. Honor or Shame in Wealth. — 
 The man that stands to-day upon a 
 pedestal simply because he is rich, 
 will in another fifty years stand in the 
 pillory if he does not make his riches 
 serve mankind. 
 
 593. Power from Effort. — Here is a 
 boy who is brought up in the country. 
 At an early period of his life he is 
 obliged to brave the storm. He has 
 no learning, he has no pocket money, 
 and he is obliged to dig, to push, to 
 endure. Fatigue is familiar to him. 
 He has to work in order to get even a 
 rudimentary education. The depriva- 
 tions to which he is subject are a 
 medicine, a ministry, an education to 
 him. Day by day he qualifies him- 
 self for the future. At last, when he 
 has reached the age of twenty-three 
 or twenty-four or twenty-five, and has 
 entered upon the profession or busi- 
 ness of his life, the steel of his blade 
 has a temper which nothing can with- 
 stand ; he meets responsibilities, and 
 overcomes obstacles, and stands at 
 the head in his calling : and every- 
 body says, "What a strong fellow he 
 is!" At forty-five he is very rich; 
 and at fifty he is very famous. He 
 has boys growing up around him ; and 
 he says to himself, "I had a terribly 
 hard time ; I remember having my 
 
 fingers frost-bitten, and going bare- 
 foot, and sleeping on a hard bed ; and 
 I recollect how I used to long to go to 
 trainings and celebrations on holidays, 
 but how I was kept at home working 
 all the while. These boys of mine 
 shall have a better chance than I 
 had." So he provides them with bet- 
 ter clothes than he had when he was 
 a boy ; he sends them to school, and 
 does not let them know anything 
 about work; and they grow up 
 smooth, and soft, and pulpy, and are 
 good for nothing. They have not the 
 power that he has. 
 
 594. Hoarded Wealth. — Unused 
 wealth is of no more use to a commu- 
 nity than are the men that lie in mauso- 
 leums a thousand years old — the dust 
 of the sepulcher. Money is like pow- 
 der. It has no power until it is set off. 
 
 595. Money to be Used. — Will you 
 tell me, in the name of eternal love 
 and justice, what right a man has to 
 lay up money that he does not use ex- 
 cept to roll it over and over, hke a 
 snowball, that he may make it more ? 
 Money possessed is to be used. It is 
 not to be kept without being employed 
 to some good purpose. Every mill 
 must have a reservoir ; but if the 
 water does not run out and turn the 
 wheel, the reservoir becomes merely a 
 
138 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 stagnant frog-poml. And so in re- 
 spect to money : men who have it 
 must spend it. The question for ihcm 
 to ask themselves is, " Where and 
 how shall I spend it? " 
 
 596. Property to Circulate. — Cir- 
 culate your property, and it will never 
 hurt you. If you allow it to stagnate, 
 it will generate miasma and disease. 
 
 597. Nobility of Wealth with Good- 
 ness. — Some of God's noblest sons, I 
 think, will be selected from those that 
 know how to take wealth, with all its 
 temptations, and maintain godliness 
 therewith. It is hard to be a saint 
 standing in a golden niche. 
 
 598. Duty of the Strong. — If any 
 man is rich and powerful, he comes 
 under that law of God by which the 
 higher branches must take the burn- 
 ings of the sun, and shade those that 
 are lower ; by which the tall trees 
 must protect the weak plants beneath 
 them. 
 
 599. Wealth in National Life. — 
 Though it goes very much against the 
 educated religious feeling of men for 
 one to say that the way of riches was 
 meant to be the way of religion, yet 
 it is true. All barbarous nations arc 
 poor. All savage nations are poorer 
 yet. All nations that have emerged 
 from the animal conditions of life, and 
 are standing in some degree of civil 
 independence and prosperity, have 
 developed riches. All nations that 
 are dominant in the history of the time 
 have attained to great power through 
 riches as well as through culture. 
 
 600. Wealth-Making, a Primary 
 Civic Virtue. — The very first steps in 
 civilization are, in the providence of 
 God, those which are unfolded through 
 the making of property. When a 
 man begins to develop property, to 
 save it, to regard and defend it, he is 
 making the first steps, though they 
 may be very low, remote and in- 
 
 fantine, in civilization. It is not 
 probable that the wandering in- 
 habitants of Arabia are a single 
 degree different to-day from what 
 they were in the days of Abraham. 
 They stand, after four thousand years, 
 just where they will stand four thou- 
 sand years hence, unless some revolu- 
 tion takes place among them. The 
 elementary virtues are wrought out, 
 in the providence of God, through the 
 process of wealth-making ; and fore- 
 sight, the foreseeing of events, is one 
 of the first elements in this process. 
 Living by foresight is living by faith ; 
 and the process of wealth-making re- 
 quires this element, though it be in its 
 seminal form. 
 
 60 1. Beneficence of Wealth. — We 
 have our dangers. The world would 
 not be fit to live in if there were not 
 dangers in it. Dangers are God's 
 whetstones with which to keep men 
 sharp. Men are ground by difficulties. 
 Wealth, if it runs towards the animal 
 passions, is a great danger ; but if 
 wealth runs towards the higher senti- 
 ments, it is a beneficent power. And 
 blessed be God for wealth ! I could 
 almost preach on the duty of being 
 rich — though I could not practice my 
 own preaching in that respect, any 
 more than in many others ! There is 
 a mighty power for good in wealth, 
 if it goes with the judgment and the 
 moral sense. 
 
 602. Wealth to be Diffused. — Riches 
 are indispensable to communities, 
 though communities are not blessed 
 in the proportion in which money is 
 heaped up in a few hands, but in the 
 proportion in which money is diffused 
 through all the average of families. 
 Twenty millions of dollars in a village 
 does not make that village rich if it is 
 all owned by two men ; but if that 
 amount is spread evenly, all over the 
 village, then it is different. Money, 
 
PROSPERITY AND WEALTH 
 
 139 
 
 in the hands of one or two men, is 
 hke a dung-heap in a barn-yard. So 
 long as it hes in a mass it does no 
 good ; but if it was only spread out 
 evenly on the land, how everything 
 would grow ! 
 
 603. Interior not Exterior Quality. — 
 Is it a sin to be rich? No, no, 
 certainly it is not a sin to be rich. It 
 is your duty to be rich, if God has 
 armed you with the faculties of wealth- 
 making — with the power of amassing 
 property. Well, is it wrong for a man 
 to be "clothed in purple and fine 
 linen"? Why no. A man may be 
 just as proud and just as vain under 
 drab as under purple. It is not what 
 a man has on him, but what a man 
 has in him that determines his pride. 
 There is no wrong in wearing purple, 
 any more than in wearing silk; and 
 wearing silk is not a crime any more 
 than wearing woolen ; and wearing 
 woolen is not a crime any more than 
 wearing tow. It is not the dress, but 
 what the dress covers, that is to be 
 commended or condemned. 
 
 604. True Riches. — The richest 
 man in the world is the man who has 
 the most warm and glowing sym- 
 pathies which connect him with all 
 classes and conditions in human life. 
 Men are like great trees, which never 
 feed by one root, but which spread 
 their roots abroad in all manner of 
 ramifications, drawing nourishment 
 from the earth in every direction. A 
 tree which has but one root running 
 straight down into the ground, is like 
 a man who, by the deceitfulness of 
 riches, has cut himself off from all 
 sources of sympathetic supply, and 
 who ere long becomes branchless for 
 want of nourishment, or is over- 
 thrown by the storm. 
 
 605. Unfaithfulness of God's Stew- 
 ards. — What shocked men more than 
 the stories that came up from the seat 
 
 of war, of unworthy nurses and 
 surgeons in the army, when the North 
 sent down cordials and wine and 
 delicacies for the sick and wounded 
 in the hospitals, and they never got to 
 the soldiers, but were eaten and 
 drunk by their guardians? With 
 what indignation men heard such 
 stories and revolted at them ! But do 
 not you take the wine and the bread 
 that are given to you as God's stew- 
 ards ? Do not you appropriate them 
 all to yourselves ? You live to your- 
 selves ; you study for yourselves ; you 
 think for yourselves ; your pleasures 
 are for yourselves, though you have 
 the power to make others rich. 
 
 606. Money-Makers. — Go with me 
 to Philadelphia, and I will take you 
 into the Mint there ; and will show 
 you a vast wheeled machine — a steam- 
 engine and a die. There are the bars 
 of gold and silver which are put in ; 
 and every time the stamp goes down, 
 it cuts out a dollar, or five dollars, or 
 ten dollars. And that machine is just 
 like many men. I can point you to a 
 dozen men in New York that are 
 nothing but great iron machines. 
 That is, their whole life is nothing 
 more to them than a perpetual effort 
 to get rich, or richer. Take out from 
 them the simple power of coining 
 money, the simple stamping-power, 
 and all the rest is of no more value 
 than iron machinery. 
 
 607. The Love of Money. — The 
 very ends of life which wealth was 
 meant to develop and estabUsh — 
 loyalty, fidelity, industry, economy, re- 
 spect for others' rights — are actually 
 sacrificed by those that fall under the 
 love of money. Not the love of what 
 money can do, not the ambition of do- 
 ing something with one's money, but 
 the love of money. We laugh to 
 scorn the poor idolater who worships 
 an image of gold ; and we marvel that 
 
140 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 such creatures as the Athenians should 
 ever have worshiped Jupiter carved 
 in ivory and gold by the hand of 
 Phidias. We marvel that any one can 
 worship anything that has no breath 
 of life but is mere matter. Why 
 should we marvel? I can raise a 
 whole regiment of just such men. I 
 could march them, I was going to say, 
 the whole length of Wall Street. Idol- 
 aters, worshipers of gold and silver, 
 they are, and with this difference — 
 that their gods are not carved even 
 into an image. They are without 
 form, and void. Men's whole lives 
 are regulated by this iUicit love of 
 riches which are useless to them. 
 For let me tell you that the power of 
 riches is what it can do for humanity. 
 608. Idolatry of Money. — Anxiety, 
 haste to be rich, is apt to change into 
 idolatry ; the very ends which men 
 have in life are neglected, and the 
 man's wealth becomes as an idol 
 which he worships. A man that has 
 got $150,000 and begins to talk about 
 retiring, thinks: "Why, you fool! 
 The idea of retiring! You have just 
 got going!" And he kindles and 
 says : " Well, I think I will stay until 
 I have doubled it." Poverty breeds 
 money slowly, but wealth breeds 
 wealth very fast ; yet there is so much 
 that a man can do when he begins to 
 amass capital, that he stays until he 
 has got $500,000. That would make 
 his father stare ; but he has got it, and 
 he doesn't use the whole interest of it. 
 Ask him what he is doing. " Well," 
 he says, " I am in business yet; I am 
 increasing my stock." Five hundred 
 thousand becomes a million. " Now 
 what are you doing with your million 
 — the income of it?" "Well, I am 
 rolling it over into the capital again " 
 — compound interest. And it becomes 
 two millions. " What are you doing 
 with it? Are you helping the poor 
 
 by better tenements?" " O, no." 
 " Are you founding memorial institu- 
 tions?" " O, no. I am going to, 
 though, some day or other. When I 
 die I think I will do something." 
 You are dead already, only you don't 
 know it ! 
 
 609. Haste to be Rich. — A man 
 may become suddenly rich and the 
 misfortune may not entirely destroy 
 him, though he must be a man of a 
 good deal of stamina if it does not : 
 but a man that is making haste to de- 
 velop riches is a culprit ; because he 
 undertakes to develop wealth without 
 the necessary condition — relativity, 
 quid pro quo, — he is disregardful of the 
 great law of equity ; namely, equiva- 
 lence. Whoever has an increase of 
 wealth must have had that wealth due 
 to him by an amount of service that 
 holds some just relation between the 
 wealth received and the effort that he 
 has put forth. 
 
 610. The Wealth of the Unjust. — 
 The young are tempted into untruth 
 and dishonesty by a want of faith in 
 the history of men who have made 
 money and died without losing it. 
 But you will find that if these men 
 heaped up their possessions at the sac- 
 rifice of truth and equity, their child- 
 ren are not happy in their estate. The 
 gold that wicked men wring from the 
 suffering, God pours in molten indig- 
 nation down the throats of their chil- 
 dren. 
 
 611. Perils of Prosperity. — Mercies 
 sometimes appear to be like some vines 
 that I have noticed. On the western 
 side of my place there is a vine that 
 has twined about a tree girdling it so 
 that the tree has died ; and I have 
 seen God's mercies twine about men 
 so abundantly that they choked out 
 the manhood that was in them. 
 
 612. Unsuccessful Success. — This 
 one gets to be a hoary old man ; he is 
 
PROSPERITY AND WEALTH 
 
 141 
 
 worth twenty millions of dollars ; and, 
 if you listen to him at midnight, it will 
 be as it was with an eminent financier 
 whom I knew, but who has gone now 
 — I do not know where — and who was 
 heard in the night, tossing in his bed, 
 to say, " Oh God ! I wonder when it 
 will be morning." He was an effi- 
 cient man, and was called one of our 
 "princes" ; but he was a miserable 
 wretch, notwithstanding. He loved 
 nobody, and nobody loved him. He 
 bought all the kindness he received. 
 He knew there were harpy heirs who 
 cursed God that he lived so long. He 
 knew that he must leave his money. 
 The Lord had put the desert of Sahara 
 in his heart — sand, sand ; and not a 
 whit less sand because it was gold 
 sand. 
 
 613. The Power of Enjoyment. — 
 When a man sacrifices everything that 
 is noble in his nature to amass wealth, 
 he walks up and down the passages of 
 prosperity, a miserable wretch. The 
 enjoyment of a man does not depend 
 upon how much he can control, but 
 upon the fiber of his own being. You 
 could not ascertain the power of a mu- 
 sical instrument by measuring its 
 square inches. It is only by the qual- 
 ity of its chords or tubes that its power 
 can be ascertained. It is not what a 
 man holds in his hand, nor the amount 
 by which he is surrounded, but the 
 quality of the chords of his own soul 
 that determines whether or not he is 
 capable of happiness. 
 
 614. Selling One's Self. — What if 
 the harp, in order to make itself blessed, 
 should sell, first, its lowest bass string, 
 and then its next one, and then its 
 next string, and then its next, and its 
 next, until finally every string of the 
 harp is sold ? Then , when all the heaps 
 of music are piled up before it, and it 
 wants to play, it is mute. It has sold 
 the very things out of which music 
 
 must needs come. And men that 
 " will he rich " give up sensibihty, af- 
 fection, faith, manhood, coining them 
 all, emptying themselves ; and when 
 they get possession of their wealth, 
 what is there left for them to enjoy it 
 with ? There is no string in the harp 
 on which joy can play. 
 
 615. Self-Immured. — I see men who 
 are repeating, with golden bricks, the 
 old story which is told of an Italian no- 
 ble. It is said that he fastened a woman 
 in a little niche just large enough for her 
 to stand in, that by the masons a row 
 of bricks was laid about her, and that, 
 thus begun, a wall encircling her rose 
 steadily up and up until finally, when 
 the last brick was laid, she was left 
 standing in her living tomb. It is a 
 horrible story ; very likely it is true, 
 for they sought horror ingeniously 
 then ; but it is not half so horrible as 
 what I see going on in New York per- 
 petually. There men take golden 
 bricks, and lay a circle round about 
 themselves, and the wall rises, first up 
 to their knees, then up to their breast, 
 and then up to their neck, leaving 
 their head peering above the bricks. 
 Little by little, circle by circle, the wall 
 still rises, until by and by there is only 
 a small orifice above their head. At 
 last the top brick is laid on, that orifice 
 is closed, and the man smothers behind 
 his golden bricks. All the man that 
 was in him is dead. 
 
 616. Earthly Abundance ; Heavenly 
 Poverty. — As statues and pictures in 
 overwhelmed cities of the Orient have 
 for a thousand years lain covered with 
 the soil, so the aspirations that early 
 manifested themselves in many a 
 wealthy man have long been covered 
 by the soil of business and pleasure. 
 Men say he is prosperous, and they 
 pass by his grounds with a certain 
 sense of awe. To them there is a 
 kind of mysterious grandeur about his 
 
142 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 house ; and they know not but he is 
 well-nigh omnipotent. 
 
 By and by, when he goes to heaven, 
 he will carry up everything that be- 
 longs to his spiritual excellence, and 
 leave here everything that belongs to 
 his temporal excellence. He will 
 leave here his grounds, his house, its 
 furniture, and pictures, and books, his 
 stable and horses, his body, its pas- 
 sions, and tastes, all earthly lore, 
 everything that belongs to the flesh. 
 He will carry with him nothing but his 
 generosity — and you could take that 
 on the point of a needle ; his faith — 
 and there is but a speck of that ; and 
 all the heroic elements of his nature — 
 and there is not as much as a pinch of 
 them. He was everything here : there 
 he is nothing. 
 
 617. Wealth no Title to Remem- 
 brance. — There are multitudes of enor- 
 mously rich nothings living now in 
 New York, who soon will be pricked 
 by death ; and then in a moment they 
 will be gone. What does a thirsty 
 man care for the cloud that brought 
 the water which he drinks ? He has 
 got what he wants, and the cloud is 
 gone, and is forgotten. And heirs for- 
 get the man by whom money is handed 
 down to them ; or they remember him 
 only to curse him for living so long, 
 and worrying out their patience as he 
 did. A man that is a mere muck-rake 
 has nothing in him that men want to 
 remember. I like a fire ; but I never 
 thought of praising the coal-scuttle in 
 which the coal was brought to make 
 it. Men like money ; but they do not 
 care for those who scrape it together. 
 
 If, however, a man organizes his 
 money so that when he is gone that 
 money keeps at work for the best side 
 of human nature, and for the best 
 side of human society, then that man, 
 being dead, though he was rich, yet 
 speaketh. 
 
 618. Wealth Used for Mankind 
 
 There has gone, at last, through the 
 gate of the grave, the spirit of a man, 
 honest, industrious, simple of habit 
 and taste, gathering wealth that like 
 the sower he might sow it again to 
 bring up harvests in other fields than 
 his own ; and all the city bows down 
 to him. He has never been king, 
 prince or president. He has never 
 shown great philosophical acumen, 
 nor has he been a discoverer straying 
 through strange fields of science. He 
 has been a manly man, who lived for 
 his fellow-men ; and the whole popu- 
 lation of the city pours out, and asks 
 as a privilege permission to look upon 
 the dead face of Peter Cooper. Un- 
 covering, they reverence the man who 
 was honest, whose whole heart was in 
 sympathy with his kind, and who de- 
 voted the energy of his life to the serv- 
 ice of his fellow-men. May God in- 
 crease the procession of such men ! 
 He will increase it. It is a tendency. 
 Now, to-day, only here and there 
 you shall see a crocus peeping out, 
 or the buds on the willow giving 
 token of the coming spring ; but by 
 this promise you know that ere long 
 the whole air will be perfumed with 
 bloom. 
 
 619. Lost Wealth Appreciated. — 
 It is trite, that " Men do not know 
 how to value health till they lose it." 
 It is the same with wealth. No man 
 that has it appreciates it half so much 
 while he is in the possession of it as 
 when he has lost it. So long as we 
 are getting it, so long as we are having 
 it, so long as we are increasing it, we 
 undervalue it. It is not what we have, 
 but the more which we mean to have, 
 that we set our heart on. Oh ! if God 
 would but make our bag full of holes, 
 that our wealth might be distributed 
 along the road, and we not discover 
 it until a half was gone, the other half 
 
POVERTY AND ADVERSITY 
 
 H3 
 
 would be worth more to us than the 
 whole, as a power for pleasure. 
 
 620. Cumbering Prosperity. — Ah ! 
 the loss of things in this world is often- 
 times great gain. Have you noticed 
 that frequently, in the abundance of 
 the leaves of summer, both the land- 
 scape and the mansion are hidden ? 
 Though it is a sad time, and we do 
 not like to see the leaves turn sere ; 
 though we dread the coming of the 
 frosts, yet behold, when, in the morn- 
 ing after the frosts, every tree is bare, 
 and not a leaf is left, as we look there 
 appears a house that we have not seen 
 all summer. The leaves hid it ; but 
 now that the leaves are gone, it shines 
 out to our view. And the landscape 
 — the mountains and the distant river — 
 which has so long been obscured, is 
 revealed to us. What a wonderful 
 vision is opened when the leaves fall ! 
 
 Many and many a man whose pros- 
 perity has been like thick foliage be- 
 fore his eyes, could not see his Father's 
 house, had no view of Mount Zion, of 
 the heavenly Jerusalem nor of the 
 beautiful landscape beyond ; but when 
 adversity came and stripped him bare, 
 
 and people said, " He is ruined ! he 
 is gone ! " — he was richer than ever. 
 
 621. Money Not the Man. — After 
 all, money is like a sword in the hand 
 of a warrior — it is that by which he 
 works, but is not he. If the warrior 
 is to have a name, and to be illustrious 
 in history, his honor, his courage, and 
 his devotedness to duty are the ele- 
 ments that make him — not the instru- 
 ments which he employs in his tasks 
 and labors of love. 
 
 622. Character the Test of Success. 
 — A man may be outwardly success- 
 ful all his life long, and die hollow and 
 worthless as a puff-ball ; and a man 
 may be externally defeated all his life 
 long, and die in the royalty of a king- 
 dom established within him. That 
 man is a pauper who has only outward 
 success ; and that man may be a 
 prince who dies in rags, untended, and 
 unknown in his physical relations to 
 this world. And we ought to take the 
 ideal in the beginning that a man's 
 true estate of power and riches is to 
 be in himself : not in his dwelling ; 
 not in his position ; not in his external 
 relations, but in his own character. 
 
 Xri. POFERTT AND ADVERSITT 
 
 623. God's Mint. — Adversity is the 
 mint in which God stamps on us his 
 image and superscription. 
 
 624. Trials Test Strength. — A 
 house built on sand is, in fair weather, 
 just as good as if builded on a rock. 
 It is trial that proves one thing weak 
 and another strong. 
 
 625. Worry. — If you do not know 
 where the next loaf is to come from, 
 what will you do ? Going to be anx- 
 ious, are you ? Is Anxious a baker, 
 that he will bring you bread ? 
 
 626. What This World is For. — 
 The world is a grindstone, and races 
 are axes which are to get their cutting 
 
 edges by being ground on it ! The 
 very object for which God thinks it 
 worth while to turn and roll this round 
 globe is that, by its attrition and work- 
 ing, men may be made men, in every 
 sense of the term. 
 
 627. Prosperity and Adversity. — 
 If you lay wax on a rock and let the 
 sun pour its heat upon them, the wax 
 will melt and run down, but the rock 
 will not. If instead of this you bring 
 frost to bear upon them, the wax will 
 grow hard and the rock will split in 
 pieces. Now in men there are some 
 things that prosperity will bring out 
 and let you see, and some things that 
 
144 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 adversity will bring out and let you 
 see. It takes both these things to de- 
 velop a man's nature so that he or his 
 friends can know what he is. 
 
 628. Right Effect of Trouble, — 
 God sometimes makes a man's heart a 
 threshing-floor, where he threshes him 
 in order that the chaff and the straw 
 may be taken away, and that the 
 wheat may be left. And every stroke 
 carries blessing with it ; for the wheat 
 rattles out, and all that is worthless is 
 thrown aside and perishes. 
 
 629. Man's Need of Adversity. — 
 A dull axe never loves grindstones, 
 but a keen workman does ; and he 
 puts his tool on them in order that it 
 may be sharp. And men do not like 
 grinding ; but they are dull for the 
 purposes which God designs to work 
 out with them, and therefore he is 
 grinding them. 
 
 630. Certainty of Trouble. — A 
 plough is coming from the far end of 
 a long field, and a daisy stands nod- 
 ding, and full of dew-dimples. That 
 furrow is sure to strike the daisy. It 
 casts its shadow as gayly, and exhales 
 its gentle breath as freely, and stands 
 as simple, and radiant, and expectant, 
 as ever ; and yet, that crushing fur- 
 row, which is turning and turning 
 others in its course, is drawing near, 
 and in a moment it whirls the heed- 
 less flower with sudden reversal under 
 the sod. 
 
 And as is the daisy, with no power 
 of thought, so are ten thousand think- 
 ing, sentient flowers of hfe, blossoming 
 in places of peril, and yet thinking 
 that no furrow of disaster is running 
 in towards them, — that no iron plough 
 of trouble is about to overturn them. 
 Sometimes it dimly dawns upon us, 
 when we see other men's mischiefs 
 and wrongs, that we are in the same 
 category with them, and that perhaps 
 the storms which have overtaken them 
 
 will overtake us also. But it is only 
 for a moment, for we are artful to 
 cover the ear, and not listen to the 
 voice that warns us of our danger. 
 
 631. Unwise Character-Building. — 
 A man goes and builds his house — 
 a little cottage — under the edge of the 
 Alps. The winter has been working 
 and brewing up there for many weeks, 
 and has laid in a good store of winter 
 grain in the form of specks and par- 
 ticles of snow. Soon spring comes, 
 and the sun begins to work. Some 
 day the man goes into the valley on 
 an errand; and while he is gone, 
 with a thunderous crash down comes 
 the avalanche, and in one moment 
 his cottage and garden are blotted 
 out ! When he comes back he finds 
 only tumultuous heaps of snow and 
 ice where his little estate was ; and he 
 says, " What under heaven is the 
 reason that my home and my industry 
 should be singled out as a mark, and 
 that I should be left a poor, miserable, 
 bereaved man, I cannot conceive! " 
 A man that builds his house under an 
 avalanche, is sure to be singled out 
 when summer comes ! 
 
 Here are men whose life is essen- 
 tially secular, root and branch, from 
 side to side, from skin to core, and 
 from core back to skin again. All 
 through they are not only secular, but 
 they are intensely vivified with the 
 immoderation of passion and ambition 
 and desire ; and when in due course 
 of divine procedure there comes the 
 suffering incident to these things, 
 these men are apt to turn around and 
 say, "I cannot understand why it is 
 that I should be made to suffer." 
 
 632. Trouble is Discord. — Let one 
 string of a piano be out of tune, and 
 all the rest of the piano is at enmity 
 with it. That note wails and wails, 
 and all the other notes are sweet- 
 sounding. By and by the hand of 
 
POVERTY AND ADVERSITY 
 
 HS 
 
 llie tuner begins to bring it up ; and 
 up and up it goes, crying and whin- 
 ing ; but the moment it touches the 
 concert-pitch it falls in, and there is 
 no longer any conflict of one note 
 with the other. The moment it comes 
 into harmony, there is no longer any 
 "wolfing" of vibrations, no longer 
 any turmoil. It is in tune. And the 
 first effects of the sorrows and trou- 
 bles of this world are but the dis- 
 cordant wails that men make when 
 God attempts to bring them up into 
 harmony, 
 
 633. Adversity, — The kettle is taken 
 to the brazier, who with hammer com- 
 mences the work of beating in a dent ; 
 and out cries the suffering metal, 
 "Lord, why is this? I thought you 
 were in favor of me, and were going 
 to do me good, and, behold, you are 
 subjecting me to the most excruciating 
 torture!" Ah! your prosperity 
 bulges you out ; and adversity is 
 God's correcting hammer by which 
 you are set right, 
 
 634, Blessing in Trouble, — When 
 tender grasses start in the spring on 
 the meadows along the Connecticut, 
 the farmers rejoice. But the snows 
 melt, the rains pour, the burdened 
 river cannot carry all its treasure, and 
 it overflows its banks, and submerges 
 the fields. When the waters subside 
 a deposit of mud has blotted out every 
 spear of grass. But, behold ! in a 
 few weeks the blades shoot up through, 
 and never was there such burden on 
 fields as in the harvest day there is 
 on these, that seemed to have been 
 destroyed ; for the slime and mud 
 fed the fields instead of destroying 
 them. 
 
 And so has it often been in the 
 world's history, that torrents which 
 seemed to be destruction, in the end 
 enriched rather than destroyed what 
 they submerged. 
 
 635. Sweetness After Adversity. — I 
 do not know what some fruits do 
 when the frost falls on them. I know 
 this : that before the frost falls on them 
 they are so sour that we cannot touch 
 them without puckering our mouths, 
 and that afterwards they are so sweet 
 that the boys cannot help stealing 
 them. Before the frost comes how 
 firmly the chestnut-burs hold the nuts ! 
 but after the frost has fallen upon 
 them, how they relax their grasp and 
 let the nuts rattle down ! 
 
 There are many men that find no 
 peace till God has frosted them — till 
 by cares and troubles and suffering he 
 has compelled them to look away 
 from things of this world for comfort 
 and support. 
 
 636. Discipline of Trouble. — Tro uble 
 is not necessarily penal. It may spring 
 from an evolution of natural law, or 
 social hability in connection with indi- 
 viduals and communities and nations. 
 Comprehensively viewed, all our 
 trouble is permitted to come upon us 
 for the same reason that we put an 
 instrument on a grindstone. In the 
 one case the object is to sharpen the 
 instrument, and in the other case the 
 object is to profit us, to enlarge us, to 
 strengthen us, to make us richer. 
 Looked at as a whole, the divine gov- 
 ernment plans both joy and sorrow, 
 
 637. How to Take Trouble, — In 
 battle it would be a good thing if, 
 when the onset comes, the enemy 
 would run away ; but it is a great deal 
 better if they stand and fight, and you 
 beat them by more skill, and more 
 strength, and more courage. In a 
 thousand things that annoy, our first 
 idea almost invariably is to get rid of 
 them. It is natural, not specially 
 wicked ; but there is a nobler way. If 
 the thing is not removed, if under 
 prayer and solicitation God's provi- 
 dence does not intervene to take away 
 
146 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 the burden, we should take it up, we 
 should understand that we are to bear 
 tills burden, that we are to carry this 
 sorrow, that we are to seek our peace, 
 not by riddance of it but by rest in the 
 Lord. 
 
 638. Beneficence of Adversity. — All 
 the wild mixture, all the confusion, all 
 the sorrow and the suffering, is dis- 
 cerned of Thee. As is the palette to 
 the painting, as is violence to develop- 
 ment in strength, as is the crushing of 
 the grape to the wine, so in Thy sight 
 all things are benelicent that to us are 
 most confusing and seemingly con- 
 flicting and threatening. 
 
 639. Bearing the Reproach of Christ. 
 — When God destroys your plans, and 
 throws you to the very ground, and 
 breaks all the threads in the loom 
 which you were weaving, and says to 
 you, " Begin again," is there any 
 Christ for you at that point of over- 
 throw ? Can you go forth unto your 
 Saviour marking that place in his life 
 where he was overthrown, identifying 
 it in some way by association with 
 your overthrow ? Can you stand re- 
 joicing with Christ at that very point 
 of humiliation and crucifixion ? How 
 seldom are men noble enough to know 
 their opportunities ! The best things 
 to strengthen us we go mourning over, 
 as if they were the graveyards of our 
 hope. They are not : they are the 
 open windows of God through which 
 shines the light of the higher life. 
 
 640. Heroes of Adversity. — Angels 
 know what to write down. When you 
 laid the foundations of that big house, 
 they forgot to record it in heaven. 
 And when the walls went up, and the 
 beautiful apartments were finished, 
 and the whole magnificent structure 
 was completed, as sure as you live 
 they forgot to put that down. But 
 when that man went down out of his 
 splendid mansion into a fourth-class 
 
 house in an obscure street, shedding it 
 may be some tears as a tribute of 
 nature, and gathered his little flock on 
 the first evening around the fire and 
 made the room bright with love, and 
 faith and prayer, you may be certain 
 that they put that down. They re- 
 membered that. And when that man 
 went on from day to day, and from 
 week to week, there was not one 
 noble heart-beat, not one generous 
 purpose of fidelity, not one resistance 
 to temptation, not one thing that made 
 him a man in his trouble, that God did 
 not see and angels record. 
 
 641. Property not Manhood. — A 
 Christian parent says to his child, 
 " You must not grow up to think that 
 you must have a great house, a 
 retinue of servants, fine equipage, 
 etc. ; you must understand that truth, 
 virtue, honor, manhood, and things 
 like these, are the best things in the 
 world." But trying times come, and 
 a change comes over the father. He 
 is haggard ; he cannot eat his break- 
 fast ; he drinks down an over-strong 
 cup of tea, and away he goes ; he 
 does not come back to his accustomed 
 meal ; and when he docs come back 
 he is in a troubled, uneasy state of 
 mind. Things go on so for a fort- 
 night, and the child at last goes to his 
 mother and asks what is the trouble. 
 After some hesitation as to whether it 
 is proper to answer the question the 
 mother ventures to say, " My child, 
 your father is exceedingly afraid that 
 he is going to fail, to lose his goods, 
 and money." " Well, but pa told me, 
 the other day, that I must not care for 
 such things as houses, and lands, and 
 stores, and goods ; and that truth, and 
 virtue, and honor, and manhood were 
 the best things to bring me up on : is he 
 going to lose those ? " If the mother 
 tells the truth, oftentimes, she would 
 have to say, " I am afraid he is, and that 
 
POVERTY AND ADVERSITY 
 
 HI 
 
 is the worst of it." For where a man 
 loses the outside, the inside is apt to 
 go too. He risks the inside to save 
 the outside, and when the devil has 
 secured the one, he takes the other. 
 
 642. Wealth in Poverty. — If in 
 Kansas, just now, by reason of long 
 snow, the careful husbandman whose 
 starving cattle have but a faint chance 
 of living the winter through, sees a 
 wisp of straw, a handful of stalks, or a 
 particle of hay being wasted, it sorely 
 grieves him. He is so near to the 
 edge of starvation that he cannot 
 afford to have anything wasted. But 
 go into Illinois and Indiana, where all 
 these things are abundant, and where 
 the herds are their own harvestmen, 
 and tramp down a thousand times 
 more than they eat, and the farmer, 
 when he sees the stack gnawed, and 
 scattered around, knee deep, and 
 being wasted, says, " There is no need 
 of my saving such little things ; they 
 are mere trifles ; I have so much that 
 I do not know what to do with it." 
 
 The apostle, arguing according to 
 the same principle says, " What is a 
 little waste here ? The rinds and 
 crumbs of life — a little sorrow ; a little 
 loss ; a little contempt ; a few per- 
 secutions and afflictions and troubles 
 — what are these in the great circle of 
 God's eternal world ? There I am 
 rich and honorable ; and what differ- 
 ence does it make if here I am the off- 
 scouring of the world ? " 
 
 643. Humble Beginnings of Great- 
 ness. — If you had gone to Wesley's 
 room, when John and Charles met in 
 the University, and Whitefield and 
 others met with them, and looked 
 upon this handful of men who were 
 deiided as the offscouring of the earth 
 in their day, you would never have 
 suspected what a fair fabric was to 
 arise through their humble instrumen- 
 tality. For God seemed to be every- 
 
 where but with them. No flaming 
 chariot came down to them, no silver 
 trumpet sounded before them. They 
 were poor, hated, bemobbed men. It 
 was on that very account that they 
 became the men they did. The same 
 elements were with them which ac- 
 companied the advent of the Babe of 
 Bethlehem. For whenever Christ is 
 born into the world, he comes in as 
 when he was first born. He came in 
 at the bottom ; he came in through a 
 manger, with the poor standing round 
 about him. 
 
 644. Truth Spread by Persecution. 
 —He that smites the thistle, replants 
 the thistle over broad places. He that 
 smites the ripe barley head and the 
 ripe wheat head is a sower of the 
 seed, though he may destroy the seed 
 bed in which it ripens. So, often, in 
 this world the apparent destruction of 
 influences for good is the burying 
 them only that they may come up 
 again. 
 
 645. Rough Handling by Provi- 
 dence. — Here is an old barrel that 
 leaks, that will hold nothing, and that 
 is good for nothing. It is sent to a 
 cooper. He takes it and puts hoops 
 on it, and with his hammer drives them 
 down, whirling it round, and round, and 
 round ; and nobody says, " Poor old 
 barrel ! " but everybody says, " That 
 is a good thing to do ; it ought to be 
 done ; now it will be good for some- 
 thing." And we ought not to bemoan 
 the condition of men when they are 
 handled roughly by divine Provi- 
 dence for their own improvement and 
 benefit. 
 
 646. Hidden Beauty Revealed, — 
 Did you ever go out on a mineralogical 
 expedition to seek crystals ? Do you 
 know that the finest crystals you get 
 you do not get till you break the rock ? 
 When with many hard blows you suc- 
 ceed in rending the rock asunder, to 
 
148 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 your amazement, there stands, half 
 disclosed, an exquisite crystal which 
 you never would have seen if it had 
 not been for those blows. So God finds 
 crystals by hard blows in human life. 
 
 647. God's Sculpture. — A great 
 block of marble has been blown out 
 of the quarry, and brought to a sculp- 
 tor's studio, and feels proud of itself, 
 as it stands on end, propped up, and 
 says : " How much there is of me ! " 
 It looks with contempt on little slabs 
 just big enough for a gravestone, or 
 something like that. But one day a 
 sculptor like Michael Angelo — of whom 
 Vasari says when he was in the fury of 
 inspiration he would chisel from a 
 block of marble more material than 
 three men could carry away — begins 
 to knock off from it part after part ; 
 and it says within itself, "Good heav- 
 ens! what does he mean? He is re- 
 ducing me ! He is taking off from me 
 all that in which I gloried." By and 
 by he has cut it down to such a 
 slender form that instead of being a 
 gigantic block of marble it is begin- 
 ning to have the outlines of a man. 
 When the head is at last set free, as it 
 is by taking from the trunk, and the 
 sculptor begins to delineate the fea- 
 tures — the brow, the eye, and the im- 
 mortal lips (significant more than any 
 other feature) — the statue gains in 
 value by what it loses. 
 
 In this life God is rudely fashioning 
 us. By sorrow, and suffering, or by 
 joy and hope and inspiration, he is 
 shredding us off, taking this and that 
 away, and lifting us above time-influ- 
 ences ; and all these processes are de- 
 veloping that grandeur of spiritual life 
 — which is representable, after all, not 
 by stone, but rather by flame, forever 
 the same, but ever flickering and 
 changing. 
 
 648. Braving Trouble. — We should 
 brave trouble as the New England 
 
 boy braves winter. . . . Does he 
 shrink and cower down beneath the 
 fences, or run into the nearest house 
 to warm himself? No : he buttons up 
 his coat and rejoices to defy the blast 
 and tosses the snow-wreaths with his 
 foot. And so, erect and fearless, with 
 strong heart and ruddy cheek, he 
 goes on to his place at school. 
 
 649. Disciplinary Treatment. — A 
 man stands by a piano, with one hand 
 on the key and the other on the 
 chord, and as he tightens the chord it 
 cries, " Don't, don't, don't, don't," 
 until, at last, it is tuned ; and no harm 
 is done to the instrument, either. So 
 God does to us ; and so we do to 
 others. It is a musical ear seeking 
 harmony — not a hard hand seeking 
 regularity. 
 
 650. Issue of Tribulation. — The flax 
 in the field sighs to be made into the 
 garment of the saints. All right. 
 Pluck it up ; rot it, put it under the 
 brick, thread it, weave it, bleach it, 
 purify it ; and the saints may wear it 
 now. It came to honor and glory 
 through much suffering. " Who are 
 these arrayed in white ? These are 
 they that have come out of great trib- 
 ulation and washed their robes and 
 made them white in the blood of the 
 Lamb." Suffering is God's guardian 
 guiding angel to those that will. 
 
 651. Fire of Affliction. — Have you 
 ever seen tools made ? If it be a 
 chisel, or a hammer, or whatever it 
 may be, that is manufactured, the 
 workmen take it from the rude metal 
 and give it its general shape ; it is 
 passed from hand to hand in the proc- 
 ess of manufacture, until, finally, 
 when the form has been perfected, 
 and everything has been done except 
 the tempering it, they take their little 
 furnace of charcoal, with a gridiron 
 over it, as it were, and place the tool 
 thereon, and apply heat, and watch it 
 
POVERTY AND ADVERSITY 
 
 149 
 
 to see certain colors come ; and when 
 they discern the signs for which they 
 are looking, they take it off and 
 plunge it, sometimes into water, some- 
 times into oil, and sometimes into this 
 or that of various other liquids. But 
 the moment the color determines that 
 the temper which they want has been 
 attained, the work is done. All the 
 rest is mere polishing. The shape is 
 first secured, and then the quality 
 comes with the tempering. 
 
 Now, we are all wrought, in this 
 life, as it were, in one furnace, on one 
 anvil, and we are passed from hand to 
 hand till we receive certain disciphne 
 and certain general shapes ; but no 
 man is fit for the Lord's tool-chest un- 
 til he has been tempered ; and temper- 
 ing is a thing which is done by flame 
 — by heat. 
 
 652. Body and Soul.— Once on a 
 summer's day I went with my brother 
 to extract a crystal from a rock. 
 With a mighty sledge-hammer he 
 vigorously dealt blow after blow upon 
 the rock, and chipped off piece after 
 piece. At last the top of the crystal 
 appeared. Then one might see what 
 he was after, for it had not shown 
 upon the outer surface of the rock. 
 When the crystal appeared the ques- 
 tion was how so to break the rock 
 away from it, and how so to strike the 
 rock, as to extract the crystal. The 
 rock was good for nothing. The 
 crystal was everything. 
 
 The soul is man's crystal. The 
 body is but the encasing rock that 
 holds it. God's providences are smit- 
 ing the rock, breaking it away, and 
 extracting the precious crystal, worth 
 infinitely more than its setting. 
 
 653. Kindness of Pain. — A child 
 has been thrown from a wagon, and 
 its leg is fractured. Its father, a phy- 
 sician and surgeon, comes home and 
 sets the limb, and encourages the child 
 
 as he does so. He says, "My boy, I 
 will hurt you as little as 1 can, but 
 you shall not be crippled because I 
 am too tender to take care of you." 
 And the bones grate and crack as 
 they go into their places. The child 
 screams and pleads, but the father 
 none the less holds him firmly and 
 completes the operation. He disre- 
 gards his outcries and entreaties, not 
 because he does not care for him, but 
 because he does care for him. 
 
 654. Penalty Guards Safety. — Is 
 God terrible when he stands behind a 
 sinner, and won't let him go down — 
 when he stands like a sharp-pointed 
 hedge near him ? A hedge is a good 
 thing if there is a precipice on the 
 other side. The thorns may scratch a 
 man, and he does not like them, but 
 he likes them better than he likes 
 death. Pain and penalty are parts of 
 God's mercy towards the race, that 
 otherwise, in uncontrolled animalism, 
 would wreck itself and be destroyed. 
 
 655. Good Fortune in Early Hard- 
 ships. — When the army of fowls pre- 
 pare for their young, they do not sit 
 down upon the fat marshes of the 
 south, or on the sedgy edges of south- 
 ern rivers. They lift themselves into 
 the heavens and sail to the Arctic 
 circle, and there, upon rocks, under 
 the edge of ice, find security for their 
 young. New England was the breed- 
 ing-ground of America. Her seclu- 
 sion and her hard ways were mercies. 
 It was not in soft places and amidst 
 Egyptian leeks and onions and melons 
 and cucumbers that Israel planned the 
 Hebrew commonwealth, but under the 
 crags of Sinai, and along the sands of 
 the wilderness. The pitiable part of 
 our Colonial history is the best part of 
 it, and its glory. 
 
 656. To "Endure Hardness." — It 
 seems hard that the Puritans should 
 have been treated with such contempt 
 
150 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 as was lieaped upon them. Well, it 
 depends upon what was to be made of 
 them. When a man wants to make a 
 sword, he does not deal with it as you 
 would deal with a baby that you 
 wanted to soothe. He takes the ore, 
 and plumps it into a red-hot furnace, 
 and melts it, and takes it out, and puts 
 it back again, and stews it over, and 
 suljjects it to a series of other purify- 
 ing processes, and at last it comes out 
 steel. Then he puts it under a trip- 
 hammer, which smites it as if the 
 thunder were kissing it, until every 
 particle that flies off from it is like a 
 spark of fire. Then it is good to make 
 swords that will stand in the day of 
 battle. It must go through fire and 
 water if you would have it make 
 a sword that will not betray you 
 in the hour of trial. When God 
 made the Puritans, he made them 
 as we make swords. And men that 
 pulled them out of their scabbards 
 wished they could push them back 
 again ! 
 
 657, Glory Out of Obscurity. — 
 When the Huguenots, the Vaudois, 
 and the various European nations that 
 suffered under persecutions in the 
 wilderness, in the mountains, and in 
 caves, were driven out, they were un- 
 known, they were of little influence, 
 they were the poor of the earth, they 
 were looked down upon by princes, by 
 priests, and by arch-priests, they were 
 regarded as rubbish; for their faith's 
 sake they suffered loss of property, 
 loss of home, loss of their own kin- 
 dred, and were subjected to every 
 strait and stress of affliction, and they 
 became heroes. To-day our children 
 read their history ; they are living 
 still; and with an invisible influence 
 they are lifting up men's thoughts to 
 higher spheres and to nobler patience 
 and endeavor, by reason of their con- 
 duct as sufferers. 
 
 658. The Cost of Good.— There is 
 no good done that is not accomplished 
 through the medium of somebody's 
 suffering. No great thought was ever 
 born, no great principle was ever 
 wrought out, except by toil and trouble 
 and suffering, proportionate to the 
 good that it effected. God measures 
 the magnitude of blessings by the suf- 
 ferings that men are willing to bear 
 for the sake of attaining them. 
 
 When in the peace and serene joy 
 of the tranquil household children sit 
 round about the encircled table, how 
 little do they know that all their de- 
 light and all their sweet peace has 
 been purchased by midnight vigils, by 
 maternal tears, by parental strivings 
 with God! 
 
 659. " Persecuted for Righteousness' 
 Sake."^ — Persecution which is caused 
 by true goodness drives men more en- 
 tirely from the resources of the animal 
 and secular life, and develops in them 
 to greater strength and intensity their 
 truly spiritual or divine part ; and in 
 that state their joys increase in ele- 
 vation, in conscious purity, in peace- 
 fulness. They live in another realm, 
 which, invisible but potential, springs 
 up around them. Dispossessed of 
 common pleasures, they find them- 
 selves filled with other joys, unspeak- 
 able and full of glory, " Theirs is the 
 kingdom of heaven." 
 
 660. Living Beyond Malice. — At the 
 edge of the evening, in times like those 
 of the old Anti-Slavery movement, I 
 stop at a certain house, but only for a 
 moment, and then go along the street 
 and put up for the night at another 
 house. The mob think I am staying 
 at the house where I first stopped; and 
 during the night I hear a tremendous 
 noise, and looking out of my window, 
 I see that the fellows are yelling hid- 
 eously in front of that house, and pelt- 
 ing it with stones and mud ; but I am 
 
POVERTY AND ADVERSITY 
 
 151 
 
 not there, and I laugh. Many things 
 are said, and many attacks are made 
 by men ; they are made at what they 
 think I am, and are made where they 
 think I am ; but I am not there at all, 
 and they do not touch me. It is an- 
 other sort of person altogether that 
 they are attacking ; and so I laugh. 
 
 661. Vitality of Truth When 
 
 truth in any age has apparently been 
 destroyed, it has only died as the seed 
 dies to come up again a hundredfold. 
 
 662. Superior to Environment. — I 
 do not despise garden flowers that are 
 the product of skill, and of the high- 
 est horticultural art — ranks and de- 
 grees of them ; beds, multitudes of 
 them. I like to see them. But now 
 and then, wandering through the field 
 or highway, or aside in some corner, I 
 see a gracious blossom, the seed of 
 which, perhaps, the birds sowed, or it 
 was blown there from its parent. In 
 all the gardens there is not a more 
 beautiful flower ; and set off by the 
 barrenness of its surroundings it sur- 
 prises and delights me. So have I 
 seen under the most unfavorable ex- 
 ternal circumstances a radiance of 
 faith, and a quiet, sanctified pride, 
 with a vision of the future, and a hope 
 that maketh not ashamed. 
 
 663. Trouble as a Guide. — A man, 
 walking along a path at night, as long 
 as it is smooth feels that he is in the 
 path; but by and by, falling into some 
 quag, he says, "What! quags in 
 good roads?" And then he says, 
 " Oh ! no, I am not in the road. The 
 road is pleasant and easy; and if I get 
 my feet into the mud, it is because I 
 am not in the road." What, then, is 
 the fact but this : that if a man only 
 knows the right path, he goes on with- 
 out suffering, and that if he suffers, it 
 is because he is not in the right path ? 
 
 664. Conceit of Strength. — Men 
 who have always thrust obstacles 
 
 aside come to think their power in- 
 vincible, and to make themselves bat- 
 tering rams against fate and circum- 
 stance. And when God comes down 
 to oppose them, at first they try to 
 wrestle with him; but they limp all 
 their life after, like Jacob of old, for 
 God never wrestles with a man with- 
 out throwing him. 
 
 665. Great Thoughts Destroy Small 
 Troubles. — If you are traveling lazily, 
 and some clumsy passenger sets his 
 carpet-bag down so that it grazes you, 
 scratches your skin, and causes you 
 pain, you very Hkely say, " Block- 
 head ! Can't see ! " When you are 
 in a quiet, listless state, small things 
 disturb your peace. But suppose a 
 man is rescuing his child from a con- 
 flagration ; his whole soul is kindled 
 by affection, and he is dashing here 
 and there without regard to his own 
 comfort or safety ? It will not be un- 
 til hours afterwards, that he finds out 
 that his hand is gashed, or that his 
 foot is bruised. Under the inspiration 
 of a noble feeling, troubles and suffer- 
 ings are forgotten, and outward things 
 almost cease to have power over men. 
 
 666. Discomfort Glorified. — When 
 the clouds drop down low, and it is 
 rainy and chilly and misty, there is 
 nothing in them but discomfort ; but 
 when, the sun having risen, they get 
 off a little distance, we cry, "Oh! 
 see the rainbow ! " What is the rain- 
 bow ? Nothing but that cloud which, 
 when it is passing you, weaves a 
 garment that is disagreeable and hate- 
 ful to you, but which, when it is re- 
 moved a little distance from you, 
 with the sun shining on it, is clothed 
 with glory and beauty. Dull duties, 
 a little way off, may become God's 
 rainbows to men. 
 
 667. Tempered AflHiction. — When I 
 was a boy, nothing suited me so well 
 as to have my father whip me when 
 
152 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 my clothes were on. Tlien I could 
 bear it with the utmost equanimity. 
 It was when he took me at advantage, 
 in the morning, before 1 was dressed, 
 that I did not like whipping ! I have 
 heard many people say, " If God only 
 tempered affliction so that it came on 
 the spot where I did not feel it, I 
 could bear it." But what sort of 
 affliction would that be ? 
 
 668. Training by Trouble. — How 
 is it, brother ? I do not ask you 
 whether you hke the cup which you 
 are now drinking ; but look back 
 twenty years. Almost every one of 
 you can think of some trouble which 
 you experienced twenty, or ten, or 
 five years ago, and which at the time 
 seemed to you like midnight. It 
 bowed you down, and you felt as 
 though your heart was bursting in 
 twain. Now it is all over, and it has 
 wrought out its effect on you, and I 
 ask you, Would you give out of your 
 education those twists and twirls which 
 you suffered under? You were gold 
 in the rock ; and God played miner, 
 and blasted you out of the rock ; and 
 then he played stamper, and crushed 
 you ; and then he played smelter, 
 and melted you ; and now you are 
 gold free from the rock by the grace 
 of God's severity. And you say, " I 
 would not exchange what I learned 
 from these things for all the world." 
 
 669. Recuperation under Adversity. 
 — When trees grow so that their 
 branches are mostly on one side, we 
 cut the most barren side, and there 
 nature, in seeking to restore what we 
 cut, drives out new buds and branches. 
 Where the gardener puts the knife 
 there will follow the fruit of the tree. 
 And blessed are they whom the heav- 
 enly Husbandman prunes, that they 
 may bring forth more fruit, if, when 
 he cuts, there is a bud behind the 
 knife. But woe to them who, being 
 
 cut, have no bud to grow, and are 
 more disbranched and barren from 
 being pruned ! 
 
 670. Persecution Should Sweeten 
 Men. — It does not hurt a man to be 
 abused. Frost does not hurt a chest- 
 nut. It does not hurt hard autumn 
 fruit. It takes the prickly cover off 
 from the one, and turns the juices of 
 the other to sugar. I do not know of 
 anything that is made sour by frost, 
 except men. They sometimes are. 
 Persecutions and troubles ought to 
 make a man sweet-hearted instead of 
 sour-tempered. 
 
 671. Trial Tests Men. — If you do 
 not bring any strain to bear upon tim- 
 ber, one kind is as good as another. 
 A splinter of a broom is as good as 
 the best ash or hickory if you do not 
 put any weight upon it — if you lay it 
 down on the carpet and do nothing 
 with it. And when men are tried in 
 life what they are is made to appeal-. 
 
 672. Trouble a Test of Friendship. 
 — How adversity does test ! What a 
 touch-stone trouble is ! How many 
 when you were on the crest of the 
 wave were friendly to you ! But 
 when you went down in the trough of 
 the sea, where were they ? Not one 
 could be seen. Much of the friend- 
 ship of Hfe is kindly, is good-natured ; 
 but there is a vast amount of friendli- 
 ness that is merely a net set to catch 
 your praise. It is friendship for the 
 interest of one alone, and not for the 
 mutual interest of both. Therefore it 
 is said, " Let love be without dissimu- 
 lation." Do not pretend to love when 
 you do not. Let friendship be real. 
 
 673. Child Training and Christian 
 Training. — That child is the best 
 brought up who knows some care, 
 who has felt some responsibility, and 
 who has been trained and taught, as 
 he has gone along, how to take 
 trouble, and overcome it. And our 
 
POVERTY AND ADVERSITY 
 
 153 
 
 Father's disposition is to deal with us 
 in the same general way. He puts 
 upon us pain and penalty, for the 
 very sake of bringing us to behold 
 that which is in us. 
 
 674. Brave Bearing of Trouble. — A 
 soldier was not born for soft parade ; 
 he was born for the camp, for the 
 onset, for the fierce endeavor, for 
 wounds, for the hospital, — not for 
 whining in any of them, but for say- 
 ing, " I am man enough to bear it 
 all." Everybody admires that hero- 
 ism. We admire it in each other ; 
 and do you suppose that God does 
 not admire it in us ? 
 
 675. God's Care of His Children. — 
 When a father teaches his boy to 
 swim he puts him into the water, and 
 stands by him with a hand that is 
 ready to sustain him if he begins to 
 sink. The father does not propose to 
 help the boy so long as he can help 
 himself, because his object is to teach 
 him to rely upon the exertion of his 
 own powers, but if he is in danger of 
 sinking he will catch him. There is a 
 Father's hand in every man's affairs. 
 If there is one truth taught in the New 
 Testament more than another it is 
 that there is a Providence that takes 
 care of men when they cannot take 
 care of themselves. 
 
 676. Nobility in Adversity. — There 
 used to be a magnificent style of 
 chivalry among the Southern gentle- 
 men. I think of it now, and wish 
 there was more of it in the North. 
 There was a personal courage and a 
 social nobility and refinement about 
 them which everybody ought to ad- 
 mire — and I do admire it ; but I never 
 admired their grace of manner, their 
 conversation and their high chivairic 
 bearing half so much as 1 have ad- 
 mired the conduct, in innumerable 
 cases among them that I have known, 
 and about which others have informed 
 
 me, of men who since the Civil War 
 have gone down from eminence and 
 affluence to absolute obscurity and 
 destitution without a tear, without a 
 murmur, without a particle of discon- 
 tent, and are taking whatever comes 
 to them from day to day, and waiting, 
 with uplifted eye, until their change 
 comes. 
 
 677. God's Dealings. — If you have 
 trouble it is a sign and token that God 
 is doing something with you. He is 
 digging a well in you out of which is 
 to come the water of life. He is sink- 
 ing a shaft in you because the gold 
 lies so deep that it otherwise will never 
 be got out. He is using the flail ; 
 that is the only way of separating the 
 grain from the straw. He lays you 
 out in the dew, as it were ; for it is 
 not until every fiber of wrong that is 
 in you is rotted that you can produce 
 the fine linen of righteousness. At 
 every single step he is leading you to 
 a nobler manhood ; to the very sub- 
 stance of being ; to more strength to 
 endure. 
 
 678. Remnants of Life. — In the 
 summer when the wind blew the 
 leaves sang. But the time came 
 when they had lost their hold on the 
 tree and dropped. And now, when 
 the wind blew, the leaves no longer 
 made melody in their motion. Before, 
 when the wind came, they hung sweet 
 and succulent and green on the tree, 
 but now they whirled in wreaths past 
 the house, some falling into a little de- 
 pression ; some nestling by the side 
 of the fence ; some falling under a 
 bank ; some along the hedge. Brown, 
 sapless, withered leaves, they were, 
 good for nothing except to make soil 
 for another year. I have seen a great 
 many men in life that were wind- 
 blown ; and they held on to the stalk 
 and the branch ; and all the wind 
 could do was to make them sing : but 
 
»54 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 now I see that they are broken off 
 from the tree. It is November with 
 them ; and the wind catches them, 
 and whirls them away, and some land 
 in poor-houses, some in hospitals, and 
 some in private dwellings, where they 
 pick up chips, or do some other inferior 
 service. They are remnants of life. 
 And it is a very great sadness. 
 
 679. Courage Under Failure. — 
 There is a great deal of what is called 
 " submitting to the will of God " that 
 is the poorest kind of piety. Do not 
 think that because you are thirty-five 
 years old, and all your endeavors thus 
 far have failed, and it seems to be the 
 will of God that you should be a use- 
 less man, that you will submit, and 
 seek to spend the rest of your life in 
 some quiet seclusion. Oh, you lazy 
 one ! Do you suppose that God is 
 proud of such submission and of such 
 children as that ? He tingles you 
 with events, not to make you give up, 
 but to make you wake up. Be young 
 until you die, so far as energy, per- 
 sistence, ambition, and augmentation 
 of resources are concerned ! There 
 are some things that curl over easily 
 in the autumn. Their leaves become 
 sear and yellow, and fall to the ground 
 before there are any signs of frost in 
 the air. I do not like such vege- 
 tables ; I do not have them in my 
 garden. Others carry their green 
 leaves clean down into freezing be- 
 fore they give up. These I like. And 
 I like to see men that can look at 
 God's frosts and not be blighted, but 
 remain green, and succulent, and 
 growing, even into the edges of 
 winter. 
 
 680. Commercial Death and Resur- 
 rection. — Of the men that have been 
 considered worthy of an inscription, I 
 think you will find that ninety-nine 
 out of every hundred have seen one 
 or two or three periods during their 
 
 life when the world said that it was all 
 up with them, and threw its pall over 
 them. But there was resurrection 
 under the pall. Determined not to 
 die, they rose to their feet again. 
 
 There is but one bankruptcy that 
 should make a man lie still, and that 
 is the one in which the sexton is his 
 executor, and settles his estate. 
 
 681. Borrowing Trouble. — Never 
 cry about a trouble until God brings it 
 to you, and puts it on you. Then you 
 will find that with the troubles comes 
 the preparation, so that they cease to 
 be troubles. Livingstone, the traveler, 
 describes, in one of his letters, his ex- 
 perience when he was struck down by 
 a lion. He testifies that, when he was 
 set upon and borne down by a lion's 
 spring, and seized in his jaws, and 
 dragged by him, from the moment 
 that he was struck by the lion's paw, 
 all fear and all trouble left him. It 
 was a dream of peace with him. His 
 intellect remained, and he supposed 
 that he was about to be killed ; but 
 he seemed to be under a magnetic 
 charm, until he was rescued by the 
 fidelity of one of his attendants. And 
 that which he found to be true in the 
 case of a literal lion, thousands of 
 men have felt in the moral kingdom. 
 When the lion that they feared in the 
 way set upon them, God either stopped 
 his mouth, or rendered the stroke of 
 his paw painless. 
 
 682. Imaginary Troubles. — Many 
 people take their troubles by the 
 imagination. More than half we suf- 
 fer through fear of troubles, is that 
 which we are made to suffer by 
 magnifying them. You suffer ten 
 times as much in thinking about hav- 
 ing your tooth drawn as you do in 
 having it drawn. We take our 
 troubles, and turn them over, and 
 look at them ; we imagine what form 
 they will assume under such and such 
 
POVERTY AND ADVERSITY 
 
 155 
 
 circumstances ; we make an inventory 
 of them ; we muster them, and call 
 the roll, and put them in order, and 
 march them first this way and then 
 that ; we annoy ourselves with them 
 as much as possible. Although there 
 are such things as troubles, generally 
 speaking those things that hurt are 
 things that we do not imagine are 
 going to hurt. When grief puts its 
 harness on a man, the place where it 
 rubs and binds is not where there are 
 pads, but where there are no pads ; 
 the place where it bears heavily is 
 where he made no provision for it. 
 
 683. Persistent Troubles. — When 
 brooks flow from the mountains, 
 though as they begin to go down they 
 move gently and smoothly and 
 sweetly, yet when at last they come to 
 the chasm, the waters plunge down 
 suddenly to the bottom, and, finding 
 no outlet, whirl round and round, 
 and, .seizing a rock which happens 
 to be there, turn it over and over per- 
 petually, and wear the place deeper 
 and deeper, so that it never becomes 
 dry. And it is troubles which roll 
 about in men's souls that dig deep 
 places in them which even in the 
 droughts of summer never are dry. 
 
 684. Escape from Trouble. — When 
 birds are flying over, and the fowler 
 lies in wait for them, if they fly low, at 
 every discharge of the fowler's gun, 
 some fall, some are wounded, and 
 some, swerving sideways, plunge into 
 the thicket and hide themselves. But 
 you will find that immediately after 
 the first discharge of the gun, the 
 flock rise and fly higher ; and at the 
 next discharge they rise again, and 
 fly still higher. And not many times 
 has the plunging shot thinned their 
 number, before they take so high a 
 level that it is in vain that the fowler 
 aims at them, because they are above 
 the reach of his shot. 
 
 When troubles come upon you, fly 
 higher. And if they still strike you, 
 fly still higher. And by and by you 
 will rise so high in the spiritual life, 
 and your affections will be set on 
 things so entirely above, that these 
 troubles cannot touch you. 
 
 685. Seek Higher Things. — I know 
 all about Western rivers in times of 
 flood, having lived on the banks of 
 one of them. I know what it is to see 
 fifteen miles of water where ordinarily 
 there is not more than a quarter of a 
 mile. I have seen steamboats running 
 right through the main streets of a 
 town. I have seen settlers, warned 
 by the old inhabitants, build their 
 cabin on higher ground, and I have 
 seen persons living lower down driven 
 by the flood, first from the ground- 
 floor to the next, and then to the next, 
 being compelled to go higher and 
 higher, until finally they were obliged 
 to abandon their homes and go in a 
 skiff to some point of safety. They 
 said, after going through this experi- 
 ence, " You will never find me building 
 on low land again." And God says 
 to many men, " You have built too 
 low. Build again, and build higher." 
 
 686. Forward ; not Backward. — 
 Once, when I was a lad, I undertook 
 to swim across Charles River, and got 
 halfway across it, when some strange 
 sensation, arising from a boy's morbid 
 fear of cramping, took possession of 
 me. It was a great feat to swim 
 across, and one that I never accom- 
 plished ; for having that fear I swam 
 back, forgetting that it was just as far 
 to one side as to the other! Many 
 persons carry themselves far across 
 the stream of difficulty, and then, 
 on meeting some impediment and 
 check, swim back again ; whereas 
 the same effort, the same exertion of 
 thought and feeling, would carry 
 them to the other side. 
 
.56 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 687. Beautiful Surrender. — In what- 
 ever way events make known the will 
 of God to you, and wherever you are, 
 remember, do not give up until you 
 are compelled to : but when you do 
 give up, do it thoroughly ; do it 
 sweetly ; do it beautifully. It is said 
 that on the battle-field some die in 
 rage, and lie with clenched fists, with 
 passion apparent in their faces. 
 Others, that in the conflict carried 
 themselves with magnificent powers, 
 in death lie with smiles upon their 
 faces, as if they had died dreaming 
 sweet dreams of home, even amid the 
 horror of the battle around them. 
 When you fall in the conflict of life, 
 do not die gnarled and strife-marked, 
 but with the look of resignation on 
 your face. If you are overthrown, 
 you then know what God's will is. 
 Don't give up before ; but give up 
 then, and do it like a tfian. 
 
 688. A Firm Hope. — It is quite in 
 vain for any of us to have a hope in 
 God which is valid only in the fair 
 hour of prosperity and of health. No 
 anchor is of any use whatsoever to a 
 ship that cannot by its cable go down 
 to take hold of the firm bottom, and 
 that, taking hold of it, is not able to 
 keep the ship. If when the wave 
 beats, if when the whole concentrated 
 fury of the storm beats on the ship, 
 the anchor holds it, that is an anchor 
 worth having. 
 
 689. Transient Troubles. — As to all 
 those apparent contradictions and ca- 
 cophonies that exist in human life, by 
 and by, when the evil is removed, we 
 shall see that there is a use in them ; 
 and, as in some of Beethoven's sym- 
 phonies, there are passages that rasp 
 the ear and that quiver the very foun- 
 dations on which we stand, but are 
 like gorges, which open out into val- 
 leys of beauty, made more beautiful 
 by the contrast ; so, by and by, in 
 
 another life, we shall see that the 
 things that in this life seemed such 
 hard things were working out results 
 that were beneficent and beautiful. 
 
 690. Bearing Present Troubles. — 
 I have always been peculiarly subject 
 to seasickness ; and when, upon the 
 ocean, I was going abroad, with my 
 imagination dazzled by all the won- 
 ders of the Old World, I lay in my 
 berth scarcely able to stir, wilted and 
 worthless. I knew there were ten 
 days between New York and Liver- 
 pool, and I said to myself, " Are you 
 willing to take these ten days of 
 nausea and universal disgust for the 
 sake of the three months of exquisite 
 joy you will have on the other side ? " 
 I never was so seasick but that I was 
 deliberately willing to pay the price. 
 I said, " This is about as bad as any- 
 thing can well be in this world, but 
 for the sake of that which is beyond 
 it I will take even this." 
 
 691. Sweetness in Adversity. — To 
 be able to stand and bear the ills and 
 the adversities of life and yet blossom 
 in the midst of them is a rare quality, 
 the example of which the church 
 needs. I remember when in Switzer- 
 land plucking flowers on the dripping 
 edge of the glaciers ; and no flower 
 grown in a tropical garden ever 
 seemed half so beautiful to my eye 
 as those that were blossoming in the 
 midst of winter — as it were, defying it. 
 
 692. Hardness in Life. — What ! 
 You are surrounded with trouble ; 
 you are surrounded with difficulties; 
 you are mortified and disappointed 
 every day, and know not that it is the 
 voice of God to you ? 
 
 What would you have thought if a 
 recruit, on being sent down to the 
 Army of the Potomac, had cried the 
 first day because he could not get any 
 plum-pudding ; and on the second 
 day because his clothes were torn, and 
 
POVERTY AND ADVERSITY 
 
 157 
 
 he had no one to sew them up ; and 
 on the third day because he had to 
 march farther than he wanted to ? 
 They take such weaknesses out of 
 boys pretty quickly in the army. 
 
 There are men in God's army suffer- 
 ing what all soldiers suffer, depriva- 
 tion and hardship on every side ; the 
 missiles of the enemy come hurling 
 in, asking no leave. But by life's 
 battle there is being wrought out in 
 them a nobler manhood, an enfran- 
 chised will, a purified courage, a 
 sweeter resignation, an invisible trust 
 in God, a divinely-kindled manhood. 
 
 693. Sainthood in Poverty. — There 
 are probably a good many saints that 
 go out of our churches ; but I think 
 there are a great many more going 
 out of our hospitals, and not a few 
 out of our poor-houses, and a great 
 many out of the lower walks of life. 
 If the angels of God were to come 
 and gather up those that in distress 
 and poverty and suffering have main- 
 tained a holy faith and a godly life 
 and example, they would garner first 
 from the bottom of society, and last, 
 and with the smallest sheaves, from 
 the top of society. " For the last 
 shall be first, and the first last." 
 
 694. Long-Suffering. — What the 
 castle is, where there is light within, 
 where there is fire on the hearth, 
 where all is joy, while the winter 
 scowls and beats and flails the outside, 
 that may be said to be the soul of a 
 man who is built so high and with 
 such thick and secure walls that ex- 
 ternal things can afflict him but little. 
 Long-suffering — what a glorious at- 
 tribute it is to us ! What an armor ! 
 
 695. Outward and Inward Riches. — 
 A man may be a pauper inwardly 
 though everything he touches turns to 
 gold ; but a man may be a pauper 
 outwardly and rich as a king inside. 
 It is a great achievement, therefore, 
 
 to know how to take coarse surround- 
 ings, unfavorable circumstances, and 
 limited means, and so use them as to 
 build one's self up inwardly. 
 
 695. The Real Man. — It is with a 
 man as it is with corn. You may 
 take away the stalk, but that is not 
 the corn ; you may strip all the husks, 
 one after another, and yet the corn 
 has lost nothing. The kernel re- 
 mains, and that is the corn. The 
 stalk and husks are good to protect 
 the corn, and carry the sap to it while 
 it is growing ; but when it is grown 
 they are of no use to it. And a man 
 has lost nothing when his surround- 
 ings are taken away. 
 
 697, Trouble Shows Character. — 
 When a truly great man has his 
 worldly possessions taken away from 
 him, it is as when a cocoanut has the 
 shell and rind taken off from it. Take 
 a man who is good and noble and true, 
 and remove from him everything 
 through which he has stood and 
 glowed and radiated, and men will 
 bow down to him, and say, " That is 
 virtue ! That is godliness ! That is 
 God in the soul ! " And the man will 
 be more known, more felt, more re- 
 vered, when standing merely in his 
 own intrinsic wealth, than when clothed 
 with the trappings of this world. 
 
 698. Moral Worth of Frugality. — 
 A frugal and economical man is self- 
 governing. His eye begs him every 
 day, and he says, to his eye, "No." 
 His ear pleads every day for indul- 
 gence, and he says, " No." His 
 tongue supplicates him, saying, " In- 
 dulge me, indulge me ; " and he says, 
 " Thou must be obedient. Thou shalt 
 not have this." Every inch of his 
 skin pleads for some license; and he 
 says, " No." And amusements say, 
 " Give us the day; " and he says, " I 
 will not spare the day." Pleasures 
 and temptations of various kinds, a 
 
158 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 thousand influences, come round a 
 man, beseeching him to gratify their 
 demands ; and he says, " I have laid 
 out my plan, and I will not depart 
 from it. I will save." There is a 
 continuous process of self-government 
 going on within him. This may be 
 carried too far, and become miserish; 
 but that is an abuse of a good thing: 
 and in this habit of frugality and 
 economy there is a world of moral 
 benefit. 
 
 699. Inequalities of Condition. — If 
 a party of men that are crossing the 
 continent to become rich in California 
 are assured that every one of them 
 shall be the possessor, in five years, of 
 one million dollars, the differences be- 
 tween them are annihilated while they 
 are going across. One may have 
 twenty-five dollars in his pocket, an- 
 other a hundred, and another five 
 hundred ; one may have almost no 
 conveniences, another may have con- 
 veniences enough to barely make him 
 comfortable, and another may have 
 all the conveniences that the heart 
 could wish ; and yet, if they are as- 
 sured of the fortune ahead, they do 
 not care for these inequalities. And 
 let the promises of God rest on the 
 poor man's lot ; let him feel comforted 
 by the thought that God is imparting 
 his favor to him ; let him look upon 
 his crosses and troubles as to be fol- 
 lowed by unspeakable blessings, and 
 he forgets the inequalities between his 
 condition and that of other men, and 
 no longer thinks himself unfortunate. 
 
 700. Business Depression Demoral- 
 izing. — Periods of depression demoral- 
 ize the national conscience. Few 
 fungi attack trees in vigorous health. 
 It is when the tree grows weak and 
 organizes its supplies slowly that moss, 
 lichen and insects assail it. Out of 
 national weakness come innumerable 
 temptations. 
 
 701. Evils of Poverty.— As God 
 has organized human affairs, wealth is 
 indispensable to the elevation of na- 
 tions ; and though wealth is not the 
 most important thing, it is not to be 
 argued against. The old notions of 
 the intrinsic benefits of poverty are 
 exploded. 
 
 Poverty accepted for a moral end, 
 however, may become a very great 
 power. A Moravian missionary at- 
 tempted to preach to West India 
 slaves, but their life was so wretched, 
 as the result of the oppression of white 
 men, that they would not hear a white 
 man preach, and he saw that, in the 
 relation which he sustained to them, it 
 would be impossible for him to benefit 
 them. So he sold himself into slavery 
 among them, and came home at night 
 from the tasks of the day feeling the 
 same weariness that they felt ; and 
 then they would open their ears and 
 hear his consolations in Jesus Christ. 
 Such servitude was noble. Such 
 poverty was admirable. It was a 
 literal verification of the example of 
 the Saviour. Therefore, there are 
 circumstances where poverty may be 
 accepted as a means of doing good. 
 But poverty is praiseworthy only 
 where it has a distinct moral end, and 
 where there is voluntariness in it. It 
 does not follow that the next man who 
 is poor, because he does not know 
 how to get rich, is to be commended 
 for his poverty. Poor-houses are not 
 the best places in which to get impres- 
 sions of religion and morality. Pov- 
 erty is an evil, both to the individual 
 and to the community. 
 
 702. A Ruined Man. — We say a 
 man is " ruined." Are his wife and 
 children dead? O, no. Have they 
 had a quarrel and are separated from 
 him ? O, no. Has he lost his reputa- 
 tion through crime ? No. Is his rea- 
 son gone ? No, it is as sound as ever. 
 
POVERTY AND ADVERSITY 
 
 159 
 
 Is he struck through with disease? 
 No. He has lost his property, and so 
 he is "ruined." The 7nan ruined! 
 When shall we learn that " a man's 
 life consisteth not in the abundance of 
 the things which he possesseth " ? 
 
 703. Soul-Bankruptcy. — I have 
 seen men, that had lived with a great 
 circuit of prosperity, disbranched by 
 commercial revulsions, who yet stood, 
 in adversity, nobler, riper, better than 
 ever they were with all their environ- 
 ments of wealth. And I have seen 
 persons who have come to bankruptcy, 
 and sold their houses, and their mu- 
 sical instruments, and their very cra- 
 dles, and were stripped of everything 
 without ; but, oh, woe ! that was as 
 nothing to the bankruptcy within. 
 All courage gone ; all hope gone ; 
 all faith gone ; no sweetness ; no 
 love ; no trust ; only whining, queru- 
 lous despondency ! Of all bankrupt- 
 cies in the world, that of a man's soul 
 and disposition is the most pitiful. 
 
 704. A Primary Cause of Poverty. — 
 A man who can only work and not 
 think, is not the equal in any regard 
 of the man who can think, who 
 can plan, who can combine, and 
 who can live not for to-day alone 
 but for to-morrow, for next month, 
 for the next year, for ten years. 
 This is the man whose volume will 
 just as surely weigh down that of 
 the unthinking man, as a ton will 
 weigh down a pound in the scale. 
 Avoirdupois is moral, industrial, as 
 well as material, in this respect ; and 
 the primary cause therefore of unpros- 
 perity in industrial callings hes in the 
 want of intelligence, either in the 
 slender endowment of the man, or, 
 more likely, the want of education in 
 his ordinary and average endowment. 
 
 705. Other Men's Prosperity. — Has 
 God defrauded you because he has 
 dealt bountifully with other men ? If 
 
 I give one beggar a penny, and pass 
 by the next one without giving him 
 anything, do I cheat the one to whom 
 I give nothing? 
 
 706. Unnoted Tragedies. — In a 
 grog-shop two bullies quarrel ; one 
 shoots the other, and does not shoot 
 himself; and the next morning there 
 is news of an " awful tragedy." Or, 
 some half-maniac poisons a whole 
 family ; and the event is described as 
 a "great tragedy." But the most ex- 
 quisite, the most cunningly-woven, 
 tragedies are those which happen 
 every day without note or comment, 
 where there is sudden revolution and 
 change from confidence and abun- 
 dance to despair and destitution in the 
 household. Children are scattered, 
 and the smiling eye becomes a foun- 
 tain of tears. These are tragedies 
 compared with which none that are 
 recorded in books have a right to hve. 
 
 707. Profitable Losses. — An inex- 
 perienced young miser, we will sup- 
 pose, inherits the Almaden mine. 
 Great heaps of ore are thrown out, and 
 he goes and looks at it, and says, " I 
 am a mountain rich." He gives di- 
 rections to have this ore prepared for 
 market. The laborers take it and 
 throw it into the furnace ; and he 
 watches the process with greedy eye, 
 saying, " What ! putting my precious 
 quicksilver in the fire?" As it be- 
 gins to melt, and flow out, and grow 
 less and less, he is appalled to see 
 how it is wasting away. But the men 
 that smelt it laugh, and say, "You 
 have lost nothing ; you have gained 
 by as much as it has shrunk ; for it 
 was nothing but ore, and nine-tenths 
 of it was good for nothing, and that 
 which was good was so tied up that it 
 could not serve you at all. It was 
 necessary that you should lose nine- 
 tenths of it in order that you might 
 have the benefit of the other tenth." 
 
i6o 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 In this life, that which seems to men 
 to be wasted and destroyed is fre- 
 quently that which they can better 
 afford to lose than to keep. 
 
 708. Earthly Losses Insignificant, — 
 I suppose Mr. Astor carries no more 
 money with him each day than is 
 necessary for the incidental expenses 
 of that day. If some pickpocket re- 
 lieves him of his wallet down town, 
 and he puts his hand in his pocket to 
 pay for a small purchase, he feels a 
 moment's vexation to think that some 
 miserable fellow has been keener than 
 he, and taken his money. But it was 
 only twenty-five or fifty dollars, and 
 what is that to an Astor, who might 
 have a bank on every street in New 
 York, if he chose. He says, " Let it 
 go." He has plenty of money, and 
 what to him is the loss of that little 
 matter ? So, where a man has his 
 treasures laid up in heaven, suppose 
 
 he does suffer inconveniences here 
 and there, suppose his pocket is 
 picked of this or that little pleasure, 
 does he sit down and cry about it ? 
 
 709. God's Heirs not Poor. — You 
 may be poor as poverty here ; but ah ! 
 God's sons are not poor. 
 
 It is inconvenient for an heir that is 
 traveling in Europe, to find, when he 
 gets to Paris, that the vessel bearing 
 his letters has gone down, and that he 
 is among strangers without a penny in 
 his pocket. Nevertheless, it is mirth- 
 ful and ludicrous ; and he says, 
 " Here am I, worth half a million, 
 and I have not enough by me to pay 
 my landlady." And he makes a 
 shift, as best he can, to live, till inter- 
 course is reestabhshed between himself 
 and his agents, and he can lay hold of 
 his possessions. A man can make 
 himself feel that he is rich in this life, 
 because of his relations to the other. 
 
 XVII. FAULTS AND VICES 
 
 710. Habits Revealed. — We are con- 
 tinually denying that we have habits 
 which we have been practising all our 
 hfe. Here is a man that has lived 
 forty or fifty years, and a chance sen- 
 tence or word lances him, and reveals 
 to him a trait which he has always 
 possessed, but which until now he had 
 not the remotest idea that he pos- 
 sessed. For forty or fifty years he 
 has been fooling himself about a 
 matter as plain as his hand before his 
 face. 
 
 711. Small Beginnings. — Faults are 
 often stepping-stones to heinous sins. 
 A very slight equivocation or careless- 
 ness in truth-telling will lead by and 
 by to the gravest temptations towards 
 falsehood. This is the reason that the 
 Master says, " He that is faithful in 
 that which is least, is faithful also in 
 much." 
 
 712. Small Faults Baits to Larger 
 Ones. — Small faults are baits and toles 
 to draw men up to greater ones, so 
 that their mischief is not measured by 
 their own diameter, but by that which 
 they lead to. Foolish birds are the 
 turkeys, that never lift up their heads 
 when they are feeding, and never let 
 them down when they are not. So, in 
 the West, men are accustomed to 
 select a sort of slope, or side hill, and 
 cut a little channel, or path, and hedge 
 it up with a kind of rail-fence without 
 roof or any protection. Along this 
 path they strew corn. And the wild 
 turkeys come in flocks and pick up 
 the corn, following the path, and do 
 not look up to see where they are 
 being led to till they have passed under 
 the lower rail, and got into the en- 
 closure ; and then, there being no 
 corn there, they hft up their heads, 
 
FAULTS AND VICES 
 
 161 
 
 and see where they are. They cannot 
 fly over the fence (a turkey cannot 
 rise on his wings unless he has a 
 chance to run), and they cannot get 
 out unless they lower their heads, and 
 that they will not do ; and so they are 
 caught. 
 
 Of thousands of faults men say, 
 "This is not much." No, it is not 
 much ; but it is laid along your path in 
 such a way [that the first thing you 
 know you will find yourself surrounded 
 by a pen of dishonesty from which you 
 cannot creep nor fly out. Faults may 
 lead to things that are worse. 
 
 713. Repeated Faults Dim Moral 
 Sight. — One of these weaving spiders, 
 perhaps, is in my window, and sets 
 about making his house there. He 
 does not seem to amount to much ; but 
 he has a power that is not to be de- 
 spised. If I were to say that that little 
 speck of a spider was an antagonist of 
 the sun, and that it would beat him, 
 you would laugh me to scorn ; but it 
 is so. For presently he has a brood 
 of spiders — five hundred of them — and 
 they set to work to spin their webs, 
 and run them from side to side, from 
 top to bottom, and from corner to 
 corner ; and by and by the window is 
 covered all over. And particles of 
 dust, flying through the air, settle on 
 it, and fill up the little spaces between 
 the threads. And after a while the 
 spiders spin other webs and cover over 
 the first ones. And the dust settles on 
 these. And in a year, let the sun get 
 through that window if he can ! Big 
 as he is, and strong as he is, the 
 spider is more than a match for him. 
 
 So a multitude of httle faults obscure 
 moral sight, and dim a man's outlook, 
 and substantially put out his eyes, so 
 that he cannot see. Although each 
 one of them is very small, they are very 
 effective. Beware of faults that tend 
 to reproduce themselves continually. 
 
 714. Little Faults. — You need not 
 break the glasses of a telescope, or 
 coat them over with paint, in order to 
 prevent you from seeing through 
 them. Just breathe upon them, and 
 the dew of your breath will shut 
 out all the stars. So it does not re- 
 quire great crimes to hide the light of 
 God's countenance. Little faults can 
 do it just as well. Take a shield and 
 cast a spear upon it, and it will leave 
 in it one great dent. Prick it all over 
 with a million little needle shafts and 
 they will take the polish from it far 
 more than the piercing of the spear. 
 It is not so much the great sins which 
 take the freshness from our con- 
 sciences, as the numberless petty 
 faults which we are all the while com- 
 mitting. 
 
 715. Petty Sins. — We do well to 
 remember that a little tooth, which is 
 almost too small for the microscope, 
 may nevertheless be large enough to 
 cut one thread, and another thread, 
 and another thread ; and when you 
 have begun to cut threads, you have 
 begun to make holes ; and when you 
 have begun to make holes, the de- 
 struction of the garment is at hand ; 
 and a character that is moth-eaten, 
 that has begun to be pierced by 
 petty sins and vices, is weakened, 
 and is being prepared for destruc- 
 tion. 
 
 716. Small Meannesses. — Amanis, 
 as it were, a cask of wine. A worm 
 gnaws through a stave. It is a small 
 worm, not half so large around as a 
 knitting-needle. The moment he 
 conies to the wine he draws out his 
 head, — for worms are not so fond of 
 wine as men are ! — and a drop follows 
 him, — only a drop. Another worm, 
 on the other side of the cask, gnaws 
 through another stave. He gets a 
 drop, and draws back. On each end 
 there are a dozen or twenty other 
 
l62 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 worms eating their way to the wine. 
 Not one of them is as big as a mite ; 
 but fifty or sixty of them together, if 
 each makes a hole large enough to 
 allow a drop to pass through it, are 
 sufficient to cause the waste of all the 
 precious contents of the cask. After 
 the lapse of a day, a week, a month, 
 or six months, the vintner goes to see 
 his treasure ; and behold, the cask 
 sounds empty as a hypocrite's heart ! 
 There is not a drop in it. And yet it 
 looks like a cask of wine. Where 
 have the contents gone ? Not one 
 pint has been surreptitiously drawn by 
 the servant that gets blamed, or by 
 the thief that the vintner accuses with- 
 out knowing who he is. The wine has 
 all leaked out at holes not large 
 enough to admit of the discharge of 
 more than one drop at a time. 
 
 Now, ten million little meannesses, 
 selfishnesses, pettishnesses, waspish 
 dispositions, pierce and puncture the 
 heart, and all its graces are drawn out. 
 You are empty because you leak all 
 over! 
 
 717. Little Lies. — Men think that a 
 great black lie is very culpable. I 
 suppose it is. But when an armorer 
 wishes, by scouring, to cut the very 
 surface of metal down, what does he 
 do ? Take a bar of iron and rub it ? 
 No ; he takes emery. Its particles 
 are as small as a pin's point ; and 
 these he puts on ; and by scouring he 
 cuts down the surface — takes off the 
 enamel. You think that a great lie is 
 a great sin, and a great shame to a 
 man ; but after all, little lies are more 
 dangerous, because there are so many 
 of them ; and because each one of 
 them is diamond-pointed. And these 
 petty untruths which are so small that 
 you do not notice them, and so nu- 
 merous that you cannot estimate 
 them, are the ones that take off the 
 very enamel of the moral sense. 
 
 718. Dangerous Lies. — A lie always 
 needs a truth for a handle to it, else 
 the hand would cut itself which sought 
 to drive it home upon another. The 
 worst lies, therefore, are those whose 
 blade is false, but whose handle is true. 
 
 719. Half-Truths. — He is consid- 
 ered a blunderer, nowadays, who tells 
 a lie. He ouglit to tell the truth so 
 that it shall tell the lie. It is a matter 
 of dexterity. The throwing of a 
 shadow is enough. Men throw shad- 
 ows on people's paths, and produce 
 certain impressions on their minds ; 
 and then when they are arraigned for 
 having made this or that misstate- 
 ment, they say, " I did not say so. I 
 never said any such thing. If you 
 understood me so, that is your look- 
 out." Men really trap each other by 
 half-truths. Half-truths are the devil's 
 whole lies. 
 
 720. Truth-Telling. — Men have an 
 impression that truth, pure and un- 
 adulterated, is like twenty-two carat 
 gold, too soft to wear ordinarily, and 
 that it must be adulterated to about 
 eighteen carat, and then it is tough 
 enough to go. They say a judicious 
 mixture between a truth and a lie is 
 the true currency, and they do not be- 
 lieve in truth. On no subject in this 
 world is there a greater lack of faith 
 than as to truth. It is not necessary 
 that a man should always tell every- 
 thing ; but whatever he tells, it is nec- 
 essary that that should always be 
 truth. 
 
 721. Unseen Faults. — Faults, often- 
 times, are like mines with which men 
 blow up bastions and towers of fortifi- 
 cations. Afar off, they by whom the 
 work is done break ground, and hid- 
 den and unseen they dig until they 
 have carried the mine under the foun- 
 dation. The occupants of the place 
 know not what is going on till the last 
 moment, when the tower leaps into the 
 
FAULTS AND VICES 
 
 163 
 
 air, as if it were filled with life, and 
 that which before was a strong de- 
 fence is a heap of ruins. I know men 
 who have a mine laid right under the 
 curtain-wall, which only awaits the 
 day and hour when it shall be fired. 
 
 722. Moral Deterioration. — The 
 course of some men's morals is like 
 the course of their raiment. If a man 
 is careful, and repairs his raiment, it 
 will last a long time ; but if he is heed- 
 less, spots will begin to come here and 
 there upon it, and from time to time it 
 will become ripped and torn, and, if 
 he has no careful wife to take care of 
 him, and takes none of himself, his 
 coat, in a month, will be indecent, for 
 want of attention. And men's inside 
 raiment is worse than their outside. 
 Many a man has a decent coat that 
 has not decent linen. And that anal- 
 ogy may be carried further in. A 
 man that is clean of body may be 
 filthy in soul. Men fall little byhttle. 
 Selfishness leads them to do this or 
 that thing that is low, they become 
 coarser and coarser in their thoughts 
 and imaginations, and gradually they 
 come to look at things from a more 
 worldly point of view. They lose the 
 romantic ; they lose the inspiration of 
 pure and spiritual things; they nibble 
 at positive vices. 
 
 723. Reclamation of Evil Traits. — 
 The engineer, by striking channels 
 through the low, level morass, where 
 nothing thrives but noisome reptiles 
 and insects, can drain it and make it 
 capable of yielding luxuriant growths 
 useful to men. And a man may sub- 
 soil and drain himself. 
 
 724. Eradicating Bad Habits. — The 
 difficulty of grubbing up blackberry 
 bushes is that you cannot get at them 
 on account of the number of them. 
 There are big ones, but they are sur- 
 rounded with little ones ; and if you 
 attempt to reach in with the pruning- 
 
 hook, you get scratched and torn, be- 
 sides failing in the attempt. You need 
 to begin at the outside, and cut and 
 grub away the little ones ; and when 
 you have done that, you can whack 
 at the big ones. And so it is with 
 many habits. If men attempt to touch 
 those habits first which are far in, 
 which are in complicity with wicked- 
 ness, they are torn and scratched with 
 little ones. But if a man overcomes a 
 small habit, he takes the first step to- 
 wards getting at the bigger ones. 
 
 725. Pertinacity of Bad Habits. — 
 When I lived in the West I used to 
 see the houses of many men without 
 cellars and built low down on the 
 ground ; and the swine were inti- 
 mately acquainted with the whole 
 family ; and the chickens ran in and 
 out, and in again ; and the good 
 housewife would busy herself here and 
 there every minute, shoo-shooing after 
 the chickens, and going out with broom 
 to drive away the swine that were root- 
 ing at the door. 
 
 There are fowls of bad repute and 
 swine round about the habitation of a 
 man that has been brought up in 
 worldliness ; and while he is trying to 
 do his duty here they do damage 
 there ; and while he is driving them 
 out in that direction they are rushing 
 in in this direction. When a man be- 
 gins to live a higher, nobler hfe, O, 
 what a plague his old hfe becomes to 
 him! He didn't think or care until he 
 undertook to see about it. 
 
 726. Indolence Poisonous. — The 
 mischief of indolence is like that of 
 standing water, not that it does not 
 run, but that, not running, it corrupts, 
 and, corrupting, breeds poisonous 
 miasma, so that they who hve in the 
 neighborhood inhale disease at every 
 breath. 
 
 727. Heedlessness. — If all the small 
 carelessnesses of one's life were to be 
 
164 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 brought logctlicr into one view, it 
 would not only amaze the subject of 
 them, but it would be difficult to per- 
 suade any one that he was ever care- 
 ful at all. The words too many, the 
 things superfluous, the things for- 
 gotten, the things done bunglingly, 
 the absolute mistakes, the time wasted 
 in doing over aright things done 
 wrong, the waste of force by indirec- 
 tion, by bad aim, by ill-judged in- 
 tensity, if it could every day be 
 summed up, and presented as a 
 whole, would take the conceit, it is to 
 be hoped, out of self-satisfied men. 
 
 If one considers the human mind as 
 a collection of exquisite tools, and 
 watches their use, specially or gen- 
 erally, he cannot but feel that the 
 average man is a most unskillful, be- 
 cause heedless bungler. 
 
 728. Carelessness a Crime. — There 
 are circumstances in which heedless- 
 ness amounts to crime, to malfeasance, 
 or to a violation of trust ; and yet 
 there are many persons who, while 
 tliey feel that a positive violation of 
 the rights of property would be 
 wrong, speak lightly of carelessness. 
 This is a fault whose roots, if they are 
 not cut, grow deeper and deeper. 
 
 729. Neglect. — The faithful ship- 
 master who is bringing a thousand 
 passengers over the deep gives neither 
 sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his 
 eyelids ; by night and by day he 
 watches the sea, and studies the signs 
 of the weather, that he may not be 
 surprised by wind or storm ; he is 
 constantly vigilant ; he well-nigh frets 
 his life out, in order that he may 
 bring his precious cargo safe to the 
 port. If, on the other hand, he were 
 careless, if he neglected his duty, and 
 the vessel struck some iceberg, or was 
 overtaken unprepared by some whirl- 
 wind or driving storm, and went down 
 with all its living freight, do you sup- 
 
 pose he would rise out of the flood in 
 the judgment-day without any re- 
 sponsibility for all the mischiefs that 
 came from simple neglect ? 
 
 730. Indirect Guilt. — Wickedness 
 which a man can prevent, and which 
 he does not prevent, inculpates him. 
 Men are responsible for the mischief 
 which they could hinder. If you put 
 the torch to your neighbor's house, 
 you are guilty in one way ; but if an- 
 other puts the torch to that house, 
 and you go by, and see the flames, 
 and say, " It is not my business ; I 
 did not kindle that fire ; and, besides, 
 he is an enemy of mine," you are as 
 culpable as if you had set fire to the 
 house yourself. 
 
 731. Impatience in Personal Career. 
 — The ambitions of youth, the far 
 reach! ngs before we are prepared for 
 manhood, need patience. Most spend 
 thirty years of life wishing they were 
 old, and the last thirty wishing they 
 were not ; and so the world goes on. 
 When we enter upon earlier life, we 
 are aspiring, but we aspire for qual- 
 ities or for conditions which, in them- 
 selves, imply unfolding. Peter says 
 somewhere, that the husbandman is 
 not in a hurry. He sows his seed and 
 patiently waits for the harvest. We 
 sow our seed and do not wait. We 
 expect our wheat to come up as a 
 mushroom comes up — the next morn- 
 ing. Men in early life, by their 
 impetuosity, by ignorance of the 
 nature of the qualities which they de- 
 sire, and their relation to the time, 
 and the difficulty of unfolding, rush 
 upon enterprises and into conditions 
 where they are balked. 
 
 732. Desultory Action. — There are 
 many who diligently occupy them- 
 selves without aim. A thousand little 
 doings disconnected from each other 
 are no more a wise building up of life 
 than the laying of a thousand bricks 
 
FAULTS AND VICES 
 
 i6i 
 
 in a thousand difterent places would 
 be the building up of a house. 
 
 733. Unprofitable Energy. — A man 
 is like an unbroken colt, that, if he 
 cannot go, champs his bit, and froths 
 at the mouth. Many a horse spends 
 as much energy, wastes himself as 
 much, dancing up and down without 
 any travel, as would be needed for a 
 two days' journey. And there is that 
 kind of untrained, unsubdued energy 
 in men. There are many who can- 
 not do a thing profitably because they 
 do it fretfully. 
 
 734. The Soul's Evil Engines. — 
 Did you ever go through the London 
 Tower, to see the machines of cruelty 
 of fontjer ages that are on exhibition 
 there ? Have you ever seen the vast 
 collection of weapons of defence and 
 offence there deposited ? Did you 
 ever go through the Springfield 
 armory to see the weapons for the de- 
 struction of human life that are there 
 piled high and bright and multitudi- 
 nous? Let me take you through a 
 more wonderful magazine — a maga- 
 zine where ai-ms are to be found more 
 numerous, more cruel, and constantly 
 in use. Walk with me into the human 
 soul. See, on every side, its engines 
 of destruction in their many forms. 
 See vanity, with its myriad vexations ; 
 avarice, kindling fires worse than fires 
 on dry prairies ; many-bladed selfish- 
 ness, cutting wherever it goes ; and 
 lusts without number. 
 
 735. Small Transgressions. — The 
 man that steals one single penny is — 
 as great a transgressor against the 
 laws of society as if he stole a thou- 
 sand dollars? No, not exactly that. 
 The man that steals one penny is — 
 just as great a transgressor against the 
 commercial interests of men as if he 
 stole a thousand dollars? No, not 
 that. The man that steals a penny is 
 just as great a transgressor against ihe 
 
 pjirity of /lis own conscience as if lu; 
 stole a million of dollars. There is an 
 impression that the culpability of 
 things bears some proportion to their 
 magnitude. To steal an apple is not 
 much. In stealing it you do not get 
 much ; but you get all the damage 
 that you would if it was a golden 
 apple. To betray a small trust has 
 the same moral effect on the betrayer 
 as to betray a large one. 
 
 736. Care. — What is care? It is 
 no specific thing. It is a word which 
 includes the whole realm of human 
 experience, and draws something from 
 every part of it. Whatever thing in 
 life worries you, chafes you, burdens 
 you, alarms you, or in any way dis- 
 tresses you— that is care. Care is the 
 friction of the human mind. 
 
 737. Small Vexations. — As it is 
 only now and then that we have a 
 landslide, while we are continually 
 annoyed by the dust which sifts in at 
 every crack, and door, and window, 
 so it is only now and then that we 
 have a crashing trouble, while we are 
 perpetually annoyed by little daily 
 cares and vexations. 
 
 738. Cares not to be Emphasized. — 
 Would you think that man fit for a 
 hero who should occupy the leisure of 
 peace in telling what hard commis- 
 sions he had during the last campaign, 
 how tired he was on the march, and 
 how painful it was to carry his arms ? 
 What idea would you have of a gen- 
 eral or a soldier who should be more 
 thoughtful of such contemptible per- 
 sonalities than of those things that 
 pertain to the interests of the cause in 
 which he is engaged ? You that are 
 called from darkness to light, and 
 made to know the eternal obligation 
 of your own souls ; you into whose 
 hands are put jewels more precious 
 and glowing than stars in the heavens; 
 you who are made God's instruments 
 
i66 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 for rcdccniing men, you ought to be 
 ashamed to talk about your cares and 
 responsibilities, as if they were onerous. 
 
 739. Anxiety. — Water is necessary 
 for the floating of timber ; but if a log 
 be saturated with water, it sinks in the 
 very element which should buoy it 
 up. Many men are water-logged with 
 anxiety, and instead of quickening 
 them, it only paralyzes exertion. 
 
 740. Live Above Care. — Dust, by 
 its own nature, can rise only so far 
 above the road ; and birds which fly 
 higher never have it upon their wings. 
 So the heart that knows how to fly 
 high enough, escapes those little cares 
 and vexations which brood upon the 
 earth but cannot rise into the purer air, 
 
 741. Fretting Shows Weakness. — 
 Fretting is a perpetual confession of 
 weakness. It says, " I want to, and 
 can't." Fretting is hke a httle dog 
 pawing and whining at a door, be- 
 cause he can't get in. 
 
 742. The Habit of Sulkiness. — It is 
 supposed that ebullitions of temper are 
 petty, insignificant faults ; but I can- 
 not consider the opening of a fountain 
 of unhappiness in the family or the 
 social circle a petty matter. A single 
 instance may be excused ; but the 
 habit of being peevish, sulky, morose, 
 is not a slight fault. It rises to the 
 dignity of an ample and multitudinous 
 sin. For nothing more destroys the 
 happiness around about men than a 
 bad temper. It is in the power of one 
 person in a family to keep that family 
 in smoke all day long. 
 
 743. Needless Worry. — Human life 
 is much like road life. You stand on 
 a hill, and look down and across the 
 valley, and another prodigious hill 
 lifts itself up on the other side. The 
 day is hot, your horse is weary, and 
 you are tired ; and it seems to you that 
 you cannot climb that long hill. But 
 you had better trot down the hill you 
 
 are on, and not trouble yourself about 
 the other one. You find the valley 
 pleasant and inspiriting. When you 
 get across it, you meet only a slight 
 ascent, and begin to wonder where the 
 steep hill is which you saw. You 
 drive along briskly, and when you 
 reach the highest point, you find that 
 there has not been an inch of the hill 
 over which you have not trotted. 
 The slight ascent looked almost like a 
 perpendicular steep ; but when you 
 come to pass over it, step by step, you 
 find it to be a good traveling road. 
 
 So it is with your troubles. Just in 
 that way your anticipations of mis- 
 chiefs hang before you ; and when you 
 come to where they are, you find them 
 to be all smooth turnpikes. Men 
 ought to be ashamed, after they have 
 done that two or three times, not to 
 take the hint, and profit by it ; yet 
 they will not. They will suffer from 
 anticipated troubles, as much as though 
 they had had no such experience. 
 
 744. Folly of Fretting. — If you 
 would keep a book, and every day 
 put down the things that pester you, 
 and see what becomes of them, it 
 would be a benefit to you. You allow 
 a thing to pester you, just as you allow 
 a fly to settle on you and plague you ; 
 and you lose your temper (or rather, 
 get it ; for when men are surcharged 
 with temper they are said to have lost 
 it); and you justify yourselves for be- 
 ing thrown off your balance by causes 
 which you do not trace out. But if 
 you would see what it was that threw 
 you off your balance before breakfast, 
 and put it down in a little book, and 
 follow it up, and follow it out, and as- 
 certain what becomes of it, you would 
 see what a fool you were. 
 
 745. Disputation. — Have you never 
 met men that were full of questions — 
 questions about dates ; questions about 
 inspiration ; questions about doctrines ; 
 
FAULTS AND VICES 
 
 167 
 
 questions about hard passages ; ques- 
 tions about symbols and types ; ques- 
 tions about the church; questions about 
 everything ? I fall in with them once 
 in a while ; and then I am hke a man, 
 wandering among flowers, who, ere he 
 is aware, finds himself in the midst of 
 a thick-set hedge, and gets his gar- 
 ments torn, and is sorely annoyed and 
 vexed. I never found the least parti- 
 cle of good in a bramble. 
 
 746. Dishonesty Atmospheric. — 
 Dishonesty is an atmosphere. If it 
 comes into one apartment it penetrates 
 all the rest. 
 
 747. Petty Cheating. — Little dis- 
 honesties are like the drops that work 
 through the banks of the levee : a drop 
 is an engineer ; it tunnels a way for its 
 fellows, and they, rushing, prepare for 
 all behind them. 
 
 748. Thou Shalt Not Covet. — One 
 man goes along the street, and looks 
 at the basket of his neighbor who is 
 going home from market, and says, 
 " If I were in that man's place I 
 should have money enough to buy 
 such things as he has in his basket. 
 He can have luxuries, but I am poor, 
 and cannot have them." Some men, 
 if they see a rich man, say, " I am 
 poor ; " if they see a man that is high 
 up, they say "I am low down;" if 
 they see a man that is well dressed, 
 they say, "I am shabbily dressed ; " 
 if they see a man that is prospered, 
 they say, " I am not prospered." 
 And so they are forever letting their 
 conversation be filled with covetous- 
 ness, and picking at other men's pros- 
 perity, or at their own hearts on ac- 
 count of it. Now the apostle says, 
 " Let your conversation be without 
 covetousness, and be content with 
 such things as ye have." 
 
 749. Coveting. — When unwary men 
 come to buy, the fact that they may 
 have come with a gambling spirit, or 
 
 an avaricious spirit, or that they may 
 be venturing out of their proper busi- 
 ness, does not touch the question at 
 all of the man that deliberately sells 
 these stocks to them at fifty, or sixty, 
 or seventy cents, which he knows can- 
 not be worth to them ten, nor five, nor 
 one. Why, what does he desire? 
 He desires to get fifty cents out of 
 these men for what he knows will be 
 valueless to them. I do not say that 
 all stock-brokerage is gambling or 
 wicked ; for a great deal of it is on a 
 real, necessary, and equitable basis : 
 but that part of it which consists in 
 selling things which the seller knows 
 to be valueless, but the worthlessness 
 of which the persons buying are not 
 able to know anything about, I con- 
 sider to be an eminent instance of 
 coveting, a violation of the command 
 of God against covetousness, and of 
 the conscience of the seller. 
 
 750. Dishonesty a Hard Master. — 
 When a man breaks into my house 
 and steals four or five suits of clothes, 
 as well as what httle silver he can lay 
 his hands upon, and many little con- 
 veniences, and carries them to the 
 pawnbroker's, and pockets the money, 
 and is worth two or three hundred 
 dollars more than he was, he succeeds 
 ^undoubtedly he succeeds ; and if 
 that were the whole of his life, stealing 
 would be successful : but, in judging 
 of the success of this thief, you must 
 take into account what is the average 
 enjoyment and prosperity of thieves. 
 Do thieves prosper? Every man who 
 is a thief will bear witness, at last, that 
 stealing is a hard master. The gains 
 are small, the run of penalty great. 
 
 751. Combative Disposition. — An 
 unexploded torpedo is peaceable ; but 
 we should not consider it an imple- 
 ment of peace. It has everything 
 ready for an explosion when it is 
 touched off. And so a man cannot be 
 
168 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 exj)ccted to have the Ciospel disposi- 
 tion of peace simply because he is not 
 in a broil, so long as he has disposi- 
 tions which, upon occasion, when a fit 
 opportunity presents itself, will bring 
 him into some disagreeable collision. 
 
 752. Temper. — There goes down 
 by the side of a man's door, a tum- 
 bling brook ; and he thinks to himself, 
 "That continually rattling, that for- 
 ever bubbling, that lazy, rollicking 
 brook, I will take out of the way." 
 Well, let him take it out of the way if 
 he can. He may take his bucket, and 
 work night and day, and scoop up 
 bucketful after bucketful, and carry it 
 away, and yet the brook will be undi- 
 minished as long as the mountain 
 clouds dissolve and feed its sources. 
 But that man, in a better mood, says, 
 "I will throw a little dam across that 
 brook, and will build a mill, and will 
 make it work for me." Ah ! that he 
 can do. He builds his mill, and sets 
 his wheel, and the brook is taught to 
 run over the wheel, and the wheel 
 works to the pressure of the brook, 
 and industry goes on within. He 
 could not destroy the brook, but he 
 could make it work for him. A man 
 cannot eradicate his temper, but he 
 can determine what it shall do. 
 
 753. Good-Natured Rudeness. — As 
 when, for instance, a great weighty 
 Newfoundland dog rushes into the 
 parlor, upsets the table and treads on 
 the children, he does not mean any- 
 thing but caress, so there are men 
 that overthrow each other with rude 
 contacts and unconscious violence, 
 disturbing the peace and harmony of 
 all with whom they have to do. 
 
 754' Aggressiveness. — Some men 
 think that the pride of the world is 
 immense, but nobody sees half so 
 much pride in the world as proud 
 people do. They stir it up. Every 
 man has pride enough in him, if you 
 
 approach him in such a way as to 
 draw it out. There is a vast amount 
 of ugliness in human nature that will 
 show itself, if you deal with men so as 
 to excite it. If you choose to take a 
 pole, and stir up men from the bot- 
 tom, you will find plenty of mud. On 
 the other hand, every man has im- 
 agination, and faith, and hope, and 
 love, and aspiration — a yearning for 
 things noble, and pure, and true ; and 
 these quahties too can be stimulated. 
 
 755. Unsocial Temper. — Many a 
 man who has a blunt, harsh, per- 
 emptory, disagreeable way of meeting 
 people, excuses himself by saying, 
 " Oh, it is my way." Of course it is 
 his way ; and it is the trip-hammer's 
 way, when a child's hand is on the 
 anvil, to smash it ! A swine's way, 
 or a vulture's way, is no more agree- 
 able because it is his way. 
 
 756. Grumblers. — Grumbling is 
 treason to anything moral. It is the 
 small change of treason. Beware of 
 the man who does not live by hope, 
 by faith, and by the love of God, who 
 does not sleep, nor let his children 
 sleep. When the Deluge had sub- 
 sided, a raven was sent out, and he 
 spread his dusky wings, and inspected 
 the surface of the flood, and saw 
 nothing but dead bodies, dead bodies, 
 and dead bodies. A dove was sent 
 out, and it came back with a single 
 leaf. It could not get more than 
 that ; but that was worth bringing, for 
 it was the ground of hope and joy. 
 The dove was sent forth again, and 
 by that time the trees on the moun- 
 tains were uncovered, and the bright 
 bird nested in the bosom of their 
 branches, and doubtless did not come 
 back again ; while the old raven still 
 cawed, and cawed, and cawed, and 
 saw only the slime, and the death, 
 and the carrion, and neither came 
 back, nor plucked any leaf, nor saw 
 
FAULTS AND VICES 
 
 169 
 
 any bow in the heavens. Beware of 
 the raven ! 
 
 757. Croakers. — There are many 
 patriarchs of the pool. Have you 
 never seen these patriarchal croakers, 
 of a summer evening, on the borders 
 of some inland lake ? Have you never 
 heard their croakings all through the 
 night ? There is many and many a 
 man who sits squat on the edge of 
 his party-pool, croaking — croaking — 
 croaking ; and you would think, if 
 you did not know what the sound 
 was, that all the spirits of the lower 
 regions, weird and mischievous, were 
 in the air. And yet, when you go and 
 explore, what is the noise ? It is a 
 frog — nothing more ! 
 
 758. Frivolous Zeal. — To one be- 
 fore whom dwelt the eternal calm and 
 joy of a higher hfe, how foolish must 
 have seemed the frivolous zeal, the 
 intense absorption in trifles, the thor- 
 oughly sensuous life, of the Pharisees ! 
 Their sacred heats were like a rash 
 upon the skin. They thought them- 
 selves superlatively wise. They prided 
 themselves upon their tact in manag- 
 ing men, their sagacity in planning 
 and skill in executing their petty 
 schemes of party and personal ambi- 
 tion. And yet in their very midst 
 stood the greatest person that had 
 ever appeared on earth, teaching sub- 
 lime wisdom, almost unheard ; and 
 the Pharisees could see nothing in 
 him but a dangerous zealot ! 
 
 759. Pride. — The prouder a man 
 is, the more he thinks he deserves ; 
 and the more he thinks he deserves, 
 the less he really does deserve. The 
 Httle he gets he looks upon with con- 
 tempt because it is little. The much 
 that he does not get he regards as evi- 
 dence of the marvelous inequality of 
 things in human life. He goes for- 
 ever murmuring at what he looks 
 upon as partiality in God's dealings 
 
 with men. Such men are hke old 
 hulks that make no voyages, and leak 
 at every seam. 
 
 760. Vanity. — I would rather fight 
 pride than vanity, because pride has 
 a stand-up way of fighting. You 
 know where it is. It throws its black 
 shadow on you, and you are not at a 
 loss where to strike. But vanity is an 
 elusive, an insect-hke, a multiplied 
 feeling. Men that fight vanities are 
 like men that fight midges and butter- 
 flies. It is easier to chase them than 
 to hit them. 
 
 761. Conceit. — A man with a tele- 
 scope saw lions in the moon ; they 
 turned out to be flies on the glass. So 
 men with conceit magnify things that 
 belong to them, and insects become 
 mountains. 
 
 762. Religious Pride. — It became 
 necessary that Christ should strike 
 with severe strokes at the real lapse 
 from morahty which had taken place 
 among the Scribes and Pharisees. 
 Scarcely anything less than that ter- 
 rible denunciation could have reached 
 through the thick hide of self-conceit 
 which covers spiritual leaders when 
 they have degenerated ; for there is noth- 
 ing that is less pervious than conceited 
 orthodoxy in any age, or in any nation. 
 
 763. Self- Consciousness. — Many 
 persons mistake the province of fore- 
 thought and calculation, and attempt 
 to carry themselves in the details and 
 minute particulars of life by them. 
 They rigidly inspect every act and ex- 
 perience, as though each one must be 
 taken up and looked at conscientiously, 
 and narrowly, and watchfully. They 
 go about with looks precomposed. 
 They are sure to measure their steps. 
 They will not laugh without a properly 
 considered reason. If some wag sur- 
 prises them into a laugh, they run 
 back and look to see if they ought to 
 have laughed. Everything in them 
 
lyo 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 seems to be drawn out as tape meas- 
 ures are, and seems, like them, to 
 have a spring, wiiich causes it to fly 
 back instantly, and to be measured 
 off into inches and fractions of inches. 
 There is nothing about them which re- 
 minds one of natural clusters, or ten- 
 drils, or moss, or wild-flowers. Every- 
 thing about them is after the pattern 
 of yardsticks, and surveyors' chains. 
 They are a sort of conscientious arith- 
 metic. Their mouth acts, not as 
 flowers do, obedient to the sap be- 
 neath ; but as do the locks of safes 
 full of gold, into which a formal iron 
 key must needs be thrust whenever 
 you open them. Can there be any- 
 thing in this world so intolerable as 
 the doing everything on purpose, for- 
 ever studying and measuring God and 
 the universe with reference to Self! 
 
 764. How to End Quarrels. — People 
 who have mutual difficulties are like 
 two men pulling at the opposite ends 
 of a rope with a knot in it. The 
 harder they pull the tighter the knot 
 becomes, but if they give up and come 
 together there is no difficulty in un- 
 tying the knot. In a great many situ- 
 ations and circumstances of life, you 
 must give up when you want to beat. 
 
 765. Holding a Grudge. — Men lay 
 up a wrong done to them, and cherish 
 it, until they can avenge it. As em- 
 bers are raked up at night, they rake 
 it up, and uncover it that it may burn 
 the next day, and rake it up again, 
 and uncover it again, and keep it 
 alive, so that when there is a chance 
 for revenge they can start the fire. 
 
 766. Surly Forgiveness. — Did you 
 ever see a dog rebuked for barking ? 
 The master says, " Hush ! be still ! " 
 and the dog stops barking ; but he 
 keeps up a terrible growling. That is 
 the way men forgive. They put down 
 their anger or revenge so that they do 
 not bite nor bark, but they growl. 
 
 767. Forgiving Without Forgetting. 
 — A man loses his temper, and says 
 something wrong, and hurts a person's 
 feelings ; but he immediately says, " I 
 take it all back, and beg pardon." 
 The person says to him, " 1 forgive 
 you" ; but he thinks to himself, " I 
 will pay him off for that." In the 
 course of a week this person makes 
 some harsh or unjustifiable remark, 
 and the man says to him, " I think you 
 spoke unadvisedly." "Ah! you are 
 a pretty person to talk about speaking 
 unadvisedly : what did you do last 
 Tuesday morning?" He professed 
 to have forgiven the offence, and yet, 
 so far from having forgiven it, he laid 
 it up in his memory, and improves the 
 first opportunity which presents itself 
 to resent it. 
 
 768. Self-Seeking Friendship. — Is 
 the shepherd necessarily a friend of 
 the sheep because he keeps them and 
 cares for them ? No, he may keep 
 them and care for them that he may 
 shear their fleece, and profit by it. Is 
 the gardener a botanist because he 
 cherishes the succulent lettuce, with 
 painstaking, for the market .'' No, it 
 is not the science, but the money, that 
 he thinks of. And friends that make 
 use of you when you are in prosper- 
 ity, for the sake of their own comfort 
 and convenience, and that hide them- 
 selves from you in the time of trouble, 
 are friends after the pattern of selfish- 
 ness, and not after the pattern of 
 divine love. 
 
 769. Hypocrisy. — You cannot tell 
 by the way a tree looks, whence its 
 roots are sucking sap. There is many 
 a man that wears clean linen, and has 
 good associates, and appears regularly 
 at the house of God, and seems to be 
 a Christian man, who, if you follow 
 down his roots, you will find to be 
 drawing his nourishment from the 
 common sewers. 
 
FAULTS AND VICES 
 
 171 
 
 770. Evil Disguised. — It is dis- 
 gusting to see a poor, miserable lost 
 creature tramping the streets in rags ; 
 but she is no more a harlot than that 
 embellished quean that walks or rides 
 in the midst of wealth and pompous 
 attendance. Harlotry is as hateful as 
 love is sacred. Under every dis- 
 guise, then, evil is to be known as evil. 
 
 771. Evil Wit. — Men are accus- 
 tomed to express indignation when 
 things that are wicked are vulgar. A 
 thing that in its stark-nakedness men 
 would turn blushing away from, they 
 will look upon with an unblushing face 
 and with effrontery if you only put the 
 thin guise of wit over it. The most 
 hateful evil in the world is the evil 
 that dresses itself in such a way that 
 men cannot hate it. This is the har- 
 lotry of wickedness. 
 
 772. Flattery. — All use of the tongue 
 to flatter is condemned. " Lie not one 
 to another," saith the Apostle ; and 
 all flattery is lying. It may have an 
 element, a single thread of truth, in 
 the woof or warp ; but, after all, it is a 
 web of insincerity, and generally for a 
 purpose. It is on an errand of selfish- 
 ness from you. When you flatter a 
 person you want something ; you have 
 an end in view, and a flatterer is as 
 mean as men well can be. 
 
 773. The Flatterer. — Who has not 
 seen the toady of society — the en- 
 tozoon — the flatterer, who smoothly 
 glides through household after house- 
 hold, liking all things, praising all 
 things, smooth and plausible, still 
 studying your every whim, placating 
 pride, coddling vanity, and with 
 wondrous instinct, but like the needle, 
 small and bright, carrying the thread of 
 his own selfishness behind him all the 
 time, and fabricating his own interests ? 
 
 774. Fraud in Manufactures. — There 
 is an element of fraud that goes through 
 whatever is offered for sale in the 
 
 market. The anvil has learned to 
 lie ; the loom has learned to lie ; silk 
 has learned to lie ; cotton has learned 
 to lie ; flax has learned to lie ; hemp 
 has learned to lie. Every element in 
 society pretends to be one thing, and 
 on the surface seems to be that thing, 
 while at the bottom it is another thing. 
 I do not undertake to say that men 
 have not a right to make different 
 grades of goods. I do not undertake 
 to say that coffee shall be all coffee 
 and not part chicory. I do not 
 undertake to say that chicory shall 
 be all chicory, and not part burned 
 biscuits that have been sent four times 
 across the sea. I do not undertake to 
 say that there shall not be adulter- 
 ations in commerce. But if a thing 
 passes for a first-class article, it ought 
 to be first-class ; if for second-class, it 
 ought to be second-class ; and so on. 
 It is proper enough that there should 
 be various qualities ; but everything 
 ought to be what it seems, and ought 
 to seem what it is. 
 
 775. Personal Criticism. — As a cat 
 watching for mice does not look up 
 though an elephant goes by, so per- 
 sonal critics are so busy mousing for 
 defects, that they let great excellences 
 pass them unnoticed. 
 
 776. The Habit of Criticism. — Do 
 you not know persons who, on going 
 into a room, will at once glance 
 around and see whether the furniture 
 is unmatched ; whether some things 
 are extravagantly fine, while others 
 are poor ; whether the carpet is worn 
 a little, and mended, as though there 
 had been an attempt to make the most 
 out of a little ? Do you not know per- 
 sons who, on looking at another's 
 dress, only see the things that are out 
 of taste, and that mar? Do you not 
 know persons who, on beholding a 
 face, see only the wrong feature, if 
 there is one ? Do you not know per- 
 
172 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 sous who, on listening to a conver- 
 sation, take notice of only those parts 
 where the grammar breaks down, 
 where those that are conversing take 
 a generous liberty in syntax, or where 
 they make use of an unlucky word, 
 being very careful to sec all the faults, 
 but paying very little attention to the 
 subject matter, though it may be very 
 good? Such persons come to have a 
 settled habit of directing their mind to 
 the detection of faults, as if there was 
 a sort of smartness in it ! 
 
 777. Sensitiveness. — It is a fact 
 that a man who has no skin over his 
 nerves, has no skin over his nerves, 
 and that he suffers ; and you that wear 
 rhinoceros hides are not to despise 
 him because he cannot bear as much 
 as you can. 
 
 778. Fault-Finding. — Carrion-crows 
 and turkey-buzzards like carrion, and 
 hunt for it. And where I see men 
 going round and watching for faults 
 and imperfections, and seeing nothing 
 good, I mark those men, "Turkey- 
 buzzards and carrion-crows." For 
 the dove shall fly through that sunlit 
 air that reveals naught but loathsome 
 corruption to the crow and the buz- 
 zard, and shall see no carrion, and 
 only blossoming growths and sweet 
 fields. What you see, depends upon 
 the eye with which you look. 
 
 779. Heedless Judgments, — IVIen 
 seldom make it a matter of conscience 
 to see things as they are, and hear 
 things as they really report themselves. 
 They follow their curiosity, their sense 
 of wonder, their temper, their interests, 
 or their prejudices, instead of their 
 judgment and their conscience. How 
 many men were there around the 
 corner? "Twenty," says the man, 
 quickly. There were seven. How 
 long did you have to wait? "Two 
 hours, at least." It was just three- 
 quarters of an hour by the watch. 
 
 So, in a multitude of things that hap- 
 pen every day, one man repeats what 
 his imagination reported to him, and 
 another man what his impatient, irri- 
 table feelings said to him. 
 
 780. Needless Talk. — I see men 
 who use more wind to waft a cockle- 
 boat across a pond than would be re- 
 quired to carry a man-of-war across 
 the sea ! 
 
 781. Endless Talking. — Did you 
 ever think what a volume your talk 
 would make if it were printed ? If 
 everything that some persons say in a 
 single day were printed, what a vol- 
 ume it would make ! and if all they 
 say in a year were printed, what a 
 library it would make ! I pity the 
 man that should have to read the one 
 or the other. The exaggerations, the 
 overcolorings, the misrepresentations, 
 the lies (for we all lie continually) 
 which escape us when we are speak- 
 ing about ourselves, about our chil- 
 dren, about our families, about our 
 property, about our neighbors, about 
 everything that we have to do with, — 
 what must be their influence upon the 
 world? Still, how few there are that 
 know anything about the use of their 
 tongue, which is forever on the move ! 
 
 782. Control of the Tongue. — When 
 it comes to irritableness of temper, to 
 severity of speech or to any such other 
 form of unchristian conduct, I am 
 very stringent. // can be overcome. 
 This is a question about which I will 
 not flinch. If your tongue is inflam- 
 mable and it flashes like powder, it 
 may cost you something of a struggle, 
 but it is a struggle in which a man can 
 conquer within a reasonable time. He 
 can say, when the pressure comes, 
 " I will hold my peace ; I will not 
 speak a word, either good or bad, and 
 I will do it as in the presence of God." 
 He may fall, again and again, but 
 sooner or later he can learn to control 
 
FAULTS AND VICES 
 
 73 
 
 his tongue, his temper and his passion. 
 This is a thing about which there is to 
 be no going back. It is one of the 
 things in regard to which you should 
 be severer with yourselves than in re- 
 gard to almost anything else. 
 
 783. Nagging. — Near to mischief 
 is the use of the tongue for teasing. 
 It becomes a more positive instrument, 
 then, of the evil passions. I do not 
 allude altogether, yet, to the more 
 malignant stabs which the tongue can 
 give, and does give, but to the habit 
 of inflicting unnecessary worry and 
 punishment upon those around about 
 you ; to the basilar instinct of hurt- 
 ing ; to the animal propensity of biting 
 or scratching. We have brought along 
 down the Darwinian animal develop- 
 ment ; only we have done it, not with 
 our claws and teeth, but with our 
 tongue. Sarcastic allusions ; cutting 
 remarks ; all forms of unkind badi- 
 nage with the tongue ; nagging ; the 
 calling up of disagreeable things ; the 
 saying things that make one blush ; 
 the seeing what you can do with the 
 snap of your tongue to those around 
 about you — all these things should be 
 avoided. They may be a milder 
 form, but they are a form, of the ma- 
 lignant disposition. 
 
 784. Teasing. — It does not cease 
 with youth. Grown folks, good-na- 
 tured, kind-hearted, well-meaning, and 
 full of benevolence, often show this 
 perverse spirit in the midst of all their 
 kindness. By sharp speech, by veiled 
 sarcasm, by exciting curiosity which 
 they will not gratify, by narrating pre- 
 tended facts, by sinister compliments, 
 by rallying one when circumstances 
 forbid a reply, by equivocal praise, by 
 blunt telling of some truth that had 
 been better left unsaid, and by hun- 
 dreds of ingenious ways which time 
 would fail to tell, people inflict pain 
 upon each other. 
 
 Those who in the main are striving 
 to make friends happy, will have one 
 black thread in the web of white. 
 Those who really love each other have 
 a strange fondness for stirring each 
 other up. 
 
 785. Malicious Gossips. — Would it 
 be ;«a«slaughter to kill ?ifooI? Ought 
 not the law to give a man some dis- 
 cretionary power over the life of these 
 mosquitoes and gnats, that have, by 
 some strange freak of nature, grown 
 into the shape of men, without losing 
 the propensities of insects ? 
 
 786. Ugly Words. — Many a word 
 drops a seed from us that grows up a 
 thorn-bush in the soul on which it 
 falls. 
 
 787. Evil-Speaking. — How the 
 knowledge of some wrong in another 
 person burns in a man until he can 
 tell it somewhere ! If he would hold 
 his tongue the thing would die, like a 
 fire without air : but no, he wants con- 
 fidentially to communicate it ; and the 
 associate confidentially communicates 
 it ; they need some help to keep the se- 
 cret, and they communicate it ; and so 
 it goes like wildfire all through the com- 
 munity. What cannibahsm is it that 
 leads us to desire to eat up the reputa- 
 tions of men ! 
 
 788. False Witness. — You shall not 
 bear false witness against your neigh- 
 bor either by your tongue or by your 
 ear. It is as bad for a man to quietly 
 hear another man slandered as to 
 slander him. And, brethren, it is not 
 enough for you to maintain in your 
 speech and in your whole conduct the 
 sanctity of the reputation of those 
 around about you. There is a phase 
 of honor far more sacred than that. 
 There is in every man a silent judg- 
 ment-seat, a chamber in his own 
 thoughts, where he thinks evil or 
 thinks well of his neighbors ; where 
 he looks upon them charitably or un- 
 
174 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 charitably ; and you are violating one 
 of the sanctities of God's Law when 
 you dare to think unjustly of your fel- 
 low-men. They are not present to 
 hear your charge or to defend them- 
 selves against it ; and if you condemn 
 them, you condemn them unseen and 
 unheard. 
 
 789. Self-Description. — When we 
 talk about ourselves we almost invari- 
 ably use Latin words, and when we 
 talk about our neighbors we use Saxon 
 words. And one of the best things a 
 man can do, I think, is to examine 
 himself in the Saxon tongue. If a 
 man tells that which is contrary to the 
 truth, let him not say, " I equivo- 
 cate" : let him say, "I lie." Lie! 
 why, it brings the judgment-day right 
 home to a man's thought. Men do 
 not like it, but it is exactly the thing 
 that will most effectually touch the 
 moral sense ; and the more the moral 
 sense is touched the better. If a man 
 has departed from rectitude in his 
 dealings with another, let him not say, 
 "I took advantage," which is a 
 roundabout, long sentence : let him 
 say, " I cheated." That is a very di- 
 rect word. It springs straight to the 
 conscience, as the arrow flies whizzing 
 from the bow to the center of the 
 mark. Does it grate harshly on your 
 ear? Nevertheless, it is better that 
 you should employ it ; and you should 
 come to this determination: "I will 
 call things that I detect in my conduct 
 by those clear-faced, rough-tongued 
 words that my enemies would use if 
 they wanted to sting me to the quick." 
 
 790. Slang. — In the use of the 
 tongue there is indulgence in slang ; 
 and that, too, among educated people 
 who consider themselves as refined. 
 There is no beauty in it. Now and 
 then there is an extraordinary phrase, 
 that has some vitality, and it is not 
 slang — it is picturesque. There are 
 
 phrases originated that really do touch 
 the vital matter as no ordinary para- 
 phrastic language can ; but that does 
 not include those ten thousand ever- 
 coming and ever-changing phrases 
 that have no beauty and no meaning 
 in them, and are scarcely even gro- 
 tesque. We would not permit our 
 daughters so to use their feet and their 
 hands as they permit themselves to 
 use their tongue, contrary to the pro- 
 prieties of life and of good breeding. 
 Such improprieties are warts upon the 
 tongue, not beauties. 
 
 791. Rejoicing in Iniquity. — Gener- 
 ally speaking, when I sec men taking 
 to anything naturally, 1 say, " It is be- 
 cause they like it." When I see a 
 man read every murder in the news- 
 paper, every single case of crim. con. 
 in the courts ; when I see a man eat- 
 ing carrion every day, morning, noon, 
 and night — hunting for it — I say to 
 myself, " He likes it." I make up my 
 mind that he does rejoice in iniquity. 
 I am convinced that there is something 
 in this garbage which meets a want in 
 his nature. As for myself, I should as 
 soon set up my dweUing in the com- 
 mon sewer of New York, as to dabble 
 in the stench pools of the criminal 
 columns of our daily papers, which 
 every day pour out mud, mud, mud — 
 fetid, foul, stinking mud. 
 
 792. Ear and Tongue Leagued for 
 Evil. — Where there are no persons 
 that enjoy slanderous stories, evil tales 
 about men, there will be no widespread 
 contagion of mischief. It would seem 
 as if there was a league between the 
 ear and the tongue, to make as much 
 out of evil as it is possible. The ear, 
 like a sewer, gathers in whatever there 
 is going in the community ; and the 
 tongue, like a scavenger, runs with it 
 from house to house. 
 
 793. Native Evil Finds Evil. — A 
 bad man finds that which is bad. He 
 
EXCELLENCES AND VIRTUES 
 
 175 
 
 carries it with him. An irritable man 
 finds not only irritable men, but oc- 
 casions for irritability. A quarrelsome 
 man finds occasion to quarrel in every 
 nook and corner. A discontented 
 man — O the jolts that are under his 
 wheels ! O the provocations that are 
 brought to bear upon him ! A dis- 
 honest man every day has ten thou- 
 sand things telling him of dishonest 
 ways. More than mosquitoes in sum- 
 mer are the thoughts of dishonesty 
 that are round about a brain that 
 naturally tends to be dishonest. The 
 man says, " I am tempted of the 
 devil." Yes ; and the devil knows 
 where to tempt you. He sows his 
 seed on ground prepared before- 
 hand. 
 
 794. Habits of Hearing. — How 
 many persons are in regard to hear- 
 ing, like sentinels who, when set to 
 take care of things that are good, are 
 always asleep, but who, when set to 
 take care of things that are bad, never 
 go to sleep ! How many men take 
 account of their habits of hearing ? 
 
 795. The Hearing of Evil.— If there 
 is one thing that has been repeated 
 over and over again, it is the caution 
 about hearing ; and yet how many 
 persons there are who do not use their 
 ears to hear what it might do them 
 good to hear, but as a bolting-cloth to 
 catch only the bran and let the flour go! 
 How many there are who hear every- 
 thing that is keen, pungent, and salient 
 in scandal, and nothing favorable, 
 commendable, praiseworthy of men ! 
 
 796. Scandal. — The true mother 
 would never let go out of the door 
 any tale of what little meanness 
 the child had done, or of what little 
 animahsm it was subject to. Such 
 things in the family are sacred ; love 
 smothers them ; but in larger circles it 
 is our privilege, when a fault has been 
 laid, to sit on it till it hatches, and to 
 encourage the breed ! We solace our 
 hours with the shrewd penetration 
 which we possess. We have heard 
 something that is most amusing ; and, 
 with a laugh for the bow, we send the 
 venomed arrow out. 
 
 XVIII. EXCELLENCES AND VIRTUES 
 
 797. Educated Virtues. — It is a 
 great deal better that the clownish, ill- 
 bred country lout, coming to the city 
 and attending a dancing master for 
 good manners should put his feet ex- 
 actly right than to go on with his 
 clumsy, slouching gait ; but no man 
 has manners who is thinking about 
 manners. It is not until the foot has 
 forgotten that it ever has been taught 
 as a scholar, or the hand that it ever 
 has been instructed, that there is grace 
 in it. When a man has learned any- 
 thing, and has to stop and think of it, 
 he has not learned it. When a man 
 has any virtue that requires to be 
 called, that virtue is not educated. 
 When a man has to open the door of 
 
 the soul, and call down, " Patience, 
 come here, you are wanted," that man 
 has not learned to be patient. 
 
 798. Little Virtues. — Do not be 
 troubled because you have not great 
 virtues. God made a million spears 
 of grass where he made one tree. 
 The earth is fringed and carpeted, not 
 with forests, but with grasses. Only 
 have enough of little virtues and com- 
 mon fidelities, and you need not 
 mourn because you are neither a hero 
 nor a saint. 
 
 799. Small Excellences. — Look 
 upon your scarfs, so brilliant. The 
 color shines afar off. Comely it is in 
 the vat of the dyer. Comely it is on 
 the shoulder of beauty. How ex- 
 
.76 
 
 SOCIAI. LIFE 
 
 quisile is the dye that comes from the 
 cochineal insect. And yet, how small 
 is that insect — scarcely, I may say, so 
 big as the point of a pin — which feeds 
 so inconspicuously on the under side 
 of the leaf of the cactus, nourishing 
 his growth quite unconscious that as 
 one of all the myriads of all these 
 little shining points will he by and 
 by help to produce those glowing 
 colors which civilization and refine- 
 ment will make so meet and comely 
 in distant lands ! So it is with good 
 deeds. The great things in this 
 world are the sum of infinitesimal 
 little things. 
 
 800. Self-Knowledge, as to Conduct, 
 — We should keep ourselves informed 
 of our conduct in its relations to sym- 
 pathy and affection. Are we acting 
 upon men by our selfish instincts, our 
 animal natures, and our executive 
 forces ; or are we acting upon them by 
 our affections, our moral sentiments, 
 and our understanding ? We imagine 
 with wonder the passage of a comet 
 through space, flaming and sparkUng 
 along strange paths, and glowing upon 
 stars innumerable as it goes ; but that 
 is not half so wonderful as the passage 
 of the human heart, flaming and 
 sparkling and glowing with ten thou- 
 sand effects shot upon every man we 
 meet, as we move through life. 
 Comets are cold in distance, and all 
 their radiance falls without effect ; but 
 the human soul, as it moves up and 
 down the ways of experience, is pro- 
 ducing ten thousand effects at every 
 single movement, many of which we 
 know nothing about : but we should 
 aim to know. 
 
 801 . Gifts of the Heart. — Every one 
 of you has, in his own heart, a garden. 
 The root of everything that is beauti- 
 ful, and savory, and desirable, is 
 planted in every man's soul ; and 
 every man is expected of the Lord to 
 
 bring it to some degree of perfection. 
 Christ says, " Freely ye have re- 
 ceived ; freely give." He says to 
 you, "Go forth and, wherever you 
 are, pluck those flowers that bloom in 
 the garden of your soul, take the fair 
 things that are in you, and do not use 
 them for yourself alone, but distribute 
 them among others." 
 
 802. Expression of Pleasure. — If 
 men are surprised by a great pleasure, 
 you will see the difference between 
 one and another in this, that a stolid 
 or selfish man will absorb his pleasure, 
 while a generous nature, like a bell, 
 will ring out his. It is the instinct of 
 every true and large nature to dis- 
 tribute its own sensations of enjoy- 
 ment, to radiate its own emotions of 
 pleasure. You cannot meet a noble 
 man and spend a few moments with 
 him without burning to tell your 
 friends something about him. 
 
 803. Making Others Happy. — The 
 business of making men happy that 
 are not happy does not lie half so near 
 to the consciousness of men as it ought 
 to. If it is in the power of men to 
 touch the higher nature, and to rouse 
 others to cheer, to good nature, to 
 hope, to good will, to mirth, to cour- 
 age, then this is a part of their Chris- 
 tian duty. 
 
 What is an adagio from one of 
 Beethoven's symphonies ? What, but 
 a mere motion of the wind — a con- 
 geries of invisible pulsations in the 
 air ? And yet, when care has low- 
 ered, and life sits heavily on your 
 heart, one half-hour in hearing such 
 divine sounds renews your soul, and 
 sends you away recreate. How much 
 more, then, when not dead instru- 
 ments, but the living faculties of a 
 truly loving Christian soul, send forth 
 their influence ! How the heart of 
 man can make the heart of man pul- 
 sate with pleasure, if it will ! 
 
EXCELLENCES AND VIRTUES 
 
 177 
 
 804. Self-knowledge, as to Speech. 
 — There are a great many persons 
 who examine themselves as to mo- 
 tives ; but how many persons ex- 
 amine themselves in the matter of 
 speech ? Do you know what your 
 habits are with regard to talking? 
 Do you talk a great deal too much ? 
 Do you say a great many things 
 heedlessly ? Do you indulge a great 
 deal in out-swelling words of pride? 
 Are your words like sparks of fire, or 
 are they hke drops of oil ? Do you 
 make life sweet with your tongue 
 wherever you go, or is your tongue 
 hke the tongue of a serpent, carrying 
 terror? How often do you think of 
 your speech? I venture to say that 
 every person in your neighborhood 
 knows more about it than you do. 
 
 805. Love to be Manifested. — Do 
 not keep the alabaster boxes of your 
 love and tenderness sealed up until 
 your friends are dead. Fill their lives 
 with sweetness. Speak approving, 
 cheering words while their ears can 
 hear them, and while their hearts can 
 be thrilled by them. The things you 
 mean to say when they are gone, say 
 before they go. . . . Flowers on the 
 coffin cast no fragrance backward 
 over the weary days. 
 
 806. Cheerfulness. — I have some- 
 times ridden through fields and lanes, 
 where, without seeing anything, I 
 looked about to see something, the 
 air was so sweet, and said, "The 
 grapevines ai-e blossoming." And I 
 have often been in a company where 
 persons were so pleasant and cheerful 
 and good-natured, that I looked to see 
 whose grapevines were blossoming. 
 
 807. Sunny Dispositions. — There 
 are natural-born comforters. I have 
 seen some men whose coming in 
 through the door was like the coming 
 in of the sun in winter. There are 
 some people who are like the whistling 
 
 of the northeast wind, and I bless God 
 when they go. There are others who 
 are like the balm of summer days that 
 bring birds and prophesy flowers ; 
 and I bless God when they come. 
 
 808. "The Lord Be With Thee." 
 — It was their ordinary mode of 
 salutation in the time and country of 
 Boaz. It was beautiful for the owner 
 of a field to go forth and greet his 
 reapers thus, and for them to greet 
 him in the same spirit. What if a 
 director of a railroad, nowadays, 
 should come out in the morning, and 
 say to his workmen, " The Lord be 
 with you ! " What would they think, 
 or say ? So it seems to us a wonder- 
 ful period in which the householder 
 and master addressed those who 
 served him in these stately words, 
 "The Lord be with you," and they 
 said in reply, "The Lord bless thee." 
 It was a good deal better than the 
 best of our salutations. Take, for 
 instance, our "Good-bye." That 
 you know, is "God be with you" — 
 shrunk up to a skin. 
 
 8og. Good-Natured People. — A real 
 good-natured man is the most trouble- 
 some morsel that the malign passions 
 ever attempt to feed upon. He is the 
 natural superior of irritable persons. 
 He that can govern himself can con- 
 trol others. An irritable man, whom 
 any one can excite, is like a horse 
 kept at livery, ridden by every one, 
 and spurred by each rider. Nobody 
 is so little his own master as he who 
 can be stirred and provoked at an- 
 other's will. 
 
 810. Variableness of " Truth." 
 — Truth is not always the same. 
 That is to say, it is a series of endless 
 adaptations. The statement of truth 
 is like registration on a thermometer, 
 where the mercury is going up or 
 down all the time, according to the 
 changes which are taking place in the 
 
■ 78 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 temperature. The statement of truth 
 constantly varies through all the 
 moods of the atmosphere by which it 
 is influenced. 
 
 For example, one would suppose 
 that if there were any truth about 
 which there was no doubt, it was the 
 need of neatness. " Neatness is neat- 
 ness," you say. I beg your pardon. 
 What is thought very neat indeed in a 
 stone mason's work would be con- 
 sidered very far from neat in your 
 bedroom. We judge of neatness ac- 
 cording to circumstances. 
 
 8ii. Truth the Bond of Society. — 
 The political economy of the matter is 
 this, that lying disintegrates society. 
 Men are united together in the great 
 interests of human life by trust. On 
 an average they believe, when a man 
 says a thing ; when he says he has 
 done a thing they take it for granted. 
 We could not live if we could not be- 
 lieve in men. " William, have you 
 deposited those checks in the bank?" 
 "Yes, sir, I have." "May be he 
 has, may be he has not ; I will go 
 round to the bank and see." "Has 
 my clerk deposited checks for $5,000 
 in the bank to-day?" "Yes," says 
 the cashier, " he has." " But there 
 may be a collusion between him and 
 some of the bank officers, I will go 
 inside and see." " Is your cashier to 
 be believed when he says my clerk 
 has deposited $5,000?" If a man 
 had to do all that circumlocution in 
 his business he would not have time 
 to do anything else. The progress of 
 all human life begins in the belief that 
 men substantially tell the truth. 
 
 812. Gentleness. — Gentleness is 
 not a quality of not having vi77t. 
 When a man is strong and energetic, 
 and at the same time uses his strength 
 and energy and power with sweet- 
 ness, that is gentleness. See the great 
 swarthy smith as he returns from the 
 
 anvil, every muscle herculean, after 
 the day's labor washing himself that 
 he may come back to his own com- 
 plexion. As the little child totters 
 out to him, see with what ineffable 
 sweetness he gathers up the little one 
 on his shoulder, and holds the babe 
 in his arm. He that could swing a 
 giant and slay him walks about, the 
 servant of the little children, so gently 
 that they love him almost more than 
 they love the mother's bosom. Gen- 
 tleness is the sweetness of strength in 
 an element of love. Weakness is not 
 necessarily gentle. 
 
 813. The Peaceful Spirit. — "And 
 your feet shod with the preparation of 
 the gospel of peace." Ah, how soft 
 is the touch that one's foot must have 
 with such sandals upon them ! Ah, 
 how unwearable are such shoes on 
 earth ! If one could but walk along 
 the ways of life " shod with the prep- 
 aration of the gospel of peace," of 
 every man it might be said as Scott 
 said of the Lady of the Lake that trod 
 on a harebell, which instantly lifted 
 its head to look after her retreating 
 footsteps. Wondrous are these ele- 
 ments of defence ; and with them, 
 how does one, quicker than the 
 winged and fabled shoe of Mercury 
 trod upon the air, tread in this im- 
 mortal conflict. 
 
 814, Difficulty of Goodness amid 
 Evil. — If you take a lighted candle, 
 beautiful and symmetrical, and carry 
 it out of doors unsheltered, the wind 
 blows it about in every direction ; the 
 flame flares right and left, and melts 
 down the body on which it feeds. 
 
 People of a kind and genial dispo- 
 sition in a selfish world, undertaking 
 to carry that disposition for the medi- 
 cation of other souls, are frequently 
 jarred and jolted by the discords 
 which they encounter outside of them- 
 selves ; and they have all the time to 
 
EXCELLENCES AND VIRTUES 
 
 179 
 
 fight with their circumstances. God 
 sometimes puts a man in such a posi- 
 tion in Hfe that he is at peace with 
 himself but out of joint with the out- 
 ward world ; and that is a very solemn 
 place to stand in. 
 
 815. Forgiveness. — In an act of 
 forgiveness you must burn, not the 
 arrow alone, but the bow, too ; you 
 must not only refrain from retaliation, 
 but you must get rid of the desire to 
 retaliate. 
 
 816. Spirit of Forgiveness. — As we 
 do not keep tinder in every box in the 
 house, so we do not keep the sense of 
 anger in every faculty. When one 
 comes against the door of some facul- 
 ties with an injury, we look over the 
 railing and say, — " I'll forgive you for 
 that, for you did not get in." But by 
 and by, when the faculty where we 
 are sensitive is entered, then we grind 
 our teeth and say, — " I could have 
 forgiven him for anything but that ! " 
 
 We must not arrogate to ourselves 
 a spirit of forgiveness, until we have 
 been touched to the quick where we 
 are sensitive, and borne it meekly. 
 And meekness is not mere white- 
 facedness, a mere contemplative vir- 
 tue ; it is maintaining peace and pa- 
 tience amidst pelting provocations. 
 
 817. How to Repay Injury. — The 
 man who has been injured is the doc- 
 tor of the man that did the injury. He 
 is called to prescribe for him. You 
 are to supply that element which the 
 man lacks for whom you prescribe. 
 If he has been mean, that is a reason 
 why you should be magnanimous. If 
 he has been dishonest, that is a reason 
 why you should be scrupulously hon- 
 est. If he has been cruel, that is a 
 reason why you should be intensely 
 forgiving and benevolent. Right is 
 the refutation of wrong, and the nurse 
 and cure for it. For, if you do wick- 
 edly to a man, and find that piercing 
 
 him only brings sugar, as tapping the 
 maple tree brings the sap out of 
 which sugar is made ; if you pierce a 
 man and find that only sweetness 
 flows from the wound — this leads to 
 better thoughts and a regenerated dis- 
 position. 
 
 818. Like Begets Like. — One of 
 the conditions required in the produc- 
 tion of peace is, that you shall have it 
 to a degree, at least, in your own soul. 
 No man, himself being excessively 
 nervous, can successfully nurse a 
 nervous person. One's nerves oscil- 
 late and beat upon other people. It 
 requires good health to inspire sick- 
 ness, and lift the weak up out of their 
 ailments ; and if a man is to be a 
 peacemaker he must have the flavor 
 of peace in his own soul. 
 
 819. Gratitude. — There was a man 
 in Boston (I know not whether he 
 lives yet, — yes, he lives, but I know 
 not whether he lives in this world) 
 who, though not rich, was accustomed 
 to go into the courts of justice every 
 morning to give bail for culprits that 
 had no friends ; and it was his testi- 
 mony that of all those for whom he 
 gave bail, not one betrayed him, — 
 not one left him in the lurch. And 
 do you suppose that those creatures 
 whom Christ has helped, and whom 
 he has given a hope of eternal salva- 
 tion, would turn against him, their 
 best friend, and the one to whom they 
 are indebted for their choicest bless- 
 ings ? Would that be human nature ? 
 Is there anything on God's earth like 
 gratitude to inspire a soul to act in the 
 right direction ? 
 
 820. Fidelity. — A ship laden with 
 passengers, and under the charge of a 
 faithful man, sets out on a voyage in 
 the dead of winter. Owing to a varia- 
 tion of the compass he runs the ship 
 upon a reef. There she remains fixed, 
 with the waves of the ocean raging 
 
i8o 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 about her iidc like hungry wolves im- 
 patient for their victim. The ship- 
 master is the only man on the vessel 
 that is calm, and he goes about speak- 
 ing words of encouragement to the 
 others, and making preparations for 
 their relief. When he has got some- 
 thing rigged for taking them off, the 
 women and children are handed down 
 first ; then the other passengers fol- 
 low ; and then the crew ; and the 
 shipmaster is the last man to leave the 
 wreck — almost frozen, and worn out 
 with watching. But he is so be- 
 numbed and so weary that he misses 
 his hold, and falls over ; and the 
 ocean sings his requiem. And there 
 is not a man that hears his story who 
 does not feel that there has been a 
 monument erected to fidelity and dis- 
 interested benevolence, which shall 
 stand as long as the name of that man 
 endures. 
 
 821. Justice, — It is supposed that 
 justice is a simple quality. It is one 
 of the most complex, perplexing, re- 
 condite, and unknown of qualities. 
 We know what justice is in some 
 things, in certain low relations, as be- 
 tween man and man. It has been 
 established by custom in some cases, 
 and by law in others ; but the world 
 had to grow a great while before it 
 could know what is just under what 
 now seem very simple circumstances. 
 As circumstances change, and ques- 
 tions become more complex, it be- 
 comes more difficult to tell what justice 
 is. Justice itself becomes composite 
 as it becomes mixed with taste, and 
 love, and other elements. There is a 
 vast literature to it. As the alphabet 
 is simple in each letter, but is the 
 father of an infinite literature, so the 
 combination of these simple qualities 
 becomes voluminous in possibilities. 
 
 822. Sincerity. — One reason why 
 men have been so fascinated with 
 
 what are called the " pre-Raphaelite 
 pictures" is that they were painted, 
 not for exhibition, but as a sincere 
 offering to truth. They were genu- 
 ine ; and therefore, however much 
 they were " out of drawing," however 
 far they were from the niceties of a 
 more refined art, there was always an 
 earnestness and a simplicity in them, 
 and they meant what they expressed. 
 This was even more true of the old 
 German than of the Italian schools. 
 There is nothing like the hearty sim- 
 plicity of the early German painters. 
 
 After Raphael, and largely in con- 
 sequence of his influence, there came 
 a day when there was more beauty 
 and grace, and more correctness of 
 form ; but a large spirit of exhibitori- 
 ness crept into the pictures. There is 
 scarcely a Madonna of Raphael that 
 does not look as though it was con- 
 scious of being a Madonna ; scarcely 
 a sweet and angelic face that is not 
 apparently aware that it is sweet and 
 angelic ; scarcely a pious countenance 
 that does not seem to know that it is 
 pious. There is an intolerable sense 
 of vanity that has crept into all his 
 pictures. And in this way love of 
 praise has corrupted art, as it is apt to 
 do with nature — human nature. 
 
 823. " Mercy, with Cheerfulness." — 
 Some persons run at you like a dog 
 with his mouth open ; and they think 
 that they have shown you mercy be- 
 cause at last they turn away and do 
 not bite you. But mercy is to be 
 beautiful and gracious. It is to be 
 bestowed not surlily but cheerfully. 
 
 824. The Owning of Offences. — It 
 is not the offence, but the defence of 
 the offence, that makes it hard for us 
 to bear with one another. A man 
 may say to me, " You are a vile sin- 
 ner ; " he may rain his words on me 
 like blows; but if he comes back 
 when his passion has gone down, with 
 
EXCELLENCES AND VIRTUES 
 
 181 
 
 tears in his eyes, and says, " Oh! for- 
 give me ; I did not mean it," it is all 
 gone, quicker than a flash of hghtning. 
 I love him all the more. The fault is 
 not hard to bear. It is the defending 
 the fault, it is the refusing to make 
 up under fault, that rankles, and 
 makes us ugly in return. Where 
 there is one ugly man, there are two, 
 generally. 
 
 825. Right, Unconscious Rebuke of 
 Wrong. — The right is itself a contra- 
 diction of the wrong, an exposition of 
 it, and a rebuke which it cannot bear. 
 Lies never were able to stand up and 
 look the sweet face of Truth fairly in 
 the eye. A lie invariably sneaks 
 away, or burrows, or puts on a veil, or 
 pretends to be the truth. A dishonest 
 thing cannot face an honest thing, an 
 impurity cannot look a bright-eyed 
 purity unflinchingly in the face. A 
 meanness cannot stand up against a 
 magnanimity. Stinginess is cowed in 
 the presence of generosity, 
 
 826. Honesty in Work. — Any man 
 who has spent an honest life in rearing 
 up the physical economy of society, 
 by which he is to promote the happi- 
 ness of households, and the industries 
 and frugalities, and so the welfare, of 
 his fellow-men, has lived to a good 
 purpose. For the man who is a car- 
 penter, or builder, or architect, or 
 engineer, does not work merely for 
 present remuneration. He puts that 
 in his work which will remunerate 
 him. I think many a man has looked 
 back from heaven and thanked God 
 that he had a chance to bless man- 
 kind by building good houses. And 
 some men have, perhaps, looked back, 
 not from heaven, with remorse, that 
 they built houses that were a curse to 
 mankind. 
 
 827. Consider the Sensitive, — A day 
 that is piercingly cold to a person 
 whose blood is thin, and whose whole 
 
 system is low -toned, is a charming day 
 to the great rude, robust man, who is 
 full of vigor, and who has an abun- 
 dance of blood of the right sort, sending 
 life all through him ; and there are as 
 many temperaments of the mind as 
 there are of the body. 
 
 828. Frugality. — There is some- 
 thing beautiful, I know, in the thought 
 of a parent leaning on the shoulders 
 of those whom he has reared. Never- 
 theless, there is something more beau- 
 tiful in the thought of a man leaning 
 upon his own staff. In youth you are 
 cutting the staff that you are to lean 
 upon in old age. There is a reason, 
 therefore, for frugality and moderation 
 in expense, that reaches as far out as 
 your life is long, and that will seem to 
 you more and more apparent as you 
 grow older. 
 
 829. " Love Beareth all Things." — 
 No matter what people do, no matter 
 what they say, no matter how much 
 they put upon you or put you about, 
 the true spirit of love is sweet, and 
 quiet, and takes all the vexatious part 
 of social intercourse just as a traveler 
 does the inconvenience which he 
 meets on his way. He does not think 
 of fighting the storm, or whining about 
 it ; he is in it, and he must go through 
 it, so he makes up his mind to that, 
 and does not complain. It is the same 
 in disarranged domestic or neighbor- 
 hood affairs. The true disposition 
 bears what comes upon it under all 
 circumstances. 
 
 830. Quality in Virtues. — We are 
 familiar with this term quality as it is 
 applied to matter, to timber, to fabrics, 
 to metals, to workmanship, to jewelry, 
 to arts. A picture may be a picture ; 
 and yet its quality may be such as to 
 rank it very low. Cloth may be 
 cloth ; and yet it may be made up of 
 shoddy, and its quality very inferior. 
 And there is such a thing as quality. 
 
l82 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 too, in virtues. Men may have vir- 
 tues ; but tiieir quality may be very 
 low, for quality is recognized just as 
 much in disposition as in physical 
 
 things. As to virtues, they ought to 
 have these marks of quality : truth, 
 largeness, continuity, universality, 
 fruitfulness, fineness and beauty. 
 
 XIX. SOCIAL RELATIONS 
 
 I. Society. 
 
 831. Social Polish. — If you take 
 rocks just as they come out of the 
 quarry, they are all ragged and rough ; 
 but if you roll them in the bed of a 
 river for about a hundred thousand 
 years, they become round and smooth 
 as marbles. People who do not mix 
 with other people are sharp and 
 angular and cutting ; but folks who 
 mingle with their fellows have their 
 corners rubbed off, and rounded and 
 made smooth. 
 
 832. Social Interdependence. — There 
 is no isolated thing known to us in 
 creation. Everything is a part of 
 something else. Nothing lives except 
 by depending on some other thing. 
 The bird eats the insect ; the insect 
 ate the leaf; the leaf fed upon the 
 sap; the sap came from the ground; 
 the ground drank at the cloud's lips ; 
 and so you may push all things back, 
 and find that one stands on another. 
 In this arrangement of creation, we 
 need food for every part of the body. 
 The body was not built so that it 
 should stay built, but so that it must 
 be rebuilt, in part at least, every single 
 day. The bone needs one food, the 
 hair another, the nerve another, and 
 the muscle another. And, in analogy 
 with this, the mind, just as much, de- 
 mands stimulus and occupation that 
 shall give to it the nourishment and 
 vitality which food gives to the body. 
 
 . . . The soul will not have solitari- 
 ness. That is hunger. Men love to 
 travel in companies, and to work in 
 companies, simply, it is said, because 
 they are " social." Yet what do you 
 
 mean by that, but this : that there is a 
 yearning thought which goes out to 
 the common life by which one is built. 
 
 833. Influence of Society. — The 
 family, — the school, — the church, — 
 regulated and virtuous civil society, — 
 wholesome and normal occupation, 
 which increases physical comforts, — 
 all these make the number of children 
 reared to high moral character greater, 
 and the training of such children 
 easier. I would rather undertake to 
 bring up my child to virtue and mo- 
 rality and piety in the city, bad as it 
 is, than on the desert of Sahara, or on 
 a flat rock where there was nothing 
 but him, me, and the rock. You 
 could bring up a toadstool there, but 
 not a man. 
 
 834. Man's Susceptibility. — The 
 thermometer is not so sensitive to 
 heat, the barometer is not so sensitive 
 to pressure, as the susceptibilities of 
 our fellow-men are to the uncon- 
 scious or conscious influence that we 
 are throwing out upon them. Men 
 are like instruments photographic. 
 We are making pictures. We are 
 throwing shadows and lines upon one, 
 ten, scores, hundreds. Every time 
 we come into the presence or con- 
 sciousness of men something or other 
 happens to them ; for men are as sen- 
 sitive to receiving as they are in de- 
 veloping influence. 
 
 835. Beauty of Habit. — Nobody is 
 so graceful in things that belong to 
 the farm as the farmer. If you bring 
 him to Boston and ask him to go into 
 conditions that he is not accustomed 
 to, he is awkward ; and the well 
 
SOCIAL RELATIONS 
 
 '83 
 
 dressed, kid-gloved young man laughs 
 to see how the poor old fellow acts. 
 But now, take our young man and put 
 him behind the plow, and see how he 
 will act ! He is as awkward there as 
 the old man was in the city. Put the 
 farmer behind the plow, and see the 
 elasticity with which he adapts him- 
 self to its movements ! He observes 
 what is coming, and prepares for it, 
 and goes along with the utmost ease 
 and composure. Where a man has 
 had education and drill in the thing 
 to which he is appointed, and does it 
 unconsciously and automatically, ac- 
 cording to its kind, it is beautiful. 
 
 836. Limitations of Society. — God 
 designed men to grow as trees grow in 
 open pastures, fuU-boughed all 
 around ; but men in society grow like 
 trees in forests, tall and spindling, the 
 lower ones overshadowed by the 
 higher, with only a little branching, 
 and that at the top. They borrow of 
 each other the power to stand ; and if 
 the forest be cleared and one be left 
 alone, the first wind uproots it. 
 
 837. Environment. — Because a bird 
 lives in a chimney he need not be 
 smutty. There is many a fine feather 
 that lives in a chimney-corner. Nor 
 are birds the only instance. 
 
 838. Evils of the City. — We do not 
 need to go to Vesuvius to see volca- 
 noes. We have them all around us, 
 in spite of the police and the common 
 sense of the community. 
 
 839. Difficulty of Right Living. — 
 It is easy to strike a match and light a 
 torch under ordinary circumstances ; 
 but let a man, when the wick is wet, 
 and the matches are damp, try to light 
 a torch ; and if at last he succeeds in 
 lighting it, let him, when the wind is 
 blowing a gale, attempt to carry it 
 across the unprotected Battery, at the 
 sea-end of New York. He will find 
 that what is easy in theory is impossi- 
 
 ble in practice. And so it is with 
 those that purpose to carry the light of 
 example through the world. They 
 find it almost impossible to do it in the 
 midst of the many and varying influ- 
 ences which abound. 
 
 840. No Safety in Solitude.— To go 
 alone into the wilderness is no safe- 
 guard against evil. A man never 
 went into the wilderness in this world 
 that the devil did not go with him. In 
 the city, the devil has so much to do 
 that he cannot pay much attention to 
 any one man ; but in the wilderness 
 he has you ! It is a bad plan to keep 
 by yourself too much. When you are 
 under wholesome excitements in life, 
 when you are made to vibrate and re- 
 spond to genial influences, these things 
 help you on. 
 
 841. Uses of Solitude. — Alone-ness 
 is to social life what rests are in music. 
 Sounds following silence are always 
 sweetest. 
 
 The other day I got me to a solitary 
 corner, where pine-trees, maples and 
 spruces had leagued against the sun, 
 and quite expelled him. There, upon 
 a root swelling out above the ground, 
 I sat me down, and, leaning against 
 the trunk, I determined to spy cut 
 what things are done in such places. 
 So still was I that insects thought me 
 a tree, and made a highway of my 
 limbs. Nearly an hour I waited, and 
 then came what I waited for — a wood- 
 thrush — and perched his speckled 
 breast right over against me in a near 
 tree. He did not look in one place 
 more than another, and so I knew that 
 he believed himself alone. At once 
 he began dressing his feathers. He 
 ran his bill down through his ash- 
 speckled breast, he probed the wings, 
 and combed out the long coverts. He 
 ruffled up his whole plumage and 
 shook it robustly. Then, his solitary 
 toilet completed, he flew into a tree 
 
184 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 nearer llie road, where he could look 
 out, but not be seen, and began his 
 song. It was neither warble nor con- 
 tinuous song, but a dainty phrasing, in 
 single syllables, of such sweet and 
 loving thoughts as solitude doth breed 
 in pure and tender natures. And all 
 this have I rehearsed, that I might say 
 that none in hfe sing so sweetly as 
 they who, hke the wood-thrush, sit on 
 the twilight edge of sohtude and sing 
 to those who pass by in the sunhght 
 outside. 
 
 842. Power of Association. — Do 
 you know what the power of associa- 
 tion is? Do you know how we have 
 redeemed many things in human ex- 
 perience from vulgarity, and made 
 them as redolent as the gate of 
 heaven ? For instance, do you know 
 of any one thing that is so gross as 
 eating? When you consider that a 
 man throws into that hole which we 
 call the mouth, chunk after chunk and 
 grinds it, and disposes of it, is there 
 anything that is more purely an animal 
 operation ? And yet, is there any- 
 thing more refined or fuller of sweet 
 suggestion than the table ? Do we 
 not use that word table to signify the 
 blessings of the household ? We have 
 so surrounded the table, by conversa- 
 tion, and affection, and the higher 
 offices of life, that we forget that gross 
 fact around which they all of them 
 cohere. These are the blossoms, and 
 that is the root underground, as it 
 were. This is a single illustration of 
 a principle as broad as life : on the 
 one hand, by association you can 
 make the highest and noblest things 
 most mean and beggarly ; while, on 
 the other hand, you can surround the 
 meanest and grossest things with the 
 noblest and highest associations. 
 
 843. Heart-Associations. — As the 
 wind which serves to prostrate a plant 
 is only a sower coming forth to sow its 
 
 seeds, planting some of them in rock 
 crevices, some by river courses, some 
 among mossy stones, some under 
 warm hedges, and some in garden and 
 open field, — so it is with our experi- 
 ences of hfe, that sway and bow us, 
 either with joy or sorrow. They plant 
 everything about us with heart-seeds. 
 Thus a house becomes sacred. Every 
 room has a thousand memories. 
 Every door and window is clustered 
 with associations. 
 
 844. Early Surroundings. — After 
 saying within myself, " It would have 
 been impossible for me ever to have 
 venerated relics," I bethought me of 
 the Bible that lay by my side. In the 
 book of Psalms there was a little 
 paper folded up v^hich contained grass 
 that grew upon the grave of my 
 mother, in Litchfield. What was that 
 but a relic ? It was of my mother. I 
 was susceptible to relics in that direc- 
 tion. Ah, I could have made a good 
 Catholic. It only needed the right 
 birth in the right country, with a right 
 education and the right influences. 
 How dependent we are upon our rear- 
 ing ! 
 
 845. Trials of the Strenuous Life. — 
 Take a young man in the lecture- 
 room, and let a single motive to 
 wrongdoing be presented to him, and 
 he can resist it while he is there before 
 the professor. But throw him into 
 life, where evil influences counteract 
 all the good influences that are 
 brought to bear upon him, night and 
 day, in the household ; shove him into 
 business, where tides of temptation 
 set in upon him from every side ; let 
 him go out of business into reeking 
 political affairs, and be, week after 
 week, and month after month, 
 wrought upon by those excitements 
 and corruptions ; let him be put 
 through all the possible experiences of 
 life in its various combinations, and 
 
SOCIAL RELATIONS 
 
 .85 
 
 see whether it is as easy for him to 
 carry himself exactly right, then, as 
 it is when he addresses himself to 
 some separate act or single line of 
 conduct. There is a difference be- 
 tween acting in the simplicity of indi- 
 vidual choices, and acting in the 
 complexity of unavoidable circum- 
 stances ; and that is the reason why so 
 many are good while they are still, 
 and bad when they are active. 
 
 846. Resolutions and Gravitation. — 
 What a man means to do in the morn- 
 ing, standing among its fresh dew- 
 drops, and what he does do when he 
 finds himself tossed hither and thither 
 by the influences that operate upon 
 him during the day, are very different 
 things. He is like a man who sits on 
 the top of the mountain and beholds 
 the clear heavens and curtain-like 
 clouds above, and the beautiful cham- 
 paign country beneath. He is puri- 
 fied, cleansed, and he says, "I will 
 go down now a calmer and a better 
 man." He starts, walking at first, 
 but presently, finding the way smooth, 
 beginning to run. He runs a little 
 faster than he is aware of, so that 
 when he comes to the steep down 
 which he must pass he cannot stop, 
 and he is glad to jump, and he jumps 
 not knowing where he shall land, — 
 and on he goes, now like a grass- 
 hopper, now rolling and tumbling, 
 and now jumping and running ; and 
 when he reaches the bottom he has 
 not taken one step that he meant 
 to, he has taken a great many that 
 he did not mean to, and his calm- 
 ness has given way to heated ex- 
 citement. And so, many men, sit- 
 ting, as it were, on the mountain of 
 contemplation, in the morning mean 
 to act right, being inspired so to 
 act by the beautiful and heavenly 
 scenes which surround them ; and 
 they undertake to go down the de- 
 
 clivities of the day with circumspec- 
 tion and propriety. If the day is a 
 calm one they can do it ; but there 
 are times when a man finds himself 
 caught and whirled, and vexed and 
 harassed, so that he hardly knows 
 what he is or where he is, and scarcely 
 keeps his identity till the day is 
 ended. 
 
 847. At Home and Abroad. — I 
 know there are a great many persons 
 who, when they go abroad, will do in 
 London and Paris what they would 
 not do in New York, saying, "No- 
 body knows me ; my example is noth- 
 ing, and I am going to indulge a curi- 
 osity which I always had." But it 
 struck me just the other way. I am 
 somewhat subject to strong impulses 
 of patriotism, and I felt, when I was 
 abroad, in this way: "If I want to 
 take any liberty, I choose to take it 
 in my own country. I will not do in 
 Paris and London anything that I will 
 not do in New York and Boston." I 
 had a very strong feeling that it was a 
 good thing for a man, when he went 
 home, and his friends or others asked 
 him what special liberties he had 
 taken, if he could say, " None ; I 
 behave myself like a gentleman at 
 home, and I behaved myself like a 
 gentleman when I was abroad. I do 
 what I think is right here, and I did 
 what I thought was right there." 
 The saying, " Among Romans you 
 must do as the Romans do," contains 
 a limited truth ; but it has been the 
 devil's snare, teaching men to violate 
 their sense of right and wrong. 
 
 848. The Gentleman. — Can you 
 make a gentleman by cutting a man 
 in two, and building up the lower half, 
 and leaving the upper and better half 
 out? Is he a gentleman who merely 
 conforms to a few starveling maxims 
 of conduct and conventional arrange- 
 ments of society to prevent overaction ? 
 
i86 
 
 SOCIAL. LIFE 
 
 And yet, what higher claim than this 
 have many who pass themselves off 
 for being gentlemen ? Manners and 
 etiquette are too often but the fine 
 color and empty shell of a thing which 
 is dead. Color is good ; but hfe that 
 makes color is a great deal better. 
 
 849. Uses of Refinement. — Many 
 people use their refinements as a 
 spider uses his web — to catch the 
 weak upon, that they may be merci- 
 lessly devoured. Why not, rather, as 
 the silk worm uses its web ? It lives 
 to spin it, and dies that it may yield it 
 for others' benefit. 
 
 850. Simple Laws for Simple Lives. 
 — A great many people despise simple 
 laws and humble customs ; but they 
 despise them much as the grajievine 
 despises the pea-brush as a support, 
 saying, " I that stretch up forty feet 
 will take nothing but an oak-tree." 
 Let the grapevine run as high as it 
 wants to on the tree ; but the pea-vine 
 is glad to run up on a pea-brush ; and 
 it could not run on anything larger 
 and taller. However much dignity 
 there might be in so doing, that is not 
 its nature. 
 
 Now, institutions may be much 
 lower than we see they ought to be ; 
 laws and customs may be inferior, 
 partial, and even injurious ; but, after 
 all, they represent about the best rule 
 of right that the great unthinking, 
 undeveloped mass of the community 
 can have ; and to treat them with 
 contempt or with violence is so to treat 
 the moral sense of the community. 
 
 851. Selfish Aspiration. — The wick- 
 edest people on earth are those who 
 use a force of genius to make them- 
 selves selfish in the noblest things; 
 keeping themselves aloof from the 
 vulgar, and the ignorant, and the un- 
 known ; rising higher and higher in 
 taste, till they sit, ice upon ice, on the 
 mountain-top of eternal congelation. 
 
 852. Lower Planes do not Include 
 Higher. — Here was a man who was so 
 strong in obedience to industrial and 
 physical law that everybody stood out 
 of his way and admired him, and 
 everybody saw that, as far as he 
 went, he got his reward. By and by, 
 the time came when he wanted re- 
 spect and consideration ; but he was 
 made to feel that of all who were 
 around him there was not one — that 
 there was not a day-laborer nor a poor 
 sempstress — who could not command 
 more disinterested affection than he. 
 He felt this, and he said, " 1 believe 
 in total depravity. Men are brutes." 
 That is to say, when there is a thorn- 
 hedge along the border of a precipice, 
 and a man runs into it and he gets 
 scratched, he curses thorns, and says 
 they are nuisances in creation. This 
 man has kept the commercial law, the 
 industrial law, and the physical law, 
 but he vainly claims the fruits of 
 obedience to social laws which he has 
 never obeyed. 
 
 853. Change of Social Relationships. 
 — In the early history of the human 
 race men owned everything, and no 
 distinction was made between property 
 in matter and property in persons. 
 According to modern phraseology, 
 property had not been "differen- 
 tiated." A man's children and his 
 servants were property to be bought 
 and sold ; and at that early period a 
 slave stood as high as a son. Slavery 
 then, especially as a transition from 
 destroying men in battle to saving 
 their lives, and making them useful, 
 and bringing them into the loose and 
 inchoate early family, and putting 
 them substantially in the position 
 which the child occupied, was not 
 very wrong ; on the other hand it 
 was right, as relative to the then state 
 of civilization. But now, when so- 
 ciety has gone up stage by stage until 
 
SOCIAL RELATIONS 
 
 187 
 
 the top and bottom are leagues apart 
 and until all relationships are changed, 
 we still see old doctors of divinity put- 
 ting on their spectacles and hear them 
 saying, "Abraham owned slaves in 
 his day, and therefore it is right for us 
 to own them in our day." Why, the 
 stratum of society was not two inches 
 thick in Abraham's time ; but now it 
 is twenty leagues thick ! A thing may 
 be right at the bottom which is not right 
 at the top, in the relationships between 
 man and man, and in the conse- 
 quences of those relationships. 
 
 2. Influence. 
 
 854. Influence. — In some degree, 
 upon all, conscious or unconscious, 
 we shall exert an influence ; we cannot 
 help it ; it is not a question of whether 
 we will or will not, but of what shall 
 be the influence that we exert. 
 
 A flower may not know how sweet 
 it is, but it is sweet ; and the perfume 
 is wafted from it perpetually. A 
 candle does not know what it is do- 
 ing ; nevertheless its light is going out 
 all the time, in every direction. A 
 magnet has no voHtion ; yet it is for- 
 ever searching and drawing appro- 
 priate objects to itself. So it is with 
 the human soul : it is put together and 
 tempered in such a way that it is con- 
 stantly radiating influences. Man is a 
 double creature, and which is the more 
 wonderful of the two sides we cannot 
 tell — namely, the capacity to receive 
 endless influences and appreciate them. 
 or the capacity to give out endless in- 
 fluences, consciously and uncon- 
 sciously. 
 
 855. Unnoticed Influence. — When 
 we come in contact with men we do not 
 know what they leave upon us. When 
 spiders spin their webs in bushes they 
 leave none that you can see at mid- 
 day. But the next day the dew that 
 has lodged upon them reveals them, 
 
 and then you can see that the bushes 
 were covered with them. And the 
 influences which men exert upon you, 
 you often cannot see when you re- 
 ceive them. It is only when they are 
 subsequently revealed in your life that 
 you become aware of them. 
 
 856. Unconscious Influences. — The 
 locomotive, as it shoots over the road, 
 showering myriads of sparks on every 
 side, never stops to see on what flower, 
 or herb, or grass, or water, they fall. 
 It dashes ahead wholly ignorant of its 
 effects on these things. And we 
 thunder through life producing ten 
 million spark-like effects of which we 
 do not stop to take any note. We 
 have no knowledge of the influences 
 exerted by our imagination and affec- 
 tions and appetites and desires and 
 passions upon those around us. You 
 could not, if you would, take any 
 detailed account of all the bearings of 
 your character and conduct upon 
 others. But you can ascertain gen- 
 erally how men are affected by you, 
 and what side of yourself you are 
 most using. 
 
 857. Duty of Sweet Influence. — A 
 man should carry himself in the world 
 as an orange-tree would if it could 
 walk up and down in the garden, — 
 swinging perfume from every little 
 censer it holds up to the air, 
 
 858. Influence , the Measure of Value. 
 — When our boys went forth, how 
 many went never to return ! and how 
 many hearts were carried with them 
 that never came back again except 
 broken ! How many a maiden sat 
 waiting after the battle, long, and 
 long, and long, with tears that counted 
 the seconds ! How many sleepless 
 nights were passed ! At last hope 
 deferred had made the heart of one 
 sick, and she consigned to darkness 
 and an unknown grave him who was 
 the light of her life, and who was to 
 
i88 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 have been the leader and prophet of 
 all her expected joy in the future. 
 
 When all hope has gone, and all 
 light with it, on a day that she looks 
 not for, and by a hand that she knows 
 not, there comes a letter. Her 
 dimmed eyes will not let her read the 
 superscription. Her heart is better 
 than her head, and knows that it must 
 be from him. It was but a little. 
 " Mary, I was imprisoned, but I have 
 escaped. This will be borne to you 
 by a prisoner who escaped with me. 
 I am on my way home. I shall be 
 with you almost as soon as this." 
 Where is he that can frame language 
 for her overflowing love and thankful- 
 ness ! What angel would not be glad 
 to bear the thanksgiving of that virgin's 
 heart before the throne of God, that 
 its sweet perfume might be mingled 
 with the praise of the saints ! And 
 how, as she thanks God, and her heart 
 lives again in a glorious resurrection 
 out of despair, does her soul look at 
 that letter! The letter is nothing. 
 And yet, it has brought her to life 
 again. That poor paper, that soiled 
 page, those faint lines of ink — how 
 does the feeling that they have pro- 
 duced become ten thousand times 
 more precious than they ! And yet, 
 offer her, now, the diadem of a queen, 
 the richest bracelet that eye ever 
 rested on, for that letter, and how will 
 she press it to her heart, and say, 
 " Never — never ! " It is sweeter than 
 life to her. It is poor, it is low, it is 
 mean, until measured by the state of 
 the soul which it has excited in the 
 maiden's bosom. 
 
 859. Influence of Self-Conscious- 
 ness. — There is nothing worse in this 
 world than self-consciousness, even 
 from the body up. If you want to get the 
 dyspepsia, follow down every mouthful, 
 to know what it is doing. You will 
 very speedily know ! And it would be 
 
 a worse dyspepsia than this if a man 
 were all the time to be thinking about 
 the several acts of good that he was 
 to perform. No, a man is to be so 
 trained to sympathy, kindness, cour- 
 tesy, good will, benevolence, that his 
 unconscious life shall be a blessing- 
 life to the men around about him. A 
 man is not to think every time he 
 does a thing. Now and then you 
 will have to think ; but a thing that a 
 man has to think of while he is doing 
 it is imperfectly learned. 
 
 860. Good-Nature. — Whatever be 
 the cause or reason, is there anything 
 else that so much blesses a man in 
 human life as this voluntary or invol- 
 untary good-nature ? Is there any- 
 thing else that converts all things so 
 much into enjoyment to him ? And 
 then, what a glow and light he carries 
 with him to others ! Some men come 
 upon you like a cloud passing over 
 the sun. You do not know what ails 
 you, but you feel cold and chilly while 
 they are about, and need an extra 
 handful of coal on the fire whenever 
 they tarry long. Others rise upon you 
 like daylight. 
 
 861. We Find What We Bring. — 
 A cold cinder and a burning lamp 
 started out, one day, to see what they 
 could find. The cinder came back 
 and wrote in its journal that the whole 
 world was dark. It did not find a 
 place wherever it went, in which there 
 was light. Everywhere was dark- 
 ness. The lamp when it came back, 
 wrote in its journal, " Wherever I 
 went it was light. I did not find any 
 darkness in my journey. The whole 
 world was light." What was the 
 difference ? The lamp carried light 
 with it, and illumined everything about 
 it. The dead cinder carried no light, 
 and found none. 
 
 8G2. Personal Power. — The most 
 potent influence that ever can rest 
 
SOCIAL RELATIONS 
 
 189 
 
 upon the mind is that of another mind 
 acting upon it. This is the highest 
 influence of which we know anything 
 at present. There is nothing, for ex- 
 ample, that has power on your thought 
 Hke a thinker thinking on you, as it 
 were, or thinking to you. Nothing so 
 arouses the affection as a great heart 
 near yours. Like a fire, it sends out 
 its warmth to all that are near it, 
 whether they want it or not. 
 
 863. Not the Church, but the Chris- 
 tian. — It is heart on heart for salva- 
 tion, that is to do the work. As dia- 
 monds are ground best with their own 
 powder, so men are best moulded by 
 men. 
 
 864. Everyday Preaching — After 
 all, it is not the long sword of the Sab- 
 bath, it is not the heavy artillery of 
 the pulpit, that does the most effective 
 work. It is the short sword of every 
 day, it is the preaching of the truth 
 out of season, and not in season, that 
 does the greatest execution. For 
 when men come to church, they come 
 with their conscience-armor on, so 
 that if the truth hits them it will glance 
 off. And after a while they almost 
 like the operation. And what is 
 preaching out of season ? It is preach- 
 ing as you conduct your business. It 
 is the preaching of a father in a house- 
 hold. It is the preaching that friend 
 gives to friend. It is the preaching 
 that the merchant who is true to his 
 God gives to his customer. It is the 
 preaching that you give to the sick, 
 and to men who are in trouble. The 
 best preaching in this world is what 
 men do not mean to be preaching. 
 
 865. Influence of Character. — Here 
 is a boy that cannot help telling fibs. 
 He knows it is sneaking, mean, dirty 
 business ; still, he has got in the way 
 of it, and habit seems to hold him. 
 Send him with that man who is going 
 over the Plains — a frank, free, open. 
 
 courageous, manly fellow, who scorns 
 dishonesty — just the kind of heroic 
 nature that boys look up to. This boy 
 becomes attached to him. He would 
 give his life for him. He would follow 
 him to death. He tries to imitate him, 
 and scorns falsehoods and petty dis- 
 honesties. What a power that man 
 has over that boy ! How, by his ex- 
 ample, he carries up his ambition ! 
 How he enables him thus to lay aside 
 little faults ! 
 
 866. Force of Example. — Many of 
 you have neighbors who would be 
 greatly edified and strengthened if you 
 were to array yourself with God's peo- 
 ple. If you were to take that step, 
 you do not know how many you would 
 draw after you. If a river-boom or 
 bar of tangled stuff breaks away, trunk 
 after trunk, branch after branch, refuse 
 of every description, that has been 
 collecting for weeks, and months, and 
 perhaps years — the whole raft goes 
 after it. And there are men who 
 stand like a boom in the community. 
 One man backs up against another, 
 and there they remain until the ob- 
 struction is removed. And there are 
 men in this congregation who, if they 
 would honestly and openly avouch the 
 name of Jesus Christ, and publicly 
 bear witness to their faith in him, by 
 uniting with the brethren here, would 
 bring in scores with them. 
 
 867. Nobleness Compels Admira- 
 tion. — The bell when struck does not 
 ring because it chooses to, but because 
 it cannot help itself. And when a 
 man beholds a noble trait, he admires 
 it not because he wills to do it, but 
 because he is so constituted that he 
 must do it. 
 
 868. Power of Personality. — If you 
 go among men of strong natures, there 
 is a certain vibration in you of a feel- 
 ing which is strong in them. When 
 you have been with some persons, you 
 
IQO 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 feel finer, you feel lifted up. And yet 
 they have not exhorted you. You 
 have drunk the wine of being, and by 
 it you are lifted up and strengthened. 
 
 869. Motive Power of Enthusiasm. 
 — Out of the fact that enthusiasm 
 makes for efficiency, which is patent 
 to any one who is observant, much 
 false reasoning has grown. Men say, 
 " What is the use of learning ? There 
 is a man who is as learned as an en- 
 cyclopedia, but who has spent all his 
 life for nothing." It was not his learn- 
 ing that prevented his doing anything, 
 but the fact that his learning was not 
 hot. Again they say, " What is the 
 use of learning ? Here is a poor, ig- 
 norant person — so ignorant that he 
 cannot speak his mother-tongue cor- 
 rectly ; and he has made his life count 
 at every turn." It was not his ig- 
 norance that led to his success. He 
 took his nature, and put it in God's 
 furnace, and raised it to a white heat ; 
 and it was the heat that did the work, 
 not his ignorance. 
 
 Another man has amplitude of both 
 learning and culture, and his whole 
 mind is intensely active, and with this 
 equipment he goes forward, and is 
 mighty for achievement. He is a 
 Luther. He stands, as Paul stood and 
 stands, powerful in his influence over 
 men. White heat in the brain gives 
 power. 
 
 870. Negative Goodness. — In the 
 thousand pictures of the Holy Family, 
 Joseph is represented as a venerable 
 man, standing a little apart, lost in 
 contemplation, while Mary and Eliza- 
 beth caress the child Jesus. In this 
 respect, Christian art has, it is proba- 
 ble, rightly represented the character 
 of Joseph. He was but a shadow on 
 the canvas. Such men are found in 
 every community, — gentle, blameless, 
 mildly active, but exerting no positive 
 influence. Except in one or two vague 
 
 implications, he early disappears from 
 sight. 
 
 871. Naturalness of Religious Re- 
 vivals. — Many have ridiculed revivals, 
 and even good men have looked 
 askance upon them, as being of human 
 device, and have pointed out all their 
 defects and miscarriages, and have 
 frequently brought them into contempt. 
 But they are founded on a natural 
 law, and a beneficent one. . . . Over 
 and above the individual power of 
 man's will is the collective power in 
 which he floats, of the wills of all 
 those round about him. Business 
 avails itself of this. Men have sub- 
 stituted a modern word for prosperity ; 
 it is called a " business boom" — and 
 a boom, I suppose, is where after com- 
 paratively shallow channels there is 
 snow melted in the mountain or run- 
 ning off the hills, and the river fills up 
 its channels, and comes rushing down 
 with irresistible power, sweeping every- 
 thing before its current. The " boom " 
 or bar is broken by the flood, and 
 that process is also called a " boom." 
 Now, when religious sentiment itself 
 comes in its turn to that great possi- 
 bility, namely, the increment of moral 
 impulse, discernment, purpose, by the 
 concurrent sympathy and movement 
 of hundreds and of thousands in re- 
 vivals, it is the highest and noblest 
 form which this movement ever takes. 
 
 872. Community of Feeling. — A 
 single stick does not create much 
 warmth ; a fagot more ; a bonfire 
 more yet ; and a furnace melts all 
 things in its glow and heat. A single 
 penitent limps ; a thousand men, all 
 of them feeling the pressure of wrong- 
 doing in the past, and the desire for 
 elevation and inspiration, reflect their 
 feeling one upon the other, and it be- 
 comes easy for each to do that which 
 would otherwise be almost impossi- 
 ble. 
 
SOCIAL RELATIONS 
 
 191 
 
 873. Public Opinion. — One man's 
 heart beating against yours may be 
 little to you ; but when it is the echo 
 of a thousand hearts, you cannot 
 resist it. A single snowflake — who 
 cares for it? But a whole day of 
 snowflakes, obliterating the land- 
 marks, drifting over the doors, gather- 
 ing upon the mountains to crash in 
 avalanches — who does not care for 
 that ? Private opinion is weak, but 
 pubhc opinion is almost omnipo- 
 tent. 
 
 874. Individuals and Communities. 
 — What is a drop of water of itself? 
 What can be more harmless ? What 
 is weaker? What is less potent for 
 any effect? It is mist, invisible. It 
 rises through the imperceptible paths 
 of the air, and hangs unseen in the 
 heavens, till the cold strikes it, and it 
 congeals into clouds, and falls in the 
 form of rain, perhaps upon the moun- 
 tain's top, and is sucked up by the 
 greedy earth. Still sinking through 
 the earth, it reaches the line of the 
 rocks, from whose sides it oozes out 
 and trickles down, when, finding 
 other drops as weak as itself, they 
 unite their forces ; and the sum of the 
 weakness of all these drops goes to 
 make the rill ; which flows on, making 
 music as it flows, until it meets counter 
 streams. These, combined, form the 
 river ; the river forms the estuary ; 
 and the estuary the ocean itself. And 
 now, when God has marshaled the 
 sum of the weakness of myriad drops 
 together, they lift the mightiest ship as 
 if it were but a feather, and play with 
 the winds as if they were mere instru- 
 ments of sport. 
 
 We in our singleness, in our in- 
 dividuality, are weaker than a drop 
 of water, and more unstable ; but as 
 gathered together in the great ocean 
 of life, as kept together by the mighty 
 currents which God's providences 
 
 make, we attain to a might that makes 
 life not ignoble, but sublime. 
 
 3. Sympathy. 
 
 875. Social Solidarity. — Trees in 
 forests are able to stand under severe 
 storms because they protect each 
 other by their mass ; but when the 
 settler's axe has cleared away the 
 forest, leaving here and there a stately 
 tree, such trees cannot stand. The 
 first strong wind that comes doubles 
 them over, and they go down. 
 
 And men standing alone go down 
 quicker than trees. They are shal- 
 lower-rooted; and if they stand they are 
 obliged to stand by mutual helpfulness. 
 
 876. Men Need Other Men. — You 
 cannot make one stick alone burn ; 
 happy and small are the sticks if two 
 will burn, but three and four and five 
 laid together will kindle ; and more 
 and more the heat and flame mount as 
 you add the fuel. Now, single men 
 must have extraordinary capacity, 
 education, power of evolution, to de- 
 velop their highest and their best. 
 For, in order to have the best of our- 
 selves, we need not simply the power 
 of will and of taste and of feeling in 
 ourselves ; we need to have an atmos- 
 phere about us which quickens these 
 powers and stimulates them. 
 
 877. Man's Brotherhood. — There 
 are many persons that we are not 
 ashamed of as acquaintances ; but we 
 should not wish to go further than 
 that. There are many that we should 
 not be ashamed of as servants and la- 
 borers for us, and with us; but we 
 should not choose to go further than 
 that. The declaration, however, is, 
 that Christ was not ashamed to call 
 them brethren. And to call them 
 brethren was to unite them to himself 
 in the most intimate relationship. 
 
 878. Humanity in Trouble. — Na- 
 ture teaches us to bear the burdens of 
 
192 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 those whom we love. But this spirit 
 should go out, quickened by the spirit 
 of Christianity, beyond our own 
 household. Every human being 
 brought to our hands in trouble is a 
 messenger of God. His trouble is a 
 letter of introduction, his nature is a 
 declaration of brotherhood, and his 
 destiny links him to us with an 
 irrefragable chain. 
 
 879. The Body of Christ. — A 
 man who should sit down to the 
 communion-table, having bitterness 
 against his brother in his heart, would 
 he not do wrong? "Yes," you an- 
 swer at once. But it is " communion " 
 every day. The body of Christ is 
 wherever human beings are, and he 
 who has any bitterness against a 
 brother is always committing sacri- 
 lege. 
 
 880. The Balm of Sympathy. — 
 There are ears that hunger for sym- 
 pathizing words. There are others 
 that, while deaf to these words, are 
 not insensible to presence. To hold 
 your peace in the shadow of another's 
 grief is oftentimes more balm and con- 
 solation than anything else you can 
 do. When a man is in trouble, and it 
 seems as though the world is sweeping 
 away from him, go and stand by his 
 side and he will never forget that, — 
 not if he is generous. Ah ! when the 
 heart has been bruised through and 
 through there is no poultice like an- 
 other heart put and held right on it. 
 
 881. Faults in Others. — When a 
 man is yet under the smart and tor- 
 ment of some wrong he has com- 
 mitted, when it may be scorching 
 him, or is eating up the very vitals of 
 his life, that is no time to preach to 
 him. What he wants is balm, quiet. 
 Complain of him afterwards ; but the 
 moment when a man is at the very 
 focal point of exquisite suffering by 
 reason of his own fault, that is the 
 
 time for one to pour in the oil and the 
 wine. What if the good Samaritan 
 had said to the man that went down 
 from Jerusalem to Jericho, " You fool, 
 you, what did you go down this way 
 for? Didn't you know that it was in- 
 fested with robbers ? You knew that 
 you had no business to go this way." 
 
 882. Love Cushioning Conscience. 
 — Hospitahty does not ask you to sit 
 on a log because a log is necessary to 
 the building of a house. I would as 
 lief sit on the square end of a log all 
 my life, as to live with men who, 
 though they have conscience, are 
 harsh and unlovely, and hard because 
 there is nothing in them to cover up 
 that conscience. 
 
 883. Intelligent Inhumanity. — This 
 scene [question of the Pharisees about 
 healing on the Sabbath], slight as it 
 seems in the rehearsal, went to the 
 very heart of Jesus. To him nothing 
 seemed so repulsive as the soul of an 
 intelligent man coiled up in its selfish- 
 ness and striking at the poor and weak. 
 Sins of excess, unbridled passions, 
 vices and crimes, he rebuked with 
 much of pity as well as of sternness ; 
 but intelligent inhumanity roused his 
 utmost indignation. 
 
 884. Mutual Helpfulness. — Many 
 persons are caught with the most 
 superficial contradiction. In the sec- 
 ond verse, it says, " Bear ye one an- 
 other's burdens" ; and in the fifth it 
 says, " Every man shall bear his own 
 burden." As if both of them could 
 not be true ! As if a man carrying a 
 burden for which he is especially re- 
 sponsible, might not have it lightened 
 somewhat by one who walked by his 
 side and helped him ! As if a little 
 child carrying a heavily laden basket 
 — which it was his task and business to 
 carry, and which he had to take care 
 of — might not be helped by another 
 child walking by his side, and taking 
 
SOCIAL RELATIONS 
 
 193 
 
 hold of the handle ; so that it might 
 be said to one of them, " This is your 
 burden, and you must see to it ; " and 
 to the other, " Help him with his 
 burden." To bear 07ie another's bur- 
 dens does not mean to take them off 
 from one another's shoulders, but to 
 help each other to carry them. 
 
 885. Comfort of Mere Sympathy. — 
 Jesus went to Gethsemane on purpose, 
 and carried thither the most sympa- 
 thetic of his disciples, and set them 
 down while he went on beyond, and 
 said to them, " Now watch, for I 
 go yonder to pray." Yet what could 
 they do? . . . What can a little 
 child do that looks up into the face of 
 the mother, and sees her tears drop- 
 ping one by one, and knows not what 
 ails her, and still less knows how to 
 comfort her, and can only once in a 
 while climb up into her lap and say, 
 " Don't cry, mother ! " Were the dis- 
 ciples any stronger than that ? And 
 could they comfort Christ any more 
 than in that blind way in which chil- 
 dren's sympathy comforts parents, — or 
 sometimes heightens their sorrow ? 
 Since to watch with Christ could not 
 have been to give him strength, nor to 
 interpret anything to him, nor to enter 
 freely and fully into his feelings, it 
 could only be this, that the heart of 
 Jesus in his great trial would be com- 
 forted if those whom he loved and 
 who loved him were present and in 
 sympathy with him. 
 
 886. Soul-Sympathy Unappreciated. 
 — There is no spendthrift like the 
 heart. It does not know economy, it 
 will not learn, but gives all, always. 
 There are a great many men who be- 
 lieve in morality ; but they do not un- 
 derstand the affluence of real religion, 
 what may be called the fragrance of 
 the heart, the odor of the soul, in its 
 love. There are men who, if you go 
 to visit the poor and the unfriended 
 
 with tracts, with Bibles, with the 
 ministration of sacred literature, to 
 sing with them and to pray with them 
 — "Well," say these men, " that's a 
 pretty distribution ; why don't you 
 take down a barrel of flour? Why 
 don't you carry them something to eat 
 — some tea. some sugar, some coffee ? 
 Why don't you send them coal?" 
 Anything which a horse can draw in 
 a cart— they understand that. But 
 when it comes to going down there 
 and sympathizing, they say, " Oh yes, 
 sympathy, sympathy ! " They under- 
 stand the market part of it ; but the 
 other part is smoke to them — all 
 smoke. Yet suppose both be had ! 
 
 887. Motives, not Acts. — If there is 
 anything pungent in odor that I do 
 not like it is the malodorous Smart- 
 weed ; but when a poor little wretch 
 who didn't know the difference be- 
 tween fine flowers and common ones 
 wanted to bring me something, and 
 brought me a piece of that, how sweet 
 it smelt for his sake ! It is not the 
 gift, but the feehng in the one who be- 
 stows the gift, that is to be regarded. 
 
 888. Practical Sympathy.— When 
 the surgeon first sees the suffering of 
 his patient, he sympathizes with him 
 so that his arm can scarcely perform 
 the functions of skill to which it is 
 called ; but soon he overcomes his 
 agitation, and goes through the opera- 
 tion with a steady hand. The first 
 feeling is right ; and when he has 
 mastered it it is not destroyed. It has 
 merely changed by going from the 
 primary into the secondary state ; and 
 that which in the beginning almost 
 unfitted him for his duty, has now be- 
 come a motive of action. He no 
 longer has the emotion, but he is a 
 great deal more sympathetic. Kind 
 men are not those that have the emo- 
 tion of kindness merely, but those 
 that know how to take that emotion 
 
194 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 into the practical state, and carry it 
 through Ufe. 
 
 889, Christian Courtesy. — " Now," 
 says the apostle, " whatever has been 
 brought out anywhere, since the world 
 began, of qualities that will make you 
 appear honorable and noble before 
 men, that follow." . . . 
 
 Under this head come social eti- 
 quette, pohteness, obligingness, a 
 thousand virtues of intercourse among 
 men. If a venerable man, sitting in 
 the cars, sees an ill-clad, helpless and 
 stricken woman with her burden, and 
 sits still, perhaps nobody says any- 
 thing about it : but if he rises as a 
 patriarch, treating her as a father 
 would treat his daughter, and says, 
 " Madame, sit here," she, with blush- 
 ing diffidence and modesty says, 
 " Thank you " — which a great many 
 lordlier women forget to say ; and one 
 looking on that scene would ask, 
 "Who is that gentleman?" " O, 
 that is Deacon Sobersides, of So-and- 
 so." " Well, I don't care whether he 
 is a deacon or not, he is a good man. 
 That is what I like to see." It may 
 be that a man knows the catechism 
 by heart (I have known men to sur- 
 vive it!) and stands very high; but 
 after all, in the eyes of the average 
 car-full, such an act as I have just de- 
 scribed would be more impressive as 
 to the reality of his religion than a 
 thousand sermons. 
 
 8go. Social Contagion of Spiritual- 
 ity. — Did you ever go into the pres- 
 ence of a good man, and not feel an 
 inclination to do what you saw him 
 do? The body itself takes tlie con- 
 tagion and does it. You cannot see a 
 man climb without climbing too. 
 You instantly attempt to reproduce 
 the same squirming movements which 
 he makes. You cannot see a mother 
 talk to a child that you do not imag- 
 ine that you are talking to a child, 
 
 and move your lips as though you 
 were. You are grave or humorous 
 according as those whom you are with 
 are grave or humorous. If you go 
 into a family where there is sorrow, 
 there will be a shadow over your feel- 
 ings. You will come by sympathy 
 into their state of mind — and that is 
 right and true and noble. We tend 
 by sympathy to take on the feelings 
 of those with whom we are associated. 
 So, bring a person into a meeting 
 where God's people are singing, 
 where they are praying, where they 
 are speaking and rejoicing, and he 
 will be insensibly caught, and his 
 deficiency, his want of producing- 
 power, will be wonderfully helped by 
 the sympathetic influence there. 
 
 891. Life Inspires Life. — Take re- 
 vivals that we have had in our own 
 prayer-meetings, when brethren rose 
 up here, and with a few stammering 
 words, punctuating their sentences 
 with tears, told what God had done 
 for their souls. How hushed it was ! 
 How men of hard hearts shed tears! 
 How many that had resisted sermons 
 and doctrines, went home, and said, 
 " I believe that it is time for me to do 
 something." That is it, to do some- 
 thing ; to be something ! After all, it 
 is when God, by the Holy Ghost, 
 awakens a higher life in a man's soul, 
 and that life inspires another person's 
 life, that the best and easiest work is 
 done. 
 
 4. Character and Reputation. 
 
 892. Nature of Character. — Char- 
 acter is not a massive unit ; it is a 
 fabric, rather. It is an artificial whole 
 made up by the interply of ten thou- 
 sand threads. Every faculty is a 
 spinner, spinning every day its threads, 
 and almost every day threads of a 
 different color. Myriads of webbed 
 products proceed from the many ac- 
 
SOCIAL RELATIONS 
 
 195 
 
 live faculties of a human soul, and 
 character is made up by the weaving 
 together of all these innumerable 
 threads of daily life. Its strength is 
 in its numerous elements. 
 
 893. Fact and Fame. — If it is a lit- 
 tle harder to build up character than 
 reputation, it is so only in the begin- 
 ning. For mere reputation, like a 
 poorly built house, will cost as much 
 for patching and repairs as would 
 have made it thorough at first. 
 
 894. Profitless Explanations. — The 
 average and general influence of a 
 man's teaching will be more mighty 
 than any single misconception, or 
 misapprehension through misconcep- 
 tion. A man might run around, lilce 
 a kitten after its tail, all his hfe, if he 
 were going about explaining all his 
 expressions and all he had written. 
 Let them go. They will correct them- 
 selves. 
 
 895. Character and Countenance. — 
 God sends Experience to paint men's 
 portraits. The settled face of Wash- 
 ington — the trials of the Jersey winter, 
 the sufferings at Cambridge, the con- 
 flicts with Congress, wrought it out. 
 
 896. Reputation. — What a man's 
 character is, that, with exceptional in- 
 stances, his reputation will be — a 
 thing that few men can be made to 
 believe. Men believe that they can 
 have one character and another repu- 
 tation. Men believe that they can be 
 proud, but that they can so deftly 
 conceal it that they shall have the 
 reputation of being good fellows — not 
 proud. Men believe that they can 
 lie, but that they can have the reputa- 
 tion of being truth-speakers — they 
 mean to do it so deftly, so dexter- 
 ously. Men believe that they can be 
 impure, and yet have virtuous reputa- 
 tions — they mean to have such skill, 
 such adroitness, in these things. But 
 an odious stench might just as well 
 
 attempt to pass itself off in life for a 
 grateful perfume, as degraded moral 
 qualities attempt to pass themselves 
 off for their antitheses. 
 
 897. Reputation and Character. — 
 All that in you which is simply the re- 
 flection of other people's thoughts 
 about you, is a mere shadow ; and it 
 avails but little. What you are stands 
 by you. If you are mean, a reputa- 
 tion for generosity will not spare you 
 long. If you are stingy, I do not care 
 what your reputation is, you cannot 
 be so munificent in giving away that 
 the gaunt bones of your stinginess will 
 not stick out. People who give for 
 praise, get what they give for ; they 
 get their reward for a while. Our 
 Master, in speaking of those who 
 made long prayers, said, "Verily, 
 they have their reward." "Whatso- 
 ever a man soweth, that shall he also 
 reap." Where men seek to build up 
 a reputation without any concern as 
 to their character, it is but a very little 
 time that they deceive anybody but 
 their own selves. They do not de- 
 ceive their fellow-men, nor God, nor 
 the devil. 
 
 8g8. Love of Praise. — It is not your 
 fault if you have the element of ap- 
 probativeness, but it is your fault if 
 you suffer it to feed on despicable 
 food. Train it to desire approbation 
 for things that are noble and just, for 
 doing, intensely, whatever is disinter- 
 ested among men. and for things that 
 other men cannot do. Task yourselves 
 as men should do, and not like sullen 
 boys or puling girls. Have such a 
 conception of manhood in Christ Jesus 
 that you would scorn praise for things 
 that are less than noble. Strike a 
 line through the head, and seek praise 
 for things that are represented above 
 the line and not below it. 
 
 899, Beginnings of Character. — 
 There is not one of the drops which 
 
196 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 go to make the Hudson River that has 
 not oozed out of some mountain or 
 hillside and helped to form some rill 
 or some spring. There is a mighty 
 volume of water here ; but it began in 
 single drops. And character, al- 
 though in the later periods of life it 
 may seem to be a large thing, has its 
 origin in little thoughts, little motives, 
 little actions, little self-denials, and 
 you cannot be too cautious in respect 
 to these minor matters of integrity. 
 
 900. Commercial Credit and Char- 
 acter. — If men use money, paying as 
 they go in all their business, then so 
 far as business is concerned there is 
 no difference between one man and 
 another, because the debauchee, with 
 his pockets full of gold, goes into the 
 market and stands as high as the 
 saint, paying dollar for dollar. But 
 when credit is in question, character 
 comes up, and men do not stand 
 alike. The man who has character 
 gets credit, and the man who has no 
 character gets none. Credit, there- 
 fore, is a moral premium paid to men 
 for character, and it is of transcendent 
 importance both to individuals and to 
 communities that are struggling from 
 a low to a high estate. 
 
 901. A Good Name. — A good name 
 is one which, when mentioned, awak- 
 ens among those who hear it honoring 
 thoughts, lively emotions of pleasure, 
 respect, gratitude, confidence, and 
 even love and enthusiasm. It is not 
 a dry, leafless thing, like a plant in an 
 herbarium — the faded remembrance 
 of beauty ; it is a hving, energetic 
 force. It stands before you like a 
 presence. It is, in short, the impres- 
 sion which your real life has produced 
 on the judgment, the heart and the 
 imagination of men who have known 
 you. 
 
 go2. Value of a Good Name. — I 
 once bore a package of letters to 
 
 Abraham Lincoln at Washington in 
 the interest of a friend. There were 
 letters from judges, from lawyers, and 
 from merchants, a score of them, most 
 handsomely prepared. As I gave 
 them to the President, he asked, 
 " Whom are they from ? What are 
 the names?" I told him. He said, 
 " Hand me that one " (indicating the 
 one he wished). I handed it to him, 
 and he took it and read it. and said, 
 " I do not care for the rest — that is 
 enough." 
 
 903. Social Connections. — Among 
 the ways which men employ to sustain 
 their respectability, none is more com- 
 mon than an exhibition of their social 
 connections. One whose cousin is a 
 governor, whose uncle is a general, 
 whose brother has been to Congress, 
 is helped to stand well in society. 
 Reputation is of the nature of a vine, 
 and our reputable relatives are so 
 much brush or trellis on which we 
 run up. 
 
 904. Reputation from Everyday 
 Life. — As a man sometimes has in his 
 house a well-furnished room which he 
 never uses except on state occasions, 
 when he entertains friends, with stiff- 
 ness and formaUty and sumptuous- 
 ness ; so men have certain imaginary 
 and heroic virtues which they keep in 
 their romance-chamber, and in which 
 they like now and then to dress them- 
 selves. But, after all, it is those 
 qualities which we use every day, 
 those articles with which our living- 
 room is furnished, that go to make up 
 the impressions of men about us. 
 These are the materials which are 
 operating in the production, not only 
 of our character, but of the shadow of 
 it which men behold, and which con- 
 stitutes our name. 
 
 905. Self- Judgment Through Others. 
 — Suppose a hedgehog should go 
 about saying, " Do you think my 
 
SOCIAL RELATIONS 
 
 197 
 
 quills are as long and as sharp as 
 they used to be ? " I think a person 
 would know, if a hedgehog touched 
 him, whether his quills were long and 
 sharp or not. If you want help in 
 self-examination you may get it right 
 by you, from the people that know 
 you. You are to judge of yourself 
 largely by the impression which you 
 make upon them. 
 
 go6. Human Opinion an Uncertain 
 Gauge. — The reflection of other men's 
 good-will towards us we use more than 
 anything else to estimate our charac- 
 ters by. Those who rely on this alto- 
 gether are like buoys that are always 
 on the surface of the water, but that 
 move with it as it rises and falls with 
 the ocean-tides. We lie like floats on 
 the world-tide, which goes in and out, 
 and up and down, and we have no 
 gauge on the shore to show what is our 
 absolute condition. It is merely rela- 
 tive to the fluctuations of the ever- 
 shifting, ever-changing tide of human 
 feeling. 
 
 907. Depth of Character. — At what 
 stage of development are you, my 
 brethren ? Have you ever sounded 
 the depths of your soul to know what 
 they are ? You will see men in ships 
 approaching the shore, or in rivers 
 when the waters run low, with their 
 sounding-lead, calling out to the pilot 
 and the captain, " Eight fathoms, nine 
 fathoms, seven fathoms, twelve fath- 
 oms." They are steering by the re- 
 port of the water in which they are 
 floating. What would be the word 
 sent back, if you were to take sound- 
 ings of your soul ? . . . Do not be 
 content with low measures of grace. 
 
 5. Friendship. 
 
 908. Intimacy. — Sudden intimacies 
 are always shallow. Wells quickly 
 dug are quickly dry. 
 
 gog. Friendships. — Ordinarily friend- 
 ships are mere commercial arrange- 
 ments. They are bargains between 
 the easy affections, one saying to an- 
 other, " You make me happy, and I 
 will make you happy ; and as long as 
 you make me happy, you are my 
 friend ; but when you cannot do it any 
 longer, llien we go apart." That is 
 the way of the world. What is gen- 
 erally called friendship, is an ex- 
 change of commodities of happiness. 
 For the most part, hearts are shopped, 
 friendship is a bargain, and friends 
 are traffickers. But there are friend- 
 ships that are higher ; and there are 
 friends that are so bound together that 
 if one is sick the other is by his side ; 
 and the sickness of the one is al- 
 most as if it were in the body of the 
 other. There are friendships that are 
 as pure and as deep as it is possible to 
 be ; and they have the peculiar qual- 
 ity of serving in them to such a degree 
 that each friend is the slave of the 
 other. Each knows how to give 
 everything for the other. 
 
 gio. Broken Friendships. — Although 
 a cracked friendship, like a cracked 
 tumbler, may be cemented, the mo- 
 ment you put it into hot water the 
 bottom will fall out, or it will come to 
 pieces. 
 
 911. Rarity of Friendships. — You 
 cannot have a great many real 
 friendships — mutual bonds of service. 
 They are too costly. There is not 
 time to cultivate many of them. One 
 or two are about as many as a man 
 can attend to in this world. You can 
 have kindly feelings towards multi- 
 tudes ; but when it comes to the mat- 
 ter of serving, and when your con- 
 science is another man's conscience, 
 and when your heart, like a bell, is 
 struck every time he is in trouble, it 
 is about as much as you can find time 
 to do to take care of that one man. 
 
198 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 912. Friendship, a Figure of God. — 
 A person spends days and days in 
 disinterested labor for a friend. He 
 puts his wliole heart in it. We count 
 nothing too good to sacritice for a 
 friend. You do not love, unless you 
 are willing to suffer for what you 
 love ; and the depth of your love is in 
 proportion to what you are willing to 
 suffer. A person gives himself up to 
 some faithful labor of love in behalf 
 of a friend, and while engaged therein, 
 there comes to him a conception of 
 what the nature of that God is who 
 gives himself, in heaven, on earth, 
 through time, and through eternity, 
 an everlasting and willing sufferer for 
 all. Here rises before him an illustra- 
 tion of the teachings of the Gospel. 
 While you are endeavoring to follow 
 out the commands of God in his word, 
 oftentimes there springs up within you 
 some sense of the Divine nature clearer 
 and more luminous than you have 
 ever had it before. 
 
 6. Pains and Uses of Society. 
 
 913. Social Suffering. — A man com- 
 mits a crime against the public law, 
 and when at last it is discovered he 
 may brazen it out. It is the wife whose 
 whole nature is shocked. It is the 
 children on whom disgrace has come. 
 It is the church in which he was an 
 officer, it is the neighborhood where 
 he was held in respect and affection, 
 where the suffering is felt. The men 
 that are outside of him suffer more 
 than he does. 
 
 The law of our social connection, 
 therefore, carries with it a liability to 
 suffering. 
 
 914. Dishonesty Burdens Society. 
 — I suppose that if you were to see an 
 old warrior again in our times, cum- 
 bered with his vast defensive armor — 
 his breast-plate, his greaves, his back- 
 piece, his ponderous shield, his soUd 
 
 spear, his weighty sword — you would 
 laugh him to scorn, and say, " Why, 
 he spends more than half his strength 
 in carrying his armor ! " That is just 
 the condition in which society is walk- 
 ing to-day. The cunning, the lies, 
 the cheatings, the dishonesties in busi- 
 ness and society, are such that every 
 store has to be built with thicker walls, 
 stronger locks, and bolts, and bars, 
 and chains, than would otherwise be 
 necessary ; and there is need of more 
 watchmen and policemen ; and all 
 the apparatus of government is doubled 
 and trebled and quadrupled. A mul- 
 titude of extra appliances are required 
 to fight against the simple tendency to 
 dishonesty and untruth. Teach men 
 to speak the truth and to deal honestly 
 with each other, and society may dis- 
 possess itself of more than half its 
 weights and burdens. 
 
 915. Vicarious Penalty. — As a gen- 
 eral fact, four-fifths of all the men 
 that go to poor-houses go there on ac- 
 count of the violation of natural laws. 
 Vice carries them there. They have 
 swum there on the turbid stream of 
 wickedness. And when they are 
 lodged there, they are clothed, and 
 fed, and warmed, and doctored, and 
 supported, from your pocket and from 
 mine, who have not transgressed. 
 The poor-house is a form of vicarious 
 suffering for the whole community. 
 We stand between men who have 
 transgressed natural law and the full 
 penalty of their transgression. 
 
 916. The Wastes of Society. — 
 Who pays for vice ? Not the vicious ; 
 the virtuous pay for it. Who pay the 
 taxes of the community ? The men 
 whose vices make taxes needful are 
 the leakages. This community is a 
 vast hull, and at every seam there is 
 a leaking, and leaking and leaking. 
 Whose work is it to caulk up? Why, 
 it is the industrious man that pays for 
 
SOCIAL RELATIONS 
 
 199 
 
 the waste of the shiftless man, in the 
 long run. It is the vice of the com- 
 munity that is the tax-gatherer of the 
 community. It is drinking, gambling, 
 passion, appetite, debauchery, the in- 
 fraction of social and Divine laws, 
 that lay the hard hand of tyranny and 
 exaction on the community. If it 
 were not for good men, communities 
 would break down under the vices 
 and crimes of bad men. 
 
 917. Social Gain through Suffer- 
 ing. — Men's mistakes are the next 
 men's blessings. One man lost, the 
 next man won't go that road ; he sees 
 that the first man is lost, and he takes 
 another, and escapes, and others fol- 
 low him ; thus the sufferer opened a 
 way by his suffering which saved 
 scores, nations, ages from suffering. 
 In the same way ages suffer ; one 
 age suffers for the next. Civilization 
 is the generic accumulation of the 
 trials, mistakes, ascertainments, and 
 victories of the generations that have 
 gone before. Look at any stable civil 
 government to-day ; how many thou- 
 sands of men have shed their blood 
 for it ! If there be anything dear to 
 man to-day it is liberty of thought ; 
 but how far back is that time in which 
 men, pressed down by superstition, 
 and threatened by the finger of the 
 law of the priesthood, had no liberty 
 of thought ? They were like the swine 
 that eats what is poured into the trough 
 for it. Once men were padlocked 
 when they thought, felt ; they had no 
 right to speak. That at last has been 
 triumphed over ; but what seas of 
 blood the world went through before 
 men had liberty of conscience and 
 of speech ! 
 
 918. Social Duty of Healthful Liv- 
 ing. — So are we put together that one 
 thread in a woolen fabric might as 
 well say to its neighbor thread, "I 
 will rot, it is not your business, it is 
 
 my lookout," as for a man to say 
 that he has a right to injure his own 
 body. Does not the rotting of one 
 thread cause a hole to appear in the 
 fabric ? The strength of the whole 
 web requires that each thread should 
 be sound ; and the family, the city, 
 the state, demand that every man 
 should maintain himself in the full 
 proportion of his true manhood. 
 
 919. Social Liability to Disaster. — 
 Some men make me think of a mouse 
 in a field, that says, " I will dig so 
 deep that nothing shall find me. I 
 will build my house behind this tuft 
 of grass, and nobody shall ever sus- 
 pect that here is a mouse's house." 
 And already, at the other end of the 
 field, the ox-team and the plow are 
 moving, and soon they sweep past, 
 burying the little house, mouse and 
 all, so deep that he never knows 
 what has happened to hiui. But such 
 talk from a mouse in a field is wisdom 
 itself compared to the declaration of a 
 man who says, " I mean to make no 
 mistakes ; I will be rich, and strong, 
 and wise, and high ; and calamities 
 shall not touch me." But such men 
 are often overborne and destroyed ; 
 not for want of wisdom, not by reason 
 of unwise planning on their part, but 
 because they are connected with other 
 men who do not plan wisely. You 
 may build your own house well, and 
 your neighbor may build his so that 
 yours shall sag in spite of you. Un- 
 der such circumstances, it is not your 
 carelessness, but his, that brings your 
 house down. Every man is liable to 
 disasters beyond his control. 
 
 920. One Man's Power for Evil. — 
 You do not need to have every in- 
 strument of an orchestra out of tune 
 to have discord. Let there be a hun- 
 dred instruments, and let one of them 
 fall a single note below the key, and 
 that one instrument will destroy the 
 
200 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 harmony of the other ninety-nine, 
 however perfect that harmony may 
 be. And one selfish man is enough 
 to destroy the peace of a thousand. 
 And he can do it, without doing it on 
 purpose ; that is, without setting out 
 to do it. In this world a man does 
 not need to plan for wickedness. He 
 needs only to neglect goodness. The 
 rest comes of itself. 
 
 921. Society's Right to Control 
 Conduct. — Every wicked man is a 
 gigantic, living pump, drawing from 
 infernal wells ichor that is distributed 
 throughout the whole community. It 
 does not stop with the individual. 
 Therefore society has a right to re- 
 strain men who do wrong. 
 
 922. Active and Passive Evil. — A 
 man in the night hears the cry of fire, 
 and sees the destroying element play- 
 ing upon and in his own dwelling, and 
 right before his eyes that structure 
 within which he has been reared goes 
 down to the ground in an hour, and 
 becomes an ash-heap. But fire is not 
 the only thing that will destroy a man's 
 house. It will take a little longer for 
 neglected leaks to do it. It will take 
 a little longer for dry rot in the tim- 
 bers to do it. Just give them a little 
 longer time, and the unmended roof, 
 the broken windows, the various 
 causes of decay, will destroy your 
 dwelling. Let it alone, and sooner or 
 later it will go down. 
 
 Where the welfare of other men de- 
 pends upon us neglect rises not simply 
 to mischief, or ruin, as the case may 
 be, but to criminality. 
 
 923. Diversity of Social Life. — You 
 cannot put men together as you put 
 together a carpenter's logs when he 
 has chiseled and jointed them. So- 
 ciety has to be made up of free men, 
 and a free man is a largely branched 
 man all around. That government is 
 coming more and more into vogue 
 
 which rejoices in diversity, and which 
 not merely says that one man's liberty 
 shall not prevent another man's liberty, 
 but demands that he shall accommo- 
 date himself and his neighbor likewise. 
 
 924. Personal Rights. — Men's rights 
 are a great deal of trouble to them. 
 They assert them and get them, and 
 then they don't know what to do with 
 them. A man's rights, half of them, 
 are meant to give away. It is my 
 right to have the best chair in my 
 house — if anybody contradicts it (ex- 
 cept one) ! It is my right to claim it 
 — and then to yield it, to age or to 
 guest or to womanhood. The beati- 
 tude of your rights is, they are your 
 benevolences. And the law of social 
 unity is this law of assertion of a man's 
 individuality, and the use of that in- 
 dividuality as a benevolence for those 
 that are around about him. 
 
 925. Speaking the Truth in Love. — 
 Manner is much. In the early aboli- 
 tion days two men went out preach- 
 ing, one an old Quaker, and another 
 a young man full of fire. When 
 the Quaker lectured, everything ran 
 along very smoothly, and he carried 
 the audience with him. When the 
 young man lectured, there was a row, 
 and stones, and eggs. It became so 
 noticeable that the young man spoke 
 to the Quaker about it. He said, 
 " Friend, you and I are on the same 
 mission, and preach the same things ; 
 and how is it that while you are re- 
 ceived cordially I get nothing but 
 abuse?" The Quaker replied, "I 
 will tell thee. Thee says, ' If you do 
 so and so, you shall be punished,' and 
 I say, ' My friends, if you will not do 
 so and so, you shall not be pun- 
 ished.' " They both said the same 
 things, but there was a great deal of 
 difference in the way they said it. 
 
 926. Disagreement without Quar- 
 rel. — When I go into my grounds. 
 
SOCIAL RELATIONS 
 
 201 
 
 and prune my trees, I always cut 
 from the bottom up. My theory is 
 that the sun, striking on the cut place, 
 cracks it, so that the rain, falling on 
 the part thus laid open, runs under 
 the bark and rots it ; therefore I cut 
 up ; and in that way the wound is 
 protected. But my neighbor cuts 
 from the top down. He says the sun 
 heals the wound quicker, by thicken- 
 ing the juices more rapidly. At the 
 same time, we never quarrel on the 
 subject. I think my way is the best, 
 and he thinks his is the best, but we 
 never throw stones at each other. 
 
 927. Living Needs Learning. — Life 
 is a trade, to be learned ; a profession, 
 to be gained by education ; an art, 
 requiring long drill. 
 
 928. Labor Unions and Education. 
 — Often in the history of this world 
 have people failed in the thing that 
 they set out to do, and done a greater 
 good which they never thought of. 
 Men, for the sake of raising wages, 
 are forming themselves into combina- 
 tions — into clubs, and unions, and 
 cooperative associations ; and, what- 
 ever may be the industrial effect of 
 these combinations, the social and 
 moral effect is going to be very 
 significant. One thing is certain, that 
 the men who are cooperating in this 
 way are learning self-denial. They 
 are spending less money for personal 
 indulgence. And every association 
 where men work industriously, using 
 only a part of their earnings to sup- 
 port themselves, and giving the rest 
 for the furtherance of a public end, 
 although that end may not be as high 
 as it might be, is a school. It is not 
 a great military drill-ground ; but, 
 better than that, it is a great social 
 drill-ground. 
 
 929. Hope for Organized Labor. — 
 If labor is to fight capital by a rivalry 
 in selfishness then society will be but 
 
 a carcass lying between the vultures. 
 Organized labor must be more manly, 
 more robust in virtue, more patriotic, 
 more public spirited, and more intel- 
 ligent than organized capital, or it 
 will go down in the conflict. It is this 
 rising and extending sympathy be- 
 tween men of different trades, and 
 between the workingmen of different 
 nations, that inspires oursympathy and 
 our hope that labor may bring classes 
 and nations into sympathy and coop- 
 eration, which have hitherto been dis- 
 cordant or oppugnant. 
 
 930. Danger of Labor Unions. — 
 There is a danger that these coopera- 
 tive associations will set aside the 
 great law of subordination. You can- 
 not by legislation bring all men up 
 to an equality. There are certain 
 great laws which are as inevitable as 
 fate. You can make all men equal 
 to each other politically ; you can 
 make all men equal before the law ; 
 you can make all men equal in rights 
 and duties ; but you cannot make all 
 men equal in their earning-power. If 
 you make the wages of a weak and 
 ignorant man the same as the wages 
 of a strong and wise man, you do that 
 which is fundamentally unjust. If the 
 indolent and the industrious are treated 
 alike, the finest and the highest 
 workers and the slovenliest and lowest 
 workers are graded to the same price 
 — there is taken away from them the 
 fundamental motive by which man- 
 hood is stirred up, and ingenuity 
 quickened, and industry developed. 
 It destroys individualism. It leads 
 towards that consolidation of society 
 in which the nation is everything and 
 the individual citizen nothing. It is 
 the Roman ideal of the State, that 
 swallowed all the men. 
 
 931. Labor Organizations. — The 
 power of organization I need not ex- 
 plain to you. It is a tremendous 
 
202 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 power. Wisely made, wisely man- 
 aged, wisely directed, it may be said 
 that it gives the scepter to Labor. 
 And it holds the scepter only because 
 it has the vote. For the vote is the 
 opening of the bottle of the fable, and 
 the genie has gone out and swelled to 
 incredible proportions, and never can 
 be put back again. Men who have 
 the vote have access to every element 
 of power in society ; and if they under- 
 stand themselves, and organize skill- 
 fully and wisely, they will be strong. 
 
 932. The Classes. — In communi- 
 ties like our own, where classes are 
 aggregated by certain elective affini- 
 ties, the worst mischiefs ensue ; for, the 
 world over, classes are apt to be arro- 
 gant and over-conceited. Beware, 
 then, of classes. Join them just as a 
 man joins a wood, on his way through 
 it for shelter or for pleasure. Go into 
 them, but go through them. Use 
 them, but never let them use you. 
 Be larger than any class will ever let 
 its members be. Stand high, and re- 
 member that manhood is better than 
 any of the sections into which it is 
 broken up. 
 
 933. Democratic Self-Government. 
 — Here walks out of his university, 
 with cap and gown and velvet shoe, 
 the man who has touched the highest 
 point of education in Europe, and who 
 says, " What a vulgar business they are 
 making of governing over there in 
 America ! They have not the first 
 idea of government." We are not 
 teaching two thousand how to govern 
 in the Church nor ten thousand how 
 to govern in the State : we are teach- 
 ing fifty million people how to govern 
 themselves, and how to manage the 
 economies of this nation ; and it is a 
 great deal better that, on the way to a 
 wiser governing of this nation, fifty 
 million should govern it rudely and 
 imperfectly, than that two thousand 
 
 or ten thousand should do it better, 
 and leave all the rest of the whole fifty 
 million utterly ignorant of the process 
 of government. 
 
 934. The Top and the Bottom of 
 Society. — I cast into the ground the 
 seed of the magnolia ; the plant 
 spreads and sends down its root, go- 
 ing deeper and deeper, the root min- 
 istering to the gradually rising stem. 
 But when it has grown to be a great 
 tree, and spreads its broad, green 
 leaves to the air, and when it is cov- 
 ered with its magnificent vases full of 
 perfume, the topmost bloom will never 
 forget for one single instant that hum- 
 ble root which, plunged away down 
 out of sight, is giving it its nourish- 
 ment ; and if you cut the connection 
 between the top and the root, the top 
 perishes, and the root likewise. So it 
 is to be among men, 
 
 935. The Commune of 1871. — The 
 contrast between the gayety of Paris 
 and this sullen under-class that has 
 been educating itself and watching 
 from beneath, forces itself upon every 
 imaginative mind. While the upper- 
 class sung and danced, and wearied 
 the hours burdened with pleasure, 
 right beneath them, and mingled, it 
 may be, with them, were these sullen- 
 eyed men that had their purposes, and 
 only waited for the time of their execu- 
 tion. I have seen, in the thicket, 
 birds flitting from branch to branch, 
 while crouched beneath, waiting for 
 an opportunity to pounce upon them, 
 lay the cat. As they drew near, he 
 gathered himself up for a spring ; and 
 as they flew further away, he sank 
 back into a state of repose ; but he 
 still waited for a chance to secure his 
 prey. And underneath all this gayety 
 lay these men, like a tiger watching 
 and crouching for his victim, waiting 
 to spring upon the pleasure-seekers of 
 Paris. 
 
SOCIAL RELATIONS 
 
 203 
 
 936. The Lower Orders. — It is 
 pretty generally the custom in New 
 England, where the winters are long, 
 to have a great store of potatoes, cab- 
 bages, onions, and all manner of 
 vegetables, and the old-fashioned way 
 was as soon as the climate became too 
 severe for them to be left out in the 
 open air, to put them in the cellars, 
 which are built with thick walls and 
 where they will not freeze ; and when 
 the spring begins to come on and the 
 remnant of the vegetables begins to 
 reek and germinate malarial influ- 
 ences, those silent, vaporous influences 
 steal up through crack and cranny 
 and partition. By and by one of the 
 children is sick ; the doctor is sent for. 
 He says: "It is singular that the 
 child should have such a trouble as 
 this ; if you lived in a squalid neigh- 
 borhood I could understand it, but 
 this looks very much as if it were ma- 
 larial disease." The child dies. By 
 and by a second child is taken sick, 
 and the wonder grows ; and the 
 mother goes down ; and by this time 
 they send for the minister, and he 
 looks grave. " Mysterious provi- 
 dence! " he says. But it is not provi- 
 dence at all ; it is rotten onions and 
 potatoes downstairs. And the upper 
 classes in society have a great deal 
 more risk than they are apt to sup- 
 pose ; though they keep themselves in 
 a sanative condition, yet there is this 
 reeking influence that is coming up 
 directly or indirectly from society 
 everywhere. 
 
 937. Varying Standards in Life. — 
 A man that at the bottom of society 
 would be considered fit to stand as the 
 highest, at the top would not be con- 
 sidered fit to stand as the lowest. On 
 shipboard, where not one man in 
 twenty can read and write, a man 
 that can read and write and cipher is 
 considered a great scholar. But sup- 
 
 pose he should go to a college and 
 ask to be one of its professors ? He is 
 a learned man on shipboard, but a 
 fool at a college door. And so, in 
 human laws and customs there is no 
 such thing as a standard which shall 
 be applicable everywhere and under 
 all circumstances, 
 
 938. Uncharitable Verdicts. — There 
 is a judgment seat set up in every 
 man's heart; and silently as shadows 
 move we bring one and another and 
 another, man, woman and child, up 
 before that judgment seat ; in our 
 thoughts we canvass their characters, 
 and accuse them, and allow bribed 
 and biased witnesses to testify against 
 them, and condemn them, giving them 
 no opportunity whatsoever to explain 
 or to defend themselves. Thus our 
 own inner soul is a sort of judgment 
 hall where the worst judgments are 
 formed and registered, which we some- 
 times carry through months and years, 
 and on which we act. 
 
 939. Social Judgments. — I am not 
 afraid for my reputation. That is not 
 worth much. God might issue an or- 
 der to cut off my shadow to-morrow. 
 I suppose I could get along without a 
 shadow. I should never feel the loss. 
 Let men that want to, go and hunt 
 after the shadow, and take care of it. 
 
 940. Discrimination of Qualities. — 
 We take a fish, and before we eat it 
 we scale it, and dress it, and keep 
 that which is good, and throw away 
 that which is bad ; and so we have to 
 take our friends. He who does not 
 know how to take them thus, but has 
 to swallow them whole or throw them 
 away entirely, is to be pitied. It is 
 the mistakes that men make in this re- 
 gard which lead to much of the poverty 
 of life. 
 
 941. Seeking Good, not Evil. — When 
 doves fly in the heavens, and go 
 swinging round in their flight, we 
 
•04 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 know what they see — the grassy field, 
 the luxuriant grain, or the inviting 
 perch where they may rest ; but when 
 buzzards fly through the air they see 
 no green fields, no pleasant gardens, 
 but carrion, if there be any in sight; 
 and if there is none to be seen, there is 
 discontent in the buzzard heart. Be a 
 dove, and not a buzzard ; and seek not 
 the things that are painful and disa- 
 greeable, but, contrariwise, the things 
 that are wholesome and sweet. 
 
 942. Hate Evil Deeds, not Evil- 
 Doers. — Can you help hating a man 
 who is so wicked that it seems as 
 though he were clothed in wickedness ? 
 Yes, yes ! I do not suppose that there 
 is anybody so wicked as the man that 
 hates you, and persecutes you, and 
 follows you up spitefully, and has a 
 mean, sneaking, venomous hatred that 
 oozes out of him all the time ; I do not 
 think there is any toad or any horned 
 snake that seems so repugnant and 
 repulsive to a man's natural feeling as 
 such a man ; and yet Christ says : 
 " Pray for him ; love him ; do good to 
 him ; be patient with him." That set- 
 tles the controversy whether a man 
 can separate another man that does 
 evil from the evil which he does. 
 
 943. Power of the Tongue. — The 
 tongue is the expression of our inward 
 states of mind, and so, its reach is im- 
 mense. It can rise to the very highest 
 themes of spirituality, and all experi- 
 ences therein. It can be the minister 
 of love. It can be an instructor 
 through imagination. It can give 
 knowledge. It can give encourage- 
 ment, cheer, consolation. It can bind 
 up wounds. It can salve them and 
 soothe them. Or, it may be the in- 
 strument of wrath, ignoble appetites 
 and passions. For the mischief that 
 it can do, for the malignity that it can 
 express, it has no rival. For the 
 transcendent beauty which it may ex- 
 
 hibit, for the comfort and knowledge 
 which it may minister, it also has no 
 rival. The pen works for a longer 
 period, but the pen is dry. The tongue 
 is a living force. It adds to the mere 
 enunciation of any theme or feeling 
 that electric impulse which every man 
 carries with him. The pen has no 
 blood ; the tongue has much. We do 
 well to take heed of it. 
 
 944. Slander. — Society is full of 
 cruelty. Dore's hideous pictures from 
 Dante in which men are represented 
 as gnawing skull bones in the infernal 
 regions ; in which men are represented 
 as feeding off from their victims — 
 these are enough to shock us, and 
 drive us from all pictorial illustrations 
 of that kind ; but, after all, we see 
 these things in life. There is canni- 
 balism around about us all the time 
 and everywhere. Not a bird's leg is 
 taken up and counted a more delicious 
 morsel, and is more deliberately picked 
 and chewed and relished in all its 
 juices, than a person's reputation is 
 taken up, and cut, and bitten, and 
 sucked dry, and cast out. It is wicked ; 
 it is damnable ; it is treason to man 
 and treason to God ; and yet such 
 things are common. 
 
 945. Lack of Sympathy is Infidelity. 
 — There is no disposition which strikes 
 at the very root of Christianity like 
 unlovingness and severity of judgment. 
 When Christ was on earth he said — 
 " The publicans and harlots shall enter 
 into the kingdom of heaven before 
 you." Before whom? Men that 
 wrapped themselves in morality and 
 in certain virtues, only that they might 
 discharge themselves of all sympathy 
 with the rude and the vulgar and the 
 sinful . To be empty of that sympathy 
 is to be infidel to the heart of Jesus. 
 No man would dare go into his neigh- 
 bor's house to defile the cradle. No 
 man would suffer himself to be caught 
 
SOCIAL RELATIONS 
 
 205 
 
 beating the child of a dear friend ; 
 and is God less sensitive ? When you 
 are sending out arrowy sentences and 
 poisoned words, when you are cre- 
 ating suffering here and there and 
 everywhere without any moral aim in 
 it, and without any restorative tend- 
 ency to it, when you are doing it 
 merely in the exercise of your animal 
 and inferior nature, does not God take 
 the side of those whom you are wrong- 
 ing ? Beware ! 
 
 946. The Harm of Profanity. — Men 
 ask, " What is the harm of profanity ? 
 When a man says ' Damn ! ' he does 
 not mean damn. When a man says 
 'Curse it!' of course he does not 
 mean curse it. He does not really 
 mean anything bad." Is there no 
 harm in a man's pursuing a course 
 which steadily wears out moral senti- 
 ment? Is there no harm in indulging 
 in expressions with regard to things 
 sacred that are like rasps, wearing 
 down the surface and taking off the 
 very skin ? There is harm in all the 
 various modes of destroying sentiment 
 and the root of veneration and rever- 
 ence. 
 
 947. Compliments. — A compliment 
 is praise crystallized. It bears about 
 the relation to praise that proverbs do 
 to formal philosophy. 
 
 948. Raillery There is an inno- 
 cent and even pleasure-producing 
 method of rallying which, if deftly and 
 gracefully done, heightens the enjoy- 
 ment of society. One may touch a 
 discord if it lapses into a true chord. 
 Sometimes, when we have good news 
 to tell, we are bewitched with a desire 
 to open the matter as if it were a great 
 trouble that we were about to break. 
 There is a gentle badinage, an inno- 
 cent arrow-shooting, which flatters and 
 charms. But life is full of the other 
 sort. If Darwin is right in thinking 
 that men ascended from monads by 
 
 gradual evolution, then it is very 
 certain that some men came up by the 
 way of the mosquito, the flea and the 
 biting fly, and that their ancestral 
 traits still hnger in the blood, 
 
 949. To Cure Malign Feelings. — If 
 you want to cure one malign feeling, 
 recollect that our feelings act, as it 
 were, in poles ; that there is an an- 
 tagonistic feehng. If a child cries, 
 the nurse, who is a better philosopher 
 than many wiser heads, makes up 
 faces, makes herself grotesque ; the 
 child struggles against it for a while, 
 but finally bursts out laughing, and 
 that moment the crying and the anger 
 are all gone. Two opposite feelings 
 cannot coexist. If anger is up, good- 
 nature is down. If you want to get 
 anger down, don't try to push it down, 
 — that won't do ; but go to the other 
 end and pry up good-nature. 
 
 950. Evil Overcome with Good. — 
 As when children sit balanced on the 
 ends of a long plank if one goes down 
 the other goes up, so it is with the 
 faculties. If anger is up, inspire good- 
 nature by some unexpected motive, 
 and, as it opens, down will go ill- 
 nature. If it is cruelty, in some way 
 bring to bear a pressure on benevo- 
 lence, and as that comes into activity, 
 down will go the opposite feeling. If 
 it is moroseness and sullenness, let fly 
 the flash of mirth, and the moment the 
 mind catches the inspiration those 
 other feelings will drop. As the first 
 star of the morning drives away the 
 darkness of night, so the light of the 
 higher feehngs drives back to their 
 appropriate den these lower ones. 
 
 951 . Truth in Anger. — Never forget 
 what a man has said to you when he 
 was angry. If he has charged you 
 with anything, you had better look it 
 up. Anger is a bow that will shoot 
 sometimes where another feeling will 
 not. 
 
2o6 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 XX. CIVIC INTERESTS 
 
 952. The Use of a Rule A princi- 
 ple is better than a rule ; yet we are 
 not to despise rules, for they are lead- 
 ing-strings intended to bring us along 
 the path of life to principles. A rule 
 is like a mould. You pour in the 
 wax ; and when it is pressed, it comes 
 out, and the mould is left behind. 
 The end of a rule is to bring the man 
 out from the rule. 
 
 953. Rules Teach Principles. — Rules 
 are of the nature of mechanical ar- 
 rangements that are dependent upon 
 facts, times, and seasons ; and they 
 are designed to help the physical side 
 of the human mind. They are to 
 men what walking-chairs are to babies, 
 designed, not to take the place of their 
 legs, but to teach them how to use 
 their legs, and which they will shove 
 aside as soon as they have learned the 
 use of their legs. And as long as in- 
 dividual men or societies of men 
 need, and cannot get along without, 
 rules and specifications, which say 
 that such particular things must be 
 done on such particular days, and at 
 such particular hours, so long they 
 must have them ; but rules should al- 
 ways lead to principles. 
 
 954. Highest Liberty. — Men are 
 free in proportion to the number of 
 spheres of obedience that they can fill. 
 Laws are not shackles to impede, but 
 tools and harnesses to assist human 
 force. The peculiarity of our early 
 ancestry was not that they loved lib- 
 erty — everything in heaven, on earth, 
 and in the sea does that ; but they 
 discerned the royal fact, which others 
 had missed who threw off law to find 
 liberty, that by taking on law men are 
 made free. Obedience to God's law is 
 the highest liberty to which humanity 
 may ever reach. 
 
 955. Liberty the Aim of Law. — I 
 never would steal, even if there were 
 no laws against it. You might unlock 
 your safe, and throw your keys into 
 the sea, and I would not take your 
 money. I refrain from stealing, not 
 because I am afraid of jails, but be- 
 cause I am an honest man. It would 
 hurt me more than it would you, if I 
 were to steal your money. I am not 
 tempted at all in that direction. 
 Therefore the command, "Thou shalt 
 not steal," has no application to me, 
 — thanks to my father, and to his 
 father, and to his father, and to his 
 father, through a line of honest men. 
 Therefore I am relieved from bondage 
 to that law : I fulfill it without a sense 
 of obligation, from my own free 
 choice. 
 
 956. Civil Governments. — God did 
 not create man, and then command a 
 government over him, but he created 
 man with a necessity and instinct of 
 government, and then left that instinct 
 and necessity to develop themselves. 
 God made men to need clothes, but he 
 never cut out a pattern for them to 
 make their clothes by. He left them 
 to choose their own raiment. 
 
 Governments are not accidental. 
 Governments are always the legitimate 
 outworkings of the condition of those 
 governed ; and there cannot, for any 
 prolonged period, be a government 
 that is not, in the nature of things, 
 adapted to those under it. . . . Gov- 
 ernments are shadows that nations 
 and peoples themselves cast ; and they 
 usually measure in some degree the 
 proportions of the peoples or nations 
 that cast them. 
 
 957. Governments Fit Peoples. — If 
 you look at certain flowers, you will 
 find that there is a hood that covers 
 
CIVIC INTERESTS 
 
 207 
 
 the bud. It is a capital thing as long 
 as the bud does not want to blossom ; 
 but as soon as the blossom is ready to 
 come out, this hood slips up, and slips 
 up, and slips up, till at last it stands 
 upon the leaves like an extinguisher 
 on a candle, and the wind hurls it 
 down. But why did it slide off ? Be- 
 cause the blossom got to be so big that 
 it could not stay on. 
 
 Now, where a government laps a 
 people in their crude state, if you take 
 the people and make them swell and 
 grow, as they grow they will lift up the 
 government, and as they become big- 
 ger, the government will become 
 smaller, till by and by it is only a little 
 cap which a puff of wind blows over, 
 A government should be reformed by 
 reforming its people. 
 
 958. Ignorance Invites Tyranny. — 
 Just as far as ignorance and passion 
 and rudeness exist in a community, 
 they impede self-government, or even 
 make it impossible. And where the 
 people are not prepared or qualified to 
 govern themselves, absolute govern- 
 ments are just as certain now as ever. 
 For as ignorance disappears, so dis- 
 appear monarchies ; and as ignorance 
 comes back, so inevitably come back 
 monarchies. August laughs at the 
 idea of March, and says, " We have 
 no frost ; we have warm nights and 
 glowing days, and there shall be no 
 more frosts." But there is a January 
 to every August, as there is an April 
 to every January. And there are just 
 such revolutions in the history of the 
 world. You can have Pharaohs again, 
 if you want them, — though I pray God 
 that there may be a Red .Sea for every 
 one of them ! You can have dynasties 
 again through just letting the people 
 become adapted to them by igno- 
 rance, by unvirtue, by a want of self- 
 restraint, by pampered self-indul- 
 gence, or by pride growing out of 
 
 monstrous prosperity. Every step to- 
 wards declension from moral character 
 is a written invitation for tyranny to 
 come back, — and it never lingers long 
 nor hesitates when invited. 
 
 959. Free Communities, Good Cus- 
 tomers. — Blessed is that nation which 
 has to supply the wants of a civilized 
 people ; they are great consumers. It 
 is supposed that the natural state of a 
 man is simplicity. No, it is complexity. 
 The natural state of a man is like that of 
 a tree. And what is the nature of an 
 oak, but to divide and subdivide, and 
 spread out infinite branches on every 
 side ? The first state of a man, hke 
 the first state of a tree, may be sim- 
 plicity, and he may be, as it were, a 
 single whip ; but as he begins to grow 
 he will throw out branches, and these 
 branches will throw out other 
 branches, and those will throw out 
 others, and he will take in more by 
 root and leaf. Every interest that 
 makes money and intelligence pleads 
 for a policy of liberty. 
 
 960. Liberty is Safe. — A /?///? liberty 
 in men may be dangerous. Then 
 give them more. It is said that a little 
 learning is dangerous. Yes, a little 
 learning is ; but a little intelligence is 
 not. There is a great difference be- 
 tween intelligence and learning. A 
 little intelligence is safe ; a httle more 
 is safer yet ; a little more is still safer ; 
 and the more a man has of it the 
 better he is. For intelligence does 
 not consist in the facts that a man 
 knows ; it consists in the power of 
 knowing. And so it is in respect to 
 liberty. Liberty is meant for man ; 
 and man is meant for liberty ; and 
 the more you can make a man under- 
 stand of the law of God that is in him, 
 the more you can drive him up to a 
 full obedience to, and use of, the law 
 that is written in himself, the more 
 safe he will be. 
 
2o8 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 961. Civil Institutions, Human De- 
 fences. — The growth of ages, amidst 
 the clangor of war and the upsetting 
 of men and the waste of dynasties, 
 has been in the direction of hmiting 
 power. The history of institutions is 
 simply that. Institutions are the bul- 
 warks within which the rights of man 
 and facilities for the development of 
 intelligence and power are concen- 
 tered. They are, it might be said, 
 fortifications against wanton caprice 
 and lawless selfishness. 
 
 962. Liberty, Intelligence and Re- 
 ligion. — If we give liberty to the whole 
 people ; if we educate them, and in- 
 spire them with a true intelligence ; 
 and if, above all, we crown their ma- 
 terial acquisitions, and all that educa- 
 tion gives them, with a sincere love 
 for God and love for man, we shall 
 have a people that is competent to 
 grow, making wood such that the tree 
 will be able to bear the beating upon 
 it of the elements, and that the winter 
 and summer storms which rock it shall 
 make it elastic, but shall not break it. 
 
 963. Growth of Colonial Liberty. — 
 Liberty, like steam, without its appro- 
 priate engines is but a vapor. As a 
 disembodied principle, it wanders up 
 and down the earth, seeking rest and 
 finding none. It needs a body. In 
 other days that body has been some- 
 times a shapeless giant, or a dwarf, or 
 some monster, form. In our Colonial 
 times, it pleased God to give to it such 
 a shapely body as suited its merit. 
 The church, the state, the legislatures, 
 the courts, the executive, the body of 
 wise laws all revolving within well 
 defined spheres — these were the prod- 
 ucts of that long Colonial history, 
 which, because it threw up no auroral 
 glow upon the heavens, seems to 
 many of little importance. 
 
 964. Constitution of United States. 
 — That after times had something to 
 
 add and something to change does 
 not take away from the grandeur of 
 that great instrument our Constitution, 
 which has for nearly one hundred 
 years proved itself adequate to the 
 conservation of liberty and of power. 
 The perils through which it came to 
 strength are largely hidden by the 
 glow of its abundant prosperity. The 
 foundation of the great piers of the 
 Brooklyn suspension bridge, that stand 
 over against each other, on our river, 
 are forever hidden. Men see, and 
 will see, only the majesty of the ac- 
 complished work ; but few remember 
 the darkness, the perils, the unmatched 
 difficulties of the caisson in the be- 
 ginning. 
 
 965. Vital Force of Liberty. — A 
 man takes a seed, and says, " You 
 want to grow ; you shall not ; I will 
 put you where you cannot ; " and he 
 stamps it into the ground. It is gone ! 
 There is not a thing to be seen of it ! 
 But the rains will find it, and the sun 
 will come and whisper hope to it, and 
 the root will not ask permission to 
 grow the downward way, and the 
 stalk will take permission to grow the 
 upward way, and that which was sup- 
 posed to be stamped into its grave 
 shall find itself alive, and shall mul- 
 tiply a hundredfold. Now all the 
 efforts that are being made to put 
 back the cause of liberty will prove to 
 be but so many means for hastening 
 the day of its consummation. 
 
 966. Spirit of Freedom Irresistible. 
 — When they dug for the Dry Dock 
 in the Navy Yard, they struck a cen- 
 tral spring ; and the engineer said 
 that it had better have some cement 
 put on it to stop it up. They opened 
 a hole and put in some cement ; but 
 the next morning the cement was 
 gone, and the spring was boiling 
 again. Then the engineer said there 
 had better be some solid masonry to 
 
CIVIC INTERESTS 
 
 209 
 
 shut down the spring. So they built 
 it in carefully with masonry. The 
 spring waited until they got home, 
 and then burst out again. Then they 
 determined to drive piles down, and 
 fi.x it. They did drive piles, and 
 fix it ; but the spring bubbled up 
 again, just as if it did not care any- 
 thing about engineers nor engineering. 
 After they had spent some months in 
 trying to stop the spring, they built a 
 curb around it, and let it run. The 
 fact was, that it had most of the east 
 end of Long Island pushing it out, and 
 no piles nor masonry nor cement could 
 match the secret underground force 
 by which it was impelled. So, in 
 America, there was nothing that could 
 resist the spirit of freedom which came 
 down from Him who resides in the 
 heavens. And when, through all this 
 nation, by plannings, by plottings, by 
 political masonry, by piles driven with 
 fraud, by the cement of iniquity, by all 
 manner of arrangements, men were 
 attempting to defeat the spirit of Al- 
 mighty God and maintain slavery. He 
 broke through and scattered them. 
 And now the stream of hberty runs 
 freely and unobstructed. It is the 
 river of the water of life. 
 
 967. Unpopular Laws. — In Amer- 
 ica, a law with no popular public 
 sentiment behind it, or with no active 
 good will behind it, is like a gun with 
 no powder in it. Though it be a good 
 gun, it is useless. 
 
 968. Free Government Requires 
 Self-Restraint. — The South American 
 republics have for a great while elected 
 presidents ; and what have they been ? 
 Men of straw, if they were mere presi- 
 dents ; and kings, every inch of them, 
 if they have been good for anything. 
 The reason of this has been that the 
 people were not prepared for freedom. 
 They had not developed the liberty of 
 self-restraint in themselves. And, like 
 
 eruptions that make earthquakes if 
 they cannot get discharge, and that 
 make volcanoes if they do get dis- 
 charge, the South American republics 
 have been a vast crater boiUng with 
 revolutions. And so it will be there 
 till education and true religion make 
 more of manhood, and of self-restraint. 
 
 969. Public Spirit and Preaching, — 
 Public spirit, which is a form of be- 
 neficence, was never stronger than it 
 is to-day. It is growing more and 
 more universal. And I judge of the 
 preaching in a place by the public 
 spirit which I see exhibited there. If 
 I go through a village and see that the 
 town-pump is in a dilapidated condi- 
 tion, and the fences are tumbling 
 down, and the town-house is a rat- 
 tlety-bang affair, taken possession of 
 more by winds and rains than by 
 men, and that the churches are poor, 
 and the almshouse is a miserable 
 place, and the roads are stony, and 
 that there are no bridges but rails 
 with a few clods thrown on them, — I 
 say, " There is poor doctrine preached 
 in this village." No man can be 
 preached to as he ought to be in re- 
 gard to his duty to God and men, 
 without his religion having a reflex 
 influence in his house, his barn, the 
 pubHc highways, everything that be- 
 longs to him and his fellow-men. 
 
 970. Leveling Tendency of the Gos- 
 pel. — The tendency of the Gospel is 
 leveling, — leveling not down but up. 
 It is carrying the poor and the multi- 
 tude onward and upward. It is said 
 that democracies have few great men, 
 few heroic men. Why is it so ? 
 When you raise the average of intel- 
 ligence and power in the community 
 it is very hard to be a great man. 
 That is to say, when the great mass 
 of citizens are only ankle high, if 
 among the Liliputians a Brobdignag- 
 ian walks, he is a great man ; but 
 
210 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 when the Lihputians grow, and grow, 
 and grow, until they get up to his 
 shoulder, he is not so great a man as 
 he was. So, make the common people 
 grow, and there is nobody tall enough 
 to be much higher. 
 
 971. True Democracy. — In our 
 land, men have classified themselves. 
 We have aristocrats, but God made 
 them ; and there never will be a time 
 when mightiness of soul shall not over- 
 shadow littleness of soul. It was de- 
 signed that some should be high, some 
 intermediate, and some low, as trees 
 are some forty, some a hundred, and 
 some, the giant pines (how solitary 
 their tops must be!) three hundred 
 feet in height. But, however high 
 their tops may reach, their roots rest 
 in the same soil ; as men, though some 
 may tower aloft, all stand on a com- 
 mon level. 
 
 972. Influence Higher than Au- 
 thority. — As flowers blossom, become 
 fragrant, and are followed by fruit, 
 not so much by the direct exercise of 
 power as by the solicitation of in- 
 visible warmth and sweet influences, 
 so there shall come a time when that 
 which we now attempt to compass by 
 coercive laws and penalties shall be 
 educed and secured in a higher meas- 
 ure, in larger spheres, more thoroughly 
 and better, by simple influence. 
 
 973. The Republic Demands Vir- 
 tue. — Our institutions are the best if 
 they are the best served ; but the 
 poorest if poorly served. Repubhcan 
 institutions demand energetic and vir- 
 tuous citizens. Compared with oars, 
 what great advantage has the steam 
 engine ! But if for want of steam you 
 attempt to work the engine by men's 
 hands, it becomes far inferior to oars. 
 Steam engines require steam. Su- 
 perior institutions require superior 
 motive power, or they are worse than 
 the governments of primitive force. 
 
 974. The Ballot. — When winter 
 has for months held the earth in 
 bondage, and the period comes for its 
 emancipation, what is it that is sent to 
 its rescue ? The driving lightning ; 
 the resounding thunder ; the pelting 
 storm ? No : the raindrops, soft and 
 mellow, come plashing down. All 
 through the night they fall, and fall, 
 and fall ; and in the morning where is 
 the snow? It is wasted and gone. 
 The rivers are bound with icy fetters ; 
 the rain falls, and falls, and falls ; and 
 behold, the ice is rotten and sunk to 
 the bottom, or is swept out to the sea, 
 and the rivers are set free. The earth 
 is brown and russet, and the rain still 
 falls, and falls, and falls ; and myriads 
 of roots wake up and send forth green 
 banners ; and in every tree and bush 
 and vine, on every hillside, through 
 every valley, and in every field are 
 signs and tokens of resurrection, A 
 more wonderful power has there been 
 in the silent plashing drops, falling 
 still as dust, to bring out the greenness 
 of resurrected spring than there would 
 have been in myriads of the mightiest 
 chariots if God had sent them. 
 
 Silent falls the ballot, and away go 
 shackles. Silent falls the ballot, and 
 away go bondages. Still silent falls 
 the ballot, and a whole continent is 
 renewed, and Liberty stands dressed 
 in her spring greenery. And on God's 
 earth there is nothing more beauteous 
 and sublime than the spectacle of a 
 nation voting. 
 
 975. Suffrage. — That bit of paper 
 which is called a vote is not mere 
 paper ; it is the symbol of a man's 
 will. And what is the will of an as- 
 sembled nation ? The king is a man 
 sitting on a throne and giving laws to 
 an empire ; but what is he compared 
 with an empire sitting on a throne and 
 giving laws to itself.'' The voice of 
 thirty million men carries both music 
 
CIVIC INTERESTS 
 
 211 
 
 and thunder ; and nothing is so sub- 
 lime on God's earth as the silent om- 
 nipotence of the ballot. 
 
 976. Separateness of the Jews. — 
 As the mother keeps the children at 
 home, sequesters them, lest they be 
 injured by a neighborhood which is 
 injurious to the welfare of children, and 
 does not send them out until they have 
 attained character and manhood, and 
 then lets them go forth, so the divine 
 economy in antiquity was to take this 
 select people and bury them, as it were, 
 in obscurity, and develop them until 
 they should attain such moral stature 
 that it should be safe for them to go out. 
 
 977. Fanatical Patriotism of the 
 Jews. — These words of Jesus were 
 like flame upon stubble. The love of 
 country among the Jews was a fanati- 
 cism. It carried with it a burning 
 hatred of foreigners, as heathen, 
 which no prudence could restrain. 
 Every year this ferocious spirit broke 
 out, and was put down by the slaugh- 
 ter of hundreds and thousands of 
 Jews. It made no difference. Like 
 the internal fires of the globe, it 
 burned on, even when no eruption 
 made it manifest. The historical facts 
 alleged could not be gainsaid ; but 
 the use of them to show that God 
 cared for other nations, even at the 
 expense of the Jews, produced a 
 burst of uncontrollable fury. 
 
 978. Patriotism: Concentrated, and 
 Diffused. — We have had, in our day,* 
 a magnificent opportunity to see what 
 is the grandeur of this feeling in its 
 primary state. For hours, and days, 
 and weeks, it flamed out in our midst 
 so that it was indeed like the pillar of 
 fire by night, and the cloud by day, 
 that showed the people which way to 
 go through the wilderness. But it is 
 gone, and neither you nor I can wake 
 it again. No paper article, no ad- 
 
 1 At the outbreak 
 
 vance of armies, no votes of Con- 
 gress, no orator's appeal, no preach- 
 er's fervor, can again cause to burst 
 forth the feeling of patriotism with 
 that strength, and in that particular 
 form which characterized it a short 
 time since. But something better has 
 taken its place. In its stead we have 
 patriotism in its secondary state, in 
 which it is diffusing itself, and labor- 
 ing, and producing results. At first 
 the feeling of patriotism was like a 
 bonfire or beacon light, for alarm of 
 dangers, or for guiding ; but now it is 
 a diffused daylight spread throughout 
 the hearts of millions of men, and 
 manifesting itself in practical deeds. 
 It was good at first ; now it is better. 
 
 979, National Excitements. — I lived 
 in Hartford once — blessed be the 
 year — and saw the Connecticut River 
 come down in a freshet, booming ; 
 all the broad Hartford meadows were 
 covered over, and you could not 
 go in that direction but by boat or 
 bridge ; and it looked as though the 
 river had taken possession of the land, 
 and was having its own way ; and 
 after it had subsided all the meadows 
 were covered with a nasty slime. But 
 it was soil, it was manure, and the 
 grass never grew so much as during 
 the summer after the freshets. If the 
 farmer's plow turned up the sod, the 
 corn was never so rank as after a 
 freshet had deposited the soil stolen 
 from every inch of ground, north. 
 
 So these freshets that come in na- 
 tional affairs almost always leave a 
 detritus that is enriching. Our times 
 of quiet and peace are generally times 
 of deterioration. Our times of excite- 
 ment, discussion, anxiety and enter- 
 prise are times of erosion and new de- 
 posits, times of plowing, times of hoe- 
 ing. It is a good tilling where there 
 is excitement, 
 of the Civil War. 
 
212 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 980. The Nation and the States. — 
 When the wholesome doctrine of 
 States Rights reappeared in the 
 South, it had in those warm latitudes 
 undergone fermentation, and had 
 passed into a new thing, viz. : States 
 Sovereignty. There can never be 
 more than one sovereignty in a polit- 
 ical body. The Nation alone is 
 Sovereign. It is, to be sure, a limited 
 sovereignty. The metes and bounds 
 have been fixed. All within them is 
 Federal, all without belongs to the in- 
 dividual States. Within their own 
 spheres, however, the self-jurisdiction 
 of the States is absolute. . . . The 
 States are so many points of vitality. 
 The nation, like a banyan tree, lets 
 down a new root where each new 
 State is established, and when cen- 
 turies have spread this gigantic com- 
 mercial tree over a vast space, it will 
 be found that the branches most re- 
 mote from the center do not draw 
 their vitahty through the long intricate 
 passages from the parent trunk, but 
 each outlying growth has roots of its 
 own, and draws straight from the 
 ground by organisms of its own, all 
 the food it wants, without dissociating 
 its top from the parent branches ! 
 
 The dignity and power of National 
 Sovereignty will be secured by main- 
 taining unimpaired the local Rights of 
 the States. 
 
 981. Approach of the Civil War. — 
 Are men less sensitive than metal ? 
 Shall barometers foretell whirlwinds, 
 give alarm of tornadoes half a conti- 
 nent distant, and yet shall a whole 
 hemisphere of storms move in upon 
 society, and no man feel the chill of 
 the shadow which they cast forward ? 
 Right before the nation were clouds 
 dripping blood, and full of wasting 
 fire. None saw. Right before them 
 were heaped-up corpses, armies of 
 the dead, suffering, fear, famine and 
 
 pestilence, but men heeded them 
 not! 
 
 Neither, any more, did they see the 
 new heavens and the new earth that 
 followed the convulsions of the old, a 
 nobler liberty, a purer justice, better 
 friendship, more lasting brotherhood ! 
 
 982. Effect of Lincoln's Death. — 
 The blow, however, has signally 
 failed. The cause is not stricken ; it 
 is strengthened. This nation has dis- 
 solved — but in tears only. It stands, 
 four-square, more solid, to-day, than 
 any pyramid in Egypt. This people 
 are neither wasted, nor daunted, nor 
 disordered. Men hate slavery and 
 love liberty with stronger hate and 
 love to-day than ever before. 
 
 983. An Earthly Immortal. — Abra- 
 ham Lincoln — a name spoken in 
 every corner of Christendom and 
 added to the roll of those upon whom 
 Time has no power. 
 
 984. Disbandingof American Armies. 
 — First, after the end of our Civil War, 
 came the disbanding of the army. 
 That was so easily done that the world 
 has never done justice to the marvel. 
 The soldiers of three great armies 
 dropped their arms at the word of 
 command, dissolved their organiza- 
 tions, and disappeared. To-day the 
 mightiest force on earth ; to-morrow 
 they were not ! As a summer storm 
 darkens the whole heavens, shakes 
 the ground with its thunder, empties 
 its quiver of lightning, and is gone in 
 an hour, as if it had never been, so 
 was it with both armies. Neither in 
 the South nor in the North was there 
 a cabal of officers, nor any affray of 
 soldiers — for every soldier was yet 
 more a citizen. 
 
 985. The Stars and Stripes. — The 
 American flag has been a symbol of 
 Liberty, and men rejoiced in it. Not 
 another flag on the globe had such an 
 errand, or went forth upon the sea 
 
CIVIC INTERESTS 
 
 213 
 
 carrying everywhere, the world 
 around, such hope to the captive, and 
 such glorious tidings. The stars upon 
 it were to the pining nations hke the 
 bright morning stars of God, and the 
 stripes upon it were beams of morning 
 hght. As at early dawn the stars 
 shine forth even while it grows light, 
 and then as the sun advances that 
 light breaks into banks and streaming 
 lines of color, the glowing red and 
 intense white striving together, and 
 ribbing the horizon with bars efful- 
 gent, so, on the American flag, stars 
 and beams of many-colored light 
 shine out together. And wherever 
 this flag comes, and men behold it, 
 they see in its sacred emblazonry no 
 ramping lion, and no fierce eagle ; no 
 embattled castles, or insignia of im- 
 perial authority ; they see the symbols 
 of light. It is the banner of Dawn. 
 It means Liberty ; and the galley- 
 slave, the poor, oppressed conscript, 
 the trodden-down creature of foreign 
 despotism, sees in the American flag 
 that very promise and prediction of 
 God, — "The people which sat in 
 darkness saw a great light ; and to 
 them which sat in the region and 
 shadow of death light is sprung 
 up.'" 
 
 986. National Ailments. — No na- 
 tion ever existed that did not run 
 through series and cycles of moral 
 diseases. Sometimes it is the disease 
 of war. In lower states both civil and 
 foreign war are apt to break out. 
 Then we pass away from that, and 
 there come terms of riotousness and 
 turbulence. Nations pass through 
 these as children pass through the 
 measles, the chicken-pox, and the 
 whooping-cough. Then will come a 
 period of luxurious corruption, ex- 
 travagance, and unbounded expendi- 
 ture. It swells and swells for a time, 
 it increases like a fever, rising in spite 
 
 of all resistance, and comes to its 
 maximum ; and then it breaks, and 
 passes off, and a better state of things 
 comes in. Nations have spasms of 
 avarice ; and under its baleful in- 
 fluence the most outrageous proceed- 
 ings come to be tolerated, and make 
 headway. But a nation that has a 
 substantial moral constitution is able 
 to bear these things. 
 
 987. Liabilities of High Civilization, 
 — A community that lives on a low 
 plane of civilization is like a canal. 
 It is useful, but homely. There is 
 nothing romantic about it. It is very 
 safe, and has no dangerous storms or 
 freshets. Active communities that 
 live on a high plane of civilization are 
 under a great stress, like rivers ; they 
 are useful and grand, but are subject 
 to wasting freshets which rise in their 
 wrath, and overflow the banks, and 
 subside again. And I think that rivers 
 are better than canals, though canals 
 are a little safer. Hence we are not to 
 be surprised that in Christian com- 
 munities there are developments of an 
 alarming kind. 
 
 988. Military Americans in Civil 
 Office. — Our first President and our 
 last were elected from the fields of 
 war. Washington, though a man of 
 war, is less thought of to-day in this 
 nation as the commander of our 
 armies than as the man who taught us 
 peace. And Grant, who by his skill 
 and indomitable courage wrought for 
 us final deliverance, sat in the Presi- 
 dential chair, not without some mis- 
 takes — for he was human — but without 
 one single tendency to military rule, 
 and with as absolute respect for civil 
 law as has been manifested by any 
 President from the time of Washington 
 down to this day. 
 
 As I recede, along the adjoining 
 fields of Jersey, from the great city, I 
 speedily lose sight of the masts, of the 
 
214 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 warehouses, and of the spires them- 
 selves ; and yet when I have gone so 
 far that the last glimmer of these 
 things is lost, the towers of the Brook- 
 lyn Bridge stand full and high in the 
 air, conspicuous. As time goes on we 
 shall forget that which called down 
 such a storm of fury upon the name of 
 Grant ; and when all incidental and 
 collateral things have gone below the 
 horizon, his name and just fame will 
 stand towering high in the air, unob- 
 scurcd and imperishable ! 
 
 989. American Political Elasticity. 
 — Nothing is more justly dreaded in 
 Europe than a disputed succession to 
 the throne. . . . But there have been 
 fifteen Presidents within a hundred 
 years in these United States ; there 
 have been twenty-two elections here 
 during the same period ; the question 
 of succession has been debated with 
 fiery zeal before this great people, and 
 settled without sword or bayonet, 
 twenty-two times [in 1876], and I am 
 not afraid to put alongside of the ex- 
 perience of Europe this record of a 
 free people under free institutions. 
 This is a thoroughbred nation ; and 
 the place where other horses break 
 down is the place where the thorough- 
 bred horse comes out victorious — the 
 point where the strain comes. 
 
 990. America's Prosperity and Peril. 
 — We are growing ; and it is not a 
 matter merely for pride, it certainly is 
 a matter of congratulation and boast- 
 ing, that we are becoming so strong in 
 riches, and so vast in territory, and so 
 mighty in population. But there are 
 dangers which come with these incre- 
 ments. VVe must keep open, there- 
 fore, every channel of intelligence. 
 An ignorant man is a dangerous man. 
 It is in the dark, or unswept, or un- 
 washed places that vermin breed. 
 Where the broom and the sun come, 
 there come not vermin. 
 
 991. Young Men in Public Life. — 
 Those that go into public life to trans- 
 act public business must go where 
 their errands carry them, meet whom 
 they may. The callow, the inex- 
 perienced, the unfledged, must make 
 their way among veteran experts. To 
 be sure, it may be the making of 
 many, and is ; but how many others 
 are utterly spoiled in the making ? 
 Back of every pottery-shop you shall 
 find heaps and pyramids of potsherds. 
 The vessels that go forth fair and 
 comely from the front door say noth- 
 ing of the fragments left behind that 
 are disgraced and cast away as use- 
 less. 
 
 992. Public Life Dulls the Moral 
 Sense. — In a worldly life, a loss of 
 moral sensibility steals imperceptibly 
 upon men. We lose that sensibility 
 very much as we go to sleep. All day 
 we are conscious of acute nervous 
 feeling ; but use dulls the faculties, and 
 as the sun goes towards the west we 
 are conscious that that feehng is less 
 and less keen ; and as evening comes 
 on we grow pensive and sad, thus tak- 
 ing a step towards somnolency ; and 
 at last things about us cease to attract 
 our attention, all our powers begin to 
 retire within us, and little by little we 
 fall away towards sleep, and into 
 sleep. So it is with the moral sensi- 
 bility of men in the world. One of the 
 first things that strike men on going 
 from private life into public afHiirs is 
 the habit of looking at things, not 
 from great moral standards, not from 
 principles of truth and honor and jus- 
 tice, but from selfish considerations or 
 conventional reasons. At first it im- 
 presses with a feeling of regret and 
 pain, but little by little they become 
 wonted to it. They cultivate the sec- 
 ular side of the mind. It grows with 
 culture. In time, right and wrong, on 
 high grounds, come to seem specula- 
 
CIVIC INTERESTS 
 
 215 
 
 tive, impracticable. Conscience, un- 
 used, slumbers — moves not — dies. 
 
 993. Low Standards in Public Af- 
 fairs. — In scholarship, in the practice 
 of medicine or law, in any worldly 
 sphere, to adopt a second-rate or third- 
 rate way of doing things when you 
 have before your mind the best way, 
 is always demoralizing. And how 
 much more is it so when we are judg- 
 ing of moral qualities ! What is the 
 condition of that man who gradually 
 lowers his standard till it ceases alto- 
 gether to be a moral guide, whose 
 conscience is like a clock that beats 
 strong and loud when first wound up, 
 but that, as the weight sinks in the 
 barrel, and the pendulum moves 
 slower and slower, and ticks with less 
 and less resonance, at last ceases to 
 beat ? There are hundreds of men in 
 public life whose consciences run 
 down in this way, only they do not 
 wear a dial-plate to show where they 
 stopped. 
 
 994. Faulty Instruments of Provi- 
 dence. — We need not go back so far 
 as antiquity or even the Middle Ages 
 for an example of one man's cheating 
 another out of his birthright, because 
 he has the power. That is not a thing 
 simply of the past. I should like to 
 know what right England has in 
 India, except the right which comes 
 from her power to cheat that nation 
 out of its hereditary possessions ? I 
 should like to know what right there 
 was in the confederated nations of 
 Europe to divide and distribute Po- 
 land, except the right of superior 
 force ? It is a gigantic game of Jacob 
 over again. I should like to know 
 what right this government of the 
 United States has to dispose of the 
 Indians and of their territory, making 
 treaty after treaty, violating one almost 
 before another is formed, starving 
 them and cheating them by un- 
 
 scrupulous agents, and pursuing them 
 with an army whose officers blush, 
 and say at every step, "The Indians 
 are right and we are wrong"? I 
 think our age is not so far advanced 
 that we can afford to be severe on 
 Jacob. . . , But do you say, " Jacob, 
 notwithstanding, was accepted for a 
 great, providential work"? Yes, he 
 was, in spite of this — not in con- 
 sequence of it ; just as England and 
 America are to-day. Providence must 
 work with the materials it has. If it 
 worked only with perfect men it would 
 never work at all. 
 
 995. Immigration. — As the Nile, in 
 its great annual rise, brings down some- 
 thing of the soil of every formation 
 through a thousand miles, and deposits 
 it as slime for the sun to turn to soil 
 and fruitfulness, so upon these United 
 States, with annual deposit, comes the 
 emigrating freshet of the world. It 
 falls upon us like mud ; it shall be our 
 richest soil. When it is aerated, and 
 when intelligence and I'eligion and 
 liberty shall have penetrated it, it will 
 be most precious. Its trouble is all 
 now, and at the first. Its bounty and 
 reward shall go on with increasing 
 abundance to the very end. Can 
 this nation survive, however, the chill 
 and fever of malarial influence en- 
 gendered by this new soil, until by 
 culture the vast mass of new deposit 
 shall, by the sun, the air and the plow 
 become sweetened, and as wholesome 
 for men as it is fertile for grain ? 
 
 996. Communism and Anarchism.— 
 We open our ports to foreign wares, 
 and recognize foreign skill, and our 
 libraries drink in foreign learning ; we 
 recognize gratefully foreign scholar- 
 ship ; our houses shine with the 
 products of the atelier and of the 
 loom, and we are grateful for foreign 
 arts ; we take swarms and almost 
 nations of foreign population, and 
 
2l6 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 spread them upon our land, and arc 
 thankful for the immigrant and for his 
 labor. But when Europe sends to us 
 the philosophers of the gutter to teach 
 us how to make constitutions and 
 commonwealths, we say, with respect 
 and contempt, " We have nothing to 
 learn of Europe on that side." 
 
 997. Iconoclasm of the Paris Com- 
 munists. — Who ever, driving the cows 
 a-field, barefooted, and making haste, 
 and striking his foot against a stone, 
 has not, while suffering from the 
 stinging pain caused by the blow, 
 beaten the stone, that was not at 
 fault, because it hurt him? And 
 when men, running against the stone 
 bulwarks of churches and cathedrals, 
 out of which have come sharp pangs 
 and pains, and against palaces, which, 
 to them, have no poetic associations, 
 and out of which have come their op- 
 pressors, and that are looked upon as 
 horrid and hideous places which have 
 been the dens of those oppressors — 
 as unclean places where devouring 
 broods of despots have swallowed up 
 their liberties — I do not wonder that 
 there should be the feeling, " Put the 
 torch to everything that tends towards 
 the old tyranny ! " It does not justify 
 them, but it explains how their fanati- 
 cism has turned them against their 
 own fair city. 
 
 998. Social Unrest in Europe. — The 
 working people of the manufacturing 
 cities in all France are substantially in 
 sympathy with the Communists of 
 Paris. This is not, therefore, a boil 
 breaking out in one place. It is a puff 
 from a volcano ; and all around the 
 mountain there are crevices through 
 which the same sulphurous odor is 
 emitted, showing that the whole moun- 
 tain stands upon liquid fire. Without 
 a doubt, there is a leaven among the 
 workingmen of Europe of the same 
 kind. Difference of race-stock, and 
 
 difference of education, will make 
 material modifications ; and I appre- 
 hend that there never can be Com- 
 munism in Germany as it exists in 
 France. I do not believe that the 
 Germanic stock can be run away with 
 as the old Romanic stock can. But it 
 is proper to say that there is a leaven 
 of this theory, and that unless kindly 
 influences are brought to bear upon it, 
 all Europe will, sooner or later, be in 
 alliance with such ideas. 
 
 999. Public Amusements. — In 
 America, so free have we been, so 
 large an outlet has been given to our 
 religious liberty, so large has been the 
 expression of every poHtical want, so 
 free has industry been and so re- 
 munerative, that our people have not 
 felt the need of amusements. These 
 have seemed like moths to our in- 
 dustry. We have found rest and ex- 
 hilaration in other things. And to- 
 day we urge amusements upon our 
 people chiefly on moral and esthetic 
 and not at all upon political grounds. 
 
 But in Europe political hberty is 
 mostly unknown, and religious hberty 
 is a pinched dwarf. A crowded 
 population have but slender hopes of 
 wealth from industry. Human nature 
 would explode if there were not some 
 vent given. So Governments fostered 
 popular amusements. In these, al- 
 most only, the common people of 
 Europe found themselves at liberty to 
 do what they pleased. Amusements 
 are the safety-valves of Europe. 
 
 1000. Immigration and Freedom of 
 Amusements. — A European people 
 who have had the chief happiness of 
 their lives clustering about amuse- 
 ments, come to an American land 
 where exceeding freedom has left 
 almost no place for such things. We 
 have liberty in association with poli- 
 tics, with religion, and with business; 
 they with amusements only. With 
 
CIVIC INTERESTS 
 
 217 
 
 the German on the one side, and with 
 the Yankee on the other, is the same 
 instrument of liberty, and for the most 
 part it plays the same tunes; but that 
 instrument in the hand of the Yankee 
 is set four notes higher than it is in 
 Europe. It plays business and com- 
 merce, and government and religion, 
 here. There it plays amusements. 
 Liberty discords with liberty, because 
 the instruments are not set to the same 
 key. And when immigration brings 
 all the pipers together, it is not sur- 
 prising that the music clashes. It is 
 next in mellifluous strains to the bag- 
 pipe ; and that is the instrument that 
 was made to express what was left of 
 sound after other instruments had 
 used up all smoothness and harmony. 
 
 1 00 1. Converting the Chinese. — 
 "Ah, but!" men say, "we do not 
 want the heathen on our shores. 
 They may have some little trick of 
 work ; but then, they are heathen, 
 and we do not want them here. They 
 won't be converted. You never can 
 mingle them with our own popula- 
 tion." Wjcll, I am astonished at 
 these Chinese myself! They have 
 seen so many beautiful exhibitions of 
 Christian character, that they must be 
 very stupid not to admire it ! It must 
 be that they are bereft of natural 
 reason, not to be fascinated with 
 California piety, and not to fall in 
 love with the religion of the emigrants 
 from the East ! Why, what have we 
 not done to convert them ? We have 
 thrashed them, and kicked them ; 
 we have hung them on trees ; almost 
 every Gospel influence has been 
 brought to bear upon them ; but the 
 fellows will not be converted ! Well, 
 it may be that some nations are out- 
 side of mercy ! 
 
 Oh! what a mockery of our 
 democratic notions, what a mockery 
 of our own government, what a 
 
 supreme mockery of the faith which 
 we have in Jesus Christ, is the manner 
 in which we are treating the poorer 
 and weaker races among us ! 
 
 1002. Modern American Perils. — 
 There never was a time in the history 
 of the world when there were more 
 temptations to selfishness than now. 
 We have overcome, in an awful 
 struggle, temptations to arrogance 
 and domination, but, right in the 
 place of that terrific demon, stands 
 now, looming up and gathering form, 
 the figure of Mammon, threatening to 
 be even more dangerous than Des- 
 potism was. And no man is called to 
 the Christian life who is not likewise 
 to see to it that this nation, and the 
 several governments of the States, 
 and all the departments of human so- 
 ciety, are defended and rescued from 
 this terrific invasion. 
 
 1003. Preaching on Secular Affairs. 
 — I stand and say, " There are certain 
 courses in the great commercial world 
 that are sure to bring damage to those 
 that pursue them." And you shall 
 not revile me, saying, '• You are noth- 
 ing but a minister. You are a lands- 
 man. You know nothing about sail- 
 ing." There are certain courses in 
 banking that I know to be atrocious. 
 I know that there are operations in 
 railway management that outrage 
 every law of prudence. And when 
 this accumulation of peril begins to 
 globe up and fill the very horizon, I 
 know it is my business to sound the 
 alarm. 
 
 And when it is said, " Nobody can 
 give advice in regard to the affairs of 
 any given department unless he be- 
 longs to those affairs," I say that a 
 cock does not need to be in bed with 
 you to know that the morning has 
 come, and crow ! It is because he is 
 out of doors, and sits aloft, and sees 
 where the sun is coming up, that he 
 
2l8 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 becomes the clarion of the morning, 
 and gives you the signal for waking up. 
 
 1004. A Legally Debased Currency. 
 — There is a clanger from suppressed 
 repudiation. When children have 
 the measles, and when after an ap- 
 propriate time saffron and all the 
 other drinks fail to bring them out, 
 the doctors shake their heads afnd call 
 them sufpresied measles ; and the 
 measles suppressed are more danger- 
 ous than when brought out. So sup- 
 pressed repudiation is more dangerous 
 than any open and avowed repudia- 
 tion. Whenever, in any nation, there 
 is such an attempt to tamper with 
 standards that the moral sense of men 
 is bewildered, and liberty is given to 
 unprincipled men at large to cheat, to 
 be unfaithful to obligations, to refuse 
 the payment of honest debts — wher- 
 ever that takes place, it is all the 
 worse if done with the permission of 
 law ! I hate the devil riding on a law 
 worse than I do the devil riding with- 
 out a law under him. Whoever 
 tampers with established standards 
 tampers with the very marrow and 
 vitality of public faith. 
 
 1005. Paper Money. — How pitiable 
 is the plea, that if greenbacks were 
 good enough for war they are good 
 enough for peace ! That if they 
 bought munitions, paid debts, pur- 
 chased lands, cleared farms, built 
 railroads, and carried the business of 
 a continent through a continued and 
 desperate peril, they are good enough 
 now. Is it true, then, that the 
 medicine that carries a man through 
 his sickness is good enough for food 
 after he gets well ? Shall a man walk 
 on crutches all his days because they 
 helped him while lame ? A debased 
 or enfeebled currency may be the 
 desperate necessity of war, but it is 
 the infatuation of ignorance, or an 
 insanity of dishonesty, to pour out in- 
 
 convertible paper in peace, or to at- 
 tempt to make short-legged silver 
 keep step with gold ! 
 
 1006. National Honesty. — An in- 
 sidious serpent is more dangerous than 
 a roaring lion — if the lion does not 
 jump before he roars. Repudiation 
 threatened more damnation to the 
 morals of this nation than ever war 
 did with all its mischiefs. 
 
 1007. Corruption in Public Affairs. 
 — Such is the wantonness and almost 
 universality of avarice as a corrupting 
 agent in public affairs, that it be- 
 hooves every man to consider his 
 responsibihties before God in this 
 matter. The very planks between us 
 and the ocean are worm-eaten and 
 rotting, when avarice takes hold of 
 public integrity ; for avarice is that 
 sea-worm, ocean-bred, and swarming 
 innumerable, that will pierce the 
 toughest planks, and bring the 
 stoutest ships to foundering. We 
 need reformation in the very begin- 
 nings and elements of society. 
 
 1008. Legislative Thievery. — Even 
 the men elected for the purpose of re- 
 forming such abuse, no sooner 
 breathe the moral malaria of the 
 legislative halls than virtue is in chills 
 and avarice in a fever. Why do we 
 think so ill of Sing Sing and so well 
 of Albany ? In what are the thieves 
 in the Penitentiary worse than the 
 thieves in the Legislature ? The 
 rogues in prison, acting with but little 
 concert, robbed individuals, and 
 firms ; the organized rogues, in 
 legislative clothing, dishonestly, in 
 habiliments of law, rob the community. 
 
 loog. Outbreaking Corruption a 
 Symptom. — And so men are robbing 
 the community all the way through. 
 They organize a system of spoils, by 
 a majority here and there ; and they 
 are filled full of frauds. And by and 
 by when a man a little more compre- 
 
CIVIC INTERESTS 
 
 219 
 
 hensive, and organized a little more 
 skillfully, carries off the very gates of 
 the Treasury, as did Samson the 
 Gates of Gaza, on his back, we atone 
 for our misdeeds by crying out, 
 "Thief! thief! thief! thief!" Such 
 men are boils breaking out on the 
 body politic. You are the body, and 
 they are the boils. Look at these 
 men and their deeds ; you will see your- 
 self, and how you have been acting. 
 
 loio. Corporate Wealth in Politics. 
 — Are continental corporations, the 
 vast railways, with enormous capital, 
 liable to exert no dangerous influence ? 
 At present [in 1878] the rival interests 
 and conflict of these roads are a suffi- 
 cient check. But will it always be 
 so? The combined capital of four 
 roads running westward from the At- 
 lantic must be a thousand million dol- 
 lars. . . . The days are near at hand 
 when money is to bear a relation to 
 politics scarcely yet suspected, not- 
 withstanding our recent experiences of 
 corruption. If it were in the interest 
 of these four vast corporations that a 
 certain policy should be pursued, and 
 that certain men should be put in 
 power to execute them, their concen- 
 trated councils and their enormous 
 wealth and influence would go far to 
 counterbalance all resistance. I do 
 not assail the system of the general 
 management of railroads. They are 
 young, they are lion cubs ; and it is 
 wise to consider, while we play with 
 them as kittens, what they will do 
 when their nails and teeth are grown 
 and their haunches are strong ! 
 
 loii. Deterioration in Public Con- 
 science. — The growing fashion of de- 
 ceit in manufactures and adulterations 
 in drugs and foods is the attempt of 
 the strong to oppress the weak. It is 
 the old robber baron in his castle 
 descending, after men have planted 
 their crops, and steahng them. It is 
 
 the pirate on the sea pouncing upon 
 the merchantman that is laden with 
 treasures from abroad, and taking 
 possession of them. It is the grasp- 
 ing king appropriating the earnings of 
 his subjects. Organic dishonesty, 
 structural lies in goods, are modes of 
 robbing the poor — for there is where 
 the evil comes at last. The tendency 
 of wrong things is to work out at the 
 bottom. The poor are fleeced by 
 those who are cunninger than they. 
 The weak are oppressed by the strong. 
 
 1 01 2. National Importance of Cities. 
 — Cities are the heads of the country. 
 They are nerve-plexuses, vital conger- 
 ies. They always follow civilization. 
 As they produce it, they are produced 
 by it. And the prosperity of cities, 
 their power, their moral wholesome- 
 ness, and their purity, are of trans- 
 cendent importance. 
 
 Men talk to you about the great 
 mischief which arises from young men 
 leaving the country for the city. I 
 know that a great deal of mischief 
 arises from this cause. And yet, talk- 
 ing against it is like talking against the 
 wind. You might as well read a les- 
 son as to the propriety of the Gulf 
 Stream rolling up and warming Eng- 
 land and leaving Greenland un- 
 touched. It does so, and it will do so. 
 Cities will grow and increase in popu- 
 lation ; and it is for us to understand 
 that effect and take heed to it, so that 
 cities shall be the legitimate expres- 
 sions of the best part of our civiliza- 
 tion. No man is a good citizen, a 
 good patriot, or a good Christian, who 
 does not care what becomes of the 
 cities if only his business thrives and 
 his family is happy. 
 
 1013. Municipal Prosperity. — Go 
 into the lanes, go into the back streets, 
 go where the mechanic lives ; go 
 where the day-laborer lives. See 
 what is the condition of the streets 
 
220 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 there. See what they do with the 
 poor, with the helpless and the mean. 
 If the top of society bends perpetually 
 over the bottom, with tenderness, if 
 the rich and strong arc the best friends 
 of the poor and needy, that is a civi- 
 lized and a Christian community ; but 
 if the rich and the wise are the cream 
 and the great bulk of the population 
 skim milk, that is not prosperity. 
 
 1 014. American Confidence in the 
 Future. — To-day the whole world 
 speaks its polyglot language on this 
 continent. The time was when the 
 nations of the earth were gathered 
 round the old Tower of Babel to build 
 it, and there was confusion of tongues, 
 and they were driven apart from each 
 other, and went every whither because 
 they could not understand each other ; 
 but God has founded this continent as 
 a new tower, and men that are speak- 
 ing different languages are coming 
 together to build it up ; and they do 
 understand what each other is saying 
 in silent language, and that is, that 
 
 every other man is a brother. What 
 was dispersed at the Tower of Babel 
 is brought together again in America. 
 It is Christian, this confidence in the 
 future, this belief in the cducability of 
 these men, this belief that there is 
 good in them that only needs to be 
 evoked to become instrumental of 
 better things. 
 
 1015. Endurance of a Righteous Re- 
 public. — In all these great opportuni- 
 ties our nation has gone right ; and 
 the nation will go right. Like a ship 
 against which storms are leagued, it 
 rolled heavily, it was dashed upon by 
 overwhelming waves, only to rear up 
 its unharmed hull, and, in darkness or 
 in light, against the elements to hold 
 on its way, taking no counsel of storm 
 or of darkness, but of the compass 
 that lay silent before it, an unerring 
 guide. The Word of God and the 
 righteousness thereof have been our 
 compass, and have led us through 
 storms and troubles, and will still lead 
 us safely. 
 
RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
BEECHER AT FIFTY-SEVEN 
 Photograph by Rockwood, 1870 
 
RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 XXI. THE SPIRITUAL NATURE 
 
 1016. Of the Earth, Earthy. — Some 
 men are like pyramids, which are 
 very broad where they touch the 
 ground, but grow narrower as they 
 reach towards the sky. 
 
 1017. Man Needs God. — Many in 
 this day set God aside, and hold the 
 view that each man, in some sense, is 
 another little god in himself. I have 
 no sympathy with such a view. None 
 shall go further than I in estimating 
 the sacredness of man ; but to my 
 thought, what man is, he is by virtue 
 of his connection with God. Broken 
 off, he is like a branch broken off 
 from the vine. No matter how fine 
 those leaves are, no matter how beau- 
 tiful those clusters are, they at once 
 begin to wither and shrink, and to- 
 morrow will be dissevered from the 
 branch, fit for nothing but to be gath- 
 ered up and burned. The man in 
 whose veins flows the sap of the vine ; 
 the man who carries in him the blood 
 of Christ ; the man whose reason is 
 daily summoned by the inspiration of 
 God ; the man whose affections are 
 daily purified by the inflowing affec- 
 tions of God ; the man who has the 
 dependence of weakness and love 
 jointly, and lies in the bosom of the 
 great All-father, and is strong because 
 God is strong, though weak in and of 
 himself — that man is sacred. 
 
 ioi8. Body Nourishing Soul 
 
 When you put beans, or seeds of any 
 leguminous plant, into the ground, 
 there come up great coarse leaves ; 
 and the stem feeds on them till the 
 plant is able to organize other leaves ; 
 it sucks out of them the food which it 
 needs till they have served their pur- 
 
 pose ; and then they shrink and die. 
 It would seem as though the soul, Hke 
 some rare plant, had stored in the 
 body such materials that while the 
 body was perishing the soul was filled 
 with the nutriment that was provided 
 for it through the body. 
 
 This is good for a figure or picture, 
 though it is not good for a scientific 
 analogy or fact. 
 
 1019. Morality Indispensable. — 
 Ethics are just as indispensable to 
 high Christian experience as fuel is to 
 the flame of a fire. Fuel is not flame ; 
 but there is no flame without it, or its 
 equivalent. So mere ethics, or mo- 
 rality, is not spiritual fervor, but it is 
 the foundation of it ; and there is no 
 spiritual fervor except that which 
 comes from the highest ethical devel- 
 opment and ministration. 
 
 1020. Lack of Moral Purpose. — 
 Men are as leaves that run whispering 
 and rustling before the wind because 
 it is north, and until the wind turns 
 south. Back they come whirling and 
 rustling, because of the southern wind. 
 Men are dry leaves running before 
 whatever breath of wind doth blow 
 them. It is a sad picture of the want 
 of high moral purpose. 
 
 1021. Morality and Spirituality. — 
 If I make a picture of a man, and it is 
 a faithful picture, I represent all the 
 parts. Suppose I begin at the feet, 
 and work up. Well, a man ought to 
 have feet. I carry it up to the knees. 
 Well, knees are good. I carry it up 
 to the trunk. There all the trunk 
 organs are ; and they are important. 
 I carry it up to the shoulders and 
 arms, which are very good things in 
 
 22' 
 
224 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 this world. Then I am tired, and I 
 say, " I guess I won't do any more." 
 Now you have a moral man. All the 
 parts that I have painted are very im- 
 portant ; but the head ought to be 
 worth something in a portrait. And 
 that which we mean by spiritual re- 
 ligion is to all the rest of morality 
 what the head is to all the rest of the 
 physical organization of a man, 
 
 1022. Morality not Enough. — Do 
 not sit down with this morality of 
 yours, and think it is enough. I do 
 not undertake to make you discon- 
 tented with it. So far as it goes it is 
 good. The foundation of a house is 
 good as far as it goes ; yet it is not 
 good for anything if the work is not 
 carried up far enough to have a super- 
 structure. Morality is the foundation 
 in this sense, that in the order of time 
 it comes first. 
 
 1023. Small Beginnings Encourag- 
 ing. — Do you suppose that a man 
 looking for gold refuses to acknowl- 
 edge that he sees gold till he finds a 
 nugget as big as his head, or guineas 
 and eagles, with image and super- 
 scription upon them ? When a man 
 is looking for gold, if he finds a parti- 
 cle as large as a pin's head, he says : 
 " There is gold, and it is worth while 
 to search further." And when a man 
 is looking for nobler good and finds 
 the particles and symptoms of it he 
 does not refuse to recognize it if it 
 does not come stamped with the im- 
 age and superscription of God. 
 
 1024. Measure of Morality. — Men 
 sometimes ask, " Will morality save 
 me?" This is exactly as if the wheat- 
 fields, when they have grown three 
 inches high, should ask, "Are we 
 not good wheat as far as we go?" 
 When wheat is grass, it may be on 
 the way towards wheat, but it is not 
 wheat that a man can grind and eat, 
 until it has outgrown its grassage. 
 
 Morality is but the beginning ; it is 
 virtue in the germ. It is not stealing, 
 not swearing, not doing violence ; in 
 short, it is putting off the old man and 
 his works without putting on the new 
 man. It is the negative, incomplete 
 form of religion, 
 
 1025, Incomplete Character, — What 
 becomes of those who reach high on 
 the plane of morality, but do not 
 touch the yet higher plane of spiritual- 
 ity ? You might just as well ask me 
 what becomes of a marksman who al- 
 most hits the mark, but does not hit 
 it. You might just as well ask me 
 what becomes of an anchor that is let 
 out of a ship, and reaches almost to 
 the bottom, but stops short without 
 touching it. You might as well ask 
 me what becomes of a portrait which 
 is splendidly painted, and is almost 
 like the man that it is designed to rep- 
 resent, and yet is not like him. 
 
 1026, Morality but Partial. — It is a 
 desirable thing for a grapevine to 
 have a good root, but you cannot do 
 anything with that alone. It is a very 
 desirable thing that every root should 
 have a stem, but what are you going 
 to do with it ? It is a very desirable 
 thing that a stem should have blos- 
 soms ; but if a frost comes and cuts 
 off your blossoms what are you going 
 to do for grapes ? You have lost the 
 very thing for which you planted your 
 vineyard. Yet all the way up each 
 particular step was important. 
 
 Man has to blossom and to bring 
 forth the fruit of the spirit, 
 
 1027, Social and Spiritual Life. — 
 A man builds him a house two stories 
 high ; but money fails, and he does 
 not put on any roof. What is he 
 going to do now ? Live in it ? He 
 cannot live in it. Until somebody 
 can put a roof on it, and close it in, it 
 is not good to live in. Honesty, 
 kindness and neighborliness are good 
 
THE SPIRITUAL NATURE 
 
 225 
 
 things. Care for the laws of life is a 
 very good thing. If this was all of 
 our life, if these external and bodily 
 relationships represented the sum total 
 of all our experience, all that we should 
 want would be morality. But we live 
 again. We live in a populous realm 
 more crowded with entities and real- 
 ities than that which we see. We are 
 living in this world conformably to 
 the world. It is very well as far as the 
 world is concerned ; but we are not 
 of this world only. Man, a creature 
 of two worlds, must conform to the 
 necessary laws of this, and also to the 
 laws of that other which is higher, and 
 more important to his spiritual and in- 
 tellectual manhood. 
 
 1028. Morality Better than Nothing. 
 — Your mere morality is inferior, it is 
 coarse, it is partial, it is threadbare, 
 frequently ; but still, poor as it is, you 
 would be a great deal poorer without 
 it. Shabby as a beggar is, he is bet- 
 ter off than if he was stark naked, on 
 a cold winter day. But how glorious 
 is that clothing of the Spirit that God 
 gives to those that ask him in faith and 
 in humility ! 
 
 1029. Avoidance of Evil. — I do not 
 ridicule nor dissuade from negatives. 
 But some seem to abide in them, and 
 to think that they have met the re- 
 quirements of religion when they have 
 withheld themselves from positive 
 wrongs ; whereas we are to develop 
 the actual graces. There is to be a 
 forthputting in things that are right. 
 It is not good husbandry that keeps 
 the plough going so that no weeds can 
 grow, nor anything else. Good hus- 
 bandry keeps down the weeds, to be 
 sure, but does it for the sake of letting 
 corn grow. And there must be a pos- 
 itive crop of virtue before all the con- 
 ditions of religion are fulfilled. 
 
 1030. Mer"e Morality. — A moral man 
 is one that simply defends himself 
 
 from the action of evil. A merely 
 moral man is hke an empty bottle, 
 well corked, so that no defilement can 
 get into it ; so that it may be kept pure 
 within. Pure ? And what is the use 
 of a bottle that is pure, if it is empty 
 and corked up ? A merely moral 
 man is negative. His whole hfe is not. 
 
 1031. Virtue not Negative. — Many 
 think themselves benevolent because 
 they are not malign. If it is virtue in 
 a man that he does not steal, and that 
 he does not swear, and that he does 
 not break the Sabbath, and that he 
 does not knock down everybody that 
 he meets, and that he does not mur- 
 der, and that he does not get drunk, 
 and that he does not get angry, — then 
 there are many virtuous men. A man 
 might abstain from all that, and be no 
 more virtuous than a mullein-stalk ; 
 for a mullein-stalk stands, and grows, 
 and does not do anything wrong. 
 Virtue is not negative. 
 
 1032. Selfish Morality. — To gor- 
 mandize books is as wicked as to gor- 
 mandize food. You have no more 
 right to be a literary epicure than to 
 be a physical epicure. And if a man 
 makes his only aim in life scholarship, 
 and lives merely for his own mental 
 gratification, he is a criminal. If a 
 man follows art simply for his own 
 pleasure, he cannot justify himself by 
 saying, " I never injured a fly." That 
 is not the question. Did you ever 
 benefit a fly ? With all your powers 
 and opportunities, what have you done 
 for the good of others ? You should 
 give as well as receive. 
 
 1033. Judgment by General Aim. — 
 I can understand how a man may go 
 to burn down a house or a city wick- 
 edly, and yet, on the march, help up 
 a companion if he falls down, give 
 him food if he is hungry, and do a 
 thousand kind acts. But the wrong 
 thing for which he is marching is not 
 
226 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 inodilied by these incidental kind- 
 nesses on the road. You may have a 
 great many moralities, a great many 
 excellent traits ; and yet, if the great 
 end of your life is not divine, is not 
 tending towards immortality, you are 
 under condemnation. 
 
 1034. Corruption with Propriety. — 
 It would be a very small thing for 
 the captain of a piratical vessel to 
 show that he kept it perfectly clean, 
 and that his men were orderly. If a 
 vessel is a piratical vessel, that is 
 enough to condemn it. Its organiza- 
 tion, the purpose of it, is radically and 
 atrociously wrong. And these single 
 virtues of a man's character are of 
 little account, so long as the very 
 foundation of his being is corrupt. 
 
 1035. Morality the Root. — Morality 
 must precede and underlie all gracious 
 religious experiences, as such. With- 
 out it, there is as much difference in 
 such experiences as there is between 
 cut flowers that perish in an hour or 
 two, and flowers that, growing on their 
 own roots, are nourished by the soil 
 and atmosphere. 
 
 1036. Moderate Morality. — There is 
 a feeling that there is an adulterated 
 morahty, which is better than the 
 genuine morahty, as gold alloyed is 
 better for use than gold in its pure 
 state. It is supposed that if a man 
 does not go to extremes, if he does 
 not touch devil nor angel, he may 
 find between them a convenient me- 
 dium by w hich he can make his life 
 more successful than by any other 
 means. This is a false and mis- 
 chievous notion. 
 
 1037. Laws of Life Generally 
 Obeyed. — The violations of law we 
 notice, but the remunerations by rea- 
 son of obedience we do not notice ; 
 and it is to be conceded that, taking it 
 generally, men obey laws a hundred 
 times where they disobey them once. 
 
 Were it not so life would stagger, and 
 the end would come. It is with the 
 violation of law as it is with the viola- 
 tion of truth. A man may be a liar, 
 and yet he will tell ninety-nine truths 
 where he tells one lie. He has to. 
 The truth is the driving force that 
 makes the lie good for anything. 
 
 1038. Superficial Betterment. — Some 
 men spend their lives in picking off 
 dead leaves from the tree of their be- 
 ing. They think they are growing 
 better because they now and then take 
 out their will, like a pruning knife, to 
 cut off this and that bough. They im- 
 agine they are self-denying because 
 they dust themselves over with un- 
 pleasant sulphur ; but, all the while, 
 they never go to the root, where the 
 worm of selfishness is working. 
 
 1039. Right and Wrong. — How 
 does the intellect know what is right 
 and what is wrong ? Just as it knows 
 physical quality — by acquired or by 
 transmitted experience. I do not un- 
 dertake to say that there is no abstract 
 and concrete right and wrong in the 
 universe, but I do undertake to say 
 that in the scope of human experience 
 there is nothing that is right and noth- 
 ing that is wrong per se, and that all 
 things are right or wrong by the con- 
 sequences which ensue or by the mo- 
 tives which impel. Is not stabbing 
 wrong? If I plunge a knife into a 
 man I am a murderer — unless I am a 
 surgeon. The act is the same, the 
 moral character very different. More- 
 over, right and wrong may be a thing 
 abstract and perfect, but human 
 knowledge of it is experimental, grad- 
 ual, and empirical, and the rightest 
 things to-day are wrong to-morrow if 
 by "to-day" you mean this age and 
 by " to-morrow" the next. 
 
 1040. Weak Morality Worthless. — 
 Who are the men that are needed in 
 this world? Young men that shall 
 
THE SPIRITUAL NATURE 
 
 227 
 
 bear burdens. We have enough 
 mushrooms ; we want oak timber ! 
 We have enough men that are willing 
 to do anything for the sake of getting 
 along ; but what are they worth ? 
 
 1041. Spirituality and Morality. — 
 Christianity is a religion whose first, 
 middle and last term is, building men 
 up into the image of Jesus Christ, in 
 their outward life and in their inward 
 life, together harmoniously. Read the 
 formula, and put the emphasis where 
 it belongs, when you are discussing 
 this subject : 
 
 " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
 with all thy heart, and mind and soul, 
 and strength, aytd [that conjunction 
 has hands of iron both ways, and 
 holds on to both terms] thy neighbor 
 as thyself." It takes hold of spiritual- 
 ity and morahty. They are insepa- 
 rably conjoined. One is the result of 
 the other. They play into each other 
 perpetually. 
 
 1042. The Ideal of Manhood. — 
 Men's ideas of manhood shape them- 
 selves as the tower and spire of 
 cathedrals do ; they stand broad at the 
 bottom, but grow tapering as they rise, 
 and end, far up, in the finest lines, and 
 in an evanishing point. Where they 
 touch the ground they are most, and 
 where they reach to the heaven they 
 are least. And such is the ordinary 
 conception of manhood. But the true 
 ideal should rather be like that most 
 princely of all growths, the American 
 Elm, which takes firm hold of the 
 earth by a thousand corded roots, and 
 rises with a fine but columnar trunk, 
 which by a division of its boughs 
 widens, and in graceful symmetry 
 flings abroad avast and glorious mul- 
 titude of branches at the top, and is 
 thus small near to the earth, and large 
 in the upper heavens. 
 
 1043. The Ideal Beyond the Real. 
 — It took centuries for ancient art to 
 
 develop to the degree of perfection 
 which it at last attained. And so it 
 has been with modern art. So far as 
 the artist is concerned, not only the 
 lower, but the highest steps have been 
 accompanied with dissatisfaction and 
 forthputting. A true artist mourns to 
 the day of his death. He is just 
 enough pleased by the fact that he is 
 advancing to be comforted and en- 
 couraged ; but his advances are always 
 pointings to something better, so that 
 he is forever behind his ideal. He is 
 never without a consciousness that 
 there is ahead something more perfect 
 than anything that he has yet attained. 
 
 1044. Value of the Unattainable. — 
 The things which men cannot perform 
 teach them far more than the things 
 which they can easily do. What if 
 Jacob could not climb the ladder 
 whose top was in heaven ? It taught 
 him a lesson. It connected the very 
 stones under his head with the clouds 
 above him, and taught him that there 
 was a way, unseen by mortal eyes, 
 from the lowest thing to the highest. 
 
 1045. Idealization. — There is a 
 power in the human mind, clear and 
 distinct, to see things that are not — 
 that is, things which the senses would 
 say do not exist. A child that sees an 
 apple as large as it can hold in its 
 hand, has no trouble in imagining an 
 apple as large as it can hold in both 
 hands, or twenty times as large and 
 as beautiful. And it may be more 
 powerful in its influence upon the 
 child's mind than the thing that is. 
 
 Among the ignorant, in all nations, 
 this power of fashioning pictures, 
 visions, ideals, has existed ; and it is 
 where it has depended upon igno- 
 rance that it has led to fantastic vi- 
 sions. But, however imperfectly it has 
 worked among the nations in times 
 gone by, this power of fashioning an 
 imaginary thing, and then having that 
 
228 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 iin.igiiuiry lliiiig come back and act 
 upon the soul that fashioned it, has 
 been one of the most energizing and 
 divine elements in the human compo- 
 sition. Rightly used, this power of 
 raising up an ideal before the senses ; 
 the power to put a better thing in the 
 place of the thing that is before you, 
 or that you have, lies at the root of 
 all growth in the individual, and of 
 civihzation in the community. 
 
 1046. Ideals Must be High. — A 
 law, to be of any use to you, must be 
 higher than your practice under it. 
 There is no use in your attempting to 
 learn to write, when already you can 
 write as well as the copy. There is 
 no use in your going to school when 
 you know as much as your master. 
 And no rule, no principle, is of any 
 great use to a man unless it is in ad- 
 vance of his attainments. 
 
 1047. Hero-Worship. — I remem- 
 ber, as if it were but yesterday, the 
 time when Kossuth, the great Hunga- 
 rian hero, made his magnificent pas- 
 sage from Castle Garden up through 
 Broadway. I remember the surging 
 of the people. I remember the wealth 
 of enthusiasm that was manifested. I 
 remember the helplessness of that 
 roar which rolled like a storm-wave 
 upon the shore of the ocean, and 
 which seemed feeble and unimpressive 
 as compared with what the people 
 wanted to do. And I could not help 
 feeling how the human heart longs 
 for something to worship. I could 
 not but think how, when you bring 
 before men, embodied, that which 
 answers to their conception of hero- 
 ism, their whole soul goes out yearning 
 for it. Men who are inexpert, love to 
 gaze upon expert men. Cowards like 
 to see heroes. All humanity, by its 
 very consciousness of weakness, by 
 its very infirmities, by the dim light 
 of its aspirations, longs to find some- 
 
 thing that is divine. There are things 
 in every man that are reaching out 
 after the God. 
 
 1048. New Ideals Given by Christ. 
 — Ideals are the true germs of growth. 
 No benefactor is hke him who fills 
 life with new and fruitful ideals. 
 Christ gave to every duty a new 
 motive. Every virtue had an aspira- 
 tion for something yet nobler. He 
 carried forward the bounds of life, 
 and assured immortality to the world 
 as a new horizon. He blew away the 
 mists of the schools, and the nature 
 of God shone out with redoubled 
 radiance. 
 
 1049. Luminous Natures. — One 
 man has kindness deep within him ; 
 and when the occasion comes, such a 
 man's heart, too long clouded, hke a 
 sun in a storm-muffled day, shoots 
 through some opening rift, and glows 
 for a period in glory. But there are 
 other natures that are always cloud- 
 less. With them, a cloud is the ex- 
 ception, shining is the rule. 
 
 1050. New Ideals. — A certain 
 master of painting in Germany on 
 going to Italy, and first seeing the 
 work of the Venetian and Roman 
 schools, said to himself, "I have 
 spent my life for nothing." No, he 
 had not. He was a master according 
 to the light he had received up to 
 that time, but he had not before re- 
 ceived a conception which lifted him, 
 with new inspiration, into a realm un- 
 speakably higher than that in which 
 he had been working. 
 
 1 05 1. Broad Views of Truth. — I 
 am building a house ; it is on a hill ; 
 and I Uke it all the better for being 
 there. I always like to know what 
 everybody else knows, and to go as 
 high as everybody else goes. So, 
 when I see my carpenters mounting 
 up to the ridge-pole and rafters I want 
 to mount up there too, and I do ; and 
 
THE SPIRITUAL NATURE 
 
 229 
 
 when I get on the scaffold that sur- 
 mounts the tall chimneys, I delight, 
 from that elevation, to survey every- 
 thing below, because I get a better idea 
 of the relative magnitudes of the objects 
 within the range of my vision than I 
 could if I stood on the plain under- 
 neath. So the higher a man goes 
 spiritually, rising on the wings of 
 thought and imagination, the broader 
 will be the range of his vision and the 
 truer will be his sense of sight and 
 his perception of the proportions of 
 things. 
 
 1052. Spiritual Oppression. — There 
 is a danger in lofty ideals, which we 
 must recognize. That conception of 
 holiness which was easy to Jonathan 
 Edwards, because he was a poet and 
 an ethical genius, was impossible to 
 men of slender intellect, of no imagi- 
 nation, and of a penurious moral 
 sense. In this unconscious way great 
 natures oppress the weak. It is put- 
 ting children to the stride of the giant. 
 
 1053. Prophet and Poet. — How 
 little are the close-cut wings of the 
 modern imagination prepared to fol- 
 low the circuits of men who dwelt in 
 this upper picture-world, where the 
 reason was inspired through the im- 
 agination ! Poets, nearest of all, are 
 in sympathy with the prophets ; but 
 they mostly sing in the boughs, low 
 down, and not from the clear air 
 above. The whole life of the prophet 
 was absorbed into an intense spiritual 
 intuition. The moral faculties of the 
 human soul have this susceptibility to 
 ecstatic exaltation, and therefore the 
 prophetic mood was in so far natural. 
 But these faculties never unfold into 
 the ecstatic visions of prophecy except 
 by the direct impulse of the Divine 
 power. And herein the prophetic 
 differs from the merely poetic. 
 
 1054. Hours of Vision. — There is 
 many a time, while making your 
 
 vogage on the ocean of life, that a 
 star shines out. It is visible only a 
 moment ; but if you make haste you 
 can catch an observation, and then 
 you will know just where you are, 
 and you can sail on with trust in God, 
 and with the guidance of that silent 
 monitor that points the invisible way. 
 
 1055. Clouded Vision.— At Cornell 
 University, a professor speaking with 
 me on the subject of an observatory, 
 said, " I hope they will never establish 
 one here." "Why?" "Because 
 the locality is utterly unfit for celestial 
 observations. Cayuga Lake is noth- 
 ing but a fog factory. Every night 
 it breeds so much fog and fills the 
 atmosphere with so much vapor that 
 it is not until late in the day that you 
 can get any clear view of the sky ; 
 and hardly three nights in the whole 
 year have been fit for a critical ob- 
 servation of the heavens." The 
 clouds that go up around the human 
 observatory prevent men from seeing 
 clearly — clouds of passions, clouds of 
 appetites, clouds of all kinds of evil 
 feelings from the animal man. He 
 cannot often make observations of 
 celestial things. 
 
 1056. Spiritual Moods. — As travel- 
 ers, who have beheld the city which 
 lies before them, by reason of hills 
 and inequalities make circuits and 
 lose sight thereof, and gain it again, 
 so we lose sight of Thee, and catch 
 again the blessed face. 
 
 1057. Aspiration. — Every man is 
 born with aspiration. It does not 
 develop in every man. Neither do 
 half the buds in trees blossom. But 
 they are there. And there is aspira- 
 tion in every man, whether you sus- 
 pect it or not, and though it may not 
 blossom. Aspiration means tendril, 
 twining, or anything else by which 
 one vines upward, holding on by the 
 way to whatever will support him. 
 
230 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 Some plants take hold by winding 
 around, some by little roots, some by 
 tendrils, some by hooks, and some by 
 leaves that catch like anchors. But 
 these things take hold not for the 
 sake of staying where they take hold, 
 but only that they may climb higher. 
 And so it is with men. We clasp 
 things above us by every part of our 
 nature, one after another, not for the 
 sake of remaining where we take hold, 
 but that we may go higher. 
 
 1058. Growth of Ideals. — Obedience 
 will bring a man nearer to a rule, but 
 obedience will not bring a man nearer 
 to his ideal law. That goes on. It 
 never is so small as when he touches 
 it with perfect obedience. It opens ; 
 it effulges ; it hangs higher and 
 higher, brighter and brighter, in the 
 heavens, and the further he travels 
 towards it, the further he is from it. 
 The indispensable condition of our 
 growth and development, therefore, is 
 that by advancing towards our ideals 
 in attempting to fulfill them, we thrust 
 them further from us. 
 
 1059. Man's Ignorance of Himself. 
 — Men were made to be happy. 
 Never was a music-box so exquisitely 
 arranged for the playing of sweet 
 tunes, as the human organism is for 
 the production of the music of happi- 
 ness. The trouble is, we wind it up 
 the wrong way. The instrument slides 
 out of measure, and we play three or 
 four tunes wrong, and mixed together. 
 A most discordant thing, therefore, 
 is man, although exquisitely organized 
 for happiness. We have been learn- 
 ing how to use many things. We 
 know how to use the stars better ; we 
 know how to use wood and iron 
 better ; we know how to use wind and 
 steam better ; we know how to use 
 ten thousand things better ; but alas ! 
 our chief ignorance is in that which 
 concerns ourselves. 
 
 1060. Knowledge of God Must 
 Grow. — A great many persons sup- 
 posed that the knowledge of God can 
 be thrown into the human soul, in- 
 stead of being learned gradually in 
 unfolding. The facts go against it. 
 Some would seem to think we are noth- 
 ing in the world but a photographic 
 plate, and that God is to come before 
 us and shine in, and there will be the 
 photograph of him. That docs very 
 well for photography, but very poorly 
 for Deity. 
 
 1061. Soul-Creation, — Because the 
 soul is evolved in the process of evo- 
 lution with the body, according to the 
 method and design of God, it is not 
 necessary to infer that God is not the 
 creator of the soul as well as of the 
 body. An architect builds me a 
 house, and he sends for the workmen, 
 and they dig the cellar ; but he never 
 touches a spade. He sends for the 
 stone-mason, who brings out from the 
 quarry the foundation stones, and puts 
 them up ; but the architect never 
 touches them. He sends for the brick- 
 maker who makes a million brick, but 
 the architect never touches the clay. 
 He sends for the carpenter, the plas- 
 terer and other workmen ; and they do 
 the work in their several departments ; 
 and by and by the house is completed. 
 Did the architect build that house, or 
 did he not ? 
 
 1 062 . Flesh Cannot Discern Spirit. — 
 The natural man, the basilar man, the 
 under man, the physical man, cannot 
 discern the things of the spirit. We 
 see this every day, not only as ap- 
 plied to imagination in its highest 
 reaches, but in the ordinary inter- 
 course of men. A man in a rage 
 cannot understand the emotions of 
 peace. A man that is grasping and 
 unfair is not in a state to consider 
 justice and equity between man and 
 man. All prejudices and all emotions 
 
THE SPIRITUAL NATURE 
 
 231 
 
 inspired by li;itred or by selfishness 
 twist the mind. It gets awry. You 
 are obhged to discharge these in- 
 fluences before you can form an 
 equitable judgment of what is truth in 
 any case of controversy or conflict. 
 
 1063. Spiritual Discernment. — The 
 world is agreed that there is no use of 
 disputing in matters of taste. Taste is 
 one of those things which cannot be 
 brought to the measure of ordinary 
 evidence. If a fugue of Bach is 
 delicious to a man, it is so to him, no 
 matter how many credible persons say 
 it is not to them ; and no argument 
 can overthrow that fact, so far as he 
 is concerned. If it is not delicious, 
 then it is not ; and you do not need 
 any argument on the subject. If a 
 man has a poetic vision, he has it 
 though ten thousand equally trust- 
 worthy men say they have it not. It 
 is a matter of fact. If there are 
 twenty astronomers equally measured 
 in intellect and power, and one of them 
 says, " I have discovered a satellite," 
 or " I have discovered a comet," and 
 the other nineteen say, "We have 
 not," that does not invalidate the tes- 
 timony of him who has. The trained 
 scientist, who has taken an obser- 
 vation, and who knows that he has 
 seen an object, is not to be judged by 
 those who have not seen it. Spiritual 
 facts, spiritually discerned, may not 
 be disputed by those who see them 
 not. 
 
 1064. Spiritual Life not Gauged by 
 Senses. — Shall the chief justice of the 
 United States be compelled to plead 
 before a mere justice of the peace? 
 Shall not every record of a justice of 
 the peace go up to superior courts and 
 terminate at last in the great national 
 court ? And what are the eye, the 
 tongue and the hand but mere justices' 
 courts, not useless by any means, but 
 of a lower order ? While I give all 
 
 heed to physical life, and to truths 
 that are determined by physical meth- 
 ods, there are truths of the human 
 mind which cannot be touched by the 
 physicist. They are parts of human 
 experience which are more exalted 
 and are far truer to man's conscious- 
 ness and feeling than if they were seen 
 by the outward eye. 
 
 1065. Flesh and Spirit. — Men are 
 measured on the cob, for the most 
 part, in this life. To be sure, the cob 
 is nurse to the young kernels which 
 suck out of it their nutriment as the 
 child sucks its nutriment from the 
 mother's breast ; and when they have 
 taken from it all that they need, it 
 dries up and becomes waste and use- 
 less ; but, alas, that it should be the 
 reverse in human life ! The inward 
 man that ought to be growing fat and 
 large by sucking at the outward man 
 is too often growing small and lean, 
 while the outward man is growing 
 strong and jolly. 
 
 io56. The Inward Life. — Every per- 
 son of richness of soul will recognize 
 the truth, that the dearest part of his 
 life — that which seems to him the 
 finest, the noblest, the deepest — never 
 is fully and fairly exposed. And if 
 you think a moment, you are con- 
 scious that all those subtlest senti- 
 ments, those rarest feelings, which, 
 when they manifest themselves in you 
 with power, give you some sentiment 
 of divinity, are the strains of the soul 
 which you cannot speak, and certainly 
 do not. There are elements of con- 
 scious life that move and control out- 
 ward action, which lie coiled up like 
 the spring of a watch, in a chamber 
 which is not opened, but out of which 
 issues a power that carries the whole. 
 
 1067. Spirituality Misunderstood. — 
 It is impossible for essential vulgarity 
 of spirit to comprehend delicacy and 
 refinement. Avarice cannot under- 
 
232 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 stand generosity. A glutton cannot 
 know the pleasure of temperance. 
 Hate and envy cannot sympathize 
 with loving-kindness, nor cruelty with 
 tender mercies. Men who were thor- 
 ouglily corrupt could not understand 
 even human truth as men essentially 
 good, and still less rise to an intuition 
 of divine things. The single sentence 
 of Jesus, He that h of God heareth 
 God' s words ; ye therefore hear them 
 not because ye are not of God, — this is 
 a touchstone. It tells human char- 
 acter and classifies men, not by arti- 
 ficial tests, but by their very nature. 
 
 1068. The Value of Sentiment. — 
 " This is my anointing ; I accept it as a 
 thing done beforehand, in honor of my 
 burial." That put it on a ground 
 which they could understand, "And 
 what this woman has done, wherever 
 my gospel shall be preached to the 
 end of the world, it shall be a memo- 
 rial of her." 
 
 This is one of the blossom scenes in 
 the history of Christ. A kind of ex- 
 quisite element runs through it. There 
 is very little outwardness to it. The 
 scene itself is remarkable on many 
 accounts : but the chord struck is one 
 that every rude hand does not strike ; 
 and it does not vibrate to any except 
 the truest touch. It is, in an indirect 
 way, the value put upon sentiment, as 
 distinguished from all other useful or 
 excellent things. 
 
 The perfume of that broken vase 
 has now been exhaling for two thou- 
 sand years, and the odor of it fills the 
 heavens, and is sweet in perfume to- 
 day ; it is recognized by hundreds and 
 thousands more than in the days when 
 the words were spoken. 
 
 1069. The Hidden Life.— The soul 
 is formless, is shadowless. No eye 
 beholds it ; no hand handles it ; no 
 pencil may draw its lineaments. Our 
 life is hinted, but it is hidden. It 
 
 gleams out at times ; it flashes in 
 sparks upon us. None has seen the 
 full orb, or known the full measure of 
 it. We are Uke books in which some 
 things are to be hidden from the com- 
 mon reader as unsafe, and at every 
 few paragraphs the critical things are 
 expressed in a dead language. So in 
 human life, the surface-things are read ; 
 the interior is not legible. 
 
 1070. Soiled by Worldliness. — The 
 worst things in men are the least in- 
 jured by worldliness, just as the hard- 
 est part of a tree suffers the least by 
 handling. The finer emotions of the 
 mind are like blossoms that will not 
 bear being handled much, that be- 
 come quickly soiled, and that soon 
 wilt and wither. 
 
 1071. Soul-Treasures. — Down deep 
 in the sea some of the most beautiful 
 things of earth are hidden. Now and 
 then there are rocking storms that 
 wash the very bottom, and roll on 
 shore a shell that is but a specimen of 
 thousands and thousands of exquisite 
 forms and tints which defy the palette 
 of the painter. But not the things 
 that grow in the sea or in the wilder- 
 ness are so beautiful or so numerous 
 as those that grow in the secrecy of 
 the souls of those who have been 
 touched by the divine life ; and though 
 you can measure a man's outer life, 
 only God can measure his inward life. 
 
 1072. Effluence of Goodness. — As 
 we know the odorous vines of rare 
 and exquisite flowers which are grown 
 behind high, opaque garden walls 
 only by the fragrance which they waft 
 to us through the air, while they them- 
 selves are invisible ; so are we con- 
 scious of the heavenly and spiritual 
 elements of noble natures about us, 
 rather by their effects upon us than by 
 any open spectacle of them. 
 
 1073. The Hidden Man. — The soul 
 is like a prince who receives embassies 
 
THE SPIRITUAL NATURE 
 
 ^33 
 
 I 
 
 from all the provinces round about ; 
 presents and tribute come to him from 
 the uttermost parts of the earth. The 
 air, the storms, all human occupations, 
 all governments, individual men and 
 combinations of men, pleasures — all 
 bring influence to this potentate, the 
 hidden man of the soul. Then in 
 turn, the soul sends forth energy, 
 speech, will ; and as the tide that 
 swells and fills the harbor, then re- 
 flows and seeks again the great ocean, 
 so the flux and reflux of force between 
 mind and the physical world is a 
 greater though an invisible and a 
 silent tide. 
 
 1074. Inward Ornaments. — If you 
 will wear ornaments outwardly, God 
 bless you in that ; but see to it that for 
 every outward pearl there is a pearl 
 within ; that for every diamond outside 
 there are caves of diamonds inside ; 
 that for everything that is beautiful 
 either in hair, or dress, or ornament 
 there is something richer for the 
 grander, the hidden, life of the soul. 
 
 1075. Soul-Purity. — Quenching all 
 under-hghts of tropical fervor that 
 breed miasm in the soul, whatsoever 
 things are pure in thought, pure in the 
 imagination, pure in the whole range 
 of the senses, pure in all the expe- 
 rience of a man's passional life, are to 
 be accepted and obeyed. 
 
 1076. Intents of the Heart. — A great 
 deal of our heart hfe is cryptogamous 
 — mosses and inconspicuous blooms 
 hidden in the grass, thoughtlets, the 
 intents of the heart. We are hardly 
 aware of this life ; but as God sees in 
 winter all the flowers which are yet 
 sleeping beneath the soil, so he sees 
 all the hidden feelings of our hearts. 
 He knows every root, and what will 
 spring from it, and comprehends its 
 intents, which are yet but germs, as 
 well as its thoughts, which have al- 
 ready blossomed. 
 
 1077. Value of Soul-Life. — A book 
 is an invention by which men live 
 after they are dead, so far as this 
 world is concerned, A hymn or song 
 that deserves to live is lifted above 
 persecution. The tyrant or despot 
 cannot touch it. But oh ! neither 
 book, nor hymn, nor song, nor any 
 product of the human mind, is to be 
 compared with the immortal life itself ; 
 and ye that save one soul, and hft it, 
 by the power of your instrumentahty, 
 blessed of God, into the sphere of im- 
 mortality and glory, shall shine as the 
 stars in the firmament ! 
 
 1078. The Soul's Riches. — If a man 
 has oil in his can, every drop he pours 
 out makes his supply one drop less. 
 There is no springing up from the bot- 
 tom to prevent diminution in the 
 supply. It is not so with the soul. 
 The nature of that is to renew its 
 supply, so that the more you draw 
 from it, the more there is to draw. 
 Giving will make any soul richer. 
 
 1079. The Soul Made Manifest. — 
 There cannot be any strong inward 
 feeling of affection, or passion, that 
 has not its outward expression. 
 Sooner may a furnace be glowing hot 
 and emit no heat, sooner may a lamp 
 be burning and give out no light, than 
 a man possessing the highest and 
 noblest qualities can avoid showing 
 them by involuntary action as well as 
 by voluntary purpose. 
 
 1080. Expression by Deeds. — There 
 are many persons in life like Mary 
 Magdalene, who have deep, abiding, 
 almost painful emotions which find no 
 outlet. She could not with eloquent 
 tongue respond to Jesus, nor recite 
 how he had aroused in her a new and 
 deeper life. There come hours to 
 those who are richly endowed when 
 their deepest thoughts must at last 
 rain out. As clouds hanging for days 
 and days in the atmosphere, and do- 
 
234 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 ing Jiotliing, at hist gather themselves 
 together, and pour down refreshing 
 showers ; so there are persons of na- 
 tures rich and strong who patiently 
 await the gathering of sentiment in 
 their souls. There must be some out- 
 let at last ; and if it cannot be in lan- 
 guage it must be by deed. This 
 woman was modest and retiring : yet 
 in the presence of that great company 
 she undertook to express her silent 
 adoration and her love by unstopping 
 the vase of precious ointment, and 
 pouring it upon the head of Christ. 
 
 1081. Refinement not to be Exclu- 
 sive. — I do not object to elective affin- 
 ities ; I do not say that men who are 
 like each other in intellectual pursuits 
 shall not company together ; but they 
 must not separate themselves from 
 their kind. There is no refinement 
 and no genius in any direction that 
 will redeem you from the charge of 
 treason to your fellow-men if you 
 make your gifts of beauty and excel- 
 lence a gulf-digging instrument that 
 shall create separation. All good 
 draws men to men ; and the sign that 
 a man is a gentleman is his consider- 
 ation for those around him. The 
 sign that a man is educated is the 
 largeness of his sympathy — not the 
 narrowness of it. The sign that one 
 is truly refined is not that there is a 
 Desert of Sahara in his soul, but that 
 he blossoms like a prairie, and that 
 his sympathy is as wide as the horizon. 
 1082. Spiritual Union. — Christ was 
 not so much with his disciples when 
 wearing a human body, and walking 
 with them, as after his ascension. He 
 did not go so much away from them 
 when taken into heaven, as he had 
 done while on earth. He had been 
 separated from them, as it were, while 
 in the body. 
 
 The eye, the ear, the hand, cannot 
 connect us with each other ; for al- 
 
 though we gaze, although we listen, 
 although we clasp electric hands, it is 
 something within the flesh to which 
 the eye makes its report, to which the 
 ear makes its report, to which every 
 sense makes its report. Every man 
 is conscious of something inside that 
 is not of the body. It is the soul that 
 finds the soul. It is spirit that recog- 
 nizes spirit. Inward spiritual unity is 
 first ; and the unity of sense is but its 
 representative or symbol. The only 
 substantial union of affection is that 
 which comes from the touching of 
 soul with soul. 
 
 1083. The Sin-Sick Soul.— Let the 
 body ache, and a man will be up and 
 eager, and suffer many things of many 
 physicians, as the woman did, and 
 will be none the better for it, but 
 much worse. That is only the body ; 
 but the soul is sicker, weaker, cor- 
 rupter, more defiled, and more full — 
 or should be — of piercing, spiritual 
 pains. But where is our anxiety ? 
 Where is our resort to God ? Do you 
 come to Jesus Christ, yourself, with 
 your own spiritual troubles ? 
 
 1084. Spiritism and Spiritual Long- 
 ing. — Whether spirits can communi- 
 cate with me or not, I can almost 
 communicate with them. It is not so 
 much the stalactites as the stalagmites 
 that I am looking after. Those crys- 
 talline columns that hang down from 
 the roof of the cave are stalactites ; 
 but there rise up also from the floor 
 equally crystalline columns which are 
 stalagmites. In my thought springs 
 up the longing of my soul for honor, 
 for perfect love, for a sense of recti- 
 tude and purity, for the society of the 
 spirits of just men made perfect ; and 
 these longings aspire upward. 
 
 1085. Men Without Aspiration. — 
 There are multitudes that are like my 
 Wistaria : a plant of the loveliest 
 habit. I planted it early, and I got a 
 
THE SPIRITUAL NATURE 
 
 235 
 
 little dwarf, stumpy vine, tree-like, 
 not two feet high. I waited one year, 
 two years, three years, four years, un- 
 til I got out of all patience with it, 
 and I said to the gardener, "Take it 
 up ; throw it away." He took it up, 
 but planted it in a more favorable 
 corner, where something happened, I 
 know not what, in the mystery of Na- 
 ture, and the very next year it broke 
 its bonds and sent up its vine, and 
 clasped and clambered and covered 
 all the end of the house, and ran up 
 on to the adjacent trees, and filled the 
 whole air with its perfume and with 
 the beauty of its blossom. Multitudes 
 of men there are just like it, living so 
 near the ground, and without any 
 aspiration, that they never know what 
 they are, in themselves, and to what 
 their possibilities may lead up. 
 
 1086. Unknown Powers of the Soul. 
 — God's will, or mind, may be sup- 
 posed to act upon the human mind, 
 either through ordinary laws, or di- 
 rectly, without any intermediate in- 
 struments. In the case of direct in- 
 fluence the result would be not merely 
 a quickening of faculties, but an ex- 
 altation of the mind to a higher plane, 
 on or around which play new energies 
 or forces. In this direction, it may be, 
 we shall find a philosophy of miracle, 
 of the powers of faith, of prophecy, 
 of a human control of matter which 
 allies exalted manhood to the creative 
 power of God. Such an augmented 
 power of the human soul was unques- 
 tionably taught by Jesus. 
 
 He who enters upon the theme of 
 the interaction of the human mind 
 and the Divine mind, launches upon 
 a wide and solemn sea, fathomless, 
 shoreless, and dark, as yet. Better 
 than Columbus sailing westward, will 
 come Jesus to quell the wave, illumine 
 the darkness, and reveal the shore. 
 The human soul is yet to be explored. 
 
 1087. Man's Indifference to God. — 
 We could hardly help striking a man 
 who should stand looking upon Niag- 
 ara Falls without exhibiting emotions 
 of awe and admiration. We should 
 say to ourselves, "Let us be rid of 
 such an unsusceptible creature as 
 that." Now I ask you to pass upon 
 yourselves the same judgment. What 
 do you suppose angels, that have 
 trembled and quivered with ecstatic 
 joy in the presence of God, think, 
 when they see how indifferent you are 
 to the Divine love and goodness in 
 which you are perpetually bathed, 
 and by which you are blessed and 
 sustained every moment of your lives ? 
 How can they do otherwise than ac- 
 cuse you of monstrous ingratitude and 
 moral insensibility ? 
 
 1088. Longing for God. — Even the 
 poor mute root in the cellar, that lies 
 all winter long — the turnip, or the po- 
 tato — dead, yet knows when April and 
 May come, and knows that there is a 
 sun outside, and begins to sprout, and 
 finds its way, growing in the dark with 
 long, long vines ; and if there be a 
 slit or a crack, it will work towards 
 the light. And shall not I, that am 
 no root nor vegetable, no matter 
 through what winters, find my way 
 towards the great Center of warmth 
 and light? If there is summer in 
 heaven I will find it. I shall see God 
 for myself, and not another for me. I 
 shall be like him yet, though it may 
 be myriads of ages hence. 
 
 1089. God's Brooding Love. — Let 
 the eagle lay her eggs, and leave them 
 alone in the nest, and there will never 
 be another eagle. It is not until she 
 brings her bosom's warmth down to 
 them, and sits patiently upon them, 
 that they cease to be eggs and become 
 eaglets. And in a sense it may be 
 said that this body is nothing but a 
 nest, and that the superior spiritual 
 
236 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 elements in a man arc simply inherited 
 qualities ; and it is only when the 
 warmth of the bosom of God has 
 broken the shell and brought us out, 
 that we really become sons of God. 
 
 logo. Intellection Inimical to Feel- 
 ing. — I have known many persons 
 who, when they began to feel a cer- 
 tain sweet joy in singing a hymn, 
 would check themselves and say, 
 " Have I a right to this feehng ? Does 
 it proceed from the proper source ? ' ' 
 It is exactly as though a bird should 
 commence to sing on a tree close by 
 your dwelling, and you should say to 
 yourself, " I wonder if that is the bird 
 that I heard yesterday " ; and you 
 should run to the window to see, and 
 frighten it so that it would stop sing- 
 ing and fly away. If any feeling be- 
 gins to sing on the bough of hope, the 
 moment you say, " Stop, let me see 
 the construction of its vocal organs," 
 that moment it stops singing. If an 
 emotion of sympathy with justice and 
 conscience springs up in your bosom, 
 the moment you say, " Let me see 
 how it is coming," that moment it 
 ceases to be. The moment you look 
 at a feeling, the feeling stops, and in- 
 tellection begins, thus revolutionizing 
 the whole process of the mind. 
 
 1091. God in the Soul. — Before 
 the child is born the mother's blood, 
 circulating through the little body, 
 gives it both food and life ; it is the 
 mother rushing through the child that 
 is the child's life and hope ; and it 
 may be said that in some similar way 
 there comes a state in which we are in 
 such relations to God that his thoughts 
 are impulsing our minds, and his feel- 
 ings are in circulation through our de- 
 sires and appetences. 
 
 1092. Sympathetic Witnesses. — 
 When a musician is called before a 
 great congregation to perform music 
 which he has composed, he knows 
 
 that many will call for melodies, for 
 ballads, for simple airs, and he may 
 be disposed to gratify their taste ; but 
 if he knows that in the congregation 
 there is one Mozart, or one Beethoven, 
 who is able to follow him through all 
 the intricacies of harmony, as he rises 
 up to the majesty of sound that ex- 
 presses thought, and feeling, and im- 
 agination, that one single musician 
 will inspire him and reward him more 
 than the thousands of those who know 
 only how to take in the lowest forms. 
 
 Now, we not only live among men, 
 but there are airy hosts, blessed 
 spectators, sympathetic lookers-on, 
 that see and know and appreciate our 
 thoughts and feelings and acts. And 
 if we can bring ourselves to reahze 
 this, it will lift us above the necessity 
 of vulgar praise, and above any de- 
 pression that we may feel for the want 
 of appreciation and praise from men. 
 
 1093. Memory of Benefits. — Among 
 the Alps, when the day is done, and 
 twilight and darkness are creeping 
 over fold and hamlet in the valleys be- 
 low, Monte Rosa and Mont Blanc rise 
 up far above the darkness, catching 
 from the retreating sun something of 
 his light, flushed with rose-color, ex- 
 quisite beyond all words or pencil or 
 paint, glowing like the'gate of heaven. 
 And so past favors and kindnesses hft 
 themselves up in the memory of noble 
 natures ; and long after the lower 
 parts of life are darkened by neglect, 
 or selfishness, or anger, high up above 
 all clouds they glow with divine radi- 
 ance, and seem to forbid the advance 
 of night any further. 
 
 1094. Grateful Natures. — The least 
 drop of dew will make the grape- 
 blossom sweet. The least moisture 
 will make the mignonette report it- 
 self through all the garden. The 
 honeysuckle does not ask much. The 
 night-devk's are enough for it. And 
 
THE SPIRITUAL NATURE 
 
 237 
 
 there are some natures that take but 
 the sHghtest favors to make them ex- 
 hale thanks and gratitude. 
 
 1095. — Gratitude as a Motive Power, 
 — If when the building was burning 
 some heroic fireman, willingly imperil- 
 ing his own life, rushed into the smoke 
 and flame, and came out again bear- 
 ing the only child of your heart to you, 
 you would feel that the earth could 
 not repay him, and your heart would 
 long for more than your hand owned, 
 that you might give him something 
 adequate to your sense of obligation. 
 When men have befriended us, suf- 
 fered for us, periled themselves for us, 
 the whole of every noble feeling 
 within us rises up and pours out like a 
 flood from the temple of the soul, and 
 we go to them with beneficences and 
 benefactions. How should our souls 
 be flooded with gratitude to Christ ! 
 
 1096. Appreciative Gratitude. — If 
 one should give me a dish of sand, 
 and tell me there were particles of iron 
 in it, I might look for them with my 
 eyes, and search for them with my 
 clumsy fingers, and be unable to de- 
 tect them ; but let me take a magnet 
 and sweep through it, and how would 
 it draw to itself the almost invisible 
 particles, by the mere power of attrac- 
 tion ! The unthankful heart, like my 
 finger in the sand, discovers no mer- 
 cies ; but let the thankful heart sweep 
 through the day, and as the magnet 
 finds the iron, so it will find in every 
 hour some heavenly blessings. Only, 
 the iron in God's sand is gold. 
 
 1097. Everyday Gratitude. — I never 
 shall forget, and I never shall cease 
 to be stirred up at the thought of, 
 what I heard in Antwerp, where they 
 have a large collection of bells, run- 
 ning from the very low ones clear up 
 to those which it seemed to me were 
 no bigger than thimbles, such was the 
 fineness with which they rang out their 
 
 tiny melodies. A clock strikes every 
 quarter hour. At the quarter-hour 
 striking there come first deep tones. 
 Then delicate sounds rush out through 
 the air, playing an overture, as it were, 
 in listening to which one would think 
 all God's angels were frohcking in the 
 steeple. Thus the clock moved off 
 with wonderful majesty and beauty. 
 I sat for hours within sight and sound 
 of it, and thought what a marvelous 
 thing that old stone steeple was, 
 which, day and night, busied itself in 
 making music in the air. No matter 
 what was going on below, it sent forth 
 the voices of love, of hope, of gladness, 
 of courage, which sounded through the 
 year, summer and winter, from morn- 
 ing till evening, and from evening till 
 morning. Then and there I made up 
 my mind that I would be musical, if I 
 possibly could, so long as I lived. I 
 do not carry as many bells as that 
 steeple does, and I have had hard work 
 to keep in tune, but as I grow older I 
 feel the necessity of recognizing on 
 every side, in nature and in human 
 society, reasons for thanksgiving. 
 
 1098. Inspiration of Great Lives. — 
 Some stories, when you analyze them, 
 cease to be stories, and become phi- 
 losophies. Joan of Arc has thrown 
 around heroism an inspiration which 
 makes it richer and more glorious. I 
 do not care whether she saved or lost 
 France, — there may be some fiction 
 on that subject ; — but she saved the 
 world, and lifted it up many degrees. 
 
 1099. Spiritual Ancestry. — We love 
 to trace our ancestry to early houses 
 and families in the old country. 
 Neither is this vain or foolish. It may 
 become so through abuse, but it is not 
 so of necessity. 
 
 But mere bodily ancestry is the low- 
 est form of a great truth. The soul 
 gives relationship. All who have 
 lived, and, by God's help, poured 
 
^38 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 their life as a soul-wine forth for the re- 
 freshment of the world, are my ances- 
 tors, my relations. All the patriarchs 
 are mine. All judges of Israel ; all 
 prophets and holy priests ; all religious 
 kings and patriotic men ; all apostles, 
 ministers, and confessors ; all holy 
 men of the cloister, in ages when the 
 cloister benefited society ; the heroes 
 of dungeons and scaffolds ; the wit- 
 nesses for liberty in every age, and 
 everywhere, — these men seem to us 
 dim and shadowy ; but we love to go 
 back and make them more substantial. 
 We love to search those long forgot- 
 ten, and give them resurrection, and 
 claim them as our own. I go back to 
 them with fervent joy. Their blood is 
 mine. It beats in me ; for the blood of 
 Christ it is that makes of one blood all 
 good men on earth. 
 
 iioo. "Blessed are the Meek." — 
 Meekness is generally thought to be a 
 sweet benignity under provocation. 
 But provocation only discloses, and 
 does not create it. It exists as a 
 generic mood or condition of soul, in- 
 dependent of those causes which may 
 bring it to light. In this state, power 
 and peace are harmonized, — activity 
 and tranquillity, joy and calmness, all- 
 seeingness without violence or desire. 
 From these nobler fountains chiefly 
 are to flow those influences which shall 
 control the world. 
 
 iioi. "Blessed are the Merciful." 
 — Mercy is an attribute of high moral 
 character. As men grow towards the 
 Divine, they become gentle, forgiving, 
 compassionate. The absence of a 
 merciful spirit is evidence of the want 
 of true holiness. A soul that has 
 really entered into the life of Christ 
 carries in itself a store of nourish- 
 ment and a cordial for helpless souls 
 around it. 
 
 1 1 02. "Blessed are the Peace- 
 makers." — Peace is not a negative 
 
 state, a mere interval between two 
 excitements. In its highest meaning 
 it is that serenity which joy assumes, 
 not only when single faculties are ex- 
 cited, but when the whole soul is in 
 harmony with itself and full of whole- 
 some activity. 
 
 Though the lower stages of being 
 are full of agitations, the higher stages 
 are tranquil. The universe grows 
 sweet as it grows ripe. " The God of 
 peace" is the highest expression of 
 perfect being. Whatever disturbance 
 is raging in his remote creation, he 
 dwells in eternal peace, influencing the 
 consummation of all things. There 
 is evident reason why peacemakers 
 " shall be called the children of God." 
 
 1103. "Blessed are They Who 
 Hunger and Thirst after Righteous- 
 ness." — As hunger is not a rational 
 faculty, and does not depend upon any 
 of the rational faculties for its action, 
 but follows the internal condition of 
 the body, and is an automatic sign 
 and signal of the waste or repair going 
 on within, so the longing for upright- 
 ness and goodness must be a deep- 
 seated and incessant importunity of 
 the soul's very substance, as it were, 
 acting, not upon suggestion or special 
 excitement, but self-aroused and con- 
 tinuous. To such a desire the whole 
 world becomes a ministering servant. 
 
 1 104. Religious Inspirations Evan- 
 escent. — In some old cathedrals in 
 Europe, where there are finely-built 
 organs, they are accustomed, at twi- 
 light, to play out the day by some 
 solemn anthems ; and people gather, 
 and stand scattered through the great 
 dusky structure, and listen as the in- 
 spired man touches the instrument and 
 swells to the high accord of his theme. 
 All hearts are moved. A thousand 
 memories are awakened in each 
 breast. The feelings of many a one 
 are soothed and laid to rest. All are 
 
GOD 
 
 239 
 
 filled with emotions of joy. At last 
 the theme closes, the music dies away, 
 and silence reigns. One by one the 
 people steal out of the house. The 
 music is gone, the organ is silent ; and 
 so is the experience. The church is 
 not more empty of sound when the 
 organ stops, than are their hearts of 
 the feelings which the music inspired. 
 The proud man is proud yet ; the ava- 
 ricious man is avaricious yet ; the 
 worldly man is worldly yet. What 
 has taken place ? They have had a 
 repast. They went to the church, and 
 the organ played on them, as the or- 
 ganist played on it. And the tran- 
 sient, momentary experience came 
 and passed away almost in the same 
 moment. Too many spiritual experi- 
 ences of men, under the influence of 
 God's preachers of righteousness, fade 
 away in the same manner. 
 
 1 105. Passing Impressions of Good. 
 — You will go away from here to- 
 night, and the sound of my voice will 
 be like the sound of a bell that strikes 
 resonantly through the air, and gradu- 
 ally spends itself and is gone. As 
 you go out, you will think of the 
 
 truth that the sermon attempted to set 
 forth. It will, perhaps, linger in your 
 thoughts to-morrow ; but it will gradu- 
 ally recede from your memory, and 
 next week it will be forgotten. 
 
 1 106. Jesus Leaves Galilee. — The 
 Voice ceased. The crowd disap- 
 peared. The light that had sparkled 
 along the waters and fired the distant 
 hills went out. Twilight came on ; 
 the evening winds whispered among 
 the rustling reeds, and the ripples 
 gurgling upon the beach answered 
 them in liquid echoes. The boom of 
 the solitary bittern came over the 
 waters, and now and then, as dark- 
 ness fell upon the lake, the call of the 
 fishermen, at their night-toil. The 
 crowd dispersed. The world received 
 its own again. With the darkness 
 came forgetfulness, leaving but a faint 
 memory of the Voice or of its teach- 
 ings, as of a wind whispering among 
 the fickle reeds. The enthusiasm of 
 the throng, like the last rays of the 
 sun, died out ; and their hearts, like 
 the sea, again sent incessant desi-res 
 murmuring and complaining to the 
 shore. 
 
 XXII. GOD 
 
 1 107. God is Love. — No man can 
 
 understand God by the intellect ; no 
 man can understand God by any 
 ratiocinative process. But he that is 
 filled with the afiflatus of love knows 
 and feels God, just as a man knows 
 when it is summer without looking in 
 the almanac. 
 
 1108. God's Children. — We are be- 
 ginners — babes ; but Thy heart is as 
 a mother's, and, whatever else in the 
 household may be forgotten, never 
 the child ! 
 
 1 109. Limitations of Comprehen- 
 sion. — One of the most significant 
 experiments that ever I saw was one 
 
 that was performed by Professor Tyn- 
 dall in New York, when he analyzed 
 by the spectrum a beam of light. He 
 showed distinctly all the different ele- 
 ments that existed in white light, 
 " and then," he said, " at this end of 
 the spectrum there is another quality, 
 but it is a quality for which we have no 
 sense. It is a fact, but you can neither 
 see it, nor smell it, nor taste it, nor feel 
 it, nor hear it. It is there, but we have 
 no sense to discern it." And he dem- 
 onstrated that it was there, by certain 
 chemical effects. It was produced, 
 and we saw it was an active power 
 existing at that point of the spectrum ; 
 
240 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 but we stood outside of it, simply be- 
 cause we were not given to under- 
 stand its physical quality. And how 
 many other things are there all around 
 about us that exist and are necessary 
 in the universe that we never know 
 anything about! So in the Divine 
 nature, how many principles, how 
 many points, how many emotions, 
 how many beauties there must be, 
 and we not discern them simply be- 
 cause we are so small and deficient 
 in organization ! 
 
 1 1 10. Search for Divine Wisdom. — 
 Tell men that a new lode has been 
 found in some gulch or cannon, tell 
 men that some Black Hills country is 
 open for the digging of more gold ; 
 and all the armies cannot keep the 
 emigrants from streaming thither from 
 every quarter through the plains. 
 Suffering from weariness and from 
 hunger, and in the face of a thousand 
 scalping dangers they will hunt for 
 that gold. Tell men that in the 
 mountains there are precious stones — 
 opals, rubies, sapphires and the like 
 — and how they will explore and ex- 
 plode the hills for them ! And though 
 but one in a thousand can gain them, 
 yet each one of the thousand will 
 think that he is to be the favored one. 
 
 Now, we are told in the Word of 
 God that this understanding of him is 
 more precious than rubies ; that silver 
 and gold are as nothing to it ; and 
 that we are to search for God, to seek 
 after him, as for hid treasures — as 
 men search for the dearest objects of 
 their desires. 
 
 mi. Power of God's Spirit. — Our 
 thoughts cannot find the way. Thou 
 art too vast. Thou art diffused in 
 such ways that we cannot by search- 
 ing find thee out. Thou must seek 
 us. Thou must fall upon the soul 
 with the daylight and the warmth of 
 thine own nature. Thou that art the 
 
 light of the world. Grant that we 
 may to-day respond to the in-shining 
 of the Spirit ; that we may feel our- 
 selves drawn up. Even as the sea 
 itself rises and dwells in the pure air 
 above by the shining of the sun, de- 
 scending again to enrich all the earth, 
 so may we be drawn up in thought 
 and in affection, and purified in the 
 ether of thy presence, to descend 
 again unto the work of life, and bear 
 the faith and the certainty of thy life 
 and thy nature to all about us. 
 
 1 1 12. Agnosticism. — It is of no 
 use to say that a man must be a fool 
 who does not believe in a God. I tell 
 you that the question is a profound 
 one. I have both sympathy and 
 respect for any honest man whose 
 mind labors on that question. When 
 men say that you cannot prove the 
 existence of God by science, I say, 
 "Amen," and only subjoin that it 
 never was pretended, either by 
 prophet, by seer, by apostle, by the 
 Saviour, or in the Word of God, any- 
 where, that it could be proved in that 
 way. God is spirit ; science deals 
 with matter. You cannot demon- 
 strate the existence of matter, or even 
 the fruit of organized matter in 
 human constructions. Who would 
 ever undertake to demonstrate the 
 quality of one of Raphael's pictures 
 by any scientific process, or in any 
 court except the court of a man's ap- 
 preciation ? The evidence of thought 
 is before the tribunal of thought. The 
 evidence of quality is in the presence 
 of the tribunal of quality. A man 
 standing before a magnificent scene, 
 and not seeing anything in it, is not a 
 judge of the man that stands before 
 the scene and is thrilled in every 
 faculty of his nature by it. 
 
 1 1 13. Ideals of God. — When men 
 worshiped leeks and onions, and 
 monkeys, and sticks, and atones, it 
 
GOD 
 
 241 
 
 was necessary to carry up the con- 
 ception of the Divine nature, away 
 from these lower images and repre- 
 sentations. All men must form their 
 ideal of God out of something that is 
 in themselves ; and the heathen 
 naturally form theirs out of their own 
 lower passions and bodily appetites 
 and desires. The Greeks formed theirs 
 largely from their esthetical feelings. 
 Our Christian method of forming an 
 ideal of God is to take our highest 
 and most purified affections, and our 
 noblest moral sentiments, and conceive 
 of the Divine nature through them. 
 
 1114. In the Image of God. — If 
 God is unknowable, then to all 
 practical intents he does not exist. 
 That view is practical Atheism. As 
 to loving a God that is incon- 
 ceivable, unthinkable, unknowable, 
 — it is preposterous. A morning- 
 glory wants something that is solid 
 to run up on. It wants to twine ; 
 but it will not twine on a shadow. 
 Human nature, too, must have 
 something substantial to twine on. 
 And if you proclaim an imma- 
 nent divinity, a kind of Soul-of-the 
 World, that has reason, though not 
 anything that we understand by rea- 
 son ; that has justice, though not any- 
 thing that we understand by justice ; 
 and that has goodness, though not 
 anything that we understand by good- 
 ness, you will surely throw men into 
 hopeless confusion ! It must be as- 
 sumed that men's essential moral 
 faculties and intellectual structure 
 constitute a just foundation for a com- 
 parison with the ideas which they 
 form of God. The difference is not 
 in quality, but in degree or extent. 
 No man would hold a candle out of 
 the window and say that it was sun- 
 rise ; nevertheless, the fire in the 
 candle and the fire in the sun are the 
 same in their essential nature, though 
 
 they are not the same in magnitude, 
 or in power of heat or illumination. 
 
 1 1 15. The Philosopher's God not 
 Adorable. — I cannot say my prayers 
 to the Omnipotent, Omniscient, 
 Omnipresent, any more than I could 
 to a proposition in Euclid. You 
 might as well tell me that three 
 angles make a triangle, "Now wor- 
 ship! " Tell me that God is the sun 
 of justice ; that he is the supreme 
 legislator ; that he is the omnipotent 
 dispenser of the universe, and it is 
 certainly something tome, philosophic- 
 ally, intellectually ; but human na- 
 ture is not generally philosophical, 
 and only a small proportion of men 
 are competent to philosophize. 
 
 1 1 1 6. A Personal God Fundamental. 
 — I can conceive of a clouded God ; I 
 can conceive of a universality of 
 wisdom and of power that has no 
 cohesion, or that is a kind of floating 
 atmosphere throughout the universe ; 
 I can conceive of a semi-physical 
 Essence, as it were ; I can conceive 
 of an all-pervading Influence : but I 
 cannot conceive of any person's 
 taking comfort in it. I can conceive 
 of a man's deriving pleasure, if he is 
 a poet, from looking at a rose-tinted 
 cloud on the horizon at evening ; but 
 I cannot conceive of a man's loving a 
 being that is no more to him than 
 such a cloud. A personal God is, I 
 think, the very foundation of piety. 
 
 1 1 17. Hunger and Thirst for God. 
 — I love knowledge ; I rejoice to 
 know how God packed the trunk of 
 this world, and what things he put 
 into it for its journey through time ; I 
 love to study the heavens that declare 
 the glory of God, and the earth that 
 shows his handiwork, everywhere and 
 always ; but an acquaintance with 
 these things is not enough. I admire 
 the majesty of the cathedral and the 
 sanctity of the church, and the holi- 
 
242 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 ncss of the altar, and the prayers and 
 praises of the worshiping assembly ; 
 but these are not enough. My soul 
 hungers and thirsts for God. 
 
 1 1 18. Emptiness of Pantheism. — I 
 believe in God, and never for a mo- 
 ment have faltered in believing in a 
 personal God, as distinguished from a 
 Pantheistic God, whether it is the 
 coarser Pantheism of materialism, be- 
 lieving that the material universe is 
 God, or the more subtle view of Mat- 
 thew Arnold, who holds that God is 
 nothing but a tendency in the uni- 
 verse — a something that is not me 
 that tends towards righteousness. 
 Well, I would rather chew thistle- 
 down all summer long than to work 
 with any such idea as that. 
 
 1 1 19. Distorted View^s of God. — 
 Have you ever seen the concave mir- 
 rors which are put up in curiosity 
 shops? A man thinks himself small 
 and handsome, till he stands before 
 one of those mirrors, when he sees 
 his face and body and legs very much 
 perverted as to length and breadth ; 
 but the fault is not in him : it is in the 
 glass. And look at the grotesque 
 conceptions which are thrown out be- 
 fore the community as representing 
 God. They are hideous caricatures, 
 springing from men's lowest animalism 
 and most depraved qualities. 
 
 1 120. Human Judgments of God. — 
 Suppose an ant looks upon a moun- 
 tain, if he ever does, and learns, if he 
 ever can learn, that it required two 
 thousand years to build that moun- 
 tain? " Two thousand years ! Well, 
 why didn't he build it as quickly as I 
 build my hill ? I can build it in a 
 night. What is the meaning of this 
 long delay in building a mountain? 
 Tell me there is a God ! If there 
 is he ought to do just as the ant 
 does." That is like men, judging 
 of the Divine processes in life by 
 
 a too close analogy with their own 
 way. 
 
 1 1 21. Conceptions of God. — In the 
 Grecian age, at the time when theol- 
 ogy was in the hand of the Greek, it 
 worked towards an intellectual philos- 
 ophy. In the Roman age theology 
 worked towards the forming of insti- 
 tutions and laws ; external, earthy. 
 In the Mediaeval period it worked to- 
 wards superstition, in carrying out the 
 behests of the Romish government 
 and theology. In our day the world 
 is democratized. Kings are sub- 
 verted, peoples are lifted up. Privi- 
 leges are taken away from the few, 
 and things are given to the many. 
 The questions of this age are questions 
 of sympathy, of humanity, of equity, 
 of the rights of men. The whole 
 world is fermenting and carrying on 
 and up the great questions of human 
 life, of human duty, of the masses and 
 of mankind at large. 
 
 Now it is impossible that these con- 
 ceptions, the fruit of many ages, but 
 which have had a particular develop- 
 ment and expansion in our time, should 
 not act upon the imagination and the 
 thought of Christian men as respects 
 the nature of God. They have been 
 so acting. They have been taking 
 the frown from the brow of Jehovah, 
 they have been kindling the light of 
 love in the eyes of God, they have 
 been taking away the hard, stern lips 
 of vengeance and putting the lips of 
 tenderness in their place. They are 
 changing the popular conception of 
 God, bringing it back to the Christian 
 and the primitive idea, — the vision of 
 Moses, the ideal presented by Jesus — 
 that God's nature is primarily good- 
 ness, and alternatively only is it terri- 
 ble and full of fear. 
 
 1 122. Divine Democracy. — God is 
 the greatest democrat in the universe. 
 He does not regard ranks, nor condi- 
 
GOD 
 
 243 
 
 tions, nor degrees ; and he says that 
 the highest rich man is just like the 
 lowest poor man, and that a king is 
 no better than the humblest of his 
 subjects. As you go towards heaven, 
 you approach true divine democracy. 
 
 1 1 23 . Varying Conceptions of Deity. 
 — One stands in Milan Cathedral, 
 under the nave, and looks up into 
 those mysterious depths, until it seems 
 as though he would exhale and fly 
 into space. There, in the brooding 
 darkness, the feeling of reverence 
 weighs upon his very soul. And the 
 Milan Cathedral to him is that which 
 it seems to be when the low-lying sun 
 has shot through the window and 
 kindled the whole interior. 
 
 At the very same moment there 
 stands upon the roof another man, and 
 about him are those three thousand 
 statues, carved and standing in their 
 several niches and pinnacles ; every- 
 thing looks like the bristhng frost- 
 work in a forest of icicles ; and far 
 above and far on every side swell the 
 lines of beauty. How different is his 
 conception from that of the man who 
 stands in the nave below ! 
 
 But, at the same time, a man stands 
 outside looking at the cathedral's 
 fretted front and its wondrous beauty 
 and diversity, while a fellow-compan- 
 ion and traveler is on one side look- 
 ing also at the exterior. 
 
 Here are four men — one before the 
 structure, one beside it, one on the 
 roof, and one in the interior ; and 
 each of them, as he gives his account 
 of the Milan Cathedral, speaks of that 
 which made the strongest impression 
 upon his mind. But it takes the con- 
 current report of these four men to 
 represent that vast work of architecture. 
 
 Is it so with a man-built cathedral, 
 and shall it not be so with the mighty 
 God who is from eternity to eternity ? 
 Is there any man who " by searching 
 
 can find out God? Canst thou find 
 out the Almighty unto perfection?" 
 Each man has that conception of God 
 which he is capable of receiving ; this 
 is added to the common stock. And 
 it is these concurrent differences, 
 these harmonious separations, that 
 make the symphony of knowledge. 
 We do not want unison ; we want 
 harmony. 
 
 1 1 24. Seeing God. — "Blessed are 
 the pure in heart ; they shall see God." 
 We fix the telescope and look through 
 it with a glass that shows the great- 
 ness of riches and of power which 
 men have ambition for. Then we lift 
 it to the orb eternal and there is noth- 
 ing but a blur. We try then the glass 
 of intellect with the majesty of ideas 
 and the interpreting power of philoso- 
 phy ; but there is no God beyond, that 
 it interprets to us. We take the 
 purity of heart, the tenderness of love, 
 the sweetness of the divine element in 
 man ; through that we look towards 
 God, and instantly there springs up 
 before us a conception, heaven-filling, 
 of the glorious orb, transcendent be- 
 yond our calculations, with majesty of 
 beauty and strangely mingling colors. 
 We begin to say : "O, my God, I 
 have heard of thee with the hearing 
 of the ear, but now mine eyes see 
 thee ; I humble myself in the dust! " 
 No man can form any true conception 
 of God, unless he is Godlike. 
 
 1 125. The Development-Idea. — The 
 new view which the evolutionary doc- 
 trine compels must be the entire and 
 thorough upsetting of the old views of 
 original sin, man's natural sinfulness, 
 and so on — which arose from a literal 
 interpretation of Pauhne figures. The 
 fa?miy is the unitary idea of human- 
 ity, not a subject-race under a mon- 
 arch. And the moment you change 
 the fundamental idea of man's char- 
 acter — from fall to growth, and God's 
 
244 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 chaniclcr — from force to love, you 
 change the entire direction of the mo- 
 tive and the result of human life. 
 The growth of the human soul upward 
 is the direct effect of the influence of 
 God upon it, like sunlight on a plant. 
 
 1 126. The Clay and the Potter. — 
 The clay is stupid, and does not know 
 enough to ask the potter how he is 
 forming it, and why he is forming it 
 thus ; but if it were intelligent enough 
 it would have a right to do this. The 
 commentators, however, miss this 
 point. They seem to think that the 
 potter has a right over the clay, and 
 that that is the whole of it ; but the 
 fact is, the clay has no attributes of 
 intelligence, so there is nothing in it to 
 question the potter ; while if it knew 
 anything it might ask the potter many 
 questions. 
 
 1 1 27. Origin of Evil. — Men wonder 
 at the origin of evil. It originated 
 with God. You might as well look at 
 a steam engine, and say, " What 
 could have been the origin of this vast 
 machine?" Why, the engineer's 
 brain was. If God had meant men 
 to be varnished and polished, like the 
 vase for the shelf, he would have 
 made them so. But he made them in 
 germs and seed-forms, and said to 
 them, "Grow ! " And growing means 
 labor-pain ; you cannot get rid of it. 
 It is a part of the condition of organ- 
 ized creation, that the work of going 
 from a lower to a higher state is like a 
 new-birth, with cries and pains both 
 ways, to those that help, and those 
 that are born. 
 
 1128. Larger Evidence of Design. — 
 You are all familiar with the famous 
 illustration of Dr. Paley, where a man 
 finds a watch, and infers irresistibly 
 that that watch was made by some 
 skillful, thoughtful watchmaker. If 
 it be an argument of design that a 
 man could make one watch, is it not a 
 
 sublimer argument of design that there 
 is a man existing who could create a 
 manufactory turning out millions of 
 watches, and by machinery too, so 
 that the human hand has little to do 
 but to adjust the parts already created 
 by machines ? If it be evidence of 
 design in creation that God adapted 
 one single flower to its place and func- 
 tions, is it not greater evidence if there 
 is a system of such adaptations going 
 on from eternity to eternity ? 
 
 1 1 29. The Immanent God. — How 
 God infuses himself into mind or mat- 
 ter no one knows. It is somewhat a 
 parallel, although by a small measure 
 
 •of comparison, with that which every 
 man is conscious of in his own ex- 
 perience. . . . Can anybody tell 
 what the connection is between the 
 mind-operation and the brain, or any 
 of the organs of the whole human 
 body ? We know that we have a 
 physical body subject to great phys- 
 ical laws ; and we know that, pervad- 
 ing it somehow, somewhere, there is 
 also something that is not matter, and 
 that is the most effectual and charac- 
 teristic element in us. That which we 
 recognize in ourselves has only to be 
 enlarged to become an analogy of 
 that which is grander ; and to give us 
 some vague idea of the connection 
 that subsists between the developed 
 universe and the ever-presence of the 
 divine Intelligence and Will. 
 
 1 130. Infinity, Incomprehensible. — 
 When Columbus drew near to the 
 eastern coast of this western continent 
 he could see that there were moun- 
 tains, but do you beheve he knew 
 what minerals were in them ? Do you 
 suppose he knew all the trees, all the 
 shrubs, all the vines, all the herbs 
 there? He knew something about the 
 outlying islands of this great continent, ' 
 but he did not understand the details 
 that went to make it up. I can un- 
 
GOD 
 
 245 
 
 derstand that there should be such a 
 being as God, but when it is said that 
 he is infinite, I am so finite that I 
 break right down there. I cannot un- 
 derstand infiniteness. 
 
 1 13 1. Beneficence of God. — Nature 
 says, "Take care of yourself." Grace 
 says, " Take care of yourself that you 
 may take care of others." Nature 
 says, " Eat because you love food ; 
 clothe yourself because you like cloth- 
 ing ; make yourself comfortable be- 
 cause it is so much pleasanter to be 
 comfortable than not to be." What 
 does motherhood say? "No matter 
 about me : take care of my babe. I 
 will eat though I loathe food, because 
 my babe must have nourishment. 
 All that I am at present I am for the 
 sake of this httle helpless thing." It 
 is the total turning of life into a be- 
 neficence. Give to this conception 
 infinity, give to it unlimited knowledge 
 and power, give to it all divine attri- 
 butes, and call it God, and you have 
 the nearest conception that you can 
 have of that great Spirit of excellence 
 and might, conferring life and happi- 
 ness upon all things beneath him. 
 
 1 132. Partial Views. — If I am lost 
 in a forest, and have waited all night 
 long to learn the points of the com- 
 pass, I do not stop when morning 
 comes to get a full view of the sun. 
 As soon as I see a growing brightness 
 in the east, I say to myself, " Now I 
 know my direction ; for that is east, 
 and that is west, and that is north, 
 and that is south." There are thou- 
 sands of intimations that we get, 
 which, although we cannot fully un- 
 derstand them, are plainly designed 
 of God to point out our way in this 
 world ; and that is enough. 
 
 1 1 33. God's Government. — God is 
 not a mild, moonshiny, indifferent 
 lover of men, who sails idly through 
 time and through eternity because he 
 
 is so careless about right and wrong 
 that it does not make much difference 
 whether folks do right or wrong. Not 
 that ! If there is anything that is 
 clearly declared in the Bible, it is the 
 intensity of God's feeling on the sub- 
 ject of rectitude. Right and wrong 
 are the two pillars of the whole moral 
 government of God. 
 
 1 1 34. A Lovable God. — I should 
 like to behold icebergs, but I should 
 not like to sleep under them or near 
 them. I should like to look at them 
 as marvels of beauty, but it is not 
 where they are that I should choose to 
 have my home. And there may be 
 lifted up a conception of God so mass- 
 ive, so grand, and so remote from 
 human sympathy, that, though we may 
 admire it, we cannot love it. What 
 we need is a God that, while we admire, 
 we shall love, with all the mind, and 
 heart, and soul, and strength. 
 
 1135. The Comforting God. — How, 
 when the child in the night screams 
 with terror, hearing sounds that he 
 knows not of, is that child comforted 
 and put to rest ? Is it by a philosoph- 
 ical explanation that the sounds were 
 made by the rats in the partition? 
 No ; it is by the mother taking the 
 child in her lap, and singing sweetly 
 to it, and rocking it. And the child 
 thinks nothing of the explanation, but 
 only of the mother. 
 
 Now, it pleases God to take in his 
 arms and bosom those that love him 
 and put their trust in him. 
 
 1 136. A Personal Right to God. — 
 Do you wander abroad in foreign 
 lands? Are you solitary among 
 crowds? Are you weary of seeing 
 endless faces that have no history for 
 you and touch no string in your na- 
 ture, and do you at last come upon a 
 countryman speaking your language, 
 your sweet mother tongue, whom you 
 distinguish by ear before you can see 
 
246 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 him, and do you cry out, " Our coun- 
 tryman ! our countryman"? How 
 much is there in that our, which ap- 
 propriates ! How much pride and 
 alTection is blended with the appro- 
 priation when we say, " Our circle, 
 our family, our companion, otir 
 friends, our c\v\A ! " How many cir- 
 cuits of love does this word take ! 
 And how vast is the meaning when 
 the soul, looking upon God, clasps 
 him with this embrace, and is able to 
 say, "My Father"; or when men 
 standing as a congregation of Chris- 
 tians are able to say " Our Father ! " 
 
 1 1 3 7 . Growth in Knowledge of God. 
 — Suppose my little ten-year-old 
 daughter, sitting in thoughtfulness, 
 should look up ingenuously, and say, 
 " Mamma, won't you tell me how you 
 felt when you were in love with papa ? " 
 The mother would smile benevolently, 
 but if she spoke the truth she would 
 say, " My dear child, wait a few years 
 and you won't need an explanation of 
 that : you will know it when you come 
 to it, and you never can know it until 
 you do," That child knows some- 
 thing about mother — enough to make 
 herself happy ; something about father 
 — enough to make her think him the 
 greatest man in the world. But, after 
 all, does not all that is largest and 
 best in them lie outside of the child's 
 recognition, and does it not wait for 
 the child's development — for the 
 child's reproduction in itself of some- 
 thing which shall be equivalent to it, 
 or a type or image of it ? 
 
 1138. Realization of God. — Our 
 friends when far from us are all 
 ghosts ; not miserable midnight ap- 
 paritions, but invisible spirits made up 
 of that in them which is most subtle, 
 and by us cherished, because least 
 allied to fleshly qualities ; and there 
 can be no more question that the vi- 
 sion of our God can become tangible, 
 
 not to our hands, but to our thought, 
 than that we can carry our friends in 
 spirit-embrace. 
 
 1139. God's Nature not Self- 
 Centered. — While I never could bow 
 down before a crystalline God seated 
 on a marble throne, white and cold as 
 the marble itself, that suns himself 
 and bids the revolving stars sweep on, 
 every one of their censers casting out 
 incense for his supreme and royal 
 delectation ; when I look up and be- 
 hold the throne blazing with that 
 whose sparks made mother-love in the 
 world, and when I behold sitting 
 upon that throne, One who cares and 
 loves and longs, and through infinite 
 ages with infinite patience, waits for 
 the unfolding of the low, bringing 
 them up in sections and ages higher 
 and higher until the world shall blos- 
 som and the consummation of the 
 millennial day be at hand, I cannot 
 withhold adoration, and I join with 
 those that cry out "Thou art worthy 
 to reign." Love, always ; love, uni- 
 versal ; to that I can and I do bow my 
 understanding, my heart and my con- 
 science. 
 
 1 1 40. God's Love for His Children. 
 — It is said that some birds pluck 
 feathers from their breasts to make 
 nests for their young. Some fathers 
 and mothers, as it were, pluck feathers 
 from inside their breasts to soften the 
 beds of their children. They bring 
 them up, httle by little, from childhood 
 to manhood and womanhood, making 
 sacrifices for them all the while. Now, 
 when we are taught to say, " Our 
 Father," to God, do we mean any 
 less than when we speak of an earthly 
 father? Shall a father on earth be 
 described as venerable and lovely, 
 and shall the Father in heaven be 
 depicted as a Nero? Shall mother- 
 hood on earth be employed to repre- 
 sent all that is beatific and gentle and 
 
GOD 
 
 247 
 
 beautiful, and shall we adopt a the- 
 ology that points to the nourishing 
 God as one that is harsh, cruel, and 
 repugnant, turning the universe like a 
 vast mill-wheel that, as it revolves, 
 crushes all that comes in its way ? 
 
 1 141. The Living God: Person- 
 ality. — A living being, God is revealed 
 to human consciousness not by intel- 
 lectual steps, pure and simple, though 
 these are on the way to help, but by 
 the perception of quahties in him in 
 living forms. That is to say, if you 
 analyze a man so that his qualities are 
 separated from each other, and you 
 present him not by synthesis as he is 
 in the actual state of life, but as he is 
 analyzed into certain elements, you 
 have before your mmd a conception, 
 comparatively speaking, void of all 
 moral power. It is the living soul 
 that takes hold upon living souls, and 
 not an intellectual analysis or account 
 of it. I do not object to any man's 
 analyzing fruit. I should object, how- 
 ever, to having all the results put in 
 separate saucers, and to eating the 
 lignin, the sugar, the fibrin, the gela- 
 tine and everything else, and then 
 wiping my mouth, and saying that I 
 had eaten a peach. It is the peach as 
 it is organized in life that is sweet and 
 fragrant. 
 
 1 142. Man's Access to God. — We 
 thank Thee, our Father, that there is a 
 way of our thought ; that we climb no 
 ladder let down from the sky ; that 
 we go up no ascending, wearying step 
 to the light of thy glory. We thank 
 Thee that the way is so easy that a 
 child may move therein. We do not 
 run nor strive with mighty endeavor 
 to find Thee. We are floated into thy 
 presence. We are lifted up as on 
 angels' wings. We say, Our Father, 
 and behold the whole heaven is 
 opened before us, and all the be- 
 nignity, wisdom and power of God, 
 
 and the great love of God shine out 
 of that word ; and we are drawn up 
 into thy presence or ever we are 
 aware that we are surrounded with 
 God, in whom we live and move and 
 have our being ; and so we change 
 worlds at our own wish and will. 
 
 1143. A God of Law. — It would be 
 an abomination for parents to care 
 more for the regimen of the household 
 than for the welfare of the children, 
 and if anything were to be sacrificed, 
 sacrifice the children. But men have 
 said God could not do this, he had to 
 take care of his Law; God could not 
 do that, for he had to maintain the 
 system of Law. God to them was a 
 Being quibbling about laws, like a 
 captious judge in his constructions of 
 superficial laws on a superficial bench. 
 That reigns ; that reigns yet : and it 
 is the reign of folly. 
 
 1 1 44. Governmental View of God. 
 — I hold that you are, by representing 
 God as a governor instead of a father, 
 embarrassing and not helping men in 
 their endeavors to become Christians. 
 It is said that these views make 
 stronger Christians. Yes, very much 
 as among Indians children are made 
 strong by killing the weak ones, and 
 leaving only those that are so tough 
 that nothing can kill them ! If it is 
 right to destroy twenty men to get one 
 strong Christian, then these methods 
 are right ; but if I understand the 
 spirit of the Gospel, it was sent to the 
 weak. 
 
 1 1 45. Divine Benevolence. — God 
 does not confer gifts upon men be- 
 cause they deserve them, or have 
 earned them. He confers them be- 
 cause the fullness of his own nature 
 needs expression. Can we understand 
 this? Yes. We see it in Hfe. 
 
 There is in some natures such a 
 large organized tendency to music 
 that they develop music, not because 
 
248 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 some one asks them to, not because 
 if they do it may give them fame or 
 reputation ; but because it is there, 
 and demands expression. It does not 
 need outward sohcitation. They think 
 music ; they sing. There are others 
 through whose whole lives there is a 
 tinge of poetic color in almost every 
 thought ; and at times there will be 
 hours of rapture. They cannot help 
 it. They see visions, and they dream 
 dreams ; and their thoughts flow mu- 
 sically, and almost in numbers. 
 
 This is what we call inspiration, or 
 genius. It is a certain fullness of na- 
 ture that leads action to be from within 
 outward. It is the highest conception 
 among men. And it points to the 
 same conception of the Divine nature. 
 
 1 146. Love's Power. — Whatever is 
 needful comes to love. It is not a 
 mere vapid state of good nature and 
 indifference, or of good will springing 
 from indifference. Love is girded 
 about with all strength, and carries 
 in its hand both the sword and the 
 wreath ; it is able to slay that it may 
 make alive, and to give pain to men 
 that it may raise them to higher joy. 
 
 1 147, Thoughts of God. — We un- 
 derstand of God only so much as we 
 have the germs of in ourselves, I 
 have in my hand a sprinkling of the 
 ocean, that is enough to tell me what 
 water is ; but one drop won't tell me 
 how much water there is on the whole 
 globe. Human experiences will give 
 some insight into what love means, 
 and justice, and patience means, and 
 long-suffering ; but how can they in- 
 terpret the God of all the ages, that 
 has been unfolding the human family 
 through all its stages of savage life, 
 barbaric life, semi-civilized hfe, and 
 every conceivable combination of hu- 
 man experience ? Who among us is 
 big enough to take in the infinitude of 
 the Eternal ? 
 
 1 148. Cosmic Center of Peace. — It 
 is said that in the very center of those 
 great cyclones at sea, there is a circle 
 of peace ; a ruinous sweep, outside, 
 and in the center, peace. In this 
 stormy world there is a great center 
 of peace, and there sits God. 
 
 1 149. God's Outflaming Life. — It 
 cannot be tolerated that God should 
 make that a sovereign virtue in him- 
 self which is denounced as the essence 
 of sin in his creatures. The worship 
 of one's self is not made amiable be- 
 cause one is a king. A benevolent 
 being is centrifugal and not centrip- 
 etal. God lives for his universe and 
 not for himself. His thought and 
 purposes go forth and travel outward 
 evermore. 
 
 1 150. Christ's Representation of 
 Jehovah. — No carved stone, no ivory 
 and gold, have ever sought to express 
 the majesty of Jehovah. These things 
 were good enough for Jupiter ; they 
 were unfit for Jehovah. From the 
 beginning, the Hebrew mind could 
 find nothing on earth — not even in the 
 framework of the globe itself — to rep- 
 resent their conception of Jehovah. 
 The morning light was but the golden 
 fringe of his garments. His slightest 
 look they called lightning. His lowest 
 tones were sonorous bolts of resound- 
 ing storms. And when the mightiest 
 rendings of nature were ended, there 
 came forth a prompting voice, saying, 
 " These are parts of his ways, but the 
 thunder of his power who can under- 
 stand ? " 
 
 God is a spirit. Mortal eye cannot 
 behold him. Were God to appear 
 corporeally, it could not be God, but 
 only a representative form. He is to 
 be known spiritually ; that is, by 
 thought and by feeling — not by eye- 
 sight, but by insight of heart. In this 
 manner Christ drew back the veil 
 from Jehovah, and disclosed this God 
 
GOD 
 
 249 
 
 of love ! He revealed love as the se- 
 cret of God's wisdom, the end of his 
 thought, the genius of his disposition. 
 
 1 151. God in Christ. — This attempt- 
 ing to theologize on God and his mani- 
 festation in Jesus is but the meagerest 
 and poorest way of getting at him. 
 The theory — any theory — of that prob- 
 lem never made a man a Christian 
 yet ; but the simple statement that 
 God so loved the world that he sent 
 his own Son to die for it — that is in- 
 telligible to the heart of man and ap- 
 peals to his sympathy. It is at once a 
 force, a motive. The attempt to com- 
 mute a moral impulse into an intel- 
 lectual idea is about like changing 
 grapes into wine. The wine is un- 
 doubtedly good for some purposes, 
 but it isn't grapes, — the form is 
 changed, and it becomes an entirely 
 different thing. 
 
 1152. The Grace of God. — What is 
 grace ? The benignity of parental 
 love. That is the ground on which 
 God saves men. There never was 
 anything done on the face of the 
 earth that gave a man the right to 
 say, " I claim salvation." The true 
 attitude of the soul towards God is ex- 
 pressed by him who says, " I trust in 
 Thee." And the heart of God is such 
 that sooner would the mother hold 
 back her bosom from her suckling 
 than he would withdraw his love from 
 the most imperfect of his creatures. 
 When we go to heaven we shall go 
 through the door of what God is, and 
 not through the door of what we are. 
 
 1 153. God to be Spiritually Appre- 
 hended. — Stop the ears and play a 
 beautiful tune before the eyes. A 
 man says, "There is a tune going 
 through the air all the time ; I wish I 
 could see it." But can a man see a 
 sound ? Can the eye accept evidence 
 that is addressed to the ear ? Or vice 
 versa; apply to the ear a picture. 
 
 Can a man take in at the ear that 
 which addresses itself to the eye ? 
 
 Now, God is not amenable to the 
 evidence that lies in the eye that sees, 
 or the ear that hears, or the hand that 
 touches. Nothing spiritual can be ap- 
 prehended by any laws which come 
 down to the horizon of finiteness and 
 the flesh. 
 
 1 154. God Conceived through 
 Man's Best Qualities. — A man who is 
 absolutely without a musical instinct 
 can form no conception of a musician. 
 A man who is absolutely without cour- 
 age can form no conception of a hero. 
 A man who is absolutely without 
 avarice cannot tell how a miser feels. 
 A man who is without any sense of 
 honor or truth cannot conceive how 
 an honorable man feels. You judge 
 of the nature of God from the best 
 things that are in you. The fault of 
 heathenism is, that men, not being de- 
 veloped spiritually, build God out of 
 their fleshly nature, and so build idols. 
 If men, a little more developed, have 
 no higher elements within them from 
 which to build, they can build only 
 from their lower passions ; and so they 
 have fiendish, warlike gods. And as 
 men grow more and more noble, and 
 become developed in their higher 
 spiritual nature, they build with right 
 materials, and begin to touch right 
 conceptions of God. 
 
 1 1 55. Divine Conceptions from 
 Earthly Experiences. — As when the 
 sun would make pictures in the heav- 
 ens, it draws moisture from every 
 brook, and every river, and every 
 lake, and from the sea itself, to form 
 clouds, and then, striking its rays 
 through them, paints the morning and 
 evening glory, so man, when he would 
 make heavenly pictures, gathers the 
 primal elements, the first experiences, 
 the throbbings through which the Di- 
 vine mind shines with varied color. 
 
ISO 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 Earthly knowledges are the founda- 
 tions on which men build their notions 
 of heavenly things. If brought up 
 without intercourse with society, you 
 are by the same conditions cut off from 
 the possibility of fashioning a God, 
 personal, near, real, and a present 
 help in time of trouble. 
 
 1 156. Morality — Human and Di- 
 vine. — If it be taught that God sits in 
 heaven, and is the joyful recipient of 
 infinite flatteries on every side (though 
 it is very wicked for us to be flattered), 
 what are you going to do with the his- 
 tory of Nebuchadnezzar, who one 
 morning looked out on Babylon, and 
 said, " Is not this great Babylon that 
 I have builded for the house of my 
 kingdom, by the might of my power, 
 and for the honor of my majesty .'' " 
 and who, because he towered up in 
 that arrogant self-consciousness, was 
 smitten down and sent to grass ? 
 Shall we be taught that, after hurling 
 his bolt of judgment upon that proud 
 Oriental monarch for his arrogance, 
 God may stand and look over the 
 battlements of heaven, and say, " Is 
 not this great Jerusalem that I have 
 builded for my honor and power, and 
 for the glory of my name," and that 
 this is perfectly right in the New Jeru- 
 salem, though it was detestable in the 
 old, or in the neighboring cities of it? 
 There must be congruity of represen- 
 tations, or the mind can never say, 
 " Thy will be done." 
 
 1 157. Atoning Love. — What is the 
 atonement? That Christ gave God 
 the right to be compassionate ? That 
 he came down to this world, and 
 made a bargain, and agreed that he 
 would suffer so much if God after- 
 wards would exercise compassion and 
 leniency towards men ? Away with 
 your shop logic ! Away with your 
 commercial theories ! Go down 
 among the moles and bats, and grope 
 
 with such detestable notions of truth 
 as that by agreement Christ came 
 among men to suffer and give God a 
 chance to be gracious ! Over all 
 these heresies of hell I lift up the glo- 
 rious words, " God so /oved the world 
 that Ae gave his Son." Love before 
 Christ came was the bow which sent 
 that silver arrow into the world. 
 
 1 158. Joy Over the Lost One, 
 Found. — An old pioneer once at- 
 tempted to tell me of a circumstance 
 which took place in Indiana during 
 its early settlement. There lived on 
 the verge of civilization a poor family 
 that had two children. One was too 
 small to get out of the house, and the 
 other, four or five years old, wandered 
 away and got into the woods. The 
 alarm was given, and the few settlers 
 in that region were summoned. The 
 search was continued till evening ; 
 and they were out with torches all 
 night, and pretty much all the next 
 day, and into the night following ; 
 and I think it was on the morning of 
 the third day that this man came 
 across the httle fellow, in a kind of 
 thicket, very much exhausted. And 
 he described to me the triumph with 
 which he seized that little child, and 
 took a bee-line for home. He said 
 some of the neighbors who had got 
 home saw him coming, and shouted : 
 and that the mother heard the cry. 
 And I never knew what happened 
 then ; for the old fellow could not tell 
 it. He stammered, and choked, and 
 tried to tell how the mother received 
 him when he brought back the lost 
 child ; but he broke down in the at- 
 tempt. I have thought of it a thou- 
 sand times since. 
 
 Now, if when you bring back to a 
 mother or father a lost child that they 
 love so poorly and imperfectly, and 
 the expressions of delight and grati- 
 tude which you receive are such as to 
 
GOD 
 
 251 
 
 overpower you, what will it be when 
 you take one of God's lost children 
 that you have pursued in the wilder- 
 ness, and, after much labor and fa- 
 tigue, have at last found, and carry it 
 and present it to him ? 
 
 1 159. Seeing God as He is. — If 
 sleeping, some night, the archaeologist 
 or photographer, who had been labor- 
 ing among the ruins of the Acropolis, 
 and who had become deeply interested 
 in his work, should see rising above 
 him in the light of the moon the Par- 
 thenon, perfect, as it was in the palmy 
 days of Athens, without a flaw, every 
 line true, every part symmetrical, 
 beautiful beyond description, that 
 would be glorious in a small way ; 
 but oh ! how poor a simile that is of 
 the transformation which awaits our 
 vision when we shall go hence ! Here 
 we have been picking up fragmentary 
 ideas of God, distorted, ill-mated, ex- 
 aggerated in one way, and shrunk un- 
 duly in another ; and we have hardly 
 been able to put them together, such 
 is the low state of human society and 
 human character in this world ; but 
 what will our conception of him be 
 when we shall see him as he is ! 
 
 1 1 60. Problems of Providence. — 
 When the child asks strange and curi- 
 ous questions of the parent, the parent 
 turns in his mind how he can answer, 
 and says, " You cannot understand 
 it, my child ; by and by when you 
 grow up I will tell you, and then you 
 can understand it all." Nor is it ar- 
 rogant in the parent. He cannot 
 make the matter plain to the child, 
 but he remembers he was a child, and 
 he can understand and judge the child 
 while the child cannot judge him. 
 
 1 1 61. The Heavenly Father. — I 
 sometimes think of man as of a child 
 sitting in a boat. The child does not 
 know the coast, and it very little un- 
 derstands how to row. If the child 
 
 were to be left to itself, pulling upon 
 the oars, its right hand being a little 
 stronger than the other, it would be 
 all the time veering the boat to the 
 right, and the boat would be con- 
 stantly turning round and round. 
 The child would perhaps make its 
 way out of the harbor and into the 
 ocean, and it would be carried away 
 and lost, if there were no guiding 
 power in the boat except its own. 
 But there in the stern sits the father. 
 The uneven strokes of the child would 
 carry the boat this way or that way 
 out of its course ; but the steady hand 
 of the father overcomes those uneven 
 strokes ; and all the mistakes with the 
 oars are rectified by the rudder, and 
 the boat keeps the right course. So 
 that the force exerted by the child, 
 though misdirected, all works for good 
 when the father guides. 
 
 Now, we have an overseeing, super- 
 vising Father, a divine Spirit ; and, 
 in the struggle of life, if we pull 
 wrong, or pull disproportionately, do- 
 ing what we do by mistake, there is 
 this directing Spirit that guides, in- 
 spires, overrules results, and brings to 
 pass glorious ends by means of igno- 
 minious instruments. 
 
 1 162. Superficial Judgments. — 
 There are men without any belief in 
 the overruling providence of God. 
 They judge of things simply by the 
 surface. They are men who, if they 
 had just come to America, and found 
 a chestnut-tree, and seen the burrs, 
 could not be convinced that chestnuts 
 were good for anything, and would 
 say, " Who would eat such prickly 
 things as those ? ' ' But when the frost 
 touches the burr, it opens a case with 
 a satin hning as fine as that of any 
 lady's dressing-case, and discloses a 
 little nut that has been swelling and 
 ripening for many a day ; and I never 
 saw a man that would not eat the 
 
252 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 chestnut when it was out of the 
 burr. 
 
 1 1 63. Providence in Nature. — When 
 I went to Lowell once, I thought it a 
 shame that the looms which I saw 
 there were not allowed to vote ! I 
 think they would vote more wisely 
 than many men do ! They seemed to 
 have intelligence and skill and voli- 
 tion. They seemed to have memory 
 and foresight. Man has put into them 
 those qualities of his own to a certain 
 extent. Now, do not you believe that 
 there is a providence in the loom by 
 which threads of all colors will find 
 their place in the fabric ? Is there any 
 chance in it? All the wheels are of 
 iron, and the threads as they go in 
 amongst them are in apparent con- 
 fusion ; and yet every one of them 
 finds its place. And God says to men, 
 " Be patient ; all things will work to- 
 gether for good to them that love me." 
 You may be threads of different sizes 
 and kinds and colors ; but there is a 
 machinery, as it were, like a power 
 loom, in the hands of God, by which 
 everything shall be brought right. 
 
 1 164. God, Central in Human Af- 
 fairs. — Astronomers have taught us 
 that the satellites circle about their 
 planets, and they around their sun. 
 It was for a long time thought that 
 our sun stood still ; but no, it is found 
 that it has also a motion ; that it has 
 some remote and undiscovered cen- 
 ter ; and that while surrounded by sat- 
 ellites it is itself a satellite ; and there 
 are evidences also that the whole stel- 
 lar system, so far as it is disclosed, has 
 a certain drift, and that there is, at 
 some immeasurable, inconceivable 
 distance, a glorious center which all 
 this vast creation is serving. Look 
 into the heavens, and think of it, and 
 be bewildered ! 
 
 So, too, in the infinite complexity 
 of human affairs, in all the experiences 
 
 of generations and ages, there is a 
 divine overruling providence repress- 
 ing evil and causing it to praise God, 
 and promoting good. 
 
 1 1 65. Uncompleted Providences. — 
 The cactus has an ungainly leaf, fat 
 and thick, and full of thorns, so that 
 when men see it growing, they say, 
 " It is a clumsy and hateful thing, 
 ugly to look upon, and it pierces you 
 whenever you touch it." Wait! When 
 at last that plant, which grows in arid 
 places, where hardly any weed will 
 grow, with thick and succulent leaves, 
 and a tough skin, and which stands 
 almost without root through the whole 
 year, — when at last it has come to the 
 point where it is developed, is there in 
 the whole kingdom of beauty a blos- 
 som that is for exquisiteness of form 
 and tint equal to the cactus blossom ? 
 It is the very perfection of beauty 
 growing out of the very emblem of 
 homeliness. And as it is with the vege- 
 table kingdom, so it is with many de- 
 velopments of the divine kingdom, 
 God's providence may look like a 
 cactus leaf. But wait till it blossoms, 
 and see how glorious is its beauty. 
 
 1 1 66. Providence and Natural Law. 
 — If God is comparable to the average 
 of ordinary men and women, he can 
 meddle with natural laws ; and he 
 does, for your benefit and for mine. 
 And it does not destroy the economy 
 of the globe, that he does do it. Do 
 you suppose, when wool is put on the 
 wheel of the old house-wife (some of 
 you may remember the days when 
 such a thing was known), and she 
 spins it out in long threads, that it is a 
 violation of natural law, because the 
 wool was made to grow on a sheep's 
 back ? And is it a violation of nat- 
 ural law that the shuttle carries the 
 thread backward and forward to make 
 cloth for you ? No. All through the 
 world natural laws take on human 
 
GOD 
 
 253 
 
 thought and human feehng. They 
 serve those that know how to persuade 
 them. What is this, but the control 
 of the human spirit over natural law ? 
 And is God less than a man ? Is he 
 not even as big as a philosopher ? 
 
 1 167. Providence: Natural and Su- 
 pernatural. — There is a little provi- 
 dence in every good family. A father 
 and a mother, discreet, and with ex- 
 perience, are all the time fore-thinking 
 for their children ; and it is done so 
 quietly that the child never knows 
 what is going on, or that there is any 
 plan being carried out. And it is not 
 simply for to-day and to-morrow : it 
 runs from winter to summer, and 
 through summer to winter. Not only 
 that, but a very wise parent does this 
 with a general reference to the out- 
 come of the children in after life. 
 
 Now, there is an enormous distance 
 between the knowledge and experience 
 of the parents and that of the children ; 
 but it is as nothing compared with the 
 vast gulf which there is between us 
 and God. And if we can carry on 
 this little providence with regard to 
 our children, which, if they had a 
 glimpse of it, would seem as mys- 
 terious to them as to us the divine 
 providence seems ; how much more 
 shall our Father who is in heaven 
 carry on this infinitely greater provi- 
 dence in regard to us ! 
 
 1 168. "Without Me, Nothing." — 
 When Love says to love," You are 
 nothing without me," love feels en- 
 riched. And when God says that we 
 are dependent upon him, it is not for 
 the sake of shaking his crown in our 
 faces ; it is not for the sake of making 
 his power flame before our eyes ; it is 
 not equivalent to his saying, " How 
 weak you are down there ! and how 
 strong I am up here ! " It is as the 
 bending of the mother over the cradle, 
 and soothing the fears of the little 
 
 child. It is as the benediction of the 
 old man who bids his children hope in 
 dark and trying days. It is the as- 
 surance of protection. It is the con- 
 ferring of a parental blessing. It is a 
 declaration of love on the part of God. 
 
 1 169. Making Use of God. — The 
 nature of God is the same to all men, 
 but the effects are not the same on all 
 men, because they do not all put it to 
 the same uses. . . . The sun shines 
 on the south side of my barn, and what 
 does it produce there ? A warm spot, 
 where chickens and cows gather. It 
 shines on the south side of my neigh- 
 bor's barn ; and what does it produce 
 there? Flowers and grapes. What 
 is the reason of the difference ? Does 
 the sun change ? No : but it is put to 
 different uses. 
 
 1 1 70. The Standard for Life. — Not 
 a sea-captain goes out of the harbor 
 that he does not take his chronometer 
 from the watchmaker's the last thing 
 before he starts ; and the whole 
 voyage, after his departure, is de- 
 termined by calculations based on 
 that chronometer. A man may set 
 his heart, every morning, by the heart 
 of God. 
 
 1 171. Spirit of Beneficence. — When 
 the ragged-edged cloud comes sweep- 
 ing through our fields in summer, and 
 the children of joy rush from the 
 picnic ground to hide themselves ; 
 when the thunders bellow in the 
 heavens, and the mighty winds sweep 
 by, what say they to the ear of faith 
 that can listen? "We drops of rain, 
 driven by winds and bolted down by 
 thunders, we come in terror, but our 
 errand is one of mercy. We search 
 out the parched things ; we wash the 
 leaves of the poison weed as well as 
 those of the wholesome herb, and we 
 are everywhere saying that such is 
 God, who pours his influence upon 
 things good and bad, that the bad 
 
254 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 things may become good, and that the 
 good things may become better." 
 
 1 172. Divine Impulse of Love. — 
 The violet blossoms and sheds its 
 fragrance that others may see it and be 
 made happy by it. It is this impulse 
 from the Divine mind, initial, germi- 
 nant, far from full accomplishment and 
 development in the human mind, that 
 we are to unfold and cultivate as 
 children of God. It is this disposition 
 by all the means in our power to 
 make men happier by making them 
 better, and to make them better by 
 making them happier, that is the 
 divine element which we are to learn 
 in the school of Christ. 
 
 1 1 73. The Sympathy of God. — A 
 great mountain lifts itself up, with 
 perpendicular face, over against some 
 quiet valley ; and when summer 
 thunders with great storms, the chff 
 echoes the thunder, and rolls it forth 
 a second time, with majesty increased ; 
 and we think that, to be sublime, 
 storms should awaken mountain 
 echoes, and that then cause and effect 
 are worthy of each other. But so, 
 too, an oriole, or a song-sparrow, 
 singing before it, hears its own little 
 song sung back again. A little child, 
 lost, and crying, in the valley, hears 
 the great cliff weeping just as it 
 weeps ; and, in sooth, the mountain 
 repeats whatever is sounded, from the 
 sublimest notes of the tempest to the 
 sweetest bird-whisper or child-weep- 
 fng ; and it is just as easy to do the 
 little as the great, and more beautiful. 
 Now God is our rock, and from his 
 heart is reflected every experience, 
 every feehng of joy or grief, that any 
 human soul utters or knows. 
 
 1 1 74. God's Willingness to Give. — 
 Ah ! when the apples are ripe, a 
 child's foot against the tree will bring 
 scores and scores of them to the 
 ground. He might take his little 
 
 stick and throw it twenty times, and 
 not hit more than a single apple ; for 
 he would be working according to his 
 own skill, and would accomplish but 
 little ; but when he strikes the trunk 
 of the tree, dozens of apples have 
 been waiting for that, and they drop 
 at his feet, and he gets twenty times 
 as many as he would do by plying his 
 stick merely. Now in every part of 
 life God has fruit ready to drop into 
 your lap ; and the abundance that you 
 get is not to be measured by the skill 
 with which you can throw, but by 
 that divine nature which does exceed- 
 ing abundantly more than we can ask 
 or think. 
 
 1175. Christ's Interpretation of God. 
 — Pity in the family of a wise, upright, 
 large-minded man, is consistent with 
 penalty. The parent is sorry for the 
 child that he is punishing ; and just so 
 soon as the punishment has checked 
 the evil in the child, the parent helps 
 to cure the very suffering which he 
 himself has caused. He and the 
 child are not enemies because they 
 are at the two ends of the whip. The 
 whip is held by the heart at one end, 
 and it is meant to reach the heart at 
 the other end — though it does it by 
 devious ways. In the administration 
 of pain in the family, love administers 
 it ; and it is for the purposes of love 
 that it is administered. Thus the 
 prayer that we learned to lisp with out 
 earliest days ; the prayer that as a 
 blessing has hung over the world for 
 two thousand years, and that still, 
 morning and night, is breathed by 
 myriad infant lips — "Our Father 
 which art in heaven " — interprets the 
 nature of God from the side of the 
 family. 
 
 1 176. The Glory of God. — When 
 Moses said, "God, show me thy 
 glory," God refused to show him his 
 glory in the sense in which the prophet 
 
GOD 
 
 ^55 
 
 thought of it — that is, with scenic out- 
 flash, revealing angels trooping about 
 the throne, and exhibiting all the 
 manifestations of divine power. Moses 
 thought to see wonderful visions ; but 
 God said, " I will show you my good- 
 ness." It is as if God, pointing to his 
 goodness, said, " This is my glory." 
 
 What is God's goodness? "The 
 Lord, the Lord God, merciful and 
 gracious, long-suffering, and abun- 
 dant in goodness and truth, keeping 
 mercy for thousands, forgiving 
 iniquity, and transgression and sin." 
 Although he brought up the end, by 
 saying, "and that will by no means 
 clear the guilty," you see there was 
 but one clause of that, while all the 
 other branches and twigs of the sen- 
 tence were of mercy and goodness. 
 
 1 177. The Divine Paternity. — The 
 opening phrase, Our Father, is the 
 key to Christianity. God is father ; 
 government is personal. All the 
 tenderness which now is stored up in 
 the word "mother" was of old in- 
 cluded in the name "father." The 
 household was governed by law, and 
 yet it was small enough to enable the 
 father to make himself the exponent 
 of love and law, 
 
 1 178. God the Father, not Avenger. 
 — I can conceive of an obstinate man, 
 or a proud parent whose pride has 
 been wounded by the misconduct of a 
 child, who needs persuasion and 
 reasoning to induce him to do right, 
 and to help him bring his own best 
 feelings into the judgment-seat, and 
 keep down his worst feelings ; but to 
 suppose that the divine Father re- 
 quires any such intercession as this, 
 and that there is wrath, burning hot, 
 an unquenched, unslaked zeal of jus- 
 tice in his bosom, which will down 
 when Christ comes before him, but on 
 which no effect is produced when 
 men, in all the generations of time, 
 
 and in myriad numbers, suffering, 
 weeping and wailing, lift themselves 
 up before him — is simply awful ! 
 
 1 179. God's Kingship. — We are 
 obliged to interpret God from our- 
 selves ; and our danger is that we 
 shall interpret him from the baser side 
 of human experience, and not from 
 the nobler. If we interpret the divine 
 government from human monarchy, 
 we must take the ideal monarchy, and 
 not the real ; we must take those con- 
 ceptions of monarchy which have 
 carried in them the most gladness and 
 generosity and royalty for others, and 
 not those which have produced the 
 impression of an iron nature, and a 
 scepter clenched for the sake of op- 
 pression and wrong. 
 
 1 1 80. God, the Universal Medica- 
 ment. — Ask the physician what it is 
 that he trusts to throw out morbific in- 
 fluences from the human system. If 
 there be diseased organs, what cures 
 them? Do you think pills do the 
 work? They do but little except to 
 say to the lazy organ, " Wake up and 
 go to work, and throw out the enemy 
 that is preying upon you ! " If a man 
 gets well, he cures himself — often, 
 thanks to the doctor ; oftener, thanks 
 to the nurse ; always, thanks to na- 
 ture. What is the stream that carries 
 reparation to the wasted parts, that 
 carries stimulation to the dormant 
 parts, that carries nutrition to the ex' 
 hausted parts ? What is it that fights ? 
 It is the blood. God's soul and na- 
 ture are the blood of the universe. 
 
 n8i. The Divine Measurement. — 
 In estimating men we must reject the 
 sensuous measure, and drop from our 
 minds the idea of magnitude. If you 
 saw a man as great as Shakespeare, or 
 as great as Goethe, undergoing mighty 
 struggles, you would have sympathy 
 for him ; but if it was a poor cobbler 
 on the bench, or a pauper, that was 
 
256 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 undergoing struggles, you would 
 rather smile in pity, and pass by. 
 Not so God. His sympathy does not 
 depend upon how large a man is, or 
 how richly he is endowed with original 
 forces of mind. 
 
 1182. Divine Justice. — After an ex- 
 perience of thousands of years, the 
 State says, " I do not consider a man 
 fit to take care of his own business un- 
 til he is twenty-one years old." Men 
 are not regarded as ripe enough to be 
 fully responsible to the laws of their 
 country before they have reached that 
 age. Some are mature a great deal 
 earlier, but some, not until a great 
 deal later ; and some, never, but the 
 State, judging from the average ex- 
 perience of its history, says, " I will 
 not commit to a man his property, and 
 hold him fully responsible, except 
 through his parents or guardians, until 
 he is twenty-one." And is God less 
 tender and less considerate than men ? 
 
 1 183. Eternity of the Divine Love. 
 — If a blind man, who had never seen 
 the heavens, or the earth, or the sweet 
 faces of those that loved him, should 
 have a surgical operation performed 
 upon his eyes, so that he could see ob- 
 jects around him, he would think to 
 himself, on going out of doors, " O, 
 how things are blossoming ! The 
 earth is beginning to be beautiful ! 
 Mountains and hills are springing up 
 in every direction ! The forms of lov- 
 ing friends are being raised up to greet 
 my gaze ! And the sun has just be- 
 gun to shine forth from the heavens ! " 
 But have not these things existed, al- 
 though the man's eyes have not before 
 been in a condition to see them? 
 
 When we are brought into the con- 
 sciousness of what God's love is to our 
 poor sinful natures, we oftentimes have 
 the feeling that God is beginning to be 
 reconciled to us. No : it was then 
 that we began to realize his love, but 
 
 his love for us had existed from the 
 time we came into being, and had ever 
 continued with us. 
 
 1 184. God's Goodness Waits for 
 Men. — Because colliers live in the 
 bowels of the earth and sometimes do 
 not see the sun rise or set for weeks 
 and months together, or because im- 
 prisoned men in dungeons do not wit- 
 ness the changes of the seasons, does 
 it follow that there is no rising of the 
 sun, or that there is neither spring nor 
 summer for the human family ? If one 
 avoids the light of the sun, shuts him- 
 self out from it, he may miss it, but it 
 is waiting for him : so is God's goodness. 
 
 1185. God Symbolized in Human 
 Love. — You, mother, take your child 
 though he is imperfect ; you, lover, 
 take the one that you love in spite of 
 imperfections ; and that which enables 
 you to do these things is just a breath 
 of that which is the hfe of God. Your 
 power to give yourself for those that 
 are inferior to you and beneath you, is 
 a mere spark of that grand sacrifice 
 which God made for the salvation of 
 the world. 
 
 1186. God's Tenderness for the 
 Weak. — When conflagration comes to 
 the house, for whom does the mother 
 run first ? The great stalwart hus- 
 band ? Her eldest son ? She does 
 not think of them. It is the helpless, 
 worthless babe in the cradle that she 
 first rushes to save. Its worthlessness 
 is to her more precious than the stars. 
 Its helplessness is a supreme and 
 omnipotent appeal to her heart. 
 
 For whom does God think first ? 
 Glowing seraphs ? Radiant angels ? 
 Not for them : for the poor ; for the 
 forgotten ; for those that drop silent 
 tears in obscure places ; for those that 
 wear galling chains and rot in prisons. 
 
 1187. "Thy Will be Done." — 
 God's will is universal harmony. On 
 earth, men are largely ignorant of this 
 
GOD 
 
 257 
 
 regulative will, and are irregular in 
 their obedience to that which is known, 
 or are wholly disobedient and rebel- 
 lious. But in heaven perfect obedience 
 follows knowledge. The will of God 
 is unobstructed. Men are here in the 
 uproar of an untuned orchestra, each 
 instrument at discord with its fellows ; 
 but in heaven the chorus will flow for- 
 ever in harmonious sweetness. 
 
 1 188. Divine and Human Nature. — 
 If you take a microscopic instrument, 
 and examine the sting of a bee, mag- 
 nifying it thousands of times, you will 
 find that it still is so smooth that the 
 eye can detect no variations upon its 
 surface. But if you take the finest 
 needle that is manufactured, and look 
 at it through a powerful microscope, 
 you will find that it will appear rough 
 in the proportion in which it is mag- 
 nified. This figure illustrates the dif- 
 ference between the Divine nature and 
 the nature of man. The more you 
 magnify your true conceptions of God's 
 nature, the more beautiful does he ap- 
 pear ; whereas the more you magnify 
 the nature of man the more ugly does 
 he appear. 
 
 1 189. God's Free Grace. — My gar- 
 den sucks up all the light of the sun it 
 wants ; but see how myriad beams of 
 vagrant sunlight come pouring past. 
 See how they spread out uselessly on 
 the rock. See how they bathe the old 
 moss-covered shingles of the barn. See 
 how they pour themselves down on the 
 dead tree as well as on the living tree. 
 See how they shed their influence on 
 the dank swamp as well as on the 
 fertile field ; and on the ocean as well 
 as on the land. The sun floods the 
 earth with light and warmth more than 
 it can use or receive, and fills infinite 
 space everywhere with its bounty. 
 Now, shall the sun, that is but a mat- 
 ter-point in the Universe, do this ; and 
 shall the soul of God, in pouring out 
 
 his grace and love, be governed by 
 the length of your prayer, or the size 
 of your heart, or any such poor, petty 
 measure ? 
 
 1 190. God's Gracious Bounty. — 
 What \s grace? It is that divine com- 
 passion which is infinitely higher than 
 the sweetest affection that ever 
 bloomed in mortal soul. That great 
 kindness, that wonderful generosity, 
 that unending mercy, that goodness, 
 which is eternal and infinite in the 
 soul of God — that is grace. Grace 
 means divine disposition, divine be- 
 neficence. It is no trafficking quality. 
 It is not a quid quo pro. Is there a 
 bargaining transaction between the 
 sun and the blossoms by which they 
 are permitted to have light and heat ? 
 No. They are what they are by rea- 
 son of the sun's free bounty. And it 
 is by the grace of God that we are en- 
 abled to be anything good. It is by 
 his nature and disposition. It is by 
 what he is inherently, and not by 
 what he is hired to be, or coaxed to be. 
 
 11 91. God's Abundance. — Thou 
 dost overflow the earth. Thou never 
 measurest thy rain ; Thou askest 
 nothing how much it needs, but the 
 light and rain and air fill all space 
 around about in overmeasure, tran- 
 scending all use. So let thy spiritual 
 mercies abound, not according to the 
 measure of our want, but according to 
 the greatness of thy love ! 
 
 1 1 92. God as Disciplinarian. — God 
 was represented to be like a father in 
 a family, who, when the children 
 have got into one of their snarls, pre- 
 sents himself to them with a clouded 
 brow, and with a disciplinary hand, 
 and is, for the time being, to the chil- 
 dren, a stern and dreadful father. 
 
 I do not think there were any days 
 in my life which were so gloomy as 
 the days when I knew I was going to 
 have a whipping. On those days 
 
258 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 when a whipping had not come, but 
 when I saw it coming, my father was 
 a clay of judgment to me ; and yet, a 
 whipping was what I needed for the 
 purpose of disciphne, and it was given 
 to me for that purpose. 
 
 1 1 93 . Human and Divine Sympathy. 
 — Do you suppose that if, when cross- 
 ing the plains, I saw a man who had 
 abused me desolate and sick, I would 
 not get off the car and help him ? 
 Would I leave him to the Indians, or 
 to starvation? Would I not succor 
 him in his distress ? And am I better 
 than God? Am I more sympathetic 
 towards those who are suffering than 
 he is ? And if I know how to forgive 
 an enemy, and how to pray for those 
 who despitefully use me, and how to 
 love them into rectitude, how much 
 more does the divine nature know 
 how to do these things ! 
 
 1194. The Divine Comforter. — Look 
 upon the great caravan of pilgrims 
 who move towards thee, O Thou 
 Comforter of the ages ! and have 
 compassion upon each one. Yea, 
 give to every one God's blessing ac- 
 cording to his several need — the con- 
 sciousness that God is thinking of him, 
 and is merciful, and waits to be gra- 
 cious towards him. 
 
 1195. God's Patience. — Man is 
 weak and sinful and necessitous ; and 
 God is represented in the Bible as a 
 Being adapting his administration to 
 the human condition, because he is 
 infinite in patience, all the time requir- 
 ing perfectness, but continually bear- 
 ing with men on their way up to per- 
 fection. A man who is fit to teach art 
 is a man who is himself sensitive to 
 art, and who has patience with rude 
 hands and clumsy drawing. His busi- 
 ness, as a schoolmaster, is to wait for 
 those who do not know how to do fine 
 things finely, brooding over them, 
 and helping them. And if it is that to 
 
 be a schoolmaster, what is it to be a 
 parent, but to take rude, unlicked 
 cubs in the shape of children, and 
 bring them up out of vices, through 
 all manner of rudenesses and crude- 
 nesses, by patience, by forbearance, 
 by suffering, and by love, waiting till 
 they become something by training? 
 And how do we learn to bear with 
 nascent beings, giving our thoughts 
 for theirs, and our feelings for theirs, 
 but by acting under the inspiration of 
 the Spirit of God ? 
 
 1 1 96. God's Mercies. — There is dew 
 in one flower and not in another, be- 
 cause one opens its cup and takes it 
 in, while the other closes itself, and 
 the drops run off. God rains his 
 goodness and mercy as wide-spread 
 as the dew ; if we lack, it is because 
 we will not open our hearts to receive. 
 
 1 197. Despised Blessings. — I can 
 imagine an old Israelite walking out 
 in the morning, and seeing the manna 
 lying all around him on the ground, 
 and looking on it with contempt. It 
 was like little bits of coriander seed ; 
 but by collecting enough of it and 
 eating it they could satisfy hunger. 
 And we may suppose that an Israelite, 
 hearing that God was going to work a 
 miracle by giving bread from heaven, 
 said, " When God gives us bread 
 what bread it will be ! " Then he 
 goes out and sees this little manna ly- 
 ing around ; and he says, " Hem ! do 
 you suppose I am going to eat that? 
 Not I. I would rather go hungry." 
 
 There is a great deal of manna 
 under men's feet that would satisfy 
 them if they would gather and eat it ; 
 but they will not touch it. 
 
 1 1 98. The Great Heart of God. — 
 Ten thousand armies might bathe in 
 the ocean, and neither sully its purity 
 nor exhaust its cleansing power. Yet 
 the ocean is but a cup by the side of 
 God's heart. Realms and orbs may 
 
GOD 
 
 259 
 
 bathe and rise into purity ; no words 
 will ever hint or dimly paint the height 
 and depth and length and breadth of 
 the love of Christ. It is love that 
 pours, endless and spontaneous, just 
 as sunlight does — simply because God 
 is love ! 
 
 1 199. God's Love. — Is it the sum- 
 mer that coaxes the sun to come back 
 now from his far southern circuit? Is 
 it the counsel of the daisies upon the 
 hillsides ? Is it the voice of the all- 
 persuasive violets in the nook that 
 send messages to the far-off spring, 
 saying, " Come, for the grass tarries? 
 Come, for the flowers wait " ? Or is 
 the sun carrying rather, in his own 
 nature, all the daisies, and all the vio- 
 lets, and all the fruits ; and will he 
 pour out of his royal love the summer 
 warmth that shall make all the trees 
 and the valleys green? God does not 
 wait to recognize loveliness before he 
 loves ; he makes loveliness by loving. 
 
 1200. The Fullness of God. — Man's 
 lamp is daily filled and trimmed, 
 emblem of his own mind, that by rest 
 and sleep refills its waste. But who 
 ever gave fuel to the sun, or trimmed 
 the mighty tlame that, of its own in- 
 exhaustible vitality, burns, and flashes, 
 and rushes in infinite floods, and beats 
 without wave or sound upon the shores 
 of countless worlds ? The sun needs 
 no trimming. Man's lamp and man 
 alike need continual trimming and fill- 
 ing. God's lamp and God pour forth 
 forever untrimmed and unfilled. He 
 is the God of ages, and yet is not old. 
 He is venerable in eternal youth. 
 
 1 20 1. God's Mothering of His Chil- 
 dren. — As little children, who are 
 caught up from their fears and their 
 weariness into a mother's arms, so 
 catch us up, to-day, that we may 
 know something of the bosom of God, 
 that mysterious depth which hath in it 
 no .storm, over which riseth no day 
 
 nor night, and in which is the eternal 
 joy of thy soul, and of all who are in 
 Thee — the joy of the present and the 
 hope of the future. 
 
 1202. The Delicacy of God. — Many 
 think God sits brooding in heaven as 
 storms brood in summer skies, full of 
 bolts and rain, and believe that they 
 must come to him under the covert of 
 some apology, or beneath some um- 
 brellaed excuse, lest the clouds should 
 break and the tempest overwhelm 
 them. But when men repent towards 
 God, they go not to storms, but to 
 serene and tranquil skies, and to a 
 Father who waits to receive them with 
 all tender delicacy and love. 
 
 1203. God Easy to be Entreated. — 
 Any view which presents God as a 
 
 being whose justice shall make sin- 
 ners who wish to return to him unable 
 to do so, is a false view. Public senti- 
 ment and public law are like ramparts 
 around a city. As long as a man is 
 inside of the ramparts, they defend 
 him ; but the moment he is outside of 
 them, they treat him as an enemy, 
 and he cannot get back, but is ex- 
 posed to the sweep of artillery. Pub- 
 lic sentiment and law may save a man 
 before he has done wrong, but they 
 damn him after he has done wrong. 
 It is not so with God. Up hill is down 
 hill if it be towards God ! 
 
 1204. God's Forgiving Love. — 
 When you think of your mother do 
 you not see that those points where 
 you were the most difficult to get along 
 with are the points in which her char- 
 acter showed sweetest, most radiant, 
 most beauteous ? From the sinfulness 
 of my nature I think I get the noblest 
 views of God's patience, his forgiving 
 love, his kindness, his generosity, and 
 that great-heartedness by which, look- 
 ing upon my transgression, he says to 
 me, " Be not discouraged ; try again ; 
 I am not ashamed to call you brother." 
 
26o 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 1205. The Ground of Forgiveness. 
 — What is the ground of forgive- 
 ness? It does not lie in the recipient 
 at all. It lies in the giver. A gener- 
 ous man gives away handful after 
 handful of money, why ? Because 
 the act bounds back with pleasure to 
 him inwardly. Forgiveness is the in- 
 stinctive action of a true generosity in 
 a man. Why do some men speak 
 with figures of beauty ? Because it is 
 their duty to do it ? No; but because 
 they cannot help themselves. They 
 see visions in the air, and they paint 
 pictures unconsciously. In their na- 
 ture they do it because their nature 
 tends to act in that way. Why 
 does God forgive ? Because it is his 
 nature to forgive. He loves to forgive. 
 
 i2o5. God's Forgiveness Remedial. 
 — Let me saw off a branch from one 
 of the trees that is now budding in 
 my garden, and all summer long there 
 will be an ugly scar where the gash 
 has been made ; but by next autumn 
 it will be perfectly covered over by 
 the growing ; and by the following 
 autumn it will be hidden out of sight ; 
 and in four or five years there will be 
 but a slight scar to show where it has 
 been ; and in ten or twenty years you 
 would never suspect that there had 
 been an amputation. 
 
 Trees know how to overgrow their 
 injuries, and hide them : and love 
 does not wait so long as trees do ; it 
 knows how to throw out all divine and 
 beneficent juices, as it were, and hide 
 from sight the wrongs done. God 
 says he forgives in the same way. 
 He will never again make mention, 
 as he declares in Ezekiel to his people, 
 of their sins. 
 
 1207. God's Forgiveness Absolute, 
 — Paul, in describing the forgiveness 
 of God wrought through Jesus Christ, 
 uses this remarkable figure : "Blot- 
 ting out the handwriting of ordinances 
 
 that was against us." It is like taking 
 an indictment in court, and tearing it 
 up and throwing it away. It is like 
 taking a title-deed of a man's posses- 
 sion, a paper on which is written evi- 
 dence that is fatal to his claim, and 
 blotting it, or burning it. It is like 
 taking away proof against a man 
 which may lead to his injury. 
 
 1208. Love in Justice. — The great- 
 bosomed mother, the radiant face of a 
 love watching that pain shall not go a 
 bit too far, but still pressing it, and 
 still insisting upon it, says, "My dear 
 child, I will not suffer you to grow up 
 so. I cannot live and see you become 
 bad. My darling, you shall not be 
 bad. By all the love that is in me, 
 and by all the hope that is in me, and 
 by all the prophecy of a mother's 
 heart, you shall not be bad. I will 
 cry with you, but cry you shall ! It 
 is necessary to make you sweeter and 
 nobler. " Is not that justice ? 
 
 i2og. Neglect of God's Promises. 
 — Many men carry the promises of 
 the Word of God as a miser carries 
 bank bills, the face of which calls for 
 countless treasures, but which he does 
 not carry to the bank for presentation. 
 An ignorant man takes a hundred- 
 pound-note. He does not know what 
 the stamp means, but he has been 
 told that it means that the note is 
 worth a hundred pounds sterling. It 
 is worth nothing at all unless it will 
 draw what it promises ; and the way 
 for the holder to ascertain whether it 
 is worth anything or not, is to take it 
 to the paying teller and see if it will 
 draw the money. 
 
 1 2 10. God's Promises Sincere. — 
 When the waves rush in upon the 
 beach, there is an undertow that 
 sweeps back ; and the water, while it 
 seems to be flowing one way, is often- 
 times found to be flowing the other, 
 to the peril of those who have the 
 
GOD 
 
 261 
 
 misfortune to be at its mercy. And 
 so some think that there is beneath 
 the waves of God's ofifer of salvation, 
 a dark necessity of Government, like 
 an undertow, that sweeps men out 
 towards destruction. There is no such 
 thing. With God it is Yea and Amen. 
 If he says that he loves and will for- 
 give those who desire and strive to 
 turn from their sins and live, he is 
 earnest and sincere — intensely earnest 
 and sincere, beyond any conception 
 of these qualities in men. 
 
 121 1. God's Promises Earnest. — It 
 may be presumptuous for you to go 
 into a stranger's house without an in- 
 vitation, and sit down and act as 
 though you were at home, and call 
 for services at the hands of the serv- 
 ants ; but if a man has invited you to 
 come and see him, and met you at the 
 door, and placed at your service a 
 room, and said, "Stay here as long 
 as you will, and while you stay my 
 table shall be yours, my raiment 
 shall be yours, and my servants shall 
 be yours," then it is presumptuous for 
 you not to take him at his word. It is 
 politeness, when a man asks you to 
 accept his hospitality, to take it for 
 granted that he means what he says. 
 Be not afraid to appropriate the prom- 
 ises of God ! 
 
 1212. God's Love and Man's Need. 
 — Persons are apt to say, " Ah ! if I 
 were like Madame Guyon or like Eu- 
 genie de Guerin, God might take an 
 interest in me ; but I am no such 
 person ; I have no graces, no excel- 
 lencies, no virtues. I have nothing 
 but faults ; these show themselves all 
 the time. I am a poor, miserable 
 creature ; there is very little chance 
 for me." Their mistake is in not re- 
 membering, or their misfortune is in 
 not understanding, that the grace of 
 God displays itself in the ratio and 
 proportion in which people need it. 
 
 The heart of Christ's leaching was 
 this: " They that are whole need not 
 a physician, but they that are sick." 
 
 1213. God's Emotion. — The Greek 
 idea of perfection was born of the 
 artist. It is not strange that those 
 whose conception of a hero was one 
 perfectly beautiful, always young, 
 wise, strong, perfectly serene and 
 happy, superior to all the troubles 
 and vexations which befall mortals, 
 should have deemed it necessary to a 
 lofty view of Deity that he should be 
 insusceptible to pain. But the whole 
 Bible is like a magnificent chant of 
 the Divine emotion, running through 
 every possible modification of feeling. 
 He sorrows, pities, loves, longs, strives, 
 joys, abhors, relents. God's nature is 
 full and deep as the ocean, and pulses 
 on every shore around the world and 
 through all time, every inflection of 
 feehng which springs from purity, 
 rectitude, and benevolence. 
 
 1 2 14. God's Generosity. — A man 
 says, " Here are thousand-dollar 
 bills; take as many as you please." 
 But say I, "There are hundreds, and 
 fifties, and tens, and fives, and ones ; 
 may I take those instead of the thou- 
 sands ? " If he says I may have the 
 thousands, he will not refuse to give 
 me the ones. If he gives me the larger, 
 he will not refuse me the smaller. 
 
 Now God has given his own Son to 
 us ; he has given himself to us ; he 
 has made overtures of personal friend- 
 ship to us ; he has said, " I am your 
 Father, and ye are my sons ; " he 
 has granted us the blessing of direct 
 communion with himself; and since 
 he has given us these higher and 
 larger things, is there anything that 
 we need, all the way down to the very 
 sandals with which we tread the earth, 
 that he will not give us ? 
 
 1215. Why God Loves Men. — If I 
 go out, on a bright Sabbath morning, 
 
262 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 to find children to bring into the mis- 
 sion school, and 1 meet a child skirted 
 with the whitest of dimity, and 
 trimmed till you would think that the 
 ribbon shop had been bankrupted, do 
 I say to her, "You little dear, come 
 into my school"? Not at all. She 
 is not the kind that I am looking after. 
 But if I meet a rat-haired urchin, 
 ragged and redolent of the gutter, and 
 smelling of all the food of all the 
 hotels for the last month, and sharp 
 and impudent, and a most un- 
 lovely wretch, I say to myself, 
 "There is a boy that needs me." 
 Oh, how poor ! oh, how ignorant ! oh, 
 how besotted ! oh, how full of all 
 evil ! but he has an eternity before 
 him ; he has a kingdom of heaven to 
 gain or to lose ; and by as much as 
 he needs me by so much I choose 
 him, and would fain coax him into my 
 school, by kindness, by goodness, 
 and by winning his confidence ; I 
 choose him because he is so bad. 
 God chooses not angels but men, to 
 receive his redemptive love. 
 
 1 21 6. Constancy of God's Goodness. 
 — As the heaven, even in the times of 
 plague or of battle, arches above the 
 earth, crystaUine, full by night and 
 by day of light, so, over all the vulgar 
 struggles of life, rise the thoughts of 
 thy compassion, thy tender mercies, 
 and thy loving kindness. 
 
 1217. Gifts to God. — If you pluck 
 gold from the mountain, pearls from 
 the deep, precious stones from all the 
 river brooks, or curious workmanship 
 from the hand of the artisan, and 
 bring them to God — they were his be- 
 fore. You only bring him his own 
 property. You cannot make God 
 rich. But, yes ! When we are talk- 
 ing about love, one can make another 
 rich. Is there anything that makes a 
 father prouder, or that fills his hours 
 of thoughtfulness with sweeter music, 
 than the knowledge that one child 
 after another is putting forth blossoms, 
 and beginning to bear fruit ? O how 
 rich is fatherdom ! God is a Father, 
 and the riches that he wants are those 
 which love desires. 
 
 XXIII . JESUS CHRIST 
 
 1218. Christ, our Hope. — Every 
 day may we have Hfe in Christ ; and 
 in that life only, a hope of the future : 
 no horizon in the past full of brooding 
 thunders, but the sun rising evermore 
 before us, full of light and morning ! 
 
 121 9. Interpretation of God. — O 
 throne of iron, from which have been 
 launched terrible lightning and 
 thunders that have daunted men ! 
 O throne of crystal, that has coldly 
 thrown out beams upon the intellect 
 of mankind ! O throne of mystery, 
 about which have been clouds and 
 darkness ! Not ye ! But O throne of 
 Grace, where he sits regnant who was 
 my brother, who has tasted of my lot, 
 who knows my trouble, my sorrow. 
 
 my yearning and longing for im- 
 mortality ! O Jesus, crowned, not for 
 thine own glory, but with power of 
 love for the emancipation of all 
 struggling spirits ! Thou art my God 
 — my God ! 
 
 1220. God, the Healer of Souls. — 
 I was walking near Lane Seminary 
 (where I studied theology without a 
 hope), and was working over a lesson. 
 The idea dawned upon me, not that 
 there had been a covenant formed 
 between God and his Son, but that 
 Christ revealed the nature of God, 
 whose very soul was curative, and 
 who brought himself and his living 
 holiness to me, because I needed so 
 much, and not because I was so de- 
 
JESUS CHRIST 
 
 263 
 
 serving. That instant the clouds 
 rose, and the whole heaven was 
 radiant, and I exclaimed, " I have 
 found God! " It was the first time I 
 had found him. Good, his name was ; 
 and I went like one crazed up and 
 down through the fields, half crying, 
 half laughing, singing and praying and 
 shouting like a good Methodist. 
 
 Tliis has been my continued ex- 
 perience. In the suffering I have 
 gone through, in the anguish I have 
 seen in other people, and in my labor 
 to rescue men, it has been my sup- 
 port. The keynote of my life and 
 ministry has been that while men are 
 low down, and can be reached by 
 nothing but the gad or spur, I would 
 use that, and stimulate them by it, 
 rather than that they should be lost ; 
 but that as soon as I could awaken 
 their reason and conscience by any 
 other means — by hope, love, fidelity, 
 truth, honor, rectitude, or the repre- 
 sentation of Christ's tenderness and 
 gentleness — I would use this. If such 
 motives were more abundantly appHed 
 to men the fruit would be ampler, to 
 the glory of God, and to the welfare 
 of the human race. 
 
 1 22 1. The Historic and the Personal 
 Christ. — No artist can paint a portrait 
 except by pigments ; but the pigments 
 are not the portrait. There must be 
 the various colors on his palette, and 
 but for them he might not be able to 
 bring out the likeness which he at- 
 tempts to produce ; but after all he 
 has brought it out, and it is the like- 
 ness of your mother, your wife, your 
 child, your friend, it is not the pig- 
 ments that you see or think of: it is 
 the living face which these represent. 
 Now, we need the Christ of the text, 
 the historic Christ, the Christ of art, 
 and the philosophic Christ ; but they 
 are mere pigments, as it were, that we 
 lay on the palette ; and our Christ, if we 
 
 have one that is to us what Paul's was 
 to him, is the Christ that was revealed 
 to us when our heart was like a 
 cluster, and God crushed it till the 
 very blood flowed out as wine. 
 
 1222. The Nature of Christ. — Who 
 can paint the portrait of an opal ! It 
 is only so much as you can at one 
 point see that you can paint. You 
 cannot paint the flash, nor the luster, 
 nor the varying colors. You cannot 
 take in such a nature as Christ's, with 
 all its relations to heaven above and 
 to the earth beneath, and all its social 
 and esthetic qualities, and all its divine 
 elements ; not simply because they 
 elude your grasp, running out beyond 
 analysis and research, but because 
 they are so combined, so changeable, 
 so constantly coming and going, with 
 various phases and in various ways, 
 that no man can give the whole of it. 
 There is always more. 
 
 1223. The Higher View of Christ. — 
 Do you suppose that astronomy was 
 destroyed when it was corrected by 
 Copernicus and Galileo? Men had 
 their notions about the whole planetary 
 heavens, and those notions were all 
 swept away ; but it did not destroy the 
 orbs. Men had their idea of the ori- 
 gin of the earth. That idea was 
 swept away, and new ideas came in 
 its place, and we are the better for it. 
 And because the philosophy that has 
 surrounded the name and work of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ is rising above its 
 obscure and relatively false basis, or 
 method of explanation, clearing away 
 obstructions and giving us a vision of 
 God manifest in the flesh more noble, 
 more regal, do you suppose that is go- 
 ing to destroy Christ or the power of 
 his Gospel ? It will make him stronger. 
 
 1224. Admiration, not Love. — Plato 
 thought, and inscribed his thoughts. 
 We may read and admire them, and 
 we may admire as much of Plato as 
 
264 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 we discern. WIkU do we discern of 
 him ? Only that he was a very in- 
 tellectual man. VVc admire his work- 
 manship. I may admire such a man 
 as could make the watch which I 
 carry. I do not know who he is ; he 
 may beat his wife for ought I know ; 
 he may be a mean man ; but he is 
 very skillful for all that. There is a 
 distinction to be made between a cool 
 regard for Christ on account of what 
 he has done, and a love for him on 
 account of what he is. 
 
 1225. The Life of Jesus. — If you 
 wished to look at a portrait of Ra- 
 phael's, what would you think to see 
 only the forehead uncovered, and then 
 only the eyes, and so on, until all the 
 features had been separately seen? 
 Could you gain a true idea of the 
 picture as a whole ? Yet this is the 
 way men look at the picture of Christ 
 in the Gospels, reading a few verses 
 and mottoes here and there, and never 
 considering the life in its wholeness 
 and harmony. 
 
 1226. The Humiliation of Christ. — 
 Christ not merely accepted this-world 
 residence, but he went in at the bot- 
 tom. What is to many minds a 
 stumbling-block is to me a profound 
 truth— that since the Highest was to 
 come into this world, he came in not 
 alone by the lowest section of poverty, 
 but he came in, apparently to all men, 
 through the door of illegitimacy. 
 Every child honors and glorifies his 
 father and his mother. It is a matter 
 of universal reproach where one can- 
 not call some one his father ; but when 
 our Saviour entered life, he entered 
 putatively through the door of illegiti- 
 macy. Is there anything lower than 
 that for a beginning ? 
 
 1227. The Childhood of Jesus. — 
 There was nothing that we know of, 
 to distinguish this child from any 
 other that ever was born. 
 
 This then was not a divinity coming 
 through the clouds into human life, 
 full-orbed, triumphing with the un- 
 diminished strength of a heavenly na- 
 ture over those conditions which men 
 must bear. If this was a divine per- 
 son, it was a divine child, and child- 
 hood meant latent power, undeveloped 
 faculty, unripe organs ; a being with- 
 out habits, without character, without 
 experience ; a cluster of germs, a 
 branch full of unblossomed buds, a 
 mere seed of manhood. Except his 
 mother's arms, there was no circle of 
 light about his head, fondly as artists 
 have loved to paint it. But for the 
 after-record of Scriptures, we should 
 have no reason to suppose that this 
 child differed in any respect from or- 
 dinary children. 
 
 1228. The Education of Jesus. — 
 The New Testament is an outburst of 
 new leaves and blossoms from solid 
 wood of the Old Testament ; and we 
 ought never to forget that he whom 
 we worship above all others was a 
 Jew, trained in all the lore of the Old 
 Testament. There is not aline which 
 we trace on which his eye has not lin- 
 gered. Not only the Prophecies with 
 their thunders, and the Psalms with 
 their sweet influences, and the Histor- 
 ies with their instructions, but the in- 
 stitutions, as well, of the old Hebrews, 
 were the subject-matter of Christ's 
 education in his childhood and in his 
 manhood ; and are all these things to 
 be disengaged and set afloat and lost 
 to us ? It is squandering treasure to 
 set aside the Old Testament. 
 
 1229. Youthful Eclipse of Christ. — 
 At twelve years of age Jesus appears 
 at the Temple, but besides that, for 
 nearly thirty years, there was hardly a 
 word or syllable heard of him. 
 
 To those who think that Christ was 
 but a man this may not seem strange ; 
 but to us who hold that he was God 
 
JESUS CHRIST 
 
 265 
 
 manifest in the flesh ; to us who hold 
 that he bore divinity from the throne 
 to the footstool, for the illumination of 
 the race, this long eclipse seems, or 
 may seem, strange. It may seem 
 strange that he should pass through 
 those stages of development which 
 belong to men. But if we judge, not 
 by ^theory but by facts, as they oc- 
 curred, was it not the purpose of God 
 that he should become a man, not 
 merely standing in man's lot, but 
 through that long process of evolution 
 and self-consecration which belongs to 
 the race ; that he should taste child- 
 hood and youth and early manhood ; 
 that he should go through the various 
 steps of intellectual development which 
 are common to men ; that his soul 
 should be opened up by the same 
 method that man's is ? 
 
 1230. John the Baptist and Jesus 
 
 Philosophically, they stood opposed to 
 each other. John stood saying to the 
 animal in man, "Down! Down!" 
 and left all the rest untouched ; but 
 Christ said to all that is angelic in 
 man, " Rise up, and control yourself, 
 your appetites and your passions." It 
 was to the secular that John spoke. It 
 was to the immortal that Jesus spoke. 
 One dealt by fear ; the other by hope. 
 One dealt by conscience ; the other by 
 faith and love. 
 
 1 23 1. The Tempter.— That fatal 
 taint has corrupted the popular idea of 
 Satan to this day. He is not a mighty 
 spirit, but a sooty monster, an infernal 
 vampire, a heathen Gorgon. . . . 
 
 Not such was the great Tempter of 
 the wilderness. He might well have 
 risen upon the Saviour's sight as fair 
 as when, after a stormy night, the 
 morning star dawns from the east upon 
 the mariner, — " an angel of light." To 
 suppose that there could be any temp- 
 tation experienced by Jesus at the 
 sohcitation of such a Devil as has 
 
 been pictured by the imaginations of 
 monks, is to degrade him to the level 
 of the lowest natures. In this ecstatic 
 vision we may suppose that there 
 arose upon the Saviour's imagination 
 the grandest conception of reason and 
 of wisdom. It was not meant to 
 seem a temptation, but only a rational 
 persuasion. It was the Spirit of this 
 Worid soliciting Jesus to employ that 
 Divine power which now began to 
 effulge in him, for secular and phys- 
 ical, rather than for moral and spiritual 
 ends. It was, if one might so say, the 
 whole selfish spirit of time and history 
 pleading that Jesus should work upon 
 matter and for the flesh, rather than 
 upon the soul and for the spirit. 
 
 1232. Christ's Works of Mercy. — 
 The miracles of Christ cannot be 
 taken out of their life-connections and 
 analyzed by themselves. They were 
 to his teaching what gestures are to an 
 orator, that go with his thoughts, and 
 taken alone are of no value. As in 
 the moods of love, the eye, the Hp, 
 the face, have expressions that cannot 
 be separated from the emotions which 
 produce them, so was it with Christ's 
 works of mercy. 
 
 1233. The Disciples of Jesus. — 
 When Christ gathered his followers, 
 he selected them from the humbler 
 walks of life. We scarcely can doubt 
 his reason. An old and richly culti- 
 vated farm may perhaps be more easy 
 to till, but it is more likely to be filled 
 with weeds than the virgin soil ; and 
 if the people were to receive the new 
 and higher doctrines, it was much 
 more likely that a simple band of men 
 such as fishermen would receive them 
 like little children than that the proud, 
 scholarly, conceited men of Jerusalem 
 would ; and he would have had to 
 contest first with his own disciples had 
 he chosen them from among the higher 
 classes. 
 
266 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 1234. The Look of Jesus. — Nothing 
 seems to have impressed the disciples 
 more than the look which, under ex- 
 citement, Jesus had the power of 
 giving. It is mentioned unconsciously, 
 as a force which they had felt, rather 
 than as a thing which they had ob- 
 served. Elvery feature in some faces, 
 when kindled from within, is a tongue, 
 — more than a tongue, which is feeble 
 and unrich to express the deepest 
 emotions, the subtile, the complex, 
 and the sudden and evanescent. But 
 the face may, like an opal, flash 
 mingled colors which the cunningest 
 brush cannot catch or keep. We re- 
 call our friends more by their looks 
 than by their words. It is the look at 
 meeting, or the look at parting, or the 
 expression at some moment of high 
 discourse, that the memory catches, 
 and fixes as an ineffaceable picture. 
 In old age, when form, and words, 
 and all the personality besides, have 
 by distance grown dim as clouds on 
 the horizon, certain sudden radiant 
 looks yet float and vibrate as faint 
 lightnings do in those same evening 
 summer clouds. 
 
 1235. "As a Little Child." — It is 
 the simplicity of trust, it is the con- 
 fiding of love, it is the entire absence of 
 calculation or design, that pleases you. 
 The child is unconsciously an in- 
 terpreter of men's faces ; but it never 
 sits down to think what a man means. 
 And it is this unconscious trust and 
 simplicity of love that not only pleases 
 you, but pleased Christ, and that made 
 him more royal, with his lap and 
 bosom full of clambering children, than 
 ever was Oriental monarch amidst 
 prostrate nobles and servants. And I 
 would rather have seen Christ with a 
 lap full of children than with scepter 
 and crown in the New Jerusalem. 
 
 1236. Jesus' Love of Retirement. — 
 Not only do we find Jesus disen- 
 
 tangling himself from the throng 
 of curious hearers, and going apart 
 with his disciples, but even from 
 them he seemed often to draw away 
 into the refreshment of absolute soli- 
 tude. As the coolness of night is 
 poured upon flowers overspent with 
 the glow and heat of the day, so in 
 solitude the soul of Jesus opened to the 
 great heavens above him, and was 
 comforted and calmed into peace. 
 
 1237. The Impersonality of Jesus. — 
 If this reticence of the Evangelists 
 arises from their peculiarly unliterary 
 and non-historic genius, it is not un- 
 becoming to the nature of Jesus. 
 There was never so impersonal a per- 
 son as he. Although to an extraordi- 
 nary degree full of outward life and 
 action, yet there was something in the 
 elevation of his nature which abstracts 
 our thoughts from the outward form 
 of his life. As in the presence of a 
 great picture we forget the canvas, 
 the paint, and the brush, and think 
 only of the events and objects them- 
 selves ; so Jesus leaves upon our 
 minds the impression not of the jour- 
 neys, the acts, the words even, but of 
 the temper, the nobility of soul, the 
 universal truths of his life and teach- 
 ings. He detaches himself from the 
 world in which he lived and through 
 which he acted, as the perfume of 
 fragrant )vines abandons the flowers 
 in which it was distilled and fills the 
 air. 
 
 1238. The Simple and the Mystical, 
 in Jesus. — We see in this conversation 
 [with the woman of Samaria] again the 
 very same subtile play of thought be- 
 tween the material and its spiritual 
 counterpart which was shown in the 
 conversations with Nicodemus and 
 with the questioners in the Temple. 
 Jesus seems like one who thought on 
 two different planes. He recognized 
 the qualities and the substance of this 
 
JESUS CHRIST 
 
 267 
 
 world as they appeared to his follow- 
 ers, while their outcome and value 
 and meaning in the spiritual life was 
 his real and inner interpretation of 
 them. This doubleness we often see 
 in parents, or in benevolent teachers 
 of children, who go along with the 
 child's understanding, and yet per- 
 ceive that things are not as the child 
 thinks them to be, and their conscious- 
 ness plays back and forth between 
 the child's imperfect sense of truth 
 and their own truer judgment of re- 
 ality. 
 
 1239. The Teaching of Jesus. — 
 The discourses of Jesus grew deeper 
 and richer from the beginning of his 
 ministry to the end. But the transi- 
 tions were never formal or abrupt. 
 Nor can we anywhere lay our finger 
 upon a precise moment or occasion 
 when the deepening or widening took 
 place. His teaching was like the flow 
 of a river, whose depth and breadth 
 continually increase, but nowhere sud- 
 denly. 
 
 1240. Necessity of Diluting Truth. 
 — The profoundest Teacher of history ; 
 the first, and by all odds the greatest 
 Preacher of the world, who drew and 
 maintained the largest congregation, 
 till neither hoiise nor temple nor street 
 could hold them, had the fewest ad- 
 herents, and, in one sense, was the 
 least successful of men. It was nec- 
 essary that in some sense the truth 
 should be diluted. As men mix 
 strong wines with diluent water, for 
 those that are to be benefited in health 
 by them, so it needed more of the 
 human element, such as existed in the 
 Apostles and in the primitive teachers, 
 for immediately permanent effect. 
 
 1 241. "He Knew What Was in 
 Man." — In order to be a good violin- 
 ist I do not need to play every tune : 
 I simply need to know each string, 
 and what its possible combinations 
 
 are, and how to make them ; and al- 
 though our Saviour did not go through 
 all the various phases of experience 
 which men go through, his education 
 in the knowledge of humanity was 
 perfect. 
 
 1242. Radicalism of Christ. — Christ 
 was the first and the sublime radical. 
 "Now also," says the New Testament, 
 speaking of the coming of Christ, " the 
 axe is laid unto the root of the trees." 
 What is radical but a word derived 
 from radix, which means root ? He 
 was a root-man. He came right at 
 the worm at the root of the trees. A 
 physician that, instead of attempting 
 to palliate a difficulty, deals sharply 
 with the organic lesion, is a radical. 
 In morals, the man that does not at- 
 tempt to smooth over the surface, but 
 attacks the fundamental cause of 
 wrong, is a radical. Christ, then, was 
 a radical. 
 
 1243. Hebraism and Christ. — The 
 old Jewish law had its secret spirit ; 
 but it was hidden in a vast system of 
 forms. That spirit broke out in Christ 
 Jesus in a living exposition of itself. 
 In winter there is scarcely a thing that 
 is more homely than an apple-tree ; 
 but in May, Avhen it is covered with 
 blossoms, is there anything more ex- 
 quisite than that same tree ? That 
 tree in winter is the old Jewish law. 
 Christ is the old Jewish law all blos- 
 somed and coming to fruit. 
 
 1244. Failure of the Law. — Oh, 
 how many, how many a child, firm 
 and obstinate and proud, has refused 
 confession or concession ; and the fa- 
 ther's authority and scowl might si- 
 lence him, only to wake in him the 
 fires of hell. But a mother's tears 
 and tremulous lips and words, break- 
 ing down, "Oh, my son!" bring 
 tears in a moment from him and he 
 throws himself into her arms. Love 
 could conquer what authority could 
 
268 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 not, nor a threat. And the love of 
 God in Christ Jesus is the salvation of 
 the world, because it is adapted ex- 
 actly to that nature in man that can 
 be persuaded, but cannot be driven. 
 
 1245. Christ's Judgments, Interior 
 not Exterior.— See how Jesus took by 
 the hand of sympathy the poor fam- 
 ished, shriveled widow, as the old 
 rich fellows were rolling their gold 
 and silver down the copper vase of the 
 Temple that received it, so that they 
 saw it go in, and heard it rattle all the 
 way down. The only thing that 
 seemed to arrest the eye of Christ was 
 this poor little shriveled, shrunk, and 
 shivering widow that came and had 
 with her two mites. He could not 
 see them, they were so small. They 
 made a farthing. There was not a 
 tinkle; but he heard it. He called 
 his disciples to him, and said : " She 
 has given more than they all ; they 
 have given of their abundance ; she 
 of her penury has given her whole 
 Uving." 
 
 1246. The Transfiguration. — There 
 appeared also Moses and Ehas. Why 
 they? Why not angels? Why not, 
 as at Christ's temptation, and at his 
 baptism, personages of celestial origin ? 
 You are to remember that the old dis- 
 pensation was about to cease in power 
 for the sake of giving place to the 
 new. That is to say, as the blossom 
 falls in order that the fruit may swell 
 under it, and be better than the blos- 
 som, so the old dispensation was the 
 blessed flower of ages from which has 
 come the noblest fruit that the world 
 ever saw : it was fit that there should 
 be witnesses from the old dispensa- 
 tion ; and there were not two names 
 belonging to that dispensation which 
 were more illustrious than those of 
 Moses and Elias, or Elijah — the He- 
 brew name is stronger than the Greek. 
 Moses was the grandest lawgiver, and 
 
 Elijah was the noblest prophet and re- 
 former, of his time. They stood mag- 
 nificent as the pyramids of Egypt. 
 
 1247. Death of Jesus Foreknown by 
 Him. — As astronomers know, when 
 none others think of it, that traveling 
 through the heavens the vast shadow 
 is progressing towards the sun which 
 ere long shall clothe it and hide it, so 
 Christ foresaw the great darkness 
 which was to overwhelm him. 
 
 1248. Bearing, but Not Overborne, 
 — The earlier and more noble and gen- 
 uine painters represented Christ erect, 
 and almost triumphant, and moving 
 with his cross upon his shoulder as if 
 he had already triumphed over it, as 
 if to illustrate the apostle's description 
 — " Who, for the joy that was set be- 
 fore him, endured the cross, despising 
 the shame." 
 
 But in the Mediaeval age theology 
 lost the inexpressible sweetness of the 
 Evangehst — the simplicity which seems 
 to have been the reflex of Christ's in- 
 fluence upon his own times in the Gos- 
 pel. The Roman — that is, the Tuscan 
 — gloom, spread, and the sufferings 
 of Christ began to fill the whole hori- 
 zon. And now art began to fall un- 
 consciously from Christ's divinity to 
 the exhibition of that weakness which 
 belonged to his body. His face lost 
 serenity and became woe-struck. His 
 form no longer elate became bent and 
 prostrate, as if some mighty oak, up- 
 rooted by the gale, had fallen its full 
 length along the ground. True art 
 represents Christ as bearing his cross. 
 Later art represents Christ as overborne 
 by his cross. There is a great deal of 
 difference in these two ideas, whether 
 in picture, or in moral influence. 
 
 1249. The Lower and the Higher 
 Courage. — Among the many scenes of 
 Scripture I know of none more beauti- 
 ful than this resurrection of these two 
 men [Joseph of Arimathea, and Nice- 
 
JESUS CHRIST 
 
 269 
 
 demus, who took the body of Jesus, 
 prepared it with spices, and laid it in 
 the tomb] into a sublime courage — 
 into a quiet heroism in the hour of 
 darkness and danger. And if you 
 contrast their conduct with that of 
 Peter, you shall see a living distinction 
 between physical courage and moral 
 courage. Peter was impetuous, bold 
 to confront visible danger, forward to 
 own his discipleship while his Master 
 was with him ; but when left to him- 
 self he shrunk, lost heart, fell into vac- 
 illation, and became timid, and even 
 false to himself and false to his Mas- 
 ter. Danger paralyzed good in him. 
 
 Joseph, while times were safe, mused 
 and hesitated. But danger aroused 
 and brought out his hidden nature. 
 All his wealth was spurned ; his hon- 
 orable position was forgotten ; and he 
 followed, boldly, the impulses of his 
 heart, when others quailed. 
 
 It is not to be forgotten that the only 
 two men that had the daring to disclose 
 their love for Christ after his death, 
 and at the very height of his enemies' 
 triumph, were the two timid men who 
 had been secret in their discipleship 
 through all his life. 
 
 1250. Jesus in the Tomb — And 
 yet, while that garden held the sepul- 
 cher, and the women sat watching it, 
 and saw only darkness and desolation, 
 how blind they were ! When first all 
 was a bright certainty, how little then 
 did they know ! And when after- 
 wards, all was dark woe, how little yet 
 did they know ! The darkness and 
 the light were both alike to them, for 
 they were ignorant alike of both. Of 
 all the garden, only the rock itself was 
 a true soil, for in it lay the " root of 
 David." Forth from that unlikely 
 spot should come a flower whose blos- 
 som would restore Eden to the world ; 
 for if a garden saw man's fall, forth 
 from the garden came his life again. 
 
 1 25 1 . Resurrection of Jesus. — Long 
 before men came forth to work ; be- 
 fore the air was burdened with noises ; 
 just as the first tentative notes of wak- 
 ing birds began to be heard ; while the 
 leaf unshaken was yet loaded with 
 dew ; while nature was cool, and pure, 
 and tender, as if newly made — in this 
 early morning hour it was, that Christ 
 came forth into newness of life from 
 the sepulcher. I never stand in a 
 summer's morning before the sun 
 dawns, long before waked by birds, to 
 look out upon the yet dim and dusky 
 landscape, that I do not think, " this 
 is the hour of resurrection." As the 
 night held the day, but could not long 
 hold it, and unclasped its dark arms 
 to let forth the morning again, so every 
 day, to them that have an imagination 
 therefor, is a resurrection day, and 
 sets forth all these most noble and 
 beauteous features in nature, and sym- 
 bolizes forever and forever the rising 
 of our Master. 
 
 1252. Easter Sunday. — This day is 
 one of universal jubilee. Since the 
 sun this morning began its course, 
 people of all the earth eastward have 
 in succession sprung forth with songs 
 and gratulations. We stand in the 
 midst of a great choral company ; and 
 the world now, to God's ear, if not to 
 ours, is one great chant. And, swing- 
 ing in its circuit, the orb carries all 
 Christians ; and, in succession, more 
 and more as the sun rolls westward, 
 they sing forth their gladness and their 
 praise for this day, and the truths it 
 commemorates. Those who are agreed 
 in nothing else, have met together in 
 this common joy — the coming of Christ 
 from the dead. It is the opening of 
 the door of the future to the faithful, 
 and the gladness of the whole human 
 family to whom the Gospel is preached. 
 It is the first step in the life of immor- 
 tality. 
 
270 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFP: 
 
 1253. The Crucifixion, the Tomb, 
 the Resurrection. — As we read this 
 connected history, it seems as though 
 the crucifixion was like one of those 
 summer thunder-storms in which all 
 the heavens appear to be full of dark- 
 ness, and conflict, and turmoil. The 
 terrible thunder-cracks that roll 
 through the darkness ; the great striv- 
 ing winds that now tug at the trees 
 which groan under their hands, and 
 that now beat on the house ; the 
 hissing rain ; all the wild commotion 
 of the elements, — these fill the soul 
 full of imaginations and strange ter- 
 rors. And yet we sleep, and wake, 
 and sleep ; and when the morning 
 comes there is not a cloud in the air. 
 It is as if the heavens were one vast 
 bowl, or goblet, filled with the wine 
 of life. And the sun seems steeping 
 the very heavens. Not a leaf moves 
 except when a drop of water falls from 
 it and changes its equipoise. And all 
 the birds sing, and all voices seem 
 jubilant, and all the earth seems re- 
 freshed and more beautiful. And so 
 it affects us when we read of the 
 tumult of the crucifixion on Calvary, 
 and the after quiet. 
 
 1254. Jesus at Emmaus. — There is 
 an exquisite touch, too, in the scene at 
 the gate, where it is said, " He made 
 as though he would have gone 
 further," which some have stumbled 
 at, supposing that it was a ruse or 
 trick — a gentle pretence to secure en- 
 treaty. Such persons cannot under- 
 stand the niceties of the finer and the 
 higher feehngs. Doubtless he would 
 have gone on, had they not let out 
 their hearts on him, and constrained 
 him to enter. Nothing is so sensitive 
 as love — and the greater, the more sen- 
 sitive. It cannot endure indifference. 
 It needs to be wanted. Like a lamp, 
 it needs to be fed from the oil of an- 
 other's heart, or its flame burns low. 
 
 1255. Limitations of God in Christ. 
 — I believe that Christ is God manifest 
 in the flesh. Is the whole of God in 
 Christ ? Well, that is asking me, Can 
 infinity be inclosed in the finite? 
 Christ, when he came under the limi- 
 tations of time and space and flesh 
 was limited by them. If you go down 
 into the Five Points to talk with rough 
 men, you lay aside at home two-thirds 
 of that which is best in you. You 
 cannot bring it before such persons. 
 You are limited by the condition of 
 their minds. In other words, it is 
 quite possible that even God, though 
 I know not how, should manifest him- 
 self under limitations at times. 
 
 1256. The Christian Conception of 
 Deity. — According to pagan mythol- 
 ogy, gods have descended for their 
 own selfish lusts and pleasure ; but 
 the highest, the noblest, conception 
 that men have ever formed of divinity 
 is that of God, incarnate, ranking 
 himself with the lowest and poorest, 
 that he might lift up mankind from 
 the very bottom by his example, in- 
 spiration, and divine power. And how 
 beautiful was his life ! How, in all 
 the realm of life, was he spotless ! 
 
 1257. The Historic Christ of God. — 
 If the teachings and the life of Christ 
 translate to us the Father who sent 
 him, and from whose bosom he came, 
 they do this in a way that meets 
 human infirmity exactly, and becomes 
 a substitute for all institutional forms, 
 all symbols, all rituals. Symbols and 
 rituals are meant to be like the rounds 
 of a ladder, by which a man can go 
 from the lower story to the higher ; 
 but if there be one grand symbol or 
 ritual, one great exposition, that is 
 within the reach of the high and the 
 low, of the ignorant and the most 
 experienced, it becomes a glorious 
 substitute for all these collateral 
 helps. 
 
JESUS CHRIST 
 
 271 
 
 1258. Influence of Christ. — Christ 
 did but little. The immediate produc- 
 tive force of his life was very small. 
 What he stands for is dependent on 
 what he was. He was a picture 
 brought down from the gallery above, 
 where men cannot discern, framed, 
 and hung in the air, as it were, for the 
 looking of all mankind. Though 
 Christ did little, he was large ; and he 
 continues before the sight of men. . . . 
 The symbol of his majesty and beauty 
 has not been taken down. The waves 
 of revolution have rolled over empires, 
 and they have gone under ; but that 
 symbol has not gone under. The 
 very iron-sandaled Roman govern- 
 ment that destroyed his outward form 
 has gone lifelessly into the dust ; but 
 had it power to slay him ? No. It 
 had power to take away his body, but 
 it left his picture and his spirit in the 
 air. Revolutions have swept over the 
 schools of thought ; but no school of 
 thought has ever yet been able to take 
 out of the world this vision of God as 
 made manifest in the lovely life of 
 Jesus Christ. Vast corruptions have 
 entered into the Church ; the Church 
 has been at times even perverted into 
 a temple of the devil ; and theology 
 has been ransacked, and has been 
 found to contain all forms that are de- 
 testable to God, and that should be 
 detestable to men ; but all the defec- 
 tions of faith and behef have not been 
 able to touch the sweet face of Christ 
 that still shines out of the air. 
 
 1259. Abiding Influence of Christ. — 
 Friends are separated. They go 
 apart. Half the distance around the 
 world they are asunder for years. 
 But faithful hearts never grow cold ; 
 and the vision never grows dim. And 
 influences are as abiding ; as, for in- 
 stance, the mother's influence over the 
 child, or the father's influence over 
 the son, or the husband's and the 
 
 wife's influence respectively over each 
 other, or the influence of heroic na- 
 tures over those who by enthusiasm 
 have been gathered around them. 
 
 The power of Goethe, of Shakes- 
 peare, of far-off but unforgotten Plato, 
 the power of great natures all the 
 world over, abides, and men gather 
 about them. Schools are still formed 
 about philosophers and dramatists. 
 And is it a difficult thing for us to 
 form schools around about the central 
 person of Jesus Christ, who is God 
 represented to us in that specialty of 
 manifestation which enables him to 
 treat with the weak, with the wicked, 
 with those that are out of the way ? 
 
 1260. The Name Above Every 
 Name. — As Raphael's history con- 
 nects him with the most exquisite 
 things in art ; as Caesar's name con- 
 nects him with the most efficient things 
 in military life ; as Michael Angelo's 
 skill with the chisel connects him with 
 the noblest conceptions which man 
 has formed of statuary ; as many a 
 thinker is connected, by reason of his 
 relations and investigations in the 
 sphere of philosophy and thought with 
 the brightest achievements of human 
 genius, so, when we behold at last the 
 full personality of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, he will be One of such moral 
 relations, and his history will be found 
 to have so associated itself with every- 
 thing that is most resplendent in intel- 
 lectual thought, and research, and 
 execution, and combination, and cre- 
 ative force, that that which is the 
 noblest, and most transcendent in 
 truth, in honor, in sublime faith, in 
 self-denial, in meekness, in humility, 
 will be embraced therein, and that his 
 name will be verily the Name above 
 every name. 
 
 1 261. Christ the Only Standard. — 
 No man can afford to set his chro- 
 nometer by anything except the sun. 
 
272 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 When he has done this he knows the 
 exact time, and can be certain of the 
 correctness of his calcuhitions, and 
 make a safe voyage. And when a 
 man is making a voyage, not across 
 the Atlantic or the Pacific, but across 
 the sea of hfe, and is steering for the 
 port of eternal happiness or woe, he 
 cannot afford to set his conscience by 
 the conscience of every man that he 
 happens to meet ; he must set it by 
 the Sun of Righteousness, 
 
 1262. Practical Use of Christ. — 
 When I need a surgeon to deliver me 
 from the effects of some injury, if he 
 comes accredited as a skillful man in 
 his profession, I do not ask where he 
 graduated, how he got his skill, or 
 anything of that kind : I take him for 
 his services, and his known skill is the 
 ground on which I take him. If I 
 were lost in a forest, and I came across 
 an old trapper who said, " I have 
 lived here for forty years, and I can 
 lead you out of these woods," I should 
 instantly accept him as my guide, 
 without any further knowledge of him 
 or of his life, because I was lost, and 
 here was a man that I presumptively 
 knew could save me. But when we 
 need Christ do we go to him day by 
 day for that which we need, and for 
 which he offers him.self ? 
 
 1263. Experience Fashions Our 
 Ideal of Christ. — The interior and sub- 
 jective Christ must be wrought out by 
 life. Our thoughts must live with him 
 in all moods and experiences. As the 
 vine, clasping the living tree, creeps 
 along its branches, roots itself in the 
 crevices of the bark, and forms itself 
 upon its shape, so in all the various re- 
 lations of life our thought of Christ, 
 following our experiences, should 
 fashion and form itself. 
 
 1264. The Personal Saviour. — As 
 the outer world reveals to a poet what 
 it does not to the practical man ; as 
 
 love reveals affections to some that 
 others, who are of a slender well of 
 love, never know ; so the measure of a 
 man's own nature will determine very 
 much the magnitude, the richness and 
 the power of the vision of Christ, 
 which he carries out. Every man 
 may have, according to the limit of 
 his nature, a personal Saviour, and 
 know it, rejoice in it, and live by it. 
 
 1265. Power of Christ. — How well 
 things ripen if the sun will only shine : 
 but when the sun is laggard ; when, in 
 June, the eastern winds prevail, and 
 there are dribbling, grumbling show- 
 ers, the strawberries will not hasten ; 
 they swell, and are vapid or sour. 
 Yet as soon as the sun wakes up, and 
 drives away the clouds, and comes 
 forth, pouring the effulgence of its 
 beams on all below, out of its light 
 and heat come sugar, color and fra- 
 grant odors. Then the strawberries 
 ripen, and all the region round about 
 matures. Without the sun, a few 
 things could be ripened in the green- 
 house ; but you cannot have a green- 
 house for all the world. A few men 
 could be ripened in the synagogue, or 
 in the Temple ; but now the Sun of 
 Righteousness has arisen upon all the 
 earth, and whosoever in any nation 
 will fear God, and do justly, and love 
 mercy, is living by faith of God, which 
 is faith of Jesus Christ. 
 
 1266. The Soul's Image of Christ. — 
 The perfect interpreter, the great 
 schoolmaster of the soul, is the imagi- 
 nation, which the New Testament 
 calls, as applied to religious things, 
 invisible qualities and beings, " faith." 
 There are a thousand ideas that may 
 be called fancies, like bubbles that 
 come up for a moment and burst. 
 Though they had a picture in them 
 that no art could copy, they have 
 burst and are gone. Men in musings 
 and religious feelings in life may have 
 
JESUS CHRIST 
 
 273 
 
 ten thousand that will not abide, and 
 may seem to the uncritical or over- 
 critical judgment (which is just the 
 same) mere foolishness ; but they are 
 necessary parts of that gradual proc- 
 ess by which you come to your sub- 
 stantial thought of the Christ. 
 
 1267. Jesus the Polar Star. — As the 
 oppressed were wont, not many years 
 ago, to seek liberty in the night, be- 
 holding the star in the north, not 
 knowing what it was, nor how it was 
 made, but following it, so may we 
 look away to the light that shines in 
 Jesus, not seeking to analyze it, nor to 
 know all that is in it, nor to ascertain 
 what it means, but following it to 
 spiritual life and to liberty. 
 
 1268. Christ's Mediatorship. — In 
 foreign courts we have ministers and 
 ambassadors to intercede for us. They 
 are mediators ; they are intercessors. 
 There is an unacquaintance, a strange- 
 ness, in foreign courts, of the affairs of 
 another people, either from attending 
 to their own business, or some other 
 cause, and hence the necessity of our 
 sending ambassadors to them. But 
 it cannot be supposed that there is any 
 such ignorance of our affairs in the 
 mind of God. You must drop all 
 such idea of the intercessorship of 
 Christ as that he is one to convey in- 
 formation, to adjust facts, or to make 
 things clearer in the divine mind than 
 they were already. His mediatorship 
 affects us, not God. 
 
 1269. Gratitude to Christ. — If a poor 
 child should meet me in the street with 
 a broken and withered flower, I should 
 see the child's heart, not the condition 
 of the flower, and should thank the 
 child, and should feel a strange fra- 
 grance, not from the flower itself, but 
 from the thought that he wanted to do 
 me a kindness ; and the poorer he was, 
 the more I should feel it, and be touched 
 by the tenderness of the offering. 
 
 Ah ! when Christ takes his own 
 heart, broken, wounded, bleeding, his 
 sacrifice and his love, and brings it to 
 us, and makes it a present ; when out 
 of his own misery, out of his own 
 degradation, and out of his own 
 suffering, he proposes to lift us up into 
 everlasting bounty and benefit, is 
 there no requital, are there no thanks, 
 is there no gratitude due? 
 
 1270, Fashioned by Christ. — If you 
 were to ask an exquisite vase, " Where 
 did you come from?" if it could 
 speak it would reply, " From a bank 
 of clay." " What were you there? " 
 " A formless handful of dirt." " How 
 came you to be what you are ? " "It 
 was by the taste of him that fashioned 
 me that I grew to this form. He saw 
 me when I was but a handful of clay, 
 and he put me on a revolving wheel, 
 and he laid his hands upon me, and 
 they moved to thoughts beautiful, and 
 I, whirling and wrought upon by his 
 skill, gradually grew to these graceful 
 lines. It was his hand that laid the 
 pigments on. It was his hand that 
 put me in the fiery furnace which 
 burned in these colors till they never 
 can be taken out again. By the taste 
 of my artist-master I am what I am." 
 
 Christ, as revealed to me, is one 
 who took me from the dirt, and put 
 me on the whirling wheel of his provi- 
 dence, and laid his gracious hands 
 upon me, and so fashioned me that 
 by and by I shall be able to say, " I^y 
 the grace of the Lover I am what I 
 am." 
 
 1 27 1. Knowledge of Christ. — Tell 
 me that it is an impossible thing for a 
 man to love the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 who is invisible ! You might as well, 
 if I were now to go forth beneath tlie 
 glorious sun, and its rays were to fall 
 down through the air upon me and 
 about me on every side, tell me there 
 was no sun ! Councils of owls and 
 
274 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 bats may come to me, under the name 
 of pliilosoplicrs, and say, " Do you 
 not tliink tliat all these which you are 
 talking about — rays of the sun, flow- 
 ers, singing-birds, curling smoke, and 
 the like — are a delusion ? We have 
 lived almost as long as you have, and 
 we have consulted the oldest owls and 
 bats, and we do not believe in those 
 things." Yet, I know, — whatever men 
 may say, in the low places and the 
 high places of life, — I know that there 
 is such a thing as loving Jesus Christ 
 as a friend, as a brother ; and that 
 there is no other love that is so sweet, 
 so deep, so lasting, so wondrous, as 
 that which the soul can bear towards 
 him. 
 
 1272. "As a Hen Gathereth Her 
 Chickens," — I have on my farm one 
 hen that has twenty chickens, and 
 several that have from twelve to fifteen 
 each. All together, I have some two 
 hundred chickens running about up 
 there ; and I have seen the brooding 
 process in all its stages. Simply as a 
 feature of natural history, it is ex- 
 tremely interesting ; but it is interest- 
 ing to me also because it reminds me 
 of the words of Christ which I have 
 quoted. I like to look at those things 
 which God has laid his hand on in the 
 Bible, and stained through with famil- 
 iar truths. 
 
 The hen diligently hunts after food 
 for her little flock ; and if as she 
 scratches, she sees a most tempting 
 worm, it is not for her, but for her 
 chickens. She forgets herself in car- 
 ing for them. The moment they be- 
 gin to be tired, she seems to know it, 
 and seeks a corner where the wind 
 does not blow, and settles down, ex- 
 panding her wings. And one after 
 another the little wretches come run- 
 ning to her and nestle under her. And 
 then come their little peeps, and her 
 cooing. It is the very spirit of domes- 
 
 ticity that the scene exhibits. And I 
 never see it that I am not reminded 
 of the tenderness and love which 
 Christ manifested towards his enemies 
 — towards those that he knew were 
 about to shed his blood, when he said, 
 " How often would I have gathered 
 thy children together, even as a hen 
 gathereth her chickens under her 
 wings, and ye would not ! " 
 
 1273. " Through Jesus Christ, Our 
 Lord." — As after a storm-tossed voy- 
 age, when more favoring winds spring 
 up, and the keel quickly threads the 
 channel, and the vessel rushes in, and 
 casts anchor in the tranquil bay of 
 New York, and there swings like a 
 cradle, and all thank God that the 
 trouble is past, and that they are at 
 home at length, so I tossed long, suf- 
 fering much, in reading God's revel- 
 ation in nature, and God's revelation 
 in his holy Word, and comparing 
 them, as I sought to do, with all the 
 fundamental elements of knowledge. 
 It was not until after suffering long 
 that I entered into the spirit of the 
 eighth chapter of Romans and my 
 ship was at anchor. 
 
 1274. The Peaceful Presence of 
 Jesus. — When one who is thoroughly 
 agreeable, genial, and affectionate, 
 comes to our house, and enters in, it 
 makes no more disturbance than a 
 fine thread makes in going through a 
 fine cambric needle. It does not in- 
 terrupt the course of things any more 
 than the sunlight does in coming in at 
 the window, any more than the dawn 
 of the morning does, which carries no 
 disturbance where it goes. There are 
 friends that come and go, bringing 
 and leaving a fragrant, blessed joyful- 
 ness. And such is Jesus, whose com- 
 ing brings peace. 
 
 1275. Salvation Through Christ. — 
 Do you suppose the ferryboats are 
 jealous of your crossing the river in 
 
JESUS CHRIST 
 
 275 
 
 any other way than by them ? When 
 you have tried to jump, or wade, or 
 swim, or make a bridge of your own, 
 I think you will be quite willing to go 
 by the ferryboats. And do you sup- 
 pose that God is jealous of your com- 
 ing to him in any other way than by 
 faith in Jesus Christ ? He will not in- 
 sist upon your coming in that way, if 
 you have power to come in any other. 
 If by your own will you can control 
 your passions, and force the fire of 
 purity through the passages of your 
 soul ; if you have that in you by 
 which, when you go forth and engage 
 in the affairs of life, you can do right, 
 and that continually, he will not ob- 
 ject to your relying upon yourself. 
 But if you find that you cannot with- 
 stand the forces that are arrayed 
 against you ; if, having tried again 
 and again to triumph by your own 
 strength, you say, "The work of re- 
 generating my character is greater 
 than I can perform alone," then look 
 up! Christ be thanked for being our 
 Pilot : a pilot goes to steer for those 
 that cannot steer for themselves. 
 Christ be thanked for being our Cap- 
 tain : a captain goes to lead those that 
 cannot do without a leader. 
 
 1276. The Captain of Our Salva- 
 tion. — Our Leader ! Oh, how men 
 fight under a great leader ! When 
 some Wellington, or some Sherman, 
 or some Grant comes to the front, how 
 men's hearts go out in courage, and 
 how they say, " Now, it is worth our 
 while to be soldiers!" With what 
 alacrity they obey him, going where 
 they are sent, and doing what they are 
 commanded to do ! And they are in- 
 spired by the thought that they will 
 be participators of his glory — for what 
 the army does that is noble glorifies 
 the general, and what the general does 
 that is noble glorifies the lowest soldier 
 in the army. 
 
 Now, our Captain has been made 
 perfect through suffering. He knows 
 every experience to which we are li- 
 able, having passed through the vari- 
 ous phases of earthly life ; and now 
 he has risen to the source of power 
 above, to the headquarters of men in 
 this warring condition, where he sits 
 at the right hand of God ; and he is 
 our Leader. 
 
 1277. Love-Tokens to Christ. — 
 There comes a letter to a maiden in 
 her father's dwelling ; and, on open- 
 ing it, she finds simply a little sprig of 
 forget-me-not. It has come from a 
 great distance. She knows who sent 
 it. To him she has given all that she 
 has to give — life and love : and in him 
 her whole future is bound up. There 
 is nothing in it but a bit of paper, and 
 this little sprig of dry forget-me-not. 
 That is all, — and that is enough. 
 
 If I can pluck the smallest leaf, if I 
 can lift up and send before Christ the 
 poorest creature that lives, as a love- 
 token, he will know it ; I know that 
 he will know it ; and great is my 
 happiness that I am able thus to show 
 my love for him. 
 
 1278. The Ever-Present Christ. — 
 When a friend, much beloved, comes 
 to you and asks a favor, if it be within 
 your power you will grant it. And 
 when you are afar off, and a letter 
 comes to you in his known and fa- 
 miliar hand, asking the same favor, it 
 is as if he himself were at your side. 
 
 Strange power ! mysterious incan- 
 tation ! When you take that sheet of 
 paper, with those lines crossing it, 
 what portraits instantly shine out! 
 You see the face of the mother, or the 
 father, or the brother, or the sister, or 
 the lover. While you read the letter, 
 you do not seem to be looking at the 
 written words half so much as into the 
 face of the one that wrote them ! 
 You see the eye, the changing ex- 
 
276 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 pressions, or some one expression 
 which the mind loves to Unger upon. 
 You call up not only the face and the 
 form, but much of the past history. 
 And while reading the request, how 
 much beside does the mute paper ad- 
 dress to your imagination ! 
 
 If Christ were to come to his dis- 
 ciples in person, that would be occa- 
 sion for their watching. But the word 
 of Christ is with us, the cause of 
 Christ is with us, and that is as if he 
 himself were with us. 
 
 1279. Convincing Beauty of the 
 Christ-Life. — The grandest sight on 
 this earth is not the march of the all- 
 conquering storm whose cloudy bat- 
 tahons go rushing through the sound- 
 ing heavens ; the most beautiful thing 
 on earth is not the garden which 
 opens and sends forth from its censers 
 fragrance ; it is not the stateliness of 
 the tree which you sit under through 
 the long summer's day ; those are not 
 the most beautiful things on earth that 
 art carves out of stone. The beauty 
 of the soul, that lies in its secret cham- 
 bers ; the rich, deep, just and loving 
 natures — these are the beautiful things 
 of this world. There is nothmg so 
 beautiful as Christ in men ; and when 
 one begins to reflect the nature of 
 Christ in his life, religion needs no 
 apology ; there is no call for argu- 
 ment. 
 
 1280. Our Need, Christ's Motive. — 
 Do I, when I open my house as a 
 refuge for orphans, require that they 
 should be perfectly clean before 
 I take them in ? No ; the dirtiest 
 ones I take first. Do I require that 
 they should be well clothed ? No ; 
 their very rags are their invitation. 
 The reason I take them in is because 
 I am benevolent, and they are needy. 
 And the reason that Christ accepts us 
 is because he loves us, and we are in 
 need of his loving-kindness. 
 
 1 281. The Divinity of Christ. — 
 Men want to know whether Christ is 
 divine, and they test him as a chemist 
 would test the quality of any sub- 
 stance. They, as it were, take a pair 
 of scales, and throw one text on this 
 side, and one in that side ; and then 
 they throw another on this side, and 
 another in that side ; and then they 
 say, " If I had one more text for this 
 side, I think divinity would weigh 
 down the other side." And they hunt 
 for another text. And so they try to 
 estimate the divinity of Christ as 
 though it were a ponderable element. 
 But it is not magnitude that is divinity. 
 That which is distinctive, that which 
 crowns universal sovereignty, is the 
 crown of love. That which we see in 
 the Lord Jesus Christ specialized for 
 the wants of this world, was not that 
 which made him different from the 
 Father, but was simply a manifesta- 
 tion of the Father — a section, an 
 hour, as it were, let down, — one single 
 transaction, as an exposition of what 
 is going on in heaven from eternity 
 to eternity, by a Love which legislates, 
 and works, and serves. 
 
 1282. Forgiving and Punishing. — 
 " Do you mean to say, then, that the 
 moment a man has done you a wrong 
 you are to fly to his neck? " Oh, no, 
 not necessarily. It may be that the 
 manifestation of this feeling would be 
 the worst thing for the person. It 
 may be that the spirit of love will in- 
 spire you to take a course of discipline. 
 But that which actuates you must not 
 be the hardness of conscience. It 
 certainly must not be combativeness, 
 with the monkey-cap of conscience on 
 it. It must not be hatred. It must 
 not be revenge. Nobody has a right 
 to chastise till he is in a forgiving 
 frame of mind ; till he is conscious 
 that his heart is full and surcharged 
 with that same love which made Christ 
 
JESUS CHRIST 
 
 277 
 
 die for sinners while yet they were his 
 enemies. 
 
 1283. Preaching Christ Imperfectly. 
 — Christian truth is so divine that the 
 smallest part of it is radiant of 
 heavenly light. One may stand be- 
 fore an ample glass, long and broad, 
 which reflects the whole figure, and 
 the whole room, giving every part in 
 proportion and in relation. Break 
 that mirror into a thousand fragments, 
 and each one of these pieces will give 
 back to you your face ; and though the 
 amplitude of view and the relations 
 of objects are gone, yet the smallest 
 fragment, in its nature and uses, is a 
 mirror still, and you can see your 
 face withal. A full presentation 
 of Christ reflects men, time, and im- 
 mortality ; but let error shatter the 
 celestial glass, and its fragments, re- 
 duced in value, do in part some of 
 that work which the whole did ; and 
 they are precious. 
 
 1284. Christ the Door. — There be 
 some who teach us that the earthly 
 Church, composed of human beings, 
 surrounded with human devices, hu- 
 man ordinances, human govern- 
 ments, human systems, is the Door. 
 Never! Never! Christ is the Door. 
 No organization can take his place. 
 None can represent him, even. We 
 may make use of the Church as we 
 make use of a hotel when we are 
 traveling home to see father and 
 mother ; but no landlord of any hotel 
 shall tell me that he is my father, or 
 my mother, or that his hotel is my 
 home. Churches are God's hotels, 
 where travelers put up for the night, 
 as it were, and then speed on their 
 way home. Christ is the one Door. 
 All that pass through that Door are 
 of the one church, and belong to him. 
 
 1285. Christ in You. — Everybody 
 should have a candle burning in the 
 window of his soul-house, that those 
 
 who go by may know that he is a 
 child of light. Every heart should be 
 illumined by Christ in it, the hope of 
 glory. This is the most powerful 
 Christ that can be preached to men. 
 
 1286. Outward and Inward Life. 
 
 It is recorded that in the Medieval 
 day or even later, in Europe, while 
 the Jews were subject to great per- 
 secutions and oppressions and rob- 
 beries, they lived a squalid outward 
 life, but a palatial life in hidden 
 quarters. You might follow one of 
 them with old gaberdine, stained and 
 spotted, and with all the squalor of 
 beggary upon him, through by-ways 
 foul to the feet and oft'ensive to every 
 sense ; and through some narrow lane 
 coming to an archway you might turn 
 in, as it were, to the entrance of a 
 stable. Yet a side door opens out of 
 it into an ill-conditioned hall, pestifer- 
 ous in odor ; and ascending the steps 
 you come to a secret passage, when, 
 opening the door you are blinded with 
 the brilliance that bursts on you. 
 You are in the palace of a prince. 
 The walls are covered with adorn- 
 ments, and the rarest stuffs hang in 
 tapestry. The dishes that bespread 
 the table are of silver and gold, and 
 the household who hasten to receive 
 the home-coming parent and to strip 
 off his outward insignia, are them- 
 selves arrayed hke king's children. 
 There is a great difference between 
 the outward man and the home man. 
 But this difference is scarcely 
 greater than that which is in Paul. 
 Outwardly naked, buffeted, with no 
 certain dwelling-place, working for his 
 living, reviled, as the filth of all things, 
 tlie offscouring of the earth ; inwardly, 
 living gloriously by the Christ living 
 in him. This concentrated life of 
 Christ in him changed his identity. 
 
 1287. Coming to Christ. — To come 
 to Christ is not like coming to a mag- 
 
278 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 istrate, in whom the personahty is hid 
 behind the official duty . A magistrate 
 represents to you the abstraction of 
 justice and authority, and not personal 
 attributes. He that comes to Christ 
 comes to a person, a friend, a re- 
 deemer, a lover ; and comes to him 
 not as he would come to an argument 
 or a philosophical system, or as he 
 would come to an abstract embodi- 
 ment of justice, as a magistrate. He 
 comes as to a companion. 
 
 1288. God's Incarnation in Christ 
 not Strange. — That a father should 
 send his children away from home to 
 school is not strange ; and that God 
 should have created a household, and, 
 as it were, sent them into this school- 
 house world to learn, is not strange. 
 That a father should go to see his 
 children while they are at school, is 
 not strange ; and that God, aside from 
 the ordinary visitations of Providence, 
 should make himself personally known 
 to his earthly children, is not strange. 
 That a father, for the sake of his chil- 
 dren, should undergo toils, and pains, 
 and labors, and sufiferings, and put 
 life and name itself in peril, yea, and 
 sacrifice them, is not strange, but 
 raises him into the category of heroes ; 
 and that God, the Father of all, the 
 great Lover and Teacher of all, should 
 put burdens on himself, that he should 
 be visible before us both to represent 
 his own love, and to teach us the way 
 of duty, that he should suffer, and 
 bear, and forbear, and that he should 
 lay down life itself, is not strange. 
 
 1289. The Atonement. — To illu- 
 strate my own view of the atonement 
 in contradistinction to the Church 
 view, as it may be called, I can find 
 no other illustration that is comparable 
 for a moment to parentage. The 
 power of a soul to rear, to teach, to 
 forgive, to wait for or to restrain, to 
 deny, to punish that which it loves 
 
 best of all the world, and for the sake 
 of love — I don't know any other 
 source from which I can illustrate this 
 glorious fact better than from father- 
 hood and motherhood. I don't know 
 what else is needed. Is any concep- 
 tion grander than a revelation of a 
 God doing by the universe what a 
 glorious mother is doing by her child ? 
 
 1290. Human Side of Atonement. 
 — While you are looking at the heav- 
 ens to-night, if the clouds should break 
 so as to show one star, all the rays of 
 light that come to you will be the an- 
 titheses of other rays that go in the op- 
 posite direction ; and you will see 
 those that fall towards you, and will 
 not see those that fall away from you. 
 
 Now, it may unquestionably be true 
 that the suffering and the death of 
 Christ had a work to perform in the 
 other direction — towards the divine 
 government, towards the spirit land ; 
 we accept it as a mere statement. We 
 neither probe it nor much understand 
 it. But the other part of the truth, 
 which is abundantly expounded and 
 applied over and over again, and 
 brought to our comprehension and 
 sympathy — namely, that Christ's suf- 
 fering and death were a manifestation 
 of God's nature and feeling towards 
 us — this we can understand. And 
 this part of the atoning work of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ is our part, 
 
 1291. Gratitude to Jesus. — Oh, how 
 beautiful a thing is sensitive and hon- 
 orable gratitude ! There are men 
 wlio cannot hear the name of Arnold 
 of Rugby spoken without tears, to this 
 day, though he has been dead for a 
 score of years. Thomas Hughes, 
 who has just gone home to England, 
 is one of them. 
 
 There are persons who know that if 
 they had not been taken by Jesus at 
 just such a time, into friendliness and 
 love, and been snared in the golden- 
 
JESUS CHRIST 
 
 279 
 
 meshed web of divine sympathy, and 
 been rescued, they would have been 
 utterly destroyed. And in regard to 
 everything bright and beautiful in 
 their experience, to the end of life, 
 they will never cease to feel, "I owe 
 it all to him." 
 
 1292. Preaching: Individual Con- 
 ceptions. — Paul did not preach Christ 
 as Peter would. He preached Christ 
 as Christ had been revealed to him 
 and in him. It was the Pauline con- 
 ception of the Lord Jesus Christ that 
 Paul preached. You may say that 
 Christ is one and the same, and who- 
 ever preaches him, it must be sub- 
 stantially the same thing. You might 
 just as well say that the sun is one 
 and the same, and that therefore 
 whatever flower shows the sun's work 
 must look the same ; but when you 
 look at the flowers you will see some 
 red, some blue, some yellow, some 
 humble, some high, some branching. 
 Endless is the work the sun creates ; 
 but every one of the things which it 
 creates, reflects its power and teaches 
 something about it. 
 
 1293. The Second Incarnation. — 
 There is no part of the human body 
 that is not dominated by the brain. 
 It is the controlling center. The 
 blood, the nerves, the tissues, the se- 
 cretions, the very substance-matter of 
 bone and muscle, all are directly, as 
 well as indirectly, influenced by the 
 nerve-center— the great center of life 
 and being. And the whole world is 
 yet to be as perfectly controlled by 
 the mind and will of Christ, as the hu- 
 man body is now controlled by the 
 mind and will of the individual. 
 Christ is to fill all with himself — all 
 governments ; all laws ; all policies 
 under the government ; all com- 
 mercial and industrial organizations ; 
 all societies; all circles; all house- 
 holds ; all individuals. All are to be 
 
 filled with the mind, and will, and 
 spirit of the Head ; and Christ is to be 
 the brain of the whole world. This is 
 what I call the second incarnation. 
 
 1294. Working with Christ. — The 
 Apostle Paul had a wonderfully popu- 
 lous heaven above his head. He be- 
 lieved that the heaven was thronged 
 with spirit-workers, and that they had 
 sympathy with the work. To be ad- 
 mitted into such a working company 
 was a great thing. 
 
 Every one of you, if you were to 
 go to Europe, would wish that you 
 had an introduction into the Court of 
 Queen Victoria. And if it so hap- 
 pened that you were invited to a royal 
 reception, you would write home about 
 it, and all your friends would know it, 
 and you would not forget it to the day 
 of your death. Men feel that when 
 they are invited to see such a man as 
 Humboldt, they are honored. They 
 feel that when they are invited to the 
 country seats of nobles, they are hon- 
 ored. There is a universal feeling of 
 this sort. And Paul had it. I do not 
 think he felt that King Agrippa had 
 anything to give him. I do not think 
 that if it had been any monarch, even 
 Caesar, Paul would have felt particu- 
 larly abashed in the royal presence. 
 But to him it was God, it was Jesus 
 Christ, who was leading forth the 
 spiritual forces of the universe, and 
 was King ; and the heavenly host 
 were the aristocrats and nobles. To 
 be called into such company touched 
 the feeling of humanity in him, as 
 well as that of rejoicing pride ; and 
 he felt it to be an unspeakable privi- 
 lege to be allowed to work with such 
 fellow-workmen. 
 
 1295. Conceptions of Christ. — I do 
 not suppose there are two persons in 
 this congregation who, when they 
 think of Jesus, think just alike. If it 
 were possible to have spiritual photo- 
 
28o 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 graphs, as you might imagine projected 
 from your thought and feehng about 
 Christ, I suppose there would be 
 at least three thousand of them here. 
 Some of them would be shadowy, 
 almost without features ; some would 
 be less obscure than others ; some 
 would be more stern than others ; 
 some would be more glorious than 
 others ; some would be more full of 
 picturesque imagination than others ; 
 and some would be more full of the 
 deep experiences of a life much tried 
 than others ; they would all have a 
 relation to the personal experiences of 
 the person whose thought of Christ 
 thus projected itself in a visible form. 
 1296. Visions of Christ. — I have 
 seen a vision of Christ bending over 
 
 me with tenderness, instructing mc in 
 heavenly wisdom and radiant knowl- 
 edge, and standing as an Advocate of 
 the poor and a Defender of the 
 wronged ; I have seen a vision of 
 Christ clothed with clouds, and I have 
 seen those clouds painted with gor- 
 geous colors of glory ; I have seen 
 ten thousand visions of Christ ; but 
 never yet have I seen him. There is, 
 however, a day coming when I shall 
 see him as he is — not as I have fan- 
 cied him to be, not as my heart paints 
 him, not as my wants interpret him, 
 but as he is. In that illustrious day 
 he shall be the chief among ten thou- 
 sand and altogether lovely ; forever 
 and ever he shall be precious to me, 
 my heart's treasure and delight. 
 
 XXIV. THE HOLT SPIRIT 
 
 1297. Need of the Holy Spirit. — 
 There is not a daisy that was not or- 
 ganized to be a daisy, but I should 
 like to see one that did not have the 
 sun to help it up from the seed ! there is 
 not an aster that was not organized to 
 be an aster, but where is there one that 
 grew independent of the sun ! What 
 the sun is to flowers, that the Holy 
 Ghost must be to our hearts, if we 
 would be Christians. 
 
 1298. The Holy Spirit and Man. — 
 As the sunlight is the father of every 
 flower that blossoms — though no 
 flower would blossom if it had not 
 separate organized existence in the 
 plant on which it shines — so " work 
 out your own salvation with fear and 
 trembling, for it is God that worketh 
 in you," describes the working of the 
 Divine Spirit in producing right affec- 
 tions and good works in man. 
 
 1299. The New Birth. — It is a fa- 
 miliar fact, that men, at certain peri- 
 ods of their lives, experience changes 
 which are like another birth. The 
 
 new life, when the passion, and, still 
 more significantly, when the senti- 
 ment, of love takes full possession 
 of the soul, is familiar. Great men 
 date their birth from the hour of 
 some great inspiration. Even from 
 human sources, from individual men, 
 and from society, electric influences 
 dart out upon susceptible natures, 
 which change their future history. How 
 much more powerful should this be if 
 there is a Divine Spirit ! If secular 
 influence has transforming power, how 
 much more divine influence ! 
 
 1300. Human Development. — Man 
 is born an unconscious animal ; slowly 
 he develops the senses ; he rises to 
 social sympathies and to will-power. 
 Meantime intellectual and esthetic 
 growth accompany the general de- 
 velopment. Conscience and spiritual 
 susceptibility ripen latest of all. At 
 each stage the mind becomes sensitive 
 to higher influences and truths, and 
 finally it is capable of receiving the 
 direct influence of the Divine presence. 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT 
 
 281 
 
 This is the highest state to which man 
 may come upon eaitli. As the touch 
 of a musician brings differing sounds 
 from the different strings of a harp, so 
 the Divine touch, or inbreathing upon 
 the soul, brings forth results according 
 to each individual nature. 
 
 1 301. A Soul Open to the Light. — 
 The sun may shine on a slated roof 
 forever, and yet the garret beneath it 
 may be dark. So God's Spirit may 
 shine forever on your soul, and you 
 may not be enlightened. But make 
 the roof of glass, and the sun will 
 shine through ; and make the way to 
 your soul transparent, and the Sun of 
 Righteousness will shine in. 
 
 1302. Holy Spirit an Educator. — 
 Every man born needs to be born 
 again ; and it is a work which is as im- 
 possible to men as for a person to 
 come suddenly to education, to knowl- 
 edge, simply by a volition. No man 
 can ever lift himself up so. But it is 
 within the power of a man to put him- 
 self under instructors and grow up 
 into education. And I hold that man 
 has not the power to regenerate him- 
 self; he is under the stimulating influ- 
 ence of the present and immanent 
 Spirit of God. 
 
 1303. God's Ways of Influence. — 
 A man has been conversant for several 
 days with many authors. He has 
 read in Burke, he has read in Bacon, 
 he has culled much from Leibnitz, and 
 others ; and presently there comes to 
 him a morning of great inspiration, in 
 which he finds his thoughts rising and 
 clothing themselves with stores of 
 knowledge, and going forth to lay the 
 foundations of new arguments and 
 statements. It would be impossible 
 for him to say of certain thoughts, " I 
 got these from the inspiration of 
 Burke ; " or, " from the inspiration of 
 Bacon ; " or, " from the inspiration of 
 Leibnitz." He has received elements 
 
 of inspiration from every one of them, 
 but now they are so melted and 
 merged that he cannot distinguish 
 them from each other ; and the inspi- 
 ration which he feels is the result of 
 all these elements combined. 
 
 So in the great Divine economy God 
 moves upon the mind by the mother, 
 by the father, by the schoolmaster, by 
 a man's friends, by his enemies, by 
 those that he knows and those that he 
 does not know, by ten thousand 
 agencies, and also by the direct influ- 
 ence of the Holy Spirit ; and it is im- 
 possible for a man to distinguish be- 
 tween the efforts of the Divine mind or 
 his own mind and the other instru- 
 mentalities which act upon him. 
 
 1304. Working with God. — Philos- 
 ophy says, "If it is God that works 
 in man, how does man work?" Is 
 there no such thing as cooperation ? 
 Is there no such thing as inspiration? 
 In the midst of battle, men who have 
 unflinchingly borne until they are well- 
 nigh cut off, are thinking of retreat ; 
 and they hear the voice of their cap- 
 tain crying out to them, and sending a 
 thrill through the air. The result is 
 that they nerve themselves up once 
 more, and victory comes with this last 
 effort. There is success Avhen an- 
 other mighty soul is working in them, 
 inspiring them to will and to do. 
 
 1305. Divine and Human Co-oper- 
 ation. — If I take a plant out of the 
 cellar where it has grown etiolated, 
 and without chlorophyl, and put it 
 where the light of the sun will be 
 brought to bear upon it, and where it 
 turns green, will you tell me what part 
 of the green is plant and what part of 
 it is sun? I would say that the sun 
 develops this chlorophyl by injecting 
 itself, so to speak, into the leaf. The 
 command is, "Work out your own 
 salvation," " for it is God which work- 
 eth in you to will and to do " ; so that 
 
282 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 tlie Divine influence cooperates with 
 human conduct or human thought. 
 
 1306. Divine Inspiration not Crea- 
 tion. — The whole history of the Bible 
 will show that its great men, preemi- 
 nent as being inspired, were acting 
 most perfectly in the line of their own 
 original endowments when they were 
 most inspired. In other words, a man 
 is never so much himself as when the 
 divine Spirit brings him up to the full- 
 ness of all that which he has, but 
 which he does not avail himself of. 
 
 Moses was called from birth. In 
 other words, he was organized to be 
 Moses. And when the Spirit of God 
 rested upon him (his wonderful ad- 
 ministrative powers covering a breadth 
 perhaps never equaled — certainly 
 never surpassed), it was the Divine 
 Spirit simply acting upon an organiza- 
 tion already precast for that work. 
 Massive-browed was he. Large uni- 
 versally was he. The comprehensive- 
 ness, the foresight, the complexity and 
 wisdom of his mind, the whole knowl- 
 edge of life, of society, and of men, 
 manifested by the great lawgiver of 
 the desert — these were developed by 
 the Spirit of God in him ; they were 
 not created by inspiration without any 
 regard to his organization. 
 
 1307. Original Christianity. — Chris- 
 tianity itself was not a system of 
 truths, nor the result of a system of 
 truths, but a name for living forces. 
 It was a new dispensation of power, an 
 efflux of the Divine Spirit, developing 
 tlie latent spiritual forces in man. It 
 was the kingdom of God among men. 
 It was like the diffusion of a new and 
 more fervid climate over a whole 
 continent. A development and per- 
 fection would follow, never before 
 known, and impossible to a lower 
 temperature. 
 
 1308. What is Christianity? — It is 
 not my arm, or my foot, or my head, 
 
 or my blood, or all of them together, 
 that make me a man ; it is something 
 which is using all these things, and 
 which we call the vital principle. All 
 these other things together, without 
 this vital force, amount to nothing. It 
 is precisely in analogy with this that 
 Christianity is to the nature of man a 
 divine force, spiritualizing him. 
 
 What, then, is a Christian life? It 
 is the life of the human soul, derived 
 not alone from natural laws, not alone 
 from the incitements of society, pro- 
 cured not by human causes, but dis- 
 tinctively and peculiarly a life derived 
 from God. It results from the union 
 of our mind with the Divine mind ; it 
 is the indwelling of the Divine influence 
 in the human soul in such a way that 
 man has an incitement and an inspira- 
 tion higher than any that can come from 
 native and material causes. You may 
 call this supernatural ; I do not think 
 it is supernatural. The action of the 
 Divine mind upon the human mind is 
 as much in the course of nature as the 
 construction of the human soul itself. 
 
 1309. Man's Spirit Needs God's 
 Spirit. — There is no man who has, 
 under any culture, been brought up 
 so far but that he needs the outpour- 
 ing of the Divine soul on his soul, to 
 enable him to bring forth the blossom 
 or the fruit of righteousness in the 
 realm of the spirit. . . . For the 
 archer almost to hit is not to hit at all ; 
 and good as a man may be, high as 
 he may have risen in the transition 
 from the carnal man towards the spir- 
 itual man, after all, no man has really 
 made that transition until he has felt 
 the inspiration, the impulse of the 
 spirit and soul of God himself. 
 
 1 3 10. Condemnation and Hope Rec- 
 onciled.- — Ordinarily men are as pen- 
 dulums between the seventh and the 
 eighth of Romans, taking in con- 
 demnation upon one side, and hope 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT 
 
 283 
 
 on the other ; and so they oscillate, 
 vibrating between hope and fear. 
 But there is a reconcihation. It is a 
 reconciUation, however, that cannot 
 take place except in a soul that is in 
 the possession of Christ, and subject 
 to the blessed rule of love. In that 
 soul there is perfect reconciliation, so 
 that you may feel every day, " I come 
 short ; I am a sinner, and yet I am 
 reconciled ; I rebel, yet I love ; I dis- 
 obey, yet I long to obey ; I am sorry, 
 yet I am comforted ; I am my own, 
 yet I am more His." The most op- 
 posite experiences take place, and are 
 perfectly reconciled by the transform- 
 ing influence of that love which is 
 shed abroad in the soul by the power 
 of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 131 1. Divine Influence on Human 
 Soul. — How shall I know whether 
 these motives are of my own self, or 
 whether they are the concurrent stim- 
 ulating influences of the Divine mind? 
 You cannot tell. It was not meant 
 nor is it necessary that you should. 
 
 When a steamship is making her 
 course across the Atlantic, and her 
 own engine is propelling the hull, and 
 the wind is fair, and the captain has 
 raised all the sails, suppose the hull 
 should say : " Engineer, can you tell 
 me how much of my motion I am to 
 attribute to the engine, and how much 
 belongs to the sails ? He would re- 
 ply, "They are both working to- 
 gether, and you cannot separate the 
 one from the other." 
 
 " But," it is said, " is not this taking 
 from the glory of God ? " If you will 
 show me that he thinks so, I will 
 admit it. But if this be fact, then it 
 is the method that God has chosen ; 
 and that which he has chosen is doubt- 
 less that which is the most glorious to 
 himself. This attempting to be more 
 jealous about God's glory than he is 
 himself, is a piece of supreme imperti- 
 
 nence, of spiritual self-conceit ; or else 
 it is logic run mad ! 
 
 1312. Religious Helpfulness of Sci- 
 ence. — I look with favor upon the fact 
 that in the external world science is 
 preparing new materials and new in- 
 strumentalities, and that it is working 
 so nearly in harmony with the Church 
 of Christ. But, after all, it is my con- 
 viction that there are no results flow- 
 ing from the lower natural causes that 
 may or can supersede the fashioning 
 effect and the divine influence of the 
 Spirit of God. They will work to- 
 gether with God, As science teaches 
 the husbandman to work in better co- 
 operation with natural laws, so we are 
 taught to work seeking a better un- 
 derstanding of the human soul ; but 
 there never will be such skill in mas- 
 terly manipulation, that the soul will 
 not need the vitalizing influence of the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 1 31 3. Divine Power through Hu- 
 man Mediums. — What is it in Mr. 
 Moody and Mr. Sankey that renders 
 them so wonderfully successful in 
 their Evangelist work ? You might 
 just as well look at a pane of plate 
 glass in a window and wonder what 
 there is in it that makes the landscape 
 so beautiful outside of it. It is through 
 them that the work goes on. The 
 power lies outside and above. 
 
 1 3 14. God Working Through Men. 
 — You know how feeble a thing a root 
 is. If you examine a root, you find 
 it soft as dough in a kneading-trough. 
 And yet, look along the pavement, and 
 see how that root, quietly growing, 
 lifts the hugest slab. All the engines 
 on earth, put together, could not do 
 as much work as one ten-acre meadow 
 of grass, growing without noise and 
 without clatter. How mighty are the 
 invisible forces of nature ! 
 
 Now, it was the interior feeling of 
 souls that were roused to a consider- 
 
284 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 ation of the infinite ; it was the tran- 
 scendent experiences and impulses of 
 a few men, poor, obscure, and de- 
 spised, that were mightier than 
 thrones, or laws, or customs. These 
 few men, inspired by the Holy Ghost, 
 threw down the mightiest temples and 
 upturned what ages had built, though 
 the learning of the world and the 
 politics of the world and the customs 
 of the world were against them, and 
 the passions of the world, like an im- 
 mense Gulf-stream, swept in upon 
 them. The Spirit of the eternal God 
 in the human soul was mightier than 
 all these things. And as it was then, 
 so it has been again and again. 
 
 This is the reason Christianity does 
 not die out, though every hundred 
 years it seems about to be extinguished 
 by advancing philosophy. 
 
 13 15. Light to be Received. — But 
 you will ask me, " Is not God's Spirit 
 special? Is it universal?" God's 
 Spirit IS universal. It becomes spe- 
 cial when your volition accepts and 
 takes it. God's Spirit follows the law 
 of God's sun. The whole heaven is 
 full of light. And yet, if you go into 
 your house, and shut the door, there 
 is no sun to you. If you leave your 
 dwelling, or cave, and go out into the 
 sunlight, it is all yours, and it becomes 
 personal to you and your wants. And 
 as it is with the natural sun, so it is 
 with the Sun of Righteousness. 
 
 1316. God Working in Us. — Sun- 
 light is universal ; it shines every- 
 where ; but when you bring it to bear 
 upon your plants in green-houses you 
 specialize it. The Black Hamburg 
 grape you cannot raise out of doors 
 although there is sunlight there. You 
 build glass houses ; you so arrange 
 them that the sun's rays fall upon the 
 vines ; you secure the conditions re- 
 quired for their growth ; and the con- 
 sequence is that you have fruit. There 
 
 are certain latitudes in which given 
 results cannot be obtained by sun- 
 liglit without specializing it. The Di- 
 vine influence is diffused upon the 
 good and the bad alike, just as the 
 sunlight is ; but when men understand 
 it, and accept it by the force of their 
 own will, thus putting themselves in 
 the line of God's nature, it becomes 
 special to them, and works out in 
 them both to will and to do of God's 
 good pleasure. 
 
 13 1 7. Divine Spirit in Every Soul. 
 — There is the balm of the summer 
 day, but that balm is not what you 
 alone recognize. It comforts a mil- 
 lion roots in the lawn before your 
 house. The summer is not merely 
 the warm air which you are cognizant 
 of. The cricket knows it. The grass- 
 hopper knows it. The moss knows 
 it. The very stones, that grow warm 
 and stimulate the moss which covers 
 them, know it. Ten thousand little 
 delicate insects know it. All blossoms 
 know it. The leaves know it. The 
 fruits know it. The summer is work- 
 ing silently but universally. It fills 
 everything with its own qualities. 
 
 And so, not only must my God be 
 the Lord of heaven and the Governor 
 of the earth at large, but his personal 
 relations to me must be such that he 
 shall be in nie all the time, and must 
 be working within me. 
 
 1318. Man Responsible. — I should 
 as soon attempt to raise flowers if 
 there were no atmosphere, or produce 
 fruits if there were neither light nor 
 heat, as to regenerate men if I did not 
 believe there was a Holy Ghost. 
 
 Nevertheless, this Divine influence 
 is not irresistible in such a sense as to 
 relieve men from responsibility. God 
 wakes up the soul, and then says to 
 it, " Work out your own salvation 
 with fear and trembling ; for it is God 
 that worketh in you." The inspira- 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT 
 
 285 
 
 tion of the Divine mind gives us pos- 
 session of our own faculties, and we 
 are to labor with them, applying the 
 proper causes for the attainment of 
 given results, as much in religious as 
 in secular things. 
 
 1 31 9. Utilizing the Divine Spirit. — 
 Man is acted upon by the Divine 
 Spirit at all times ; but he may pre- 
 pare himself so that he shall be acted 
 upon the most favorably. There 
 would be summer if there were not a 
 farmer ; but the farmer knows how to 
 make summer work to advantage for 
 him, as otherwise it would not have 
 done. There would be flowers if 
 there were no florists ; but the florist 
 knows how to make the sun bring 
 forth exquisite color and forms, as it 
 never would have done if it had not 
 been for his preparation. 
 
 1320. Ripening Power of Divine In- 
 fluence. — Bring me an apple, and let 
 me taste it ; if it is hard and acid, I 
 say, "It was a rainy summer where 
 that grew, and it did not have much 
 sun." Bring me another apple, and 
 if it is mellow and full of sugar and 
 aroma, I say, "Ah! that sugar and 
 that aroma never came out of the 
 ground : they must have come from 
 where there were light and heat." 
 And I can judge of the influences un- 
 der which nations have been unfolded 
 by the nature of the fruit which they 
 produce. Show me a nation that is 
 developing coarse animalism, and I 
 will show you a nation that has not 
 been true to that Light which cometh 
 into the world to light every man, 
 which shines into the darkness, and 
 which the darkness comprehends not. 
 On the other hand, show me an indi- 
 vidual, a family, a community or a 
 nation, that yields the products of a 
 higher moral nature, and I will pro- 
 nounce that higher moral nature to be 
 the result of Divine inspiration. 
 
 1321. Fruits of the Spirit. — We are 
 not to suppose, because a peach is so 
 luscious and beautiful, that it is the 
 child of the sun any more than a par- 
 tridge berry. The humblest little 
 berry that grows on the ground is the 
 child of the sun. It is nourished and 
 made what it is by the sun. All the 
 way up from moss to the cedar of 
 Lebanon, everything that grows is, in 
 its place, the child of the sun. Now, 
 all right experiences, from the lowest 
 to the very highest, are fruits of the 
 Spirit in men. They differ in different 
 individuals ; but they are possible to 
 all in different degrees, according to 
 their natural endowments, and their 
 education and endeavor. 
 
 1322. Truth Immortal. — As there 
 cannot be anything lost chemically, as 
 there can only be change from one 
 form into another, so I apprehend that 
 there has been nothing of truth lost. 
 There have been enormous changes in 
 systems of theology, but they have 
 been changes from one form to an- 
 other. I believe that nothing which was 
 true, and carried benefit in it, has 
 been lost. There is no evidence what- 
 ever that the world has lost out a 
 physical truth, a social truth, a civic 
 truth, an economical truth, a moral 
 truth, or a spiritual truth. There is no 
 evidence that any truth has ever re- 
 turned void. In so far as truths have 
 been developed they have mingled 
 themselves with the life of the world, 
 and they are going on to this day still 
 beating in the veins of men, still man- 
 aging human affairs, still reporting 
 themselves the servants of God, and 
 still accomplishing the errands on 
 which he sent them.' 
 
 1323. Spiritual Guidance. — I re- 
 member very well when I first opened 
 
 > " No whisper of the Holy Ghost 
 The careless world hath ever lost." 
 . — Emerson, 
 
286 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 my algebra. Of all minds set to solve 
 an algebraic problem, I think mine 
 was the least adapted to it ; and if I 
 had been left to myself I never should 
 have got beyond the very simplest 
 equations. I should never have got 
 so far. Fortunately, however, I had 
 a school-teacher who would take no 
 refusal, and who put the pressure upon 
 me and said, " The lesson that I pre- 
 scribe you must learn. I will accept 
 no excuse. I do not care whether 
 anybody helps you or not ; I don't 
 care how you get through ; but I am 
 determined that this shall be learned 
 by you." There was a strife of 
 several days in which, fortunately, he 
 was victorious. The pressure and the 
 influence continued till I gained one 
 or two victories ; then the pride of suc- 
 cess in intellectual conflict was born 
 in me ; and for the first time I felt an 
 inherent power to undertake to do 
 difficult things by my understajiding, 
 by my courage and by my continuity. 
 So a miracle was wrought, and I be- 
 came an algebraist. To myself it was 
 a thing out of the question ; but it was 
 possible under the guiding pressure of 
 a skillful, energetic and coercive 
 teacher. The life of the spirit is 
 harder than algebra ; men need skill- 
 ful guidance in it. 
 
 1324. Privilege of Taking Divine 
 Guidance. — If the shipmaster chooses 
 to bring in his ship, and can do it, 
 without a pilot, who cares ? If, seeing 
 the lights that are kindled along the 
 coast, he says, " I do not need those 
 lights ; I can bring my ship in without 
 them," is there any fine for his not 
 looking at the lights ? But if the night 
 is dark ; if the landmarks are all 
 rubbed out ; if he is going on to the 
 coast, and he feels, " I would to God 
 that I knew where I was ! " and if, as 
 he speaks, there opens up the light, so 
 that he says, " Thank God ! I knovi* 
 
 that light ; now I know where I am " ; 
 and he brings his ship safely in, has 
 he not reason to thank God for the 
 lighthouse ? 
 
 The truths of God's Spirit are lit up 
 along the way of human life, not be- 
 cause there is any duty of directing 
 your course by them, but because 
 tliere is infinitely more — because you 
 need just such stimulation, just such 
 guidance, and God gives it to you. 
 
 1325. Earthly and Heavenly Power. 
 — Let all the scientists in the world go 
 down to the seacoast and say, " We 
 will draw the tide up," and there is no 
 pneumatic force, there is no force of 
 hydrostatics that can raise the tide one 
 inch ; but when the moon moves in its 
 course far up in the heavens, and ex- 
 erts its power upon the seas, they 
 yield to its attraction. And when you 
 go forth with great alacrity, to bring 
 to bear upon the race of mankind all 
 the forces which belong to this world, 
 you cannot start it ; but let loose upon 
 it the attraction of the knowledge of 
 God in Christ Jesus and the tides 
 begin to move irresistibly ; and that 
 which no human power could do, no 
 human power can resist. 
 
 1326. Spiritual Death. — A man is 
 taken out of the water into which he 
 has fallen. It is feared that he is past 
 recovery. He is brought in. He no 
 longer hears, nor speaks, nor sees, 
 nor breathes, nor moves, nor shows 
 any evidence of feeling. And you say, 
 " He is dead." Why is he said to be 
 dead ? Because he lacks sensibility. 
 
 Now, take a man that is spiritually 
 dead. Pinch his conscience ; he does 
 not start. Bring before him the law, 
 and let it thunder in his ears ; it makes 
 no impression upon him. Pierce him 
 with the sword of the Spirit ; he does 
 not feel it ; he is not susceptible to 
 fear ; he has no moral sensibility. 
 And you say that that man is spirit- 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT 
 
 287 
 
 ually dead because he is not alive to 
 Divine influences. 
 
 1327. Unforeseen Effects. — Who 
 can imagine a greater difference than 
 exists between the raindrop when it 
 falls and the raindrop when it re- 
 appears speedily in vegetable growths 
 — in the grass, the flower, the stalwart 
 tree? It comes from the cloud, and 
 rests upon the earth ; but quickly it is 
 caught up, and set to work in the strange 
 enginery of nature. It finds its way 
 into life, and in that life it makes 
 acquaintance, through the leaves, with 
 the sun. It fell rain ; it comes forth a 
 leaf. It fell a liquid, transparent 
 drop ; it rises in varied forms of beauty 
 and use. You cannot tell by the way 
 a cause strikes the earth — whether 
 material or spiritual — what is the form 
 of the effect it shall produce when it 
 enters the laboratory where God is the 
 chemist and the worker. 
 
 1328. Heavenly Guidance. — When 
 some poor Southern refugee, seeking 
 the Union lines in the mountains, 
 sought some guide ; when the way 
 was dark and unknown, and he was 
 all frost-bitten, hungry, half naked, 
 and discouraged, fearing to trust any 
 light or fire lest it be the enemy's, and 
 at last the clouds parted, and the 
 north star shone — that one single 
 point of guidance of the frigid sky — 
 cold and distant, and, to every other 
 eye almost than his, cheerless, how it 
 filled his soul with gladness and joy ! 
 How it lifted him up above present 
 trials, and brought him safely through, 
 guiding him ! And so a light, far 
 away in heaven, is better than all the 
 torches and gas lights that we can 
 light here upon earth. 
 
 1329. Attraction. — As in the royalty 
 of spring the sun stands in the lieaven, 
 and draws up on every side the vapors 
 from the sea, or river, or meadow, 
 
 and then in the glory of the heaven 
 transfigures them all, so the Sun of 
 Righteousness in your soul is drawing 
 up the filmy, fleecy clouds of ex- 
 pectation and hope. Your very yearn- 
 ings and unsatisfied longings are point- 
 ing one way, and saying, " Beyond, 
 beyond; your life is there." 
 
 1330. "In Him We Live." — In a 
 few months we shall renew the scenes 
 of spring ; and what will be the 
 phenomena of that spring ? Shall we 
 hear the underground thunder of all 
 the roots trooping to break out ? 
 Will subterranean waters flood the 
 orchards and forests and fields to 
 wake up the trees ? The voice that 
 shall give resurrection to all nature in 
 the coming spring is not that. The 
 sun lingers a little longer, and silently, 
 on the fields ; the air grows a little 
 warmer ; day unto day uttereth 
 speech, and night unto night showeth 
 knowledge of the Divine power ; the 
 heavens grow moist ; and out of the 
 bosom of the invisible spring, not de- 
 scending, but ascending from the 
 earth, come the root, the bud and the 
 blossom ; and when the orchards are 
 purple, when the autumn baskets are 
 filled with glorious fruit, and when 
 the harvests wave in the fields, stand 
 and see that these things have not 
 sprung from matter to matter. It is 
 the invisible kingdom above that has 
 created them. They are children of 
 the sun, of the winds and of the air. 
 
 Out of the great invisible atmosphere 
 of the spirit God is moving human 
 hearts in a like way ; and though 
 they come up as corn from the soil, 
 though the trees clap their hands as 
 upon the mountain side, though all 
 things seem to be of the earth, earthy, 
 it is this Divine atmosphere, after all, 
 that creates them ; and they all ap- 
 pear on earth as heavenly work. 
 
288 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 XXF. CONSCIENCE, TEMPTATION, AND SIN 
 
 1331. No Conscience. — A man who 
 has no conscience is hke a man with- 
 out a dog. The door is open to every 
 prowler by day and by night. 
 
 1332. Wrong Use of Conscience. — 
 Many men carry their conscience like 
 a drawn sword, cutting this way and 
 that, in the world, but sheathe it, and 
 keep it very soft and quiet, when it is 
 turned within, thinking that a sword 
 should not cut its own scabbard. 
 
 1333- A Sensitive Conscience. — 
 Why was it that when Rossini, or 
 Beethoven, in his earlier and better 
 days, pressed down a consecutive 
 row of keys he felt a shock ? Was it 
 because the grammar of music had 
 been violated ? No ; discord with the 
 fundamental nature of his musical 
 faculties — that was the reason. He 
 could not bear a discord ; and no 
 matter if all the grammar in the world 
 had said it was right he would have 
 said, by the force of his own organiza- 
 tion, " It is wrong, it is hateful." 
 And there ought to be in every manly 
 soul such a sense of fitness in justice 
 and in equity, as between man and 
 man, that honesty should in itself be 
 beautiful and necessary to him. 
 
 1334. The Unloving Conscience. — 
 There is no tyranny more intolerable 
 than a conscience unrestrained by 
 love. Like an ill-loaded gun, it re- 
 coils at the breech and kills at the 
 muzzle. A conscience unsubdued by 
 love torments the owner, and bruises 
 those upon whom he lets it loose. 
 
 i335> Conscience Works Evil and 
 Good. — There is not a single feeling 
 of the mind that does not put on the 
 mask of conscience to do its own 
 work — and the dirtiest work as much 
 as the purest. When a man says, " I 
 have looked at this matter, and I have 
 come to this conclusion," he is a 
 
 pope, infallible — that is, he acts as 
 though he felt like one — and the more 
 obstinate he is, the more he will tell 
 us that he acts on principle. Some- 
 times it may be on principle that he 
 acts ; but oftener it is not. 
 
 1336. Humor the Friend of Con- 
 science. — I have noticed in great as- 
 semblies that when men get by the 
 ears, and their combative feelings 
 have arisen, and they are ready for a 
 fierce conflict, one good stroke of 
 humor puts it all back, and the men 
 smile, and look at each other with 
 friendly eyes. I tell you, humor is 
 the friend of conscience ; and any 
 man whose conscience does not Hke 
 humor I suspect keeps worse com- 
 pany than that — the company of com- 
 bativeness and destructiveness. 
 
 1337- The Microscopic Conscience. 
 — There is a conscience that concerns 
 itself principally about minute things, 
 none for broad, large views, has no 
 momentum in it, no trusting of itself, 
 without which a man is but a poor 
 creature — invertebrate. I hold that it 
 is with human conduct as it is with 
 the ship, when once the motion is im- 
 pelled the momentum is of vast im- 
 portance. And in society a man that 
 is all the time stopping to see whether 
 he is doing right or not, and analyz- 
 ing his thoughts and his motives and 
 his feelings without any knowledge of 
 how to analyze, is like a man who is so 
 anxious that he stops his watch every 
 few minutes, to see if it is going. 
 
 1338. The Department Conscience. 
 — There is what may be called a de- 
 partment conscience. Thus, a man 
 is serving a church, and the church 
 itself is operose and multitudinous, 
 and filled up with a great many things, 
 and the man has a very active con- 
 science in everything that belongs to 
 
CONSCIENCE, TEMPTATION, AND SIN 289 
 
 church life ; but he has very httle 
 conscience for family life — does not 
 hesitate at all to make people 
 wretched all round about him. He 
 has a conscience for the cathedral, 
 but none for the house. A great 
 many men have a conscience for 
 Sunday, but none for Monday. 
 
 1339. Spontaneity in Conscience. — 
 We may be in long perplexity as to 
 what is right and what is wrong, what 
 is duty and what is to be avoided ; but 
 men should be so trained that the mo- 
 ment they know what is right they 
 instantly — not by reasoning with them- 
 selves, not by persuasion, but by 
 automatic necessity — should go for the 
 right ; and with equal promptness, al- 
 most before they think of it them- 
 selves, should go against the wrong. 
 We learn it with our feet, for if a man 
 be walking the street and the ground 
 be hummocky, and here and there in- 
 terspersed with puddles, he never 
 stops to think of the difference be- 
 tween liquid mud and solid earth, or 
 anything of the kind, but his feet pick 
 out the right way all the time. And 
 in the great sphere of life, where the 
 paths are so muddy, and there is so 
 much to be avoided as well as sought 
 out, the training that we require is one 
 that leads a man to defer instantly to 
 his sense of rectitude, and to measure- 
 ment by what he knows to be right, 
 and just, and true, and proper. 
 
 1340. How Conscience Acts. — Con- 
 science acts within the mind accord- 
 ing to the law of companionship. 
 If a man's conscience works with fear 
 he becomes superstitious ; if it works 
 with hope he shoots in the other direc- 
 tion continuously : and it is to the last 
 degree of importance that men should 
 know what the conscience is about in- 
 side of them. Conscience has often 
 been a gladiator and a murderer, not 
 because it was bad, but because it 
 
 was bad in combination with the 
 animal passions and faculties. Were 
 there ever more conscientious men 
 than those who burned men, broke 
 them on the wheel ; that everywhere 
 turned this world through the profes- 
 sion of religion into an aceldama ? 
 Conscience ! they had conscience 
 enough, but it was a perverted con- 
 science working with bad inspirations. 
 
 1341. Conscience: Sundays, and 
 Week-Days. — On Sunday, if you could 
 look into a man's soul, when he has 
 had a good night's rest ; when the 
 world has had its hands off from him 
 some hours, and he has begun to be 
 at equipoise and equihbrium ; when 
 he has been to church, where the 
 organ has swung around its wings, 
 and blown, as it were, the dust of the 
 world from the air ; when by singing, 
 and preaching he has been brought to 
 a higher state of feeling — then, if you 
 could look into his soul, you would 
 see conscience, hope, faith, love, sit- 
 ting in the judges' chairs ; and down 
 in the culprit's box below would be 
 hatred, anger, avarice, the various 
 appetites. Oh, how a man's soul 
 talks to his passions on Sunday ! 
 
 Monday and Tuesday let us go into 
 that man's court again. Where are 
 those celestial judges ? Who are in 
 the chairs now ? The appetites, avar- 
 ice, anger, hatred, are there. All 
 those surly and ill-visaged passions 
 are in the judges' bench. And what 
 stands before them ? A poor trem- 
 bling conscience is standing down in 
 the culprit's box, and being tried. 
 What for? Why, in the business af- 
 fairs of Monday or Tuesday there 
 came from conscience this plea : that 
 a man ought to stand to his principles, 
 and do right ; and instantly these 
 lower passions rose up, and said, "A 
 pretty kind of casuistry that is which 
 holds that a man should sacrifice his 
 
290 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 interests for the salcc of his principles ! 
 J5usiness is business ; fact is fact ; Ufe 
 is life ; money is money." The higher 
 feelings were put down by the lower. 
 
 1342. Reason and Conscience. — The 
 reason stands related to all sentiments 
 — to conscience and the rest — as the 
 keys on the key-board do to the pipes 
 in an organ. All the pipes have tlie 
 potentiality of certain sounds, differ- 
 ing one from another ; but they do not 
 sound themselves. They never open 
 their throat to speak until the keys are 
 pressed. We open them with our 
 hands. The whole issuing range of 
 harmony from the instrument is de- 
 termined at the key-board. 
 
 So reason is the key-board of the 
 mind ; and when it pronounces any 
 course of conduct, or any action, to 
 be right, the conscience approves it — 
 that is, it gives forth the sentiment of 
 pleasure to itself; and when the rea- 
 son condemns any course of conduct 
 or action, then the conscience gives 
 back the sentiment of pain. 
 
 1343. The Habit of Duty. — Some- 
 where in Central or Western New 
 York, there are four or five artificial 
 lakes. The engineers of the Erie 
 Canal meant to obtain the water that 
 would be required, from small streams; 
 but it was found that in the drought of 
 summers those streams ran so low as 
 to render the supply insufficient. The 
 result was, that back in the country 
 where there were superior facilities for 
 collecting large quantities of water, 
 these artificial lakes were created, 
 which serve as reservoirs for feeding 
 the canal from the time when the 
 dry season commences until the fall 
 rains come on. 
 
 Now, you must have a reservoir to 
 supply what you lack when the small 
 streams of impulse fail ; and that must 
 be conscience. It must be a sense of 
 duty. It must be habit. 
 
 1344. Other Men's Consciences. — 
 A good driver drives with his eye on 
 every other driver in the street. It is 
 not enough for me to drive my own 
 horse, and take care of my own 
 wagon. I must look out for other 
 people's horses and wagons as well. 
 I must keep in view the position of all 
 the vehicles in the street, and act ac- 
 cordingly. Unless I do these things I 
 am not a good driver. And a man in 
 carrying his own conscience must con- 
 sider the consciences of others. In 
 following the dictates of his own con- 
 science he must do no violence to the 
 consciences of other people. 
 
 1345- Conscience, the Guide. — A 
 man may cut away every mast on his 
 ship, and yet pursue his voyage. A 
 man may have everything on deck 
 carried overboard, and yet make some 
 headway. A man in the middle of 
 the ocean can afford to lose everything 
 else better than he can afford to lose 
 the compass in the binnacle. When 
 that is gone he has nothing to steer 
 by. And that conscience which God 
 has given you is your compass and 
 guide. You can afford to lose genius, 
 and taste, and reason, and judgment, 
 better than that. Keep that as the 
 apple of your eye. Keep it clear, and 
 strong, and discerning. Be in love 
 with your conscience ; and let your 
 conscience be in love with God. 
 
 1346. — Sins under Conscience.- — Of 
 all noble forces an educated, intelli- 
 gent and modest conscience is the 
 best. But what a weak and ridiculous 
 thing conscience is made to be in life ! 
 It is the liveried servant of the soul, 
 and runs on all errands ; a lackey, 
 running for every master. It is the 
 diplomatical liar of the soul ; it is the 
 hard advocate, serving in turn every 
 evil impulse. Pride sends conscience 
 out in its service. Vanity fees it. Anger 
 rides it. Even cruelty makes it hold 
 
CONSCIENCE, TEMPTATION, AND SIN 291 
 
 the knife and slay the victim. It is 
 conscience that makes men suspicious. 
 It is conscience that makes men fear- 
 ful of trusting others, that refuses rec- 
 onciliations, that dresses obstinacy in 
 the colors of duty. Conscience lends 
 its name and its clothes to every pas- 
 sion in turn, to masquerade withal. 
 Poor fool, it serves all sides of evil, 
 and knows it not. It is every man's 
 mule, and every man rides it. It 
 carries men to every evil errand. 
 " For conscience' sake " they quarrel, 
 slander, and revenge themselves, they 
 are obstinate, obdurate and uncharit- 
 able. Conscience issues signed blank 
 checks to every angry passion, and 
 leaves each one to fill them up ac- 
 cording to his own pleasure. 
 
 1347. A Conscience for Others. — I 
 have heard of women joining the 
 church, who, having a conscience that 
 would not let them wear flowers and 
 feathers in their cap, would give them 
 to their younger sister ! If a man is 
 going to abandon wickedness because 
 it is too wicked for him, shall he sell 
 out his stock-in-trade to another man, 
 as if it were not wicked for him 
 also ? 
 
 1348. Sullying of Conscience. — It is 
 not necessary to break a mirror to 
 pieces in order to make it worthless. 
 Let one go behind it with a pencil, or 
 with a needle of the finest point, and, 
 with delicate touch, make the smallest 
 line through the silver coating of the 
 back ; the next day let him make an- 
 other line at right angles to that ; and 
 the third day let him make still an- 
 other line parallel to the first one ; and 
 the next day let him make another 
 line parallel to the second, and so con- 
 tinue to do day by day, and one year 
 shall not have passed away before 
 that mirror will be so scratched that it 
 will be good for nothing. It is not 
 necessary to deal it a hard blow to de- 
 
 stroy its power ; these dehcate touches 
 will do it, little by little. 
 
 It is not necessary to be a murderer 
 or a burglar in order to destroy the 
 moral sense ; but ah ! these million 
 little infelicities, as they are called, 
 these scratchings and raspings, take 
 the silver off from the back of the 
 conscience — take the brightness and 
 clearness out of the moral sense. 
 
 1349. Dimming of Conscience. — It 
 is recorded of a hghthouse erected on 
 a tropical shore that it was like to have 
 failed for the most unlooked-for 
 reason. When first kindled, the bril- 
 Hant light drew about it such clouds 
 of insects which populate the evening 
 and night of equatorial lands that they 
 covered and fairly darkened the glass. 
 There was a noble light that shone out 
 into the darkness and vanquished 
 night, that all the winds could not dis- 
 turb, nor all the clouds and storms 
 hide ; but the soft wings and gauzy 
 bodies of myriads of insects, each one 
 of which was insignificant, efi"ectually 
 veiled the light, and came near de- 
 feating the proposed gift to mariners. 
 And so it is in respect to the con- 
 science. There may be a power in it 
 to resist great assault, to overcome 
 strong temptations, and to avoid fear- 
 ful dangers, but there may be a mil- 
 lion little venomous insect habits, un- 
 important in themselves individually, 
 but fearful in their results collectively. 
 
 1350. Temptation's Power. — It is in 
 our own bosom that the power of 
 temptation is found. Temptation is 
 but a spark. If a spark fall upon ice, 
 if it fall upon snow, if it fall upon 
 water, what is the harm? But if it 
 fall upon powder — the powder is yours, 
 the spark only is the devil's ! 
 
 1351. Mysterious Powers of Evil. — 
 When, on a summer day, there is the 
 shadow of a hawk sailing far up over 
 my barnyard, Mr. Fowl gives the 
 
292 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 signal of warning. The very sluulovv 
 is seen ; and the chickens run, and the 
 whole brood hide themselves. But 
 the hawk that sails over us casts no 
 shadow. Mysterious powers of dark- 
 ness hover about here and there and 
 no man can define them, or tell their 
 mission ; and the only thing one can 
 do is to be always ready to meet and 
 resist them. " Put on the whole 
 armor of God, that ye may be able to 
 withstand the wiles (the onsets) of the 
 Devil." 
 
 1352. Tempter and Tempted. — The 
 power of temptation depends upon two 
 elements ; first, the power of present- 
 ing inducement or motive on the part 
 of the tempter ; and, secondly and 
 mainly, the strength in the victim of 
 the passion to which this motive is pre- 
 sented. No one could tempt to pride 
 a man that had not already a powerful 
 tendency to pride. The chord must 
 be there before the hand of the harper 
 can bring out the tone. 
 
 1353' Temptation Suggestive, not 
 Compulsory. — Temptation holds a 
 parallel and analogic course with in- 
 spiration. It is simply a stimulus, 
 coming from wherever it may. applied 
 to a faculty, or to classes of faculties, 
 in the human mind — faculties of which 
 men have, or should have, mtghthdive, 
 full control. If any evil is wrought 
 out through you, you work it out 
 wholly and absolutely. As in inspir- 
 ation, no virtue is wrought out by the 
 Divine mind, and then deposited in the 
 human soul ; no conception is pictor- 
 ially drawn, and then slid into the 
 knowledge-chamber of the human 
 mind already formed. The Divine in- 
 fluence simply vivifies and impels the 
 natural organism, by which God gov- 
 erns, and on which government stands. 
 And so precisely is it with the opposite. 
 Malign influence is simply suggestive, 
 stimulative. It merely impels. And 
 
 if, being impelled, men do evil, as 
 when, being impelled, they do right, 
 the right or the wrong is their own act, 
 for which they are responsible. 
 
 1354. Steadiness Under Tempta- 
 tion. — If one looks out upon New 
 York harbor, after an eastern storm, 
 he will see it covered with craft, that 
 brood upon its surface in flocks like 
 wild fowl ; nor can the eye, at a dis- 
 tance, tell why they hold their places, 
 swinging but a little way with the 
 changing tide, facing the wind obsti- 
 nately and refusing to be blown away. 
 Every one is rooted by its anchor. 
 
 If men are found in life much 
 tempted and yet firm in principle, there 
 is an anchor somewhere. It may be 
 a sweetheart, or a sister, or a mother, 
 a wife, a father, or an old stanch 
 teacher. Men anchor each other. 
 
 1355- The Danger-Line in Morals. 
 — It is never safe for a man to run so 
 near the line of right and wrong that 
 if he should lose a wheel he would go 
 over. You should keep so far from 
 the precipice that if your wagon breaks 
 down there is room enough. 
 
 1356. Peril in Temptation, — No 
 man knows, if he is once in the swirl 
 of the mighty maelstrom of tempta- 
 tion, when his oar will break, or when 
 his arm will give out and he will be 
 swept down into the engulfing ocean. 
 Therefore steer clear. Go not into 
 those dangers. 
 
 1357. Nature's Retribution. — Every 
 man has nestling in him, somewhere, 
 that which will by and by arrest him 
 for every evil thing that he does. 
 You may do wrong against the civil 
 law, and not be caught ; you may do 
 wrong against your neighbor, and not 
 be caught ; but every man that does 
 any wrong against himself carries a 
 detective in his own soul ; and, first 
 or last, that wrong will avenge itself 
 on him. 
 
CONSCIENCE, TEMPTATION, AND SIN 293 
 
 1358. Power of the Passions. — Who 
 is he that has not passions ? They 
 are the overmastering part in many 
 natures. They swell, as the tides 
 swell. They burn as the fires burn. 
 They sweep as storms and winds 
 sweep. And no man can perform his 
 duty to himself — certainly not to his 
 God — who does not understand that 
 the battle of the passions is one which 
 must be watched. 
 
 1359. Insidious Sins. — Men do well 
 to watch and fight against obvious and 
 sounding sins. They are numerous. 
 They exist on every hand. They are 
 dangerous. They are armed and are 
 desperate. They swarm the ways of 
 life. Not one vice, not one crime, not 
 one temptation, not one sin of which 
 the Word of God warns us, is to be 
 lightly esteemed. They are to be 
 watched, and in armor, too ; we are 
 to be proof against them. 
 
 But these are not our only dangers. 
 Tens of thousands of men perish, not 
 by the lion-like stroke of temptation, 
 but by the insidious bite of the hidden 
 serpent ; not with roar and strength, 
 but with subtle poison. More men 
 are moth-eaten than lion-eaten in this 
 life ; and it behooves us in time to 
 give heed to these dangers of invisible 
 and insidious little enemies. 
 
 1360. Dangers of Unseen Indul- 
 gence. — Mines and tunnels are a part 
 of the methods of military proceed- 
 ings. Underground, unheard and un- 
 suspected, the engineer pushes his 
 way ; and at last he plants the ma- 
 terial of destruction right under the 
 fort : and then the sudden explosion 
 comes, with confusion, followed by a 
 rush, and, haply, by the victory of the 
 attacking party. And often and often 
 men go through courses of their career 
 in this world, immoderately indulging 
 in right things, or falling into indul- 
 gence in wrong things, little by little, 
 
 moving cautiously, and, as they sup- 
 pose, safely, and are at last, in a day 
 when they look not for it, overtaken 
 by the consequences of their indul- 
 gence and excesses. We are under- 
 mined, we are broken down, we are 
 taken captive, unawares, by evils 
 which result from errors and trans- 
 gressions on our part. 
 
 1 36 1. To Guard Against Passions. 
 — Passions are snares ; and the way 
 to extract a man's self from snares, is 
 not to be caught in them. Passions 
 are lions in ambush ; and the way to 
 deliver one's self from the lions is to 
 take another path, and go where they 
 are not. Passions are tigers that lurk 
 at the corners and in the dark recesses 
 of the way. Take another path. That 
 will take you out of the tiger's reach. 
 Passions are dangerous, like pitfalls, 
 like precipices. Don't go near them. 
 
 1362. When to Watch. — Men must 
 set their watch at the time when the 
 enemy is accustomed to come. In- 
 dians usually make their attack at 
 three or four o'clock in the morning, 
 when men sleep soundest ; and that is 
 the time to watch against Indians. 
 There is no use of doing it at ten 
 o'clock in the morning. They do not 
 come then. If it be when you are 
 sick that you are most subject to 
 malign passions, then that is the time 
 when you must set your watch. Or, 
 if it be when you are well that the 
 tide of blood swells too feverishly in 
 you, then that is the time when you 
 must set your watch. If at one time 
 of the day more than another, experi- 
 ence has shown that you are liable to 
 be tempted, then in that part of the 
 day you must be on your guard. 
 
 1363. Danger in Dalliance. — There 
 are a great many persons young in 
 conscience, inexperienced, and to a 
 certain extent innocent, who permit 
 themselves to do what the riper ex- 
 
294 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 pci icncc even of bad men would never 
 permit them to do. Tliere is siicli a 
 tiling as dallyiiii!^ witii temptation. 
 Many a maiden will insensibly, and 
 step by step, allow herself to be led to 
 tilings that, if not wrong, are yet so 
 near to it that they lie in its very twi- 
 light ; and she is all the time excusing 
 to herself such permissions and such 
 dalliance, and saying, " I do not in- 
 tend to do wrong. I shall in due time 
 recover myself." 
 
 1364. When to Escape from Evil. — 
 When the tide is out, it is charming to 
 walk about on the sand. But when 
 tlie tide conies in there is danger, un- 
 less one is on the alert. For it comes 
 steahng in almost imperceptibly, and 
 often shuts off the promontories long 
 before it runs up into the bay. And 
 if a man is amusing himself there with 
 no heed and no outlook, the insidious 
 tide, which comes in sweet as the 
 blossoming of a flower, but with all 
 the power of the ocean behind it, will 
 overtake him. If he does not flee be- 
 fore the promontories are shut off, he 
 will never flee. It is now ornever! 
 
 If there are any here in whom the 
 tide of appetite, or the tide of passion, 
 or the tide of infatuation for gambling, 
 or the tide of corruption, is out, now 
 is the time for you to flee. Do not 
 wait for it to come back again. Be 
 precipitate, and save your souls ! 
 
 1365. Prompt Escape from Tempta- 
 tion. — The cat that has caught the 
 mouse plays with it as if she were its 
 own mother before she devours it. 
 And the most infernal habits paw 
 their victims at times, and give them 
 some space to run in before complet- 
 ing their destruction. I have seen 
 nimble mice that were wiser than 
 their tyrant cat, and that, taking ad- 
 vantage of their little space, shot into 
 some crevice, and away, to the disap- 
 pointment and chagrin of grimalkin. 
 
 Are there not some here who have 
 intervals, moments, when temptation 
 plays them, and lets them go free.'' 
 Shoot ! fly ! in those lucid moments, 
 from besetting sins. 
 
 1366. Knowledge Too Dearly 
 Bought. — If there are any that have 
 made up their mind to "know life," I 
 say to them, Stop ! you may pay too 
 dear for your knowledge. Men have 
 looked into the crater of a volcano to 
 see what was there, and gone down to 
 explore, without coming back to report 
 progress. Many and many a man 
 has gone to see what was in hell, that 
 did see it. Many a man has looked 
 to see what was in the cup, and found 
 a viper coiled up therein. Many a 
 man has gone into the house of lust, 
 and found that the ends thereof were 
 death, — bitter, rotten death. Many a 
 man has sought to learn something of 
 the evils of gambling, and learned it 
 to his own ruin. And I say to every 
 man, the more you know about these 
 things, the more you ought to be 
 ashamed of knowing ; a knowledge 
 of them is not necessary to education 
 or manhood ; and they ought to be 
 avoided, because when a man has 
 once fallen into them, the way out is 
 so steep and hard. Many a man has 
 begun to climb the giddy cliff of refor- 
 mation ; but, O, how few have suc- 
 ceeded in getting over its brow ! 
 
 1367. Perils of Temptation. — Lord 
 Clive, when he got back to England, 
 and was thinking of his administration 
 in India, and reflecting how, after 
 having conquered the provinces, he 
 went into the treasure-house of one 
 of the rajahs, and saw gold without 
 measure (there silver was counted as 
 nothing; it was always at a discount), 
 and beheld baskets full of rubies and 
 diamonds, was reported to have said : 
 "My God! I tremble when I think 
 of the temptation that 1 was under. I 
 
CONSCIENCE, TEMPTATION, AND SIN 295 
 
 wonder that I came out honest." In 
 looking back upon it, and thinking of 
 it, he feared that it would not be safe 
 to trust himself the second time under 
 those circumstances. This is the 
 testimony of a full-grown man in re- 
 gard to an extreme instance of lia- 
 bility to temptation, and you cannot 
 tell, until you have been tried, what 
 you would do in a given situation. 
 
 1368. Evil, Always Evil. — I remem- 
 ber watching, last summer, spiders 
 that burrowed in the crevices of a 
 trellis where the wind had borne much 
 dust. I noticed that the hole where 
 they lay lurking looked dark and 
 ugly. I also noticed, as I sat one day 
 watching, a vagrant spider take a 
 morning-glory, in full blossom, and 
 spin his web over the mouth of it. 
 And there never was a prettier nest 
 in this world — a nest more richly 
 gemmed with beauty — than his was. 
 But, after all, it was the same spider, 
 whether he lay in the dark hole at the 
 corner of the trellis, or in the blossom 
 of that exquisite flower. 
 
 Now, selfishness may weave its 
 web in the dusky places, or in the 
 hideous-looking recesses of a man's 
 disposition, or about the mouths of 
 graces and sweet affections ; but it is 
 the same selfishness after all. The 
 place is changed, and the appearance 
 of the surroundings is changed, but 
 the spider is not changed. 
 
 1369. Silent Corrupting Forces. — 
 Malarias are dangerous because they 
 do not address themselves to any sense. 
 We can put up lightning-rods to ward 
 off thunderbolts ; but no man can put 
 up rods that will protect him from a 
 poisonous atmosphere. You can drain 
 morasses that you can see ; but you 
 cannot free the atmosphere above them 
 from impurities that you cannot sense. 
 
 Now, we are walking in a malarial 
 atmosphere all the time : not one that 
 
 attacks the body ; but one that infects 
 the soul. The soul is poisoned all the 
 time by pride, vanity, the love of 
 money, greed, competitions, rivalries, 
 and the various other noxious ele- 
 ments by which it is surrounded. 
 Human life is one vast Campagna, 
 and there are, in the atmosphere 
 round about men, silent, corrupting 
 forces of which they are quite un- 
 conscious. Nothing but inward spir- 
 itual vigilance will make a man a 
 match for these things. 
 
 1370. Man's Temptableness. — Take 
 a hemlock log ; five hundred pounds 
 will not break it, but a thousand will. 
 Take a pine log ; a thousand pounds 
 will not break it, but two thousand 
 will. Take an oak log ; two thousand 
 pounds will not break it, but ten thou- 
 sand will. Take an elm log ; ten 
 thousand pounds will not break it, but 
 fifteen or twenty thousand will. You 
 can put weight enough on any log to 
 break it. 
 
 One man cannot be tempted by 
 lust, but he can be by pride. An- 
 other man cannot be tempted by 
 pride, but he can be by avarice. 
 Another man cannot be tempted by 
 avarice, but he can be through his 
 affections. Another man cannot be 
 tempted through his affections, but he 
 can be through his benevolent sym- 
 pathies. Another man cannot be 
 tempted through his benevolent sym- 
 pathies, but he can be through his 
 intellectual appetites and tastes. On 
 one side or another, every man -is 
 subject to temptation. 
 
 1 37 1 . Inconspicuous Evil Influences. 
 — In the long run those things are the 
 most influential upon us which act im- 
 perceptibly, but act all the time. In- 
 fluences that work in us little by little 
 are the formatory influences of life. 
 Things overt and aggressive arouse 
 our attention, our combativeness, our 
 
296 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 pride, or our conscience ; and often- 
 times great and open temptations are 
 the most harmless because they come 
 with banners Hying and bands play- 
 ing, and all the munitions of war 
 in full view, so that we know we are 
 in the midst of enemies that mean us 
 damage, and we get ready to meet 
 and resist them. Our peculiar dangers 
 are those which surprise us, and work 
 treachery in our fort. 
 
 1372. Resistance to Temptation. — 
 Think how, by means of immense 
 dikes or banks, half of the kingdom 
 of Holland has been reclaimed from 
 the ocean. How like a vast spirit of 
 evil that scowling enemy lurks, raging 
 along the coast, and seeking in every 
 bay and estuary and river to regain 
 its lost possession ; but the same 
 watchful eye, the same bold heart, the 
 same industrious hand which put the 
 ocean out, has kept it out. And is 
 there not here an image of that lurk- 
 ing foe, temptation, by which every 
 man is beset ? If you would keep out 
 the ocean of evil, you must throw up 
 dikes of resistance ; and once having 
 excluded it you can, by watchfulness, 
 boldness and industry, keep it out. 
 
 1373' Indirect Temptations. — How 
 continually, in the science of war- 
 fare, is it found better to outflank an 
 enemy than to assault him in front 
 and attack him in his power ! And 
 how many, many men can, by side- 
 way influences, be reached and out- 
 flanked, who could not be successfully 
 attacked to their faces ! 
 
 1374. Danger of Alcoholic Drinking. 
 — If every time vessels undertook to 
 run through the narrow and turbulent 
 passage from Long Island Sound to 
 the East River, called Hell Gate, it 
 was found that ninety per cent, ran 
 ashore and but ten succeeded in 
 getting through, by wheeling to, turn- 
 ing about, sometimes going bow first 
 
 and sometimes stern first, would you 
 attempt to run a schooner or a sloop 
 through there .-' You would not. 
 And still less would you attempt it if 
 you knew that only five, or even less, 
 only one out of a hundred, of those 
 that tried, got through. You would 
 say that a man was a Bedlamite who 
 suffered his property to go through 
 such a pass as that. And yet, foolish 
 and heedless men say, "I know it 
 does not hurt me to drink." How do 
 you know? Have you gone through 
 your whole career? Do you know 
 what is going on inside of you? Have 
 you taken the statistics in regard to 
 your liver and digestion ? 
 
 1375. Deceitfulness of Temptation. 
 — It is a part of military warfare to 
 draw the enemy into ambush, giving 
 him the hope of victory while he is 
 being overtaken by defeat. We 
 break ranks before our adversary ; 
 we flee ignobly ; he pursues us, elated 
 with the thought that victory is his, 
 until he comes to some narrow pas- 
 sage, when, behold, there rises before 
 him and on either side his enemy ; 
 and he is consumed in the moment of 
 his fancied success. And how often 
 are we led into ambush by our spiritual 
 adversaries I 
 
 1376. Yes, and No. — Yes is a 
 precipice down which thousands have 
 fallen and been dashed to pieces. 
 A^o is a shield for the want of which 
 thousands have been pierced through 
 with temptation. The soul flattered 
 and weakened by Yes, is like a city 
 that throws open its gates to an 
 enemy, and that, once having ad- 
 mitted them, cannot regain its liberty. 
 JVo is stern, but it has a sword-cut in 
 its use which leaves the man that 
 dares to use it on fit occasions like a 
 warrior whom no one willingly attacks. 
 He who knows how to say A^o to evil 
 and Yes to good, unhesitatingly. 
 
CONSCIENCE, TEMPTATION, AND SIN 297 
 
 frankly, has come far towards the 
 end of his secular education. 
 
 1377. Temptation Finds the Indo- 
 lent. — When Satan would put ordinary 
 men to a crop of mischief, like a wise 
 husbandman he clears the ground and 
 prepares it for seed : but he finds the 
 idle man already prepared, and has 
 scarcely the trouble of sowing ; for 
 vices, like weeds, ask little strewing, 
 except what the wind gives their ripe 
 and winged seeds, shaking and scat- 
 tering them all abroad. Indeed, lazy 
 men may fitly be likened to a tropical 
 prairie, over which the wind of tempta- 
 tion perpetually blows, drifting every 
 vagrant seed from hedge and hill, 
 and which, without a moment's rest 
 through all the year, waves its rank 
 harvest of luxurious weeds. 
 
 1378. Confession Lessens Tempta- 
 tion. — It is wonderful what a safety 
 there is, sometimes, in speaking out 
 concerning the thing which is acting 
 as an inflammation in your bosom — 
 for many temptations are like fermen- 
 tations ; they keep working, working, 
 working ; and silence seems to make 
 them work. As yeast works best in 
 darkness, and as seeds sprout best 
 underground, where the heat reaches 
 them, and the light does not, so many 
 temptations play in the imagination, 
 and work in secrecy. But at times 
 you will dissipate the temptation, you 
 will disfranchise the danger, if you will 
 make it a matter of confidence. Go 
 to some one. Speak of it. You are 
 too proud ? That is your only safety ! 
 You are so proud that if you should go 
 and tell another your trouble, after 
 that your pride would keep you from 
 running into danger. It breaks the 
 charm, sometimes, to speak of a thing 
 to yourself even, and still more to 
 speak of it to another. 
 
 1379. "Abhor that Which is Evil." 
 — It is the spirit of resistance to that 
 
 which is evil that is called hating; 
 and where it is very intense, so as to 
 excite the whole being, it becomes 
 abhorrence. The very word, in its 
 etymology, signifies that kind of 
 affright which causes the quill or the 
 hair of an animal to stand on end, and 
 throws it into a violent tremor, and 
 puts it into the attitude either of self- 
 defence or aggression, so that every 
 part of it is stirred up with a con- 
 suming feeling. It is this that we are 
 commanded to exercise towards evil. 
 
 Is it not a dangerous weapon to put 
 into a man's hands ? It is a. very 
 dangerous weapon. So is fire a very 
 dangerous element to have in a man's 
 house ; and yet if, because it is 
 dangerous, all fire should be put out 
 on the globe, such is its connection 
 with domestic and civilized life that 
 society would go to ashes in a year ! 
 We must use it ; but use it discreetly. 
 
 1380. Temptations and the Lower 
 Life. — It is very easy to shoot arrows 
 down ; and they accelerate in speed 
 at every single foot, because to the 
 strength of the bow is added the at- 
 traction of gravitation. And upon 
 the heads of those who live low the 
 bolts, the arrows of temptation which 
 the devil throws down, fall with 
 double force. But the men who live 
 high have this advantage, that when 
 the devil shoots up at them, against 
 the force of the bow which drives the 
 missile upward is the power of the big 
 globe, which claims tribute of every- 
 thing that flies in the air, and pulls it 
 back again. And every foot the arrows 
 go up, they go slower and slower. 
 
 Men who live low down in their na- 
 ture are within the reach of tempta- 
 tions that spring from the fiery pas- 
 sions ; but men who live far up in 
 their nature ; men who think just 
 things ; men who never permit their 
 imagination to go out foraging, are 
 
298 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 boyoiul tlic reach of such tempta- 
 tions. 
 
 1381. Nature of Sin. — What is sin ? 
 Generically I hold it to be this : where 
 that part of every man which is ani- 
 mal usurps the place of the reason 
 and the moral sense. When men act 
 by their animal appetites and passions, 
 when they should act by the inspira- 
 tion of reason and moral sense, they 
 sin. Sin, in other words, has its 
 sphere between the two elements in 
 man, the upper and the under facul- 
 ties. When the servile part of a man 
 rises up and assumes authority, every 
 single step is sinful, for it is deliberate. 
 It isdethroningGod in the soul; making 
 the animal stronger than the spiritual. 
 
 1382. Sin, Fundamental in The- 
 ology. — Although the grand archi- 
 tectural facts of scientific theology are 
 the existence, the will, and the gov- 
 ernment of God, yet the fundamental 
 fact is the sinfulness of man. That 
 fact is to theology what disease is 
 to medicine. Unless there were dis- 
 eases, there could be no science of 
 medicine. There might be a science 
 of hygiene, but there could be no 
 science of remedy ; and unless there 
 were sinfulness in man, there could 
 be no doctrine of repentance, of new 
 birth, of atonement, or of Divine in- 
 spiration and recuperative power : in 
 short, almost nothing would be left. 
 
 1383. Evolutionary View of Sin. — 
 Sin is the remainder, as it were, of the 
 conflict between man moral and spirit- 
 ual and man animal. And this gives 
 not simply a rational explanation that 
 every man's reason can perceive ; but 
 it takes away the idea from the ad- 
 ministration of God that men were 
 cursed in their birth without any fault 
 of their own, and that they were being 
 punished throughout all ages in this 
 world on account of a sin that they 
 never committed. Men do not be- 
 
 lieve that, and I honor them for it. 
 And see what a difference it would 
 make in the preacher. When he goes 
 on preaching about the fall of Adam, 
 and posterity all of them falling with 
 him, and that sin was the result of 
 that great fall, men say, "Has not he 
 finished his sermon ? he has been 
 preaching now twenty-five minutes." 
 You do not believe it ! But if a man 
 stands before his congregation and 
 says to them, " This is sin, the con- 
 flict between your lower nature and 
 your higher. You know what it is ; 
 you know what you ought to do, and 
 you know that the reason you do not do 
 it is the animal temptations and seduc- 
 tions and down-falling," — men hang 
 their heads and say, " It is so, it is so ; " 
 and he will have his audience with him. 
 1384. Sin and Infirmity. — The 
 Scripture says that sin is the violation 
 of law. That is true ; but all violation 
 of law is not sin. The nervous system 
 is so distributed, and its filaments so 
 run in all directions, that you cannot 
 put the point of a needle on a man's 
 hand and not touch a nerve ; and the 
 laws of God are distributed throughout 
 creation as thick as the nerves on a 
 man's hand. All the way through 
 life we are called into circumstances 
 where our ignorance leads us to 
 violate laws. Then comes pain ; and 
 we have learned something — for every 
 mistake in a man's life is revelatory. 
 A man says that he could study six- 
 teen hours a day ; but by and by 
 down he goes with paralysis. Then 
 he says, " I did not dream of that ; I 
 have practiced studying so for years." 
 He has violated a law ; but he did not 
 intend to. There was no malice, no 
 rebellion in the violation. The man 
 has broken a law ; but what does 
 Scripture call it when a man breaks a 
 law not knowing what it is, and so 
 breaks it unintentionally ? Infirmity. 
 
CONSCIENCE, TEMPTATION, AND SIN 299 
 
 1385. Our Infirmities. — We have a 
 High Priest who can be touched with 
 a feehng of our infirmities. When a 
 man walking in the street meets a 
 neighbor, and smites him in the face, 
 and lands him in the gutter, that is a 
 violation of law both civil and divine ; 
 but when a three-year-old child, being 
 disappointed, slaps its nurse, that is a 
 violation of law, but you do not knock 
 the child into the gutter — you treat 
 him very differently. He did not 
 know ; he merely acted on an impulse, 
 not on experience. There are a mul- 
 titude of things of the same kind 
 among grown men. The race is 
 learning its trade, and all apprentices 
 have to make mistakes in learning. 
 
 1386. The Essence of Sin. — In the 
 wrong direction or wrong application 
 of our faculties, and in the inordi- 
 nateness or excess with which they are 
 used, lies the whole of sinfulness. 
 There is not a sin nor a vice that is 
 not the misapplication or excess of a 
 normal feeling. Some teach sub- 
 stantially that if a man has large 
 secretiveness, he must be a thief ; 
 that if he has large cautiousness, he 
 must be a coward. You might as 
 well say that because a man is ex- 
 ceedingly ingenious, he must be a 
 maker of false keys to open other 
 people's doors ; or that because one is 
 adapted to engraving and has great 
 powers of imitation, he must be a 
 counterfeiter! As though there were 
 but one way in which secretiveness 
 can act, and that the furtive way, the 
 illicit way, the immoral way ! As 
 though it were not a faculty world- 
 wide in its beneficence ! As though it 
 were not what walls are, to defend a 
 city, or what veils are, to hide things 
 sacred from the gaze of vulgar eyes ! 
 As though it were not a divine feeling, 
 lent for a divine purpose ! To use it 
 for a wrong purpose is a sin. The sin 
 
 is not in having the feeling, but in put- 
 ting it to a wrong use. 
 
 1387. The Evil of Evil Thought.— 
 If a man covets, he steals. If he has 
 murderous hate, he murders. If he 
 brood dishonest thoughts, he is a 
 knave. Society, to be sure, is less 
 injured by these latent forms than by 
 their overt expression, but the man 
 himself is as much injured by cherished 
 thoughts of evil as by its open com- 
 mission, — and sometimes even more. 
 There are good-seeming men who, if 
 all their thoughts and feehngs were 
 suddenly to be developed into acts, 
 would run from themselves as men in 
 earthquakes run from the fiery gap- 
 ings of the ground. 
 
 1388. A Double Life. — A man who 
 is attempting to live a Christian life on 
 one side, and a worldly life on the 
 other, is like a sick man who has 
 made up his mind that what the 
 doctor says is all folly, and that, since 
 he does not like the medicine and 
 regimen, he will do that which is most 
 agreeable to him. When the nurse 
 and physician are out, he steals into 
 the pantry, and loads his stomach 
 with things aggravating to his disease. 
 He deceives everybody but Nature ; 
 Nature is never deceived. You may 
 call food what you please, but if it is 
 contrary to the law of digestion, when 
 the stomach takes it. Nature knows it. 
 You may call your course in life what 
 you please, but when your conscience 
 takes it, and its effects are evolved, its 
 real character is disclosed, 
 
 1389. Effort the Measure of Credit. 
 — It is queer water that will not run 
 down-hill. It is strange, when a man 
 is so organized that he can be virtuous 
 easier than anything else, and he runs 
 down-hill in that direction, if he is not 
 good to that extent. But where a man 
 has the torment of a bad endowment, 
 and he has made headway against it, 
 
300 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 he may be, in one sense, worse than 
 you are ; and yet, God says that the 
 pubhcans and the harlots will enter the 
 kingdom of God before many of you 
 will. If you could measure the de- 
 gree of effort that they have put forth, 
 and the light and the opportunities that 
 they have had ; if you could measure 
 the whole problem, and not merely the 
 external surface of it, you would see 
 that those who accomplish the least are 
 sometimes deserving of the most credit. 
 
 1390. Sin, the Dislocation of Facul- 
 ties. — It is related of Dr. Sweet, that 
 he had an almost marvelous power for 
 setting bones. He would go, for in- 
 stance, according to the fanciful stories 
 told of him, to a patient that had lain 
 bed-ridden for months and months 
 with an afflicted joint, and seize the 
 joint and give it one wrench, and then 
 say "Get up! Walk!" and, sure 
 enough, the patient would get up and 
 walk with inexpressible gladness ! 
 What was really a dislocated joint 
 had been treated merely as a sprained 
 joint, and the moment he took hold 
 of it and put back the right bone into 
 the right socket the patient was cured. 
 
 Now, a man's faculties are out of 
 joint ; they do not play in the right 
 sockets; and the moment a man is 
 translated into that state in which God 
 lays his hand on the mind, and puts 
 all the faculties where they ought to 
 be, so that they will work with each 
 other as they should, that moment the 
 man is a newly created being : he be- 
 gins to walk. 
 
 1391. Sin Lies in Purpose. — All the 
 doctrines that speak about sins as a 
 kind of soot in the channels of a man, 
 in the flues, as it were, of his life, as 
 hereditary sins, or as imputed sins, are 
 a part of the pagan nightmare of 
 Mediaeval theology. Whoever does 
 wrong, knowing that he does, and for 
 a purpose, sins ; whoever neglects a 
 
 duty, and knows it is duty, sins. The 
 purpose, affirmatively or negatively 
 violating God's law, is sinning. 
 
 1392. Essential Criminality. — What 
 is murder ? The law of the land an- 
 swered in its way. Jesus replied, 
 The voluntary indulgence of any feel- 
 ing that would naturally lead to the 
 act, — that is murder. The crime is 
 first committed in the shadowy realm 
 of thought and feehng. Many a 
 murder is unperformed outwardly, 
 while all that constitutes its guilt is en- 
 acted in the heart. In the kingdom 
 of the Spirit, feelings are acts. A 
 murderous temper is murder. 
 
 1393. Lower Pleasures Destroy 
 Higher. — The thief has a pleasure of 
 excitement in stealing. Even the rob- 
 ber has some sort of pleasure in strik- 
 ing down his victim. The miser has 
 his curmudgeonish pleasure. There 
 is pleasure in the cup, in the song, and 
 in the dance. All these things have 
 their pleasure ; but they are consum- 
 ing the susceptibility of pleasure from 
 other sources, by their concentration 
 of intense excitements. Coarse pleas- 
 ures have a brief period, and then 
 they leave the soul in a wilderness. 
 There is nothing remaining to it. 
 
 A great place, the soul is. Ample 
 provision is made in it for enjoyment. 
 But he who lives for the senses takes 
 only one kind of enjoyment, and so em- 
 ploys that that it destroys all the rest. 
 
 1394. Proneness to Evil. — There is 
 a cat on a tree by my house. She 
 went up last night clear into the top- 
 most branches, and there she sits yet, 
 for a cat cannot come down head first ; 
 the claws were made to work the other 
 way, and she has to turn round and 
 back down. It is just the opposite 
 with men. It is a great deal easier for 
 them to come down than to go up. 
 Their gravitation is constantly pulling 
 at them, and pulling them down. 
 
CONSCIENCE, TEMPTATION, AND SIN 301 
 
 1395. Evil Deeds. — A man in a 
 rage might grind his watch to powder 
 under his heel ; and it might be safely 
 said that he had destroyed that watch; 
 but it would not be destroyed one whit 
 more than if, opening it and inserting 
 a pair of nippers, he should take the 
 hair-spring out. So far as its time- 
 keeping capacity is concerned, it would 
 be as effectually destroyed by the 
 touching and disturbing of any of its 
 springs or wheels as by the utter 
 smashing of it. There is more than 
 one way of doing evil. 
 
 1396. Great Sins, and Little Ones. 
 — Men, in their property, are afraid of 
 conflagrations and lightning-strokes ; 
 but if they were building a wharf in 
 Panama, millions of teredos, so small 
 that only the microscope could detect 
 them, would begin to bore the piles 
 down under the water. There would 
 be neither noise nor foam ; but in a 
 little while, if a child did but touch 
 the post, over it would fall as if a saw 
 had cut it. Men think, with regard to 
 their conduct, that, if they were to lift 
 themselves up gigantically and com- 
 mit some crashing sin, they should 
 never be able to hold up their heads ; 
 but they will harbor in their souls little 
 sins, which are piercing and eating 
 them away to inevitable ruin. 
 
 1397. Secret Sins. — You have seen 
 a ship out on the bay, swinging with 
 the tide, and seeming as if it would fol- 
 low it ; and yet it cannot, for down be- 
 neath the water it is anchored. So 
 many a soul sways towards heaven, 
 but cannot ascend thither because it is 
 anchored to some secret sin. 
 
 1398. Shortsightedness of Indul- 
 gence. — A gypsy band that, by some 
 freak of fortune, are turned into a 
 magnificent mansion, well built, well 
 furnished, and well stored with works 
 of art, go to work and break to 
 pieces the exquisitely carved furniture, 
 
 pull down the rare pictures, and strip 
 the house of all the valuable things in 
 it, and burn them, in order to make 
 their pot boil, and thus to serve their 
 lower nature, until, by and by, the 
 whole dweUing is desolate, and bleak, 
 and barren. Men who reject religion 
 and serve their passions, are doing the 
 same thing. They are kindhng those 
 lower fires at the expense of every- 
 thing broad, and fine, and beautiful in 
 their higher nature. And though the 
 process may go on with some sort of 
 success for a little time, it will not be 
 long before they will be as bankrupt 
 in secular things as they are in spirit- 
 ual. The exceptions to this are rare. 
 
 1399. Possibilities of Wickedness. 
 — Men say, "It is impossible that I 
 should have an emotion of hatred 
 towards God, and never know it." 
 There is such a thing as latent hatred, 
 that must be inflamed before it will 
 manifest itself. There may be fire 
 raked up, as well as fire in full glow. 
 There may be a susceptibility of heart 
 that stands prepared, like powder in 
 magazines, to be ignited. 
 
 1400. Preparation for Crime.' — 
 When Hazael killed the King of 
 Syria, it is evident that it was only a 
 spark that fell on tinder already there. 
 No man can be tempted suddenly to 
 great crime. It is contrary to the na- 
 ture of the soul. There is to be a 
 preparation for all great wrongs in the 
 foregoing tendencies of the person 
 that commits them. No man becomes 
 a tyrant in a day, or a miser, or a 
 drunkard. No person falls into any 
 great extreme suddenly, as down a 
 precipice. Men come to these things 
 little by httle. And if Hazael de- 
 liberately committed murder, he had 
 thought about murder before. One 
 man might kill another in a passion 
 without having pondered the matter ; 
 but no man ever deliberately killed 
 
302 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 another man who had not previously 
 thought about it. 
 
 1401. Cause and Effect. — Suppose 
 a man, sowing cockle-seed on his 
 farm, should say, " I have a good 
 farm, and I am a good husbandman, 
 and I am not particular about what 
 seed I sow." Aren't you? Can you 
 sow Canada thistles and reap wheat ? 
 Can you sow burdock and reap aspar- 
 agus ? What a man sows he reaps. 
 
 1402. Corruptors of the Young. — 
 Would you dare, if you were smitten 
 by an infectious disease, to walk up 
 and down among your fellow-men 
 knowing that on every side you were 
 sowing the seeds of death? Yet, 
 there are many persons, brilliant, 
 noble, large-minded, who, wherever 
 they go and exert a controlling in- 
 fluence, are dropping seeds in the 
 souls of the young around them which 
 shall take root and grow and bear a 
 harvest of evil fruit. Woe be to the 
 corruptors of the young ! 
 
 1403. Criminality — Casual and Ha- 
 bitual. — Crimes and vices may be of 
 two kinds : they may be occasional, 
 intermitting experiences, or they may 
 be simple exponents of the general 
 character. Where vices and crimes 
 are pimples that indicate the habitual 
 state of the blood, the man is cor- 
 rupted all through ; but a man may 
 now and then have a pimple when his 
 blood is not very bad. 
 
 1404. Cumulative Violations of Law. 
 — The effects of disobedience are in a 
 degree cumulative. One flake of 
 snow does not make the least differ- 
 ence on the Alps ; but one flake fall- 
 ing on another, and another on an- 
 other, night after night, by and by 
 bring on the thundering avalanche 
 which tells what snow can do ; and 
 the effects of violation of law may be 
 like flakes of snow or drops of rain. 
 There are freshets and avalanches of 
 
 pains and penalties. That is to say, 
 the results of a constant breaking of 
 law, unrepaired, unrepented, unre- 
 stored, accumulate in men, though 
 they do not know it until some unsus- 
 pected shock loosens the avalanche. 
 
 1405. Power of Repeated Acts, — 
 Single actions may be insignificant, 
 and yet, by repetition may become 
 well-nigh omnipotent. There is noth- 
 ing, I suppose, more feeble than a 
 single strand of a spider's web. I 
 read an account, only a few days ago, 
 of a man who saw a very curious 
 spectacle — that of a black snake more 
 than a foot long suspended in the air 
 in a perfect sack of spider's web. The 
 spider was not a large one. It bore no 
 proportion to its victim. Nor could 
 he by any biting hurt him. But he 
 had him drawn, little by little, into 
 the air. Probably the serpent was 
 torpid ; or the enemy was so small 
 that the snake did not know that he 
 was upon him. And the spider spun 
 out of his bowel a little film, not a 
 third part as large as the smallest silk 
 thread that a woman uses withal ; and 
 he dipped down and touched the 
 snake with it, and it stuck. He took 
 another little film, and touched him 
 with that, and it stuck. He went on 
 industriously ; and as the snake lay 
 quiet, he put another and another film 
 upon him. And as there was time 
 enough, he added another and an- 
 other, till there were a hundred, a 
 thousand, ten thousand of them. And 
 by and by these little weak strands, no 
 one of which was strong enough to 
 hold a gnat, when multiplied became 
 strong enough to encase the victim, 
 A million times stronger the snake 
 was than that miserable little spider, 
 and yet the spider caught him, and 
 webbed him round and round, until 
 when he tried to move he was held 
 fast. 
 
CONSCIENCE, TEMPTATION, AND SIN 303 
 
 I have seen men webbed by of- 
 fences in that same way ; and no one 
 of the offences was much larger than 
 the film of a spider's web ; but at last 
 the men were imprisoned and de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 1406. The Merry-Maker and His 
 Soul. — A captain has lost his ship, 
 and lost all his crew, and lost all his 
 freight ; but he kept his decks clean, 
 and fiddled every night for the amuse- 
 ment of his crew ! What would you 
 think of such a report as that of a 
 man who was making a voyage ? 
 Here are men that are wrecking 
 everything for which they were made, 
 and all they have to say is, that they 
 chatter pleasantly and sing pleasant 
 songs, and are quiet and pleasant 
 neighbors. Judge ye of such men. 
 Judge yourselves ! 
 
 1407. Soul Exhaustion, — When a 
 candle has burned down to the socket, 
 it is not necessary that a man should 
 open the door and let the storm rush 
 and roar in to extinguish the light. 
 He has nothing to do but to let it 
 stand in the unmoving air. Every 
 moment a little more and a little more 
 of the candle is consumed, till nothing 
 is left but a piece of the wick ; and 
 soon that totters and falls over ; and 
 now it burns but with the faintest 
 flicker ; and at last, with one upleap, 
 the flame goes out, and all is dark- 
 ness. The candle does not need any 
 help to destroy itself. Its life is self- 
 destructive. And hundreds of men 
 are simply living unto death. By set- 
 ting aside principle, by disobeying 
 conscience, by courses that involve 
 no violent process, but a process that 
 is self-exhausting, they are preparing 
 themselves for a terrible account. 
 
 1408. Flimsy Excuses. — It will be 
 with men's excuses in the day of 
 judgment, when God looks upon them, 
 as it is with the frost-pictures on a 
 
 window of a winter morning, when 
 the sun looks upon them — they will 
 be gone with his looking. 
 
 1409. Men Heedless of Moral Dan- 
 ger. — On shipboard, when the maga- 
 zine is filled with powder, only a cer- 
 tain set of appointed men are allowed 
 to go to it ; and they are not allowed 
 to go except after changing their shoes 
 and putting on prepared socks, that 
 there shall be no possible grinding of 
 metal to cause the explosion of a sin- 
 gle grain — for in the magazine one 
 grain exploded takes a fellow-grain, 
 and that takes ten more, and that a 
 million more ; and the whole goes off 
 in a heap. But men are gathering 
 the powder of destruction in the mag- 
 azine of their own soul and body, and 
 they do not change their shoes, nor do 
 they limit the men that go in and out. 
 They do not blind the lanterns and the 
 lights. They go with torches in their 
 hands, scattering sparks. They treas- 
 ure up wrath, and the righteous retri- 
 bution of God : and the day of explo- 
 sion will come. 
 
 1 410. Lenten Truce with Sin. — I 
 know a great many people who make 
 up their minds that they will not com- 
 mit certain sins during the whole 
 period of Lent. For forty days they 
 mean to be temperate, continent, 
 moderate ; they mean to fast on sin. 
 And what then ? Well, then, just as 
 it may happen. And how does it al- 
 ways happen ? Why, that they go 
 headlong into sin again. They re- 
 ward their great temperance, often- 
 times, by going into indulgence more 
 deeply than before. This is making a 
 truce with sin ; it is making it. too, to 
 the disadvantage of the man himself, 
 generally. The only object of re- 
 pentance is that you may become a 
 different creature. 
 
 141 1. Repenting of Outgrown Sins. 
 — Here is a man who was subject, in 
 
304 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 the early part of his life, to passions 
 which led him into immoralities. 
 Now, that he has grown older, he has 
 become sober, and left off these im- 
 moralities. But his sobriety is not 
 purity ; for he has taken on other im- 
 moralities in the place of those which 
 he has left off. And when his con- 
 science is awakened, and he feels 
 called upon to repent, he goes to the 
 sins of his youth and repents of them. 
 He finds this easy, because he has 
 forsaken them already. This repent- 
 ing of old sins, and not of present sins, 
 is what I call Mount Vesuvius repent- 
 ance, which consists in abandoning 
 one crater, and opening another, 
 while there is just as much lava and 
 fire and fury within, only that hell 
 breaks out on a different side ! 
 
 141 2. Moral Judgment Important, 
 r— Abhor what is evil everywhere, in 
 yourself, in all your ways, in your 
 household, in your neighborhood, in 
 all social affairs, in your relations to 
 society, in your business. Keep your 
 judgment sharp and sensitive as the 
 thermometer is to a change of temper- 
 ature, or as the barometer is to the 
 pressure of the air. Keep your moral 
 judgment clean, clear and high. Be 
 not overcome of evil, however insidi- 
 ous or plausible it may be, though 
 genius itself gilds it, and all wit and 
 imagination make it beautiful. 
 
 1413. The Downward Way. — Phi- 
 losophers go to the glaciers, — those 
 frozen rivers that move with a slow 
 and steady pace down the mountain- 
 side, — and set stakes on the firm 
 rocks, and measure how far the whole 
 body moves within a given length of 
 time. By means of these unmoving 
 stakes they can detect its almost im- 
 perceptible but continuous motion, 
 through day and night, and summer 
 and winter, which the heedless never 
 observe, nor believe in. 
 
 Now, if you take your stand on the 
 firm rock of God's truth, and watch 
 men, I think you will see that they 
 move with a slow and steady motion. 
 There are men who are going down 
 the sides of Mount Sinai as surely as 
 the glaciers move down the sides of 
 the Alps ! And I tell you it is time, 
 not that men should watch each other, 
 but that every man should wake up 
 and watch himself. 
 
 1 41 4. Critical Moments for Refor- 
 mation. — Men struggling amid their 
 misdeeds to do better are like sailors 
 who, swimming through a boisterous 
 sea, are striving to reach the shore. 
 The very wave which carries them far 
 up the sands, if help be not afforded, 
 will return towards the deep and bear 
 them out with it. The time for succor 
 is when men yearn for a better life. 
 He that has human sympathy has in- 
 sight of such moods, and catches men 
 at the very critical point of destiny. 
 
 1415. Almost Saved. — I have seen 
 in a picture sailors that had escaped 
 from the wreck of a ship growing 
 weary and weary and wearier. At 
 last they touch the sand with their 
 toes and begin to hope that they can 
 creep upon the shore ; when just with 
 faihng strength they are landing, up 
 comes a wolf-wave behind them and 
 sweeps them back with the undertow 
 out to sea again. So sometimes are 
 men longing for goodness and hoping 
 for somebody to help them ; and 
 temptations come running in after 
 them to sweep them out. 
 
 1 41 6. Destruction in Evil Courses. 
 — The fact that one or two among a 
 great many stop and turn back, and 
 are cured, before it is too late, does 
 not alter the argument as to the proba- 
 bilities of the destruction of any man 
 who enters upon evil courses. 
 
 If ten travelers were to climb up the 
 glaciers of the Alps, along the edges 
 
CONSCIENCE, TEMPTATION, AND SIN 305 
 
 and cliffs of ice, and if, returning, one 
 man, as it were, made drunk with ex- 
 citement, should say, " I will not go 
 back the way we came, but will take 
 the slide and trust my luck," and 
 should throw himself upon the glassy 
 slope, and, though the probabilities 
 were a thousand to one that he would 
 be destroyed, should, contrary to 
 every man's expectation, glide along 
 the sides of ice with amazing velocity, 
 and bound over the dangerous preci- 
 pice, and land far below, and come 
 off unhurt, do you think that the other 
 nine men would look at him and say, 
 " Because he has escaped I will try it 
 too ' ' ? They would tremble with 
 horror, rather, and say, " It was only 
 by good luck that he escaped ; " and 
 not one of them would follow him. 
 
 1417. Great Natures Destroyed. — 
 In the West you can ride through a 
 long forest, and then come to a clear- 
 ing. The settler takes his ax, at the 
 right period of the year, and goes 
 round and chops, just above the swell 
 of the roots, a ring which stops the 
 flow of the sap. The tree does not 
 fall down immediately. During the 
 first year it holds its branches and 
 leaves. But there is no return of the 
 leaf to it the next year. Then the 
 weather beats upon it. And every 
 successive year it stands with fewer 
 and fewer branches. And at last 
 some morning, after a great storm, 
 it lies, its whole length upon the 
 ground. 
 
 Brethren, I see many men standing 
 like trees, branchless and gaunt in a 
 clearing, girdled, apparently. They 
 are waiting for their overthrow. And 
 it grieves my heart to see great na- 
 tures, vast trunks, towering up, 
 spreading abroad their branches, fit 
 to have been pillars in the Temple of 
 God, but girdled, and dead in tres- 
 passes and in sins. 
 
 1418. Insensibility to Evil. — I have 
 taken notice, when I have seen men 
 tapping a gas-main, that those who 
 worked in the escaping gas all the 
 time did not smell it, whereas those 
 who but occasionally came near it, 
 smelled it very sensibly. Men who 
 are constantly in the stench of their 
 own corruption never mind it. 
 
 1419. Getting Accustomed to Evil. 
 — Such is the nature of the stomach 
 that whatever things are revolting to 
 it, it rejects. It throws them off spon- 
 taneously, and so saves itself. Yet it 
 is quite possible for one, by minute 
 tastes, to accustom himself to take 
 arsenic, tartar-emetic, things the most 
 destructive to the animal tissue and to 
 all the functions of the prime organs ; 
 it is quite possible for one, httle by lit- 
 tle, to keep on in such a course until 
 he has medicated himself into a cer- 
 tain tolerance of things that are funda- 
 mentally injurious to his health and to 
 his life. And as it is in physical 
 things, so is it in moral. By grada- 
 tions of wickedness, by not looking at 
 it with horror in its initial forms, in its 
 shghtest developments, one may as it 
 were tone down his conscience, and 
 bring it more and more to the level of 
 wickedness, until it shall lose its sensi- 
 bility and its power of discerning. 
 
 1420. Persistence of Deeds Done. — 
 In an evil hour a man forges ; and 
 then he is led to do the same thing a 
 second, a third, and a fourth time. 
 His false paper is passed, and as it 
 comes around he takes it up, until the 
 whole circle is completed. For there 
 is any quantity of men besides those 
 in Sing Sing that have been forgers ; 
 only they have had the good luck not 
 to be detected in the crime. They 
 were not sick, and no accident befell 
 them, so that they were able to get 
 the paper back into their own hands. 
 The man burns the evidences of his 
 
3o6 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 guilt, and goes on prospering for five 
 or ten years ; but there is one thing 
 that never ceases to trouble him. He 
 says, " I could be happy if it were 
 not for those four or five notes. I 
 have been an honest man since that 
 misstep, but I would give all the world 
 if I could wipe it out." You cannot 
 wipe it out. There is no way in which 
 a man can undo a deed once done. 
 
 1 42 1. Repentance and Reformation. 
 — Repentance may begin its work in- 
 stantly, but the completion of the 
 reformation requires a sphere of years. 
 If one could wallow amidst filth for 
 half a life, and then wash himself 
 clean in a day, sin would be no worse 
 than dirt on the hands, which water 
 can cleanse in a minute. Sin would 
 be robbed of half its danger if it were 
 curable in a moment, 
 
 1422. Tampering with Evil. — 
 When fishermen are on the shore 
 looking for bass and buUfish, they are 
 accustomed to chop up a great deal 
 of bait when the tide is right, and let 
 it float out as a kind of lure. And 
 the fish, that have a kind of tele- 
 graphic communication of their own, 
 pass the word round, " There is some- 
 thing to eat ; " and they come flock- 
 ing up in shoals ; and one seizes one 
 morsel, and another another morsel, 
 and another another ; till by and by 
 the cunning fisherman puts a morsel 
 on a hook and throws it out. And 
 soon some unsuspecting fish comes up 
 and takes it, hook and all, and pres- 
 ently he is flopping on the shore ! 
 
 It is just so that the devil fishes for 
 men. There is this morsel here, and 
 that morsel there, which men take 
 with impunity ; and they think there 
 is no danger and wax bold ; and by 
 and by they get hold of a morsel with 
 a hook in it. It is not wise to feed 
 where there are evil fishermen about, 
 fishing for souls. 
 
 1423, Reprobation. — One of the 
 final mischiefs of wickedness in this 
 world, is, that men become reprobate. 
 Some persons are opposed to that 
 word ; but there is such a thing as a 
 man's going on and perverting him- 
 self to so great an extent, morally, 
 that there is not within his reach the 
 means of recuperation. Can you 
 tamper with the eye until you have 
 destroyed its organization ? Can you 
 tamper with the tongue, till it ceases 
 to perform its legitimate functions ? 
 Can you tamper with the physical 
 structure, till its nerve-sensibility is 
 unfitted for the offices which it was 
 designed to fulfill ? Can you tamper 
 with the intellectual structure till it is 
 all awry, and reports falsely ? So 
 can a man tamper with his tastes, and 
 his affections, and his moral sensi- 
 bilities, till they cease to have their 
 normal action. 
 
 1424, Propagation of Evil, — Evil is 
 eternal in the sight of God, unless it 
 be checked and cured. Sin, like a 
 poisonous weed, resows itself, and be- 
 comes eternal by reproduction. 
 
 1425. Single Responsibility. — If a 
 firm succeeds, the gain is distributed 
 to each partner ; but if it fails each 
 one may be held for the whole loss. 
 Whoever commits or connives at a 
 public sin will bear the blame, as if 
 he alone did it. Public guilt always 
 has private endorsement, and each 
 man is liable for the whole note. 
 
 1426. The Strength of Evil. — If 
 God should refuse to interrupt the 
 course of men, they would scarcely 
 know the strength of their resistance 
 to him. It is not when the cable lies 
 coiled up on the deck that you know 
 how strong or how weak it is ; it is 
 when it is put to the test, and is made 
 to sing like the chord of a harp, in 
 times when the ship is imperiled, and 
 the waves are beating fiercely against 
 
RELIGION 
 
 307 
 
 it. And it is only when men are 
 brought to the test that they can tell 
 what their real nature is, or how 
 strong their instincts and passions are. 
 
 1427. Reformation Manifests Evil. 
 — There is a stream that has a smooth 
 channel and runs without noise ; if 
 you let it alone it will continue to run 
 without noise ; but build a dam across 
 it, and there will be commotion at 
 once. Let a man's evil thoughts run 
 smoothly, and he does not see that he 
 is a very bad man ; but lay across the 
 channel of his will the restraints of 
 God's law, and the faults and infeHci- 
 ties of his nature will appear. 
 
 1428. Meanness of Intelligent Sin- 
 ning. — A dog, even, feels itself laid 
 under a debt of gratitude by kindness. 
 It is only men who are so corrupt 
 that they would ever think of making 
 goodness, and generosity, and kind- 
 ness towards them the ground and 
 reason of a base requital. And yet 
 hundreds say, "God is good, and we 
 will go on a little while longer in sin." 
 
 1429. Sin against God. — When a 
 man defrauds you in weight, he sins 
 against you, not against the scales, 
 which are only the instrument of de- 
 termining true and false weight. 
 When men sin, it is against God, and 
 not against his law, which is but the 
 indicator of right and wrong. 
 
 1430. Sin against the Divine Par- 
 ent. — There are a great many children 
 that will sin against the family arrange- 
 ments who would not sin against their 
 mother. The mother says, " My dear 
 child, you know your father has made 
 a law in this family that such and such 
 
 things shall not be done, and you 
 know you have broken that law three 
 or four times ; now, for my sake, 
 avoid breaking it again;" and the 
 child feels, when the mother inter- 
 poses herself, that there is something 
 that touches him which did not when 
 it was only a law of the family. 
 
 Now God puts himself in just that 
 position. Though we are sinful and 
 wicked, he in his infinite compassion 
 and mercy forgives us, and says, " Do 
 not sin against me nor against mine," 
 It is this conception of sinning against 
 God as a person, that has always 
 been the most powerful restraint with 
 me, and that I have found to be the 
 most powerful with other men. 
 
 1 43 1. The Sinner Needs Qod. — 
 Your sinfulness is not a reason why 
 you should keep away from God. It 
 is the very reason why you should go 
 to him. He is to your soul what the 
 physician is to your body. When 
 your body is racked with pains, you 
 go to the physician. And so, the con- 
 sciousness of your sin, and of the hate- 
 fulness of it, is the very reason why 
 you should go to God. 
 
 1432. Release from Evil Bondage. 
 — If there be those that are bound 
 hand and foot in evil habits against 
 which their whole nature revolts, let 
 them cry out — O Thou that didst come 
 to open the prison doors, and to break 
 the chain and the shackle, wilt thou 
 not look upon thy captives ? And by 
 thy supernal power wilt Thou not lift 
 them out of the turmoil of evil, and 
 the stress of temptation, and the in- 
 vincibleness of habit ? 
 
 XXVI. RELIGION 
 
 1433. Religion is Right Life. — It is 
 not well for a man to pray cream and 
 Uve skim-milk. 
 
 1434. Earth Connection with 
 Heaven. — By a wise adaptation of 
 
 electricity an organ can be played 
 many miles away, under certain con- 
 ditions. If the keyboard is connected 
 with the battery, and the wires run, 
 no matter how far, even hundreds and 
 
3o8 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 thousands of miles, if the battery be 
 properly charged, and the wires run, 
 say to New Orleans, the organist sit- 
 ting here may thunder there the ma- 
 jestic tones of an anthem. If you 
 consider that the human soul is a bat- 
 tery, and that all its wires run into the 
 heavenly land, there are many incon- 
 spicuous persons living in the world 
 of whom we see and hear and know 
 nothing, but from whom to heaven 
 wires go, and around whose souls are 
 angel assemblies gathered together 
 chanting joyful songs. 
 
 1435. The General Confession. — A 
 man will confess sins in general ; but 
 those sins which he would not have 
 his neighbor know for his right hand, 
 which bow him down with shame like 
 a wind-stricken bulrush, those he 
 passes over in his public prayer. Men 
 are willing to be thought sinful in dis- 
 position ; but in special acts they are 
 disposed to praise themselves. They 
 therefore confess their depravity and 
 defend their conduct, making them- 
 selves to be wrong in general, but 
 light in particular. 
 
 1436. Self- Knowledge. — Men con- 
 duct their worldly business cautiously 
 by keeping accounts, and knowing 
 just how they stand ; or they conduct 
 it loosely and run into mistakes, and 
 into bankruptcy. So he who keeps an 
 account with his own soul, as the cen- 
 ter and source of his whole life, is like 
 a careful merchant who knows the in- 
 come and the outgo, the whole condi- 
 tion, of his affairs ; but he who keeps 
 no account with his soul is like a 
 scheming, speculative man who is al- 
 ways prospering in his own notion, but 
 whose substance is all the time leak- 
 ing away, and who is losing the very 
 power of wealth. 
 
 1437. Transient Aspirations. — Have 
 you never traveled, of a summer's 
 night, belated, after darkness had 
 
 fallen, and the storm had made the 
 blackness more intense? Your road 
 is hidden from you. Every now and 
 then there comes flaming through 
 the air the illumination of the light- 
 ning ; and for an instant you see the 
 mountain, the hill, the valley, the 
 road, everything; but after the flash, 
 deeper darkness settles down upon 
 you. By and by the flash comes 
 again, and then again the darkness 
 shuts you in. There are a great many 
 who live under the influence of mixed 
 and irregular ideals, whose aspiration 
 is very transient. There is just enough 
 of it to rebuke their way of living. 
 
 1438. Evanescent Fancies. — What 
 is more beautiful than the morning- 
 glory in the morning, which, as if na- 
 ture loved it and tricked it with her 
 fairest jewels, is set, on every line and 
 lineament, with exquisite pearls? And 
 when the sun glances on it, what leaf 
 is more beautiful, what vine is more 
 graceful, what blossom is finer in tex- 
 ture and color and form, and what 
 adornment is rarer, than those of this 
 flower? But ere ten o'clock has come, 
 it has all collapsed, its pearls have ex- 
 haled, its form has shriveled up, and 
 its glory has passed away ! And what 
 are our best intentions of the will but 
 morning-glories, that, ere they are 
 fashioned, are gone, and — forever ? 
 
 1439. Soul-Sickness. — I see men 
 who are retiring from business, on ac- 
 count of nervous depression, over- 
 work and over-anxiety ; and they 
 nurse themselves, and care for them- 
 selves, and every morning look at 
 their tongue, and every day feel of 
 their pulse ; and the road between 
 them and the doctor's house is beaten 
 hard. Yet they have been a great 
 deal worse inside. If they could see 
 their soul's portrait, they would see 
 that they are sick enough there. But 
 they never went to a doctor on ac- 
 
RELIGION 
 
 309 
 
 count of their soul. They did not 
 care much about that. 
 
 1440. The Empire of Thought. — 
 "The ground of a certain rich man 
 brought forth plentifully ; and he 
 thought within himself " 
 
 What an empire is this thinking 
 within one s self! The sphere of 
 thought is the sphere of true liberty ! 
 We cannot walk where we please, 
 but we can think as we please. We 
 cannot act as we choose. Customs 
 restrain like walls. A man is obliged 
 to hmit his conduct, but every man 
 possesses an interior hberty. Out- 
 wardly he cannot spread his wings 
 like a bird and fly to the uttermost 
 parts of the earth, but inwardly he 
 can fly as he pleases. There is, too, 
 a vast difference between what a man 
 does and says, and what he thinks 
 within himself. Oh, how many thefts 
 a man thinks within himself! How 
 many base jealousies ! How many 
 stupid ambitions ! How many disal- 
 lowable pleasures a man dallies with 
 in his thoughts ! What excursions of 
 the imagination ; what wondrous cre- 
 ations of this architect of thought ; 
 what a realm, wider than the scope of 
 the heavens, broader than from ho- 
 rizon to horizon ; what an illimitable 
 realm is that which a man's silent 
 thoughts traverse, and traverse so 
 easily that there is no sound in their 
 going, and so suddenly that there is 
 no time occupied in their passage ! 
 The vast circuit of this immeasurable 
 globe man passes easily, leaving no 
 footfall, making no track, always find- 
 ing new paths. 
 
 1 44 1. Human Nature Without Re- 
 ligion. — The land is, in its native state, 
 overgrown with forests, choked with 
 underbrush, and cumbered with fallen 
 and decaying materials. The sun is 
 always hidden from its interior. It is 
 apt to be a lair of beasts — a refuge of 
 
 wolves, and bears, and foxes — of owls, 
 and hawks, and uncomely things. 
 
 This is certainly the state of the hu- 
 man soul before religious culture is 
 applied to it. It is eminently so of the 
 barbarous and heathen nations of the 
 earth, which are gigantically fruitful 
 of growths — but of wild growths, use- 
 less or pernicious, or both. It is so, 
 in a modified sense, of the thousands 
 of men in Christian communities who 
 are but externally restrained by Chris- 
 tianity, and whose passions, appetites, 
 and habits are gross, and untamed. 
 
 1442. The Natural and the Religious 
 Life. — If you will walk with me in 
 January over the fertile places in the 
 fields, and through the forests, you 
 will see what man is in his natural 
 state. The earth is full of roots, not 
 one of which knows how to live. The 
 trees are full of buds, every one of 
 which is closed and bandaged so that 
 it cannot expand. All things are pop- 
 ulous, but curdled, congealed, re- 
 strained. Although, in his natural 
 state, man is full of high, godlike 
 powers, yet they are in a condition of 
 bondage and inactivity ; and the com- 
 ing of religion to him is like the com- 
 ing of spring to the soil and the for- 
 ests, when all things begin to grow. 
 When a man attains some degree of 
 ripeness in his spiritual nature, he 
 may be hkened to the fields and the 
 forests in midsummer ; and when he 
 has passed through life under the 
 stimulating influences of religion, he 
 may be likened to plants and trees in 
 autumn, when they yield their fruit in 
 abundance, and in perfect ripeness. 
 
 1443. Two Theories of Religion. — 
 There are two radical ideas prevalent 
 in the world as to the design of reli- 
 gion. One school teaches that this 
 world is a poor worn-out ship, which 
 never can be more than patched up, 
 and that religion, instead of being a 
 
310 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 power to reconstruct the world, and 
 to bring it to a perfect form before the 
 throne of God, is a lifeboat to get as 
 many as possible off from the old 
 world-ship before it goes down, carry- 
 ing with it the remainder. 
 
 The other theory teaches that while 
 individual men are being saved by 
 the Gospel, this is but a part of a great 
 scheme by which the world itself is to 
 be evangelized, so that this world 
 shall one day stand before the eternal 
 throne and the admiring assembly of 
 heaven a perfected civil society. Now 
 this second idea I accept with all my 
 heart. 
 
 1444. Power from Obedience. — 
 There is no liberty like that of obedi- 
 ence to God's laws. Once, when the 
 electric currents were flashed in the 
 North, they were dreaded in the 
 storm ; they were phenomena of 
 beauty or terror : but we have found 
 out a good deal about electricity, we 
 have found out its nature, much of it, 
 and what do we do now ? We say, 
 " Serve us ! " and it gives light to our 
 dweUings and casts its beam down 
 upon our streets. We say to it, " Go 
 under the sea!" and away it goes. 
 We have made a postboy of that 
 which savage men yet dread and do 
 not know what to do with. The mo- 
 ment men know what it is, and sub- 
 mit themselves to its necessary condi- 
 tions, it turns right round and serves 
 them, and they are stronger by the 
 whole strength of the natural law. 
 
 1445. Religion not a Make-Shift. — 
 Are there any of you who have been 
 thinking that before you died you 
 would attempt to be religious? Do 
 not think that religion is something 
 that you can put on or off as a gar- 
 ment. Religion is a state of the soul. 
 The kingdom of God is within you. 
 Have you thought that sometime you 
 would put it to proof .^ Why not now ? 
 
 1446. Postponing the New Life. — 
 What do you wait for? Do you wait 
 for youth to pass? When I would 
 bring to a friend a pleasant gift from 
 my garden I do not wait till the rose 
 sheds its leaves, and pluck the re- 
 mainder for that friend : I give it to 
 him while it is in its highest state of 
 freshness and beauty. And would 
 you bring to God, the greatest, the 
 dearest, the noblest, the best of friends, 
 your soul after the bloom of youth is 
 dropped and you have come into the 
 years of decay ? 
 
 1447. Religion in Time of Trouble. 
 — " What need you of religion? " some 
 say. "Are you not in good health? 
 Are you not married most fortunately ? 
 Are you not the father of a family 
 most beautiful and healthful and prom- 
 ising ? Can there be anything that a 
 man wants more than you have all 
 around about you ? " 
 
 And so a man might say to the ship- 
 master : " Why do you lug about that 
 huge metal chain? Of what earthly 
 use is it ? Have you not fair winds ? 
 Are not your sails ample ? Is not your 
 voyage prospering?" And yet, by 
 and by, the time comes when the ship- 
 master is glad to take refuge from the 
 open sea, in some near bay ; and he 
 throws the chained anchor overboard. 
 Down it plunges, seeking the dark 
 recesses of the sea below. Some few 
 bubbles only are there to tell you 
 where it is. But by and by the ship 
 begins to draw upon the cable, by 
 which, stiffening and growing taut, 
 the ship is held steadfastly. It is just 
 what the shipmaster wants in foul 
 weather. 
 
 1448. True Christianity. — Christian 
 character is an automatic state of 
 benevolence. It is a state of benevo- 
 lence so full that it overflows, not upon 
 consideration and measure, but as a 
 lamp sheds its light abroad. 
 
RELIGION 
 
 311 
 
 1449. Weakness of Esthetic Reli- 
 gion. — There are men whose idea of 
 piety is largely shaped by the esthetic 
 feeling. Nothing seems to them to be 
 good that is not symmetrical, harmo- 
 nious. Taste, rather than benevolence, 
 is their divinity ; and every fault dis- 
 gusts them. I love beauty and regu- 
 larity, too, where they are under the 
 guidance and inspiration of a disinter- 
 ested benevolence ; but where they 
 are substitutes for it, I abhor them. I 
 would as soon undertake to raise my 
 harvest by the pale moonbeams instead 
 of the glory and fervor of the sun, as 
 to undertake to raise anything like 
 character, or give it power in the 
 world, by the esthetic principle. 
 
 1450. Sentiment and Ethics. — Those 
 who exalt sentimental religion, and ig- 
 nore practical, ethical hfe, are like 
 men who would improve ship archi- 
 tecture by cutting away the hull till it 
 is no larger than a shingle, and spread- 
 ing the sails till they are as big as the 
 whole harbor. 
 
 1 45 1. Objections to the Christian 
 Life. — There is no pleasure which any 
 self-respecting person should indulge 
 in that is not heightened by the love 
 of God. There is no resplendent im- 
 agination, no trait of genius that is not 
 rendered more blessed in the service 
 of God than outside of it. I would 
 not invite any man to circumscription. 
 "Well, then," you say, "do I not 
 need to take up any sort of cross? " 
 Yes, it is necessary to take up a cross 
 to gain anything. A child takes up a 
 cross to learn the alphabet ; but when 
 he has mastered it it is no longer a 
 cross to him. It is a great cross that 
 a person takes up who learns to play 
 on the piano ; but when he has learned 
 to do it it is no longer a cross, but a 
 pleasure. There are many desirable 
 things the beginnings of which are 
 difficult. The beginnings of a Chris- 
 
 tian life are difficult, but the work 
 grows easier as it progresses. 
 
 1452. Poor Church Members no Ex- 
 cuse for Other Men. — A great many are 
 repelled by the way in which some 
 church members live. But because 
 the man over on the other side of the 
 street is a drunkard or quarreler, you 
 do not any the less believe in temper- 
 ance and forbearance. Because he 
 is squalid you do not abandon neat- 
 ness. Because he is a criminal you 
 do not any the less cultivate good 
 citizenship. And though men in the 
 church do not live right, what has that 
 to do with you? 
 
 1453. Religion Ever-Living. — Some 
 tell me they do not believe in religion 
 because of the way that men act in 
 Wall Street ; because they see elders, 
 and deacons, and ministers even, do- 
 ing wrong things. Of course they do 
 wrong. They would not be in the 
 human body if they did not. But go 
 and see what mothers bear for sons. 
 Go and see, in miniature, that same 
 atoning sacrifice which Christ fulfilled, 
 in those who literally give their life, 
 living it, giving it, for the unworthy, 
 the poor and the needy. Do you tell 
 me that religion is dying out ? It 
 blossoms everywhere. Every house- 
 hold is full of it. Every village is 
 filled with it. Orthodoxy, the exact 
 statement of things, may be shattered ; 
 church order may be changed ; but 
 never will religion die out until the 
 human soul is void of love, joy, peace, 
 long-suffering, goodness, faith, meek- 
 ness, and temperance. 
 
 1454. Salvableness and Salvation. — 
 I have heard an evangelist stand be- 
 fore an audience as large as this, with 
 one single cry, "Who wants to be 
 saved ? who wants to be saved ? ' ' 
 Never once, " Who wants to be 
 worthy of salvation ? ' ' Well, one got 
 up. " Thank God, thank God, there's 
 
312 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 one that wants to be saved." Down 
 with his name ! He goes into the 
 church. Afterwards, he has a sober 
 face on Sunday, and runs in about the 
 same wrinkles of selfishness and pride 
 that he ever did. You smile at this, 
 but are you not smiling at your own 
 folly ? Analyze it, and look close at 
 it. Are there not many of you that 
 are living in that way in your religious 
 career, trying to enjoy the things that 
 are best in this world, and lowering 
 an anchor out to windward so that 
 you shall not go on the rocks when 
 you come to die ? 
 
 1455. The Religion Acceptable to 
 All Men. — There is no disHke of the 
 qualities that Paul enumerates ; and 
 they are said to be the fruit, in the 
 summer of divine providence, of the 
 shining of the Spirit of God. Though 
 a man may say that he hates botany, 
 no man ever hated the beautiful flower. 
 A man may say that he hates pomol- 
 ogy ; but no man ever refuses to sit 
 down and eat apples. A man may 
 say that he hates the church, theology 
 and religion (these outward manifesta- 
 tions of it are imperfect at the best) ; 
 yet, when you come to see the qualities 
 that are the substance of religion, in 
 your mother, in your wife, in your 
 sister, in any friend or neighbor, — the 
 heroism of self-denial, the beauty of 
 tender love, the glory of honor and 
 truth and fidelity, and the courage to 
 wait, and to believe without the sight, 
 you recognize them as heroic qualities; 
 and true religion is heroism in the 
 sight of all men. 
 
 1456. Religion not Mysterious. — 
 Do not think that as puerile cere- 
 monies initiate men, and they know 
 not what they must go through before 
 they are initiated and become mem- 
 bers of a lodge, so religion has some 
 dark places or some mummery that 
 men have got to go through, and 
 
 hence shrink from the unknown. Re- 
 ligion lies upon the very plane in 
 which you look upon human life in 
 every other department. The thing to 
 be done is large and difficult, but only 
 in such ways as all attainment in all 
 directions is difficult, requiring in- 
 dustry, purpose, continuity, courage. 
 
 1457. Fruits of the Spirit Make 
 Christianity. — Manhood in the Christ- 
 spirit, is Christianity. There are some 
 ways in which men can attain this bet- 
 ter than others ; but any way that 
 brings a man into that state is safe. 
 The common school is certainly the 
 more hopeful means for diffusing edu- 
 cation among the people ; but many a 
 slave has learned to read lying on his 
 belly, by the dim light of a log fire. 
 Many a man has gone to college and 
 come out as much a sheep as the skin 
 in which his diploma is written ; and 
 many a man who has not been to col- 
 lege has educated himself in scant 
 leisure hours. When a man is edu- 
 cated, he is educated. The thing is 
 to /lave the Christian spirit ; it makes 
 no difference how one gets it. 
 
 1458. Feebleness of Wills. — The 
 will is Hke a rudder. Some ships are 
 very hard to steer, and some are very 
 easy. Some you can hardly turn 
 from their course, and some you can 
 set about by the least touch of the 
 wheel. So it is with men. There is 
 a great difference between one man 
 and another, in the power of carrying 
 out a resolution. Some men never 
 resolve anything that they cannot 
 execute ; and some men can never 
 execute anything that they resolve. 
 And these last say, " I do not dare to 
 pray ; I do not dare to tell God the 
 same things over and over, while I 
 continually give the lie to my words." 
 So, on account of this feebleness of 
 will-power, many persons are dis- 
 couraged. Nevertheless, their souls 
 
RELIGION 
 
 313 
 
 must be saved. They must go to 
 heaven with the saihng apparatus 
 which God has given them. 
 
 1459. Social Effect of Feeling. — 
 Nothing is more electrifying than 
 strong feelings, where many persons 
 are congregated. Grief, and mirth, 
 and anger, and patriotic inspirations 
 without number — these, when men 
 are gathered together under circum- 
 stances favorable to their diffusion, 
 roll up in tides of feeling, as waves of 
 the ocean roll. There is nothing more 
 common than such effects ; and they 
 are just as common in moral as in any 
 other kind of feelings. If there be no 
 wisdom of control under such circum- 
 stances, it may all end as a kind of 
 moral intoxication. This is frequently 
 the case with strong religious develop- 
 ments which, having no guidance, 
 lead to nothing. But if there be some 
 one present who shall direct the feel- 
 ings to right channels and practical 
 results, they will revolutionize the hfe, 
 not of individuals alone, but, often- 
 times, of whole communities. 
 
 1460. Natural Religion. — If a man 
 is sick he is perfectly at liberty to get 
 well without a doctor and a nurse if he 
 can. If he cannot, then the doctor 
 and the nurse are appropriate. If a 
 man can live, and spiritually live, 
 without Divine help, there is no reason 
 why he should not — none at all. If a 
 man wishes to go to New York, and 
 he prefers to throw off his coat and 
 swim across the East River, there is 
 no law against his doing it ; but I 
 think after having done it once or 
 twice he would be cured of the desire, 
 and would take to the conveyances 
 that are provided. 
 
 1 46 1. Theology not Religion. — 
 The reduction of spiritual facts to an 
 intellectual form is no more a repro- 
 duction of those spiritual facts than an 
 analyzed man, with his nerves on a 
 
 board in one place, and his bones in 
 another, and his intestines in another, 
 and his blood corpuscles in another, 
 is a living man — any more than a 
 flower, reduced to ashes that you may 
 know its elements, is a flower. 
 
 1462. Religion and Manhood. — Re- 
 ligion is not merely a ticket to be used 
 at the gate of heaven to let a fellow in. 
 It is not a pohcy of life insurance, so 
 that a man, when he gets up there, 
 pulls out his certificate of church- 
 membership, and the gate-keeper 
 steps aside, and says, " All right ; go 
 in." Religion is the consummation 
 and perfection of manhood. 
 
 1463. Receiving and Giving. — The 
 essential spirit of religion is like a 
 mirror, that takes beams of light, but 
 reflects them all, instead of absorbing 
 them. Men come to a higher level of 
 moral life when, having received 
 benefit through morality, or obedience 
 to lower laws, and having attained en- 
 largement and illumination by the in- 
 fluences and instruction of a church 
 life, they begin to say to themselves, 
 "I am living selfishly; I am all the 
 time being fed, I ought to feed some- 
 body ; I am being taught, I ought to 
 teach somebody." 
 
 1464. Devotion and Piety. — We 
 must not confound devotion with 
 piety. The one is the means : the 
 other is the result. The one is the 
 fire : the other is the food which it 
 cooks. Devotion is merely a method 
 by which you attempt to enkindle in 
 yourselves spiritual life. It is not 
 piety ; it is the instrument of it. A 
 man may read his Bible, the Prayer- 
 book, and devout treatises, and give 
 much time and attention to religious 
 services, and yet be far from piety ; 
 just as a man may whirl a millstone 
 and have no grain, no flour. 
 
 1465. Religion the Soul's Health, — 
 There are a great many persons who 
 
3H 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 think, " I must take care of my re- 
 ligion." They have got something 
 that they call religion, which they con- 
 ceive needs to be guarded. Just as if 
 I should say, " I must take care of my 
 health," and should yet neglect my 
 body, so that my nerves were out of 
 order, and my heart was out of right 
 beat, thinking that I had something 
 distinct from the body, which was 
 health ; whereas health means a body 
 acting right in every one of its parts ! 
 And religion is to the soul what health 
 is to the body, — it is the right ordering 
 of all the faculties. 
 
 1466, Religion Misunderstood. — It 
 is a folly for a man to take the pleas- 
 ure of the world first, and then get re- 
 ligion afterwards. Men think religion 
 is what to the half-drowned man a cup 
 of brandy is. It will bring him to. 
 It is a transient enthusiasm that lifts 
 him over some bar at the mouth of the 
 river of life, and when once he is in- 
 side he is safe. What a total perver- 
 sion this is of the real truth, that this 
 life is given to a man as a university, 
 and that the task and problem that 
 lies before every man is the right un- 
 folding of himself up from his lower 
 nature to a higher life into his spiritual 
 and eternal hfe ; and that this is an 
 educational work so complex and so 
 large, that a man needs all his ener- 
 gies and all his time to attain to any 
 eminence in it. 
 
 1467. The Equivalent Theory of 
 Heaven. — A great many persons have 
 supposed religion to be a gloomy 
 thing, in which a man was to earn, by 
 so much suffering here, an equivalent 
 of joy hereafter. If he only bear his 
 lot here and deny himself, it would all 
 be kept an account of, and over against 
 it would be so much glory and so much 
 peace and so much triumph hereafter. 
 What a heathen philosophy that is ! 
 As if crosses could be weighed out by 
 
 scales as sugar and coffee can ; as if, 
 over against so much suffering, one 
 should have so much equivalent and 
 artificial and imposed joy ! 
 
 1468. The Two Vital Laws 
 
 " Thou shall love the Lord thy God 
 with all thy heart, AND thy neighbor 
 as thyself." That conjunctive particle 
 is a rivet that holds these two sen- 
 tences together inseparably. Each 
 element is necessary to the completion 
 of the other. But men turn the feint 
 of Solomon to a reality, and cut in two 
 these vital members of the one life. 
 Thus we have devout men full of re- 
 ligiousness, but caring little for their 
 fellow-men ; while over against them 
 are superficial philanthropists, full of 
 fussy zeal for humanity, without love 
 for God, or solemn depth of reverence. 
 
 1469. Critical Decisions. — When I 
 ask men to come and talk with me on 
 the subject of religion, and tell them 
 that whether they do or not may de- 
 cide their destiny, they sometimes wag 
 their head, and say, " Do you suppose 
 God governs the world upon such a 
 mean and narrow plan that a man's 
 destiny depends upon whether he does 
 or does not go and talk with another 
 man ? " I know that when a train is 
 going at the rate of sixty miles an 
 hour, it depends upon whether the 
 switch is one-tenth part of an inch one 
 way or another, whether the passen- 
 gers are swept into destruction, or run 
 along smoothly, without knowing that 
 they are in danger. It is at these crit- 
 ical points that small things become 
 omnipotent. When you have put on 
 one side of a scale one hundred pounds, 
 and on the other ninety-nine pounds 
 and ninety-nine hundredths of a 
 pound, one hundredth of a pound is 
 of as much importance as all the rest 
 of the weight. It is when but the least 
 things are required to turn the scale, 
 that such things become momentous. 
 
RELIGION 
 
 315 
 
 1470. Caution in Religion. — With 
 respect to worldly things, men believe 
 in enthusiasms, and say, " Strike 
 while the iron is hot." There are all 
 manner of maxims and cautions 
 against delay where there is a chance 
 for gain in material things. But when 
 it comes to religious life men say : 
 
 " Now my friend, do not go too fast. 
 Look out, or you will be carried away 
 by excitement." The man walks 
 along the edge of a precipice, and no- 
 body says a word ; but when he walks 
 by the lower side of a cliff, men say, 
 " Don't tumble up ; beware — beware! " 
 As if men were in danger of being 
 over-pious or over-good ! As if that 
 were a besetting sin of men ! 
 
 1 47 1. Self-Examination Advisable, 
 — If you weigh the sum total of all 
 that you raise on an acre of ground, 
 you will find that nineteen parts out 
 of twenty are straw and husk and 
 stubble, and must be thrown away ; 
 and you may think yourself well off 
 in saving the twentieth part. It is a 
 great deal better that nineteen parts 
 out of twenty of men's essays in self- 
 examination should be mistakes, than 
 that they should not undertake to ex- 
 amine themselves at all. 
 
 1472. Partial Christianity. — " Is not 
 a man Christianized all over?" Not 
 necessarily, by any means, any more 
 than a house is heated all over. For 
 piety is a furnace that God puts in 
 you. It has power to heat the whole 
 dweUing, but if you do not open all 
 the registers it will heat only the halls 
 and those rooms where the heat is let 
 on. A man may have Christian mo- 
 tives for one side of his being, only. 
 
 1473. Righteousness a Natural Law. 
 — I say, " God organized this world 
 for health." Men hearing me say it 
 laugh, and point to the hospital, and 
 say, " Is that evidence that the world 
 w^s organized for health?" I say, 
 
 " Yes ; the hospital is the best emblem 
 in this world that God punishes men 
 for the violation of the laws of health." 
 Now I say in respect to righteous- 
 ness, that it is the Divine law of the 
 world, and that it has been from the 
 beginning ; and if you point to the 
 squabblings of men, and the disturbed 
 condition of human affairs, and say, 
 " Great evidence of righteousness!" 
 I say, as in the case of the hospital, 
 that the fact that men have been made 
 wretched and miserable for not obey- 
 ing this law, is evidence that it is the 
 law by which the world is governed. 
 If it were not, there would be no 
 penalty for its violation. 
 
 1474. Morality and Piety. — There 
 has been a sharp distinction made be- 
 tween morality and piety, and there is 
 a difference. Morality is the begin- 
 ning of spirituality. I have just been 
 beholding with fresh delight the 
 achievements of the magnolia, which 
 in spring carries at its very top the 
 bright white cup, as if it were filled 
 with the very ether and essence of 
 sunlight and fragrance. And yet that 
 cup, holding itself so, is dependent on 
 that homely, dirt-colored root at the 
 bottom. Destroy the root and you 
 will destroy the cup. All the way 
 from the bottom clear up to the top 
 there is this perfect unity of organiza- 
 tion and evolvement, and as the sweet 
 censer of fragrance and beauty in the 
 tree is intimately connected with its 
 root, so morality and spirituality are 
 one, only at different stages and posi- 
 tions of growth. 
 
 1475. Piety and Morality. — Love to 
 God is piety ; love to man is morality. 
 Morality is a lower form of love to 
 God. We show our love to God by 
 keeping his commandments. The 
 love of God is only a higher and more 
 resplendent form of loving our fellow- 
 men. They are but different periods 
 
3i6 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 of growth on the same substantial 
 root — love. 
 
 1476. Doctrine and Destiny. — It 
 is said, " How can God accept a 
 man but in Jesus Christ?" Oh, fools! 
 I should think you had been brought 
 up in a mechanic's shop where Col- 
 lins's axes were made, and that you 
 had the idea that no axes would sell 
 which did not have "Collins" 
 stamped on them. Do you suppose 
 that God is working on so small and 
 mean a scale as that ? Do you sup- 
 pose he looks for this name or that 
 name, this sect or that sect? The 
 question is not whether a man calls 
 himself a disciple of Christ, but 
 whether he is Christlike. ... It is 
 not your doctrinal system, it is what 
 your doctrinal system has done in you 
 and upon you, that determines your 
 destiny ; and if, when you have done 
 your best, you come far short of the 
 final state which you are seeking, you 
 will be saved by the bounty, by the 
 grace, by the generosity, by the love- 
 element in God, which ministers to 
 you and takes care of you all the way 
 up to the day of your death. 
 
 1477. God Found through the 
 Heart. — I have talked with old colored 
 men, who, storm-driven, have gone to 
 God, because they had nothing else 
 to go to, and who had a richness and 
 wonderfulness of experience that I had 
 no parallel to in myself, though I was 
 a preacher, and my business was to 
 study. A God that you have studied 
 out can never be such a God as you 
 have felt out. 
 
 1478. The All-Important Element. 
 — I have seen men build a greenhouse 
 for their choice plants in winter, and 
 it was important whether they built 
 of wood or iron ; it was important 
 whether they had glass for the light to 
 come through or not ; it was impor- 
 tant what the plan should be, and 
 
 how many platforms there should be : 
 but suppose, after having built their 
 house, and filled it with rare exotics, 
 tremulous ferns, and what not, they 
 should forget to put a furnace in ; and 
 suppose in January there should come 
 a frost, and destroy every plant, what 
 would it avail for them to say, " Well, 
 my glass was all right, the ribs were 
 all right, the panels were all right, the 
 platforms were all right, the plans 
 were all right, the house was built as 
 it should have been"? Yes, it was 
 built as it should have been, but it 
 ought to have been warmed ; and if 
 the furnace was left out you might as 
 well not have built it at all. A perfect 
 religious system without the fire of 
 love is good for nothing. 
 
 1479. Difficulty Proportioned to 
 Fineness. — The law of creation is that 
 the higher forms of development re- 
 quire more labor than the lower. 
 Religious life becomes more difficult 
 in proportion as it comes up higher. 
 It is not very hard for a woodsman to 
 cut down a tree. It is not very hard 
 for the mill owner to saw it up. The 
 old saw rips through it and sings all 
 day long. It is not very hard for a 
 man to bring it up into the shop and 
 cut out the rough furniture. When it 
 is cut up the difficulty grows, and a 
 little more as it is cut out and as the 
 fitting comes ; and when the fitting 
 and the rough dressing are over, then 
 begin to come the real difficulties. It 
 has got to go through the finer proc- 
 esses, and the last hand that puts the 
 last touch of beauty and polish upon 
 it is the rarest hand in the whole force. 
 There are five hundred men that can 
 do rough cabinet work where there is 
 one man that can do the artistic and 
 finer cabinet work. That is true of 
 every department of human life. It is 
 easy to begin those things, but the 
 difficulties increase ; and I think a 
 
RELIGION 
 
 317 
 
 true man of God never feels so little 
 like a true man as when he is nearest 
 like it. The sense of that which re- 
 mains to be accomplished is greater 
 than the sense of attainment. 
 
 1480. Scope of Christianity. — A 
 man buys a farm to raise potatoes, rye 
 and barley ; and for some years he 
 does this. But it is ascertained that 
 there is a ledge of very good stone for 
 building purposes. " It is my farm." 
 He uncovers the ledge and begins to 
 send into market the stone, increasing 
 his wealth thereby. But as he is ex- 
 cavating stone he finds a vein of gold. 
 " The gold is mine ; I didn't know it 
 when I bought it, but behold, I am 
 making myself rich with this stone, 
 and now more abundantly with this 
 precious treasure that I have found in 
 it." If further it is discovered that in 
 the gravel may be found rubies and 
 diamonds, or any other thing, they are 
 his. The fact that he did not know 
 it and that he did not come to them 
 for years, does not touch the question 
 of ownership. And because men in 
 the earlier periods of Christianity did 
 not know what Christianity meant, nor 
 what it could produce directly or in- 
 directly, is no reason why these things 
 do not belong to Christianity. All 
 these elements have come with the 
 growing centuries ; and there is ten 
 thousand times more excellence upon 
 the earth within the scope of Chris- 
 tianity than there ever was in the day 
 it was born ; but these all belong to it. 
 
 1481. Things of Good Report. — 
 There is a foundation of conscience, 
 of manliness, in the community at 
 large ; there are certain great stable 
 virtues on which society itself is built ; 
 and Christianity recognizes them all, 
 and makes it a part of our duty and 
 privilege to so adjust our lives and 
 dispositions as to include those quali- 
 ties that make a man estimable in the 
 
 sight of his fellow-men. If you are 
 racing, be the best man on the ground. 
 If you are an athlete, among all the 
 thousands around you, do your best, 
 because you are a Christian man. 
 Whatsoever thing is estimable, praise- 
 worthy, excites admiration for cour- 
 age, for quickness, for patience and 
 long-continued endurance — those be- 
 long to Christianity. 
 
 1482. Negative Morality. — A farmer 
 goes to the agricultural fairs, and he 
 says, " I have a farm that I want to 
 put in competition. It has not a weed 
 on it — not one ; it has not a Canada 
 thistle ; it has no purslain ; it has not 
 a dock ; it has no plantain ; it has not 
 any mullein. There is not a weed on 
 it, absolutely." "Well," it is asked 
 him, " what are your crops ? " " Oh, 
 
 I — I " "Have you any wheat?" 
 
 "No." "Any corn?" "No." 
 " Any grafts in the orchard ? " " No; 
 I have nothing of that kind — but I've 
 got no weeds." And that is all ! 
 
 There are a great many people who 
 seem to think that religion is not doing 
 wrong. As if a knitting-machine that 
 never knit any stockings would be 
 considered good because it never mis- 
 knit ! 
 
 1483. Positiveness of Religion. — 
 The derivative meaning of the word 
 religion is. To be bound ; to be tied 
 up, as by allegiance ; and the fulfill- 
 ment of it, in a large part of the globe, 
 has, unfortunately, been literal, and 
 men have been tied tip. The idea 
 has been, very largely, that when a 
 man became a Christian, he agreed 
 with himself to give up dancing, and 
 swearing, and gambling, and lying, 
 and Sabbath-breaking, and dissipa- 
 tion, and bad company ; and his 
 creed, if he were to let it out, would 
 be, " I will not do this, I will not do 
 that," till by and by it will be as 
 knotty as a pine plank sawn out of a 
 
3i8 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 small tree. Negatives are not to be 
 derided nor despised ; but a man who 
 has nothing but negatives is a fool, 
 and has no temperament, no vitality, 
 no positiveness. A man who has 
 nothing more than nots is nothing. 
 To be anything he must have actual 
 virtues. 
 
 1484. The Christian Life a Life- 
 Work. — The development of one's na- 
 ture is a life-work. It cannot be 
 gained by dreamers, nor can it be 
 done at a jump. Miners go out pros- 
 pecting with pans, and spade, and 
 shovel, and hunt every gorge, and try 
 every soil and every ledge, hoping 
 they will strike something here or 
 there. Happy are they if they do 
 strike a lode ; they have got it now, 
 and they are rich ; they will sell out or 
 work it, as the case may be, with the 
 help of others ; but, for themselves, 
 their life-work is done. 
 
 Religion is not to be had by pros- 
 pecting. It is a whole life's work. It 
 never grows much easier so far as at- 
 tainment is concerned. It may grow 
 happier, and it does ; but it never at- 
 tains. " Not as though I had already 
 attained," saith the Apostle, who was 
 one of the noblest specimens of hu- 
 manity, "but this one thing I do, I 
 press forward towards the mark, for 
 the prize of my high calling." 
 
 1485. The Loving Atmosphere. — 
 Let all your deeds be done in love. 
 As this great rugged globe, with all its 
 jagged hills, hirsute with forests, 
 shagged all over with bush and 
 thicket, and rolling in an atmosphere 
 of light, seems to those who look upon 
 it in far-distant planets as round, and 
 smooth, and radiant as their bright 
 orbs seem to us, so the robust and 
 rugged aspects of a true manhood, 
 revolving in an atmosphere of Chris- 
 tian love, are smoothed and softened 
 to the most attractive beauty. Strength 
 
 in every part, and love round about 
 all, is the receipt for manhood. 
 
 i486. Spontaneous Virtue. — A true 
 Christian is like a well-plumbed house. 
 . . . He has but to turn on the faucet, 
 and rivers and wells are at his service. 
 An untrained man is like a family in 
 the lower countries where one has to 
 go to the distant spring to bring in 
 every bucket of water he uses for culi- 
 nary purposes. What we want is not 
 to have to pump up right feeling, at 
 the right time, but to have the right 
 feeling, as it were, in the very struc- 
 ture of the soul, ready to flow. 
 
 1487. Excitement and Incitement. — 
 The law of the faculties runs straight 
 through the whole congeries of feel- 
 ings. Religion comes first, as a high, 
 transient feeling, instead of a continu- 
 ous working feeling of a lower grade. 
 . . . The good man takes his primary 
 feeling into the second form, in which 
 it works in him, day by day, till he has 
 organized his life upon it. The bad 
 man, after having experienced feel- 
 ings in their primary state, merely 
 feels that he has been played upon. 
 When he goes out of the church he is 
 like a violin whose bow is hung up. 
 
 1488. Emotional Nature of Religion. 
 — The nature of religion must be a na- 
 ture of emotion. For, although re- 
 ligion employs the reason, the reason 
 bears to it the same relation that a 
 pair of spectacles bears to the eyes. 
 It is not the eyes. It is merely a help 
 to the eyes. And religion is in the 
 heart, and not in the understanding. 
 Technically, it is reverential, filial 
 love. It is not, therefore, theology 
 that is religion. The higher form of 
 heart-emotion constitutes religion. 
 
 1489. Religion and the Church. — 
 There is just the same difference be- 
 tween religion and the Church, with 
 its ordinances, that there is between 
 knowledge and a schoolhouse. The 
 
RELIGION 
 
 319 
 
 schoolhouse is a place where you get 
 knowledge, but it is not knowledge ; 
 and the Church is a place where you 
 get moral influence, but the Church is 
 not moral influence. The Church 
 and its ordinances are merely instru- 
 ments of religion. Plows and spades 
 make crops, but they are not crops, 
 
 1490. Lost and Found. — No one 
 (not even Dante) ever had such a 
 vivid sense of what it is to be without 
 God in the world, and to be a child of 
 wrath and darkness, as the Apostle 
 Paul had. If you go through his 
 writings, and collect his intimations 
 and affirmations on the subject, you 
 will be struck with the magnitude and 
 dreadfulness of his conception of the 
 state of being lost and sought out and 
 found and restored. He had, all 
 through his life, the feeling that he 
 had been as one suspended over a 
 mighty abyss, and that in an unex- 
 pected hour he had been grasped and 
 brought back to safety again. And 
 he never forgot the shock. He never 
 got rid of the impression which was 
 produced upon his mind. 
 
 1491. Religious Despair. — I have 
 been called to many cases of persons 
 who "knew that they were repro- 
 bated " ; that they had lost all hope of 
 salvation. I knew one of the prede- 
 cessors of my father in the ministry, 
 old Father Champion, who believed 
 he had sinned away the day of grace. 
 He was in such a religious condition 
 as might be fairly classed under the 
 head of religious insanity. It is said 
 of him, although in most every direc- 
 tion his mind was sane, in that one 
 direction it was false to the true. And 
 he used to say : 
 
 "What shall I do when I get to 
 hell?" 
 
 He did not know what he could do, 
 until one day there was a slight resili- 
 ency, and he said : 
 
 " I know what I will do ; I will start 
 a prayer and conference meeting." 
 
 I think such a one may be safely 
 trusted there. 
 
 1492. Half-Hearted Religion, — Half- 
 way measures are always disturbances. 
 A man who is halfway between being 
 sick and being well is never a very 
 happy man, and is never a very 
 profitable man to look at. And just 
 like these men are they who are at- 
 tempting to be veneered with religion. 
 They are just far enough advanced 
 from their worldly courses to be all 
 the time vexing and harassing them- 
 selves with moral obligations, which 
 sometimes they meet and obey, and 
 which sometimes they evade. And 
 men are not happy under such cir- 
 cumstances. There is a sort of har- 
 mony which brings peace where a man 
 surrenders himself wholly ; where a 
 man gives himself entirely to Christ, 
 
 1493. Genuine Religion Enjoyable. 
 — A man who by famine has been 
 driven to a mouldy loaf of bread, 
 munches it in his hovel with avidity ; 
 and there comes a friend to him, and 
 says, " Let me take you out of your 
 misery. Throw away your loaf, and 
 come with me," "Throw away my 
 loaf?" says he. "I cannot spare 
 this." But once bring in the food 
 smoking from the oven, and set it be- 
 fore him, and how quick will he throw 
 away his garbage ! 
 
 Once bring the true relishes of holi- 
 ness into a man's soul; once let the 
 real life of Christ spring up in him ; 
 once let a man know what joy there 
 is in disinterested kindness ; once let 
 a man follow Christ in suffering for 
 another ; let a man deny himself; let 
 him and his wife and children— his 
 whole household — deprive themselves 
 of real comforts of life, in order to 
 carry light and balm into a distressed 
 household over the way ; and let 
 
320 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 them talk it over together at night, 
 and speak of the gratitude of those 
 who have been reheved, and of the 
 wondrous thanks of the Httle children 
 — and how much nobler they feel ! 
 
 1494. Improvement Honestly Mis- 
 judged. — To this day, and in high 
 places, and among educated men, in- 
 deed — (men in one sense educated ; 
 for a man may be scholastically edu- 
 cated, without being educated morally 
 and spiritually) — you shall find those 
 who are in most serious and honest 
 alarm because persons are breaking 
 away from the modes of religious cul- 
 ture to which they have been accus- 
 tomed. They suppose such persons 
 are breaking away from all religion, 
 simply because they have come to a 
 higher sphere of development in it. 
 
 We may imagine that a devout 
 heathen, a conscientious idolater (there 
 are such ; there were always such) 
 cannot dissociate religion from the 
 use of charms, from idols, from su- 
 perstitious observances ; and if a na- 
 tive near to such an one forsakes the 
 gods of his fathers, and turns to Je- 
 hovah and to Jesus, and the other 
 does not, the convert may seem as if 
 he was abandoning all religion. He 
 t's abandoning the only religion that 
 this heathen man knows about. 
 
 1495. Courtesy in Christian Life. — 
 I call your attention to a significant 
 feature of religion as you will find it 
 set forth in the epistles as well as the 
 life of Christ, if you look them through 
 — its gentlemanlitiess. I know of no 
 other word that will express the idea. 
 Not only were the apostles themselves 
 — and Paul conspicuously — men of 
 the utmost courtesy, in the highest 
 sense of the word, but there is not a 
 vulgarizing maxim in the New Testa- 
 ment. There is not one that the most 
 polished and noble soul does not feel 
 to be the expression of its highest 
 
 want. "Mind not high things," said 
 Paul, " but condescend to men of low 
 estate." A true Christian man, a real 
 gentleman, while he speaks to his 
 neighbor's child, and to his natural 
 companions, will never let any one 
 pass that he has access to, without 
 courtesy — and more, as men need 
 more. Courtesy in life should be such 
 that they shall have most kindness 
 who need most ; but kindness is so 
 distributed in society that those who 
 need the most have the least. 
 
 1496. Emotion Not Religion. — Men 
 there are whom a hymn will set al- 
 most spiritually drunk. Hymns which 
 come sighing through the passages of 
 memory to them, and in which they 
 hear the voices of father and mother, 
 and brethren and friends beloved ; 
 hymns that hft the soul up into the 
 memory of all the assemblies in which 
 they have been sung — to sensitive na- 
 tures, to moral natures, such hymns 
 frequently give wings by which they 
 fly away so high that they forget to 
 come back again to the ground and 
 perform their duties. They sing them- 
 selves into the air, — and there they 
 stay. I have seen persons that had 
 so exhausted themselves by religious 
 emotions that they had no strength 
 left for religious duties. 
 
 1497. Religious Emotion Pernicious 
 if Not Practical. — If persons go to the 
 drama night after night, and have ad- 
 miration carried up very high, or in- 
 dignation carried out very hotly, and 
 all the amenities of life placed before 
 them — then what ? Are they any bet- 
 ter at home ? Are they any better 
 neighbors ? Do they do anything with 
 it? It is a smoke, heat ; it is a bon- 
 fire ; and it wastes. But if the emo- 
 tion could be communicated to some 
 practical part of life, if it could be 
 converted into being, and doing, and 
 living, it would not hurt them. AH 
 
RELIGION 
 
 321 
 
 high pleasures that do not in any way 
 take hold of practical life, reform it, 
 elevate it, make it better, make it 
 easier to be bright, noble, strong, 
 kind, helpful, useful, are pernicious in 
 the long run. This is just as true in 
 regard to religion as to anything else. 
 
 1498. Strong Phrases for Strong 
 Feelings. — Men whose God is fear or 
 conscience, rather than love, go 
 crouching in their prayers to God, 
 begging forgiveness, and talking about 
 being worms, and about being clothed 
 in a righteousness that is as filthy rags, 
 and using such debasing images as 
 these. It is perfectly right for a man 
 once to use figures like those ; a man 
 may be so lifted up, for instance, in 
 the day of battle, that he shall say, 
 properly, " I was a god at that mo- 
 ment " ; we forgive him in such a 
 case, because in the ecstasy of con- 
 centrated feeling a figure like that but 
 poorly represents the consciousness 
 which he had of power ; but suppose 
 that, walking among men and among 
 his children at home, a man should go 
 about saying, every day, " I am a 
 god, I am a god"? That which is 
 proper as an extraordinary and intense 
 emotion would be absolutely abomina- 
 ble when used every day. 
 
 1499. Is Religious Excitement In- 
 decorous? — It is no argument against 
 religion to say that there is excitement 
 in it. But it is said, "Is it not bad 
 taste ? Does it not lead to a thousand 
 grotesque experiences?" If one will 
 only walk once or twice through the 
 geometric gardens of Europe, he will 
 see what men understand by fine 
 taste. There he will see one tree 
 shaped like a dove, another like a 
 pyramid, and others like gate-posts. 
 He will see long rows of trees shaped 
 just alike, and forming arches as far 
 as the eye can reach. He will see 
 canals, with appropriate water-falls. 
 
 where every drop goes over marble 
 just so, and every stone is polished 
 and decorous. Gentlemanly water- 
 falls they are. Everything is very 
 fine ; everything is after a given pat- 
 tern ; and the pattern is for the most 
 part geometric. And that is what is 
 called taste and dignity. And a per- 
 son who has been trained in that idea 
 of taste, on going into our native for- 
 ests, would be shocked to see those 
 brown leaves in yonder heap that my 
 feet delight to tread upon, and that are 
 full of suggestions and music. There 
 are bugs on the trees, as sure as I 
 live ! And there are birds singing in 
 the branches. In Paris, birds are kept 
 in aviaries, and in wire cages, and are 
 taught to sing properly. But these 
 birds of the forest are uncultured, and 
 fly hither and thither at will. And 
 here is a tree that lops over a brook, 
 and looks as though it were going to 
 fall. And this foreign-bred gentleman, 
 seeing it, would say, " If I had that 
 tree I would make it stand up. Trees 
 were never made to be crooked." 
 Here is a stream that runs and winds 
 as it pleases, observing no rules of ex- 
 actitude or regularity, and his sense 
 of propriety is offended. Here are all 
 these objects of interest, following the 
 directions which are natural to them, 
 full of instruction and inspiration, but 
 this man despises them, and says, 
 " They are not in good taste." 
 
 1500. Conservativeness in Religion. 
 — Many men are determined to be so 
 safe ! Ah, conservatism is such an 
 important thing ! Prudence, modera- 
 tion — these are all-important in their 
 estimation. " Let your moderation be 
 known," say they. Moderation? Why 
 there is no such moderation anywhere 
 on earth as in an ice-house. Things 
 are never disturbed there. All is 
 proper there. There are many per- 
 sons who would conserve by congela- 
 
3^2 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 tion. But not so is it in the tropics, 
 where fruits abound, and grow luscious 
 from every bougli. Not so does ex- 
 perience dictate. I\lcii who have 
 made their mark in this world have 
 been men that had fire in their souls. 
 But it is said that the dignity and the 
 sacredness of religion require sobriety 
 and moderation and propriety. Yes, 
 1 think that, too. The dignity and 
 sacredness of religion are real. But 
 there is a dignity of Summer as well 
 as a dignity of Winter. There is a dig- 
 nity of bounty as well as of frugality. 
 
 1 501. Religious Fervor to be Regu- 
 lated. — It is true that intense excite- 
 ment in religion sometimes leads to 
 rashness and fanaticism, as very rich 
 soil, besides producing the crop, tends 
 to produce an immense harvest of 
 weeds ; but would you say to the 
 farmer, " Barrenness is the best cure 
 for weeds ; do not raise anything, and 
 then you will never have any weeds " ? 
 I would say, " Run your cultivator 
 between the rows, and cut down the 
 weeds and let your crops grow. The 
 fact that the weeds want to grow is a 
 hint of what soil there is." So, faults 
 of over-expression and intensity are 
 more frequently the results of mis- 
 direction and adverse influences, than 
 of too much feeling. 
 
 1502. Christianity Judged by Its 
 Professors. — Comes there to me an 
 embassy from a royal house in sack- 
 cloth, and smeared with dust, to 
 represent a great king ? He must 
 account for it that he fell among rob- 
 bers, and that he had a hard fight, 
 and then show his vouchers, and I 
 will believe that he is an ambassador. 
 Ordinarily a king's servants represent 
 a king by their demeanor, by their 
 beauty of apparel, and by the abun- 
 dance of the treasures that they bring. 
 What do you represent? What do 
 you people think of Christ's care of 
 
 his family when they see you, queru- 
 lous, anxious, sleepless, nerveless? 
 You, without the quiver of a song ; 
 you, without one sparkle of effer- 
 vescence ; you, with the smoke of a 
 wick just as it is expiring and ex- 
 tinguished, but not with the brightness 
 of it — what is to be thought of Chris- 
 tianity when men see you ? 
 
 1503. Influenceof Visible Goodness. 
 — I take a botany and begin to read 
 to my boy about stamens, sepals, and 
 pistils, and all manner of leaves, and 
 stems and roots — the whole physiology 
 of plants ; and I say, " Now, Robert, 
 go out and raise plants." Well, he 
 may go, if he must. Instead of that, 
 I say to him, " Come here, my boy " 
 — and, holding up before him a 
 bouquet of flowers, I say to him, 
 "What do you think of that?" 
 " Ah ! " he says. Everybody loves 
 flowers. Even the poor little ragged 
 beggars of the street cry for them. 
 When I go along with them in my 
 hand, they run after me, and say, 
 " Mister, won't you give me a flower ? " 
 One flower shown to a quick-eyed 
 boy will do more to make him a 
 gardener than a thousand botanies. 
 
 Now, that is the very idea of 
 the Gospel of Christ which he sets 
 forth when he says, " Let your light so 
 shine before men that they shall glorify 
 God by becoming good themselves." 
 
 1504. Everyday Goodness. — As 
 flowers never put on their best clothes 
 for Sunday, but wear their spotless 
 raiment and exhale their odor every 
 day, so let your Christian life, free 
 from stain, ever give forth the fragrance 
 of the love of God. 
 
 1505. Beauty of Holiness. — "What- 
 soever things are lovely.'' It is not 
 only our duty to be right, and to be 
 just, and to be pure, but it is our duty 
 to be so in such a way that we shall 
 seem lovely to men. 
 
RELIGION 
 
 323 
 
 There is no apology needed for the 
 rose — it is its own apology ; the grapes 
 in a vineyard make themselves mani- 
 fest to every passer-by ; and every 
 man to be a Christian after Christ's 
 method should so live that when per- 
 sons look upon him they shall say, 
 " It is lovely ! It is beautiful ! " 
 
 1506. Working Piety. — I have 
 noticed that the slender brook which 
 carries the mill is more musical on 
 Sunday than on any other day ; be- 
 cause the mill stands still, and the 
 brook, having nothing to do with its 
 water, gurgles over the rocks, and 
 flounders over the dam, and makes a 
 thousand times more merry noise than 
 on any other day. But Monday 
 comes, and the gates are hoisted, and 
 the mill runs, and the brook is not so 
 musical ; but the mill is more so. 
 And Christians, as it were, play in the 
 spirit, and have a holy jollity, on 
 Sunday. It is a holiday for them. 
 Nor would I undervalue their experi- 
 ence or joy. But I say that they are 
 not so busy when they sing and pray 
 and rejoice in the sanctuary, as when, 
 by some moral power, they are com- 
 bating temptation, and resisting pride, 
 and overcoming selfishness. 
 
 1507. The Meek Possessing the 
 Earth. — I suppose there is no class 
 among us that more exemplify a cer- 
 tain principle of the words of the 
 Gospel than the Quakers. Their 
 houses and their lands are proverbial ; 
 and they themselves, as a general 
 rule, have the look of the meek. They 
 look as though they had possessed the 
 earth ; and a very fat earth, too. 
 They are generally persons who thrive, 
 who live at peace, who are universally 
 respected ; and they do extract as 
 much honey from this great Avorld- 
 flower as any other class of people in 
 the whole community. And is it not 
 irresistibly evident that their pros- 
 
 perity is the natural effect of a cause 
 — the moral ideas that they are Uving 
 on ? And does not the one flow in the 
 train of the other ? 
 
 1508. Creeds and Religion. — There 
 are multitudes of things that are most 
 useful ; but even if you should change 
 your creed to-day in the growing light 
 of an advancing civihzation you do 
 not touch your religion, any more 
 than a man who changes an old 
 plough for a new and better one 
 changes agriculture. It is an instru- 
 ment, and all doctrinal creeds are 
 mere instruments ; but the things that 
 they are to produce are love, joy, 
 peace, long-suffering, gentleness, good- 
 ness, self-government. 
 
 1509. Living Epistles. — If your 
 circumstances are making you very 
 unhappy, try to make somebody else 
 happy, and you will find what light 
 will arise upon you. Do not live for 
 yourself; live for others. It will be 
 one of the testimonies to the reality of 
 religion which cannot be made in any 
 other way so easily and so eft'ectually. 
 A chemist sits down with his class and 
 says to them : " Darkness is the 
 subject on which I shall discourse. 
 Darkness is nothing ; it is the mere 
 absence of light " ; and so he gives a 
 chemical and philosophical statement 
 of the fact that all darkness dies the 
 moment light comes into the room. 
 Now a cheaper way would have been 
 simply to light a candle — that would 
 settle the whole thing. Men are teach- 
 ing religion, not living it. 
 
 1 5 10. Tokens of Divine Intercourse. 
 — Should one come home with fruit 
 we say, " Thou art come from the 
 orchard;" if with hands full of wild 
 flowers, "Thou art from the field ; " 
 if one's garments smell of mingled 
 odors, we say, " Thou hast walked in 
 a garden." But how much more, if 
 one hath seen God, hath held converse 
 
324 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 of hope and love, and hath walked in 
 heaven, should he carry in his eye, his 
 words, and his perfumed raiment, the 
 sacred tokens of divine intercourse ! 
 
 151 1. Intolerant Toleration, — Chris- 
 tian toleration is not an enforced for- 
 bearance with men who teach error. 
 Some men keep their hands off from 
 errorists because the law will not let 
 them touch them. They would burn 
 them if they could, but they do not 
 dare ; and that they call toleratio7i ! 
 That is the same kind of self-denial 
 which boys practice when the fruit 
 hangs ripe and tempting in the gar- 
 den, and they will not touch it be- 
 cause the stone wall is so very high 
 that they cannot climb over. 
 
 1512. Associating with Those in 
 Error. — " Well, but, is there not to be 
 a distinction between truth and error, 
 and between good men and bad 
 men?" Oh, yes, righteousness is to 
 be the distinction. A better spirit is 
 to be the distinction, a truer, deeper 
 love ; more disinterested zeal ; purer 
 spirituality. The distinction between 
 a man and his fellow-man is not to be 
 in the shape of his hat, nor in the cut 
 of his coat, nor in the color of his 
 garments. 
 
 1 5 13. The Test of Preaching. — 
 There is a difference in agriculture, 
 and there is a difference in imple- 
 ments ; but the farmer that raises the 
 best wheat in the greatest quantity, 
 and constantly, is the best farmer, no 
 matter what his tools are. It stands 
 true that he might be a better farmer 
 if he had better tools ; but he that 
 gathers the most men, and draws 
 them into the truest Christian life, I 
 care not by what doctrine he may be 
 known, nor in what church he may be 
 found, is God's man that is set to 
 preach the Gospel of Christ, accord- 
 ing to the spirit, the genius and the 
 temper of the Gospel itself. 
 
 1514. The Righteous Man. — To- 
 day, when I came down from my 
 place in the country, I observed the 
 trees along the Hudson River ; and, 
 seeing how green, succulent and 
 plump they were, I said, •' They must 
 have had rain down here, anyhow ; " 
 but it instantly occurred to me that it 
 was said in the Psalms that the right- 
 eous man should be like a tree planted 
 by the rivers of water. There it was ! 
 The roots ran into the Hudson ; and 
 they did not want any rain. 
 
 1515. Atmospheric Christianity. — 
 Once, when I was talking with Edwin 
 M. Stanton (one of the noblest men 
 that the late war brought forth), in 
 speaking of the superior fighting 
 qualities of Sheridan, whom he char- 
 acterized as our young Napoleon, he 
 said, "When he was in a fight he 
 carried around him an orb of fire five 
 feet in diameter." I have thought, 
 frequently, that a Christian ought to 
 carry around him an atmosphere of 
 fire, or magnetism, so that everybody 
 who comes within five feet of him 
 shall feel a genial, warm, kind, divine 
 element of love and benefaction. 
 
 15 16. The Christian in the World. 
 — The shining of a man's light is not 
 to be merely for his own family. It 
 would be a stingy man indeed who 
 would not set a light in the window 
 when there was no other light to guide 
 the traveler along a difficult way, 
 saying, "This candle is for me and 
 my children, and we are not going to 
 waste any of its rays on the dark 
 street for we know not whom." 
 There may be stinginess in respect 
 to the light of the heart as well as in 
 respect to the light of a candle. 
 There is to be such an emission of your 
 religious experience that the hearts of 
 others shall be kindled by yours, and 
 that they shall receive benefit from 
 you of comfort, guidance, sympathy. 
 
RELIGION 
 
 325 
 
 1517. Good Deeds. — In the even- 
 ing, all over the trees, and throughout 
 the grass, is deposited the condensed 
 moisture of the air ; and silent dew- 
 drops are on every flower and every 
 leaf. If you go and look at them in 
 the darkness of to-night, there is no 
 form or comeliness in them ; but by 
 and by God will have wheeled the sun 
 in its circuit so that it shall look over 
 the horizon ; and the moment its light 
 strikes these hidden drops, small and 
 scattered, every one shall glow as if 
 it were a diamond, and all nature 
 shall be lighted up with myriad fires, 
 each reflecting something of the 
 glory. The good deeds of this life are 
 dewdrops, innumerable, lying unseen 
 among men ; but when God shall 
 pour the revealing light of the other 
 world upon them, how it will kindle 
 them, and make them sparkle ! The 
 analogy would be perfect if it were 
 not that dewdrops exhale, while good 
 deeds are pearls that never melt, and 
 never pass away. 
 
 1518. Gifted Natures to Live Su- 
 periorly. — When a man that has power 
 of genius above his fellows seeks only 
 to go about as high as men in general, 
 it is as if an eagle should take pattern 
 from sparrows and doves. God gave 
 the eagles wings that they might fan 
 the greatest heights, and spread them- 
 selves nearer the sun than any other 
 bird. For the eagle to play sparrow 
 or dove is mean enough. And for 
 men that are capable of large thought, 
 of noble enthusiasm, and of soaring 
 high in the realm of imagination, to 
 reduce themselves to the average con- 
 dition of those by whom they are sur- 
 rounded, is pitiable. 
 
 151 9. Nature Overpowering Grace. 
 — I have, on my little farm, a tree that 
 bore poor apples, but that has now 
 been grafted with a choice sweet va- 
 riety. A friend put in the grafts for 
 
 me, and I forgot all about them. It 
 was done last year ; and when I went 
 back this year and saw a rousing top 
 to the tree, and recollected that it had 
 been grafted, I went to examine it, 
 and found that almost all the grafts 
 had "taken," but that the old tree 
 had been there too, and overgrown 
 them, and that they were lying hid 
 in the branches, so that I would 
 have defied any man to see them at a 
 distance of ten feet off". And I said, 
 ' ' O my professor of religion ! you are 
 just like hundreds that I have in my 
 church. They all have grafts in them ; 
 but the natural tree has overgrown the 
 grafts, so that you cannot find them." 
 
 1520. The Habit of Doing Good. — 
 "As we have opportunity ' ' is not 
 simply the antithesis of ofllicial doing 
 good, or doing good at stated seasons. 
 It indicates that we are to make doing 
 good the very atmosphere and busi- 
 ness of our whole religious life. Many 
 furrows are opened in which men may 
 sow seed once in their lifetime, which 
 seed, if it be sown, shall spring up and 
 be most beautiful in blossom and 
 fruit ; but if they neglect to put seed in 
 those open furrows, the opportunity 
 will not come again. Other furrows 
 will open, and they will have certain 
 chances for doing good ; but that 
 chance never again. And so there 
 must be an alertness and enterprise 
 and watchfulness, and above all a 
 fullness of benevolent disposition, that 
 shall always be pressing to find oppor- 
 tunities, and to develop itself. 
 
 1521. Goodness to be Made Appar- 
 ent. — I can take a bunch of mignon- 
 ette and carry it through the house, 
 and have every one following after 
 me and saying, " Where are those 
 flowers?" They have seen none; 
 they have not heard my footsteps ; but 
 the fragrance is in the air. And are 
 you, that are the blossoms of God's 
 
326 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 seeds in this life, fragrant of goodness, 
 so that when you go among your 
 children, among your dependents or 
 among your fellow-men, your coming 
 is like the passage of flowers ? 
 
 1522. Christianity for all of Life. — 
 Some Christians are like freight- 
 engines at night. They carry a power- 
 ful lamp in front, which casts a light 
 far ahead, but in no other direction, 
 leaving the everlasting snake-train 
 which they drag behind them envel- 
 oped in darkness. This light corre- 
 sponds to the Christian's hope, which 
 casts its rays heavenward, but leaves 
 the long train of bodily appetites and 
 necessities which go with him through 
 life unilluminated. Men regard their 
 worldly business and their family 
 duties as distinct from their religion ; 
 whereas, I understand that no man is 
 living a Christian life who is not a 
 Christian in the world, in the family, 
 in the church, in his mind, in his soul, 
 in the emotions and appetites of his 
 nature, in his hand, in his foot, in his 
 head, — who is not a man of light 
 everywhere, and in everything in him. 
 
 1523. God's Jewel-Case. — Is there 
 anything more beautiful in a lower 
 sphere than the dressing of a bride for 
 her wedding? The tender hands of 
 kind nurse, of loving sisters, and fond 
 mother, — how they all wait upon her ! 
 How the hours are consecrated to her 
 glory ! How her hair is parted and 
 braided with sweet simplicity ! How 
 the veil is thrown over her with ex- 
 quisite grace ! What jewels contribute 
 to decorate her person ! 
 
 Now, God has opened the jewel-box 
 with the contents of which he dresses 
 his bride, the Church : — " Blessed are 
 the poor in spirit." " Blessed are 
 they that mourn." " Blessed are the 
 meek ; " " they which do hunger and 
 thirst after righteousness;" "the 
 merciful ; " " the pure in heart ; " 
 
 "the peacemakers;" "they which 
 are persecuted for righteousness' 
 sake." " Blessed are ye when men 
 shall revile you, and persecute you, 
 and shall say all manner of evil 
 against you falsely, for my sake." 
 Who wants to wear jewels? There 
 they are. Put them on ! 
 
 1524. Summer in the Soul. — There 
 can be no barrenness in full summer. 
 The very sand will yield something. 
 Rocks will have mosses, and every 
 rift will have its wind-flower, and 
 every crevice a leaf ; while from the 
 fertile soil will be reared a gorgeous 
 troop of growths, that will carry their 
 life in ten thousand forms, but all with 
 praise to God. And so it is when the 
 soul knows its summer. Love re- 
 deems its weakness, clothes its barren- 
 ness, enriches its poverty, and makes 
 its very desert to bud and blossom as 
 the rose. 
 
 1525. Religion: Harmony of Soul. 
 —Many men carry their religion as a 
 church carries its bell — high up in a 
 belfry, to ring out on sacred days, to 
 strike for funerals, or to chime for 
 weddings. All the rest of the time it 
 hangs high above reach — voiceless, 
 silent, dead. Yet religion is not the 
 specializing of any one feeling, but the 
 mood and harmony of all of them. 
 
 1526. Emergency-Religion. — Men 
 use religion just as they use buoys and 
 life-preservers ; they do not intend to 
 navigate the vessel with them, but 
 they keep just enough of them on 
 hand to float into a safe harbor when 
 the storm comes up and the vessel is 
 shipwrecked ; and it is only then that 
 they intend to use them. I tell you, 
 you will find air-holes in all such life- 
 preservers as that. 
 
 1527. Professional Piety. — We all 
 know what is meant by a professional 
 air. The actor, the physician, the 
 merchant, the sailor, the schoolmis- 
 
RELIGION 
 
 327 
 
 tress, the minister of the Gospel, — any 
 of them can be told almost as far as 
 they can be seen. You certainly can 
 tell them if you talk with them. As 
 men that work in the midst of odors 
 carry about in their raiment, if not in 
 their very persons, the savor of the 
 things in which they work, so there 
 seems to be a perfume of the business 
 a man follows that strikes into him. 
 . . . Now just such a stamp is apt to 
 be put upon our piety. It is a certain 
 smooth -speaking ; a pious way of talk- 
 ing ; a restricted, narrowed, measured 
 thing. Some seem to think that Chris- 
 tian character requires suppression : 
 not so much opening out as shutting 
 in ; not so much the carrying of a lion- 
 hke front that drives evil away, as the 
 carrying of one's self in such a way 
 that no lion can see him, and nothing 
 can get at him. Thank God, profes- 
 sional piety is not as common as it 
 was. We are in a transition state out 
 of it. Yet there are many things that 
 tend to produce a want of robust, 
 open-faced, upright, manly piety. 
 
 1528. " Quit Ye Like Men ! "— It is 
 not a man's part merely to keep his 
 armor bright ; to hang around the 
 edge of the fight, and, whenever he 
 sees it bulging out towards him, to re- 
 treat to a hill, and, if any dust has 
 fallen upon his armor, to set to work 
 to brush it off. It is a man's business 
 to go down to the battle, and to use 
 his sword when he gets there. Man 
 was not meant to be an armor-keeper; 
 but there are men who go all their 
 lives scrubbing up their armor — keep- 
 ing their hope bright and their faith 
 bright, but never using them. 
 
 1529. Religious Depth. — When a 
 heavily freighted ship gets aground, 
 there is no use of attempting to move 
 it with jacks and screws and poles. 
 There is no help for it until, by and 
 by, God's sun and moon, wheeUng, 
 
 bring in great tides and sea, and the 
 multitudes of the waters lift up the 
 vessel by more depth, so that it swings 
 out and is free from obstruction. Now, 
 half our troubles we have because, 
 being loaded heavily, we run deep, 
 and get aground in the shallow waters 
 of this world. And when we go to 
 God for rehef, he opens the doors of 
 thought and feeling ; he discloses the 
 fact of immortality and glory ; he 
 makes known the reality of the com- 
 ing world ; he reveals his truth through 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, and by deepen- 
 ing our religious experiences he gives 
 the soul such an uplift that he carries 
 us over and beyond our troubles. 
 
 1530. Fruitful Lives. — If you shake 
 the tree, you can bring down fruit, no 
 doubt ; but I remember, when a boy, 
 the persuasion to get early out of bed 
 was the thought of the large white 
 apples that lay beneath the trees, 
 awaiting the first comer — that had 
 dropped upon the grass in the silent 
 night, almost without a breath of wind 
 to stir the branches. Now I think 
 every man ought to carry his boughs 
 so full of fruits, that, like the apples 
 which drop from silent dew, they will 
 fall by the weight of their own ripe- 
 ness for whoever needs to be refreshed. 
 
 1531. Self-Effect of Holy Living. — 
 Such is the power of inward beauty 
 that after a time it strikes through, 
 and, though I may be ungainly and 
 distorted, nevertheless the soul is 
 mightier than the framework of the 
 features, and whoever t's good, by 
 and by /ooks good, and whoever is 
 deep-souled gives that expression to 
 the countenance itself. Mild qualities 
 penetrate, and at last find physical 
 clearness. There is no cosmetic that 
 is half so good as grace. 
 
 1532. Useless Religion, — A religion 
 that does not take hold of the life that 
 now is. is like a cloud that does not 
 
328 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 r.iin. A cloud may roll in gramleur, 
 and be an object of admiration ; but 
 if it does not rain, it is of little account 
 so far as utility is concerned. And a 
 religion that consists in the observance 
 of magnificent ceremonies, but that 
 does not touch the duties of daily life, 
 is a religion of show and of sham. 
 
 1533. The Soul that Finds God. — 
 Before the sun has risen the air is full 
 of flitting bats and owls, and the night 
 is given up to the cockroaches and the 
 crickets, and the wild beasts of the 
 forest are abroad and they are filhng 
 the gloomy recesses with their roaring. 
 But when the morning sun comes out 
 and dissipates the vapors and mists of 
 the night the beast slinks into his lair, 
 away go the bats and the noisome in- 
 sects, away go the songless owls and 
 seek their hiding-places, and out come 
 all the sweet-singing birds, and the 
 whole air is full of light and rejoicing. 
 So, I think that when the sun of right- 
 eousness arises with heahng in its 
 beams all these doubts, and fears, and 
 temptations, and hateful passions will 
 slink into their hiding-places and dis- 
 appear, and the glory of God will rise 
 upon the soul as the glory of the sun 
 rises upon the dew-spangled morn- 
 ing. 
 
 1534- Fruitfulness. — I remember 
 hearing a noble old man of the wilder- 
 ness say, " If I have one tree, and it 
 bears a bushel of apples, it is a great 
 deal better that by generous culture 
 and pruning I should make that tree 
 bear ten bushels, than that I should 
 have ten trees each bearing one 
 bushel." We want Christ to reign in 
 more and more hearts ; but we want 
 those hearts in which he is reigning to 
 become fruitful in holiness, so that at 
 last we shall stand before the world 
 abounding in the fruits of the Spirit. 
 
 1535. Give God the Best. — God will 
 not thank you for the parings, the 
 
 peelings, the chaff, the shucks, of 
 your time. If there is an hour when 
 your thoughts are clearer and your 
 affections sweeter than at any other 
 time, take that hour for God. 
 
 1536. Theory and Practice. — Ideas 
 are not Gospel : dispositions are Gos- 
 pel. . . . You may bring me a cata- 
 logue of fruit ; all the fruits of the 
 earth do not taste good out of a cata- 
 logue. Bring me one cluster from the 
 vines, — that touches at once my palate 
 and my imagination. 
 
 1537. Man's Serenity in God. — As a 
 scared child running from some alarm- 
 ing danger into the house seeks the 
 mother's lap, and is wrapped in her 
 arms and falls asleep in the conscious- 
 ness " Mother will care for me," so it 
 is in the soul's power that is wrapped 
 in the conscious bosom of its God to 
 not care what men say and do unto 
 him ; so it sets us free from all the en- 
 vironments of human life. 
 
 1538. Conscious Sonship. — There 
 have been times when European con- 
 vulsions have pitched kings and 
 princes headlong out of their thrones 
 and castles, and sent them wandering 
 all over the world. It is said that the 
 educated nobles of France bore the 
 emigration more patiently than any of 
 the common people. I, myself, was a 
 witness of that fact in the Hungarians 
 when they came to this country with 
 that noble hero, Kossuth. The men 
 that could bear the loss of place, 
 power, country, everything — the men 
 that bore that best were the most 
 highly educated. They were nobles. 
 A man may be reduced to physical 
 extremities and have every measure 
 of weakness upon him, yet if he has 
 planted in him this consciousness : 
 " I am a son of God ; I am a noble ; 
 I am a prince" — that man is larger 
 than the whole air, larger than the 
 whole world. 
 
SPIRITUAL BIRTH 
 
 329 
 
 XX VI I. SPIRITUAL BIRTH 
 
 1539. Conversions are like the dawn 
 of morning : they come and irradiate 
 the very dewdrops and change them 
 to jewels ; they wake all the birds, 
 they wake all hearts and melodies. 
 . . . No man is illumined entirely at 
 conversion ; it is the rising light, that 
 shines brighter and brighter unto the 
 perfect day. 
 
 1540. Regeneration. — The process 
 of being born again is like that which 
 a portrait goes through under the hand 
 of the artist. When a man is con- 
 verted, he is but the outline sketch of 
 a character which he is to fill up. 
 
 1541. Perseverance in Self-Cleans- 
 ing. — Right in my bedroom I found a 
 place where the rats came out for their 
 dances and carols at night, and I 
 speedily plugged the hole ; but did the 
 plugging of the hole rid me of the rats? 
 They simply gnawed a hole somewhere 
 else ; and they abide with me still. 
 
 Do you suppose that when you have 
 stopped up one hole, you have cleared 
 up all your interior troubles. 
 
 1542. The Resurrection of a Soul. 
 — Where a man has for thirty or forty 
 years been accustomed to judge of 
 what was right or wrong, of what was 
 best or not best, by its relation to his 
 own personal interest ; when he comes 
 to judge of these things by what is 
 just, and right, and true, though there 
 are hours in which he is raised from a 
 lower to a higher life, yet his resur- 
 rection does not imply that he will be 
 free at once from all vulgarities. 
 There are many napkins of the grave 
 to be removed ; there is much smell 
 of the soil to be cleansed from him. 
 It takes time to make character. Al- 
 though the beginnings of character 
 which consist in voluntary change 
 may be instantaneous, the full and 
 final results require gradual growth. 
 
 1543- Conceit in Moralities. — How 
 would I attempt to convict a person 
 of ignorance ? If a little sprig of a 
 fellow comes where I am, thinking 
 that he knows everything, the best 
 way to deal with him is to assume 
 that he really does know. I intro- 
 duce one subject, and assume that he 
 is familiar with it, and question him 
 upon it till he begins to swallow, and 
 to say to himself, " I do not know 
 quite as much as I thought I did." I 
 at once pass from that to another sub- 
 ject, and assume that he knows 
 something on that, and pusli him 
 along till he begins to boggle, and 
 feel that he is not half so wise as he 
 thought he was. And by the time I 
 have swamped him on half a dozeii 
 subjects, he will be quite crestfallen, 
 and have some idea of his ignorance. 
 
 And, if a man comes to me and 
 says, " I cannot see that I am a 
 sinner," I say, "Then you do not 
 need any change nor repentance. But 
 if you cannot see that you are a sinner, 
 you ought to act like a Christian. 
 
 1544. Conviction without Choice. 
 — What would you think of a man 
 who should go to his business as men 
 go to church from Sabbath to Sab- 
 bath? A man sits down in his office, 
 and it seems to him that it would be a 
 good thing if he should go into a cer- 
 tain operation. He thinks it all over, 
 sees how it might be done, and is 
 satisfied with it. Then he begins and 
 goes all over it again. He thinks 
 about it all day. He goes home, and 
 sleeps on it ; and when he gets up the 
 next morning he is convinced that it 
 would be a good thing. But he never 
 does decide to go into it. By and by 
 another man goes into it, and comes 
 out all right ; and this man says, 
 " Well, I might have made a very 
 
330 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 handsome sum if I had gone into 
 that ; I was on the point of doing it, 
 but for some reason I didn't." 
 
 Such, have their parallel in those 
 who go to the house of God, and 
 listen to clear instruction, and have 
 the way in which they should go 
 pointed out definitely to them, but 
 who, although they have much right 
 feeling, although they are entirely 
 satisfied in their judgment as to what 
 they ought to do and to be, or ought 
 to begin to do or to be, fool with it 
 (that is the plain English), They turn 
 it over in their minds ; but it never re- 
 sults in choice. 
 
 1545. Decision for the Better Life. 
 — Do not let such an appeal as I am 
 making to you now go away as a 
 merely curious and pleasing reverie to 
 be forgotten to-morrow. Let not the 
 footsteps of your meditation be washed 
 out by the recurring tide of the sea to- 
 morrow. Begin now with the consent 
 of your understanding, with the sanc- 
 tion of conscience, with the solicita- 
 tion of hope, and with the benediction 
 of love, by the power and the draw- 
 ing of the divine Spirit, which is as 
 universal and vivific as the sun. 
 
 1546. Christ Unconfessed. — There 
 are many who wish to live Christianly, 
 but who do not wish to be held re- 
 sponsible according to the Christian 
 standard. There have been princes 
 who, for reasons of State, did not dare 
 to openly follow their real affection, 
 but secretly married themselves to the 
 women whom their hearts loved. 
 They entered into the marriage rela- 
 tion, but never avowed it. They 
 wanted the comfort of heart which 
 came from that relation, but they kept 
 it secret, because they did not want 
 to stand before the State and be con- 
 demned as having formed a mesalli- 
 ance. There are many who want to 
 have a secret alliance with the Lord 
 
 Jesus Christ ; who want to have all the 
 sympathy and succoring benedictions 
 which come from faith in him ; but 
 who do not want to avow it openly. 
 
 1547. Christ to be Confessed. — Do 
 you suppose that is the wedding, 
 when the young man and his blushing 
 bride stand up and exchange vows? 
 The wedding took place when their 
 two hearts rushed together as one, 
 and when they clasped each other, 
 and said, " Thine for life ; mine for 
 life." Their souls are married first; 
 but they are obliged then to stand up 
 before law and institution and custom, 
 and openly say, " This is what we 
 have done." This declarative and 
 open wedding is necessary for moral- 
 ity, for decency, for reasons right and 
 proper. And every soul ought to be 
 married to Christ. Every soul should 
 clasp him with secret faith. And 
 then there should be the standing up 
 and bearing outward, public testimony, 
 
 1548. Impulses towards Christian 
 Life. — How many there are in this 
 congregation that I know to be wait- 
 ing ! Waiting for what .'' Your very 
 waiting is itself the first step of divine 
 life. If a man is thinking about being 
 a Christian, his very thoughts are 
 God's call to him. Do not under- 
 value such thoughts and impulses. 
 Use them. Spread your sails. Take 
 little winds when they come, and be 
 thankful for them. When ships are 
 off port, or seeking entrance, or be- 
 ginning a voyage, I notice that the 
 less wind there is the more the sails 
 are spread. When there is scarcely 
 any wind, the sails are all run up, and 
 then there is presented one of the 
 sublimest of sights — a ship, full- 
 spread, wooing every particle of 
 breeze to waft it on its way. 
 
 1549. Simplicity of Salvation. — A 
 lifeboat puts out to a foundering ship. 
 Is it needful before one leaps from the 
 
SPIRITUAL BIRTH 
 
 33 » 
 
 sinking vessel into the frail lifeboat, 
 that every single thing about it shall 
 be explained to him, as to who made 
 it, and of what materials it is con- 
 structed ? No : it is only in matters 
 of religion that men act so strangely. 
 In all the great welfares of life, men 
 do not undertake to teach the philoso- 
 phy of things before the benefit of 
 those things can be availed of; and 
 they ought not to do it in matters so 
 inportant and vital as the question of 
 their soul's salvation. That which is 
 essential is reciprocal love between 
 God and the human soul. 
 
 1550. Tentative Religion. — As for 
 those who have not begun a religious 
 life, oftentimes they make essays, ten- 
 tative endeavors ; and they may be 
 said to have approached it. Men 
 have sometimes, as it were, tried on 
 religion. And then, if you talk with 
 them, they say, " I know about re- 
 ligion now. I have tried it. Why, I 
 have been religious for a week to- 
 gether. I tell you it may be neces- 
 sary, by and by ; but it is a hard road." 
 
 What would you think of a man, 
 city-bred, lily-fingered, soft-jointed, 
 and soft-muscled, who should say, 
 "They tell me that there is great 
 pleasure in living in the saddle ; but I 
 believe it is a lie, for I tried it one 
 morning. I got a hard-trotting horse, 
 and rode several hours ; and I was 
 sore for days afterwards. I do not 
 believe a word of what they say of 
 horseback riding." 
 
 1 551, Life Aroused by Revivals. — 
 Is not the arousing influence of the 
 revival system an educating one ? Is 
 there any education that proceeds so 
 fast as that which takes place under a 
 warm and newly-developed moral feel- 
 ing? Men in the ordinary stage are like 
 robins' eggs in the nest ; you cannot 
 feed them. Let the robin sit on them 
 a little while, and by and by there will 
 
 be nothing but four mouths, and as 
 fast as you put in worms they will 
 gulp them. To educate men in the 
 cold and natural state is just like feed- 
 i'lg ^S&s. Warm them, and give 
 them life, and they will eat. 
 
 1552. When God is Near. — The 
 children are all playing, and the 
 mother is happy ; and as long as they 
 are doing well, and running in now 
 and then, in their frolic, and throwing 
 their arms about her neck and kissing 
 her, and saying, " Dear mother," 
 certainly they are very near to her ; 
 but after all, it is when the child is 
 hurt, and comes in crying, and the 
 mother takes it up and soothes it, and 
 kisses its pain away, that she is near 
 to it as she is not at any other time. 
 
 1553. The Higher Excitements. — 
 Many men confound moral excite- 
 ments with those of their passions, 
 and think it not prudent to act upon 
 their feeUngs, till excitement has 
 cooled. The excitement of passion 
 should cool ; but, of the nobler pow- 
 ers, never. I should as soon think of 
 saying to the workmen in a foundry, 
 " Why do you pour that liquid, scintil- 
 lating iron into the mould? Why do 
 you not wait till it is cold before you 
 do it?" as of asking a man why he 
 heeded his convictions, and his judg- 
 ments of moral truths, when his intel- 
 lect was roused and his heart on fire. 
 If he waits till he has cooled down, 
 they will be as dross and cinders com- 
 pared to what they would have been 
 when his heart throbbed and was ahve 
 with blessed excitement. 
 
 1554. Instant Action on Noble Im- 
 pulses. — The impulses which men 
 have from their lower nature, ought 
 always to be reviewed by sober sec- 
 ond thought ; but the inspirations 
 which men have from their nobler 
 natures ought not to be made subjects 
 of reflection before action. 
 
332 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 In the glow of enthusiasm, when 
 some great want is made known, 
 when the crying necessity of some 
 distressed community is disclosed, an 
 old rich man's heart is melted ; and 
 if he could only pay down the money 
 at once he would give largely. He 
 means to give five thousand dollars ; 
 but before the meeting is over, think- 
 ing of it, he says, " I will give twenty- 
 five hundred dollars." He goes home 
 and thinks of it, and before he sleeps 
 he says, " I will give a thousand dol- 
 lars." The next morning, before the 
 collector comes round, he says, " Five 
 hundred dollars is a good deal of 
 money to give away." And by the 
 time the collector comes, at ten or 
 eleven o'clock, the man purposes 
 that, if he finds himself all right on 
 going to his store, he will give the 
 agent a check for a hundred dollars. 
 The collector follows him over there, 
 and, at last, after a good deal of 
 haggling, he gives twenty-five ! 
 
 1555. This World and the Other. — 
 You have probably noticed that when 
 men walk across a stream on stilts, if 
 they look at their feet to see where 
 they step, their head begins to swim, 
 and very soon they have to swim or 
 drown ; whereas, if they fix their eye 
 upon a single object on the opposite 
 bank, and never look at their feet at 
 all, they reach the other side in safety. 
 Now, if a man stands looking at this 
 world, he gets dizzy and intoxicated, 
 and falls ; whereas, if he fixes his eye 
 upon the bank of the eternal world, 
 he walks straighter in this world, and 
 is more sure of reaching the other 
 side in safety. 
 
 1556. How to Find Christ.— Al- 
 though the letter has its uses, and 
 although it is blessed by the Spirit of 
 God to bring men to Christ, in its own 
 way ; yet the ordinary way in which 
 men seek to learn Christ lay reading 
 
 the Bible, as it were putting themselves 
 into the Bible, and setting themselves 
 over the fire of devotion, so to speak, 
 and simmering, with the hope that at 
 last they will be penetrated with such 
 a flavor of Christ that they will have 
 a perfect knowledge of him— this me- 
 chanical notion, this notion of the 
 cmsitie, as I might almost call it, is 
 false and misleading. 
 
 Christ not merely says, "Come 
 unto me," but he tells you how to 
 come — " Take my yoke upon you, and 
 learn of me." You are to find Christ 
 in practical emergencies. You are to 
 find Christ in a course of action. 
 
 ^557- Almost a Christian. — I have 
 seen, in summer, when June has been 
 chilly and rainy, dark bushes full of 
 buds that could not blossom. They 
 remained buds, and buds, and buds, 
 opening a little, green mostly, show- 
 ing stripes of pink here and there, as 
 if the labor-pain were approaching, 
 and realization were about to be given, 
 when the cahx should turn back to let 
 out the petal ; but there came some 
 glorious mid-June day, when the 
 milder winds came from the South, 
 and gentle warm rains fell, and the 
 sun broke out in warmth and efful- 
 gence ; and on that very day they 
 were delivered into the full ripeness of 
 beauty, in an hour. While they were 
 buds they were full of expectation ; 
 when they were blossoms they were 
 full of beauty ; and there are multi- 
 tudes of men — I know them in the 
 congregation — that are in the Christian 
 bud ; and if there could be some sud- 
 den warmth, some inspiration of the 
 Holy Ghost, some sympathy with deep 
 and true Christian dispositions round 
 about them, there is no reason in the 
 world why they should not blossom in 
 an hour. The work has been gradual. 
 
 1558. Religious Inquirers Need 
 Sympathy. — When a man's soul is in 
 
SPIRITUAL BIRTH 
 
 333 
 
 a perilous condition, there is every 
 reason why he should seek to interest 
 some one in his behalf. When one 
 shuts up his religious thoughts and 
 feelings inside, he is like a man who 
 builds a fire and shuts both the vent 
 and the flue. A fire cannot burn with- 
 out air. But people when they try to 
 build a fire in their souls, put in the 
 material and shut it up as tight as they 
 can, so that nobody would suspect it. 
 That is not the way. Commit your- 
 selves ! 
 
 1559. The Time for Help. — Here is 
 a man that has been gambling. In 
 some affliction he goes to this or that 
 church, that perhaps is a godsend 
 church to him ; and he says, " Would 
 to God that I could Hve a better life ! " 
 Men, seeing him there, say, " I won- 
 der what he is here for ; " as if a 
 gambler had not a soul, and had no 
 business in a church ! He weeps ; 
 and they say, " As sure as I hve, I 
 saw the fellow cry ! " And it is whis- 
 pered about that he is under convic- 
 tion ; and these good people say, 
 "God's grace is very powerful, and 
 even this man may be saved : we will 
 watch him, and if he holds out let us 
 receive him, and be kind to him! " 
 But in the beginning, when ten thou- 
 sand fiery fiends are around about 
 him ; when his evil associates are 
 plucking at him ; when the channels 
 are yet deep in which his life has run ; 
 when hundreds of malign influences 
 are crying out to him, " Return ! re- 
 turn ! return!" and when God's call 
 comes faint to his ears so that he is in 
 doubt as to whether it is God that calls 
 — then is the time to run down to him, 
 and, if he is not quite sincere, make 
 him so by kindness and sympathy. 
 
 1560. Not Chosen, because Not 
 Choosing. — See this man Naaman, 
 blessed with gold, a leper ! See this 
 man, praised and pampered, a leper ! 
 
 See this man, surrounded with all lux- 
 uries, a leper! All this time there 
 rolled the Jordan, gurgling and rip- 
 pling and singing, with health in its 
 bosom, and health for him. But here 
 was the offended and raging great 
 man turning his back on the Jordan 
 and going home again. 
 
 There are many persons that ask 
 me, " If God is a father, and his gov- 
 ernment is paternal, why does he allow 
 men to be lost.'' " Streams of salva- 
 tion, divine and blessed influences, are 
 flowing down past every sinful man, 
 as the waters of Jordan flowed down 
 past this man, and the voices of God's 
 ministers are speaking out to every 
 man that needs cleansing, saying, 
 "Go, cleanse thyself in the streams 
 of grace ; " but men will not do it, 
 and therefore they are not cured. 
 
 156 1. Conversion a Change of 
 Method. — Men carry their faculties 
 very much as peasants and boors 
 carry telescopes— shut up. A philoso- 
 pher overtakes one of these, with his 
 instrument, and he says, " Have you 
 ever looked through that?" "Yes," 
 says the man, "but everything is 
 blurred." "Do you know how to 
 look through it.^ " "I suppose I do : 
 I have looked through it often enough 
 to know how." But looking often 
 does not teach a man how to look 
 right ; and the philosopher takes the 
 instrument and draws it out, and ad- 
 justs it properly, and puts it in the 
 hand of the peasant, and, behold, 
 things afar off come near, and the man 
 is in an ecstasy of wonder. 
 
 The same takes place when God's 
 Spirit comes to us. Our faculties are 
 not adjusted, nor rightly employed. 
 God's Spirit teaches us how to use 
 what we already have. 
 
 1562. Lost Souls. — " I come to 
 seek and to save that which was lost," 
 Christ says. You remember the par- 
 
334 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 able of the shepherd who says, " Re- 
 joice with me. I have found the one 
 that was lost : " but the whole flock 
 was not lost, nor spoken of as such. 
 
 The term "lost," then, when ap- 
 plied to men, is a shepherd's term; it 
 means wanderer, one that is out of the 
 way. Never, not once, does it carry 
 the idea of a corrupt nature in the 
 theological sense of that term, still 
 less, that "lost in Adam's fall" is 
 taught in Scripture. Men's natures 
 are right if used right. Your reason 
 is good enough if you use it well 
 enough. A man is lazy ; he has been 
 brought up with no strength, no skill. 
 The hand is good enough, it is the 
 wrong use of it, or the neglect of it 
 that is bad ; and if the lazy hand be 
 put to skill, taught to lift, to work, the 
 hand is all right as soon as you bring 
 it into its right function and give it its 
 right direction and education. It is 
 born again, in the sense that it was 
 paralyzed or perverted before ; now it 
 has received life again, or has been 
 brought to regularity and right use. 
 
 1563, Discipline Unpleasant. — When 
 the careless-handed child has learned 
 to play the piano just to suit himself, 
 and the master tells him that he must 
 no longer play in that slovenly man- 
 ner, that his fingers must yield to dis- 
 cipline, he does not like it. Yet, that 
 is the road to skill ; and, after a time, 
 having been broken into it, he would 
 not for the world go back. 
 
 The beginnings of every step higher 
 are with labor-throes, with birth-pains. 
 
 1564. Reformation of the Passions. 
 — No man likes to have the devil cast 
 out of him. There is as much squeal- 
 ing, and running down hill, and pitch- 
 ing into the sea now, as there was in 
 the time of our Saviour. And you 
 will take notice that, when passions 
 come out of men, they generally take 
 the form of hogs ! It is the lower 
 
 passions, it is the animal after all, that 
 is dispossessed ; and that resists. 
 
 1565. Manliness of Repentance. — 
 The man who will not and cannot re- 
 pent, is mean through to the very 
 stamina and stock ; but where a man, 
 having done wrong, has in him this 
 rebound, this resiliency, this repenting 
 power — there is the sign of manhood. 
 That is the test. He is the true man, 
 not who keeps from sin (though that 
 is noble, all of us being liable to 
 temptation, and to fall sometimes into 
 heinous transgressions), but who can 
 recover himself out of the snare. A 
 man, by his cunning, may keep out of 
 the hands of his enemy ; but the man 
 who, being ambushed, one man against 
 ten, can, drawing his sword, face 
 them, and, though wounded and 
 pressed back and overborne, at last 
 defeat the whole of them, and re- 
 cover his liberty — ah ! he is the hero. 
 
 1566. Misconception of Repentance. 
 — Men look upon repentance and hu- 
 mihation before God very much as 
 they do upon a voyage to the North 
 Pole. Every single league, as they ad- 
 vance towards the Arctic region, they 
 leave more and more behind them 
 greenness, and fruits, and warmth, 
 and civilization, and find themselves 
 more and more in the midst of sterility, 
 barrenness, ice, and barbarism. Men 
 think that to go to God is dreary and 
 desolate in the extreme. It is not ! 
 The sinner is the Esquimaux ! He 
 lives in ice, and burrows underground, 
 and is but little better than a beast! 
 But if by any means he becomes fired 
 with a conception of a better clime, 
 and leaving his hibernating quarters, 
 lie takes the ship Repentance, and 
 sails towards the torrid zone, at every 
 league he is surprised by the new 
 forms of vegetation. He has seen 
 oak-trees only about as high as his 
 knee. Not long after he sets out on 
 
SPIRITUAL BIRTH 
 
 033 
 
 liis voyage, he is astonished to see 
 them as high as his head. As he 
 draws near the tropics, he is lost in 
 wonder and ecstasy to see them Hfting 
 themselves far above him in the air. 
 And with what satisfaction does he 
 compare the delightful home he has 
 found with the miserable one he left. 
 
 1567. Repented Sins to be Forgot- 
 ten. — There are persons who live 
 largely in re-hashing their sins and 
 their sense of guilt. Why, did you not 
 repent of them ? When a man has 
 repented of his sins, that is enough. 
 Put them out ; do not keep them like 
 so many mummies in the house. 
 When you have done wrong and 
 found it out, and have changed to 
 right, and have rectified all the ways 
 in which your wrong-doing has affected 
 anybody else, that is the end : you 
 have no business to come back and 
 .sit down on your old gravestones. 
 
 1568. The Past and the Future. — 
 You have no power in that which is 
 past. Life that is lived stands ghastly 
 as a gravestone. You cannot change 
 it a particle. You cannot wipe out a 
 deed. You cannot obliterate a fact. 
 You cannot alter the proportion of a 
 single element. But the future is 
 mutable. It is as plastic as clay in 
 the hand of the artist. With the 
 future anything can be done if you 
 but have the heart to do it. 
 
 1569. A Test of Sinfulness. — If you 
 want to know whether you are sinful 
 or not, just take any of the character- 
 istic commands of Jesus Christ ; take 
 any point of example in him, any of 
 his conduct, anywhere, and try it on 
 yourself. A man goes into a store 
 and says to his tailor, "Look here, 
 how do I know what size I want ? " 
 He looks at him a moment, then goes 
 on with him trying on coats and finds 
 that they do or do not fit the man. 
 Try moral qualities in the same way. 
 
 You have one text that leads to this 
 very analogy or figure : " Put ye on 
 the Lord Jesus Christ," as a garment. 
 Put it on your conscience. Put on the 
 Lord Jesus Christ as an element of 
 love. Try on these Christian graces, 
 and see whether they fit you. 
 
 1570. Conviction of Sin. — The con- 
 viction of sinfulness is more persistent 
 with some than with others, and you 
 shall hear all the way through their 
 after life, men enumerating as a part 
 of their religious victories, that over 
 their great sinfulness — they preface 
 and they finish up everything with it. 
 
 Well, I would not ridicule them. 
 It is a very serious thing. But as 
 looked at from the standpoint of mere 
 philosophy, it is false, not only, but it 
 is mischievous to the last degree, and 
 it is not practical. We do not allow 
 men to do that with their bodies. 
 
 I have had men come to me from 
 the war and want to regale me by 
 showing where they were wounded ; 
 to take off the bandage and let me 
 look at the sores. I was disgusted 
 with them. There are a great many 
 people who feel that the evidence of 
 their piety needs to be shown by recit- 
 ing their moral sores. 
 
 1571. Grounds of Adoption. — I go 
 to the slums of the Five Points in New 
 York, and meet a boy that has a 
 dreary and sad look, already turbid 
 with moving passions, and offer to take 
 him and adopt him. He is of Saxon 
 blood. No sooner had he touched 
 these shores as an immigrant than he 
 was wafted into iniquity against his 
 better nature. He accepts my proffer ; 
 and when I say to him, " I will make 
 you my own son," he holds his arms 
 up to me in love and confidence. 
 Though I know I shall have much 
 patience to exercise with him, I adopt 
 him. The next child I meet is a tough 
 little fellow, keen and sharp. Spears 
 
33^ 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 and arrows stick out from him in every 
 direction, bidding me defiance. When 
 I make the same overture to him he 
 damns me to my face and runs around 
 the corner. Why do I not adopt him ? 
 Because I cannot. He will not be 
 adopted. Salvation depends upon 
 man's willingness to be saved. 
 
 1572. Elaborate Conversions. — Two 
 children have quarreled. The mother 
 insists that they shall kiss and make 
 up ; and suppose, according to the 
 manner of religious experience, they 
 should say, " Why, mother, I haven't 
 felt sorry long enough;" but is it 
 necessary that they should feel sorry 
 all day before they are fit to kiss? 
 We should laugh at such a thing in the 
 household. Now, it is a shame for a 
 man to have a prolonged struggle before 
 he yields to the influence of the spirit of 
 God. It is better that one should be 
 converted with a struggle than not to be 
 converted at all ; but a reluctant con- 
 version is far from creditable to a man. 
 
 1573. Beginning of Spiritual Life. — 
 The beginning of a truly religious life 
 in the soul of a man, may be obscure, 
 imperceptible and almost unconscious. 
 When a man is building a house he 
 can see it as it goes on. That is an 
 outside matter. There is seam after 
 seam, row after row of stone or brick. 
 A man goes into his garden and 
 plants, for spring, the early lettuce, or 
 radish, or whatever it may be. He 
 may sit up all night with spectacles 
 and a lantern, but he will not see any- 
 thing going on ; and yet there is some- 
 thing going on which is vitally con- 
 nected with the whole operation of 
 vegetable development. The seed 
 has not been in the ground an hour 
 before it feels its outward husk swell- 
 ing by imbibing moisture. It has not 
 been for ten hours in the warm soil be- 
 fore it begins to feel that its material 
 itself is chemically affected, changed. 
 
 Many a seed has not been twenty-four 
 hours in the ground before there is an 
 impulse in it at one end to thrust down 
 a root, and at the other end to thrust 
 up a plumule or the beginning of a 
 visible stalk. But it makes no noise ; 
 and all the earlier processes of germi- 
 nation and development are invisible 
 and silent, — for if you take it out into 
 the light it will not grow. The seed 
 needs warmth, moisture, and lumi- 
 nous darkness — that is to say, con- 
 siderable darkness, and yet a little in- 
 visible light. So with the spiritual life. 
 
 1574. The Christian Choice. — No 
 man can insist more emphatically than 
 I do that there is a point of transition, 
 and that the real emergence of the 
 feeling and consciousness into the 
 kingdom of heaven is the result of 
 some form or action implying will or 
 choice. And all choice, however 
 gradual the antecedents may have 
 been, finally is instantaneous; as when, 
 for instance, with a pair of scales, you 
 may put ten pounds of material in the 
 one, and add a pound to the other, 
 and a second pound, and a third, and 
 a fifth, and a seventh, and a ninth, 
 and a half-pound, and a quarter, and 
 then smaller fractions, clear up until 
 you come to the one-hundredth part of 
 an ounce, and then, at last, when you 
 get the least shade or hair more than 
 the weight in the other scale, instantly 
 it goes down. The preparation may 
 have been ever so long, but when the 
 balance is struck, it passes instantly — 
 certainly in so far as you can form the 
 least conception of it. The mistake 
 lies in ignoring these preceding stages, 
 which are, every one, actually part 
 and parcel of the final development. 
 
 1575. Unconscious Preparation for 
 Christianity. — Conversion is a volun- 
 tary and conscious acceptance of the 
 life, purposes and disposition of Christ. 
 We come to it by imperceptible stages, 
 
SPIRITUAL BIRTH 
 
 00-7 
 
 but we may not recognize when the 
 stages cease. You may have a right 
 to call yourselves Christians without 
 knowing it. I knew a young man, in 
 Boston, whose father was rich. He 
 had genius particularly in the forma- 
 tive, sculptural art ; and his amuse- 
 ment was in making busts and little 
 clay statues. One lucky day the 
 father lost all his property, and the 
 young man was thrown out of leisure 
 and had to work for his own liveh- 
 hood. He had already made the 
 busts of friends ; and he said to him- 
 self, " What can I do for a living better 
 than this?" Well, he has come to 
 the artist state already, unconsciously, 
 not expecting to be a professional art- 
 ist, simply following his taste ; but the 
 moment he declares it, then everybody 
 says, " He has become an artist." 
 He has been an artist a good while. 
 
 1576. Realization of Change. — 
 When I traveled in Italy I knew the 
 line between Italy and Austria. We all 
 had to go out and have our trunks ex- 
 amined and our passports vised. We 
 were all of us hurried out suspiciously, 
 as if we were contrabands. Then we 
 went over, and I knew I was in Aus- 
 tria. But in America you can go 
 from one State to another, as there is 
 no Custom House, thank God, on the 
 lines ; as there are no passports re- 
 quired ; as there is nothing to interrupt 
 the journey. You glide into the State 
 of New York from Connecticut, from 
 New York into Pennsylvania, and 
 from Pennsylvania into Ohio, and you 
 do not think you have made any 
 change in the State, though you have 
 really. And when you look into the 
 matter you reahze the fact. 
 
 You bring a person up in Christian 
 nurture, and in the admonition of the 
 Lord, in the household, and he is 
 gaining more light ; he is adapting the 
 light which he has ; and he comes 
 
 gradually and naturally into that state 
 of mind in which all he wants in order 
 to reahze that he is a Christian is to 
 wake up into consciousness. 
 
 1577. Expression Increases Emo- 
 tion. — When the young maiden heart 
 first loves, to think, " I love," creates 
 in her no small amount of agitation ; 
 to speak it is to tremble ; and to wiite 
 it — that is almost impossible. And as 
 it is with the better and nobler feel- 
 ings, so it is with all the feelings : it 
 adds tremendous weight and emphasis 
 to them to embody them in words. 
 
 1578. Christian Life a Study. — 
 When a man is converted he simply 
 passes from unconscious selfishness to 
 conscious benevolence. That is the 
 process in him ; and he becomes a 
 student of that. He begins it just as 
 when a man goes into a profession, as 
 a doctor, lawyer, minister, or anything 
 else. Thenceforward his study all 
 works in the direction of the generic 
 purpose of his life and follows that. 
 
 1579. Geniality in Christian Life. — 
 Suppose, maiden, in the simplicity and 
 purity of your hfe, with every thought 
 starlight, and every affection like the 
 morning-glory, blossoming at every 
 axil, one should draw near to you to 
 win your heart and hold it for life in 
 wedded love ; and suppose you should 
 say, "Ah! now that I am about to 
 become that man's wife it ill becomes 
 me to be gay and genial and cheerful ! 
 I am to be a wife, and therefore I must 
 be dull and sober." Would you say 
 so? Every joy that flashes from your 
 eye, every delight that breaks forth in 
 your countenance, is a tribute to him. 
 Nobody says any such thing when a 
 man is the groom ; but when God 
 would affiance our souls we foohshly 
 feel (for we have been taught to feel 
 so) that joy must be laid aside. 
 
 1580. Violent Conversions. — A man 
 says, "Such a person, when he was 
 
338 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 converted, was at first swept like a 
 meteor into a gulf of despair, and then 
 shot like a comet into the realm of 
 hope and peace and comfort ; but I 
 never had any experience like that ; 
 and why should I say that I am a 
 Christian?" And so men's con- 
 sciences stand in their way. Yet, if 
 you look at the history of the apostles 
 and others who became Christ's dis- 
 ciples, you shall find that for the most 
 part they had no such outbreaking 
 and up-breaking experiences as those 
 to which I have alluded. They came 
 under the influence of the Saviour, 
 and into personal affiliation with him 
 and with his work, in an even quiet 
 way, without any exact recognition of 
 the time when the change was wrought. 
 
 158 1. Quiet Conversions. — Imagine 
 one of these roaring old sailors, know- 
 ing all the wickedness of the world, 
 and telling of the experience he had 
 when God changed his heart, and then 
 hearing a mild, gentle, peaceable man 
 say: "I never had any such experi- 
 ence as that." Of course not; it was 
 contrary to nature that he should have 
 any such experience. " But did you 
 not have such a sense of imperfection 
 and wrong-doing, so that you aban- 
 doned many things behind and aspired 
 to many things before ? " " Oh, yes ! 
 but then I never had any such cleans- 
 ing work." Cleansing work ! Do you 
 suppose that feeling is soap and sand, 
 and that it scours a man out? 
 
 1582. Not Mode, but Fact, of Con- 
 version. — There are men overtaken on 
 a summer day with winds that capsize 
 their boat. Some fall out on one side 
 and some on the other. One set get 
 ashore where, happily, the water is 
 shallow, so that they are only a little 
 wet ; the others get out where there is 
 the eel-grass, the flags, the weeds, and 
 all sorts of mud, and they have to 
 wrestle with the bottom of the water 
 
 as well as with the top. They are 
 spent and weary, and they get to the 
 land out of breath, and down they go 
 on the beach. Those that escaped 
 very easily are standing and looking 
 at them panting, and they say to 
 them : " Did you have such a hard 
 time of it? We did not; we just 
 waded quietly ashore. If you escaped 
 I am afraid we have not, for we had 
 no such time as that," 
 
 1583. Conversion but the Start. — 
 You ask a physician, as he comes out 
 of the hospital, " Do you know A. ?" 
 The physician says, " I know him." 
 It is a man who was near to death, and 
 who was given up by his friends. 
 "What is his condition?" you ask. 
 " He is convalescent," says the phy- 
 sician, "and I have no question that 
 he will be restored to health and 
 strength again." But go and look at 
 the man, cadaverous, emaciated, 
 weak, and full of pains — some real 
 and some only imaginary. The physi- 
 cian says he is going to be well ; he is 
 going to be, and there are lucid inter- 
 vals when he thinks so himself ; but, 
 after all, there is a great way between 
 the symptoms of recovery which the 
 doctor sees and perfect health. 
 
 Now, God tells us that we are to be 
 perfect men in Christ ; but the early 
 symptoms of spiritual health are far 
 removed from the thing itself. 
 
 1584. Hope, in Faint Beginnings. — 
 The "Christian evidence" of a man 
 is his life. Start in it at once and you 
 have the help of all heaven. Begin — 
 move ! Ah ! when a man has been 
 nearly drowned and rescued from the 
 water, and brought home, the wife, in 
 distraction, fills the house with shrieks, 
 "He is dead! he is dead!" And 
 there is every sign of death on him. 
 By and by the physician, applying his 
 remedies, feels, and he thinks there is 
 a faint deep breath ; he holds the glass 
 
SPIRITUAL BIRTH 
 
 339 
 
 to the mouth, and it is bedewed, and 
 the word goes out, "He is ahve ! he 
 is ahve ! " and the whole house roars 
 as it were with hope and joy. The 
 man is not walking about; he can- 
 not get up or sit at table ; he cannot 
 do anything ; but the slightest touch 
 of evidence that he is beginning to 
 live has in it the whole promise of life. 
 
 1585. Getting Religion. — A young 
 man, when he sets out to be a drafts- 
 man, does not feel that he has acquired 
 his profession when he goes and joins 
 a class. A student, when he goes to 
 the Academy, does not feel that he 
 has his education. He scarcely feels 
 so when he graduates. But many 
 feel, when they join the church, that 
 they have got religion, as the saying 
 is ; whereas, they have merely got 
 started, they have merely joined a 
 class, as it were. 
 
 1586. "Born Again." — Because it 
 is so frequently repeated, this phrase 
 does not make much impression upon 
 those who hear it. Nobody seems to 
 think there are earthquakes and revo- 
 lutions in it ; but there are. Nobody 
 seems to think it is a part of the 
 "power of God and the wisdom of 
 God"; but it is. Not the thunder 
 that cracks and rolls through the 
 mountains, not the summer storms 
 that sweep across the earth, not the 
 volcano and the earthquake, are for 
 prodigiousness of power to be com- 
 pared with this simple annunciation, 
 "Ye must be born again." Must? 
 take out that word, and say, with tears 
 of gratitude, " We can be born 
 again! " There is no other truth so 
 full of hope as this. 
 
 1587. Conversion, a Good Start. — 
 A man has been traveling, supposing 
 that he was going westward, right 
 across the prairies. He wants to go 
 to California, and thinks he is going 
 
 ' During the 
 
 there ; but when the sun shines out, 
 and he takes his direction, he finds 
 that he has been going exactly east ; 
 and he says, " Well, this never is go- 
 ing to take me to California ; if I am 
 going there, I must turn right round ; 
 and I will." Now, when he turns 
 round, and begins traveling west- 
 ward, he is not in Cahfornia. But 
 without that resolution he never would 
 get there, and there is a sense in 
 which that resolution settled the ques- 
 tion of his reaching his destination ; 
 and yet everybody knows that merely 
 to resolve to go the other way, and to 
 turn round, would not take him there, 
 and that he never will get there unless 
 he goes on step by step, day by day, 
 week by week, month by month, till 
 he reaches the end of his journey. 
 
 1588. Conversion not Perfection. — 
 The demand is that of imperial love 
 to be shown to every human being, 
 and carried to such a degree that you 
 feel as much interest in others as in 
 yourself. Can I make that a subject 
 of instantaneous obedience ? Can I 
 say to you, " Do it now and here, 
 and get up and walk out of this church 
 in the full faith that you are obeying 
 this command of God"? I might 
 just as well say to a man, " Make 
 yourself two feet higher than you are, 
 and do it instantly." 
 
 1 589. Salvation to be Wrought Out. 
 — When it is said, " Work out your 
 own salvation," what is meant is. 
 Complete it. A man's salvation is to 
 be wrought out as an artist works out 
 a picture. It is to be carried up. It is 
 a good thing for a man to make a char- 
 coal sketch ; but it will not do to stop 
 with that. It is a good thing that refers 
 to something better which iscoming on. 
 
 1590. Escape from Soul-Bondage. 
 — There are men in Richmond ^ wear- 
 ing chains and manacles. There are 
 Civil War. 
 
340 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 iiicmbeis of this chinch in prison 
 there, though I know not that any of 
 them wear chains. But imagine that 
 to one of those that are chained, and 
 that are the most carefully guarded, 
 there comes, at night, after some de- 
 bauch, in which his keepers have had 
 recourse to whiskey, an unwatched 
 hour. The man says, "I may escape 
 now if I can but saw off a link of this 
 chain that holds me." He applies 
 himself to the work, and saws ofif the 
 link, and gets rid of that which fastens 
 him ; but the wristlets are on his 
 hands yet. He dodges the sentinel ; 
 he emerges from the prison ; he clears 
 the city ; he hides himself in thickets, 
 and lies half submerged in the black 
 swamp, and is a thousand times more 
 uncomfortable than he was in the 
 prison ; he avoids the daylight, feed- 
 ing on roots and leaves, and at night, 
 dog-hunted and pursued, he steers by 
 the north star, as many a dusky man 
 before him has done ; and after days 
 and weeks, wearing still those iron 
 wristlets, he sees the waters of the Po- 
 tomac open before him ; and he 
 plunges in, and makes for yonder 
 boat from which floats his country's 
 flag, to tell all the world of liberty ; 
 and soon he is on board. Now when 
 that man saw the keeper asleep or 
 drunk, and cut the chain, he was free; 
 but he was not restored to his friends. 
 Just so, it seems to me, men escape 
 out of vices. They are chained, they 
 are watched ; but there come hours 
 when, if they improve them, they may 
 escape ; not leaving all torment and 
 trouble behind, but leaving behind 
 their bondage, so that they have a 
 straight path towards liberty. Some 
 men carry on their ankles and wrists 
 marks of early vices, to the Jordan it- 
 self. What then ? Is it worth while 
 for the prisoner to escape from captiv- 
 ity, and get home ? 
 
 1591. Starting Right. — When a 
 nurseryman, in the winter, would 
 graft for apple-trees, he takes a root 
 of the desirable apple-tree, and splices 
 it on for a new scion, and puts wax 
 about it, and buries it in the sand, and 
 lets it remain there till spring comes. 
 He is very careful to get the root of 
 the right tree, that the scion may be 
 of the right kind. The first summer 
 after it is planted it grows but very Ht- 
 tle, and does not bear any fruit ; but 
 isn't it a Newtown Pippin? Isn't it a 
 Golden Russet? Isn't it a Rhode Is- 
 land Greening ? It is. Although it 
 has not been growing long enough to 
 develop fruit, yet it has the right root. 
 
 1592. True Conversion. — No man 
 can jump from the alphabet into the 
 uttermost parts of Uterature. There 
 is no conversion that takes men out 
 of the mud and slough of pride and 
 selfishness, and translates them 
 quicker than the twinkling of an eye 
 into the clear ether of holy and ex- 
 alted principles. Conversion is the 
 acceptance of this aim and ideal of 
 life — self-sacrifice ; a life whose whole 
 power is consecrated, not to the pur- 
 poses of one's self, but to sympathy 
 with God, seeking the welfare of others. 
 
 1593. Character to be Perfected. — 
 A young man working in a shop, finds 
 himself, little by little, drawn in other 
 lines and directions ; and at last the 
 impulse of art is so strong in him that 
 he begins, in his leisure hours, to 
 sketch, to draw, to paint ; and this 
 impulse grows in him till, by and by, 
 it occurs to him, " Why should I be a 
 carpenter, a machinist, a mechanic ? 
 Why should I not be an artist ? " And 
 at last he makes up his mind that he 
 will, and says, " I will become one." 
 
 Now, that resolution is the turning 
 point in the man's history. But does 
 that resolution make him an artist? 
 It does, and it does not. It is that 
 
SPIRITUAL BIRTH 
 
 341 
 
 without which he would not be an ar- 
 tist ; and yet, the being one is to result 
 from incessant application, from prac- 
 tice, from all that grows out of such a 
 resolution. 
 
 1594. Conversion and Sanctifica- 
 tion.— No man ever suddenly cleared 
 up forty acres of land. A man may 
 begin such a work suddenly. No man 
 ever began to do a thing without mak- 
 ing up his mind to do it. No man 
 ever began to be a Christian without 
 a volition ; and no volition was ever 
 anything but a flash — an instanta- 
 neous thing. But the volition is the 
 beginning. The evolution of Chris- 
 tian character is gradual. 
 
 1595. "Born Again" — and Again. 
 — We do not read lessons to tree- 
 seeds, instructing them how to de- 
 velop. We know that they will come 
 to all that there is in them by the 
 simple operation of opening up. But 
 men come to it by very different proc- 
 esses — by rebirths in every faculty, 
 again and again and again. Scores 
 of men have to be born again and 
 again before they come to their full- 
 ness. As every tree, on the death of 
 winter, awakes, as it were, with a new 
 resurrection in the spring, so men 
 should be coming constantly to higher 
 ideals of manhood, and the uses of 
 occupation, the uses of society, the 
 uses of the physical world, and of the 
 bodies in which they are. 
 
 1596. The First Soul- Work of Re- 
 ligion. — The first step of husbandry is 
 to relieve the soil of wild growths, and 
 prepare it for tillage. The trees are 
 felled, and then gathered together and 
 burned, that the ground may be dis- 
 encumbered and laid open to the sun. 
 But some, for expedition, are only 
 girdled. All connection between the 
 sap at the roots and the top is severed 
 by a line of sharp cuts around the 
 trees ; and so girdled, they will stand 
 
 and carry through the summer the 
 leaves already out, but they will never 
 leave again ; so that, little by little, 
 more and more ground is arable. 
 
 The first work of religion in the 
 human soul is analogous to this. It 
 is to cut up the grosser processes of 
 life ; it is to destroy the worst forms of 
 evil habits ; it is to cleanse men of 
 vices, to rid them of vile associates, to 
 cure them of evil dispositions ; it is to 
 drive away the works of darkness. 
 But there are many things that must 
 yet disappear from the soul before 
 God's husbandry is completed — 
 things that in the beginning are only 
 girdled. They hold some leaves for 
 a single season ; they hold their trunk 
 and branches several seasons, and 
 only little by little are they toppled 
 over and brought to the ground. 
 
 1597. Beginnings of the New Life. — 
 A man opens a school among the col- 
 liers of England — men and women 
 that have lived under ground all their 
 lives, and to whose darkened minds 
 the light of knowledge has never pen- 
 etrated. Tidings of this school spread 
 abroad, and some traveler says, " I 
 understand that education is making 
 great strides among those colliers, and 
 I will go and see what progress they 
 have made." He goes into the school 
 where women and men are learning to 
 read, and hears an old man with gray 
 locks that hang down on his shoul- 
 ders, and with a black finger with 
 which he rubs dirt along the book 
 before him, spell, " B — a — k — e — r, 
 baker." After he has heard the old 
 man spell a few such simple words 
 slowly and painfully, he says, " Well, 
 if that is what you call learning, if 
 that is your idea of education, then I 
 am done," and goes out in great dis- 
 gust. A sensible man would rejoice 
 to see these small beginnings of what 
 promises to result in enlightenment. 
 
342 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 Now, men aie colliers when we 
 bring them into the church. They 
 have been in the grimes and mines of 
 sin. They have been groveling in the 
 earth, and must be patiently educated. 
 
 1598. Kindling of the Spirit-Life. — 
 As one lights a taper on the tip of the 
 wick, and there is a flame just burn- 
 ing, dancing, and not knowing whether 
 to go downward or upward — whether 
 to abide or to go out ; so men have 
 kindled in them a hope which they 
 dare not whisper of — the child to the 
 parent, the friend to the friend, the 
 husband and wife or the brother and 
 sister to each other. For days and 
 weeks and months, often, men carry 
 kindled in their bosom a strange 
 spiritlife. It must be tenderly shielded 
 and nourished. 
 
 1599. Jacob's Ladder. — Consider 
 what the vision must have meant to 
 him, as he turned it over in his mind. 
 He had just broken off from home. 
 He had that day become his own 
 master. The future was all to be 
 made. Before him, in this exigency, 
 arose a symbol which seemed to say, 
 " Whatever plan you shall henceforth 
 set up, though it begins upon the 
 ground, let its top reach to the heaven. 
 Though your undertakings base upon 
 the earth, let them stretch out and up 
 until they find a resting-place and a 
 consummation above. Do nothing on 
 earth that may not be known and felt 
 in heaven." 
 
 1600. Joy of the New Life. — Have 
 you never, after a cloud has long cast 
 its dark shadow on a field, seen the 
 shadow slowly move away, and leave 
 the field exposed to the full light of 
 the sun ? I have seen the shadow 
 move off from the souls of persons in 
 the same way, and leave them in the 
 light of the Sun of Righteousness. 
 
 1 60 1. Self-Deception in Christian 
 Hope. — There is some danger of self- 
 
 deception, but I would like to know, 
 between earth and heaven, a spot 
 which a man can be on, and a thing 
 that he can pursue that there is not 
 some danger of it. And if you were 
 to stop and weigh and measure the dan- 
 ger, human life would petrify. 
 
 We might just as well, in that be- 
 nign and blessed hour when the soul 
 is certain of love and of being loved, 
 tear ourselves to pieces by an analysis 
 of our experiences. Let one say : 
 
 " I do think I love her, but let me 
 see, what is love ? I ought to analyze 
 that matter, and I ought not to allow 
 myself to be mistaken in that thing. 
 Is it a going forth of my will benevo- 
 lently towards her, or is it simply 
 the admiration of her form and come- 
 liness? What is it ? " 
 
 The matter is that you are a fool on 
 a gridiron. Now, if a man does not 
 know he is in love, or whether he is 
 not, it is pretty sure evidence that he 
 is not. Men say : 
 
 " Do you think your purpose is to 
 serve God? " 
 
 " Well, I hope it is." 
 
 Hope it is ! If a man sits down at 
 your table, and you say to him : 
 
 " Do you relish that peach ? " 
 
 " Well, I humbly hope that I do." 
 
 I would give him red pepper, and I 
 think he would know then whether he 
 did or not. 
 
 1602. Love Transforming Selfish- 
 ness. — There is nothing in the consti- 
 tution of man to which selfishness 
 yields as it does to love. I do not 
 know of anything that is more prettily 
 selfish than a petted girl. She is the 
 delight of father and mother ; she is 
 beautiful ; she is accomplished ; she 
 is universally attractive ; she is be- 
 loved by all who know her ; but in a 
 thousand little ways she manifests her 
 selfishness, and everybody in the house 
 tolerates it, while the neighbors say, 
 
SPIRITUAL GROWTH 
 
 343 
 
 "She is utterly spoiled." Ere long, 
 in the hour of disclosure, she finds her 
 mate ; she loves ; and at once all her 
 faults and failings begin, one after 
 another, to dissolve, and disappear, 
 like snow in March. By and by love 
 watches the cradle ; and this creature, 
 that father had to serve, and mother 
 had to serve, and the servants had to 
 serve, and everybody had to serve, 
 and towards whom ran every stream 
 of delight, being now a mother, cares 
 nothing for parties and visits— cares 
 only to serve that little unrequiting 
 child. All night she will give up her 
 sleep that she may watch over it if it 
 be sick, and all day she will devote 
 herself to it. She is joyous as a 
 bird as she sits and sings to her darl- 
 ing in the cradle. And that which 
 wrought so marvelous a change was 
 Love. 
 
 1003. Perseverance in Well-Doing. 
 — There are many fruit trees that blos- 
 som, and then shed their blossoms 
 without setting any fruit. There are 
 other trees that blossom, and set their 
 fruit, and shed it almost as soon as it 
 is set, because they have not sufficient 
 root-power and stem-power to hold it. 
 There are still other trees that have 
 fruit which grows largely and prom- 
 ises well ; but they are situated so that 
 the winds blow it off before it is ripe. 
 These represent many persons who 
 have real religious convictions, but 
 who are so situated that the struggle 
 of life prevents their piety from pro- 
 ducing its legitimate results. A good 
 tree is one that blossoms, sets its fruit, 
 and holds it till it ripens, and does it 
 every year ; and it is the kind of men 
 who are represented by such a tree 
 that the Gospel wants to bring up. 
 
 XXV III, SPIRITUAL GROWTH 
 
 1604. The Atmosphere of Growth. 
 — To-day [the first Sunday in May, 
 1858, when 190 persons joined Ply- 
 mouth Church] is Nature's great com- 
 munion-day. Ten million times ten 
 million new-born leaves are holding 
 up their tender hands to greet the sun. 
 What is that which evokes them all ? 
 What is that in which they are all to 
 live, and are to live all summer long ? 
 What is that which is to ripen them 
 till they all glow like gold in autumn ? 
 It is the warmth and light of the sun — 
 the great atmosphere in which God 
 bathes all nature. Now we are to hve 
 and to grow in one great atmosphere 
 which is to be about us — the atmos- 
 phere of Christian love. 
 
 1605. Victory Over the Past. — Grant 
 that we may so live by faith as to be 
 evermore conscious of the movements 
 of God around about us and within 
 us, and that we may triumph over the 
 
 physical man — over all memory of the 
 past — over its sins and mistakes. May 
 we not stumble at dead things which 
 long ago should have been buried. 
 
 i6o5. Activity the Condition of Vi- 
 tality. — Every athlete knows, and trains 
 for that purpose, that if any muscle 
 lies dormant through long periods it 
 shrinks and goes back. If it is to be 
 impleted it must be used. So there is 
 a law of usance in moral forces. 
 
 1607. Goodness a Growth. — You 
 might just as well, with a pair of bel- 
 lows and a heap of coals, undertake 
 to make summer about a tree, and ex- 
 pect it to burst into blossom and fruit 
 at once because you are in a hurry, as 
 to undertake with this vast tree of hu- 
 man life to force it beyond the ordi- 
 nary laws of progression in excellence 
 of human life. 
 
 1608. Christians Not Made Instantly. 
 — You take the wax and melt it, and 
 
344 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 put it on the letter or paper, and stamp 
 it with the seal ; and when you take 
 the seal off, there is the stamp, clear 
 cut. It is there once and forever. 
 But no man is made a Christian once 
 and forever. There is no seal that 
 stamps a man so that he bears the like- 
 ness of God at once, clear, sharp and 
 perfected. A man is born into his 
 second manhood as he is into his fust, 
 with all its findings-out before him ; 
 with all its mistakes ; with all its sor- 
 rows and troubles. He is to go 
 through a spiritual experience which is 
 not unaptly paralleled to that of his 
 physical manhood. 
 
 1609. Sowing and Reaping. — Error 
 is not as good as truth, I do not care 
 how sincerely you hold it. Sincerity 
 does not change the great line of cause 
 and effect. 
 
 We know this to be true always in 
 regard to the lower elements. Fire is 
 fire, whether a man thinks it is or not. 
 It is true in regard to all the parts of 
 the human body— the bone, the nerve, 
 the tissue, the circulation, etc. The 
 Bible says that it is just the same 
 higher up — that in all spiritual ele- 
 ments cause and effect govern. What- 
 soever a man does, he shall receive 
 according to the nature of it. They 
 that sow to the flesh, the apostle says, 
 shall of the flesh reap corruption ; and 
 he that sows to the spirit shall, by 
 that same universal and inevitable 
 law of cause and effect, reap life 
 eternal. 
 
 1610. Inward Conflicts. — One of 
 Kaulbach's most remarkable paint- 
 ings is founded on a legend, that on a 
 certain anniversary spirits were in the 
 habit of assembling and fighting in the 
 air. However that may be, the bat- 
 tles of the spirits and the battles of 
 the air, in the Christian conflict, are 
 much more memorable than any of 
 the declared battles of sense and of 
 
 the body. And although these spir- 
 itual and airy battles seem to be with- 
 out trumpet, and without record, and 
 without a witness ; although there are 
 no poets that chant the praise of the 
 closet ; although there are no his- 
 torians that chronicle the conflicts of a 
 man with his own spirit, with perni- 
 cious habits, with evil inclinations, 
 with violent temptations ; although the 
 eye of man cannot see these things, 
 yet they are not unwatched. God, 
 over all, takes notice of everything 
 that concerns us. 
 
 161 1. Equanimity. — It is very easy 
 for us of the pulpit to declare that 
 men should live so high as not to be 
 disturbed ; and there is such a thing 
 as living in this world so that the or- 
 dinary affairs of life shall not greatly 
 disturb us ; but the real and the ideal 
 are wide apart. Men teach us how to 
 go to sea without being seasick, and 
 the remedy is absolute — as long as 
 you are on land ; and men teach us 
 how to go through this world main- 
 taining equilibrium and tranquillity ; 
 but no man can do it until he has 
 learned the business of doing it ; and 
 a great many never learn that. 
 
 161 2. The Bible to be Practiced. — I 
 was convicted when I went to Paris ! 
 I had learned French. I could read 
 newspapers in the French language 
 almost as easily as in my own, and I 
 thought I understood French very 
 w^ell, but when I went to Paris and 
 heard it talked, it seemed like jargon, 
 they talked so fast, and ran the words 
 into each other so ! I went into the 
 shops, and undertook to talk French, 
 and the shopkeepers could not under- 
 stand me any better than I could 
 them. I came near starving to death 
 because I could not ask for what I 
 wanted ! I could take up French 
 books and newspapers and read what 
 was in them, but I came to under- 
 
SPIRITUAL GROWTH 
 
 345 
 
 stand, very soon, that I did not know 
 very much about French. 
 
 Many a man reads the Bible, and 
 reads it well ; but let him undertake 
 to talk in the language of Zion, and 
 see whether he does not stagger. 
 
 1613. The Growth of Feeling. — 
 When a tree of vigorous growth — for 
 instance, the mulberry — comes up, 
 you notice that it grows perhaps six 
 feet the first year. The next year the 
 stem grows only about two feet, but it 
 throws out branches on every side ; so 
 that although the tree seems to have 
 grown less the second year than the 
 first, it has really grown more. The 
 next year the growth of the stem is 
 still less than the second year, but 
 each branch throws out other 
 branches, and the head is formed 
 of a hundred twigs ; and though the 
 tree seems to have grown less this 
 year than either of the previous years, 
 it has grown a great deal more. It 
 seems to grow less in proportion as its 
 life is diffused in numberless channels. 
 
 Our feelings when they first mani- 
 fest themselves, seem very emphatic ; 
 but when they begin to divide and 
 branch out into collateral actions, they 
 seem less, because they are hidden, 
 while in reality they are more, 
 
 1 614. Natural Law in Spiritual 
 Things. — I should be very glad in- 
 deed if I could take a Cremona and 
 at once express my feeling by a dex- 
 trous use of the bow. " No," says 
 Providence, " you take up your cross, 
 and break that arm in by much pa- 
 tient suffering. If you do so, and 
 train yourself industriously, it will 
 work for harmony and melody, and 
 you shall be a musician on the violin." 
 
 Now, the self-denial that is required 
 to gain skill in the use of a musical 
 instrument, or to acquire any species 
 of knowledge, is of the same sort as 
 that which is required in taking up the 
 
 cross as we are commanded to do in 
 the Gospel : only there it is applied 
 to a higher realm than that to which 
 you have been accustomed to apply it. 
 
 1 615. Higher Developments, Slow. 
 — Give me a bit of wax, and see how 
 soon I will take it in my hand and 
 mould it into any form that I want. 
 Give me a bit of alabaster, and I can- 
 not work that as I can the wax, be- 
 cause it is harder. Give me a bit of 
 marble and that must be cut still more 
 slowly. But give me a diamond, 
 rough and rude, and tell me to cut 
 the faces on that, by which it shall re- 
 flect all the rays of light and show its 
 hidden powers of beauty, and it is a 
 long task. Yet when it is once cut it 
 is worth all the labor that it has cost, 
 and once done it lasts forever. 
 
 Now, the lower developments that 
 men gain in this world — industry and 
 frugality and skill of hand — are gained 
 comparatively soon, and they are in 
 the lower range ; but those higher 
 elements, where men really touch 
 God, where their morahty begins to 
 blossom, where they begin to find the 
 first intimations of their own true 
 manhood, and where they begin to 
 know the life that is to have no death, 
 and no intermediate sleep, but is to 
 flame and glow in the presence of 
 God — those elements come under a 
 law which requires long development. 
 
 1 61 6. Good Growth, Slow Growth. 
 — Wicked men do prosper for a little 
 while ; but, as sure as God lives, in the 
 end they shall have their just reward. 
 If you consider the whole of life from 
 end to end, then truth, and honor, and 
 purity, and justice, and fidelity pay. 
 You can grow a mushroom or a toad- 
 stool in one night, if you have a dung- 
 hill large enough ; but to grow a great 
 tree, that shall last for generations, 
 requires vastly more time. And if 
 you want men that shall last, you 
 
34^ 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 must wait till they can be built up 
 solidly by good conduct ; by con- 
 fidence inspired by good conduct ; in 
 other words, by being tried. 
 
 1617. Edification. — Men say, 
 " Don't you know what a time I had 
 when I was convicted and con- 
 verted ? " What does God care for 
 that ? The secret purpose of God is 
 to make you men, and redeem you 
 from animalism, and from the thrall 
 and narrowness of pride and selfish- 
 ness, to augment and enrich your na- 
 ture, and edify you, — as the Scripture 
 phrase is, build you up, — into resplend- 
 ent, heroic manhood ; and what boots 
 it, under such circumstances, that you 
 simply laid a good foundation and be- 
 gan to be a Christian? The question 
 is, have you been built up ? 
 
 1618. Yielding to God. ^Every day 
 from my window I see the gulls over 
 the bay making circuits and beating 
 against the wind. Now they mount 
 high above the masts of vessels and 
 then suddenly drop to the water, seek- 
 ing to find some eddy unobstructed by 
 the steady blast ; till at length, aban- 
 doning their efforts, they turn and fly 
 with the wind, — and then how like a 
 gleam of light do their white wings 
 flash down the bay, faster than the 
 eye can follow ! 
 
 So, when we cease to resist God's 
 divine influences and, turning towards 
 him, our thoughts and feelings are up- 
 born by the breath of his Spirit, how 
 do they make such swift heavenward 
 flight as no words can overtake ! 
 
 1 619. Immature, yet Genuine. — 
 Imagine a tree two hundred years old 
 to look back upon the stages of 
 growth through which it has passed, 
 and to say, " T remember that when I 
 was twenty years old I was only so 
 big. I then thought I was an oak ; 
 but when I compare what I am now 
 with what I was then, I see that I was 
 
 not an oak at all ! " What were you, 
 then ? a vine ? a weed ? 
 
 Do you not know that the seed-form 
 and the full disclosed form are the 
 same in their nature ? Do you not 
 know that one is the legitimate result 
 of the other? The beginnings of grace 
 in the human soul may not reveal 
 Christ to the extent that its latter 
 stages do, but they are the same work. 
 
 1620. Development. — When a man 
 comes into a converted, disclosed re- 
 ligious life, and aims at the Christian 
 graces, he undergoes the process of 
 development which they require. For 
 instance, he begins to unfold in the 
 direction of humility. No man ever 
 jumped from the top of pride down to 
 the bottom of humility at one jump, 
 and never will. The change goes on 
 by natural successive stages, one, and 
 another, and another. No man ever 
 came at once from a state of relative 
 indifference to his fellow-men into a 
 state of sensitive perception of their 
 wants and necessities. He unfolds 
 little by little, little by little. If a man 
 has had a preliminary education, he 
 unfolds much more rapidly ; but if he 
 has not, then he unfolds slowly. 
 
 1621. Patience in Obedience. — We 
 know very well that when we prune a 
 tree in the right manner, we prune it 
 for fruit, and that we must wait a cer- 
 tain length of time for the fruit to ap- 
 pear ; but suppose a man should take 
 his knife and cut the branch, and 
 look, and say, "There is no fruit 
 here, after all ? " The gardener would 
 say to him, " Why, my friend, you 
 must have patience, and give the fruit 
 time to develop itself. Wait till next 
 year, or the year after, and then you 
 may begin to look for fruit." 
 
 And so the Apostle says, " Ye have 
 need of patience, that, after ye have 
 done the will of God, ye might receive 
 the promise." 
 
SPIRITUAL GROWTH 
 
 347 
 
 1622. Christian Life Requires Train- 
 ing. — If there are any who think that 
 Christians are made as eagles are, let 
 them correct their notions. The egg 
 is laid, the mother-bird broods it, and, 
 when it is hatched, it is an eagle. 
 Though it is only an eaglet, it needs 
 not education, but simply growth : and 
 it is as much an eagle the day it is 
 hatched, as when it first swoops for 
 its prey, or five years afterwards. It 
 is no more an eagle when it is ten 
 years old than when it is five years 
 old, or one year old. It is born into 
 eagleship. But no man is born into 
 Christian life, a full Christian. That 
 is a thing into which a man ultimately 
 comes by laborious and immensely 
 detailed education. 
 
 1623. Learning to Live. — Men are 
 started in this world with some two 
 score of separate faculties, which they 
 do not know how to use — which they 
 certainly do not know how to use to- 
 gether. New machinery needs to 
 wear smooth. But what if the ma- 
 chinery had to grow before it could 
 perform its functions? What if part 
 of the wheels were mere seed-forms, 
 and had to grow up into their different 
 proportions and relations, before they 
 could work together? Nay, what if 
 each wheel and spring was a voluntary 
 agent, and had to consent to work, in- 
 stead of being coerced by physical 
 laws? This would come nearer to 
 what is taking place in human souls. 
 
 1624. Training in Righteousness. — 
 When I begin to write as a boy, I say, 
 "Oh, if I could only make my writ- 
 ing look as well as the copy! " But 
 my schoolmaster does not punish me 
 because I do not. When I get 
 through, only faith can discern what I 
 have written — sight cannot ; yet, does 
 he say, " You clumsy, blockheaded 
 booby, is that the way you write with 
 such a copy before you?" No; he 
 
 says, " Good boy, Henry ; there is 
 room for improvement, but keep at it : 
 you are doing very well." After I 
 have written a week, I carry to my 
 mother in triumph a paper which can 
 actually be read, and I think it is a 
 wonder of chirography ; and when I 
 have been with the master a year, I 
 look at the copy and at my tentative 
 efforts all the way up, and I smile 
 with perhaps a praiseworthy conceit. 
 If I had been made to feel that my 
 work would be a failure unless I 
 equaled the copy, I should have given 
 up in despair. And do you suppose 
 that a man can be taken from the 
 lower forms of experience and carried 
 into the glorious fruits of righteousness 
 with no effort or gradual progress? 
 
 1625. Process of Spiritual Better- 
 ment. — When you are sick, and the 
 doctor comes and gives you medicine, 
 the first effect, oftentimes, is to make 
 you sicker then you were before, and 
 the doctor says to you the next morn- 
 ing, " I expected that you would feel 
 worse. You will feel worse yet be- 
 fore you are better. The liver, the 
 digestion, and the nerves, must go 
 through a painful process of medica- 
 tion ; but when, by and by, the sys- 
 tem is cleansed, and the reaction 
 comes, everything will improve little 
 by little, and at last you will come 
 into a healthy state." As it is with 
 bodily sickness, so it is with spiritual. 
 
 1626. Good Works. — All good 
 works that have a tendency to de- 
 velop you from lower to higher stages 
 are valuable ; but all works that have 
 a tendency to satisfy you and keep 
 you stationary are accursed. Your 
 works should not hinder you. They 
 should be like sails — not like anchors. 
 
 1627. Early Hindrances in Christian 
 Living. — I have known persons who, 
 having vowed that they would live a 
 better life, and thinking that they had 
 
348 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 fought the battle, undertook to carry 
 our their decision. And as a man 
 that intends to carry out the condi- 
 tions of a will has to fight every one 
 of the heirs, so they had to fight their 
 passions on every hand. And in de- 
 spair they said, " If this is the way to 
 be good, I never shall be good in the 
 world — never! " Why, the first reso- 
 lutions of a man in entering upon a 
 Christian life, as compared with the 
 spiritual standard, are not twilights 
 even. And when a man attempts to 
 embody in his conduct these higher 
 views and intuitions, these higher 
 standards, these new ideals and 
 tendencies which come to him 
 through the light of revelation, his 
 life seems to him more distorted, more 
 homely, more hateful than ever. 
 
 1628. Self-Righteousness. — Surely, 
 if the child wants to be praised as be- 
 tween to-day and yesterday, let him 
 bring me the hideous hieroglyphics of 
 yesterday, and the less hideous ones 
 of to-day, and I will say, "They are 
 less homely than they were." But I 
 cannot say, "They are beautiful," 
 until by practice he has a smooth 
 chirography, when he ceases to ask 
 for praise, he is so used to writing. 
 
 And so, in the performance of your 
 moral duties, those which you think 
 are signs and tokens of eminent virtue 
 are evidences of your slowness and 
 reluctance. It is plain that you are 
 but a beginner in that very matter 
 which you are apt to take to your 
 bosom as a reason of complacency. 
 
 1629. The Course of Christian Life. 
 — No one should be disappointed if the 
 early experiences of his Christian life 
 involve many doubts and fears. A 
 new life, like a new river, has to pick 
 its way and find its channel. The 
 waters will gather in pools, and seem 
 to cease to flow. Rising over the 
 brim, they will shoot through some 
 
 rugged pass, and be swirled by a 
 thousand jagged rocks ; but by and 
 by, when the channel is secured, and 
 side streams begin to add their stores, 
 the river will neither stop nor grow 
 dry. There is no power on earth that 
 can hold back the river from the 
 ocean, or Christian life from heaven. 
 
 1630. Principles Follow Rules. — 
 A little child is told, " No, you must 
 not go there." Perhaps it is a sweet- 
 meat closet, perhaps a little museum ; 
 whatever it is, there are certain things 
 the child must not do. When, how- 
 ever, the child comes to be fourteen 
 or fifteen years of age, and goes 
 away from home, and begins to be 
 self-respecting and enlightened in re- 
 gard to conduct, and comes home 
 again, we no longer say to him, " You 
 shall not do this or that thing." We 
 begin to say, "You must study the 
 peace of the family," or, " You must 
 see to it that you do nothing to inter- 
 fere with health." Here is a principle 
 put into his hand, and he begins to 
 consider what will interfere with 
 health, what will incommode others, 
 and what will promote the peace of 
 the family. 
 
 It is much so with children in 
 Christ ; at first, rules help them ; as 
 they grow in self-control they live by 
 principles. 
 
 1 63 1. Transient Knowledge. — When 
 one ascends from a lower to a higher 
 story he leaves every stair below 
 him after it has helped him up. So 
 in our ascent on earth, God employs 
 a great many things in the material 
 world, a great many things in govern- 
 ments and in social relationships by 
 which to help men above them. But 
 if men will sit down on a pair of stairs 
 they will never see the crystal chamber 
 or dome. And that is our perpetual 
 tendency — to call our knowledge 
 foreknowledge, permanent knowledge, 
 
SPIRITUAL GROWTH 
 
 349 
 
 perfect knowledge, and to sit dow7t on 
 it. Paul says that almost the whole 
 scope of that which men call admi- 
 rable, knowledgeable, philosophical, 
 and theological, is merely relative — 
 changing growth — bark, bark, that 
 every other year ought to be thrown 
 off for the new bark formed under it. 
 
 1632. " Sin Revived, and I Died." — 
 Let us illustrate how it is that sin re- 
 vives. You have seen a carpenter 
 take a straight-edge, as it is called, to 
 see whether boards are straight. He 
 takes a board, and looks at it, and 
 says, " I guess that is straight ; " but 
 when he applies the straight-edge to 
 it, he finds that it is full of bends. He 
 could not see the inequalities till he 
 laid the straight-edge along the board; 
 but then he saw them plainly. 
 
 Now, God's word is a straight-edge; 
 and if a man lays it on his course of 
 conduct, it shows him that what he 
 thought was right is wrong. 
 
 1633. Christian Training. — Putting 
 on the Christian life is putting on the 
 harness, then. This is not peculiar to 
 religion. Religion is the grandest de- 
 velopment of that principle that runs 
 through human nature. How free the 
 hand is of the lad that is to be a 
 musician ! But when he goes to his 
 master to be taught the vioUn all that 
 freedom is gone ; he must hold his 
 hand in a particular way ; his fingers 
 get cramped ; and his arm, though it 
 could be moved easily enough at bat 
 and ball, yet must be drawn in a par- 
 ticular way, and the muscles ache 
 while he works it in and out to be- 
 come a musician ; and it is not until 
 weeks and months have gone by him 
 that he begins to find the new method 
 is easier than the old liberty was. 
 
 1634. Divine Judgment. — Some 
 Christians are growing on gravelly 
 hilltops, some on side-hills, and some 
 in valleys ; and those that are most 
 
 favored grow stronger than the others. 
 And it is oftentimes the case that those 
 persons who feel discouraged measure 
 themselves by men of better oppor- 
 tunities than they enjoy, by men who 
 are better situated than they are. But 
 God knows where he has dropped 
 seed ; he looks at the root, as well as 
 at the top ; and he knows what it has 
 to feed on. He is more merciful and 
 more discriminating than you could 
 be. He does not always pity you 
 where you pity yourselves. He some- 
 times condemns you where you justify 
 yourselves. But, on the whole, God 
 is more lenient towards you than you 
 are towards yourselves. He is more 
 generous, he is more just, he is kinder 
 towards you than you are towards 
 yourselves. And if you have not 
 made such progress as you would 
 have done ; then, instead of giving 
 way to despondency, turn to Him that 
 stands uttering this radiant promise, 
 " Because I live ye shall live also." 
 
 1635. Self-Building of the Soul. — 
 This silent, invisible life within us is 
 not only all the time working, and im- 
 mensely fruitful, multitudinous in re- 
 sults, and greater than any or all of its 
 exponents ; but it is all the time, while 
 it is working outwardly, working on 
 itself. It is a self-building process. 
 
 As in the dark caves of Kentucky 
 the lime that is held in solution forms, 
 as the stream trickles from the roof, 
 stalactites, or, as the water drops to 
 the ground, builds stalagmites, so the 
 process of thought leaves incrustations 
 on the soul within, as well as outside 
 of the soul. It is perpetually building 
 walls, if you liken it to architecture. 
 It is working channels, if you liken it 
 to a stream. It is adding stroke after 
 stroke to the portrait, if you liken it 
 to art. 
 
 1636. Non-Fulfillment not Law- 
 Breaking. — If I go into my garden and 
 
3SO 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 with a ruthless blow purposely smite 
 down the flowers, here and there, and 
 shake the trees, and precipitate their 
 unripe fruit to the ground, and waste 
 it all, that is needless and gross vio- 
 lence, destructive of the principles of 
 gardening and fruit-growing. But 
 suppose I am competing for the prize 
 in a horticultural and pomological ex- 
 hibition, and I am unable by all my 
 efforts to bring my flowers and fruit 
 up to the standard at which I aim, am 
 I to be blamed ? I do not fulfill the 
 laws of horticulture and pomology ; 
 but I do not break them. There is 
 a great deal of difference between 
 breaking a law and not fulfilling it ; 
 and one is not condemned for not 
 completely fulfilling it if, with the 
 whole force of his being, at any period 
 of time, and in his relations at that 
 time, he tries to fulfill it. 
 
 1637. Human Imperfection. — I sit 
 for my portrait ten, twenty times, it 
 may be. The first time the artist lays 
 in his pigments. Then he gets the 
 general outline of the face. The eyes 
 are not open, the nose is in a cloud, 
 and the mouth is but a slit. A man 
 comes to me and says, " I understand 
 that you have been sitting for your 
 portrait." " Yes," I reply. He looks 
 at what there is of the likeness, and 
 says, " Is that your portrait? I do not 
 think it looks much like you, though I 
 understand that the man who is paint- 
 ing it is a great artist." "But," I 
 say, " he has not got through with it 
 yet : that is only the first stage. It 
 won't be as handsome as I am for six 
 or seven more sittings." Everybody 
 would comprehend that ! Do not 
 judge of human nature in the making. 
 Wait till the picture is completed. 
 
 1638. Slow Growth of Character. — 
 If you were to pick up from among the 
 leaves in the woods an acorn, which 
 is now just sprouting, and show it to 
 
 an old oak-tree, saying, "Once you 
 were just like that," doubtless the 
 tree would haughtily swing its great 
 branches, and wave all its leaves in 
 scorn, and looking upon itself, disdain 
 the image of its own infancy. Never- 
 theless, it would not change the fact 
 that its vast top, its huge trunk, and 
 its strong roots, were once nothing but 
 a little acorn. And though it may 
 seem ludicrous to take a little sprout- 
 ing acorn and say, "It is the pattern 
 of an oak," it is the pattern of an oak 
 nevertheless. And the same is true 
 in respect to moral elements — only 
 more strikingly so. 
 
 1639. Quick Maturity, Quick Decay. 
 — That which you can grow in a day 
 is lettuce ; and how long will it last ? 
 That which it takes a hundred years 
 to grow is the oak ; and it lasts for- 
 ever. Time is the best tan-bark in 
 the world. It seasons things, and 
 makes them tough as leather. 
 
 1640. Real Penitence a Sure Posses- 
 sion. — I remember the first time I ever 
 spoke from inspiration. I had heard 
 eloquent speeches and discourses of 
 various kinds ; but I thought such 
 things were too high for me ; till, on 
 one occasion, when I was speaking 
 among my boy companions, the spirit 
 seized me and whirled me into an 
 ecstasy of speech ; and though I could 
 not get it the next time, nor the next, 
 I had a consciousness that it was in 
 me. I had had it once and I felt sure 
 that I should have it again, and I said, 
 " I know it is there, and by and by it 
 will come." 
 
 So, no one who has been broken 
 down in sweet penitence before God 
 can forget the experience. 
 
 1641. Process and Product. — Who 
 would suspect, from looking upon 
 purple and costly silks, what the 
 process is by which they are made to 
 be as beautiful as they are ? Go into 
 
 / 
 
SPIRITUAL GROWTH 
 
 351 
 
 the dye-shop where that process is 
 carried on. What hideous, odorous, 
 stenchful places ! What unneat apart- 
 ments ! What . workmen's hands! 
 See the beauteous fabric taken and 
 thrown into that dirty hquid ! Then 
 see it put into the mordant bath, 
 where the colors are set ! Who would 
 suspect, from watching the work as it 
 is carried on, what the issue is to be ? 
 And yet, out of all that filth, shall 
 come forth a fabric that shall glow 
 scarcely less than the flowers them- 
 selves. You cannot tell by the process 
 what the product is to be. 
 
 1642. Heart-Enthusiasm. — If men 
 have only a little love, an occasional 
 spark, it may be troublesome to nour- 
 ish it when the world casts on it green 
 fuel. A large fire waxes larger by 
 that very wind which blows out a 
 small flame. 
 
 1643. It is the Lord. — As to the 
 care and bruises of life, its ups and its 
 downs, only once feel that the hand of 
 the Lord is dealing with and fashion- 
 ing you, how blessed all these things 
 become ! When the sculptor stands 
 before a block of marble, I can imag- 
 ine that the unlucent and unintelligent 
 stone might say : " I was promised to 
 be made a godlike figure and put into 
 a public niche to be admired, yet 
 here, day by day, there is a rude, 
 brutal fellow with his sharp chisel and 
 heavy mallet knocking off pieces from 
 me, and when he has got down so 
 that even my form appears, still he is 
 knocking my face and cutting me 
 here and there." That is the way 
 that works of art are made. If there 
 are any of you that are to be statues 
 in the niches of heaven, God, proba- 
 bly, is chisehng you. 
 
 1644. Substance in Character. — 
 You can very easily put an edge on a 
 bar of lead ; but it is good for nothing; 
 and if you undertake to harden it by 
 
 heat, it melts and runs away: but iron 
 does not melt nor run away when you 
 undertake to harden it in the fire ; 
 and when you have brought it to an 
 edge, with file and rasp, it stands and 
 is good for cutting. Now, a man that 
 is spoiled in hardening is not worth 
 having ; but a man that has been 
 through the fire and been beaten out 
 on God's anvil, and brought to a cut- 
 ting edge by tempering and rasping in 
 this life, is good for something. 
 
 1645. Enlargement of Christian Life. 
 — When men begin their Christian 
 life, it is but a spark. Soon there is 
 kindled in the soul some joy, which is 
 more than the blaze of a match. This 
 is gradually developed into greater 
 experience ; and, at length, the whole 
 being begins to burn and glow with a 
 heavenly fire. 
 
 1646. "Christ in You," a Growth. 
 — Is this, then, to be prayed for? No, 
 it is to be lived for. Every man 
 would like to pray himself into Christ, 
 just as the woman would have liked 
 to have the free water to save her 
 from running to the well. She was 
 not willing to work for what she got. 
 There are a great many who would 
 like a Christ if he could only be 
 flashed into them ; but Christ is al- 
 ways born to every one a baby, an 
 alphabetical Christ. You are to 
 "grow in grace and in the knowledge 
 of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 
 1647. Early Needs Outgrown. — 
 The leaves with which the bean forces 
 itself above the ground are nurse- 
 leaves. They are stored with blood 
 until the root has grown so that it sup- 
 plies the parts which lie between it 
 and them with nourishment. The 
 germ of the plant sucks out of these 
 basilar leaves all its nourishment until 
 the root is established ; and then the 
 plant is nourished by the root, and 
 the first leaves fall off. There are 
 
352 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 many things that belong especially to 
 childhood ; and when we become men 
 we put away childish things. The 
 young Christian needs exterior aids 
 that the more advanced Christian 
 finds within himself. 
 
 1648. Christ to be Learned. — Are 
 you willing to learn of Christ in the 
 scholar-like way — for that is the term 
 that he applied. Disciple is only dis- 
 cipidus — pupil. Are you willing to 
 begin in the school of Christ, to learn 
 that which he inspires in the soul ? 
 
 1649. A World of Endeavor. — It is 
 no more true of moral excellence than 
 it is of every other, that the ideal is 
 difficult to approach. No man ever 
 went up the way of the violin, no man 
 ever went up the way of the piano or 
 the organ, no man ever went up the 
 way of the orchestra, without knowing 
 that at every step it was labor, labor, 
 labor ; yet, who ever dissuaded any 
 man from the pursuit of this beautiful 
 science, because there were " few that 
 should be saved * ' ? There are not a 
 great many Beethovens, nor Mendels- 
 sohns, nor Mozarts, nor Haydns, nor 
 Handels, yet there are a great many 
 men that strive to irradiate life with 
 the sweetness of music. They may 
 not attain to a great elevation, but 
 they get far above the point they 
 started at, and are students forever. 
 
 1650. Corrigible Faults. — As a 
 crooked piece of timber can be made 
 straight, though its nature cannot be 
 changed, so a man's faults can be 
 corrected, though his natural disposi- 
 tion cannot be rooted out. 
 
 1 65 1. Christian Change of Nature. 
 — How can a man change his disposi- 
 tion ? It is not necessary that he 
 should change much. Go and look at 
 Central Park. Before the artistic 
 hand of the landscape-gardener began 
 to work upon its surface, there were 
 vast ledges of rock in every direction, 
 
 and other obstructions of the most 
 stubborn character. When the en- 
 gineer came to look over the land for 
 the purpose of laying it out into a 
 beautiful park, instead of trying to 
 blast out the rocks, he said, " I will 
 plant vines around the edges of the 
 rocks and let them run up over. In 
 that way 1 will make use oi \\\& rocks." 
 So is it with your own nature. There 
 is not a single difficulty in it which 
 you cannot make use of, and which 
 would not then be a power for good. 
 
 1652. Increased Moral Sensibility. — 
 I believe that in thousands of cases it 
 is after men have become Christians, 
 that they have the first real conviction 
 of sin, for it springs from their in- 
 creased moral sensibihty. They never 
 found out how wicked they were until 
 they had advanced some steps in the 
 direction of reforming their wicked- 
 ness. In our country, where the orig- 
 inal soil lies undisturbed, when it is 
 first ploughed it is just as full of ma- 
 laria as it can possibly be. Let it 
 alone, and men are tolerably healthy ; 
 but stir it, and they all come down 
 with chills and fevers. You under- 
 take to plough up your heart, and you 
 will find that there is malaria there. 
 
 1653. Wishing and Willing. — Wish- 
 ing is hardly a desire, even. It is but 
 the shadow, often, which desire casts 
 upon a man's soul. There is as much 
 difference between wishing and doing 
 as between liking and loving. Men 
 like a great many folks ; they love but 
 few. Willing has both hands and 
 feet, and uses them. Wishing has 
 neither ; or else, having them, puts 
 neither of them to use. Willing brings 
 the soul, in an active, energetic form, 
 upon life. Wishing is that state in 
 which life acts feebly upon the soul. 
 One is active, and the other is passive. 
 And yet, often, well-wishing passes 
 among men for disposition. 
 
SPIRITUAL GROWTH 
 
 353 
 
 1654. Shallow Discipleship. — There 
 were not only twelve willing to become 
 Jesus' disciples and follow him ; but 
 there were twelve thousand that would 
 have followed him if he had let them, 
 in those moments of inspiration, just 
 such as you feel occasionally, when 
 some particular view of a nobler way 
 of living comes to you — evanescent 
 moments of sight and outsight, upsight 
 and beyond-sight. There was no 
 trouble in his gaining the wish and 
 good-will of the common people, but 
 their acquaintance was as the early 
 dew and the morning cloud. It came 
 like a flash and went like a flash. 
 Men went back after his instruction to 
 deeds of sacrifice in the Temple : the 
 priest, to pray for us and pronounce 
 us clean, by reason of this, that, and 
 the other remedy. So they dawdled 
 on, living low, selfish, and often vul- 
 gar and wicked lives, but yet feeling 
 that they were safely within the pale 
 of God's covenants, and that there 
 was no need of very much change. 
 
 1655. Single Virtues, and Virtuous 
 Character. — There are some men who 
 put the whole force of their life in at- 
 tempting to be just between man and 
 man. That is the whole extent of 
 their ambition. Some men are scru- 
 pulous about their word to the last de- 
 gree of Pharisaism : but in the cultiva- 
 tion of generosity, of kind feelings, of 
 refinements and social amenities ; in 
 building up societies for the public 
 benefit ; in making laws more lovely 
 as well as more protective ; in the cul- 
 ture of spiritual elements by which 
 God and the human soul are brought 
 near together — there they do nothing. 
 There are men that own a thousand 
 acres of land — in their soul — and have 
 but a quarter of an acre of it under 
 cultivation. They make a garden 
 of that, and all the rest is a wilder- 
 ness. 
 
 1656. Poverty of Man's Higher 
 Nature. — Too often the lower part of 
 man is like mountains where fruitful 
 fields are, and the higher part is like 
 Mont Blanc, where there is altitude 
 and beauty, but no development. 
 The lower part of a man is better 
 schooled, more ingenious, more fruit- 
 ful. It needs regulation, it needs re- 
 straint ; but oh, what fullness, what 
 amplitude, what openness there is in 
 the lower part of a man ! And when 
 you rise to the higher part, how thin 
 the air is ! and how hard it is to 
 breathe ! 
 
 1657. Low Christian Attainment. — 
 A barbarian will be half-naked, with 
 no clothing except a ragged blanket 
 about his loins; but if he has a string 
 of beads around his neck, and some- 
 thing in his ears, he is immensely 
 tickled with his beauty. And you 
 laugh at him. But Christians are just 
 like him. They have two or three 
 tinkling virtues that they put on which 
 cover a part of their nakedness, and 
 leave the rest uncovered. Ah ! a 
 sense of beauty requires more large- 
 ness, and more harmonious adjust- 
 ment of all the parts of our nature. 
 
 1658. World-Life Helps Soul-Life. — 
 The husk of corn — that statehest grain 
 that grows on the face of the globe — 
 all through July and August is the 
 provider of the food on which the ker- 
 nels live ; but when the corn is ripe, 
 the husk is no longer of any use. 
 And outside business in life, looked at 
 in connection with the final results of 
 Christian character, may seem very 
 poor ; it may be regarded as like chaff 
 and husks ; but as in the order of na- 
 ture, chaff and husks feed the grain, 
 so in the order of God's moral provi- 
 dence, the outside life helps the inside. 
 
 1659. Building of the Soul. — It is 
 said of Solomon's temple, that it was 
 built without the sound of the hammer. 
 
354 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 The soul is a temple ; and God is 
 silently building it, by night and by 
 day. Precious thoughts are building 
 it. Disinterested love is building it. 
 Joy in the Holy Ghost is building it. 
 All-penetrating faith is building it. 
 Gentleness, and meekness, and sweet 
 solicitude, and sympathy are building 
 it. All virtue and all goodness are 
 workmen upon that invisible temple 
 which every man is. "Ye are the 
 temple of God." 
 
 1660. Christian Truth for All. — 
 Christianity spreads a table longer and 
 richer than any hotel in the land. 
 When you sit down at the table in a 
 hotel, you never eat the whole bill of 
 fare, but take what you want ; and 
 your neighbor only takes what he 
 wants ; and both of you are well fed. 
 And so it is at the table of the Lord. 
 Some want high doctrine, and some 
 do not want any doctrine ; some want 
 moral sentiment, and some scorn it ; 
 some want moralities, and some, pure 
 spiritualities. But a little of every- 
 thing is better than one thing alone. 
 So let men feed on that which will 
 nourish and develop them. 
 
 1 661. The Regenerated Man. — He 
 will live thenceforth by a different 
 class of faculties. Before, he lived by 
 the forces which nature developed 
 through the senses. He was mainly a 
 physical being. Afterwards, he will 
 live through the forces developed by 
 the Spirit of God, — forces whose rudi- 
 ments existed before, but whose 
 growth and full power demand the 
 energy and fire of the Divine soul. 
 Like an exotic plant in a temperate 
 zone, the soul without God bears only 
 leaves. For blossoms and fruit there 
 must be tropical heat and light, that 
 we may " bring forth fruit unto God." 
 
 1662. Aspiration Exacting. — The 
 better a man is in this world, the better 
 he is compelled to be. That bold 
 
 youth who climbed up the Natural 
 Bridge, in Virginia, and carved his 
 name higher than any other, found, 
 when he had done so, that it was im- 
 possible for him to descend, and that 
 his only alternative was to go on and 
 scale the height, and find safety at the 
 top. Thus it is with all climbing in 
 this life. There is no going down. It 
 is climbing or falling. Every upward 
 step makes another needful ; and so 
 we must go on until we reach heaven, 
 the summit of the aspirations of time. 
 
 1663. Torpidity Prolific of Disease. 
 — When a tree is " bound " and won't 
 grow, we know that it is very near to 
 its end ; and a tree that will not grow 
 becomes a harbor of all manner of 
 venomous insects that hasten its de- 
 cay. Men go and look under the 
 bark, and seeing them consorting here, 
 there, and everywhere, say, "That is 
 the reason the tree did not grow." 
 No, it was the not-growing that 
 brought them there. And so all sorts 
 of errors and mistakes cluster under 
 the bark of men that do not unfold. 
 
 1664. The End of the Year. — I be- 
 lieve this is about the time of the year 
 in which men take account of stock, 
 in everything except their own souls. 
 In the shoe and leather business they 
 know just how much has come and 
 how much has gone, and where they 
 are. In the book business they know 
 the whole account. So in every great 
 concern and establishment of various 
 business. They want to know how 
 they stand as it regards riches. But 
 alas ! where is your bookkeeper and 
 your cashier, that shall take account 
 of stock so that you may know whether 
 you have been gaining in knowledge 
 or idling away your time ; whether 
 you have gained in a stable conscience, 
 or have let your conscience be like a 
 weather-vane, blown about by custom 
 or by the breath of men ; whether 
 
SPIRITUAL GROWTH 
 
 355 
 
 you have been brought nearer to men, 
 and into more loving relations with 
 tliem, or whether you have been dis- 
 integrating? 
 
 1665. Christian Self-Examination. — 
 You will see men in vessels approach- 
 ing the shore, or in rivers when the 
 waters run low, with their sounding- 
 lead, calling out to the pilot and the 
 captain, " Eight fathoms, nine fath- 
 oms, seven fathoms, twelve fathoms." 
 They are steering by the report of the 
 depth of water in which they are float- 
 ing. What would be the word sent 
 back to you if you were to take sound- 
 ings of your soul ? How much have 
 anger, envy, jealousy, wrath, been 
 destroyed by the overpowering influ- 
 ence of love ? How much do you 
 judge of duty by the principles of 
 true, spiritual love? How near are 
 you consciously, day by day, to the 
 ever-loving God ? 
 
 1666. Self- Knowledge, as to Tend- 
 ency. — One of these things is true of 
 us morally : we are going up the 
 stream, we are going down the stream, 
 or we are caught fast in the stream. 
 We are either sailing or anchored, or 
 drifting, in regard to our whole moral 
 state. How many persons take any 
 pains to ascertain which of these 
 things is true about themselves ? Are 
 you constantly gaining advantage over 
 things that formerly had advantage 
 over you ? Are you getting control of 
 your selfishness, your pride, your van- 
 ity and your jealousy ? Are you con- 
 sciously increasing in the love of things 
 that are right, true, noble, divine and 
 eternal? Which way is your life going? 
 
 1667. Spiritual Culture. — Even 
 when wild the rose is very beautiful ; 
 it is charming in its simplicity. But 
 in our gardens it has been advanced 
 by education, and has doubled itself 
 and varied its glory through a wide 
 range. Under ordinary cultivation, 
 
 and in an ordinary season we can pro- 
 duce roses that are most lovely; but 
 by and by, at some rosarian exhibi- 
 tion, we behold that that which we 
 saw in our gardens small yet beautiful, 
 swells out to wonderful size, and has a 
 fragrance that is entrancing. Then 
 we get a conception of what can be 
 done by skillful culture, and a concep- 
 tion that is addressed, not merely to 
 our imagination or fancy, but to our 
 practical faculties. 
 
 It would be a good thing for every 
 church, to have a single person whose 
 religious experience has been carried 
 up into the cerulean atmosphere ; but 
 how much better it would be if there 
 were many, if they knew each other, 
 and if in their thought there were such 
 a concordance as should constitute 
 upon earth a spiritual fellowship not 
 far unlike that which exists every- 
 where in heaven. 
 
 1668. Steadfast Ideals. — Say to a 
 man that just comes into a conscious 
 purpose of living a Christlike life, 
 "You must love your enemies." 
 " Not by a good deal ! " he says ; " I 
 tried it yesterday, and I could not do 
 it ; everything was in revolt within 
 me." So it was, and yesterday he 
 could not do it. Was he therefore re- 
 leased from the duty of doing it ? No. 
 The pressure of the divine ideal was 
 still upon him. Those words have 
 never been revoked. 
 
 1669. Widening Horizons . — An ac - 
 complished musician will tell you that 
 he is further from a realization of the 
 art of music than when he first began 
 the study of it. Nothing is so com- 
 mon as for men at fifty years of age to 
 say, " I have corrected my hope. I 
 am no longer the enthusiast that I was 
 in my youth." What is this but a sor- 
 rowful confession that they did not un- 
 derstand the law of manhood ? We 
 begin to fulfill hfe's duties on the basis 
 
35^ 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 of facts and rules ; from these we ad- 
 vance to principles ; thence we pro- 
 ceed to ideals ; and with these we 
 must forever go on. 
 
 1670. Low Ideals. — If I have with 
 my clumsy hand practiced drawing 
 for five years and cannot reach 
 Michael Angelo's lines, or Raphael's 
 grace, suppose, when I look at my 
 work, and compare it with the copy, I 
 should propose to get rid of the dis- 
 crepancy by burning Michael Angelo's 
 pictures and Raphael's frescoes, and 
 substituting them for the work of the 
 village painting master, and should 
 compare myself with him, and say, 
 "Ah! now I have attained. I can 
 draw as well as my master." Well, 
 who is your master ? That is the 
 question. You have destroyed your 
 high ideal, and taken a lower one ; 
 and because you can equal the latter 
 you call yourself perfect. 
 
 1 67 1, Goodness Multiplies. — A 
 woman who for the first time has a 
 little patch in a garden says, " Well, 
 now, my dear little tea-rose, you shall 
 have a chance to grow." She thinks, 
 " What a time I will have with my 
 tea-rose;" and she sets it out; and 
 then it seems very lonesome ; and she 
 looks into her neighbors' gardens and 
 sees there other kinds of roses ; and 
 she says, " Why can't I have such 
 roses as well as they ?" So she gets 
 another rose, and another, and an- 
 other ; and, as nothing is so contagious 
 as beauty, she does not stop until she 
 has a hundred roses. Now one ele- 
 ment of goodness wants another, just 
 as one color wants another ; and when 
 the growth of the higher nature is be- 
 gun, there is a tendency towards per- 
 fection ; and whichever of these ele- 
 ments you start with, whether it be 
 purity or peace, or gentleness, or 
 mercy and good fruits, it will have 
 an elective affinity for the others. 
 
 1672. Spiritual and Natural Life. — 
 You will recollect that passage in one 
 of Scott's novels where the introduc- 
 tion of the winnowing machine is lu- 
 dicrously resisted by one of the igno- 
 rant but staunch old Puritan women 
 on the ground that a man had no 
 right to raise wind for his own benefit, 
 but was bound to depend upon the 
 sovereignty of God to give him wind 
 when he thought best. She thought 
 the old basket winnowing fan, which 
 would not operate unless God sent the 
 necessary wind, was the only fan that 
 could be properly used. 
 
 This case has its correspondency 
 and parallel in spiritual elements, and 
 exists to-day in multitudes of men who 
 suppose the fruits of the Spirit are in a 
 realm that is above ordinary educa- 
 tion ; but I aver that every one of the 
 fruits of the Spirit is subject to normal 
 education under precisely the same 
 laws and conditions that all the forms 
 of mental development or culture are 
 subject to — art, music, civil engineer- 
 ing, a knowledge of astronomy, math- 
 ematical knowledge of every kind, or 
 skill in commercial affairs. 
 
 1673. Effects of Culture. — How, 
 when the plow was first put into the 
 ground, it bounded out, striking stones, 
 and throwing itself hither and thither, 
 and the holder with it ! and how, 
 when a man cuts his first furrows of 
 grace, he is slung about hither and 
 thither, and made to be a great deal 
 more nimble than he wishes to be ! 
 Yet, after ten years have passed, look 
 upon that same operation in the field. 
 Now, as the man plows, he whistles, 
 and sings, and watches the birds, and 
 only now and then takes account of 
 the furrow. The ox scarcely sweats. 
 The turf goes over as if it loved to be 
 turned, and the plow tucks it down as 
 a mother tucks a coverlet round hef 
 little child. 
 
SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 357 
 
 So it is with spiritual plowing. Some 
 men, looking upon others, and seeing 
 with what ease they perform their Chris- 
 tian duties, say, " There must have 
 been more grace given to them than 
 there has been given to me ; for what it 
 is almost impossible for me to do, they 
 seem to do without the least trouble." 
 The reason is, that their higher nature 
 has had more culture than yours has had. 
 If you will take the rocks out of your 
 rocky field, and the stumps out of your 
 stumpy field, in five or ten years you 
 shall have just as good plowing as they 
 have. But you have got to earn it. 
 
 1674. Poverty of Spiritual Qualities. 
 — What man needs is a perfect con- 
 trol of his animal nature, of his selfish- 
 ness, his pride, his secularity — the 
 predominance of the spiritual over the 
 carnal elements. Without that, man 
 cannot be man. The great mass of 
 the human family are yet but animals, 
 with a little garnishing of manhood 
 here and there. For the most part, 
 their spiritual qualities are but as 
 flowers in a buttonhole. 
 
 1675. The Soul's Response to God. 
 — When the sun rose on Memnon, the 
 statue was fabled to have uttered melo- 
 dious noises ; but what were the rude 
 twangingsofthathuge,grotesque statue, 
 compared with the soul's response 
 when God rises upon it, and every 
 part, like a vibrating chord, sounds 
 forth to his touch, its joy and worship ! 
 
 1676. Promise of Eternal Life. — 
 What if we knew the flower-language, 
 
 and we should hear the tender violets, 
 and white-rimmed daisies, and golden 
 buttercups whisper, " The sun has 
 gone far down to the south, and has 
 forgotten us " ? If the sun heard them 
 thus giving expression to their fears, 
 would he not say to them, " I am but 
 for a time gone south ; I will come to 
 you again, and I will find you out, and 
 every one of you shall come forth ; for 
 while I live ye shall live also" ? The 
 seasons' pledge to all things that grow 
 is not half so broad and certain as is 
 the pledge of God that those who are 
 his shall be led by his power unto 
 eternal salvation. 
 
 1677. This World a Preparation. 
 — This world is like the tuning-room 
 in an orchestra. As men come in, 
 what do they hear but " thrum, 
 thrum, thrum," the squeal of the 
 violin, the gruff coughing of the bass 
 viol, and the shriek of the flute ? Each 
 of the instruments is talking by itself, 
 and all are going on in a mixture that 
 is disagreeable to any ear except that 
 of a savage. Yet out of all that con- 
 fusion and noise, out of that screwing 
 and unscrewing, by and by come the 
 effluent melodies of Mozart, or the 
 grand march of Beethoven. This 
 world is a tuning-world, not yet sym- 
 phonic by a great deal. 
 
 1678. Patience with Incompleteness. 
 — I do not attempt to ripen my apples 
 by throwing stones at them. Oh, that 
 we could be as patient with each other 
 as we are with apple trees ! 
 
 XXIX. SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 1679. spiritual Refreshment. — The 
 mountains lift their crests so high that 
 weary clouds, which have no rest in 
 the sky, love to come to them, and, 
 wrapping about their tops, distil mois- 
 ture upon them. Thus mountains hold 
 commerce with God's invisible ocean. 
 
 and, like good men, draw supplies 
 from the unseen. 
 
 1680. Upper and Lower Life. — You 
 shall see in plantations of trees a fas- 
 tigiate Lombardy poplar, the center 
 and top of which is dry and dead, 
 while the lower branches are green and 
 
35S 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 living. It is an emblem of thousands 
 of men that are ahve down near the 
 ground, but dead at the top. 
 
 1681. Automatic Virtues. — No man 
 is a compositor in a printing office who 
 has to think where the letters are. 
 His hand thinks, and he himself is 
 thinking of something else while he is 
 composing his sentence out from 
 among the type. Knowledge that has 
 been reduced so that a man knows it 
 automatically, spontaneously, that we 
 call knowledge. Now, our graces are 
 largely occasional practices, while our 
 daily life is, to a very large extent, au- 
 tomatic in selfishness and in animal- 
 ism. We do not have to think when 
 we have to get angry. The moment 
 the offensive thing is said, flash goes 
 the anger ! In all our lower range of 
 life we act spontaneously. Too often 
 in our higher range of life we have to 
 strive before we have the initial ex- 
 periences. 
 
 1682. Present and Future. — In plan, 
 include the whole ; in execution, take 
 life day by day. Men do not know 
 how to reconcile the oppugnant direc- 
 tions that we should live for the future, 
 and yet should find our life in fidelities 
 to the present ; but the last is only the 
 method of the first. True aiming, in 
 life, is like true aiming in marksman- 
 ship. We always look at the fore-sight 
 of a rifle through the hind-sight. 
 
 1683. Phases of Christian Love. — 
 You will find, if you examine yourself, 
 that you never carry one feeling all 
 the time through the day. I do not 
 think a mother, however tender she 
 may be, though her child is not out of 
 her sight from morning till evening, 
 has the conscious feeling of love half 
 the time. It is true that there is not a 
 moment when she is not under the re- 
 mote influence of love ; but half the 
 time it is in the form of thought rather 
 than of emotion. You are mending 
 
 the child's dress ; you are thinking 
 what you will do for the child ; you 
 occupy your time in doing it ; and 
 there are a thousand things in which 
 volition and intellection are directly or 
 indirectly connected with this great 
 central idolatry. And in the most 
 eminent Christian experiences there is 
 never what might be called a steady 
 emotion. Emotions, in their very na- 
 ture, are occasional — are intermitting. 
 Other feelings are constantly coming 
 in. There is perpetual change in our 
 states of mind. Now it is thought ; 
 now it is remembrance ; now it is 
 thankfulness ; now it is joy ; but it is 
 all love. 
 
 1684. Disproportionate Soul-Qual- 
 ities. — A man's soul is a band of 
 music : his passions are the sub-basses, 
 and the mellow tenors are his social 
 affections; but the flutes, the higher 
 and more piercing sounds, the upper 
 notes, are the moral sentiments and 
 the reason. Some few men are like a 
 band that gives up everything to the 
 piccolo, while all the other instruments 
 are silent. Other men are like a drum 
 that waxes loud and boisterous, so 
 that nothing else can play. Sometimes 
 one singer in a choir dominates over 
 all the others ; but it is the harmony of 
 all that makes the grand oratorio, the 
 great choral representation. 
 
 1685. Devotional Impulses. — There 
 are three sources of devotional life. 
 There are those who are automatically 
 devout. As some are born so that 
 reason supplies them with thought and 
 intellectual stimulants ; as some are 
 born with natural imaginative powers ; 
 as some are born naturally mirthful, 
 so others are born to be devotional. 
 Still others maintain their religious life 
 by the force of habit. Their impulses 
 have become fixed, and habit has as- 
 serted its law in them. Yet others 
 depend upon mere outward occasions 
 
SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 359 
 
 of excitement for their devout feelings. 
 They are susceptible of being en- 
 kindled to devotion. If they experi- 
 ence it, it is brought to them. Their 
 hearts are an altar, and some priest 
 must daily renew its fires, or it will 
 burn cold and dark. These last com- 
 prise the great majority of men. 
 
 1686. Interior Obligation Superior 
 to Law. — Have we come to such a 
 miserable condition that we cannot 
 understand that a thing may be ob- 
 ligatory upon us, though it is not a 
 matter of fixed law? Is there any- 
 thing known in the statute of the land 
 which requires, when I meet a lady, 
 that I shall take off my hat ? And yet, 
 would I meet a lady, if I were in my 
 senses, without paying some respect to 
 her ? And is there any law that could 
 make me do it as quick as I would do 
 it without a law ? Laws for those that 
 need laws ; but the moment that a 
 man is so quick and sensitive that he 
 follows spiritual necessity and influence 
 promptly and truly, that moment he 
 can do without the law what other peo- 
 ple have to do by the law. You are 
 called to liberty ; but it is a liberty to 
 go higher and not lower. 
 
 1687. The Mother of all Graces. — 
 You must not only chain thoughts of 
 hatred and put them down into the 
 dungeon, but you must call up a choir 
 of sweet singers in their places. Every 
 time your enemy fires a curse, you 
 must fire a blessing ; and so you are 
 to bombard with this kind of artillery. 
 The mother-grace of all the graces is 
 Christian good-will. 
 
 1688. Expression Gives Develop- 
 ment. — Where a man turns from evil, 
 and takes hold on good, there is to be 
 more than meditation or wishing or 
 willing ; there is to be expression. 
 Even thinking cannot be clear until it 
 has had expression. We must write, 
 or speak, or act our thoughts, or they 
 
 will remain in a kind of half torpid 
 form. Our kinder feelings must have 
 some expression, or they will roll out 
 of the mind as clouds roll out of a 
 hemisphere. Our kinder feelings must 
 rain, or else they will never bring up 
 fruit or flower. So it is with all the in- 
 ward feelings ; expression gives them 
 full development. Thought is blos- 
 som ; action is fruit right behind it. 
 
 i68g. Difficulty of Living. — There 
 is many a man who could play a tune 
 on the organ with one finger, picking 
 it out, as it were, who is not able to 
 take a very complicated harmony, re- 
 quiring both hands and both feet, and 
 carry all the parts on successfully to 
 the end ; and life is so vast and com- 
 plex that though a man is competent 
 to any individual part of it, yet if he 
 has to take the whole of it to-day, to- 
 morrow, in sickness, in health, when 
 pressed by business, when beset by 
 temptations, when under the influence 
 of excitements in the community, when 
 stimulated by joy or depressed by sor- 
 row, when carrying burdens, or when 
 buoyed up by prosperity, when sub- 
 jected to all the moods and tenses of 
 human life — then can he do it ? 
 
 1690. Human Goodness Needs 
 Nourishment. — There is in the whole 
 human race this vital need, not alone 
 of patience, not alone of nourishing 
 gentleness, but of forgiveness, of re- 
 generation and of upbuilding through 
 eternal ages by the power and potency 
 which there is in God, rather than by 
 any power which there is in them- 
 selves. And if you say that this is 
 humiliating, it is only that kind of hu- 
 mility that the seed has. No seed 
 can have life until it has died. If you 
 plant a seed, it first decays and then 
 springs up and grows by nourishment. 
 And if a man thinks he will not be- 
 come as a little child, that he may 
 enter the kingdom of the Lord Jesus 
 
360 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 Christ, he never shall be any larger. 
 He is a dwarf ; has stopped growing. 
 
 1 69 1. Many-Sided Temptation, — 
 In regard to this conflict with spiritual 
 foes, look at the figure given by the 
 Apostle. I think there never was a 
 more striking, easy, off-hand sketch 
 than there is here. " Put on," he 
 says, "the whole armor of God." 
 Why ? Well, in battle, if there is any 
 point of exposure, where a spear, an 
 arrow or a sword can come in, and 
 let out a man's life, he might about as 
 well have no armor on. It is very 
 well to have a breast-plate ; but if 
 your sides are uncovered, and you 
 have no greaves, and no other gar- 
 ments of protection, you are liable to 
 be overcome. A man must put on the 
 whole armor ; for he does not know 
 on what side the attack may come. 
 
 1692. Obstacles to the Higher Life. 
 — If you will row down stream the 
 water will not bubble around you a 
 particle : it will make your passage 
 very easy. But now turn about and 
 go up stream, and see how the force of 
 the current heaps the water about you. 
 So long as a man is content to go 
 down stream in life, and does not at- 
 tempt to go up stream, he goes easily ; 
 but let him undertake to go up stream 
 for the sake of a higher life, and see 
 if on every side he does not find diffi- 
 culties to be overcome and trials to be 
 borne. Yet, if he perseveres, by and 
 by so many of them will be mastered 
 and he will have gained such mo- 
 mentum that his career will be, com- 
 paratively speaking, joyous, though it 
 may not be easy. 
 
 1693. Spiritual Hindrances. — Most 
 of us work with what millers call 
 "back-water on the wheel" ; as when 
 the wheel is so submerged that the 
 motive power has to overcome the 
 resistance of that which hinders its 
 movement. We do not use half of 
 
 ourselves, because we are so sodden 
 with care all the time. We are full of 
 morbid or malign passions which in- 
 terrupt our progress. There is that 
 which is worse than back-water on 
 the wheel. It is turbid water, it is 
 mud, often, on the wheel. And we 
 have to use half the force of our life 
 in combating hindrances, so that only 
 half of it remains with which to do 
 the active work. 
 
 1694. The Growth of a Lifetime. — 
 Payson, when he lay on his bed dy- 
 ing, said, "All my life Christ has 
 seemed to me as a star afar off ; but 
 little by little he has been advancing 
 and growing larger and larger, till 
 now his beams seem to fill the whole 
 hemisphere, and I am floating in the 
 glory of God, wondering with unutter- 
 able wonder how such a mote as I 
 should be glorified in his light ; " but 
 he came to that after a long life. 
 Christ had not changed, but Payson 
 had gained a larger power of vision. 
 
 1695. Spiritual Grace to be Culti- 
 vated. — Suppose a garden should be 
 turned over to you, without a thing in 
 it, and word should come to you, " If 
 you would eat this summer, arise, 
 spade, and plant ; " and suppose you 
 should say, " What am I, that I should 
 undertake to do God's work? If it 
 pleases God in his efficiency to raise 
 potatoes and fruits and harvests, he 
 will do it ; and what am I that I 
 should undertake to raise them my- 
 self?" You would be laughed at. 
 But many people stand before the 
 garden of their own soul, and here 
 are various traits that God commands 
 them to cultivate, and they say, " If 
 God means that I shall have those 
 traits he will produce them in me : I 
 will not interfere with the Divine 
 efficiency." But the command is, 
 "Work them out." It is not, "Wait 
 for them." 
 
SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 361 
 
 1696. Matter and Spirit. — Men who 
 deny the reality of invisible things are 
 like a bulb that should say, "I hear 
 people talk about flowers that blossom 
 in the air ; but I know nothing about 
 any such flowers. All I know about 
 is bulbs that grow under ground." 
 But do not tulips blossom above the 
 earth and in the sunshine ? Matter, 
 as it were, is a root under ground ; 
 and man's higher nature is the 
 flower which lifts itself up above the 
 earth, and feeds on the sunlight of 
 heaven. 
 
 1697. The Invisible. — I will tell 
 you a secret of gardening. Turnips, 
 and other crops that have long roots, 
 and depend mostly for their nourish- 
 ment on the soil, exhaust the soil ; 
 while those crops that have broad 
 leaves, and take the greater portion of 
 their nourishment from the air, organ- 
 izing it, and turning it into the soil, 
 enrich the soil. What makes this 
 life rich is that broad-leaved experi- 
 ence which derives its support from 
 the air of the future world. 
 
 1698. Permanence of Spiritual 
 Gains. — Let a hundred years roll on 
 and away, and nothing but these 
 evanescent things, valueless in the 
 market, remain. All those things for 
 which men sell their honor, their 
 truth, their purity and their loyalty 
 are sunk into the dust. Whatever 
 there is of purity, of hope, of gener- 
 ous sentiment, of courage, of magna- 
 nimity or of fidelity, never dies. As 
 the sun draws invisible particles from 
 the river and the sea, and holds them 
 in the air, cloud-treasures from which 
 the earth supplies itself, so each gen- 
 eration finds itself compassed about 
 with this "great cloud of witnesses," 
 that rain down moral influence upon 
 generation after generation. All that 
 men call real, practical and substan- 
 tial is the most perishable. What 
 
 men call imaginary, impracticable 
 and theoretic often lives forever. 
 
 1699. The Lower Life Unsatisfying. 
 — A man that makes porcelain, off 
 which men eat, cannot eat porcelain. 
 That which is to hold men's food can- 
 not satisfy their appetites. It is not 
 your worldly vocations, nor the imme- 
 diate results of your worldly vocations, 
 that can satisfy you. 
 
 1700. Man's Low Estate. — Forgive 
 us the low estate in which we live. 
 Forgive us that we dwell so much in 
 thoughts that touch only material 
 things ; that we dwell in passions that 
 do war with the soul ; that we dwell 
 so much in the sight of tlie eye, in the 
 hearing of the ear, and in the handling 
 of the hand ; that the voices to which 
 vi'e listen are the voices of men striv- 
 ing together in the street ; that we 
 spend so much of our time upon things 
 that are trifling as the dust, and that, 
 like the dust, rise to soil our garments 
 — yea, to hide the very brightness of 
 the heavens itself. 
 
 1 701. Powrer of Higher Moods. — 
 When men are in exalted states, it is 
 impossible for them to have care, for 
 the same reason that it is impossible 
 for an eagle to have dust on his wings 
 when he is halfway up to the sun. 
 Dust does not go so high. Men that 
 live in higher moods have no such be- 
 setments as men who live in their 
 lower moods. If men are only fer- 
 vent, their very fervency carries them 
 into an atmosphere where there are 
 comparatively few hindrances to an 
 ordinary Christian life. Temptation 
 shoots with a strong bow, but with a 
 short arrow ; and if you fly on a level 
 the archer will hit you every time ; 
 if you fly high he cannot hit you. 
 
 1702. Solidifying One's Growth. — I 
 have around my little cabin in the coun- 
 try a dozen or so of rhododendrons. 
 Broad-leaved fellows they are. I love 
 
362 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 tliem in blossom, and I love them out 
 of blossom. They make me think of 
 many Christians. They are like some 
 that are in this church. Usually they 
 come up in the spring and blossom 
 the first thing, just as many persons 
 come into Christian life. The whole 
 growth of the plants is crowded into 
 two or three weeks, and they develop 
 with wonderful rapidity ; but after 
 that they will not grow another inch 
 during the whole summer. What do 
 they do ? I do not know, exactly ; 
 they never told me ; but I suspect that 
 they are organizing inwardly, and 
 rendering permanent that which they 
 have gained. What they have added 
 to growth in the spring they take the 
 rest of the season to solidify, to con- 
 solidate, to perfect, by chemical 
 evolutions ; and when autumn comes, 
 the year's increase is so tough that, 
 when the tender plants that laughed 
 at these, and chided them, and ac- 
 cused them of being lazy, are laid 
 low by the frost, there stand my 
 rhododendrons, holding out their 
 green leaves, and saying to Novem- 
 ber and December, "I am here as 
 well as you." And they are as green 
 to-day as they were before the winter. 
 Now, I like Christians that grow 
 fast this spring, and hold on through 
 the summer, and next spring grow 
 again. I like Christians that, having 
 grown for a time, stop and organize 
 what they have gained, and then 
 start again. 
 
 1703, Why Promises Fail. — Many 
 a child that is promised a vacation on 
 condition that he will perform a cer- 
 tain amount of labor, would like the 
 vacation, but does not like the condi- 
 tion on which it is promised. Many 
 a child that is offered a knife or some 
 other coveted object on condition that 
 he will do such and such disagreeable 
 things for so long a time, is eager for 
 
 the reward, but does not like the way 
 of obtaining it. And many promises 
 of the Word of God are conditioned 
 on the doing of things that we do not 
 want to do, and the refusing to do 
 things that we want to do. 
 
 1704. Steering Godward. — If you 
 trace a ray of light in all its reflec- 
 tions, you will find that it runs back 
 to the central sun; so every great line 
 of truth, every great line of heroism, 
 every great line of honesty, every 
 great line of honor, runs back towards 
 the center of God. And the man that 
 follows these things knows that he is 
 steering right Godward. But the man 
 that follows policies, and worldly 
 maxims, does not know where he is 
 steering, except that in general he is 
 steering towards the devil. 
 
 1705. Maturing of Character. — Men 
 are like apple-trees. Some apple-trees 
 ripen their fruit in July ; while the 
 fruit of other trees goes on growing, 
 and growing, and growing, through 
 August, and September ; and in 
 October the farmer picks it off ; and 
 then it is green and hard ; and he 
 keeps it through November, and 
 December, and into January, and it 
 is February, when the snow is knee- 
 deep, and the tree has lost its leaves, 
 before the apple is thoroughly ripe. 
 Many of you are just like these late- 
 bearing trees. You are bearing good 
 fruit, but it will not be ripe till you 
 have shed your leaves and gone into 
 your winter. So be patient. 
 
 1706. High Spirituality a Late De- 
 velopment. — Nor does a person, the 
 moment he is converted, enter into 
 these higher stages of experience. 
 They are the fruit of trial ; they are 
 the fruit of life-education ; they are 
 the fruit of daily experience running 
 through all the vicissitudes of time. I 
 tliink the thing may be well illustrated 
 by the kindUng of a fire. First the 
 
SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 363 
 
 shavings and kindlers are lighted ; 
 they will catch easily ; but they will 
 burn out quickly. By and by the 
 wood catches, and the first experience 
 is smoke — volumes of smoke. You 
 have all sorts of little exciting in- 
 fluences, and then trouble, uncertainty 
 and distress. The smoke pours up 
 the chimney, but by and by there is a 
 tongue of flame which shoots up a 
 momentary jet, and then another jet, 
 and pretty soon the fire is in flame all 
 over, and the ruddy blaze stretches 
 out its arms as if to embrace every- 
 thing in the room. After the flame 
 dies down, then there is the solid, 
 massive hickory in live coals — not in 
 leaping flames any longer, but in a 
 deep, steady, hot glow. 
 
 1707. Revelation of God. — Has not 
 God, say men, a revealing power? 
 Can he not, by the power that is in 
 him, inject into us a true conception 
 and image of himself? I doubt it. 
 He could so change human structure, 
 that he could throw into the souls of 
 men a conception of himself. But 
 they would not be the kind of men 
 that you and I are. All the power 
 there is in the sun, riding like a king, 
 day by day, through the heavens, can- 
 not make sand — granite sand or flinty 
 sand — pure and simple, do anything. 
 It goes over the Sahara every day, 
 and has been going for I know not 
 how many ages. But there is not a 
 single plant there, because there is no 
 organic life for the sun to act on. Yet 
 when it visits the prairie everything 
 starts up under its golden beams, for 
 there are organized roots there ; and 
 when the light and the warmth of the 
 sun, with the moisture of the air, act 
 on the organization which is wanting 
 simply the stimulus, they develop it. 
 Human life has organized Hiculties ; 
 and the divine stimulus, acting upon 
 reason, upon conscience, upon the 
 
 whole cerebral and moral man, wakes 
 them, stimulates them to develop 
 themselves. . . . We are not then to 
 pray for a revelation of God as if God 
 could inject it. That is not his way. 
 If we pray that we may know more of 
 God, we must be more like God. 
 
 1708. Spiritual Development Takes 
 Time. — I plant many seeds in my 
 garden from which I do not look for 
 blossoms the year that I plant them. 
 Yet I nourish and transplant them ; 
 and when the days of November com- 
 mence to cut them down, I take them 
 up, roots and all, and hide them in a 
 dark frost-proof dwelling for the 
 winter. There they rest till the spring 
 comes, when I take those buried roots 
 and stems, and bring them forth out 
 of their graves and put them into a 
 better soil. And before September 
 comes around in the second year they 
 will do what they had not time to do 
 in the first. It takes I know not how 
 long a series of summers to develop 
 the highest blossoms and the truest 
 fruit that we can bear. And the work 
 is not all done in this life. 
 
 1709. Personal Evidences of Sonship . 
 — It is unquestionably true that, now 
 and then, the child, being sick, does 
 not know its parents ; or that the child, 
 being angry, and degenerating to- 
 wards the animal conditions, is so ob- 
 scured that there are in him all man- 
 ner of repulsions from his parents, and 
 almost no attractions towards them. 
 And yet the child's standing in the 
 household can be known by his love 
 of his parents ; and this love, this 
 affinity, is to him the evidence of rela- 
 tionship. 
 
 As it is in the household on earth, 
 and in regard to the love of a visible 
 parent, so it is in Christ's household. 
 The general temper of the mind ; the 
 spontaneous rising up of the soul to- 
 wards God ; the abiding in that state, 
 
3^H 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 cither for short recurring periods, or 
 for long periods, or even continuously 
 
 all these are more than logical 
 
 proofs, they are experimental proofs ; 
 and a man may rest in them, and 
 trust to them. 
 
 1 7 10. Concordant Faculties. — 
 Many persons play on their hearts as 
 a man plays on a violin who knows 
 nothing about chording it. The 
 strings are loose, and he tries to play 
 while they are in that condition, till 
 his intolerable screeching distracts the 
 whole neighborhood, and they come 
 to him, and say, " If you must have 
 music, do, for heaven's sake, tune 
 your violin!" If it is worth your 
 while to play at all, it is worth your 
 while to play with your instrument at 
 concert-pitch. Now if it is worth your 
 while to have Christian experiences at 
 all, it is worth your while to have 
 them so in harmony with the laws of 
 your own mind, and so accordant with 
 God's commands, that they shall be 
 joyful experiences. 
 
 171 1. Greater Strength, Lighter 
 Burden. — If a man is journeying, and 
 his sack is heavy, there are two ways 
 in which to make it light : one is to 
 take it off and throw it away ; the 
 other is to increase his strength so that 
 he does not feel it. The latter is the 
 better way. It is the Divine way. 
 
 1 71 2. The Inward Light. — In a 
 great affliction there is no light either 
 in the stars or in the sun ; but when 
 the inward light is fed with fragrant 
 oil, there can be no darkness though 
 the sun should go out. Yet when, 
 like a sacred lamp in the temple, the 
 inward light is quenched, there is no 
 light outwardly, though a thousand 
 suns should preside in the heavens. 
 
 1713. Christian and Worldly Living. 
 — Ordinarily rivers run small at tlie 
 beginning, grow broader and broader 
 as they proceed, and become widest 
 
 and deepest at the point where they 
 enter the sea. It is such rivers that 
 the Christian's life is like. But the 
 life of the mere worldly man is like 
 those rivers in Southern Africa which, 
 proceeding from mountain freshets, 
 are broad and deep at the beginning, 
 and grow narrower and more shallow 
 as they advance. They waste them- 
 selves by soaking into the sands, and 
 at last they die out entirely. 
 
 1 7 14. The Finishing of Character. 
 — If you go into a machine-building 
 shop, you will find good engines built 
 for mines — coal engines — well adapted 
 to the purposes for which they were 
 designed, and good enough, the 
 wheels and all the parts being of right 
 proportions and strength, but being as 
 rough as though they had been filed 
 with the teeth of a harrow. But if 
 you go into a mathematical-mstru- 
 ment maker's estabhshment, you will 
 find his instruments not only admira- 
 bly constructed but exquisitely fin- 
 ished. The last degree of polish has 
 been put upon every single part of 
 them. Nothing about them has been 
 neglected. Not only are they accu- 
 rate, but they are beautiful in accu- 
 racy. And you will find all the way 
 through the New Testament that it 
 teaches that it is not enough for a man 
 to simply conform to prescribed rules. 
 He must strive for perfectness, inward 
 and outward. 
 
 1 715. Living Gospels. — I had a let- 
 ter only this week, as I have every 
 week, from some young person start- 
 ing out in life, asking, " What is the 
 best commentary I can have on the 
 Bible?" Well, I cannot send them 
 this, because the only commentary of 
 the Bible that is really of much value 
 is a person that is living the Bible ; 
 and, really, a Christian is the best 
 commentary on the New Testament 
 that anybody can have. But there 
 
SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 365 
 
 are not enough of such commentaries 
 to send out. The edition is small. 
 
 1716. Do the Near Duty. — If I am 
 on picket duty and am commanded to 
 watch the enemy, I may entertain my- 
 self by thinking what I would do if I 
 were a general, on a splendid horse, 
 riding in battle ; but I am not a gen- 
 eral, and my business consists in be- 
 ing a good private on picket duty. It 
 is not improper to idealize, and wish 
 you were a perfect man ; but, after 
 all, the steps towards ideal perfection 
 lie in the discharge, with all Christian 
 fidelity, of the duties which lie right 
 close to you in your daily life. 
 
 1 71 7. Soul-Repmen. — Suppose a 
 housekeeper should have in the cup- 
 board a bit of cold meat, not over-well 
 cooked, and a scrap of bread, and a 
 little butter, and should say, when 
 she got up in the morning, " I do not 
 feel like eating," and should go about 
 her work, till eight or nine o'clock, 
 and then, feeling faint, should take a 
 little handful of meat, and eat it as 
 she worked, and at twelve o'clock 
 should take another handful, and eat 
 that, and about the middle of the 
 afternoon eat a little more, and to- 
 wards evening a little more ! What 
 would you think of such eating? We 
 know how the body needs to be fed ; 
 and the soul needs to be fed with just 
 as much regularity, and with a great 
 deal more daintiness and carefulness 
 of selection and appropriateness than 
 the body. But people do not under- 
 stand this, or do not bear it in mind. 
 .'\nd in the morning, when they read 
 the Bible, they take a passage at ran- 
 dom, and some of it is blessed to their 
 souls, and some of it is not ; and they 
 go shuffling through the day as best 
 they can. 
 
 1718. Soul-Health.— What we call 
 health, in the body, is a fair analogical 
 interpretation of what we call religion. 
 
 Religion in the soul is what the right 
 use of the organs is to the body. 
 What is health ? Simply a name for 
 the right action of the whole physical 
 frame : and when a man's intellect, 
 and disposition, and soul ; each part 
 and faculty ; the reason, the imagina- 
 tion, the affections, and all the appe- 
 tites and passions underneath them, 
 are held in subordination to each 
 other in harmony, there is health of 
 the soul ; and we call that religion. 
 
 1 71 9. Pride Softened by Love. — 
 When a man's pride is thoroughly 
 subdued, it is like the sides of Mount 
 Etna. It was terrible while the erup- 
 tion lasted and the lava flowed ; but 
 when that is past, and the lava is 
 turned into soil, it grows vineyards 
 and olive trees up to the very top. 
 
 1720. Many Called: Few Chosen. 
 — If you say that many of those who 
 make a profession of religion do not 
 live in accordance with that profes- 
 sion, my reply is that it is with this as 
 with other things. You never saw an 
 apple-tree that did not have fifty blos- 
 soms where there was one that set and 
 came to fruit. And it may be true 
 that in a community where fifty men 
 are impressed with religion only one 
 will become a ripe Christian, while all 
 the rest will more or less lose their im- 
 pressions, and relapse into different 
 degrees of inferiority all the way down. 
 The imperfections of the processes of 
 religion are no argument against their 
 reality. They are as real as the proc- 
 esses of education, and business, and 
 the mechanic arts. 
 
 1 72 1. The World the Place for 
 Christianity. — I should like to know 
 what use there is in a man's learning 
 navigation from books if he is never 
 allowed to steer a ship. What is the 
 use of what a man learns from lectures 
 on organic chemistry and agriculture 
 if he is never allowed to plow a furrow 
 
366 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 or cultivate a crop? . . . God de- 
 signed the sanctuary, the lecture- 
 room, and the Bible as the places 
 where we are to learn what we are to 
 do and to be, and the world as the 
 place where we are to do it and be it. 
 
 1722. The School of Christ. — When 
 Raphael was executing the various 
 frescoes which he was commissioned 
 to paint by the Roman Papal govern- 
 ment, he drew the figures, determin- 
 ing the subjects, and grouping the 
 different elements. He worked the 
 designs out with his pencil. Then he 
 put them into his scholars' hands, and 
 they went on and filled them out. 
 And after they had done the best they 
 could, when their part of the work 
 was completed, Raphael was accus- 
 tomed to take his pencil and give the 
 pictures a last finish. And so he was 
 the author and the finisher of the pic- 
 tures worked upon by these his disci- 
 ples. We are of Christ's school. He 
 lays out the work. We execute some 
 of its intermediate stages, while his 
 grace perfects what we do. And if 
 we were in a condition of true spirit- 
 ual-mindedness, we should feel that it 
 was an unspeakable favor that we 
 were permitted to work out these 
 blessed figures, these glorious natures, 
 these living pictures, which are to 
 shine forever and forever in the heav- 
 enly land. 
 
 1723. God's Modeling of Man's 
 Clay. — Did you ever see a sculptor 
 make a statuette or statue ? He be- 
 gins with dirt, you know. He has a 
 few rude sticks, or iron, for a frame ; 
 and then he slaps on the clay ; and 
 when it is tempered about right, he 
 roughs out the general form ; and then 
 he begins to scrape off the surplus. 
 Now he works for symmetry, and 
 lines, grace, and proportions. And 
 then he works for resemblances. And 
 at last, as the work is becoming con- 
 
 summated, he puts on the finest 
 touches. And all the way through 
 it is dirt, dirt, dirt ! 
 
 But, though this is a dirty business, 
 it is not half so dirty as bringing up 
 men in this world of temptation and 
 passion, where all their desires are 
 overflowing like a flood. Yet, as the 
 sculptor goes on working thus with 
 this lifeless material, to bring out 
 at last the finest lines and linea- 
 ments, that the model, when com- 
 pleted, may be transmuted into the 
 glowing marble, or bronze, or silver, 
 or gold, as the case may be, so God 
 is dealing with us ; so he is building 
 us up ; he is taking off and putting 
 on, that after a while, when the work 
 is completed, we may be transmuted 
 into higher forms, and be as pillars in 
 the temple of our God, and become 
 men in Christ Jesus. 
 
 1724. The Continuing Regeneration. 
 — Dearly-beloved brethren. Christians 
 all, have you been born again? Have 
 you been born again and again and 
 again ? Have you gone up step by step, 
 through the lower, intermediate, and 
 into the higher experiences ? You 
 have gone into the outskirts of the 
 moral kingdom, the religious, the 
 spiritual ; have you gone higher than 
 that ? What is there higher than 
 spiritual? There is this that is higher 
 than spiritual — quality, quantity, har- 
 mony. Here is the organ, and as the 
 builder builds one part after another, 
 all its sub-bases, diapasons, and all 
 the other instruments represented in 
 it, it is full of cacophony as he sounds 
 one stop, then another and another. 
 By and by he has brought them all 
 together, and he tries and proves them 
 till they are brought into harmony 
 with each other, and he voices the or- 
 gan so that the effect shall be the 
 sweetest possible, and then, when at 
 last it is all there, in perfect harmony 
 
SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 367 
 
 with itself, and the voicing has given 
 to every stop its very sweetest tone.then 
 we say it is completed. Have you 
 come to that condition ? Does grace 
 harmonize from the top clear down to 
 the bottom, and has it come not occa- 
 sionally and forced, but has it come 
 to the condition of spontaneity, auto- 
 matic, so that without thinking you do 
 the things that are right ? 
 
 1725. Orthodoxy and Christianity. 
 — The sweetest characters that live 
 are oftentimes outside your own 
 church and orthodoxy. You are 
 obliged to confess, you Calvinist, that 
 a man may be just as good a Chris- 
 tian as you are, and be an Arminian. 
 You are obliged to confess that here 
 and there you find a man who dis- 
 dains all church economy and ordi- 
 nances, and yet is as sweet a pattern 
 of a Christian man as ever was born 
 in the Quaker household. " My 
 mother was a Universalist, yet there 
 never was a Christian like her." You 
 bring it to your minister, and he says : 
 "Yes, that maybe a single instance." 
 Single instances are like single wedges 
 that spht knotty logs. 
 
 1726. Bearing the Cross. — God 
 gives everybody, I think, a cross, 
 when he enters upon a Christian life. 
 When it comes into his hands, what is 
 it ? It is the rude oak, four-square, 
 full of splinters and slivers, and rudely 
 tacked together. And after forty years 
 I see some men carrying their cross 
 just as rude as it was at first. Others, 
 I perceive, begin to wind around about 
 it faith, and hope, and patience ; and 
 after a time, like Aaron's rod, it blos- 
 soms all over. And at last their cross 
 has been so covered with holy affec- 
 tions that it does not seem any more 
 to be a cross. They carry it so easily, 
 and are so much more strengthened 
 than burdened by it, that men almost 
 forget that it is a cross. 
 
 1727. Enlarging Ideal of God. — If 
 one be of a devout nature, his concep- 
 tion of the Divine nature will begin to 
 enlarge and fill out in every direction, 
 if only there is a real, active, earnest 
 moral life going on within him. In 
 this work, the imagination will be the 
 architect, reason will be the master- 
 builder, and the materials will come 
 largely from his personal qualities and 
 his own experience. 
 
 1728. Christian Activity. — How 
 many began life as the worm begins 
 it, and fed voraciously until they were 
 full, and then silently sloughed their 
 worm-skin, and spun around about 
 them a silken house ! They retired 
 from life. And you shall find a great 
 many such Christian worms, that have 
 had the benefit of the whole summer, 
 and have retired from activity, as in 
 these silk-wound cocoons the chrysa- 
 lis waits for the next summer. The 
 chrysalis is not a fool. There is a 
 next summer for him. But if a man 
 attempts to do the same thing ; if he 
 feeds upon all God's bounties, and 
 only succeeds in spinning out of his 
 own bowels a silken dwelling, to wrap 
 himself up in, there is no next summer 
 to him. He will never come to be a 
 butterfly, though the chrysalis will, 
 and will rise up in judgment against 
 him. That which is very well for a 
 bug, is very poor for a Christian. 
 
 1729. Joy and Sorrow. — Men have 
 come to think that tears are more 
 sacred than smiles. No. Laughing 
 is as divine as crying. There are men 
 who think that sorrow has something 
 in it more wonderfully divine than joy. 
 Sorrow is divine ; but joy was divine 
 first, and will be after Aveeping and 
 sorrow are swept out of the universe. 
 Joy is more divine than sorrow ; for 
 joy is bread, and sorrow is medicine. 
 
 1730. Some Discouragement 
 Wholesome. — No men are so apt to 
 
368 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 be discouraged as those who are hv- 
 ing far up along the scale. They 
 judge themselves by a high ideal of 
 life. It does no hurt for a man to be 
 enough discouraged to keep down 
 pride and vanity ; but discourage- 
 ment is a mephitic gas which, if long 
 continued, strikes the vital parts, and 
 destroys life. A little lowering of the 
 tone of a man's self-conceit, however, 
 stands in the lieu of humility, and 
 keeps him from being arrogant and 
 over-weening. 
 
 1 731. Spiritual Kindred. — Do not 
 you suppose, when I stood and 
 dropped tears over the grave of He- 
 loise in the Pere-la-Chaise that I felt 
 that she was mine ? Too noble was 
 she for Abelard, who knew not how 
 to love. The truest and largest 
 woman of the whole Mediaeval period 
 of the world was she. And she is not 
 dead. Nor is she remote from me. 
 She lived in another country, and she 
 spoke another language ; but it is 
 thought, and affection, and purpose, 
 and divinity that make us kindred. 
 And I find my brethren, some in the 
 dungeon, some at the stake, and some 
 under the gallows. I find them in the 
 hovels of the slave and in the hut of 
 the poor mariner. 
 
 If I find that which moves the life 
 of men to be the development of all 
 that is sweet and divine in them, I 
 have a right, in the language of 
 Christ's declaration, to say of them. 
 Behold my 7nother! behold my sister ! 
 behold 7ny brother! 
 
 1732. Noble Burden-Bearing. — 
 Have you never noticed that the most 
 stately persons that walk the streets 
 are not the children of ease ? Go with 
 me, and I will show you a poor woman 
 that goes week by week to get her 
 burden of washing, and who, lifting it 
 to her head, and poising it there that 
 she may be able to carry it, is obliged 
 
 to walk with the step of a queen. The 
 most stately walkers are those that 
 carry burdens on their head. It is not 
 the men that walk negligently and 
 carelessly, but the men that have 
 learned to carry their troubles with 
 sobriety and manliness, that are the 
 noblest natures. 
 
 1733. Measurements of Things 
 Worldly. — The world is God's nurs- 
 ery. Here he brings up his children. 
 And, as in our houses all things are 
 good — pictures, books, carpets, furni- 
 ture, the table and the couch — if they 
 aid us to rear well our children, and 
 are good but for that ; as our children 
 are themselves the chief treasures to 
 us, and their character the chief part 
 of themselves, so is it in God's great 
 household-globe, on which we dwell. 
 We are to despise nothing as if the 
 being transient or physical were a 
 reason for contempt. We are to 
 treasure all things — only we are to 
 measure their value by their relation 
 to our higher nature. 
 
 1734. " By their Fruits.'' — Is there 
 anything in ecclesiasticism that Prot- 
 estants repudiate so much as Roman 
 CathoHcism ? And yet, when the war 
 is raging, and there is pestilence in 
 the camp, and men are sick and 
 dying in the hospitals, let those meek- 
 eyed Sisters of Mercy go there and 
 minister to the wants of Protestant 
 boys, being tender and gentle with 
 them, never seeking to breathe any 
 ideas into their minds that their 
 mothers would not, night and day 
 walking in and out full of disinter- 
 estedness and delicacy, and diffusing 
 about them an influence of cheer and 
 hope ; and let those noble boys go 
 home ; and let any man dare to speak 
 a word against these kind creatures, 
 and they will turn with clenched 
 hand, and say, " I will beat you to 
 the dust if you speak against them, as 
 
SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 3^9 
 
 quick as if you spoke against my 
 mother or my sister ! " 
 
 What has overcome their prejudice 
 against the Cathohcs? Is it the edict 
 of the Pope? Is it the arguments of 
 the priests ? Is it the influence of the 
 adherents of that church ? Is it any 
 charm of its service ? No, it is the 
 pure hves of some of its members. 
 Those are arguments which no man 
 wants to refute. If there were more 
 such lives there would be less 
 atheism. 
 
 1735- Beauty of Moral Character. — 
 All these elements, then — long-suffer- 
 ing, humility, patience, simplicity, 
 purity, truth — are intrinsically beauti- 
 ful. Any one of them, taken 
 separately, is beautiful ; and when 
 they are conjoined, human language 
 has no terms of praise sufficient to 
 describe them. The beauty of moral 
 conduct is, in many respects, like that 
 to which music is an analogy, and is 
 a higher form of it. Single sounds 
 are sweet and beautiful ; and yet they 
 are the lowest forms of music. A 
 succession of sounds, or melodies, 
 rises still higher. Combinations of 
 sound in harmony rise higher yet. 
 When the symphonic forms are taken, 
 and sounds are not sounds alone but 
 are expressions of qualities, and feel- 
 ings, and movements, and life itself, 
 then we reach the highest form of 
 musical ecstasy. 
 
 1736. The Use of Superiority. — 
 " Let every one of us please his 
 neighbor." Well, is it the business of 
 life, to go around tickling men's 
 fancies, making them happy, that 
 they enjoy themselves? "Let every 
 one of us please h.\s neighbor for /lis 
 good." That does not mean that a 
 man should be forever, with saws and 
 wise sentences, talking, and making 
 himself a bore in society. Ye that 
 are strong, ye that are wise, and ye 
 
 that are good, do not use the best of 
 your life spinning silken thread for the 
 embroidery of that life, but please 
 your neighbor; and so please him as 
 to make him a better man. Make him 
 happy in the direction of his soul's 
 profit. 
 
 1737. Fidelity in Labor. — Go with me 
 to Mansfield, Connecticut, and I will 
 show you ten thousand worms eating 
 mulberry leaves, and making a noise 
 like rain pouring on a roof. When 
 they are about done eating, you will 
 see them commence, with strange 
 antics, to weave a sepulchral cocoon. 
 They are going to sleep, They do 
 not know what for. Their instinct 
 does not teach them that. It only 
 teaches them to build their tombs out 
 of their bodies. They draw out the 
 glutinous matter into a fine thread, 
 and wind it around and around them ; 
 and finally they close up the orifice 
 and go to sleep ; and there they lie. 
 Then comes a man who takes those 
 cocoons. After some little prepara- 
 tion he unwinds the silk. And then it 
 is spun ; and then it is woven ; and 
 then it is dyed ; and then it is shaped ; 
 and a queenly form wears the gor- 
 geous silk ; and it is the admiration 
 of all people round about. 
 
 When God puts on the robe, the 
 threads or films of which you have 
 worked out in this life ; when he puts 
 together the various parts of the 
 garment which you are helping to 
 make, you will be glad of everything 
 you have done, if you have done it 
 faithfully. 
 
 1738. Native Gifts no Standard for 
 Measure. — What would be thought of 
 a man who should judge whether he 
 was a man or not by the inches of 
 a man broader and taller than him- 
 self? A man can be a man five feet 
 six, as well as six feet five. You may 
 be a Christian and yet have a less 
 
370 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 glowing experience than some other 
 Cluibtians have. Your gifts may be 
 dilTerent from those of other Chris- 
 tians. God works in every man ac- 
 cording as it pleases him. There were 
 twelve disciples, and yet only one of 
 tiiem laid his head in the bosom of 
 Christ. 
 
 1739. Disposition and Volition. — 
 Men who are ordinarily courageous 
 sometimes become cowards for a mo- 
 ment, but suddenly fly back, like a 
 spring, to their former condition. 
 Courage is their natural state. Men 
 who are ordinarily cowards oc- 
 casionally become courageous ; but 
 their natural state is timidity. So in 
 respect to refinements ; some men 
 live in them. They appreciate that 
 which is fine and beautiful, and they 
 seek it, and are unhappy without it. 
 They may at times become coarse 
 and rude, but it is not natural to them 
 to be so. Others are habitually gross 
 and vulgar. They may occasionally 
 be elevated into a state of nobleness, 
 and purity, and refinement, and good 
 taste, but this is not their ordinary 
 state. 
 
 We see the same thing in business 
 life. Some men are habitually 
 generous. Sometimes emergencies 
 take them off their guard, and cause 
 them to depart from their usual 
 mood ; but this is not common with 
 them. On the other hand, many men 
 are crabbed, and knavish, and selfish, 
 and hard, and ugly. They surprise 
 everybody, once in a while, by doing 
 a good and generous deed, and by 
 manifesting a sweet temper ; but this 
 state, in their case, is only temporary. 
 
 These are illustrations drawn from 
 common life, to show what I mean by 
 a state or disposition, in distinction 
 from a special volition. 
 
 1740. Sunday Christians. — There 
 are insects that fly at night, phosphor- 
 
 escing light when they have a mind 
 to, flashing and shutting up ; like Chris- 
 tians that flash on Sunday, and shut 
 up all the week, flying through the 
 dust of business! Such are not our 
 models. 
 
 1741. Rationalism. — I like these 
 brave rationalists ! They are the men 
 that say, " Oh ! give us the precepts of 
 the New Testament ; but as to the ma- 
 chinery of religion," their thought is, 
 " it may be all right, or it may not." 
 They are precisely like a man who 
 says, "Give me apples; but I hate 
 apple-trees." As though he could get 
 fruit without anything for it to grow 
 on ! The fruit has to be produced 
 and stimulated by religious culture. 
 
 1742. Am I a Christian? — If you 
 want to know whether there are chest- 
 nuts on a tree or not, you look on the 
 ground, and if you find any there, you 
 know that there are more where they 
 came from. Go and see where the 
 fruit of your Christianity is. It is not 
 in your hymns — anybody can sing 
 hymns ; it is not in your prayers — any 
 man can make prayers ; it is not in 
 your hope — who has not a hope of 
 one sort or another? Neither is it in 
 a mere profession. If you are a Chris- 
 tian, it is because the grace of God is 
 given you by the Holy Ghost in the 
 form of love, which works in both 
 directions — Godvvard and manward. 
 
 1743. Head and Heart. — The Apostle 
 Paul declared that the true religious 
 life is to be sought, not by intellectual 
 processes, but by moral states or intui- 
 tions, and by no other ; and that it is 
 the power which springs from moral 
 intuitions which makes the cross of 
 Christ the chosen means by which to 
 convert the world. In other words, 
 while Greece had taken the scepter 
 of understanding, and gone forth to 
 subdue barbarous nations, thereby to 
 bring them into culture, Paul took 
 
SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 371 
 
 mightier weapons — tlie heart, not the 
 understanding — and declared that with 
 that he would develop a power that 
 should be mightier than reason. And 
 he did. 
 
 1744. Unconscious Goodness. — A 
 farmer puts the grain bags into his 
 wagon, and drives slowly home. As 
 the wagon jolts over the stony road, 
 one of the bags becomes untied, and 
 the grain is scattered along the way. 
 The birds catch some, fly off with it, 
 and drop it in distant places. Some 
 is blown in different directions by the 
 winds. But the next summer finds 
 the scattered seed ; it starts, and 
 grows, and when the farmer sees his 
 own grain he does not know it. He 
 did not even know that he lost it. 
 And so with good deeds. Men often 
 perform them unconsciously, and they 
 bear fruit ; and when they see that 
 fruit they do not know that it is the 
 result of anything they have done. 
 
 1745. Highest Joys of Life. — When 
 the world is spiritually contemplated, 
 in connection with the world to come, 
 it not only is not diminished in its 
 revenues and treasures of joy, it be- 
 comes finer, sweeter, nobler. 
 
 Men, for the most part, do not 
 know how to find the honey in the 
 things of this world. You would never 
 suspect where the honey of a flower 
 is ; or, if you did, too large is your 
 hand to be thrust in to get it. But 
 the insect buries itself in the flower, 
 and then, with a prehensile instru- 
 ment, far-reaching, searches the cells 
 for the honey, and draws out the 
 hidden stores. Its very fineness gives 
 to it what your coarseness withholds 
 from you. We are not fine enough 
 to discover the joy that is hidden in 
 many of the relations of this life. 
 
 1746. Abiding Joy. — How much 
 do we know of joy ? A good deal, 
 of a kind of rough, bouncing, boy- 
 
 hood joy ; but how much of joy as a 
 garment which one wears, shining like 
 silver, ruddy and radiant as gold ? 
 Who knows what joy is, as an abiding 
 state of mind, such that it is by day 
 and by night in him uttering itself in 
 all sweetness and all melody? Men 
 see joy flash ; they see it sparkle ; 
 they know what it is as an intermit- 
 tent, limited experience ; but who 
 knows it in its sweet majesty and 
 power ? 
 
 1747. " Righteousness and Peace." 
 — Peace does not mean the absence 
 of disturbance. Peace is a positive 
 quality. It is the highest condition 
 in which correlated faculties can ex- 
 ist. It is intense tranquillity. When 
 the strongest feelings are in accord, 
 the highest excitement is the most 
 peaceful state. . . . 
 
 When you hear one of the noblest 
 strains of Beethoven's symphonies, in 
 ten or twelve different parts, it seems 
 like one sound. Take those parts 
 from each other, separate them, throw 
 them against each other, and they 
 agitate one another ; but when they 
 are perfectly concordant all the instru- 
 ments swell together with their differ- 
 ent natures, and are completely har- 
 monious. When one feeling alone is 
 excited, its excitement is disturbing, 
 and the other feehngs are in conflict ; 
 but when the whole mind is excited 
 together, and concordantly, there is 
 no disturbance, but all is peace — a 
 peace of vitality. It is one of the 
 noblest, highest, best and most com- 
 prehensive of feelings, 
 
 1748. Divine Love in the Soul. — 
 The heart beginning to love is like a 
 bay into which the star-drawn tides 
 are rushing. The waters come with 
 violence. They stir up the sand and 
 sediment. They dash and murmur 
 on the edges of the shore. They 
 whirl and chafe about the rocks, and 
 
372 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 the whole bay is agitated with strife 
 and counter-strife of swirHng waters, 
 until they have nearly reached their 
 height. Then, when great depth is 
 gained, when the shores are full, the 
 bay begins to tranquillize itself; and 
 effacing every wrinkle, and blowing 
 out every bubble, and hushing every 
 ripple along the shore, it looks up with 
 an open and tranquil face into the 
 sky, and reflects clearly the sun and 
 moon that have drawn it thither. And 
 so does the soul, while filling, whirl 
 with disquiet, and fret its edges with 
 wrinkles and eddies ; but when it is 
 filled with love, it rests and looks 
 calmly up, and reflects the image of 
 its God. 
 
 1749. Victorious Goodness Must be 
 Strong. — The command is not alone : 
 Endure evil, be patient with evil, but 
 Overcome it. Where is the army, 
 where is the sword, where are the 
 banners, what are the means of over- 
 coming ? Goodness ! Have you good- 
 ness enough on hand ? Christians are 
 like folks that have brushes and a pal- 
 ette, but not much paint. When they 
 undertake to establish good and over- 
 come evil, the qualities, the pigments, 
 are wanting. A languid, low-toned 
 color of goodness never overcomes 
 anything. It must be positive, full of 
 blood, radiant as an angel. Then a 
 man shall go out with a conception of 
 goodness into the community, and 
 wherever he goes he will carry con- 
 viction to evil, so far as conviction 
 can be produced at all, 
 
 1750. Earthly Immortality. — When 
 the sun disappears below the horizon 
 he is not down. The heavens glow 
 for a full hour after his departure. 
 And when a great and good man sets, 
 the west is luminous long after he is 
 out of sight. A godly man who lives 
 unselfishly and disinterestedly, cannot 
 die out of this world. When he goes 
 
 hence, he leaves behind much of him- 
 self — sometimes that which thousands 
 of years have not worn out. The 
 earth has Socrates and Plato to this 
 day. The world is richer yet by 
 Moses and the old prophets than by 
 the wisest statesmen. 
 
 175 1. True Meekness. — Meekness 
 is not simply unprovokableness ; for 
 then they that had the stupidest brains 
 would be the most meek. There is no 
 discord possible on the bass-viol to a 
 string that has not been brought to 
 any tension. And it is very easy for 
 a man to be patient when he is not 
 hurt and can't be hurt, because there 
 is no nerve struck. The white-faced 
 men that go through life as if they 
 were enameled, are not meek, by any 
 means. It is where a man is fully 
 equipped ; it is where he is sensitive ; 
 it is where he discerns between right 
 and wrong, pure and impure — be- 
 tween the things that ought to be, and 
 the things that ought not to be : it is 
 there that meekness has its sovereign 
 field. It is gentleness and kindness 
 when strong natures are subject to 
 great provocation. 
 
 1 75 2 . Divinity of Meekness. — M eek- 
 ness does not imply a quietude of mind 
 in the presence of injuries on account 
 of insensibility ; nor from languid and 
 weak disposition ; nor upon any selfish 
 calculation of advantage, as a politi- 
 cian suppresses his righteous indigna- 
 tion in the hope of more votes, or as a 
 merchant suppresses his disgust at a 
 mean man on the other side of the 
 counter in the expectation of bargains : 
 that is not meekness ; that is the cal- 
 culation of selfishness. Meekness is 
 the suppression of all anger, and all 
 cruelty, in the soul itself, on account 
 of one's benevolent desire forthegood 
 of another. There is no place in life 
 where a man can so test the force of 
 divine love in himself as to be able to 
 
SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 373 
 
 bear with another who is thrusting 
 poisoned darts at his very hfe. That 
 is meekness ; and it is divine. 
 
 1753. Quiet Power of Meekness. — In 
 the crowd of deceits, meekness in its 
 true colors and dignity towers high to- 
 wards tlie heaven in an unclouded sky, 
 white as the snow on Mont Blanc — 
 but not, like it, unfruitful, frigid and 
 lonely in its dangerous solitude. For, 
 white as snow and radiant as snow, it 
 is as warm as the summer showers are. 
 It is not bloodless ; it is not pulseless, 
 though calm ; it is not torpid, though 
 it be peaceful ; it is not without power, 
 though it is at rest. It shall not strive, 
 nor cry, neither shall a man hear its 
 voice in the street — that was of Christ 
 said, and of him because he was a 
 prince of meekness. 
 
 1754. Heaven above the Earth. — 
 Heaven answers with us the same 
 purpose that the tuning-fork does with 
 the musician. Our affections are apt 
 to get below the concert-pitch, and 
 we take heaven to tune our hearts by. 
 
 1755. To Escape Life's Storms. — 
 Standing upon Mount Holyoke, I have 
 heard the thunder below, and seen 
 men traveling up the side, in haste to 
 get out of the storm. Standing higher 
 than they, I escaped the pelting rain, 
 the wind and the lightning. When 
 they reached the top of the mountain 
 they, too, were free from the storm. 
 Many storms there are that lie low, 
 hugging the ground ; and the way to 
 escape them is to get higher than they. 
 
 1756. Minor Events and Great Ex- 
 periences. — When I stood upon the 
 Corner Grat, in Switzerland, right 
 above me were Mounts Rosa, Breit- 
 horn and Matterhorn. A hundred 
 smaller swells and peaks there were, 
 which if alone would have been com- 
 manding, but which in the presence of 
 these grander summits one did not 
 see. They were but so many ap- 
 
 proaches to the higher mountains, and 
 seemed to serve them, to finish off 
 their lines of grandeur and beauty. 
 So in human life, myriads of separate 
 events in our consciousness run to- 
 gether, and report themselves as units 
 in some few great experiences which 
 swallow up the individuality of those 
 elements that once had a special 
 sphere, and seemed important. 
 
 1757. Last Day of the Year. — If 
 there is anything which you would 
 cast back into memory, as men upon 
 the broad ocean cast some object into 
 its waters, saying to it, " Farewell, I 
 shall never see thee again," so cast 
 out all hatred, all revenge, all sins, all 
 wrong. For one day in the year let the 
 surface of the soul be in a condition in 
 which like a photographic plate it will 
 reflect the light, the hneaments, the at- 
 tributes of God himself, 
 
 1758. Retrospection. — Grant to us, 
 our Father, that wisdom by which we 
 may draw honey and not bitterness 
 from the flowers that grew in the 
 past. 
 
 1759. Shining Days, — Our life here 
 is to the whole of our after and better 
 life as single days in winter that shine 
 with some warmth are to the full vol- 
 ume of summer. O, make those days 
 touch each other that are the days of 
 the Son of Man in us ! May they 
 spread into weeks and into months ; 
 and by and by may we dwell as in the 
 very tropics, under the perpetual shin- 
 ing of the Sun of Righteousness. 
 
 1760. Persistent Spiritual Effort. — 
 Nothing noble in life is ever attained 
 by languid zeal. The kingdom of 
 heaven must suffer violence. Whether 
 in art, in knowledge, in refinement, but 
 more eminently than all, in spiritual 
 power, no man can be victorious who 
 does not put forth his best force, and 
 with unremittting persistence. A soul 
 that vibrates between things high and 
 
374 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 low, good and evil, spiritual and secu- 
 lar, like a pendulum, will be forever 
 traveling without making progress. 
 
 1 761. Perseverance. — When a man 
 seeks to see Rome from the dome of 
 St. Peter's, every step that he takes in 
 the long winding passages is wise if he 
 takes them all ; but if he goes half- 
 way up, and no further, the fact that 
 he has gone so far is of no account. 
 Not one of the steps that he has taken 
 counts until he has taken the last one ; 
 and then the whole count. For that 
 which he is to see is to be seen only 
 when he stands on the summit, and 
 looks out upon the adjacent country. 
 And there are many things in this world 
 which, though they are good if you 
 carry them through, amount to noth- 
 ing if you stop anywhere but at the 
 last stage. 
 
 1762. The End Crowns the Work. 
 — It is not the first part of the voyage, 
 but. the last part, that tells whether it 
 is a successful voyage or not. The 
 ship De Witt Clinton lies on the coast 
 just below here, disabled. The pros- 
 perity of twenty-six days she lost on the 
 twenty-seventh, when coming into the 
 harbor. However prosperous your 
 life may be here, if you stick on the 
 shore, and do not come in on the 
 other life, you are a wreck ! You 
 must take care of the last part of the 
 voyage, or you take care of nothing. 
 
 1763. Luminous Hours after Dark- 
 ness. — Jesus, being under human con- 
 ditions, was discouraged. Therefore 
 he ascended into the Divine commun- 
 ion ; and it pleased God, by the 
 opening of the heavens, and by those 
 messengers of the Old Dispensation 
 that were adapted to pour balm and 
 consolation into his heart who was 
 working for the New, to give him re- 
 invigoration. 
 
 O man of God, preaching in the 
 wilderness, tired, disheartened, and 
 
 accusing yourself of a want of cour- 
 age and faith, your Master was tired, 
 and needed angelic ministration to set 
 him up for his work ! 
 
 O woman in some despoiled neigh- 
 borhood, bearing the burden of the 
 household, and longing to do some- 
 thing for the needy, unhelped, 
 discouraged, and often wishing your- 
 self dead, you tread in the footsteps 
 of him who once walked the earth, 
 but who now reigns in heaven ! 
 
 O ye that are seeking the world's 
 gain, either in your family or in tlie 
 community, do not be ashamed that 
 you experience hours of deep depres- 
 sion ; Christ had them, and he 
 sanctified them to the good of men. 
 Like him, too, you may have times of 
 luminousness and emancipation. On 
 the mountain-top, unexpectedly, in the 
 night, when all is darkness, there may 
 come to you the radiancy of a reve- 
 lation from the heavenly land ! 
 
 1764. The Heavenly Vision. — On 
 some days there are no tears in our 
 eyes, and no sorrow in our hearts ; 
 some days there are on which we 
 cleave, as birds do, the air, without 
 hindrance, and sing at the gate of 
 heaven. We do not ask that these 
 experiences shall be multiplied. We 
 would not build upon the Mount of 
 Transfiguration tabernacles in which 
 we may dwell apart from the earth in 
 selfish joy and purity ; but give to us 
 so often the heavenly vision that we 
 shall be able to walk perpetually with 
 God, as in his very presence. 
 
 1765. The Peace of God. — When 
 the tide has been coming in, I have 
 often seen how it chafed and fretted, 
 running into some narrow-mouthed 
 bay, filling it, swirling round, and 
 lapping up on the shores, till by and 
 by, still flowing, and flowing, and 
 flowing, it filled the bay full. The 
 tide had spent itself: there ran a 
 
UNSELFISH LOVE 
 
 375 
 
 smoothing ripple all over the surface, 
 and the whole bay at last was at 
 rest. And so the soul, while yet it is 
 being filled, is disturbed by ripples and 
 
 eddies ; but by and by, when it shall 
 have been filled full of the power and 
 presence of God, it will be satisfied, 
 perfectly at peace, full of joy. 
 
 XXX. UNSELFISH LOVE 
 
 1766. The Greatest is Love. — Now 
 abide these three : Faith, by which we 
 see the glories of the eternal sphere ; 
 Hope, by which we mount towards 
 them ; and Love, by which we grasp 
 and inherit them : therefore, the great- 
 est of these is Love. 
 
 Love, amid the other graces in this 
 world, is like a cathedral tower, which 
 begins on the earth, and is at first sur- 
 rounded by the other parts of the 
 structure; but at length, rising above 
 buttressed wall, and arch, and para- 
 pet, and pinnacle, it shoots spire-like 
 many a foot right into the air, so high 
 that the huge cross on its summit 
 glows like a spark in the morning 
 light, and shines like a star in the 
 evening sky, when the rest of the pile 
 is enveloped in darkness. So, Love, 
 here, is surrounded by the other graces, 
 and divides the honors with them ; 
 but they will have felt^ the wrap of 
 night and of darkness when it will 
 shine, luminous, against the sky of 
 eternity. 
 
 1767. Virtues Dependent on Love. 
 — We ask God for faith ; we ask him 
 for patience ; for spiritual insight ; for 
 joy ; for various higher developments. 
 But, my friends, these are tropical 
 plants, and they never grow in any 
 climate but a climate as hot as love. 
 Suppose a person were to plant orange 
 and lemon trees in Canada, and pray 
 God to give him big crops ! If a man 
 will go to the southern part of Florida, 
 he need not pray much to get large 
 crops of oranges and lemons ; but if 
 he goes to Kamtschatka, he cannot 
 get them by any amount of praying. 
 
 And we must have right conditions, 
 or we cannot have right virtues. 
 
 1768. Lowly Service. — The wash- 
 ing of feet is, I think, a part of the 
 New Testament that many folks would 
 like expunged. Men are quite willing 
 to serve each other on the higher 
 plane, where their service is a rebound 
 of joy in themselves ; very few are 
 willing to descend to the other end of 
 human life and wash the feet — the 
 lowest and most menial service of a 
 slave. Yet that was what the Son of 
 Man did. Many are fierce for the 
 Trinity, fierce for the Atonement, 
 fierce for all the interlocked doctrines, 
 but they are not at all anxious about 
 washing feet. 
 
 1769. Life Needs Love. — There are 
 millions of things growing around 
 about us to-day which, if there were 
 a change of the movement of the 
 earth in the ecliptic such as should 
 bring fifty degrees of cold down into 
 our latitude, would all perish. And 
 what cold is in nature, that the ab- 
 sence of love is in the moral realm of 
 the world. 
 
 1770. Love Seeks the Lowest. — 
 Every great-hearted teacher, who 
 once has undertaken to care for his 
 school, takes in the bottom of the 
 class as really as the top. If a teacher 
 be of a large nature, he hovers with 
 more compassion over the dull and 
 furthest behind, than over the bright, 
 that make the easiest leaps, and reach 
 the highest. 
 
 When you address yourself to the 
 work of sympathy for the purpose of 
 doing good to a soul, then the need of 
 
37^ 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 that soul becomes the argument and 
 the measure of your own compassion. 
 What child could not take a piece of 
 soft pine, whose grain all runs one 
 way, and easily whittle it? But to 
 take a piece of lignum vitit, that is 
 almost like metal for hardness, and 
 whose fibers run in every direction, 
 and whittle that, is a different matter. 
 The intense interest goes with the 
 necessity that there has been for forth- 
 putting, and skill, and patience and 
 power. 
 
 1 77 1 . " Love Believeth All Things. 
 — The right spirit does not believe 
 with credulity ; nevertheless, trust is 
 its prevailing disposition. 
 
 Count Cavour, the ablest statesman 
 in modern Europe, Bismarck not ex- 
 cepted, said one thing which, from a 
 statesman's point of view, coincides 
 with this deep interior life which 
 Paul sets forth. He said, as the re- 
 sult of his experience, that he believed 
 that he who trusted men would make 
 fewer mistakes than he who distrusted 
 them. Yet diplomacy has always 
 gone on the theory of distrusting 
 everybody, according to the principle 
 of the Italian Machiavelli. "Love 
 believeth all things" ; and when the 
 facts do not seem to square with be- 
 lief it " hopeth all things"; and 
 when hope fails, it "endureth all 
 things." It is like the sun, which 
 pours its light and warmth on man, 
 woman, and child everywhere. 
 
 1772. Loving Our Enemies. — You 
 that are perplexed about the divinity 
 of Christ ; you that do not under- 
 stand the doctrine of election or the 
 doctrine of the Trinity ; you that 
 are very much troubled on the sub- 
 ject of the Atonement, and the rela- 
 tions of vicarious suffering to everlast- 
 ing justice ; you who are at a loss to 
 understand the subject of affection as 
 it relates to God — here is a doctrine 
 
 that is a great deal harder than any 
 of those. It is the language of your 
 Master : "I say unto you, Love your 
 enemies." 
 
 You say, " How can I love a man 
 who is wicked?" That is your own 
 lookout. Here is the passage. "How 
 can I love hatefulness? " God loves 
 hateful men — not haleful««5. 
 
 We are to feel towards enemies just 
 as the spring feels towards frozen 
 ground, when it comes from the 
 south, warm, moist, generous, and 
 unlocking, and, by that which it 
 brings from the equator, releases the 
 frigid north from its thrall and its 
 death. Out of your warm life breathe 
 that upon your enemies which shall 
 bring them to their true selves. 
 
 1773. The Meek Shall Inherit the 
 Earth. — Had the air been filled with 
 eagles and vultures and hawks among 
 which Jesus threw up a white dove, 
 saying, " Blessed be the dove, it shall 
 rule all the air," it would scarcely 
 have seemed more strange. Had he 
 sent a little lamb into the wilderness 
 among the bears, and wolves, and 
 lions, saying, " It shall go forth and pre- 
 vail against them all," it would not have 
 seemed more unlikely of accomphsh- 
 ment. Had he taken a sucking child 
 from its mother's arms and appointed it 
 ruler over warriors, or the beasts of the 
 wilderness, it would have been no less 
 reasonable. And yet, our Lord had 
 only to go back to the prophecies 
 which respected himself, to find every 
 one of these figures expressly em- 
 ployed, in spirit at least, for the very 
 same end ; and the world is finding 
 them gradually fulfilled. 
 
 1774. Love-Element in St. Paul. 
 — No one, it seems to me, can have 
 read attentively the teachings of the 
 Apostle Paul and entered into the 
 spirit in which he worked, without 
 having seen under all his feelings and 
 
UNSELFISH LOVE 
 
 377 
 
 experiences the influence of this im- 
 mense love-principle. In him it took 
 on a more enthusiastic form than it 
 did in the Saviour. It was, as one 
 might say, more a novelty with him. 
 It was the eternal state of the Saviour, 
 widely diffused and developed, and 
 like a native atmosphere, such as en- 
 velops the whole earth. In the apos- 
 tle it seems more like an intense or 
 concentrated inspiration. It was news 
 to him, indeed, and good news. It 
 inspired evidently and vividly every 
 part of his life. 
 
 1775. Love, Not Occasional. — What 
 is the command of God in respect to 
 love ? Is it to be an occasional im- 
 pulse ? Are we, when the Sabbath 
 day comes, to take out our heart, and 
 select from it love as an arrow, and 
 let it fly at the target in the sanctuary, 
 and say, " There, my shaft has sped ; 
 I have done my duty to-day ; " or is 
 it to be the continual experience of 
 our life ? Is it to be an impulse pro- 
 voked by occasion and necessity ; or 
 is it to be an abiding state lying be- 
 hind all the activities of our nature, 
 propelling and directing them ? It is 
 to be the chief element of life. 
 
 1776. Christianity without Love. — 
 What an ear of corn is without the 
 grain, that Christianity is without 
 kind, genial, sympathetic love, — cob 
 and husk. When the corn is growing, 
 the cob serves a good purpose as a 
 center for the grain to form itself 
 upon, and the husk is a grand wrap- 
 per for protecting it from the weather 
 while it is yet tender. I do not, there- 
 fore, speak against the cob or the 
 husk. I regard them as important in- 
 side and outside influences, provided 
 for the ripening of the corn. Churches, 
 and means of grace, and religious in- 
 stitutions, which do not produce love, 
 are mere cob and husk. True Chris- 
 tian love is the grain. 
 
 1777. Interpreting God's Will. — 
 God locks up his best blessings, but 
 gives to every man a key wherewith 
 to open the lock. One man takes his 
 key, and goes up to the lock, and tries 
 to unlock it ; but his key will not fit ; 
 it will not go in, because it is Pride 
 that he has been trying to unlock 
 with. Another man says, " Let me 
 try my key." He takes Vanity; but 
 he finds that vanity will not unlock 
 the door. Another man comes up 
 with the key of willful Selfishness. 
 His key is three times as big as the 
 keyhole and he can't get in. They 
 all fail to unlock the door, and go 
 away. By and by another man 
 comes. He puts his key to the lock ; 
 it shdes in ; there is not a ward that it 
 does not touch ; the bolt slides back 
 without a sound, and the door swings 
 open. He knows the secret. He 
 comes in the spirit of Love, obedience, 
 and resignation, and to him God's will 
 is revealed. 
 
 1778. Unselfish Heroism. — John 
 Brown felt that his whole life was 
 good for nothing except as an offering 
 to others. He went to death as men 
 go to a banquet, and as he was led 
 forth to the sacrifice he kissed a little 
 child. 
 
 1779. Coming Triumph of Meek- 
 ness. — Behold the barren field. 
 Everything sleeps or is dead. Call, 
 now, to the winds in January, to the 
 sheeting snows in February, to re- 
 deem the field and the forest; but 
 what change can violence work upon 
 the dead field and the forest.? Yet 
 there is a prophecy of silence in the 
 south, and there are winds that wan- 
 der, run before the coming sun. Now 
 the morning comes earlier and the 
 evening lingers later. Now milder 
 heavens ; now come birds, singing 
 victory ; more light, longer days, 
 gentler heat, and, behold, death is 
 
378 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 slain and June is here, and in her hip 
 all falls. And so shall be the advanc- 
 ing forces of love and meekness. 
 
 1780. Love and Hatred. — When 
 the bow of all colors spans itself 
 across the back of the storm-cloud, 
 the contrast between the blackness 
 and the radiant bow is not more beau- 
 tiful than the contrast between the 
 disposition that smiles and loves and 
 prays, over against the bitter storm of 
 depravity in the heart that hates and 
 spitefully mistreats. 
 
 1 78 1. Spontaneity of Christian 
 Kindness. — The mother fills the whole 
 day with faithfully serving the child ; 
 and yet, if one calls in the evening, 
 and says, " What a wonderful woman 
 you are ! how you have all day long 
 denied yourself to serve that little 
 child ! " she says, " No ; I have done 
 nothing of the kind." The impression 
 has not been left upon her mind that 
 she has done something operose. She 
 has done all so easily and naturally 
 that it does not occur to her that she 
 has done anything. Yet she is a per- 
 fect type of true Christian kindness — 
 of kindness reduced to a law, to a ne- 
 cessity, to a spontaneity, by which it 
 emits itself continuously and uncon- 
 sciously. 
 
 1782. The Pattern of Perfection. — 
 That which makes a man Christlike is 
 not the fact that he is doing so much 
 for himself, that he is building himself 
 up in various right things, and ridding 
 himself of various wrong things : it is 
 that he is perfect, as his Father in 
 heaven is, who makes his sun to shine 
 on the good and on the bad, and who 
 sends his rain on the just and on the 
 unjust. Disinterested love, disinter- 
 ested goodness — that is the pattern. 
 
 1783. The Motherhood Ideal. — The 
 word of God says, " In honor prefer- 
 ring one another." Does anybody 
 really do this? Yes! I should like 
 
 to know if the mother, when she sits 
 down to the table with her children, 
 picks out the best things, and eats 
 them, and gives the children what is 
 left. Does not she in love prefer every 
 child ? And, going down, she is more 
 attentive to the youngest than to those 
 that are older ; the little babe in the 
 cradle rules the whole of them. Her 
 sensibility and kindness increase in 
 the ratio of their need. And, that 
 which the mother feels is the type of 
 universal motherhood, or the true 
 Christian feeling ripened in human 
 nature. 
 
 1784. As Little Children. — You can 
 scarcely conceive of any affection on 
 earth that is more pure, more divested 
 of selfishness, and more entirely a 
 sentiment, and a noble sentiment, 
 than that which an intelligent child, 
 growing up into man's estate, has for 
 his father and his mother. And I 
 apprehend that the love which the 
 soul has for Christ comes nearer to 
 this than we imagine, and that there 
 is more meaning than lies upon the 
 surface of it when we are told that we 
 must become as little children, and 
 that unless we become like them, and 
 love God as they love their parents, 
 we cannot enter the kingdom of 
 heaven. 
 
 1785. Forget Your Own Good 
 Deeds. — Fill the world full of all the 
 effects of your wisdom, your zeal, 
 your goodness, your activity, your 
 power ; but do not worship yourself 
 in the meager line of your past deeds. 
 If it is a mean thing for a man to 
 think too much of himself when he is 
 at the very citadel and center of his 
 affairs, how much baser it is for a 
 man to sit down and worship his own 
 shadow ! Never count what you have 
 done for your friends. 
 
 1786. Selfishness and Love in Con- 
 flict. — There are two great currents 
 
UNSELFISH LOVE 
 
 379 
 
 flowing through this world ; and the 
 point of contact is the point of con- 
 fusion and turmoil. Where two great 
 winds meet and whirl, there is almost 
 indescribable confusion ; and so, where 
 two great streams of influence meet, 
 there the battle is joined. From be- 
 neath, from the great mass of initial 
 life below, the law of selfishness pre- 
 vails ; and everywhere, all the way on 
 and up, the law of God laid on it is, 
 "Take care of thyself." From the 
 other direction, from the very fount 
 and source of all wisdom and all 
 power, comes another stream — " Suf- 
 fer, instead of others suffering ; look 
 not on thine own things, but on the 
 things of others." The law of selfish- 
 ness with which creation begins at the 
 bottom is met by the law of self-sacri- 
 fice and love which comes in from 
 above ; and where they come in con- 
 flict there is whirl and turmoil. 
 
 1787. Necessity of Loving. — Great 
 souls have bled to death because they 
 did not know where to bestow the 
 precious gift of love. One may be 
 conscious of being worthy to be loved, 
 and still more conscious of having 
 wonderful stores of love to pour forth, 
 and yet be starved all the while. 
 This capacity — necessity I had almost 
 called it — of loving, this hero-worship 
 of the heart, this enthusiasm of love, 
 is among the most noble elements 
 there are in human nature. God 
 made man so. There is many a 
 dusky heathen who has had the same 
 impulse. I do not doubt that many a 
 stone idol has been loved as only God 
 should be, and that many a poor 
 ignorant soul has tlirown itself like a 
 handful of diamonds against the brute 
 idol, which is all it has, all it could 
 have, to love. But do you think God 
 will destroy such a soul because it 
 does not know any better? Not I. I 
 am not an infidel. 
 
 1788. Persistence of Love. — There 
 be some plants which, once started, 
 strike tlieir roots underground in every 
 direction so speedily that you cannot 
 eradicate them ; and they will creep 
 under fences, and spread behind 
 stones, and sprawl over the walk, and 
 pervade the whole garden. And there 
 be many souls whose love, once 
 rooted, cannot be taken back. The 
 man of a wedded pair may grow 
 worse, and at last may even feel that 
 that love is an irksome thing, inodor- 
 ous balsam itself, to him ; and his life 
 is one of repulsion ; and from pride and 
 selfishness he goes down to passions, 
 lusts, debauchery and drunkenness, 
 and leaves behind him all honor, all 
 trust, all goodness, all respect — goes 
 down to the very door of the grave ; 
 but the heart which broke itself upon 
 him, and poured its treasure into his 
 unworthy heart, never leaves him nor 
 forsakes him. It is the one solitary 
 mourner when lie sinks into death, 
 and when men breathe freer and say, 
 "Thank God, that curse is gone," 
 Great is the power of love. 
 
 1789. Enthusiasm of Love. — If 
 there be one pathetic thing in this 
 world it is the affection of a noble 
 dog. I had almost said that the most 
 disinterested love we know of is that 
 of a dog, which asks for nothing but 
 the privilege of loving to excess. 
 Beaten and starved, who can be half 
 so glad as that dog is when his master 
 returns ? Such love almost makes one 
 weep at the thought that the dog can- 
 not speak. Even this brute animal 
 has the rudimentary form of that en- 
 thusiasm of love of which Paul fur- 
 nishes one of the most magnificent 
 examples. This feeling, then, which 
 takes so grand a form towards Jesus 
 Christ, is latent in human nature ; 
 and the soul's structure is such that 
 one may lose selfishness and all sordid 
 
o 
 
 80 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 self-seeking, aiul taking, as it were, 
 the noble essence of man, lavish it on 
 Jesus as the alabaster box of sweet 
 ointment was broken and poured upon 
 his head. 
 
 1790. Learning God's Nature. — We 
 count nothing too good to sacrifice for 
 a friend. You do not love, unless you 
 arc willing to suffer for what you love ; 
 and the depth of your love is in pro- 
 portion to what you are willing to suf- 
 fer. A person gives himself up to 
 some faithful labor of love in behalf 
 of a friend, and while engaged therein, 
 there comes to him a conception of 
 what is the nature of that God who 
 gives himself, in heaven, on earth, 
 through time, and through eternity, 
 an everlasting and willing sufferer for 
 all. Here rises before him an illustra- 
 tion of the teachings of the Gospel. 
 
 1791. The One Thing Needful. — 
 There is but one thing required of 
 man, and that is, that he shall have 
 love. If you take care of that, every- 
 thing else will take care of itself. 
 There are other feelings and attributes 
 essential to the soul, but these neces- 
 sarily exist and act where there is 
 love. As in a watch there is a spring, 
 which, if you coil it up, will of itself 
 keep all the wheels in motion, so there 
 is in the human soul a spring vv'hich, 
 if you wind it up, will uncoil itself, 
 and carry forward everything related to 
 your duties and conduct in this world. 
 
 1792. Unconscious Beauty of the 
 Christ-Spirit. — Look at the magnolias 
 that stretch forth great flowering 
 branches, that are so generous and so 
 full of kind thoughts that they cannot 
 wait for their leaves to grow before 
 they express them. They have a uni- 
 versal graciousness that from its very 
 nature comes forth to give joy to those 
 within its reach. 
 
 Men who are filled with Christ, 
 who have sympathy with Divine be- 
 
 neficence, although at times they may 
 apply their force to good and peace, 
 yet, whether they think of it or not, 
 unavoidably carry themselves as ben- 
 efactions, just as blossoms unavoid- 
 ably carry fragrance, by reason of 
 their constituent nature. 
 
 1793. Loving-Kindness. — There 
 should be an abiding disposition of 
 benevolence out of which should 
 spring incessant acts of kindness. 
 When the waters of an inexhaustible 
 spring have been conveyed through 
 pipes to your dweUing, it needs only 
 that you should open the vent, and it 
 will gush forth with power and copi- 
 ousness by its own native force. Even 
 when it is not flowing, it is pressing 
 and urging itself, and longing to flow. 
 Left to itself, night and day it would 
 gush. It must be hindered, it must 
 be stopped, but it needs never to be 
 solicited. There is a well-spring of 
 love which God sinks in the human 
 soul, which throbs without ceasing, 
 and strives to give itself forth. The 
 kindness is always there, ready and 
 waiting. Only opportunity is needed. 
 
 1794. Love, from Within. — Jesus 
 laid down the fundamental principle 
 that love must spring forth, not from 
 the admirableness of any object of re- 
 gard, but from the richness of one's 
 own nature in true benevolence. Like 
 the sun, love sends forth from itself 
 that color which makes beautiful 
 whatever it shines upon ; therefore 
 love your enemies, bless them that 
 curse you, do good to them that hate 
 you, and pray for them that despite- 
 fuUy use you. 
 
 1795. Without Love. — Suppose 
 Gilmore's band of three hundred mu- 
 sicians were leading a procession 
 through Broadway, and suppose they 
 left out the trumpets, the hautboys, 
 the bassoons, the trombones, and 
 went clashing through the street, the 
 
UNSELFISH LOVE 
 
 381 
 
 whole three hundred of them, with 
 cymbals, what sort of music would 
 they make ? What such music would 
 be, that would be learning and refine- 
 ment and intellectual treasure without 
 love. The best part is left out when 
 love is left out, and these other things 
 go clashing, clashing, clashing on. 
 
 1796. Man-Hater Cannot be God- 
 Lover, — The Scripture is very plain ; 
 its sentences are like arrows ; there 
 are no apologies in it ; and any man 
 that says he loves God because he has 
 ecstatic visions, poetic dreams, and all 
 manner of venerations, because his 
 soul is inflamed, while yet there 
 rankles in him, in any shape, the 
 damnable serpent of hatred, is mis- 
 taken ; and God says to him, without 
 stopping to apologize, "You are a 
 liar!" 
 
 1797. Returning Good for Evil. — 
 To perform acts of kindness and gen- 
 erosity towards men for the sake of 
 heaping fire on their head, is to per- 
 vert the whole spirit of this passage ; 
 that is a case in which obedience 
 would be the rankest disobedience : 
 but where on the altar the fire is kin- 
 dled, and the incense is thrown upon 
 it, and the offering is made and con- 
 sumed, the coals mean something 
 very different from what they would 
 were they employed by a tormentor 
 or a persecutor. You consume, as it 
 were, upon the very altar of his head, 
 by your kindness, the offences which 
 he has committed. It is the fire of 
 kindness that consumes the sin and 
 the offence. 
 
 1798. Christ for Man, not Institu- 
 tions. — Christ took the part of religion 
 against religious institutions ; of reli- 
 
 gious feeling against religious usages, 
 which are often venerable in propor- 
 tion as they are nothing else. God's 
 law of love, which the Jews had made 
 stone, was smitten by Christ, and 
 made to gush with water for the poor 
 that lay athirst and gasping in the dust. 
 
 1799. Conscience and Love. — He 
 who is right by the force of con- 
 science is never so happy as he who 
 is right by the force of love ; for con- 
 science is a hard master, and carries 
 a straight rule. The more acute your 
 conscience is to inspire you to duty, 
 the more it torments you when you 
 violate your duty. Conscience is a 
 despot. It almost never smiles ; it 
 sits and scowls ; and its business is to 
 flagellate rather than reward. But 
 love suffereth long, and is kind ; love 
 envieth not ; love vaunteth not itself, 
 is not puffed up, doth not behave 
 itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, 
 is not easily provoked, thinketh no 
 evil. Love, transcendent, shall abide 
 when doctrines, and ordinances, and 
 churches, and governments shall have 
 passed away — when nothing else shall 
 remain but the other supreme moral 
 sentiments of the soul — faith and 
 hope. Love, even in that hour, high 
 above either of these, and above all 
 other things, high above them as the 
 spire of a cathedral is above the roof 
 or the foundations — shall exist ; for it 
 is God ; and is yet to be God over all, 
 blessed — because blessing — forever 
 and forever. 
 
 1800. Love Supreme. — " Now abide 
 Faith, Hope, Love, these three ; but 
 the greatest of these is Love," for 
 love is the seraph, and faith and hope 
 are but the wings by which it flies. 
 
382 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 XXXI. PRATER 
 
 1801. The Nature of Prayer. — In 
 its simplest enunciation, prayer is 
 some act by which a human mind 
 comes into communion with God. It 
 is sunning some thought or feehng in 
 the light of God's face. It is a 
 recognition of God's presence. 
 
 1802. God, and Prayer. — You 
 looked out of the window and saw 
 the whole httle history ; but when the 
 children come in to tell the tale of 
 joy, you assume that you know noth- 
 ing about it. Why ? Because you 
 want to hear it from their lips. You 
 say, "What is it?" though you 
 know as well as they do. You enjoy 
 hearing them rehearse it. 
 
 God knows all ; but he loves to 
 hear his children talk to him. 
 
 1803. Object of Prayer. — Prayers 
 are instruments by which gracious 
 results are wrought out. Just so far 
 as they tend to bring us consciously 
 into the presence of God they are bene- 
 ficial ; and in proportion as they fail 
 to do it they are of no use whatever. 
 
 Suppose one, under the influence of 
 superstition, should repeat five times 
 the Lord's Prayer, and five times the 
 Creed and Confession of Faith, morn- 
 ing, noon and night, without, either 
 morning, or noon or night, having a 
 single thought excited by them ? He 
 might as well use the Multiplication 
 table. The mere fact that these are 
 prayers gives them no sort of validity. 
 You may take the most sacred truths 
 or the most exquisite utterances of 
 prayer, and repeat them, and if they 
 do nothing to you, if they do not lift 
 your thoughts heavenward, if they do 
 not touch any sympathy in you, if 
 they do not bring you into sweet com- 
 munion with God, they are utterly 
 vapid and useless. This was the 
 teaching of our Savour. 
 
 1804. Our Father, Which Art in 
 Heaven. — No man who is merely 
 reverential can pray this prayer. 
 Bow down the head till it touches 
 the ground ; let the heart be weiglied 
 down with awe and veneration, — that 
 does not enable the lip to speak the 
 word aright. It is not what breaks 
 us down before God that fits us to go 
 into his presence. It is that which 
 lifts us up towards him. It is our 
 yearning for him, our realization of 
 his true paternity, our filial afTection 
 for him. 
 
 1805. Aspiration of Prayer. — Oh, 
 how beautiful becomes that life which 
 is evermore tending upward ! 
 
 First, in the morning, when the old 
 New England fire was kindled, a 
 simple spark was put in the shavings ; 
 then the wood was piled on ; and 
 then, little by little, up through the 
 whole rolled the blue smoke ; and by 
 and by were seen coming forth arrows 
 of flame ; and, as the pile began more 
 and more to be caught, how every 
 flash shot upward ! How everything 
 in that fire tended heavenward ! And 
 whenever a stick broke and fell down, 
 what myriad sparks rushed up to 
 dazzle the eye of the imaginative 
 child! 
 
 It should be just so with the altar- 
 fire of the heart. When first kindled, 
 in the midst of fears and doubts, the 
 smoke may roll upward ; but the mo- 
 ment the life has caught, and it is 
 once aglow, then every little thought 
 and every little feeling should leap 
 upward, and the whole soul should 
 bound Godward. Thus you will 
 come to fulfill, not so much the covi- 
 mand, as the sweet exhortation, of the 
 apostle, " Pray without ceasing." 
 
 1806. Varied Elements of Prayer. 
 — In any comprehensive Christian ex- 
 
PRAYER 
 
 383 
 
 perience that utters itself in prayer, 
 you will find that confession, supplica- 
 tion, communion, thanksgiving, and 
 praise come and go and blend to form 
 the great whole, as do the tones of 
 different instruments in a well-chorded 
 orchestra. 
 
 1807. Silent Prayer. — Grant thy 
 blessing upon thy people, this morn- 
 ing, assembled here. Though their 
 lips be silent, what clouds of incense 
 from every heart go up in petitions to 
 thee ! 
 
 1808. Prayer a Relief. — I pray on 
 the principle that the wine knocks the 
 cork out of a bottle. There is an in- 
 ward fermentation, and there must be 
 a vent. The soul prays first ; the 
 tongue may, afterwards. 
 
 1809. Life Interpreting God through 
 Prayer. — It is by having in me feelings 
 representing the Divine nature, that I 
 know something of what are the flood- 
 tides and ocean-depths of that nature. 
 And I think almost every Christian 
 will say that Christ did not come to 
 him in the closet, but that as, per- 
 haps, he was walking, like the apostles 
 who went to Emmaus, about his busi- 
 ness, or fulfilling some duty without 
 thought of remuneration, Christ came 
 and caused to burst upon him such a 
 vision and sense of God as was never 
 gained in reading, or in any act of 
 prayer. 
 
 I do not put discredit upon reading 
 or prayer, but I say this : that they 
 put into us the material — they lay the 
 train — which practical experience 
 strikes fire into, and flashes in. They 
 put into us material that manifests it- 
 self when life interprets it. If we 
 keep the commands of Christ he will 
 manifest himself to us. 
 
 1810. Prayer Spiritual not Material. 
 — A father hears that his child has 
 prayed that God would give him a 
 sled ; and in order to confirm the 
 
 child's trust in God he buys a sled, 
 and slyly puts it in the child's room 
 the next day, and so cheats the child 
 into a lie, teaching him to believe that 
 he can pray for sleds, and have his 
 prayers answered. 
 
 But men have found out that in all 
 spheres except the spiritual God acts 
 only generically, leaving germ-forms, 
 primitive organizations, to work out 
 their own functions under human 
 volitions. And even spiritual effects 
 are wrought out through natural — 
 that is, God-ordained — principles. 
 
 181 1. The Prayer-Meeting. — Goto 
 the plantation, and see those poor 
 children of darkness (dark both ways, 
 outside and in) gathered together, and 
 singing hymns which are a mixture of 
 heathen mythology and Scripture ; 
 see them spring into the air with wild 
 outcry and fantastic gestures. There 
 are a thousand things to be pruned and 
 corrected in their mode of worship- 
 ing ; but 1 think there is something 
 worse than their rude manifestations. 
 
 Go, now, with me into that stately 
 room where there are thirty or forty 
 or fifty people. Each one picks out a 
 whole pew, and sits down in it. And 
 each one is perfectly proper. Nobody 
 speaks to anybody. And when the 
 choir sing, three or four of the con- 
 gregation manage to join in the sing- 
 ing. And one gets up to speak, and 
 says just what he said thirty or forty 
 years ago, and what he has repeated 
 about once a week ever since. And 
 when he takes his seat another gets 
 up and goes through a stereotyped 
 speech. And when he is done an- 
 other gets up, and perhaps reproves 
 them both. And when he sits down 
 one or two prayers are uttered — pray- 
 ers that have taken root in the mem- 
 ory, and that are repeated for the 
 thousandth time ! And that is called 
 a meeting. There has been no inde- 
 
384 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 coriim, no impropriety, not a single 
 exceptional thing, except this, that 
 they were a set of corpses making be- 
 Heve that they were alive. And I 
 say that the wildest dance of ex-slaves 
 in the woods is better than such a 
 meeting ! Life is the first element of 
 everything that is proper or in good 
 taste. If you must give up either 
 order and regularity or high feeling, 
 give up the order and regularity. 
 
 1812. Forms of Prayer. — The ques- 
 tion as to the wisdom of formulated 
 prayer is involved ; and about that I 
 have only to say, that they who find 
 that they can pray better out of the 
 Book have God's dear leave to pray 
 out of the Book. That road in which 
 your feet ascend easiest and fastest 
 towards the heavenly gate is your 
 road ; and you need no priest, no 
 minister, no authority, to tell you to 
 walk in it. If you can pray more to 
 edification by the formulated prayers 
 of the Church than by extemporane- 
 ous prayers, so pray. But it is not for 
 you to turn upon me and say that ex- 
 temporaneous prayers are unedifying. 
 You have a right to say that they do 
 not edify you, but not to say that they 
 do not edify me and other people. 
 
 1813. Short and Long Prayers. — 
 A navigator has been running without 
 an observation for days and nights, 
 he is whelmed in darkness, he fears 
 he is going on to a dangerous shore, 
 and he is in great distress. But by 
 and by the wind shifts, and the clouds 
 which have so long covered the heav- 
 ens begin to break, and the man runs 
 and gets his instrument, and a cloud 
 lifts for a single moment, and out 
 shines a familiar star, and he catches 
 a glimpse of it, and down shuts the 
 cloud again. " Ah ! " he says, "shut, 
 if you want to, I've got all I want." 
 He has borrowed from the regular 
 movements of the divine clockwork 
 
 what he needs for his reckoning, and 
 it did not take him more than a min- 
 ute. And he says, " Now I know 
 just where we are." Was not that 
 minute's work as good as if he had 
 been an hour about it? 
 
 Now, a man who prays, and who, 
 praying, feels the heart of God ; who 
 feels that his soul, like a quick bird 
 that darts from the forest-shade into 
 the sunlight, is, by thought or feeling, 
 lifted into the presence of God, into 
 the influences of the eternal world, 
 into the heavenly state, has got an 
 impulse, and has obtained the desired 
 object. I do not say that if he could 
 abide there it would be wrong. I do 
 not say that he is forbidden to range 
 there if he can range. But this being 
 sorry because one cannot pray long, 
 when a short prayer answers every 
 purpose, is absurd. Prayer is not to 
 be measured by the yard. It is a 
 thing of quality, not of quantity. 
 
 1814. "Continuing Instant in 
 Prayer," — This means, not going 
 down on your knees all the time, not 
 praying by the clock, but being in the 
 spirit of communion with God, and 
 pouring your thoughts, as if you had 
 a companion close by you, into his 
 bosom continually. 
 
 1815. " Without Ceasing.'' — In re- 
 gard to the moral sentiments and the 
 affections, men know that by educa- 
 tion certain parts of the mind learn to 
 diffuse their influence gently, and al- 
 most continuously, through the experi- 
 ence of life. We live habitually under 
 the influence, direct or indirect, of 
 certain of our feelings. And to " pray 
 without ceasing" means, not that we 
 are literally to iterate and reiterate 
 without cessation the words of prayer, 
 but that we are to give to this praying 
 tendency of the mind the education 
 that we give to taste, to kindness, to 
 conscientiousness and to understand- 
 
PRAYER 
 
 385 
 
 \ng. We are to make it not an occa- 
 sional but a uniform tendency, so that 
 even when we are not praying by di- 
 rect voHtion there will be a latent im- 
 pulse towards converse with God, felt 
 through all the soul. 
 
 1816. Prayer to be Spontaneous. — 
 One is asked, " Did you say your 
 prayers to-day ? " " No ; I did not ! " 
 " Great pity ! You ought to have 
 done it." Why ought he? Do you 
 suppose I am bound to talk to my God 
 when I do not feel like it? Do you 
 suppose I am under a service more 
 exacting in my relations to my 
 heavenly Father than a child is in his 
 relations to his earthly parent, or than 
 a friend is in his relations to a friend ? 
 If I am not in a mood to talk to you, 
 you do not lose confidence in me. If 
 I am in a mood to be taciturn, you do 
 not blame me. And if I am not in a 
 mood to talk with God, he understands 
 that mood. 
 
 Pray, if you feel Hke it ; and keep 
 silent if you do not. Do not 7na/;£ 
 believe in the matter of praying. 
 
 1817. The Prayer of Duty .—A child 
 is fractious, and has done wrong, and 
 is soundly whipped ; and when it has 
 cried its cry, and it is time for it to 
 make up, the mother says, " Now 
 come and kiss me." The child hesi- 
 tates, and draws back, and the mother 
 says, " You must, or I shall whip you 
 again." And rather than be whipped 
 again, the child, all tears, and pout- 
 ing, comes up and kisses the mother. 
 How much is such a kiss as that 
 worth ? 
 
 There are many persons, it seems 
 to me, who have this feeling about 
 prayer : " If I am a Christian, I must 
 perform Christian duties; and prayer 
 is one of them." And they pray be- 
 cause they feel that they must. 
 
 1818. Prayer in Emergency. — May 
 a man that is not wont to pray, in 
 
 sudden danger cry out to God ? Why 
 not? May a man pray who is a sin- 
 ner? Why not? I ask you, are you 
 better than God ? And yet, suppose 
 a man be lazy ; suppose, by his own 
 fault, he has come to famine, and, 
 pale and fainting, he falls upon your 
 doorstep, and, with the last strength 
 he has, he says: "A morsel of 
 bread! For God's sake! a morsel 
 of bread!" Will you say to him: 
 "Why did you not work?" Will 
 you read to him a lesson on economy, 
 and quote to him that passage of 
 Scripture which declares that the man 
 who will not work shall not eat ? You 
 will feed him first. 
 
 i8ig. Prayer under Pressure. — It is 
 very blessed that men should be 
 moved to pray in emergencies of af- 
 fliction or peril ; that is better than 
 nothing : but oh ! how poor is prayer 
 where men are driven to it by the 
 whip, and where they resort to it only 
 when they feel the lash of trouble and 
 affliction upon their backs ! What 
 would you think of a son that never 
 went home to his father except when 
 he was in debt, and had the sheriff" at 
 his heels, and wanted help ; and who, 
 the moment he obtained the relief 
 which he sought, forgot that father 
 again, and cared nothing for him ? It 
 is better for a child to go to his par- 
 ents, even when he is by his wicked- 
 ness driven to them, than to avoid 
 them in his emergency; but how little 
 has he the education of a true son if 
 he goes only then ! 
 
 1820. Delayed Answer to Prayer. — 
 If God's chastisements make you bet- 
 ter, thank God for them. Those un- 
 feeling words, that cold look, and that 
 indifferent way of Christ [to the Syro- 
 Phenician woman] — what a gush of 
 feeling they brought out from this 
 woman's soul! That pushing away 
 — how it brought the pleading hands 
 
386 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 out, as it were ! How it caused every 
 tendril and fiber of her heart to clasp 
 and cling to the Saviour, and made 
 her refuse to let him go ! It was out 
 of the apparent winter of his face that 
 her summer came. . . . Do not feel 
 when God is dealing with you severely 
 that he has forgotten you. It takes a 
 great while to answer some prayers. 
 
 1821. Patient Waiting. — Is your 
 child vagrant ? Pray for him ; work 
 for him, and then wait. Afar off may 
 be the turning, and yet it may be 
 there. Ere long you shall see it, 
 though your eyes do not behold it 
 now. Time is in God's hands, and he 
 stretches it out wide, and we think 
 that he has forgotten us. Wait upon 
 the Lord. Trust him. 
 
 1822. Importunate Prayer. — Bow 
 down before him and plead. Do not 
 be put away by his silence. The 
 wonderful silence of God, if you only 
 knew it, is full of promise and bless- 
 ing. Yea, though he frown upon you 
 and rebuke you, and things seem to 
 grow worse and worse, hold on, and 
 by and by he shall say, " O woman ! 
 be it unto thee even as thou wilt." 
 From such instances as these we get 
 wine. These are precious clusters. 
 We press them, and get from them 
 juice, which we keep from day today, 
 to revive our hope. 
 
 1823. Prayer, a Universal Recourse. 
 — Do not think that you are the only 
 men that pray. Drunkards pray. 
 There is not a man here who has put 
 up such anguishful petitions to God as 
 some men have who are very bad in 
 the sight of the world. Do you sup- 
 pose that men who are bad go down 
 without prickings of conscience, and 
 without many yearnings for the 
 interposition of God's power? I tell 
 you, the struggles of men who are 
 going down to death are often a 
 thousand times more admirable in the 
 
 sight of God than the easy efforts of 
 men naturally born to virtue. 
 
 1824. The Prayer of the Wicked.— 
 Is not " the sacrifice of the wicked an 
 abomination to the Lord" ? Yes, if a 
 man tries to garnish his wickedness by 
 sacrifice, and thinks that after sacrifice 
 he may go on with plenary indulgence 
 again. But to interpet it so that a 
 man may not pray until he is con- 
 verted, is to shut out the universe. 
 May not my son, who little by little 
 has been weakened and through years 
 of degradation has separated himself 
 from me until sickness overtakes 
 him — when then in his wretchedness 
 he has fevered dreams of his home, 
 may he not call out " O, my father! " 
 may he not invoke his mother until he 
 has been restored to health, and to his 
 right mind ? 
 
 1825. Moral Disability. — I believe 
 that the bitterest prayers which ever 
 go to heaven, are prayers of poor 
 drunkards, in their intervals of re- 
 morse for the past, and longing for the 
 future. Why, then, do they not break 
 away from the cup? Because the 
 power of choice is destroyed in them, 
 almost, — quite, in some instances. 
 For drunkenness becomes a disease 
 for which a man is totally irresponsi- 
 ble after a while. He has broken 
 down the very mainspring of char- 
 acter. And in such stages as this he 
 should be treated just as the insane 
 are treated. He should be put into an 
 asylum. He should be dealt with as 
 we deal with little children, and those 
 who cannot take care of themselves. 
 
 1826. The Cry of the Penitent. — 
 Wherever there is a man conscious 
 that he has done wrong again and 
 again and again, and that in his own 
 strength he can never stand, and that 
 he needs help, he has a right to ask 
 for it. "I am lost in sin ; I have no 
 strength to rescue myself ; thou art 
 
PRAYER 
 
 387 
 
 God; save mc ! "— that is an argu- 
 ment which knocks louder at the 
 bosom of God than any battle-ax at 
 the gate of any castle on earth. 
 
 1827. Prayer and Self-help. — Pray 
 that God will restrain your wrong 
 tendencies ; but take care, when you 
 pray, that you help yourself. The re- 
 sponsibility is on you. 
 
 If I have bought a pair of fiery 
 horses, and I sit behind them to make 
 my experimental ride, I do not think 
 it unmanly to commit my soul to God 
 and ask him to protect me ; but I do 
 not throw the reins down on the dash- 
 board and trust to Providence alone. 
 I pray, to be sure ; but I watch my 
 horses all the time. I drive with all 
 the care that is possible ; driving for 
 everybody on the road, as every good 
 driver does, as well as for myself. As 
 every man knows what his weakness is, 
 whether it be pride, or selfishness, or 
 anger, or any other of these besetting 
 sins, he should in prayer ask for pro- 
 tection ; but prayer will not secure 
 that blessing to him except through 
 his own exertions. He must be waked 
 up to will and to do of God's good 
 pleasure. 
 
 1828. Resisting Answers to Prayer. 
 — A sick child wants to get well ; but 
 when he tastes the bitter medicine he 
 does not want to take that. A slug- 
 gard longs for riches, but he does not 
 want industry. An intemperate man 
 wants to be temperate, but he cannot 
 give up the cup. And so men, in 
 prayer, from day to day, are asking 
 God for that which, when he is dis- 
 posed to give it, they resist, and put 
 away, and do not want. 
 
 1829. Watch and Pray. — What are 
 these two elements that are joined ? 
 Prayer stands comprehensively for 
 spiritual force — the invisible power 
 which God wields in the affairs of men 
 and of the world. WatcJiitig iizsid^^ for 
 
 human power, or that knowledge and 
 control of visible forces which are 
 within the purview of man. And 
 these two are joined together in every 
 office, spiritual and temporal, of life. 
 The human and the divine together 
 minister success. You should pray 
 for the things which you are to work 
 out yourself; and you should yourself 
 work out the things for which you pray. 
 
 1830. Casting Care on God. — I 
 think men do with their cares as sol- 
 diers do with their accoutrements, 
 when they go to dinner. They stack 
 them up, and leave them till they 
 have finished their meal, and then 
 each fellow goes back and takes up 
 his knapsack, and puts it on, and 
 takes up his old musket, and shoulders 
 that, and walks off as much burdened 
 as before. We go into our closets 
 and pray about our children till we 
 think we have laid them down before 
 God, and then we turn and take them 
 up again and walk off with them. 
 We pray in our closets about this and 
 that trouble, and go out feeling that 
 we have laid them down before God ; 
 but in less than five minutes back to 
 us they come again. We should ask 
 God to help our efforts, but our care 
 we should cast upon him. 
 
 1831. Prayer for Others. — If one of 
 your children should come to you beg- 
 ging for fruit, or for some article for 
 his own personal gratification, you 
 might be disposed to grant it to him ; 
 but suppose one of them should come 
 to you and plead in behalf of another 
 child, and tell what his troubles were, 
 explaining why he ought to be in- 
 dulged, would not the generosity of 
 the child open your heart ? Would 
 you not feel a double obligation to 
 grant the request, first because the 
 thing was proper for the child, and 
 second because it pleased you to have 
 this disinterested importunity .'' When 
 
388 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 we come before God he loves, without 
 doubt, to hear us plead for our own 
 wants ; but when we plead for others 
 there is in it an element of mag- 
 nanimity and grace which God, it 
 seems to me, must love and be more 
 inclined to favor than petitions in our 
 own behalf. 
 
 1832, Divine Willingness to Help. 
 — The oftener you go to God for help, 
 the more welcome you are. When a 
 man comes to you for counsel, it not 
 only does not impoverish you to give 
 him the benefit of your knowledge and 
 wisdom, but you are gratified at his 
 consulting you, and you take pleasure 
 in lending yourself to him. I cannot 
 
 conceive of a man who, having a 
 store of discreet knowledge should be 
 unwilling to use it for the succor of 
 his fellow-men. If ducats were as 
 plenty with me as thoughts, I should 
 be most happy to lend to everybody. 
 
 1833. Thoughts and Feelings are 
 Prayers. — It is not necessary for me 
 to go to God as I would to a man, or 
 as I would address a human being 
 through the post, writing a letter and 
 putting on it name, street and number. 
 I am open before him. He knows me 
 through and through. He reads my 
 very thoughts and feelings, and all 
 my desires that are upward and right 
 and noble are prayers. 
 
 XXXII. THE BIBLE 
 
 1834. Right Use of the Bible.— The 
 Bible is like a telescope. If a man 
 looks through his telescope, then he 
 sees worlds beyond ; but if he looks 
 at his telescope, then he does not see 
 anything but that. The Bible is a 
 thing to be looked through, to see that 
 which is beyond ; but most people 
 only look at it ; and so they see only 
 the dead letter. 
 
 1835. Inspiration. — It is the grow- 
 ing human race that has been inspired; 
 and the Bible in every part of it was 
 lived first, and the record of it made 
 afterwards. As a great poet never 
 originates, but only throws into mas- 
 terful forms the sum of all the thoughts 
 and feelings that exist down to his 
 time ; as Shakespeare did not create 
 his characters, but saw them, and with 
 genius had the power to gather them 
 into groups and unfold them — not as 
 anything that was new, but as that 
 which was existing, though incoherent, 
 dispersed, inorganic ; so the race itself 
 was inspired to growth, and lived until 
 some results of experience had become 
 widespread and vaguely recognized. 
 
 The time came when a man of large 
 nature, feeling more sensitively the in- 
 spiration of the Divine nature, was 
 able to gather, to fix, and give out as 
 truth, these unorganized elements — 
 never perhaps before put into written 
 form. 
 
 1836. Essential Quality of the Bible. 
 — The true Bible is not the dead book, 
 but the living reality, developed by 
 the spirit of God in the conscience of 
 mankind. It is not a printed thing. 
 The printed thing is the memorial of 
 it, a souvenir of it, a mere chart ; and 
 the chart is not the ocean. 
 
 1837. The Bible a Growth. — If the 
 race were to step upon the earth as 
 our children do into a school, the 
 Bible would have been made for them, 
 and the first man would have had it 
 as well as the last. We find it already 
 written, and waiting for us, but the 
 first generation found not a line. 
 They found only the world into which 
 they were born. The race has evolved 
 the Bible, not the Bible the race, ex- 
 cept in later days. God educated 
 men, that through them he might 
 
THE BIBLE 
 
 389 
 
 write the Bible for later days. He 
 evolved the mind of man in the proc- 
 ess of education, and then moved 
 them to tell what he had done ; and 
 that is the Bible. 
 
 1838. The World Interprets the 
 Bible. — When you see a real flower, 
 you know what the Bible means when 
 it says " flower." In all things that are 
 cognizable by man's senses, he finds 
 what is the thing spoken of in the 
 Bible by going to the thing itself, out- 
 side of the Bible. It is absurd to say 
 that the Bible must be its own sole 
 expounder. 
 
 1839. Life an Expounder of Moral 
 Truth. — Science does not depend on 
 books ; it is found in the nature of 
 things. Books are the means by 
 which it is brought to our knowledge. 
 So, moral truth does not depend on 
 the Bible. The Bible does not create 
 it : but merely expounds it, brings it 
 into practical shapes, and makes it 
 usable to men. And such is the in- 
 finite wisdom and mercy of God, 
 that if you should burn every Bible 
 on the globe, though much knowledge 
 of truth would be quenched, yet the 
 world would not lose a single truth. 
 For truths are organic. They spring 
 from the way in which you and I are 
 made, and are bred together in life. 
 They belong to the nature of things. 
 So that the essential truths of Chris- 
 tianity will be found not merely in 
 Scripture, but outside of it. They are 
 not true because the Bible says they 
 are ; but they are contained in the 
 Bible because they are true, and were 
 true before they were recorded. 
 
 1840. The Heart makes Known the 
 Book. — Dictionaries and grammars 
 are like to a house-key. A key can 
 unlock the outward door, but cannot 
 introduce you to the people that live 
 there, nor tell you what they are. 
 And so, though dictionaries and gram- 
 
 mars, and exegetical and hermeneu- 
 tical helps, can introduce you into the 
 books of the Bible, your own heart 
 must be your teacher after that, or 
 you will have none. If you have no 
 depths, no wants, no joys, no sor- 
 rows, with which to read, and through 
 which to understand, then you cannot 
 interpret this world-book. For the 
 Bible is the heart-book of the world. 
 
 1841. Antiquity of New Truths. — 
 Centuries of men pass over the Scrip- 
 tures, and know not what riches lie 
 under the feet of their interpretation. 
 Sometimes when they discover them 
 they call them "new truths." You 
 might as well call gold, newly dug, 
 " new gold." 
 
 1842. Mystic Interpretation Unhelp- 
 ful. — What we want now is to rescue 
 the Bible from the mists and fogs that 
 have surrounded it, and lay it open 
 before the judgment of mankind, and 
 say, "Fearlessly inspect it; read it; 
 think about it ! " It will stand that, 
 and will be all the stronger for it. I 
 am tired of a mystic interpretation of 
 the Bible which takes it away from 
 matter-of-fact people by wrenching 
 it out of its true relations, and sub- 
 stitutes clouds that have no rain in 
 them for substantial realities. I am 
 in favor of seeing the Word of God 
 handled in the way that any other 
 documents would naturally be han- 
 dled, by well-ascertained laws of rea- 
 son applied to interpretation. 
 
 1843. Outside Light on the Bible. — 
 When the Bible speaks of things that 
 you cannot learn anything about by 
 turning from passage to passage of 
 Scripture, seek information concern- 
 ing it elsewhere. If it speaks of silver 
 you may turn to Matthew, or Revela- 
 tion, or Isaiah, or any other of the 
 books of the Old and New Testa- 
 ments, and you will not gain as much 
 light in regard to it as you will by tak- 
 
390 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 ing :i piece of silver ore, or a bar of 
 bullion, or a dollar piece, and looking 
 at that. . . . riic same is true of 
 mental operations. When the attri- 
 butes of the mind are spoken of in the 
 Bible we ascertain what those attri- 
 butes are, not by going by the Bible 
 itself, but by observing their manifes- 
 tations in human life. What justice, 
 love, and goodness are, of which so 
 much is said in the inspired record, we 
 learn outside of that record. 
 
 1844, The Book. — Once I walked 
 through the old streets of London, 
 where every other house has a history 
 such that one might well pause before 
 it, and ponder for hours. I walked 
 along the fields where many a grand 
 scene had been enacted. At Win- 
 chester I visited the old cathedral. 
 I went through it. 1 would live in 
 it a month if I could. The wide in- 
 terior was filled with unimagined 
 beauty and glory. That cathedral 
 was built in successive ages ; so that 
 every part of the architecture, by the 
 harmony of the varied materials of 
 which it was composed, fitly repre- 
 sented how all forms of religious 
 thought may be harmonized in one 
 great community of the true Christian 
 Church. I saw the tombs of the old 
 kings. Greater than they were the 
 three great architects who had con- 
 structed this mighty cathedral. It 
 was a museum of antiquity. It was 
 full of life. I trembled with sensibil- 
 ity. And the impression will never 
 die out of my mind. 
 
 But what is that cathedral compared 
 with this silent cathedral, the Bible, in 
 whose aisles have sounded the foot- 
 steps, not only of kings and emperors, 
 but, from generation to generation, the 
 footsteps of the httle child, and the 
 mother and father of the household ; 
 and the footsteps of multitudes upon 
 multitudes of worthies of the church. 
 
 all the way back, a hundred years, 
 five hundred years, ten hundred 
 years, fifteen hundred years ; and the 
 footsteps of uncounted heroes who 
 have gone up to heaven consoled and 
 enlightened by the pages of the Word 
 of God ! 
 
 How venerable is this Book ! How 
 full of precious memories is it ! How 
 does it not only teach us the way of 
 life, but group about itself the most 
 significant features of history ! And 
 are we, with the sciolist's ignorance, 
 with unvenerating contempt, with ill- 
 omened presumption, to ostracize the 
 Bible, to expunge its truths, to drive 
 it out of our library, and to live with- 
 out its light ? 
 
 1845. Many-Sidedness of the Bible. 
 — We see streams setting from the 
 Word of God, almost innumerable, of 
 theories and doctrines ; and they can 
 hardly all be correct, because some 
 of them are mutually destructive. It 
 may be said of the Bible, as it is of 
 the alphabet : it is what you make it. 
 With you is the combination of letters, 
 and the literature is yours. 
 
 1846. The Bible an Everyday 
 Book. — It is a Book pitched to the 
 key of common life, and not to an ar- 
 tificial key. Many want the Bible to 
 act on men as Sinai acted on the peo- 
 ple at its base ; and if it did, they 
 would be affected about as the Is- 
 raelites were, who hearing the voice 
 of the thunder and worshiping God 
 one day, danced around a golden 
 calf the next. You find in it scarcely 
 an element which when it was written 
 was not familiar to the minds of the 
 common people ; it took its keynote 
 from these great qualities common to 
 humanity. 
 
 1847. True Significance of the 
 Bible. — Trees are ragged. Though 
 they have an ideal of form, they seem 
 hardly to care for it. They are nicked 
 
THE BIBLE 
 
 391 
 
 m their bark. They are knotted and 
 warted. They are twisted and dis- 
 torted in every way. There seems to 
 be no principle in nature that cares 
 much for these minor things. 
 
 It is just the same in Scripture. Je- 
 hovah seems to have gathered up the 
 vital truths of each age, and recorded 
 them. The grand feature of Scripture 
 is its high moral element. In each 
 age, purity of affections, love, justice, 
 energy for good, and obedience to 
 divine authority, have been the chief 
 ends ; and much of human history 
 that has illustrated them has been 
 written out, and grouped together, and 
 called The Bible. In recording these 
 things there is no pedantry, no preci- 
 sionism. With reference to all mere 
 external forms and incidental fillings up 
 there is that same magnificent appar- 
 ent carelessness that there is in nature. 
 We are to look for the divinity of the 
 Bible, as we look for divinity in nature, 
 as we look for the stars — not where 
 our hands are, or our feet, but above 
 our heads, in the higher region where 
 man's moral sentiments dwell. It is 
 there that God flames, and that his 
 truths are made to be most mag- 
 nificent. 
 
 1848. Bible Reading. — A great 
 many have a superstitious feeling 
 about reading the Bible. Men carry 
 texts as Indians carry amulets, with 
 the superstitious idea that God will 
 bless them to their good. The mere 
 reading of the Bible, or carrying of 
 texts, will not do you any good. A 
 man may own a farm, and yet go to 
 the poorhouse. His land must be 
 cultivated, or it will do him no good. 
 
 1849. What Readers Find in the 
 Bible. — Did you ever see iron sepa- 
 rated from sand by a magnet? You 
 go and pick out the iron with your 
 hands, guided by your eyes. It is a 
 long and wearisome task, and is but 
 
 imperfectly done at best. Now take 
 tiiat magnet — that crooked piece of 
 iron without an eye in its head by 
 which to see — and draw it through 
 and through the sand, and it will 
 gather up every particle of the iron. 
 
 Every man's predominant faculty is 
 a magnet. One man's magnet is love ; 
 and when he draws it through the 
 Bible, every element that attaches to 
 the question of love sticks to it. When 
 he reads the Bible he says, "Ah! 
 how anybody can read the Bible and 
 not see that it is all love, I cannot un- 
 derstand." His neighbor has been 
 reading the same Bible, but he has 
 gone through it with the magnet of 
 conscience, and there is nothing but 
 justice that sticks to it. He says, 
 " You need not tell me about the 
 kingdom of God being a kingdom of 
 love ; it is a kingdom of justice, jus- 
 tice, JUSTICE." And he holds every 
 man responsible for exact right and 
 wrong. Another man draws his mag- 
 net of veneration through the Bible, 
 and says, " How any man dare talk 
 so familiarly of the Creator is a mys- 
 tery to me! God is an awful being ! " 
 It is all veneration with him. Another 
 man, smiling and rejoicing, draws his 
 magnet through the Bible, and out 
 comes a rainbow ; out come beautiful 
 flowers ; dripping clouds ; delightful 
 music ; all that is bright and glorious : 
 and he says, " Why, God is a God of 
 beauty ! All through the Bible is 
 beauty." 
 
 And so every person takes the 
 strongest faculty in himself, and 
 makes a magnet of it, and goes 
 through the Bible, and takes out that 
 element which is in affinity with it. 
 
 1850. Private Interpretation. — It is 
 said, " If you take this dangerous 
 view of individual liberty in the inter- 
 pretation of the Scriptures every man 
 will aspire to become a master, and 
 
392 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 will presume to take just what he 
 chooses out of the Bible." Yes, that 
 is so. That is just the way we have 
 been doing about nature, and what we 
 are doing to this day about all knowl- 
 edge. God made the world just as it 
 is. He never set up a sign, " This is 
 a rock; do not let it fall on you." 
 Man learned that. In regard to every- 
 thing that we have actual knowledge 
 of, we have come to that knowledge 
 by the slow process of finding out. 
 Human life has crept up the incHned 
 plane, not inch by inch, but by the 
 millionth of an inch, at a time. So 
 too men will find and take from the 
 Bible that which they need — and each 
 for himself. We do it on any theory. 
 
 1851. The Spiritual Expert.— If I 
 examine a basketful of minerals from 
 California, I shall know that this 
 specimen has gold in it, because I see 
 there little points of yellow gold ; but 
 I shall not know what the white and 
 the dark points are that I see. But 
 let a metallurgist look at it, and he 
 will see that it contains not only gold, 
 but silver, and lead, and iron, and he 
 will single them out. Now, the Word 
 of God is filled with precious stones 
 and metals, and let one instructed in 
 spiritual insight go through it, and he 
 will discover all these treasures ; 
 while if you let a man uninstructed in 
 spiritual insight go through it, he will 
 discover those things that are outside 
 and apparent, but those things that 
 make God and man friends, and that 
 have to do with the immortality of 
 the soul in heaven, will escape his 
 notice. 
 
 1852. How to Read the Bible. — 
 When I sit in my house, where there 
 is no gale, and with no ship, and read 
 my chart out of curiosity, I read it as 
 you read your Bible. You steer off 
 there, and say, " Here is the head- 
 land of depravity." You steer along 
 
 here, and say, " There is a lighthouse 
 — born again." You steer in another 
 direction, and come upon the channel 
 of duty, and say, " Ah, six feet 
 deep ! " And so you read the Word 
 of God as at my leisure I read my 
 chart. But every one of you has 
 charge of a ship — the human soul. 
 Evil passions are fierce winds that are 
 driving it along the ways of necessity. 
 This Bible is God's chart for you to 
 steer by, to keep you from the bottom 
 of the sea, and to show you where the 
 harbor is, and how to reach it without 
 running on rocks or bars. 
 
 1853. The Bible: Reading for Cure. 
 — A man who has a sharp pain in his 
 side never goes to a history of medi- 
 cine and reads it through. He takes 
 a medical book, and hunts for a 
 description of that pain, and of the 
 remedy which is prescribed for it. 
 
 Just so you ought to read the Bible. 
 You should take the symptoms that 
 you have, and see what the Word of 
 God says about them. 
 
 iS54- Ignorance as to God's Prom- 
 ises. — Tea was first served in England 
 as greens for eating. The people re- 
 jected it, and thought it rather an im- 
 position, as one might well suppose 
 they would have done. When pota- 
 toes were first introduced into Ireland, 
 the inhabitants plucked the berries 
 from the top of the vines, and boiled 
 them, and the cultivation of potatoes 
 was rejected there, because they did 
 not know how to use the esculent 
 roots. 
 
 And many and many a man rejects, 
 or fails to profit by, the promises of 
 God's Word, because he does not 
 know how to gather them and cook 
 them and use them, 
 
 1855. Searching the Scriptures. — 
 As diligent bees fill their cells with 
 honey unseen and unknown to others, 
 so may we search thy Word, which is 
 
THE BIBLE 
 
 393 
 
 sweeter than honey in the honey- 
 comb, for hidden delights. As men 
 dig gold, laboring through days and 
 nights, so may we search for that 
 precious truth which shall give to us a 
 new manhood, a nobler aspiration, a 
 nearer alliance to God and more 
 blessed joy. 
 
 1856. Skimming the Bible. — I sup- 
 pose no person ever did or ever will 
 read the whole Bible in his life. I 
 know there are persons who read it 
 by letter ; I hear people say that they 
 make it a rule to read the whole Bible 
 through once a year. I have no 
 doubt that they skate over it once a 
 year; but do not think they do more 
 than that, because it is not all for 
 them. . . . The Bible is filled with 
 ineffable riches for men ; but it be- 
 longs to every man to select accord- 
 ing to his need. 
 
 1857. Blind Reading of the Bible. 
 — You have walked through an oak 
 forest, and you did not see in the 
 trees the handles of various imple- 
 ments ; you did not see in their rough 
 trunks magnificent planks for side- 
 boards and wainscotings ; you did not 
 see in them tables and bureaus and 
 bedsteads ; and yet all these things 
 were in them. 
 
 You walk through the chapters of 
 the Bible, and although to one whose 
 eyes are enlightened they are full of 
 wondrous thoughts and economies, 
 you do not see them. You have not 
 formed the habit of reading the Word 
 of God so as to come to that under- 
 standing of its contents which comes 
 by prayer, by song and by trial. 
 
 1858. Careless Bible Reading. — As 
 one that walks along a path in some 
 country street or lane, morning and 
 night, treads upon a thousand roots 
 and chance flowers, and at the end of 
 the season only remembers that there 
 was a greensward, neglecting and 
 
 scarcely discerning the single flowers, 
 so one walks the shaded places of the 
 Bible. They were all wayside flowers, 
 and he has learned nothing except a 
 cushioned path for his feet. So, 
 familiarity with some of the richest 
 scenes both of the Old Testament and 
 of the New, takes away from them 
 both their beauty and their profit to 
 us ; and this is especially true in read- 
 ing the life of our Saviour. 
 
 1859. The Bible as Furniture. — A 
 man goes to housekeeping, and gets a 
 Bible, with his name on the inside, 
 and his name on the outside, and puts 
 it on the table, in his best room ; and 
 there it lies for months and years with- 
 out being opened — unless there is a 
 funeral in the family ! Suppose I 
 should go to housekeeping, and 
 should give an order to the grocer for 
 three boxes of sperm candles, and 
 should put those candles away in the 
 attic, and never light one of them ? 
 That is the very figure of our Master. 
 He says, " No man puts a candle 
 under a bushel, but he lights it and 
 puts it on a candlestick." 
 
 i860. The Bible a Map.— The Bible 
 bears precisely the same relation to 
 knowledge in this matter that a well 
 constructed map bears to the places 
 which you wish to seek. Suppose for 
 instance that there should be found in 
 some crypt or old temple of Central 
 America a long lost topographical 
 map in which were designated the 
 places where silver and gold and pre- 
 cious stones were to be found, in 
 mines once known to the Incas and 
 princes. There is many a man who 
 has gone on a fool's errand searching 
 for lost treasures there, but suppose a 
 map should be found revealing its 
 long hidden mines or places of de- 
 posit. The map would contain no 
 gold or silver. You might dig in the 
 map but you could not get it. But if 
 
394 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 you were to take that map and follow 
 its directions you would come to the 
 thing outside of it for which you were 
 seeking. 
 
 Now the Word of God is a chart of 
 duty. You do not get the thing itself 
 by merely reading. It tells you what 
 to get, where to get it, and how to 
 get it. 
 
 1861. Unfound Treasures in the 
 Bible. — Treasures of God's bounty are 
 strewn under every hedge, and on 
 either side of every fence, and many a 
 man knows nothing of them. They 
 come every season, wait for attention, 
 and get none. There are medicinal 
 roots in every field which are never 
 discovered. Many a man is buried 
 within a yard of plants that, if their 
 healing properties had been known, 
 would have saved his life, 
 
 God's Word is like such a field. 
 There are promises in it that no man 
 has ever tried to find. There are 
 medicines in it for the want of a 
 knowledge of which hundreds have 
 died. 
 
 1862. Laws of Life Interpreted. — If 
 you were to receive from an expert 
 physician a line of rules or precepts — 
 in respect to rising early, bathing, 
 suitable clothes, proper food, the 
 warmth or coldness of food, the use 
 of the right kinds of food and the 
 right kinds of liquids, the labor which 
 it is right to engage in, the amount of 
 labor to be performed, the pauses in 
 labor, the various relations of the 
 body to times and seasons and to oc- 
 cupations — he would interpret to you 
 in words that which inhered in you 
 before. These rules, or precepts, or 
 laws, would but express what was be- 
 forehand implied in the existence and 
 structure of the body. So then, a 
 man may live in a world of laws 
 which he does not understand, per- 
 petually suffering in consequence o'' 
 
 violations of them, because he does 
 not know what they are, or how they 
 operate, since they have not been in- 
 terpreted to him. The laws of the 
 moral and spiritual life — and even of 
 the bodily life — are interpreted for us 
 in the Bible, if we have eyes to see. 
 
 1863, The Bible Indispensable. — 
 The Bible essays simply to inspire and 
 guide the moral centers of the mind. 
 "That is narrowing the Bible, and 
 bringing it within a very small com- 
 pass." I beg your pardon ; it is not 
 narrowing it at all. Is not the key that 
 winds the clock the most important 
 thing that you can bring to the clock ? 
 Is not the clock helpless without it.-* It 
 is a little thing, it goes into a small 
 hole, and in turning it makes but little 
 noise ; but, after all, it controls the 
 whole economy of the clock. The 
 clock is wound up by it. Now the 
 Bible is the key that winds up, and 
 sets in motion, and regulates all human 
 life and conduct. 
 
 1864, Test the Bible by Life,— The 
 truths of the Bible must be experi- 
 mentally learned. Its teachings are 
 not clearly defined. The Bible is not 
 like a philosophy or a poem, which is 
 fully wrought out. It is to be tested 
 just as a cook's recipe is, by trying li, 
 and not simply by reading it, 
 
 1865. Practice Must Supplement 
 Study, — I have a chart of New York 
 harbor ; and I can tell you how deep 
 it is through the Romer channel, how 
 deep it is through the Swash, and 
 how deep it is through the Headlands, 
 I learn those things from the chart ; 
 but I forget them pretty quick ; and 
 they do not make me a good pilot. 
 The best use of the Bible is gained by 
 long training in practical following of 
 its teachings, 
 
 1866. Unknown Beauties in the Bible. 
 — It seems to me like some old baronial 
 estate that has descended to a man 
 
THE BIBLE 
 
 395 
 
 who lives in a modern house, and 
 thinks it scarcely worth while to go 
 and look into the venerable mansion. 
 Year after year passes away, and he 
 pays no attention to it, since he has no 
 suspicion of the valuable treasures it 
 contains, till at last he makes up his 
 mind that he will take a look at it. As 
 he goes through the porch he is sur- 
 prised to see the skill that has been 
 displayed in its construction, and he 
 says, " Indeed, they had some ideas 
 of architecture when this house was 
 built." And he is more and more 
 impressed as he goes through the 
 halls. He enters a large room, and is 
 astonished as he beholds the wealth of 
 pictures upon the walls, among which 
 are portraits of many of his revered 
 ancestors. He stands in amazement 
 before them ! There is a Titian, there 
 is a Raphael, there is a Corregio, and 
 there is a Giorgione ! He says, " I 
 never had any idea of these before." 
 " Ah ! " says the steward, " there is 
 many another thing that you know 
 nothing about in this castle ; " and he 
 takes him from room to room, and 
 shows him carved plate and wonderful 
 statues, and the man exclaims, " Here 
 I have been for a score of years the 
 owner of this estate, and have never 
 before known what things were in it !" 
 
 But no architect ever conceived of 
 such an estate as God's Word, and no 
 artist or carver or sculptor ever con- 
 ceived of such pictures and carved 
 dishes and statues as adorn its apart- 
 ments. Its halls and passages cannot 
 be surpassed for beauty of architec- 
 ture, and it contains treasures that 
 silver and gold and precious stones are 
 not to be mentioned in connection with. 
 
 1867. Inspiration of the Bible. — 
 There never was, and I suppose there 
 never will be, a book so directly in- 
 spired of God from beginning to end. 
 ... It has in it everywhere the sign 
 
 and testimony of the God that inspired 
 it. As to the kind of way in which he 
 inspired, I don't care a pin. When I 
 smell a rose I am not anxious to have 
 a chemist by to tell me exactly what 
 it is that makes it smell like a rose ; it 
 would not be superfl uous, but the rose is 
 good enough in itself ; I smell it, and I 
 have it. Yet there are many men who 
 make the strength of the Bible lie in 
 its outside, in its arithmetic, in its 
 dates, in its various ancient statements 
 which modern knowledge confutes or 
 confirms ; forgetting all the while the 
 grandeur of the interior, the whole 
 force and power of the book as a 
 medicine for the wants of men, as a 
 guide to men, thoroughly furnishing 
 the man of God to every good word 
 and work. 
 
 1868. Man's Regulator. — What is 
 the first thing that a shipmaster does 
 after he comes into port? No sooner 
 has he reported to the owners, and 
 delivered his papers and accounts to 
 them, than he takes his chronometer, 
 and goes to Bliss's chronometer shop, 
 and deposits it there because he wants 
 to know whether it is right ; whether 
 it has gained or lost ; whether there is 
 anything that ought to be done to it. 
 And he leaves it there till he is ready 
 to go out again, in order that when he 
 starts, it may be in perfect order. 
 
 Now, every day, you ought to take 
 every part of your life into this great 
 chronometer shop, the Bible, and set 
 it over again, and see whether it has 
 lost or gained. The word of God 
 should be the text-book of every man's 
 life. 
 
 1869. The Science of Right-Living. 
 —The Word of God is a chart. It 
 teaches a man how to go through life 
 steering right. It does not undertake 
 to tell all the philosophy of what is 
 right or of what is wrong, any more 
 than the shipmaster understands by 
 
39^ 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 reason of his navigation all chemical 
 questions and all geological questions 
 which belong really to the elements 
 that he deals with. It is a book that 
 undertakes to tell men what is the 
 science of right living. 
 
 1870. Needless Doubt. — A state of 
 doubt in respect to the Word of God 
 is, in its practical consequences, just 
 as fatal as unbelief. 
 
 A man, we will suppose, is steering 
 by his compass ; but the thought 
 flashes across his mind, "The com- 
 pass may be out of order — who 
 knows?" And the moment that idea 
 enters his head all his comfort is gone. 
 He is steering by that tremulous 
 finger ; but, after all, that tremulous 
 finger may be betraying him. If he 
 has but one compass he has great 
 trouble ; and if he has two he is worse 
 off, because he does not know which 
 of them to follow. 
 
 Men disagree about the Bible be- 
 cause they are undertaking to do with 
 it what it was never intended to effect. 
 Everything to its own function. A 
 lancet for the vein— not for digging 
 the soil ; a telescope for the eye — not 
 for sound ; a cap for the head — not 
 for hands or feet. A table of loga- 
 nthms in the sphere of morals would 
 be a poor substitute for the Ten Com- 
 mandments, but not worse than the 
 Ten Commandments in navigation. 
 
 . . The Bible is a book of instruc- 
 tions, in respect to human life and 
 destiny. It concerns itself with char- 
 acter and conduct. No man need err 
 who honestly uses the Bible for the 
 purpose of forming his disposition or 
 guiding his moral life. 
 
 187 1, Uses of Scripture. — " But," 
 it is asked, " is there not Scripture for 
 it?" There is Scripture for anything 
 that a man wants Scripture for. Yes, 
 there is Scripture for it, just as there 
 are knives in the ore of the mountain. 
 
 You can get the ore, and you can 
 make assassins' knives of it, or you 
 can make plowshares of it. Scripture 
 is a great forest, and you can go into 
 it and cut timber and make it up into 
 a great variety of utensils. You can 
 make a flail out of this text ; or you 
 can make a plow-handle out of it ; or 
 you can build it into a cradle ; or you 
 can make out of it a warrior's spear- 
 handle. Scripture is the most usable 
 and adaptable thing in the world. It 
 is with that as it is with nature. And 
 the necessity of choosing and using is 
 a part of men's discipline. 
 
 1872. The Bible Dear from Associ- 
 ations. — An heir receives a great es- 
 tate. In this mansion his father was 
 born. There is where his father's 
 father was born, and so it runs back 
 eight hundred years. It is a grand 
 family memorial. There are paths, 
 here are the old pools for fish, here 
 are gardens mathematically laid out. 
 There is bower-work ; all round about 
 are shady trees in which the nightin- 
 gale sings. There are old oaks and 
 mighty pines everywhere. Along 
 comes some young member of the 
 family, who doesn't like those old oak 
 trees and does away with them, and 
 he promptly breaks up the gardens 
 and the walks, and clears everything 
 away. A sense of dignity, of pro- 
 priety, of art should at least have in- 
 duced him to wait. Things are sacred 
 by associations as well as by absolute 
 qualities. On every one of those trees 
 is hung some memorial of family his- 
 tory. Along that path have gone feet 
 that now tread the heavenly pave- 
 ment. Your mother, it may be, or 
 she that was your companion, may 
 have trod that path. All the scenes 
 are sacred. 
 
 Hold fast, then, to the things that 
 have been made sacred by association. 
 Do not cast away the Word of God. 
 
THE BIBLE 
 
 397 
 
 Your Bible has been a comfort to your 
 father and your mother ; has been the 
 light of your earlier years ; has been 
 a safe guide, — not to everything, for 
 that it does not profess to be ; but as 
 to the way of life and of eternal life, 
 it is absolutely safe. 
 
 1873. Breadth of Bible-Guidance. — 
 How large a space does a candle oc- 
 cupy ? Just a little hole in the candle- 
 stick. But when it shines out to the 
 poor traveler that has lost his way in 
 the morass at midnight, how far it 
 reaches ! And although the Word of 
 God does not cover much ground, the 
 ground that it does cover is so vital, 
 and it stands so connected with man's 
 life here and hereafter, that it shines 
 with a clear light across all time, and 
 into eternity. 
 
 1874. Little Things in Scripture. — 
 There is many a fern that has laid its 
 cheek to the clay and died — the most 
 insignificant event, apparently, con- 
 ceivable ; and yet, after thousands 
 and thousands of years, comes the 
 geologist, and when the miner has 
 laid bare the plant's figure stamped 
 upon the stone, he reads in it a history 
 of ages long ago. It is just the fact, 
 it may be, needed to establish certain 
 great theories ; and this poor vegeta- 
 ble, unnoticed when alive, and not 
 heeded when dead, finds itself, after 
 many ages, summoned as a witness 
 into the sunshine, to testify to men in 
 what steps and in what order God 
 built the world. So, many an event 
 recorded in Scripture, that had little 
 significance in the time of its happen- 
 ing, becomes very important in later 
 ages. 
 
 1875. Unused Parts of the Bible. — 
 There are those who believe in re- 
 ligion and in the Bible to a great ex- 
 tent, but who believe in these things 
 as families in reduced circumstances 
 in England used to believe in old 
 
 mansions and castles. There were 
 the structures, with magnificent rooms 
 in them ; but the impoverished family 
 were not able to furnish them and live 
 in them. There were vast halls, once 
 filled with kings, knights, and court- 
 iers, but they were beyond the present 
 family necessities. So, they were un- 
 used, except that they were given up 
 to rats, owls, and what not. There 
 are a great many persons who are so 
 reduced in faith that they say, " The 
 chambers of the Old Testament had 
 better be shut up, for we are not able 
 to furnish them and live in them." 
 They make use of certain rooms in 
 the New Testament, and say, "We 
 are believers not in the whole Bible, 
 but in a considerable part of it." 
 
 1876. Truths of Inspiration. — The 
 Old Testament has a great deal of 
 straw on which the wheat grew. I 
 don't think we are bound to eat the 
 straw. A judicious minister could 
 separate the constituent elements of 
 the Old Testament so that the part of 
 it that remained for belief would in- 
 jure no man's sense of the book being 
 inspired. Inspiration works differently 
 from the way in which the old fathers 
 thought it worked, but none the less 
 it works ; none the less, because you 
 show where it does not work, do you 
 vindicate the doctrine of the truth as 
 to when it does work, and how. 
 
 1877. Historical Need of the Old 
 Testament. — It may be said that the 
 Old Testament is a disconnected his- 
 tory of the progress of righteousness 
 in the human race ; not in detail, but 
 generally. There are many who 
 think that it has worn itself out ; that 
 it is not fit for use any more. You 
 might as well abolish the history of 
 England, because the ancient days of 
 England are not modern days. You 
 might as well say that the history of 
 the early Colonies in this country is 
 
398 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 of no account, because the Colonies 
 differed so much from the present 
 States, and because our wisdom is so 
 much greater than theirs — if it is. 
 The history of the early unfolding of 
 ideas and institutions and tendencies 
 is indispensable to the right concep- 
 tion of our own time, our own 
 privileges, and our own usages. 
 
 1878. Literature of the Old Testa- 
 ment. — My own belief is that, though 
 the Old Testament is to be read with 
 discrimination, and in the light of the 
 knowledge that has accumulated 
 about it during the ages that have 
 passed since it was written, you will 
 find within the lids of that book 
 honey in the honeycomb. There are 
 rude places in it ; but as travelers 
 through deserts and over mountains 
 here and there find sweet little valleys, 
 so in reading the Old Testament you 
 will find exquisite histories, beautiful 
 scenes, and profound wisdom, such 
 as are not contained in any other 
 literature on the globe. 
 
 1879. The Bible not Exhausted. — 
 There never was a sea so pure that 
 there was not mud at the bottom of it ; 
 but this Hebrew nation has brought 
 to us many virtues, many sublime 
 qualities that belong to manhood ; 
 and as long as the Old Testament en- 
 dures we ought to be grateful to it, 
 and to the authors of it, for those 
 sources and fountains of moral in- 
 fluence. I declare to you that we 
 have not yet plucked all the flowers 
 nor gathered all the grapes that grow 
 on the vines of the Old Testament. 
 When we walk up and down through 
 its paths, no longer tied by a super- 
 stitious theory of verbal inspiration, 
 and with freedom bring our reason to 
 bear, and, as emancipated men, dis- 
 criminate between truth and error, 
 right and wrong, we shall have much 
 to harvest out of this book. 
 
 1880. Truthfulness of the Old 
 Testament. — The very evidence, to 
 me, of the inspiration of the Old 
 Testament Scriptures is that I find in 
 the records of the early days what we 
 ought to expect in those days — in- 
 fantine knowledge and infantine 
 moral strength in infantine men, and 
 a simple history which reflects the 
 condition of primitive morality as 
 consisting of imperfect notions 
 grouped under religious belief. If, in 
 writing the biography of a child, I 
 should put into that child's early life 
 mature thoughts that would have been 
 impossible to him, I should make him 
 monstrous in the eyes of men — I 
 should destroy the simplicity that is 
 expected in childhood, and make a 
 little monster instead of a little man ; 
 and the attempt to substantiate the 
 imperfect and erratic notions of an- 
 tiquity by bringing the morality of 
 our day to bear upon them, to 
 subject them to the light which we 
 have gained, to strain the text of 
 the narrative and make it conform 
 to facts as they exist five thousand 
 years later than the time in which the 
 actors lived — that process, through 
 which many a man has put the 
 Scripture, must have the effect of un- 
 dermining men's confidence in it. 
 
 1 88 1. Incompleteness of Biblical 
 Statements. — To state to an audience 
 a truth larger than the receptivity of 
 that audience is, to all intents and 
 purposes, not to state it to them. To 
 explain to children in the nursery the 
 operation of the Federal Courts as 
 compared with the operation of the 
 State Courts, would be to explain to 
 them nothing at all, because they 
 have not the elemental knowledge 
 without which they cannot perceive 
 the condition of things, nor cluster to- 
 gether facts and make comparisons. 
 You tell them nothing if you tell them 
 
THE BIBLE 
 
 399 
 
 that which is larger than they can 
 take in. And if the inspired record 
 was to be used to any advantage it 
 must be adapted to tlie level and ca- 
 pacity of that age of the human mind 
 to which it was originally addressed — 
 as it was. 
 
 1882. Early Human Records. — 
 There are a great many men that go 
 through the Old Testament Scriptures 
 and pick up the shucks ; they find 
 nothing between Genesis and Malachi 
 except something to make fun of. 
 There is a great deal that is out-worn; 
 there is a great deal that belongs to 
 the waste of the human family. But 
 I should like to see the man who 
 would bring down the cradle in which 
 his children had been rocked, and 
 split it up for firewood, and laugh to 
 see it burn. 
 
 1883. The Bible Coeval with Man's 
 Need. — You need not be afraid for 
 your Bible. It is going to stand as 
 long as humanity needs some sense of 
 sympathy, as the medicine of sorrow, 
 as long as weakness implores vainly 
 against human strength and appeals 
 to the Divine. 
 
 1884. The Old Letter; the New 
 Spirit. — After declaring that the Law 
 was dead, and that men were not held 
 by it any more, Paul went on to say : 
 That we should " serve in newness of 
 spirit, and not in the oldness of the 
 letter." He denied the authority of 
 Mosaism as applied to men who live 
 by the spirit of Christ, although it was 
 indispensable to earlier periods. And 
 he was right. An egg-shell is very 
 necessary before the chicken is 
 hatched ; but would it not be very 
 absurd to insist that the chicken 
 should always wear the shell? The 
 earlier statements, the earlier institu- 
 tions, and the earlier methods of the 
 Bible, when they had accompHshed 
 their appropriate work, were super- 
 
 seded by other provisions, and that 
 without implying any contempt of 
 these old instrumentahties. 
 
 1885. Ancient Revelations Com- 
 monplace. — Inspired writings may 
 contain statements which in an after- 
 age would require no inspiration. 
 That is also true of revelation. One 
 says, "You pretend that these are 
 revelations, when there is not a 
 schoolboy in our day that could not 
 find them out, without having them 
 revealed to him." Very likely; but 
 in an early and undeveloped age a 
 thing may be required to be made 
 known through special methods which 
 at a later period would not be required 
 to be thus made known. We put a 
 bottle to the mouths of babes ; but it 
 does not follow, because when the 
 child is forty years old he does not 
 suck the bottle, that he did not need 
 to suck it when he was a babe. 
 Things are adapted to the wants of 
 infantile helplessness which would be 
 absurd at a time of later disclosure. 
 
 1886. Inspired Use of Uninspired 
 Material. — Inspiration is something 
 much broader than revelation. It 
 may be very generally defined as be- 
 ing a Divine influence that quickens 
 the faculties of men. At the very first 
 step into the Bible, in Genesis, we find 
 that inspiration, as it were, gathers up 
 documents, statements of fact, that 
 existed before, and makes them part 
 and parcel of the inspired record. 
 . . . Without doubt the ten genealo- 
 gies came from the public records 
 made just as any other genealog- 
 ical records are — just as the public 
 documents in Brooklyn are made, 
 that are in the hands of the county 
 clerk, and of which one might make a 
 transcript. And so many existing 
 documents were brought together in 
 the making up of the Bible that, if it 
 was produced under inspiration, we 
 
400 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 must see that inspiration admitted — 
 nay, directed — the taking into the 
 Word of God much of the hterature 
 that had sprung up in the ordinary 
 course of human thought and pro- 
 cedure. 
 
 1887. Revelation an Unveiling. — 
 I pass by briefly the definition of 
 " revelation," which is making known 
 to men things not known before. 
 
 As to the Word of God itself, it 
 does not claim to be a book of revela- 
 tions. It contains revelations ; but at 
 first it did not stand on that ground, 
 nor did it base its authority thereon. 
 Indeed, there are very few revela- 
 tions, as such, in the Bible. There 
 are records innumerable of things that 
 men at large had not found out, but 
 that they were capable of finding out. 
 Men were told in the Word of God 
 much valuable truth, as a child is told 
 by its mother, for the sake of early in- 
 struction, many useful things that it 
 has not yet learned, but that are 
 within its reach. 
 
 1888. Biblical Exactitude a Fatal 
 Claim. — In showing on the chart 
 where the Gedney's Channel runs 
 through to New York, suppose the 
 channel should be put down exactly 
 right, but that in representing some 
 other minor detail — the name of the 
 maker of the chart, or what not — 
 there should be a mistake ; so long as 
 experience proved that there was no 
 error in the location and width and 
 depth of the channel, and no error 
 that rendered vessels in passing 
 through it liable to danger or incon- 
 venience, would you denounce that 
 chart as unauthentic ? The fact that 
 there was in it a minor mistake here 
 and there which did not interfere with 
 its practical use would make no dif- 
 ference with its real value. If we in- 
 sist, as many people do, that the 
 writings of the Old and New Testa- 
 
 ments came directly from the mind of 
 God, then the slightest variation from 
 accuracy in any statement of fact 
 would be fatal, because we should 
 say, " God cannot lie " ; and yet 
 there are many errors in the Scrip- 
 tures. 
 
 1889. Agreement as to Vital Ele- 
 ments. — On the subject of essential 
 7itanhood there is no difference of opin- 
 ion about the Bible. The Roman 
 Catholic Church and the Protestant 
 Church see eye to eye so far as such 
 matters are concerned. The sects 
 may differ about philosophies and 
 theologies, but not about honesty, pu- 
 rity, truth, hope, love and joy in the 
 Holy Ghost. So much of the Bible as 
 it was meant that we should live by — 
 is perfectly plain. . . . Under that 
 system of moral inspiration which God 
 has been carrying on in all nations 
 and in every age of the world, the race 
 have everywhere and in all ages come 
 to the same results. They have found 
 the law of human life. Just as a man 
 finds the law of electricity or light, so 
 men through thousands of years have 
 found what are the qualities of charac- 
 ter which fit them for time and eternity ; 
 and the united testimony of mankind 
 on that subject is both comprehensive 
 and simple, and is absolutely without 
 any objection whatsoever from critics 
 or infidels. 
 
 1890. Rejection of the Old Testa- 
 ment. — The Old Testament, for a va- 
 riety of reasons, has passed out of use 
 for many men and women who call 
 themselves Christians. Because there 
 are so many parts of the Old Testa- 
 ment that have inherent difficulties in 
 them ; because there are so many 
 things recorded which men are sup- 
 posed to be obliged to believe, but 
 which strain belief to the uttermost ; 
 because there are such wondrous mir- 
 acles, such remarkable phenomena, 
 
THE BIBLE 
 
 401 
 
 such associated historical statements, 
 so many things that, according to 
 modern and ordinary interpretation, 
 seem exaggerated if not absolutely 
 erroneous, rather than take such state- 
 ments and difficulties implicitly they 
 find it easier to put aside the whole 
 book ; and because it is hard to get 
 gold out of the rock they throw the 
 rock and the gold all away in a heap, 
 and let them alone. 
 
 1891. Genesis. — Such an account 
 of the Creation as could be developed 
 in its details at this age of the world 
 would have been absolutely useless to 
 an early period, just as a treatise on 
 optics would be of no use to children 
 in the nursery ; so if all that is in- 
 cluded in geology, geography, botany, 
 ethnology, and biology had been put 
 into the account of Genesis in the early 
 period, there would have been no one 
 on earth competent to understand it. 
 It would have been like eloquence to 
 a babe in the cradle, or philosophical 
 knowledge to a child. 
 
 1892. Time of the Patriarchs. — I re- 
 member full well how, in summers, 
 after the heat set in, I have betaken 
 myself to the mountain country, and 
 climbed to the top of some high moun- 
 tain, some Mount Washington. With 
 what an inexpressible delight I sat in 
 its stillness, far above the circumjacent 
 land, far above the city, the village, 
 the hamlets, and looked out and down 
 upon all these things which seemed to 
 me like a vision and a dream ! And 
 to sit alone, and to look at these, was 
 itself a refreshment and a profit to my 
 spirit greater than I can describe. 
 Somewhat in the same way it affects 
 me to go back to these early periods 
 of the human family, to get apart from 
 that which is familiar, and look out 
 again from this distant standpoint 
 over the life which we are now 
 living. 
 
 1893. Old Testament Laws. — The 
 thunder of God's justice and the threat- 
 enings of God's law were sounded out 
 continually because men were on so 
 low a plane that they needed just that 
 development of the Divine nature that 
 should meet their conditions and cir- 
 cumstances. In a rude way that is 
 very much what you will see in our 
 jails and courts of justice. Here 
 comes a man that has been a robber, 
 a house-breaker, a sneak-thief full of 
 all sorts of evasions and dissipations. 
 See how the constable treats him. 
 "Come here, you fellow! Step in 
 there ! Get out of the way ! " And 
 down he pushes him. He does not 
 treat the man like a gentleman ; he is 
 not a gentleman, he is no better than 
 a brute beast ; he beats his wife at 
 home, and he lies faster than a horse 
 can trot ; he is a miserable wretch ; 
 everything has been tried with him 
 and it is no use. Then there comes 
 in a woman who, in the poverty of 
 the family and in the hopelessness of 
 hunger, has stolen a loaf of bread and 
 has been arraigned before the Courts. 
 Tears are running down her cheeks, 
 and you see the very constable himself 
 pull out his cotton snub of a handker- 
 chief and rub his cheeks down. " Sit 
 down, ma'am, please," says he. She 
 is the victim of law broken, to be sure ; 
 but justice treats her much more deli- 
 cately, much more kindly than it does 
 the old arrant and oft-convicted crim- 
 inal. So in the revelation of God's 
 law and God's government to men : 
 the men that need thunder get it. 
 
 1894. Meaning in Petty Mosaic De- 
 tails. — It does seem, when a man is 
 told that the Mosaic institutes contain 
 God's inspired laws, and when he 
 finds in them the precept for the bar- 
 ber shop, " Ye shall not round the 
 corners of your heads, neither shalt 
 thou mar the corners of thy beard," 
 
402 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 as though these were matters fit for 
 ridicule. . . . But in heathen nations 
 the cutting of the hair and beard was 
 indicative of the reUgious worship of 
 the wearer. Cutting the hair in a given 
 way was supposed to imply adhesion 
 to the gods of the foul idolaters, and 
 cutting it in a certain other way was 
 supposed to indicate fidelity to the 
 God of the Hebrews. When, there- 
 fore, Moses dictated the trimming of 
 hair and beard, it was a separation be- 
 tween them and the idolatrous nations 
 around about them. 
 
 Was there no difference, during our 
 Civil War, between blue and butter- 
 nut ? To-day a man can wear butternut 
 or any other color he pleases, and no 
 man shall call him to account for it ; 
 but during that strife it meant all the 
 difference between friends and ene- 
 mies — between men for the Union and 
 men for the Confederacy. 
 
 1895. Mosaic Training. — The mat- 
 ter of uncleanness was sometimes 
 carried to a remarkable degree. If a 
 dead insect fell into a dish for the 
 table, that dish must not be eaten, 
 just as with us if a cockroach gets 
 into a plate of food, the whole has to 
 go. In our modern restaurants they 
 would take out the cockroach and 
 give you the food. I prefer to board 
 with Moses. According to the Mosaic 
 prescription, if a man bore a pitcher 
 of water, and a dead insect fell into 
 it, he must break the pitcher as well 
 as throw away the water. This was 
 no hardship, considering the sort of 
 pitchers they had in the early days. 
 It might seem otherwise in our modern 
 times of exquisite ceramic ware. In 
 those days a broken pitcher was no 
 loss, because one could be made in ten 
 minutes. ... It was all in the direc- 
 tion of compeUing carefulness and 
 punishing carelessness, as children are 
 trained at school. 
 
 1896. Old Testament Judged by 
 the New. — It may be that Joshua 
 was justified in taking the cities of 
 Palestine, and in their extermination ; 
 but he was not justified in heaping 
 contempt upon the five kings whom 
 he had taken, by having his captains 
 tread on their necks. It was accord- 
 ing to the human spirit of that day ; but 
 it was not according to the spirit of 
 God, as revealed by Jesus Christ. . . . 
 This policy of early times recorded in 
 the Old Testament is foreign to the 
 spirit of Christ. You cannot conceive 
 of Christ looking upon such slaughter 
 as is represented as having taken 
 place in olden times, and approving 
 it. Nor can you reconcile the revela- 
 tion of a God, made known in the 
 shedding of his own blood through 
 his Son that the world might be re- 
 deemed from sin, with this account of 
 a God that employed a nation of men 
 to shed the blood of hundreds of 
 thousands. ... If you say that by 
 criticising such things in the Old 
 Testament we shall destroy the force 
 of the Bible on the common people, 
 my reply is that if you do not do 
 something to remove the stigma of 
 such things from the name of God you 
 will destroy the true idea of God himself 
 among thinking people. The at- 
 tempt to save the Bible by destroying 
 God is a poor bargain. 
 
 1897. Deuteronomy. — Deuteronomy 
 is, literally speaking, the Second Law, 
 — a recapitulation, a second law-giv- 
 ing or enunciation of the Law. If 
 Washington's farewell letter had in- 
 cluded the whole history of the 
 Colonies in brief, and the theory of 
 the Constitution, with the general 
 features and the policy of the free 
 commonwealth, that would have been 
 exactly a parallel of Deuteronomy, 
 which is in the form of a farewell letter 
 of Moses to the people, and contains 
 
THE BIBLE 
 
 403 
 
 a recital of their history, and the laws 
 and ordinances imposed upon them 
 by Ciod through Moses. 
 
 1898. Ancient Names. — With us 
 names are mere bell-pulls and door- 
 knockers — things hung on a man with- 
 out any regard to their significance, 
 to distinguish him from his neighbors ; 
 tliis is the case with all nations which 
 are advanced in civilization ; but in 
 the primitive ages, as also among our 
 American Indians to-day, names were 
 always signiticant, as they arose from 
 external circumstances. . . . And this 
 woman was called Naomi, the Pleas- 
 ant, the Beautiful, the Comely ; but 
 she said, " Do not call me the Beautiful 
 any more— call me Mara, the Bitter ; 
 for God hath dealt bitterly with me." 
 
 1899. The Story of Ruth. — A dia- 
 mond in its rough and ordinary state 
 is not lustrous nor beautiful ; nor is it 
 so until it has been ground, and arti- 
 ficial facets and angles are raised 
 upon it : but when it has gone through 
 the processes of being cut and pol- 
 ished it is one of the loveliest of 
 gems. The pearl, however, suffers 
 no hand to touch it. It is already 
 perfect, and handling mars it. 
 
 There are many doctrinal passages 
 in the Bible that are obscure, and that 
 need much exposition to discover 
 the precious truth within them. 
 There are some — and we have come 
 upon one of them to-night — that 
 would be in danger of being dimmed 
 and hurt if handled. 
 
 1900. The Book of Ruth. — After 
 the roar of battle, when the army 
 is removed from the field, and the 
 hospital is abandoned ; when the 
 soldiers have gone home, and have 
 been greeted, with music, with social 
 exhilaration, with the ringing of bells, 
 with lights in the windows ; when 
 there is joy in every home, and they 
 have settled down into domestic 
 
 peace, how strange is that peace in 
 contrast with the rude alarms of war! 
 
 Out of the turbulent times, the 
 dark days, of the Judges through 
 which we have been finding our way, 
 upon what have we come .'' This 
 sweet idyl of Ruth, in which, from 
 beginning to end, there is no discord ; 
 in which peace flows unbrokenly ; 
 and in which are manifested the purest 
 feelings of patriotism and of love. 
 The whole flow of the narrative is 
 idyllic, pastoral, peaceful, beautiful. 
 Its sentences sound in our ears, after 
 we are done reading them, as the bell 
 in the belfry still warbles through the 
 air long after the tongue has ceased 
 to strike. We leave it as a vision of 
 beauty, a rare picture, an exquisite 
 portrayal, made more beautiful be- 
 cause it comes from the thunder of 
 war, and is interjected into the rude 
 manners and gross morality of a far- 
 removed age — beautiful as poetry, 
 beautiful as a drama, and yet more 
 admirable as a truth of history. 
 
 1 90 1. The Prophets. — I am pro- 
 foundly affected by the grandeur of 
 prophecy. God unveils the frescoed 
 wall of the future, not so much that 
 we may count the figures, and meas- 
 ure the robes, and analyze the 
 pigments, but that, gazing upon it, 
 our imaginations may be enkindled, 
 and hope be inspired, to bear us 
 through the dismal barrenness of the 
 present. Prophecy was not addressed 
 to the reason, nor to the statistical 
 faculty, but to the imagination ; and I 
 should as soon think of measuring 
 love by the scales of commerce, or of 
 admiring flowers by the rule of feet 
 and inches, or of applying arithmetic 
 to taste and enthusiasm, as calcula- 
 tions and figures to these grand evan- 
 ishing signals which God waves in the 
 future only to tell the world which way 
 it is to march. 
 
404 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 igo2. Symbolism of the Bible. — 
 The " word-pictures " in Isaiah and 
 Daniel and the Revelation of John, 
 though descriptions, are symbols and 
 figures playing on the imagination ; 
 which if at once reduced by art to 
 definite form, not only lose all their 
 beauty, but are worse than grotesque 
 
 they are ridiculous, as any man 
 
 may see on looking at Van Eyck's 
 pictures — of the Flemish school — of 
 the Lamb with seven eyes and ten 
 horns, holding something in his split 
 hoof, which represents the hand. In- 
 deed, even as a symbol and imagina- 
 tively considered, it is all we can do 
 to read those figures of the prophets 
 and the Apocalyptic writer ; but to 
 reduce them to absolute form is pre- 
 posterous. And the same thing we 
 see in literature. The Ariels and the 
 witches of Shakespeare are charming 
 and striking when they are read, but 
 ridiculous when they are acted. The 
 conception is so subtile, and belongs 
 to so tenuous an atmosphere, that we 
 cannot bear it in flesh-and-blood 
 form. 
 
 1903. Miracles Supplemental. — 
 Large steam-ships are accustomed to 
 have small supplemental engines 
 which pump the boilers full of water, 
 and blow up the fuel to heat the great 
 boilers, and so get the great engine in 
 motion ; but as quick as the great 
 engine is in motion, it pumps its own 
 water, and blows up its own fuel. 
 
 Now what a donkey-engine is to a 
 marine engine, that I think a miracle 
 is to the ordinary course of nature. 
 Miracles were little engines employed 
 before the great world-engine got 
 agoing, to do things which afterwards 
 it did for itself, so that these little 
 engines could be dispensed with, 
 
 1904. Efficiency of Miracles. — Mira- 
 cles were designed to make men be- 
 lieve in invisible things. There are 
 
 great truths that it concerns men to 
 know and recognize which they can- 
 not discern with their outward senses, 
 and which it is the office of miracles 
 to aid them to discern. And when a 
 thing does what you set it to do, that 
 is all that you can ask of it. We do 
 not think a locomotive engine is good 
 for nothing because it does not dig 
 potatoes. Does it draw trains on the 
 road, and carry them from place to 
 place with almost incredible rapidity ? 
 It does, and therefore it does the 
 thing for which it was designed ; and 
 that is enough. We do not care 
 whether miracles did things which 
 modern men demand or not. The 
 question is, " Did they make men be- 
 lieve there was a God, and that there 
 were invisible powers and existences? " 
 They did. Miracles, then, did a work 
 the most difficult, and proved them- 
 selves to be divine by accomplishing 
 the thing for which they were sent. 
 
 1905. Miracles of To-day. — Mira- 
 cles are like candles lit up until the 
 sun rises, and then blown out. There- 
 fore, I am amused when I hear sects 
 and churches talk about having 
 evidence of Divine authority because 
 they have miracles. Miracles in our 
 time are like candles in the street at 
 midday. We do not want miracles. 
 They are to teach men how to find 
 out truths themselves ; and after they 
 have learned this, they no more need 
 them than a well man needs a staff, or 
 than a grown-up child needs a walk- 
 ing-stool. They are the educating 
 expedients of the early periods of the 
 world. As such, they are divinely 
 wise ; after they have served their 
 purpose as such, it is humanly foolish 
 for persons to pretend to have them. 
 
 1906, Elijah's Dramatic Career. — 
 There are not elsewhere in recorded 
 history such dramatic elements as in 
 the career of Elijah, Irregular, 
 
THE BIBLE 
 
 40^ 
 
 almost iUful, Elijah the Tishbile seemed 
 at times clean gone forever, dried up 
 like a summer's brook. Then sud- 
 denly, like that stream after a storm on 
 the hills, he came down with a flood. 
 His sudden appearances and as sud- 
 den vanishings were perfectly natural 
 to one who had been reared, as he 
 had been, among a nomadic people, 
 not unlike the Bedouin Arabs. But 
 to us they seem more like the mystery 
 of spiritual apparitions. 
 
 1907. The Hebrew Prophets, — The 
 absolute spontaneity of the old 
 prophet, in contrast with the per- 
 functory priest, is admirable. Out of 
 a ritual service rigid as a rock is seen 
 gushing a liberty of utterance that re- 
 minds one of the rock in the wilder- 
 ness when smitten with the prophet's 
 rod. Although the prophets were tJie 
 religious men, far more revered for 
 sanctity than the priests, it was not 
 because they held aloof from secular 
 affairs. They were often men of 
 rigor, but never ascetics. They never 
 despised common humanity, either in 
 its moral or in its secular relations. 
 
 1908. The Twenty-Third Psalm. — 
 David has left no sweeter psalm than 
 the short Twenty-Third. It is but a 
 moment's opening of his soul ; but, as 
 when one, walking the winter street, 
 sees the door opening for some one to 
 enter, and the red light streams a mo- 
 ment forth, and the forms of gay chil- 
 dren are running to greet the comer, 
 and genial music sounds, though the 
 door shuts and leaves the night black, 
 yet it cannot shut back again all 
 that the eye, the ear, the heart, and 
 the imagination have seen, so in this 
 psalm, though it is but a moment's 
 opening of the soul, are emitted truths 
 of peace and consolation that will 
 never be absent from the world. 
 
 1909. The Twenty-Third Psalm. — 
 This is the nightingale of Psalms. 
 
 It is small, of homely feather, singing 
 shyly out of obscurity ; but O, it has 
 filled the air of the whole world with 
 melodious joy greater than the heart 
 can conceive. 
 
 1 910. David, the Warrior. — Thy ar- 
 rows turned not back ; mighty ones 
 fell beneath thy sword : but those sil- 
 ver shafts of song, drawn from a 
 quiver beyond Apollo's, pierce the 
 heart, not to slay but to heal. 
 
 191 1. Great Meaning in Small 
 Texts. — The boy holds his ball of 
 twine in his hand, and thinks it is not 
 much, he can clasp it so easily ; but 
 when he begins to unroll it, and his 
 wind-borne kite mounts higher and 
 higher, he is astonished to see how 
 long it is. So there are little texts 
 which look small in your palm, but 
 when caught up upon some experience 
 they unroll themselves, and stretch 
 out until there is no measuring their 
 length. 
 
 1912. Perpetuity of the Bible. — Let 
 none be alarmed lest the Bible should 
 be destroyed. Do you suppose that 
 when the cluster is crushed it is gone 
 and lost ? Its juice goes to wine, and 
 is saved. You are not going to crush 
 the Bible any further than to turn it 
 into wine. Its external form may be 
 changed here and there ; the mere 
 historical methods by which its teach- 
 ings were communicated to men may 
 be modified : but in so far as it is a 
 vehicle of real truths, it will endure. 
 
 1 9 13. Immutability of the Bible. — 
 You can destroy the Bible by burning 
 the paper it is on ; but you can never 
 destroy that which is the Bible, and 
 the resolute, ineffaceable spirit of God 
 that is in it. It is the God that is in 
 the Bible that makes it immortal, and 
 gives it this power ; and the ideals 
 that are in it you cannot destroy. The 
 Bible is the opening of a royal view 
 of the interior of the universe ; and 
 
4o6 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 yon are never going to take that away 
 again. You might just as well be 
 afraid that the stars will all go out be- 
 cause some man has a new theory of 
 astronomy. The stars are steadfast in 
 their courses ; and the Bible is God's 
 illustration of truth. It is the book 
 that gathers up the things which have 
 been found out, or learned, or thrown 
 by the light of God's Spirit into this 
 world, among men ; and those things 
 are not going to be changed by any 
 theory of inspiration, nor by any sal- 
 vatory or destroying process upon the 
 outside of the material quality of the 
 Bible. 
 
 1914. Supreme Elements of the 
 New Testament. — I often think that 
 the New Testament is like a mansion 
 built on high ground, in a region of 
 magnificent scenery, whose windows 
 open on every side upon views of 
 transcendent interest. Although the 
 mansion itself is comfortably furnished 
 within, and pleasing, yet memorable 
 is it chiefly for what one sees outside 
 of it, and through its windows. The 
 New Testament is a book full of pre- 
 cepts of wisdom for this life ; it is full 
 of secular wisdom ; it has in it promise 
 of the life that now is, and of that 
 which is to come ; the mansion is 
 handsomely furnished within: but its 
 chief merits, its peculiar character- 
 istics, are the openings which it makes 
 into the spiritual and invisible world. 
 
 It is precisely at this point, however, 
 that modern rationalism and all that 
 scepticism which flows from it attempt 
 to do away with that which is the very 
 glory of the whole — namely, its super- 
 sensuousness, and its revelation of 
 spiritual Divine truth. 
 
 1 91 5. New Testament the Hand- 
 Book. — When a man attempts to be 
 an agriculturist, he first finds out the 
 general processes of agriculture, and 
 sets about conforminjr his life to the 
 
 ascertained nature of that department. 
 The New Testament lays down the 
 facts, the principles, the courses, ac- 
 cording to which a man should de- 
 velop his spiritual or religious life. 
 
 1916. New Testament Miracles. — 
 The superiority of spiritual power over 
 sensuous, is the illuminating truth of 
 the New Testament. The Gospels 
 should be taken or rejected unniuti- 
 lated. The disciples plucked the 
 Avheat-heads, and, rubbing them in 
 their hands, they ate the grain. But 
 our sceptical believers take from the 
 New Testament its supernatural ele- 
 ment, — rub out the wheat, — and eat 
 the chaff. 
 
 1917. Miraculous Elements. — There 
 is a graphic and dramatic way of 
 treating all these strange and miracu- 
 lous elements as Shakespeare treated 
 the supernatural — using it for his pur- 
 pose, but leaving it without an attempt 
 to explain or to make intelligibly real. 
 In fact, these things occur in the New 
 Testament in much that way. They 
 come quietly into view, like a cloud — 
 which looms up, casts its shadow on 
 the landscape for a time, and passes 
 away without effort or commotion. 
 Treated thus, they offend no darling 
 theory ; no critic is agitated to attack 
 the view ; and the moral and spiritual 
 effect aimed at is achieved. 
 
 igi8. Silences of the New Testa- 
 ment. — In 1850 I went first to the 
 White Mountains; and with a brother 
 beloved, ascending from the side of 
 the Glen House, I reached the sum- 
 mit, and then took the road and trav- 
 eled some twelve miles along the line 
 of the mountains down to the Craw- 
 ford House, On the way I separated 
 myself from the party and went alone. 
 It was such a day as this ; and I was 
 so high that there was absolute still- 
 ness. Not a cricket lived up there. 
 There was not a grasshopper to jump. 
 
THE BIBLE 
 
 407 
 
 There was not a bird that winged it- 
 self in the air. There was no wind ; 
 and if there had been, there was no 
 leaf nor brush that it could have 
 shaken for music. My own footsteps, 
 crackling, sounded strange. I walked 
 in a vision. And I tell you, that not 
 the riches nor the thunder of the 
 cities, not all the great treasures of 
 Europe, not the armed throngs that I 
 saw flashing in review there, not the 
 sea, nothing, ever seemed to me so 
 sublime as the absolute stillness of 
 that upper air. And when I go into 
 the higher places of the Word of God, 
 and stand above all the limited human 
 notions and conceptions which have 
 been borrowed from base passions, 
 and intermixed with vain philosophy; 
 when I reach those airy heights where 
 Christ stood, and where his sublimest 
 followers stood, and see that in their 
 highest moments they had nothing to 
 say, then the silence of the New Tes- 
 tament is more impressive to me than 
 its utterances, 
 
 I gig. How to Read the Life of 
 Christ. — If a man reads his Tribune or 
 his Times before breakfast, he reads 
 more than the whole evangel of Mat- 
 thew. You can read the evangel of 
 Matthew in less time than you can sit 
 down and read a modern newspaper. 
 If a man should take a whole evangel, 
 and read it through at one time, he 
 would say, " That is rather overdoing 
 the matter." And yet, the true way 
 to read the life of Christ is to take in 
 the full portraiture ; to look at the 
 whole picture; to bring the whole 
 character up clearly before the mind. 
 
 ig20. Irregularity of the Gospel 
 Stones. — Differences in mere arrange- 
 ment [of events in the Gospels] are in- 
 evitable, and not important. No two 
 harmonists ever did agree in all par- 
 ticulars, and it is scarcely possible 
 that any two ever will. The very 
 
 structure of the Gospels makes it well- 
 nigh impossible. They are not like 
 the " dissected maps," or pictures, 
 whose severed parts can, with some 
 patience, be fitted together into the 
 original whole, a hundred times ex- 
 actly alike. They are little more, 
 often, than copious indexes of a volu- 
 minous life, without dates or order. 
 It is not probable that a single note 
 was taken, or a line written, in Christ's 
 lifetime. The Gospels are children 
 of the memory. They were vocally 
 delivered hundreds of times before be- 
 ing written out at all ; and they bear 
 the marks of such origin, in the in- 
 tensity and vividness of individual in- 
 cidents, while chronological order and 
 literary imity are but little regarded. 
 
 192 1, The Angelic Ministrations. — 
 We could not imagine the Advent 
 stripped of its angelic lore. The dawn 
 without a twilight, the sun without 
 clouds of silver and gold, the morn- 
 ing on the fields without dew-dia- 
 monds, — but not the Saviour without 
 his angels ! They shine within the 
 Temple, they bear to the matchless 
 mother a message which Avould have 
 been disgrace from mortal lips, but 
 which from theirs fell upon her as 
 pure as dewdrops upon the hlies of 
 the plain of Esdraelon. They com- 
 muned with the Saviour in his glory 
 of transfiguration, sustained him in 
 the anguish of the garden, watched at 
 the tomb ; and as they had thronged 
 the earth at his coming, so they seem 
 to have hovered in the air in multi- 
 tudes at the hour of his ascension. 
 Beautiful as they seem, they are never 
 mere poetic adornments. The occa- 
 sions of their appearing are grand. 
 The reasons are weighty. Their de- 
 meanor suggests and befits the high- 
 est conception of superior beings. 
 . . . They vibrate between the visi- 
 ble and the invisible. They come 
 
4o8 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 without motion. They go without 
 flight. They dawn, and disappear. 
 Their words are few, but the Advent 
 Chorus yet is sounding its music 
 through the world. 
 
 1922. John the Baptist. — John's 
 camel's hair and food of the wilder- 
 ness were well enough ; his stern 
 morality and burning zeal in reform- 
 ing his people were commendable ; 
 but not all of them revealed his true 
 nobility as did the reply of this un- 
 sectarian leader to his sectarian disci- 
 ples : "I am not the Christ. I am 
 sent before him. He must increase, I 
 must decrease." Thus John yielded 
 up his place, even as a flower falls 
 and dies that it may give place to the 
 fruit that swells beneath it. 
 
 1923. Forms of Baptism. — Cere- 
 monialism tends to scrupulosity, and 
 scrupulosity to superstition, and su- 
 perstition is idolatry. To this day 
 men are yet camped down beside the 
 Jordan, disputing about baptism ; and 
 now, as then, in the full blaze of a 
 system whose whole force is spiritual, 
 disciples are divided, not even on an 
 ordinance, but on the external method 
 of its administration. Good men have 
 intrenched their consciences behind 
 an externality of an externality. Nor 
 is the whole common spiritual wealth 
 of Christianity able to unite men who 
 have quarrelled over the husk and 
 rind of a symbolical ordinance. 
 
 There came near being two sects [in 
 the beginning]. It needed only that 
 the leaders on this question of baptism 
 should take sides with their disciples 
 effectually to split their common 
 movement into two warring halves. 
 Jesus, seeing the danger, not only left 
 the neighborhood, but ceased baptiz- 
 ing. There is no record or hint from 
 this day that any of his disciples, or 
 even that his own Apostles, were bap- 
 tized. 
 
 1924. The Temptation of Jesus. — 
 Had this scene been recorded of some 
 of the prophets hundreds of years be- 
 fore, it would have harmonized ad- 
 mirably with the narratives which re- 
 late the old prophetic histories. But 
 in the later days of Gospel history 
 this scene of temptation is like some 
 gigantic boulder drifted out of its place 
 and historic relations, and out of sight 
 and memory of the cliffs to which in 
 kind it belonged. It is in perfect ac- 
 cord with the elder Hebrew nature, 
 and it was the last and greatest of that 
 sublime series of prophetic tableaux, 
 through which Hebrew genius de- 
 livered to the world its imperishable 
 contributions of moral truth. 
 
 1925. Jesus and Solomon. — The 
 Saviour's discourses show that his 
 mind was peculiarly adapted to read 
 the Book of Proverbs with keen relish. 
 Under his eye the practical wisdom of 
 those curt sentences, the insight into 
 men's motives which they give, those 
 shrewd lessons of experience, must 
 have had a larger interpretation than 
 they were wont to receive. If one 
 has observed how the frigid annals of 
 history, when Shakespeare read them, 
 blossomed out into wonderful dramas, 
 he can partly imagine what Solomon's 
 philosophy must have become under 
 the eye of Jesus. 
 
 1926. Aptness of Jesus' Parables. — 
 The parables of Jesus were not born 
 in the closet, and brought forth like 
 perfected poems to do their work. 
 They sprang into being suddenly. 
 They were creatures of life, born of 
 the actual events then taking place. 
 Beautiful of themselves as luminous 
 moral fictions, their force is far greater 
 when we perceive their illustrative fit- 
 ness. The parable of the Good Sa- 
 maritan arose out of a discussion. 
 
 1927. Parables and Events. — The 
 parables of Jesus, as we find them in 
 
THE BIBLE 
 
 409 
 
 the Gospels, are like pearls cast into a 
 jewel-case, without order or selection. 
 The thread that connected them is 
 lost. But we often find an inward 
 congruity between the parable and 
 the events just then happening, that 
 creates a probability as to the order. 
 Thus the two parables respecting the 
 imminence of death would seem nat- 
 urally to have followed the parable of 
 the rich fool. There are two ; one in 
 light, the other in shadow — Death as 
 a bridegroom, Death as a thief in the 
 night. 
 
 1928. Sermon on the Mount: Loft- 
 iness. — There was no inequality or 
 unharmony in the whole discourse. 
 The pitch at the beginning was taken 
 far above the line of any doctrine 
 then in practice, and to the end the 
 elevation was sustained. It was the 
 teaching of one who saw men as men 
 had never yet been. The possible 
 manhood, never yet developed, was 
 familiar to Jesus, and upon that 
 ideal he fashioned every precept. 
 Not a note fell from the pitch. Every 
 single thought was brought up to a 
 manhood far transcending that of his 
 own age. 
 
 1929. Sermon on the Mount: Not 
 Original. — Men are fond of speaking 
 of the originality of the Sermon on 
 the Mount ; but originality would have 
 defeated its very aim. All growth 
 must sprout from roots pre-existing in 
 the soul. There can be no new, ex- 
 cept by the help of some old. To have 
 spread out a novel field of unfamiliar 
 truth before the people might have led 
 them to speculation, but could not have 
 aroused their conscience, nor rebuked 
 the degradation of their natures and 
 the sordidness of their lives. It was the 
 very aim of the Sermon on the Mount 
 to place before the Jews, in the clear- 
 est light, the great truths out of which 
 sprung their Law and their prophets. 
 
 as a preparation for the new and 
 higher developments that would come 
 afterwards. 
 
 1930. Sermon on the Mount : Open- 
 ing. — On a lonely hilltop sat one 
 known to have been reared as a 
 mechanic, pronouncing to a group of 
 peasants, fishermen, mechanics, and 
 foreigners the sublime truths of the 
 higher and interior life of the soul, 
 which have since by universal con- 
 sent been deemed the noblest utter- 
 ances of earth. The traveler may 
 to-day stand in Antwerp, near the old 
 cathedral, hearing all the clatter of 
 business, a thousand feet tramping 
 close up to the walls and buttresses 
 against which lean the booths, a 
 thousand tongues rattling the language 
 of traffic, when, as the hour strikes 
 from above, a shower of notes seems 
 to descend from the spire, — bell 
 notes, fine, sweet, small as a bird's 
 warble, the whole air full of crisp 
 tinkhngs, underlaid by the deeper and 
 sonorous tones of large bells, but all 
 of them in fit sequences pouring forth 
 a melody that seems unearthly, and 
 the more because in such contrast with 
 the scenes of vulgar life beneath. In 
 some such way must these words have 
 fallen upon the multitude. 
 
 Whether the audience felt the 
 sweetness and exquisite beauty of 
 Christ's opening sentences we cannot 
 know. They are the choicest truths 
 of the old dispensation set to the spirit 
 of the new. But not until, like bells, 
 they were thus set in chimes and rung 
 in the spirit and melody of the spirit- 
 ual age, could one have dreamed how 
 noble they were. 
 
 1 93 1. Undesired Gems. — I would 
 rather look at a ruby than drink ten 
 glasses of wine. And yet, I will tell 
 you of a casket that has more jewels 
 than Tiffany ever dreamed of, and 
 stranger ones, too. Although they 
 
4IO 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 are witliin the rcacli of everybody, I 
 have seldom seen them set — at any 
 rate, I have seldom seen them set so 
 that they were altogether. " Blessed 
 are the poor in spirit:" one gem. 
 "Blessed are they that mourn:" 
 another gem. " Blessed are the 
 meek." "Blessed are they that 
 hunger and thrist after righteousness " 
 — those that have soul-hunger. 
 " Blessed are the merciful." " Blessed 
 are the pure in heart." " Blessed 
 are the peacemakers." " Blessed 
 are they that are persecuted." 
 Did you ever see such a string 
 of jewels in your life ? But you 
 would not wear them. If they 
 were strung and put on your neck 
 you would not like them. And yet 
 no opal is more spirituellc, no dia- 
 mond has such a pure white light, no 
 ruby has such a color of red, no 
 emerald is so green, no sapphire is so 
 blue, no gem is so magnificent as they 
 are. And when you see them in other 
 people you think so, though you may 
 not know what it is that makes them so 
 sweet and pleasant to you. 
 
 1932. The Beatitudes. — The Ser- 
 mon on the Mount was a criticism of 
 the received doctrine. Every part of 
 it brings down to us the odor and 
 flavor of the best days and the ripest 
 things of the Old Testament dispensa- 
 tion. It was the mount from which 
 men looked over into the promised 
 land of the spirit. Even the Beati- 
 tudes, an exquisite prelude, which 
 seems like a solemn hymn sung before 
 a service, are but a collection and bet- 
 ter ordering of maxims or aphorisms 
 which existed in the Old Testament. 
 
 1933. The Lord's Prayer. — One 
 knows not which most to admire in 
 this form, — its loftiness of spirit, its 
 comprehensiveness, its brevity, its 
 simplicity, or its union of human and 
 divine elements. Our admiration of 
 
 it is not disturbed by that criticism 
 which questions its originality and 
 finds it to be made up, in part, of 
 prayers already existing. Is the 
 diamond less princely among stones 
 because its constituent elements can 
 be shown in other combinations ? The 
 brilliant contrast between the inor- 
 ganic elements and their crystalline 
 form is a sufficient answer. All prayer 
 may be said to have crystallized in 
 this prayer. The Church has worn 
 it for hundreds of years upon her 
 bosom, as the brightest gem of de- 
 votion. 
 
 ^934- Persons Associated with 
 Jesus. — Out of the nameless crowd 
 some striking figure emerges, — a ruler, 
 a centurion, a maniac, a foreign 
 woman. Under the eye of Christ 
 these personages glow for a moment 
 with intense individuality, and then 
 sink back into obscurity. No history 
 precedes them ; no after account of 
 them is given. Like the pictures 
 which the magic lantern throws upon 
 the screen, they seem to come from 
 the air and to melt again into noth- 
 ing ; and yet, while they remain, 
 every line is distinct and every color 
 intense. 
 
 1935. Discoursing at the Last 
 Supper. — There is no part of the clos- 
 ing history of the Saviour's life more 
 wonderful than the record which John 
 makes of his last interviews with his 
 disciples. . . . They are full of what 
 may be called a love-lore, such as is 
 to be found in no other literature, and 
 such as refuses to be interpreted by 
 the ordinary love-literature of human 
 society. Such love, so high, so full 
 of divine intellection, so full of 
 spiritual impulse, so full of regrets 
 tempered by a better knowledge, 
 so full of aspiration, so full of 
 faith, so tender, so gentle, touching 
 the human soul on all sides so potently 
 
THE BIBLE 
 
 411 
 
 — we know not where to look for any- 
 thing, till we hear it from the lips of 
 God in heaven, that can be compared 
 with this representation in those 
 chapters in John, — chapters which 
 have this trouble : that they are like 
 fruit-trees which grow so high that 
 children stepping under them can 
 take only windfalls, being unable to 
 reach up into the boughs, where 
 the fruit is ripest, and where the sun 
 has given it its best colors. It is only 
 through the medium of higher forms 
 of experience, which are not given 
 to all, and which are seldom vouch- 
 safed to any, that one can enter into 
 these discourses and interpret them. 
 
 1936. Name-Associations. — A man's 
 own name takes hold of a thousand 
 inward chords, and may be so pro- 
 nounced that almost every nerve and 
 sensibility of his being shall be 
 thrilled with it. 
 
 One of the most matchless scenes 
 in the New Testament history is con- 
 nected with this, where after he came 
 forth on that blessed morning, Jesus 
 walked in the garden, and Mary, the 
 most devoted of all the women, could 
 not see him because of her tears (for 
 people's griefs are very apt to hide 
 from them the presence of the Com- 
 forter), and she said to him, supposing 
 he was the gardener, " Sir, if thou 
 hast taken him away, tell me where 
 thou hast laid him." But he who 
 had spoken with her, and had not 
 been recognized by her, simply pro- 
 nounced her name, " Mary ! " and 
 with that she cried out, in an ecstasy 
 of remembrance and of love and of 
 gladness, " Rabboni ! " and would 
 have clasped his feet. The whole 
 force of this scene was in the line of 
 the history of her heart or past 
 associations, and of all her hopes, 
 and all her longings, and all the 
 visions and aspirations which his 
 
 company and teaching had inspired 
 in her. These had been buried with 
 him. She stood before him, and he 
 talked with her, but not a single 
 chord vibrated until he struck her 
 name ; then her whole life burst out 
 like the morning. 
 
 1937. The Gospel of John. — I 
 hardly see how one who has any 
 sympathy in the slightest degree with 
 the superior nature of Christ could 
 consent to omit the Gospel of John. 
 To my mind, the New Testament 
 without John would be very much 
 like a golden candlestick and a 
 candle with the flame blown out. It 
 is the very point of illumination. 
 
 Other gospels give us what Jesus 
 said and did, though not without 
 many luminous points beside. But 
 John, more than they all, gives what 
 Christ was; the movement of his 
 thought and of his affections, and the 
 relation of the interior of his life with 
 the great invisible world and with the 
 moral sphere in which God dwells. 
 It is the unexpressed Christ, as re- 
 flected from the consciousness of a 
 sympathetic disciple. If it be the 
 invention of a later day, I had almost 
 said that the man who invented it was 
 himself worthy to be called divine ; so 
 full is it of subtile spiritual elements 
 not ordinarily revealed to the largest 
 natures ; profound moral depths, to 
 the sounding of which our experience 
 has not yet enabled us. Every step 
 of criticism which shall destroy its 
 historic verity only leaves the problem 
 of its origin more and more marvelous. 
 But it will not be destroyed. It will 
 stand, the noblest of the four. 
 
 1938. Controversies about Christ. 
 —I know of nothing which seems 
 more offensive to me than the com- 
 bative associations connected with 
 texts of the New Testament which 
 should rise up as so many fair pictures 
 
412 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 to US — as so many tlowcrs in the 
 peaceful meadows. And over these 
 very scenes in which the Ufe of Christ 
 is opened, that it might come to our 
 heart or imagination and inspire and 
 guide us in the best feelings of our 
 life — over all these tranquil scenes 
 fierce war has raged ; and every part 
 of the battlefield in the four Gospels, 
 almost, is redolent, not so much of 
 Christ as of the controversies about 
 him which have prevailed in the 
 Christian church. Happy will be 
 those ages in which the associations 
 of the New Testament are not con- 
 troversial. 
 
 1939. Great Religious Geniuses. — 
 The great men of the world are those 
 who discover or apply great truths to 
 the times in which they live, in such 
 a manner as to work effectual refor- 
 mations of society. A man is great, 
 not by the measure of his faculty, 
 but by the results which he produces 
 in life. Paul was, then, one of the 
 greatest. He was greater than Peter, 
 than John, than any since the days 
 of Moses. Moses and Paul may be 
 said to have formed the religious ages 
 of the old and of the new dispensa- 
 tions. Moses framed the civil and 
 ethical truths into institutions ; David 
 added the poetic and lyric element. 
 Paul gave to his age the great 
 organizing truths, and furnished in his 
 own conduct an example of how to 
 employ them ; John added the interior 
 reflective, sentimental element. And 
 so John was to Paul what David was 
 to Moses. 
 
 1940. Seventh and Eighth of Ro- 
 mans. — I have seen, in the hill country, 
 a little stream gathering from the 
 springs, and holding its way with 
 deepening water, until it enters a 
 gorge. Dark evergreen trees make 
 the place gloomy. Rocks and fallen 
 timber hinder the stream. It falls 
 
 headlong upon some stone, and is 
 dashed to spray ; it trickles back to a 
 channel, only to be caught and whirled 
 in a dark pool ; and boiling out of that, 
 it shoots now to the right, still em- 
 broiled, and now to the left, but 
 whether forward or sideways, always 
 hindered, broken, and made to cry 
 out and roar by its plunges and in- 
 numerable interruptions. No flowers 
 edge it. Its way is too sunless for 
 beauty. But when, at length, far 
 down, it sees beyond a glimpse of 
 field and meadow, it takes cheer, and 
 speeds on, until at length the broad 
 sunshine strikes it, its cascades are 
 fewer, its course evener, and at length 
 beneath bending grasses, and simple 
 flowers, and ruffling shrubs, and over 
 smooth shining sand, it steals tran- 
 quilly on, undisturbed, beautiful, and 
 the cause of beauty on either bank. 
 
 Such is the Seventh chapter of Ro- 
 mans, — the soul in the cleft rocks of 
 the mountain gorge ; and such the 
 Eighth chapter of Romans, — the soul 
 flowing deep in the fair fields of heav- 
 enly joy. 
 
 1941. Law and Gospel. — I defy any 
 man to get out of the Seventh of 
 Romans into the Eighth, e.\cept by 
 that one word, "Christ." He who 
 attempts it is like a leaf caught in the 
 eddy of a stream ; it whirls round and 
 wants to get down the stream, but 
 cannot go. The Seventh of Romans 
 is an eddy in which the conscience 
 swings round and round in eternal 
 disquiet and dissatisfaction ; the Lord 
 Jesus Christ offers the deliverance and 
 open passage to the freedom of the 
 Eighth of Romans, — or, rather, is the 
 talisman through which it receives the 
 touch of Divine inspiration, and is 
 lifted above, into the realm of true 
 Divine beneficence. 
 
 1942. Epistle to the Romans. — It 
 is said that no one can at first take in 
 
THE BIBLE 
 
 413 
 
 the scope and magnitude of St. Peter's 
 at Rome, and that the first impression 
 is one of disappointment. Our senses 
 are so unused to large measurements, 
 that they do not take the meaning of 
 such a gigantic cathedral. It is only 
 when, by patient waiting and growing 
 familiarity, the senses have opened 
 and grown to a nobler use, that the 
 full meaning of such a massive struc- 
 ture begins to come to them. Then 
 the immensity of the space, the rich- 
 ness of the parts, the universality re- 
 sulting from a well ordering of innu- 
 merable details, begin to impress the 
 mind ; and every day swells the dome, 
 and carries forth the length and width 
 of the interior, and harmonizes the 
 multitudinous details until they lose 
 their separateness, and become only 
 the means and instruments of a won- 
 derful whole. 
 
 As you recede from it, miles and 
 miles across the Campagna, there rises 
 high into the air that sublime circle ; 
 and when, by distance, all the subja- 
 cent parts are sunken and lost, that 
 magnificent globe hangs upon the sky, 
 as if, like heavenly spheres, it needed 
 no foundation, but hung suspended in 
 the ether, buoyed up as ships are 
 floated in the seas. 
 
 It is even so with the Epistle to 
 the Romans. The close of the Eighth 
 chapter is the dome of the cathedral. 
 It is only one's own whole life that 
 can interpret it. At the first reading 
 it seems confused. A certain wonder 
 and wealth of meaning is apparent, 
 but neither order nor harmony. But 
 gradually the parts seem to unite ; the 
 exceeding richness of single words or 
 thoughts goes to compose a harmoni- 
 ous whole. And the closing verses, 
 rising like a vast dome, lift themselves 
 above the earth, above the stars, and 
 into that sacred space where heaven 
 is, and the glory of God. 
 
 1943. Struggles of the Flesh : Glory 
 of the Spirit. — When I read the Eighth 
 chapter of Romans it reminds me of 
 what I have heard in the concert- 
 room, in the overture to Wagner's 
 Tannhauser, where the tempted soul 
 is represented as being thrown under 
 the influence of passions and weird 
 spirits. The music shrills and thun- 
 ders, and it would seem as though 
 upon the mountain of temptation 
 everything was wrapped in darkness, 
 or had but lurid light ; and the whole 
 is witch-music and waihng hideous 
 cacophony : until by and by, afar off, 
 one hears the voice of the Christian 
 Pilgrim choir, that swells into an 
 anthem ; and as the shrieks and the 
 wails seem to lose power, it advances 
 in fullness of tone, and spreads abroad 
 until, at last, as if amid the tears of 
 those that listen, the whole scene is 
 conquered by the advancing melody 
 and glorious harmony. So when I 
 look upon life, and hear the persist- 
 ent, piercing tones of the passions, 
 the thunders of war and the moaning 
 troubles of men, I hear, too, from afar, 
 deep sounds of the coming glory ; and 
 with the ages they shall grow deeper 
 and spread wider ; and at last the 
 whole universe itself shall join in 
 triumphal procession, and the glory 
 shall be to him that sitteth upon the 
 throne, and to the Lamb forever. 
 
 1944. I Corinthians, XIII. — Of all 
 the symphonies that Beethoven ever 
 wrote, the Fifth seems to me to be the 
 center and chmax. The others stream 
 out from it, as it were, like rays of 
 light from a central sun. It is the one 
 magnificent exhibition of consummate 
 musical genius. Now, what the Fifth 
 Symphony is to Beethoven's music, I 
 think that the Thirteenth chapter of 
 First Corinthians is to the Bible ; and 
 especially to the New Testament. It 
 is the more extraordinary because of 
 
414 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 the literary context in which it stands. 
 It is as if, in a mighty battle, there 
 should suddenly be a cessation of 
 arms, and there should be lifted up, 
 and roll over the battlefield, a won- 
 drous hymn, united in by all the 
 bands ; and as if no sooner were the 
 notes of this magnificent music com- 
 pleted than the battle should begin 
 again, and the bands, separating, 
 should go their several ways, to cheer 
 their several squadrons. 
 
 Paul has been arguing, up to this 
 time, on the subject of the diverse 
 gifts ; settling difficult questions and 
 points of disagreement ; fending off, 
 pushing aside, opposition. It is con- 
 troversial all the way through. Sud- 
 denly he stops the argument and 
 illustration, and lifts up this mag- 
 nificent descant upon love, running 
 through the thirteen verses of the 
 thirteenth chapter. And the moment 
 it is over, he goes back to his duty 
 again, and commences the contro- 
 versial strain once more. 
 
 1945. I Corinthians, XIII. — Ah ! the 
 Thirteenth chapter of First Corin- 
 thians is v/hat throws light upon every- 
 thing. It is the painted window in the 
 glorious old cathedral, through which 
 the most splendid truths pour, in the 
 most radiant colors. 
 
 1946. Paul's Last Letter. — The 
 Epistle to the Philippians is one of the 
 tenderest and deepest and sweetest of 
 Paul's letters. It was near the last, 
 if not actually the last, of his writings ; 
 and looking out of prison back on his 
 career, and the stormy scenes of his 
 life, this is his final word. This may 
 be almost called the dying voice of 
 Paul : and he never says a word about 
 Sunday ; not a word about circum- 
 cision, not a word about ordinances, 
 government, dogma, doctrine. He 
 speaks wholly of the inward life by 
 which man is likened to the Lord 
 
 Jesus Christ. That is the legacy 
 breathed in his last hour. 
 
 1947. Paul's Egoism. — Now comes 
 the Book of Hebrews. We know not 
 who its author is ; we know it was not 
 Paul. You might just as well talk 
 Choctaw and say that is the language 
 of New England or Old England. The 
 style of the Epistle to the Hebrews is 
 impossible to Paul. There is but one 
 place in which the writer says " I," 
 and I think that is towards the close ; 
 but in Paul's writings " I " stands out 
 as thick as spears do in a battle — it is 
 "I," "I." "I live, yet not I, but 
 Christ liveth in me." There is a most 
 imperial and superb egoism in Paul 
 which is not offensive, simply because 
 he had lost his sense of personality. 
 " I am in Christ, and Christ is in me." 
 
 1948. Influence of Noble Deeds. — 
 This chapter of Hebrews turns upon 
 the deeds of their noble men and 
 women, or of men and women not 
 noble, but made so by some single 
 deed. They hung above the horizon 
 of the Israelites an invisible influence, 
 nevertheless the most potent. Even a 
 harlot is not forgotten — Rahab, whose 
 life was dedicated to sensuousness, yet 
 who, on one impulse, dared to peril 
 life and everything dear to life on the 
 unseen future that had impressed her 
 with being noble. As the roughest 
 and rudest of all possible things car- 
 ries in it the pearl, though but one, 
 that one heroic deed shines through all 
 the darkness of the ages, and Rahab 
 is remembered when a million harlots 
 are forgotten. 
 
 1949. The Apocalypse. — What 
 should we think of one who should 
 go into the lobby of the Vatican to see 
 the frescoes of Raphael, and take with 
 him scales and rules, weighing out 
 certain parts of the pigment, measur- 
 ing other parts, and ciphering upon 
 and estimating these pictures by weight 
 
THE BIBLE 
 
 415 
 
 and size, as if they were a mere mer- 
 chantable commodity, applying to 
 them rules that are infinitely below, 
 and that have no relation to them. 
 And yet, so men have been for gener- 
 ations attempting to interpret this sub- 
 lime, vague, but most glorious and 
 useful drama, ciphering throughout 
 the past as if it were a literal prophecy, 
 and ciphering into the future as though 
 it were a prophecy unfulfilled ; and 
 attempting, by arithmetic, by historical 
 interpretations, by various ingenious 
 parallelisms or inferences or analogies, 
 to obtain didactic meanings from it to 
 suit their own schemes of thought. 
 
 1950. Interpretation of Prophetic 
 Visions. — The effect becomes ludi- 
 crous when modern interpreters, not 
 content with a disclosure of the ruling 
 thought, attempt to transform the 
 whole gorgeous picture into modern 
 equivalents, to translate every sign and 
 symbol into a literal fact. If men 
 were to attempt with brick and mortar 
 to build a picture of the auroral lights, 
 it would scarcely be more absurd than 
 the attempt to find modern equiva- 
 lents for every part of the sublime 
 Apocalypse of St. John. 
 
 1951. The Book of Revelations. — 
 You will sooner make the sunset con- 
 form itself to any theory of arrange- 
 ment than you will reduce this Book 
 to any method of thought that is yet 
 known. It is a drama, indicating the 
 close of the long struggle between 
 good and evil which has been and is 
 a thread of human history. It is a 
 drama which does not pretend to be 
 symmetrical, or to have unity. It is 
 like a great piece of music, filled with 
 strange choruses and songs. It is full 
 of swarming conflicts set off by stu- 
 pendous images. It is a sublime Book 
 that hangs in the future, giving assur- 
 ance of the final triumph of goodness, 
 of truth, of justice, and of love in the 
 
 world ; and we must take it as a mag- 
 nificent tableau, and not as a regu- 
 lated philosophical statement, and 
 still less as a history, either of the past 
 or of the future. 
 
 1952. Bible Study Needs Better In- 
 struments. — There is a great deal 
 more meaning in many of the pas- 
 sages of the Bible than we can give to 
 them. The fact is that many of the 
 texts of Scripture kill sermons dead. 
 A wise preacher skips the best texts. 
 He cannot work them up. 
 
 When mahogany was first intro- 
 duced into Europe, there was not a 
 carpenter shop in any kingdom that 
 had tools highly tempered enough to 
 work it. It broke every tool that 
 there was, and new tools had to be 
 made, of better steel, and steel of a 
 higher temper. And our tools, with 
 which we handle texts, are not of 
 good enough material. We must 
 have new ones with better material, 
 and material more highly tempered. 
 
 1953. The Bible Buried under 
 Rubbish. — You know how it is with 
 the cities of the East that are now be- 
 ing exhumed. In Egypt they are 
 digging down to old cities under cen- 
 turies of accumulations of sand. In 
 Assyria they are doing the same. 
 Ancient Jerusalem lies forty feet be- 
 low the level of the present city ; if 
 you would walk the streets where the 
 prophets walked you must go down 
 through rubbish to get where they 
 were. But no statue, or pyramid, or 
 sphinx, or treasure sought was ever 
 covered down with learning and other 
 accumulations as the Word of God is. 
 If you doubt it, read the commen- 
 taries. 
 
 1954. Annoyance by Commentators. 
 — As sometimes, when we go to our 
 work in summer, we are annoyed by 
 swarms of insects that fill the air with 
 murmurous buzz, and trouble the eye 
 
4i6 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 and the car, and offend every sense, 
 so there are some passages in the 
 Bible so infested by commentators, by 
 controversialists, and theologians, and 
 curious Christians, that one cannot 
 approach them except through a 
 swarm of buzzing associations which 
 distract the reason, and pervert the 
 judgment, and take away all the 
 heart-enjoyment which they were 
 meant to give. 
 
 1955- The Bible not a Book of 
 War. — It may become essential to 
 collect various representations of 
 truth, draw them up in battle array, 
 and with them bear down on oppos- 
 ing views and teachings ; but such a 
 use of this book seems to me to be in- 
 felicitous. It certainly is uncongenial 
 to me. 
 
 I have spent nearly forty years in 
 the ministry, and during the early 
 part of that period my work was more 
 or less controversial. I was born not 
 far from the time of the split between 
 the Old and the New School Presby- 
 terians. I was brought up in the 
 gladiation of a theological seminary. 
 You may think I do not know much 
 about theology. You do not know 
 how much I know about it, for I have 
 tried to forget all that, and to recover 
 from the scars and wounds inflicted 
 by a controversial reading of the 
 Bible. 
 
 1956. Theological Transformation 
 of the Bible. — A mother sends away 
 her boy of nineteen or twenty. He 
 goes out rollicking, a happy, rosy- 
 cheeked boy, to his military school : 
 the next time she sees him he is 
 strapped tight ; he is weighted ; he is 
 laden down with his clothes ; he has 
 his epaulets on his shoulders ; and he 
 stands as straight as a ramrod. That 
 is the boy she knew in the cradle, and 
 frolicking in the nursery, and who 
 used to romp around the house, and 
 
 who left her to go to school ; now he 
 is a martinet. That boy is an illustra- 
 tion of the Bible which has been made 
 to be, in the drill which has been 
 given to it by theology, utterly unlike 
 its early free, natural self. 
 
 1957. Conflict over the Bible 
 
 There are many whose only thought 
 of the New Testament is as of a mag- 
 azine of artillery. There is no sweet- 
 ness in texts, to their taste. They 
 value them merely as clubs to be 
 hewn for the conflict which they are 
 waging. The wondrous beauty of the 
 love of Christ, of his words them- 
 selves, are but so much metal with 
 which they forge swords and armor 
 and breastplates as they go out against 
 each other in theological controversy. 
 The garden of the Lord, the exquisite 
 beauty of the New Testament, is as if 
 the wild boar of the forest had deso- 
 lated it. On the very Tree of Life he 
 whets his tusks, that he may go into 
 belluine and savage warfare. 
 
 1958. Combative Reading of the 
 Bible. — There are many persons of 
 combative tendencies, who read the 
 Bible for ammunition, and dig out of 
 it iron for balls. They read, and they 
 find niter and charcoal and sulphur 
 for powder. They read, and they find 
 cannon. They read, and they make 
 port-holes and embrasures. And if a 
 man does not believe as they do they 
 look upon him as an enemy, and let 
 fly the Bible at him to demolish him. 
 Reading the Bible thus promotes 
 quarrels and controversies. 
 
 1959. The Bible of Conflict. — How 
 sad is that field from which battle has 
 just departed I By as much as the 
 valley was exquisite in its loveliness is 
 it now sublimely sad in its desolation. 
 Such to me is the Bible when a fight- 
 ing theologian has gone through it. 
 
 i960. The Bible not Dependent on 
 any One of its Books. — The Word 
 
THE BIBLE 
 
 417 
 
 of God is composed of books, which, 
 though written in different ages, have 
 an interior unity ; but the setting aside 
 of any book that is bound up in the 
 Bible will not invalidate the others. 
 We kno\T very well that Luther did 
 not believe the Epistle of James was a 
 canonical book. As for myself, I say 
 that even if it should be proved that 
 some of the books of the Bible are not 
 authentic, and must be rejected — as I 
 do not believe it will ; and that others, 
 in the main correct, contain more or 
 less errors which must be eliminated, 
 it would not destroy the Bible for me, 
 any more than to take a rotten joist 
 from an imperfect place in a house 
 would destroy the house. In taking 
 out from the Bible whatever is false, 
 you simply take out something that 
 does not belong there. The Bible re- 
 mains. 
 
 ig5i. The Bible : Unity in Diversity. 
 — I think one of the most interesting 
 things in England is the Winchester 
 Cathedral. It represents every order 
 of Gothic architecture, from the old 
 Saxon down to the latest develop- 
 ments in this direction, running 
 through four or five distinct periods. 
 In one part of the building you see 
 represented the most ancient, in an- 
 other more modern, in another still 
 more modern, and in another, the 
 most modern Gothic architecture. 
 The whole constitutes a magnificent 
 pile. It represents several different 
 schools, with hundreds of years be- 
 tween them; but the peculiarities of 
 these different schools are brought to- 
 gether so that, although the individual 
 elements in them are unlike, they 
 compose a unit which is admirable, 
 and serves the purposes of the church, 
 at the same time that it is beautiful. 
 
 So external unity in the books of 
 the Bible is utterly wanting ; but in- 
 teriorly they are one. That is, they 
 
 all bear on the general questions of 
 man's sinfulness, his duty, his right- 
 eousness, his relations to God and 
 eternity. They are uniform in that 
 regard ; while in their outward char- 
 acteristics they are very different one 
 from another. 
 
 1962. Doctrines of Inspiration, — 
 When one departs from the old-time 
 idea of inspiration of the Bible, and 
 admits things in the body of Scripture 
 to be erroneous, many persons brought 
 up under the vague influence of the 
 doctrine of plenary or verbal inspira- 
 tion, feel that they are giving up the 
 book ; but it is no more giving up the 
 book than it would be giving up my 
 right and title, if, having received a 
 will from my father, making me heir 
 of certain properties, I should find 
 that his description of these properties 
 was not accurate, and should acknowl- 
 edge this to be a defect. If the house 
 belonging to the estate was repre- 
 sented as being one hundred feet by 
 fifty feet, whereas it was only ninety- 
 five feet by forty-eight feet, the sub- 
 stantial thing would be there, in spite 
 of the external errors in the statement. 
 If your name should be spelled wrong, 
 or bad grammar should be used, in 
 the will, that would not invalidate it. 
 
 1963. Permanence of God's Words. 
 — There stands in the basement of the 
 Louvre, in Paris, a collection of the 
 statues of the Greek gods. When I 
 first came among them, I was seized 
 with an unexpected emotion. I 
 seemed borne back to the days when 
 these stood in their several temples, or 
 upon open-air pedestals ; when men 
 thought them to be receptacles of di- 
 vinity, and offered up their reverential 
 worship before them, — mere relics 
 now, in many cases, of what had 
 once been awe-inspiring. Nor could 
 I well awake from the trance and re- 
 alize the gulf of time between them 
 
4i8 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 and their worshipers, and the meaning 
 of those revolutions in laws and reli- 
 gious ideas and beliefs that had sepa- 
 rated these marbles from the days of 
 their glory, and cast them up in these 
 later times, where, instead of faith, 
 curiosity, and half-reverence, only 
 cold, brilliant art-admiration lingered 
 about their venerable forms. 
 
 But if for these miserable memorials 
 of a former glory — gods without a 
 worshiper ; altars without priest or 
 sacrifice ; divinities beggared, exiled, 
 discrowned, and cast out of their 
 spheres never to reascend — one ex- 
 periences so strange an interest, how 
 much he must experience for the im- 
 perishable memorials which have 
 come down upon the course of thou- 
 sands of years, without infirmity or 
 change — the Hebrew Bible ! 
 
 1964. Biblical Criticism. — Suppose 
 you have a package of twenty-five 
 titles and deeds, and as you look 
 them over you find among them the 
 record of a journey to Androscog- 
 gin, and you say, "That came here 
 by accident," and throw it out ; and 
 suppose your son, sitting by, should 
 say, " Father, if that is not genuine, 
 how do you know that the rest are ? " 
 The fact that by mistake a paper that 
 does not belong there gets into the 
 bundle, does not destroy the validity 
 of the papers that are in it which do 
 belong there. Each paper stands on 
 its own merits. And because you put 
 a strap around the whole, they are not 
 so connected that if you take some 
 out those that are left are good for 
 nothing. Binder's leather about the 
 Bible docs not make all the books of 
 of it so otie that if you impair the 
 authority of any you impair the au- 
 thority of the others. 
 
 1965. Petty Criticisms. — The petty 
 criticisms which peck at God's word, 
 and are amazingly contemptible in the 
 
 presence of this orient light which arose 
 in twilight but waxed brighter and 
 brighter towards the perfect day, ought 
 to be the marvel and the wonder of men. 
 What if there be anachronisms in the 
 Bible ; mistakes in dates, stumblings 
 of good men, worn out and wasted 
 customs still embalmed? What if 
 there should be imperfect laws per- 
 mitted ? They are but fleeting ele- 
 ments, and have their use in marking 
 the stages of development by which 
 the human intelligence rose from dark- 
 ness into relative light, and the con- 
 science from being soiled into relative 
 purity, and a higher faith was being 
 developed. 
 
 Should I, if I had stood upon the 
 Acropolis, and discovered that there 
 were spiders in the great temple of 
 the Parthenon, or that there was a 
 leak in the roof, or that there was dust 
 settled upon the cornices, blow up the 
 building because I saw these specks in 
 it ? Yet there are men who deride 
 this grandest collection of the evolu- 
 tions of human consciousness towards 
 the highest ideal. They have no con- 
 ception of the grandeur of this move- 
 ment, nor of the grandeur of its 
 results. 
 
 1966. Seminal Character of the 
 Bible. — The very imperfections of the 
 Bible, as we consider them, are really 
 such as might be expected in any 
 work divinely inspired as the seed of 
 divine life in man. They are in har- 
 mony with the other works of God. 
 A book intended to be planted like a 
 seed in the human mind ought not to 
 have the finish of one intended for 
 temporary use. Polish brings limita- 
 tion. A book exactly adapted for use 
 in New York to-day will be of no use 
 whatever in Oregon next century. 
 
 1967. Men's Perplexities to be 
 Worked Out. — Many people say, 
 "Why does not the Bible settle a 
 
DOUBT AND BELIEF 
 
 419 
 
 great many points which are perplex- 
 ing to men?" You might as well 
 say, "Why did not God make a 
 garden behind every man's house, 
 where all desirable plants should 
 come up of their own accord, where 
 weeds should be banished, and where 
 everything should be in perfect order, 
 without giving the owner any trouble ? " 
 It would be just as reasonable to say, 
 " What is the use of making things so 
 that we should have to work in order 
 to get them ? " But that is God's cre- 
 ative idea. 
 
 1968, All Scripture Profitable. — I 
 have sometimes had persons ask me, 
 " What portions of the Bible are most 
 delightful to you?" I am reminded 
 of the answer to a question once pro- 
 pounded to Daniel Webster. He was 
 
 a great reader of Shakespeare's plays, 
 and was asked which he liked best. 
 He replied, instantly, "The one that I 
 read last." It is very much so with 
 Scripture. That portion which distils 
 as the dew from heaven upon the 
 thirsty soul, seems for the time the 
 most precious of all Scripture ; and 
 which part it is, will depend very 
 much upon the need of the man's own 
 feeling, or heart-life. 
 
 1969. Man and God. — Sink the 
 Bible to the bottom of the ocean, and 
 man's obligations to God would be un- 
 changed. He would have the same 
 path to tread, only his lamp and his 
 guide would be gone ; he would have 
 the same voyage to make, only his 
 compass and chart would be over- 
 board. 
 
 XX XIII . DOUBT AND BELIEF 
 
 1970. Indifference and Unbelief. — 
 How many are there marching on 
 now in the Sahara of indifference and 
 in the wilderness of unbelief! How 
 many are there without God and with- 
 out hope in this world ! What shall 
 become of them ? 
 
 197 1. Cheerlessness of Doubt. — 
 There lies the island of Newfound- 
 land, where the two currents meet — 
 the cold, frigid waters of the north, 
 made up of dissolved icebergs, and 
 the warm Gulf Stream of the south. 
 The cold airs from the north chill the 
 moist, warm airs from the south ; and 
 the result is fogs, fogs, fogs. New- 
 foundland and the adjacent waters 
 are almost constantly covered with 
 mists which are nigh impenetrable to 
 the rays of the sun. There are any 
 number of human Newfoundlands — 
 men who are in a dreary, chilly fog 
 all the time, without the sun of right- 
 eousness shining upon them. Thou- 
 sands of souls there are that are 
 
 wrnpped in the cheerless, sunless ex- 
 perience which doubt breeds. 
 
 1972. Eras of Doubt. — The old 
 pastures lie fallow for ten years with- 
 out plow or seed. When the farmer 
 at last wakes up to root out the old 
 turf, and turn it bottom side up, what 
 a perishing there is of roots ! What a 
 perishing there is of the old inhabit- 
 ants of the globe ! What absolute 
 waste it is ! But it is waste that is lay- 
 ing the foundation for a new crop, and 
 for a better and healthier one. When 
 the minds of men that have been fol- 
 lowing institutions and particular me- 
 chanical methods are broken loose 
 from them by the assertion of some- 
 thing newer and higher, the first process 
 is apt to be a breaking loose from the 
 old without taking root in anything 
 else. Then comes the era of doubt. 
 
 1973. Necessity of Differing Beliefs. 
 — The attempt to make all men see 
 and feel the same things is just as 
 preposterous as it would be to make 
 
420 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 the mark of one man's foot in the 
 sand, and attempt to compel every- 
 body else's foot to fit that mark 
 exactly. Stakes have been driven, 
 flames have been kindled, racks have 
 been turned, and blood has flowed 
 out by Amazons, in that which nature 
 abhors, and the race abhors, and God 
 abiiors — the attempt to make all men 
 believe in the same things in the same 
 way. It has been sought to run men in 
 moulds, as it were, so that they should 
 come out as dollars from a die. But 
 men are made on the principle of in- 
 finite and eternally increasing varia- 
 tions. And beliefs, though they agree 
 generically, vary specifically — and 
 must and will do so. 
 
 1974. Obstructions to Truth. — 
 Voltaire was not a sceptic of true re- 
 ligion ; for he never saw it. He was 
 an unbeliever in religion as he saw it 
 organized and before him. It seemed 
 as though his hand was turned against 
 the spirit of the Lord. It was not. 
 He was removing the obstructions that 
 overlaid the soil ; and if there was to 
 be a new growth, it was necessary 
 that in some way these things should 
 be removed that had ceased to be 
 a help, and were become really an ob- 
 struction to human development. 
 
 1975' Poor Remedy for Scepticism. 
 — The folly of that remedy which 
 men propose is made very plain. 
 Those who have not an understanding 
 of God's way, and cannot tell what 
 the signs of the times portend, often, 
 seeing this progress and that develop- 
 ment, think the remedy is to go back 
 to the old forms and institutions. 
 Screw up your machine a little tighter. 
 " They have been liberalizing a little ; 
 but now," say the deacon, the elder 
 and the minister, grave, good and 
 ignorant, " we must go back to the 
 old days." That is the best way to 
 get over ophthalmia — put your eyes 
 
 out, or never let them see anything, 
 or never use them in any way. So 
 they are more particular about ordi- 
 nances, about days, and about their 
 theology ; and if they don't believe 
 that, they bolt it — swallow it whole ! 
 
 1976. Imagination and Belief. — The 
 most wonderful work of art in all 
 ages, doubtless, was that of Phidias — 
 the famous Zeus, or Jupiter. No 
 artist has ever equaled Phidias ; 
 probably none ever will ; for we shall 
 probably never have an age again 
 whose deepest life will be expressed 
 by the instrumentality of art, and only 
 such ages can produce such artists as 
 Greece had before Christ, and Italy 
 afterwards. The wonderful statue 
 which Phidias made was wrought of 
 ivory and of gold. It was a carved 
 figure sitting upon a throne with ma- 
 jestic air, holding in its left hand a 
 statue of Victory, and in its right 
 hand the scepter of Empire. So vast 
 was this extraordinary work, that, 
 sitting in the chair of state, it still 
 towered forty feet in height. Into no 
 other figure and face had art ever 
 thrown such astonishing majesty. 
 Men made pilgrimages to see it. He 
 was counted happy who had seen, 
 and he was counted unfortunate who 
 died without seeing, the Phidian Jove. 
 It was placed at the end of the tem- 
 ple ; and historians say that if it had 
 risen up it would have carried away 
 the roof and the ceiling, so tall was it. 
 Before it was stretched a purple cur- 
 tain to hide it from common observa- 
 tion ; but on appointed festival days 
 the crowds of citizens — excited by an 
 uninstructed religious fervor, wild with 
 exhilarating dances, odorous with the 
 fragrance of costly perfumes through 
 whose smoke they passed, as censers 
 and altars shed them forth at every 
 corner, — in multitudes along every 
 square drew near to the temple ; and 
 
DOUBT AND BELIEF 
 
 421 
 
 now, when sacrifices were made, and 
 the vast throng were hushed with 
 silent expectation, at a signal the 
 priests drew back the purple curtain, 
 and the vast statue, white as snow and 
 yellow as gold, shone forth with such 
 amazing luster that the crowd were 
 subdued to tears ; some fainted, some 
 were caught into a nervous furor that 
 was counted an inspiradon ; and not 
 one was there among them who, for 
 the moment, doubted the reality of 
 the divine Olympian. 
 
 And yet this was a statue. It spoke 
 not a word. No heart throbbed 
 there. No light waked in those eyes. 
 It was a mere idol, that thought not, 
 moved not, felt not, but sat silent 
 amid ages — silent as the elements of 
 which it was made — the cast-off tusks 
 of elephants in African forests — silent 
 as gold buried in the mountains. Not 
 one of all that throng but had more 
 life, more intelligence, more scope 
 and magnitude of existence than that 
 majestic lie before which they cast 
 themselves down, the slaves of their 
 own imaginations ! 
 
 1977. Sincerity and Correctness of 
 Belief. — In regard to the truths of the 
 physical economy of the globe, does 
 it make any difference what a man 
 believes ? Would it make any differ- 
 ence to a machinist whether he thought 
 lead was as good for tools as steel ? 
 Would it make any difference to a man 
 in respect to the industries of life if he 
 thought that a triangle was as good as 
 a circular wheel in machinery ? In all 
 material things, the more sincere you 
 are, if you are right, the better ; but 
 the more sincere you are, if you are 
 wrong, the worse. In either case, sin- 
 cerity is the mallet that drives home 
 the excellence or the mischief. 
 
 It is only when we come to moral 
 grounds that men begin to urge with 
 any considerable degree of confidence 
 
 the superiority of sincerity to correct- 
 ness of belief. It is not until they 
 come to religious truths that men be- 
 gin to say, " It does not make much 
 difference what a man believes, if only 
 he believes it." 
 
 1978. The Power of Doubt. — If a 
 man tells me that a coin which I 
 have is silver, and I think it is silver, 
 I am easy ; but if he says to me, 
 " Are you sure that it is silver ? Are 
 you used to counterfeits ? Do you 
 know anything about them ? Have 
 you looked into this thing ? Do you 
 know that that is all right ? I do not 
 say that it is not ; it may be all right ; 
 but do you know that it is ? " I can- 
 not get it out of my mind that there is 
 a doubt about its being a good silver 
 coin until I can ascertain the facts in 
 regard to it. For the time being he 
 has broken my faith in it. 
 
 And the moment you have broken 
 the absolute faith of a man in any 
 truth or doctrine so that he doubts it, 
 it has no more power over him. 
 
 1979. Danger in Abandoning Be- 
 liefs. — It is not difficult for a man to 
 unsettle his beliefs ; but the power to 
 again lay the foundation of beliefs, to 
 fashion them, and to systematize them, 
 is the rarest that can be conceived 
 of. . . . It requires a comprehensive- 
 ness, an insight, and a special kind of 
 wisdom, singular among all the differ- 
 ent wisdoms. It requires a patience 
 of investigation, and then a long ripen- 
 ing of knowledge, such as not one man 
 in an age has given to him. It is far 
 more likely that there will be another 
 Homer, than that there will be another 
 Augustine ; that there will be another 
 Shakespeare, than that there will be 
 another Calvin ; that there will be an- 
 other Milton, than that there will be 
 another Arminius ; that there will be 
 another Dante, than that there will be 
 another Edwards. When, therefore, 
 
42-i 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 men think that to unsettle their belief 
 is not a perilous experiment, they are 
 very greatly mistaken ; for it is a gulf 
 darker and more dangerous, perhaps, 
 than any other into which a man can 
 precipitate himself. 
 
 1980. Emptiness of Unbelief. — Un- 
 belief is the most unmanly thing that 
 a man can boast of— not believing in 
 truth, in all the great thoughts that 
 belong to the universe, in men, in 
 women, in virtue, in heroism. To rest 
 in unbelief is to be like a tenement 
 house that is abandoned by the tenant, 
 and given up to the rats and vermin. 
 The emptiest, poorest, most unmanly 
 of all conditions, is that of a man 
 without belief in anything. 
 
 1981. An Unanchored Soul. — When 
 a ship is sailing, the anchor is of no 
 use ; but when the ship would lie still, 
 it is the anchor that holds it. It is not 
 alone a storm that requires the good 
 offices of an anchor. In the calmness 
 of the harbor, a ship needs it. In the 
 fairest weather, when winds arc as 
 gentle as if a dove's wings had pro- 
 duced them, a ship will still drift. 
 The silent current, the soft palms of 
 the tiniest ripples that plash against 
 the sides, gradually push her along ; 
 and she will ground upon the Hats, or 
 strike upon the shore, or grate upon 
 the harsh ledges. So long as a ship 
 is under headway, the rudder can 
 hold her to her course ; but as soon as 
 she is sheltered, and would fain lie 
 still, she must have an anchor. 
 
 The soul is like a ship. So long as 
 it is moving with strong impulsion, it 
 liolds its course easily. When earnest 
 impulses cease, then, unless something 
 holds the soul steadfast, it drifts; and 
 drifting is far more dangerous to a soul 
 than to a ship. It drifts into doubt ; 
 and out of doubts come morbid im- 
 pulses ; and out of morbid impulses 
 come reactions of the most dangerous 
 
 kind. The soul, thus bestead, suffers, 
 and despairs, and sometimes is driven 
 up by tides and winds, in some vernal 
 or autumnal night, so far on the sand 
 that the waters, once gone, never come 
 so high again. It lies wrecked. 
 
 1982. Scepticism, Minus and Plus. 
 — There are two kinds of scepticism ; 
 one is measured by the mathematical 
 sign of jiuniis, that doubts and disbe- 
 lieves, and goes back, and back : and 
 the other is designated by the mathe- 
 matical sign o{ piits, which disbelieves 
 in old forms, because they are not 
 large enough ; because they are not 
 fruitful enough ; because they are not 
 ripe enough — and goes forward. The 
 scepticism minus is deteriorating ; but 
 the scepticism plus is ennobling. If 
 there is to be change and growth, 
 there must be in every generation 
 times when men shall doubt the past 
 in order to build larger. 
 
 1983. The Sceptic. — A sceptic, of- 
 tentimes, is nothing but a man finding 
 his way to a higher level. He is, or 
 may be, a man who is forsaking rub- 
 bish, with the object of getting hold of 
 the substance. He is a man who will 
 not eat hay, but wants fresh grass. 
 He wants to be led by the side of still 
 waters and green pastures. 
 
 Right in front of my house I have a 
 beech tree. All winter long, because 
 its leaves were so beautiful during the 
 summer, it holds on to them. In Jan- 
 uary they are there ; in February they 
 are there ; in March they are there. 
 In May the tree begins to grow, and 
 one after the other the old leaves be- 
 gin to drop. There is nothing that 
 will undo the old dead leaf that has no 
 juice in it, so quickly as growth in the 
 tree. When men are growing, the old 
 leaves begin to drop off. It is not a 
 sign of decadence ; it is a sign that 
 summer is coming, that the tree is 
 growing larger. 
 
FEAR AND HOPE 
 
 423 
 
 1984. Sensibility to the Divine. — 
 I sat last summer sometimes for hours 
 in the dreamy air of the mountains, 
 and saw, over against the Twin 
 Mountain House, the American 
 aspen, of which the forests there are 
 full. I saw all the coquetries and 
 blinkings of that wonderful little tree 
 — the witch, the fairy-tree, of the 
 forest. As I sat tliere, when there 
 was not a cloud moving, when there 
 was not a ripple on the glassy surface 
 of the river, when there was not a 
 grain of dust lifted, when everything 
 was still — dead still — right over 
 against me was that aspen-tree ; and 
 there was one little leaf quivering and 
 dancing on it. It was so nicely poised 
 on its long, slender stem that it knew 
 when the air moved. Though I did 
 not know it, though the dust did not 
 know it, and though the clouds did 
 not know it, that leaf knew it ; and it 
 quivered and danced. 
 
 Now, it requires only sensibility in 
 us to detect physical qualities, or 
 social elements, or moral attributes, 
 if we have the corresponding at- 
 tributes. We detect all qualities by 
 the sensibility in us of corresponding 
 qualities which reveal them to us. 
 And he who has largely the divine 
 element will be able to recognize the 
 Divine existence. It is the fool that 
 says in his heart, " There is no God." 
 
 1985. Doubt and Faith. — Doubt 
 and faith are born twins, and you 
 have no right to separate them. 
 
 They ought to recognize each other. 
 Doubt of things past is simply clear- 
 ing tiie way to a brighter and a nobler 
 future ; and since with the spirit of 
 knowledge old things are passing 
 away, let us thank God, and only ask 
 that the doubters may become the 
 new men of a generation of faith. 
 
 1986. Times of Vision. — Doubts 
 and scepticisms every man, whose 
 mind is active, and who is observing, 
 has, more or less, in his lower hours ; 
 and they dampen and hinder him : 
 but at the other times he looks beyond 
 the expanse of this life, and over the 
 horizon, and he has a sense of the 
 certainty and nearness of God. His 
 whole soul adjudicates. Then it is 
 that he should take his reckoning, fix 
 his landmarks and steer by them. 
 
 When a man goes over any un- 
 trodden mountain, on some hilltop he 
 looks forward and sees how the whole 
 land lies ; and he singles out some 
 vast rock, some tall pine, or some 
 prominent point, as a landmark ; then 
 he goes down into the champaign, 
 and the way is no longer open like a 
 map before him. He is lost ; but 
 still he keeps the general direction ; 
 and by and by, through a little open- 
 ing, he sees yonder rock or pine or 
 point; and he says, "Ah! that is 
 what I saw," and travels on, and 
 emerges again. . . . Not when you 
 are in the valley can you tell which 
 way to travel, unless you have learned 
 it on the top of the hill. 
 
 XXXIV. FEAR AND HOPE 
 
 1987. Fear. — Not to fear, where 
 there is occasion is as great a weak- 
 ness as to fear unduly, without reason. 
 God planted fear in the soul as truly 
 as he planted hope or courage. Fear 
 is a kind of bell, or gong, which rings 
 the mind into quick life and avoidance 
 upon the approach of danger. 
 
 1988. Value of Fear. — Fear is 
 eminently a moral tonic. It is 
 universal in human society. It works 
 in unperceived and covert forms in- 
 cessantly, in all our physical and 
 social elements. It incites enterprise. 
 Want produces fear of recurring 
 want. Men learn to be industrious 
 
424 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 for fear of the suffenng that conies 
 from indolence. Men, because they 
 fear pain, avoid the causes of disease. 
 It works, therefore, to make all 
 physical economies prompt, wise, 
 beneficial ; and in low measures is 
 that tonic of thoughtfulness which 
 awakens men to watchfulness in 
 regard to trusts reposed in them. 
 
 And certainly, as it works in every 
 part of human society in things 
 relating to physical thrift and social 
 advantage and augmentation, it does 
 not cease to act when it rises to yet 
 more important spheres, and has 
 charge of men's moral life. There it 
 warns them of dangers, and stimulates 
 them to enterprise and development. 
 It becomes even more important, just 
 in the ratio of its application to the 
 higher faculties and the higher feel- 
 ings. 
 
 1989. Fear, a Pain, — In its own 
 proper action, fear is pain. It is in 
 the nature of a spur. It is the sharp 
 prick of feeling, designed to wake up 
 a slumbering faculty, or a slumbering 
 mind. It acts usually with reference 
 to something in the future. If fear 
 even has to do with retrospect, it is on 
 account of consequences in the future. 
 For the sphere of fear is in that which 
 is coming, always. Its essential char- 
 acteristic is a certain painfulness in 
 the mind, which rouses up that mind 
 to look out and see and understand 
 danger. 
 
 1990. Results of Vice, Lessons of 
 Virtue. — Though a man's reason may 
 be the steed on which he rides to 
 industry, fear is the lash that makes 
 the steed run. Hunger, rags, sick- 
 ness, and pain, arising from vice and 
 improvidence, are a perpetual lesson. 
 The best church, I think, in this 
 whole city is the poorhouse at Flat- 
 bush. Where you want to teach 
 young people good morals and thrift. 
 
 one of the best churches of this wliole 
 region is the Tombs prison in New 
 York. 
 
 1 991. Fear, but a Restraining 
 Agency. — Convicts in a prison who 
 are in insurrection, and have burst 
 open bars and locks, and are rushing 
 out for their liberty — rush upon serried 
 ranks of bayonets: "One step fur- 
 ther and you are dead men, every 
 one of you." They draw back, they 
 stop trying to run away; but they do 
 not become patriots, they do not be- 
 come law-keepers and virtuous men 
 on that account. They are simply re- 
 strained from the vagabondism of in- 
 iquity, that is all. If you wish merely 
 to restrain men, then fear will do. 
 But it is the lowest agency. It has a 
 necessary office, but it is ignoble, and 
 it may almost be said to be the hang- 
 man of the divine government. 
 
 1992. Fear, Corroding. — It is not the 
 revolution that destroys machinery, 
 but the friction. Worry is rust upon 
 the blade. Fear secretes acids ; but 
 love and trust yield sweet juices. 
 
 1993. Fear, a Noxious Element. — 
 Fear, existing as a pure feeling, is not 
 only a torment, but a poison. There 
 is nothing that goads the fiber so. 
 There is nothing that so deteriorates 
 physical quality and health itself. 
 
 1994. Morbid Seeking of Trouble. — 
 Men get into a state, sometimes, in 
 which they rather want anxiety and 
 trouble. As poisons become stimu- 
 lants, so these corrosions and cares 
 not unfrequently become almost in- 
 dispensable. There are many people 
 who not only suffer, but seek suffer- 
 ing. If you present the bright side to 
 them, they do not want to see that. 
 They are in a minor key, and they 
 want everything to wail. They are 
 very much like what are called " weep- 
 ing" trees. They have a downward 
 tendency ; and if you undertake to 
 
FEAR AND HOPE 
 
 425 
 
 make them straight, you break them. 
 They are determined to be weeping- 
 willows. There are many people of 
 whom it may be said that they are 
 never happy unless they are misera- 
 ble. 
 
 1995. Folly of Fear. — When I was 
 in the West, and traveled on horse- 
 back, I used to dread, all day long, 
 the fords. I had a peculiar fear of 
 them, arising from an early experience 
 in which I was twice swept away, and 
 came near losing my life. I was cour- 
 ageous in most things, but I dreaded 
 fords because they seemed so dark 
 and pokerish. In the mud rivers of 
 the West one never knew when the 
 ground might shift, nor what condi- 
 tion a certain ford would be in when 
 he got to it. For instance, I would 
 go through White River all right, and 
 Blue River would be back of me, but 
 there would be Eel River to come, 
 and I could not get there till five or 
 six o'clock in the afternoon. That 
 was the worst ford. (The next one 
 was always the worst!) At last I 
 would come to it, and I would brace 
 myself up and go across ; but instead 
 of there being a raging, foaming tor- 
 rent, such as I had imagined, the 
 water might be so low that the horse 
 would not go knee-deep in any place. 
 Then I would be mad because it was 
 not deep, after I had been fretting all 
 day about it ! When I came back on 
 the other side, I would derive no com- 
 fort from the recollection that I had 
 lately crossed with so little difficulty. 
 " To be sure," I would say, " the ford 
 was not deep then, but it may be deep 
 now. How do I know but it has been 
 raining there?" When I would get 
 to that ford again, I would find that 
 it was no worse than it was before, 
 and would laugh at myself. I never 
 got any wiser. I was always afraid 
 of a ford. 
 
 1996. Heavenly View of Earthly 
 Dangers. — I remember, once, when I 
 was threading a Western forest, that 
 as, at twilight, 1 came towards a little 
 opening, I saw a man lurking on the 
 edge of the forest, with a rifle drawn at 
 me. Although I was a really brave 
 man, my blood ran cold. There I was, 
 sitting up on the horse, a fair mark for 
 a man that was standing and taking 
 deadly aim at me ; and I was at a 
 great disadvantage. 1 did not laugh, 
 for I had not got over my shock, when 
 I came up to the spot and found, in- 
 stead of a man with a rifle, only a 
 tree with a branch pointing towards 
 me ; but afterwards I laughed, to 
 think what I had been so frightened 
 at, and what a shock it sent through 
 me. 
 
 When men get to heaven, and find 
 what many of those things were which 
 stood aiming at them in this life ; when 
 they find what sort of make-believe 
 dangers those were which threatened 
 them, I think they will laugh. And 
 we shall look back on the vision of 
 life, and all its fantastic imaginings, 
 with wonder and gladness — with sor- 
 row for ourselves, but with joy and 
 gratitude to God, who brought us 
 through the dangers of the way, and 
 finally saved us. 
 
 1997. Fear and Hope. — "All things 
 will turn out right." And so, while 
 fear says, " It will not," hopefulness 
 says, " It will." Fear throws twi- 
 light ; hope brings sunrise. Fear is 
 miasmatic and deadening : hope is 
 better than quinine ; it is tonic not 
 only, but illuminates and lifts men up 
 above the line of depression. It is an 
 element, not only in the case of the 
 individual, but in all social relations 
 and in society itself. It stands over 
 against fear and anxiety and de- 
 spondency. It calls to itself patience, 
 and its color is bright. 
 
426 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 iggS. Hope and Patience. — Hope 
 brings joy ; it irradiates the present 
 and makes trials, struggles, tempta- 
 tions, defeats, all radiant. It is not 
 only an active state, but under certain 
 circumstances it is a stale that beds 
 itself in or is upheld by the condition of 
 patience, as if patience were a candle- 
 stick and hope were the candle. It is 
 looking at things in the future in a 
 bright and cheerful light, the light of 
 happiness. You can never define a 
 fundamental emotional quality. All 
 you can do is to describe it. 
 
 iggg. Hope Cures Weariness. — 
 When days have been oppressed for 
 long by bitter storms and high winds, 
 and men are weary of waiting for fair 
 weather ; at last, in the shifting of the 
 wind, there comes one single spot of 
 blue. It is enough. The storm has 
 grown thin, and that little spot of blue 
 is the prophet of the clearing off. If 
 hours yet delay, and remaining rains 
 descend, I can wait through the storm 
 — only let me see the blue sky be- 
 yond. I can wait beyond the storm 
 of time — only give me faith that I 
 shall not find Moloch, that I shall 
 have Love enthroned with power, and 
 redeeming Love adequate to the re- 
 construction of a universe. 
 
 2000. The Hopeful View. — When 
 a leaf drops and dies, it goes down to 
 mingle with the ground. When moss 
 falls off, it disappears. Everything in 
 nature, as it decays, hides itself. And 
 so it should be in human life. All 
 the ten thousand decaying imperfec- 
 tions in society we are as soon as pos- 
 sible to forget and cast under foot. 
 We are to accustom ourselves to look 
 chiefly at that which is innocent, and 
 beautiful, and aspiring, and in which 
 arc tiic possibilities of education. 
 
 2001. Experience and Hope. — E.\- 
 perience corrects hope. Hope sees 
 everything in a dazzling air, that does 
 
 not dctinc. Experience defines things, 
 limits them, and reveals them exactly 
 in their forms and proportions. 
 
 2002. Reason for Hope. — The cri- 
 terion of hopefulness in any case, is 
 not a certain position or relation of a 
 man's conduct and character to a 
 moral standard, useful as that is, and 
 indispensable for some other purposes ; 
 but the criterion of hopefulness in 
 every man's case is the openness of 
 his soul to Divine influence, and its 
 susceptibility to change under that in- 
 fluence. 
 
 The value and excellence of the 
 photographer's plate which is hidden 
 within the camera does not consist in 
 what it is, but upon its susceptibility 
 when the object-glass of the camera 
 is open to that light which streams 
 upon it. If it is unprepared, and is 
 like the common glass, all beauty 
 might sit before it, and no change 
 would be produced by the streaming 
 of light. The glass might be as good 
 in the first case as in the second, with 
 the exception that, wiien it is prejjared, 
 the photographer's glass reveals the 
 impression of beauty made upon it by 
 the light. 
 
 2003. Cheer of Hope. — One will 
 work longer and harder, and with far 
 less fatigue, upon hope and cheer, 
 than upon anxious and conscientious 
 motive. Not that anxiety in a low 
 mixture, and conscientiousness, are to 
 be at a discount, but it makes a great 
 deal of difference which of these 
 things is the daily food. Eat con- 
 science, and you will be lean. Eat 
 hope, and you will be fat. 
 
 2004. The Future for Hope. — If I 
 am only that which I have been, I 
 am of all men most miserable. I am 
 no better than a leaf, no better than 
 the bug that is on it. 
 
 2005. Forethought. — Looking for- 
 ward is not wrong ; but a paiyiful fore- 
 
FAITH 
 
 427 
 
 looking is. Pain and sorrow in a 
 moderate degree are salutary ; but 
 they must be derived from the present. 
 The future belongs to hope, and not 
 to fear. No man has a right to con- 
 vert the outlying future into a storm- 
 
 ground, and draw in upon himself its 
 chills and blasts. It does no good. 
 It does much harm. The past be- 
 longs to Gratitude and Regret ; the 
 present to Contentment and Work ; 
 the future to Hope and Trust. 
 
 XXXV. FAITH 
 
 2006. Prayer for an Uplifting. — Lift 
 Thou up our thoughts this morning, 
 that, broken-winged, lie upon the 
 ground, or that crawl when they 
 should fly. Intone our voices this 
 morning, that instead of speaking in 
 sighs, and with tears, we may speak 
 with joy and rejoicing. 
 
 2007. The Man Without Faith. — 
 What a fly is whose head is cut ofi", 
 that having no steering power, and, 
 using its wings and legs, whirls round 
 and round, preliminary to dying, that 
 a man is who has lost his faith. He 
 is a headless insect. 
 
 2008. Faith is Trust. — I go into the 
 wilderness of the Adirondacks. I know 
 nothing of the path over the mountains, 
 through the valleys, or along the lakes 
 and rivers. But an old guide takes me 
 under his convoy. I discharge every 
 sense of responsibility. I am perfectly 
 at rest. I believe in his fidelity. I 
 am sure of his knowledge. 
 
 I go to Europe ; and no sooner do 
 I get out of the harbor than I give the 
 care of the ship to the captain. I am 
 content that the engineer below shall 
 take care of his share, and that the 
 captain and crew upstairs shall take 
 care of their share. I have enough to 
 do to take care of myself, and I let 
 the voyage go forward, trusting and 
 leaning on others. 
 
 If I go into a campaign under an 
 able general in whom I have an en- 
 thusiastic trust, I obey him implicitly. 
 No matter what he wants done, I do 
 it without questioning. 
 
 Do you not know how it is with 
 httle children, with what absolute 
 trust they look up at father and mother 
 in their love and faith ? 
 
 Now, there is a trust of which these 
 examples are simply illustrations. 
 There is a trust which is higher than 
 that which any man can put in a fel- 
 low-man. There is a belief in the Di- 
 vine love and compassion for us, not 
 on account of our excellence, but on 
 account of the fact that we are intelli- 
 gent and immortal beings. This is 
 the belief that the Apostle calls 
 " faith." 
 
 2009. Trust without Knowledge. — 
 There is a man in New York whose 
 earnings amount to only a dollar, a 
 dollar and a half, or two dollars a day. 
 He buys little notions here and there, 
 and sells them here and there. His 
 business is as big to him as Astor's 
 is to Astor. It occupies his whole 
 thought. On some fatal day he makes 
 a mistake, and this leads to other mis- 
 takes, and soon he finds himself nearly 
 swamped. He is in great perplexity 
 and distress. His entire fortune (a 
 fortune is a fortune, whether it is five 
 dollars or five million dollars) is going. 
 His means of hvelihood are disappear- 
 ing. He does not know what he is 
 going to do. A wealthy man hears 
 about his trouble, and says to him, 
 " Look here, my friend, you last sum- 
 mer did a kindness to my wife and 
 family in the country. You recollect 
 that circumstance on the lake?" 
 •'Oh, it was your family, was it?" 
 
428 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 " Yes ; my wife told mc about it ; I 
 hoped I would have a chance to re- 
 pay you ; so do not trouble yourself 
 about this matter. I will see you out 
 of your embarrassment. You shall 
 not suffer. I will put you where you 
 will be better off than you were be- 
 fore." 
 
 The man goes into the shop, and 
 says, " I don't see how he is going to 
 do it. It is a mystery to me where 
 the money is coming from. He has 
 undertaken my case, but I can't see 
 how he is going to get me out of my 
 difficulty ; I hope he will ; but I would 
 like to see how he is going to do it." 
 I think a man would be a fool that 
 under such circumstances made his 
 trust to depend on his knowledge. 
 
 20IO. Universal Application of 
 Faith. — Men have such a narrow view 
 of what faith is that they look for it 
 as one would look for a diamond ; 
 whereas they should look for it as 
 treasure. Treasure may be precious 
 stones, or gold, or raiment, or fragrant 
 woods ; treasure is a hundred things : 
 diamond is but one. So faith is not a 
 special, single thing, as many people 
 make it. It does not apply to rehgion 
 alone, but to all the departments of 
 life. It is simply such a carriage of 
 the soul as lifts it into the realm of the 
 invisible, so that the man hves by his 
 higher faculties, rather than by his 
 lower. Even in the most practical 
 matters, that man succeeds best who 
 has the most of this element. The 
 difference between a merchant-prince 
 and a petty trader is that the trader 
 can work only as far as he sees, while 
 he whom we call the merchant-prince 
 disdains to stop at what he can see and 
 handle, but goes beyond and deals 
 with the relations of things, and antic- 
 ipates results, and taking into account 
 time, and space, and quality, and 
 quantity, and seasons, and races, and 
 
 latitudes, he makes the whole earth 
 minister to his need. This is com- 
 mercial faith. 
 
 201 1. The Evidence of Things not 
 Seen. — The Christian man knows that 
 he is but a stranger and pilgrim ; and 
 he comforts himself, as he goes through 
 the wilderness, thinking of the home 
 towards which he is traveling. And 
 he weaves tapestries, and paints pic- 
 tures, and carves various creations. 
 Living, as he does, by faith, and not 
 merely by sight, his imagining, his 
 picture-painting, his idealizing, his 
 holy revery, are filling the great empty 
 heavens with all conceivable beauty. 
 And what if it be evanescent ? So is 
 the wondrous frost-picture on the win- 
 dow ; but is it not beautiful and worth 
 having ? So is the summer dew upon 
 the flower ; but is it not renewed night 
 by night ? And faith is given to man 
 to lift him above the carnal, the dull, 
 the sodden, and to enable him to con- 
 ceive of things beyond that to which 
 any earthly realization has yet ever 
 attained. 
 
 2012. God Transcends Knowledge. 
 — I know God so that I walk with him 
 as with a companion; I whisper to 
 him, I believe that he imparts thoughts 
 to me and feelings, and yet when you 
 ask me: "Can you describe him? 
 Can you make an inventory of his at- 
 tributes ? " I cannot. I thank God 
 he so transcends anything we know 
 of him that God is unknowable. Peo- 
 ple say, " Some may believe this, but 
 can you prove it?" Suppose I were 
 to have said in my youthful days to 
 the woman of my choice, my honored 
 wife, "I love you," and she handed 
 me a slate and pencil and said, " Be 
 kind enough to demonstrate that, will 
 you ? " She would not have been my 
 wife if she had ! 
 
 2013. The Mount of Vision. — This 
 summer many parties went to the 
 
FAITH 
 
 429 
 
 summit of Mount Washington, when 
 the sun was very bright on all below ; 
 and they were enveloped in clouds, 
 and saw nothing. So many go out of 
 worldly prosperity up to the Mount of 
 Vision, and see nothing, being without 
 faith, without hope, and without 
 divine insight. There were other par- 
 ties that went to the summit of Mount 
 Washington, when the clouds lay low 
 beneath, and it was raining ; and men 
 laughed at them ; but when they had 
 ascended, they found the top of the 
 mountain serene and clear, so that 
 they looked over all the wide lands, 
 and saw the storms emptying them- 
 selves below them. In the pure ether 
 they stood and looked down upon that 
 which had clouded their way up 
 thither. And thus to the child of God 
 permission is given to go up to the 
 mountain top and look down upon the 
 trouble and sorrow of this world. 
 
 2014. Growing Views of God. — As 
 when men stand and look into the 
 heavens with the naked eye they see 
 some three thousand stars ; as with a 
 glass of certain power they may see 
 some ten or twenty thousand, and as 
 with a larger glass they may see still 
 more, penetrating to the infinite depths 
 of space, so the human mind has been 
 such that at first it could see a little of 
 the nature of God, then a little more, 
 then a little more, and so on, with a 
 power of vision that has increased 
 clear down to the present time. 
 
 2015. Uncertain Guides. — Upon the 
 tops of our churches which have 
 steeples they put weathercocks, that 
 run their noses around hither and 
 thither with the wind the whole year. 
 You can tell by our churches which 
 way the wind blows. But I have 
 taken notice that while these weather- 
 cocks revolve, there is an iron rod on 
 which they are fastened that stands 
 pointing, in storm and sunshine, by 
 
 night and by day, straight up towards 
 where God lives. Men are weather- 
 cocks in human affairs, and we are 
 apt to look at them, and not to see the 
 heaven-pointing iron finger. Men 
 that look only at these weathercocks 
 are alwa\s shifting in their moods and 
 expectations. If we would but look 
 higher than these, to Him that lets the 
 winds blow and holds them in his 
 hands, we should not be subject to 
 such mutations, such fears, such ex- 
 pectations of disasters, such troubles. 
 
 2016. Power of Inspiration. — When 
 Napoleon's army were crossing the 
 Alps, and the heavy artillery was 
 being dragged by the men, their 
 strength seemed actually to give out. 
 Napoleon, who was with them, ordered 
 the bands to sound the charge ; and 
 the moment the inspiring tones of the 
 music were heard the soldiers were 
 filled with new strength, and up went 
 the wheels, and they overcame what 
 would otherwise have been insur- 
 mountable obstacles. Energized by 
 this method adopted through the fore- 
 sight of their general, they were 
 enabled to do things from which in- 
 dividually and collectively they would 
 have shrunk without such leadership. 
 Now, it is possible for men to do and 
 to bear a great many things, if they 
 have the right help of inspiration 
 when needed, 
 
 2017. Trust, in Time of Distress. 
 — When a man is Christ's, and real- 
 izes it, he trusts him implicitly. When 
 the bishop of Geneva passed under a 
 cloud of detraction, in 1600, he utterly 
 refused to allow himself to be cleared 
 by his friends, or to take any notice 
 whatever of the slanders; "For," 
 said he, " I am Christ's ; he knows it ; 
 and if he can afford to have me under 
 a cloud, surely I can afford it. When- 
 ever he wants me to be in the light 
 again, he knows how to bring me 
 
43° 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 there ; and my business is to be 
 patient under the administration of 
 his providence." When the day of his 
 clearance came at last, he would per- 
 mit no celebration of it ; he would 
 permit no rejoicing in his presence : 
 he simply said, "It is a thing of the 
 Lord. He has done what was best. 
 I am his, and I wish to be disposed 
 of as seems best in his sight, and not 
 in mine." In a case Hke that there is 
 an end of care. 
 
 2018. Steadfastness of Faith. — It 
 is said of one of Napoleon's mar- 
 shals, that a bomb fell so near him, as 
 he was writing a communication to 
 Napoleon, that when it exploded it 
 threw dirt all over his paper, and that 
 he said, " I don't need any sand to 
 blot this with now," so great was his 
 coolness ; but most men are so excit- 
 able and so easily frightened that they 
 run when a bomb falls near them. 
 
 Men who have no confidence in the 
 Divine ordering of things are subject 
 to fear and disturbance ; but a man 
 who has real faith in God, and be- 
 lieves that all things are ordered for 
 good, and thinks from day to day 
 that he is dearer to his Heavenly 
 Father than the terraqueous globe, is 
 not easily disturbed. 
 
 201 g. God Called, in Trouble. — 
 As a child in the daylight plays, and 
 has no special consciousness of its 
 need of its parents, but in the night 
 and in the darkness is frightened, and 
 calls lustily for its father and mother ; 
 so men in prosperity hardly feel their 
 need of God, but when trouble comes 
 they realize how weak man's strength 
 is, and how needful it is that the 
 human soul should be able to reach 
 up and stay itself on the arm of God. 
 
 2020. Test of Faith. — When a 
 young mother has her first babe, if it 
 whimpers and cries she thinks that 
 pains and diseases are about to seize 
 
 it. lUit the grandmother, tliat has 
 had the care of her own children and 
 her children's children, is not troubled 
 when she hears a child cry. Now 
 God is the everlasting Father of 
 nations. For thousands of years he 
 has been educating them towards 
 manhood. There is no possible 
 fantasy, or error, or deceit that is not 
 perfectly familiar to him. There is 
 not a road of prosperity or of 
 adversity that he does not know. 
 There is not a path that nations have 
 ever trod, or that they will ever tread, 
 with which he is not acquainted. 
 And, you that are distressed, where is 
 your God? Are you men that have 
 faith in God when the sun shines, and 
 that have no faith in him when it is 
 cloudy ? 
 
 2021. The Order of Faith. — The 
 Apostle is setting up a peerage, in 
 the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews. He collects from the 
 past the memorable names of Jewish 
 worthies, and gives them the glory of 
 the great title, Faith. The highest 
 Order that was ever instituted on the 
 earth, is the Order of Faith. This 
 chapter is the portrait-gallery of the 
 Book ; and from it look down upon 
 us the memorable names of remote 
 antiquity. 
 
 2022. Anxiety and Trust. — Where 
 machinery runs without oil, and 
 squeaks and grinds, it gets hot, and 
 wears out speedily. Now, the anxiety 
 is in human life just what grinding 
 and squeaking are in machinery that 
 is not oiled. In life, trust is oil. 
 Confidence in God is that which 
 lubricates life, so that industry and 
 enterprise develop the things we 
 ought to have, and do it in such a 
 way that they bring pleasure with 
 them. 
 
 2023. Faith in the Divine. — On the 
 great voyage we are making, storm- 
 
FAITH 
 
 431 
 
 whirl may sweep spray in our eyes so 
 that we cannot see, storm-thunders 
 may deafen our ears, but the Pilot is 
 steering through the ages. I trust 
 him though I cannot trust the storm. 
 
 2024. Trust in God. — Wc have 
 crossed many a gulf and many a 
 roaring stream upon the bridge of 
 faith, and have exulted to find our- 
 selves safe landed, and have learned 
 to trust Thee, as a child a parent, not 
 because we know, but because Thou 
 knowest. 
 
 2025. Faith, in Practice. — My father, 
 when in Litchfield, lived on a salary 
 of eight hundred dollars a year, with 
 a family of eleven growing children. 
 How ministers lived at that time I 
 cannot conceive. I remember his 
 saying once, at table (I was not sup- 
 posed to be in existence, for children 
 did not amount to anything, ordi- 
 narily), what made a deep impression 
 on my mind. Having poured his tea 
 into a saucer to cool, he was resting 
 his two elbows on the table. Mother 
 sat opposite to him, murmuring, in her 
 sweet, refined, gentle, sad way, that 
 the bills were due ; that she had no 
 money ; that, indeed, she did not see 
 how they could get along ; that for 
 her own part she expected to die 
 in the poor-house. At that, father 
 dropped his hands to the table, and 
 his eyes sparkled, and he said, " My 
 dear, I have trusted God for forty 
 years, and he never has forsaken me ; 
 I am not going to distrust him now." 
 That waked me up ; it was better than 
 the catechism ; it sank into me ; and 
 during my earlier life I went through 
 perils of sickness and poverty and all 
 forms of limitation and trouble, but I 
 never lost sight of that scene and that 
 sentence. 
 
 2026. Activity of Christian Faith. — 
 Light cannot confine itself to any given 
 place. It has to travel. Heat can- 
 
 not remain inactive. It is to radiate. 
 What these elements shall do is not a 
 matter of choice. And so there is a 
 spontaneity in the true Christian faith 
 by which it must work outward. 
 
 2027. Drawn of God. — How little 
 the drops that go up by the draught 
 of the sun know that they shall shine 
 in the rainbow, and glow in the^cloud ! 
 So Thou art drawing us upward, we 
 know not where, except that it 
 shall be to joy and purity and dignity 
 and glory. We do not understand 
 these things yet, nor their mean- 
 ings ; but we have faith to believe 
 that Thou art sitting in an eternal 
 Fatherhood of love, and that thy 
 heart is full of power, and that all 
 wisdom comes forth from it. 
 
 2028. Man's Strength in God. — Re- 
 member that in your own strength and 
 in your own mere self you are weak- 
 ness itself. But in God nobody can 
 break you. There was a negro 
 woman called Sojourner Truth. When 
 Frederick Douglas — who was born a 
 slave, and who ran away, and made 
 himself one of the most powerful ora- 
 tors that we had in the great battle of 
 anti-slavery in America — was speak- 
 ing in Boston, in the most profound 
 discouragement before the war, as to 
 the prospects of his race, he said, 
 " We cannot emigrate to Africa ; that 
 will never do. And we cannot fill up 
 Canada ; it is not favorable to our 
 race. And we are denied all privi- 
 leges in America;" and he went on 
 descanting on that and drawing the 
 picture, as he could, darker and darker 
 until it seemed as though doom itself 
 w-as to settle down on the colored peo- 
 ple : and as he sat down. Sojourner 
 Truth, a little, crumpled-up black 
 woman, black as your hat, rose in the 
 audience, and said, " Frederick, is 
 God dead?" And she sat down. It 
 shook the whole audience. As long 
 
432 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 as God is alive, and you know it and 
 feel it, you need not fear anything. 
 
 2029. Reason and Faith. — Some- 
 times men say that faith requires us to 
 lay aside our reason. I beg your 
 pardon, it never does. It is about 
 faith and reason as it is about birds 
 that both run and fly. A turkey that 
 runs around in the woods never rises 
 suddenly. It first runs on the ground 
 till it gains sufficient momentum to en- 
 able it to rise and fly. Reason is like 
 legs that run on the ground ; and as 
 soon as you have come to the end of 
 the earth, if you need more, and you 
 have faith, lift your wings, and you 
 can fly. But one follows the other. 
 Faith never can be said to be coinci- 
 dent with reason. Reason is that fac- 
 ulty which knows things so far as they 
 can be known ; and up to the point to 
 which they can be found out, you are 
 free to use it; and, when you get to 
 the end of knowing, if you have faith, 
 then fly. All beyond is the region of 
 faith. Faith is that which takes cog- 
 nizance of things that are not within 
 the sphere of knowing. And a part 
 of Christian liberty is the right of free 
 thinking and free believing. 
 
 2030. Growth in Faith Gradual. — 
 A plant sprouting is right, at that stage 
 of its growth ; it conforms to the re- 
 quirements of that stage. A plant 
 half-developed is right, at that stage 
 of its growth. A plant when per- 
 fected is right, at that stage of its 
 growth. But the half-developed stage 
 is unlike the primary stage, and the 
 perfected stage is unlike the half- 
 developed stage. That which was 
 true of the plant at either stage was 
 best for it at that stage, but would not 
 have been best for it at any other 
 stage. This is true also of the grow- 
 ing Christian. Early faith is feeble ; 
 experience and realization give it 
 strength : its last days are its best days. 
 
 2031. God's Promises Laws of 
 Nature. — The stars never wear out : 
 they are just as good to-day as when 
 Abram saw them directing the Ori- 
 ental people by night. The sun is not 
 weary from the number of years : 
 there are no wrinkles on its brow. 
 The urns of God are replenished by 
 outpouring, and they increase their 
 fullness by that which they yield. 
 And so God's promises are as the laws 
 of nature. The heaven and the earth 
 shall pass away, but they shall not 
 change in one jot or tittle, nor pass 
 away. 
 
 2032. Childish Lack of Faith. — 
 Hear the children in the nursery talk- 
 ing to each other as to where pa and 
 ma are going to get their clothes and 
 food. They cannot see. They do not 
 understand pa's business. And they 
 are fretting and worrying about where 
 they are going to get what they need 
 to eat and drink and wear. 
 
 And yet, does not that mother her- 
 self, when sickness comes, and little 
 Robert is lying sick of one disease in 
 one room, and little Mary is lying sick 
 of another disease in another room, 
 play the child, and a babe at that, 
 and do just the same thing that she 
 saw these children doing? And do 
 not we do the same thing? "Your 
 heavenly Father knoweth that ye 
 have need of these things," is what 
 God breathes into our ears. 
 
 2033. Man's Ignorance: God's 
 Providence. — When Napoleon was 
 shut up in an island of the Danube 
 — if my memory serves me, it is years 
 since I read it — the Archduke Charles 
 hemmed him in. He was able to 
 maintain himself there, but he sent 
 word to Italy and to Spain and to 
 France, and he ordered his marshals 
 with such minuteness, that every day's 
 march was perfect. All over the 
 north of France, and from the ex- 
 
FAITH 
 
 433 
 
 treme south of Spain and Portugal, 
 tlie corps were, all of them, advanc- 
 ing, and day by day coming nearer 
 and nearer. Not one of them, on 
 his march, had any idea of what was 
 the final purpose, and why he was 
 being ordered to that point. But on 
 the day that the master appointed, 
 the head of the columns appeared in 
 every direction. Then it was that he 
 was able to break forth from his be- 
 sieged island and roll back the tide 
 of war. 
 
 The time may come when the things 
 that seem to us the most worthless or 
 the most unknown, or the most mys- 
 terious, when we shall bring them 
 together at last, and they converge to 
 their final form and combination, will 
 fill us with wonder and with rapture, 
 and with all love of the wisdom and 
 the goodness of our God. 
 
 2034. Comfort in Christian Faith. — 
 There never was a heart so smitten 
 that there was not restoration in true 
 Christian faith. When the rude ox or 
 the fierce wind has broken off the 
 shrub, and laid it down on the ground 
 lacerated and torn, it lies there but a 
 few hours before the force of nature 
 in the stem and in the root begins to 
 work ; and soon new buds shoot out ; 
 and before the summer shall have 
 gone round, the restorative effort of 
 nature will bring out on that shrub 
 other branches. And shall the heart 
 of a man be crushed, and God send 
 sweet influences of comfort from above 
 to inspirit it, and that heart not be 
 able to rise above its desolateness ? 
 
 2035. Trusting God. — When I was 
 young I used to help boys learn to 
 swim. I would myself go out into 
 deep water, and tempt the urchins to 
 the end of the wharf. As they stood 
 there I would say to them, "Jump, 
 and I will take care of you." Jump 
 they did, and I did take care of them 
 
 — principally by making them take 
 care of themselves. With a little en- 
 couragement and a little touch, now 
 and then, they would keep themselves 
 up. Speedily they learned to swim. 
 Now, it is a good thing for a man to 
 be brought to extremities where he 
 feels, "There is nothing but God for 
 my soul. There is no such sympathy 
 and wisdom and peace as his. It is 
 what I need, and what I must have." 
 In such cases the Lord says to men, 
 "Jump!" and if they do jump his 
 arm never fails them. 
 
 2036. Living by Faith. — Ten thou- 
 sand experiences in this life seem to us 
 to be as rudely dealt with as an apple- 
 tree when all the blossoms are stripped 
 from it ; and yet, after the blossom is 
 gone the germ is left, and all the 
 season is before it. The old farmer 
 does not care much about the blos- 
 soms, not being sentimental ; but he 
 says, " Boys, I am going to have 
 apples." He has sense enough to 
 live, not by sight, but by faith ; not 
 by what is, but by what he believes is 
 coming. 
 
 2037. Mystery of Life Cleared. — 
 Once, when a boy, I stood on Mount 
 Pleasant, at Amherst, and saw a sum- 
 mer thunderstorm enter the valley of 
 the Connecticut from the North. Be- 
 fore, it was all bright ; centerwise, it 
 was black as midnight, and I could 
 see the fiery streaks of lightning strik- 
 ing down through it ; but behind the 
 cloud — for I could see the rear — it 
 was bright again. In front of me was 
 that mighty storm hurtling through 
 the sky ; before it I saw the sunlight, 
 and behind it I saw the sunlight ; but 
 to those that were under the center of 
 it there was no brightness before or 
 behind it. They saw the thunder- 
 gust, and felt the pelting rain, and 
 they were enveloped in darkness, and 
 heard the rush of mighty winds, while 
 
434 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 I, that stood afar off, could see that 
 God was watering the earth, and wash- 
 ing tlie leaves, and preparing the birds 
 for a new outcome of jubilee, and giv- 
 ing to men refreshment and health. 
 So I conceive that our human life 
 here, with its sorrows and tears, as 
 compared with the eternity that we 
 are going into, is no more than the 
 breath of a summer thunderstorm ; 
 and if God sees that our experience 
 in this world is to work out an ex- 
 ceeding great reward in the world to 
 come, there is no mystery in it to 
 him. 
 
 2038. The Rest of God.—" Return 
 unto thy rest, O my soul." This is a 
 
 lyrical outburst. The figure is evi- 
 dently that of a bird. Some storm 
 has rocked the tree, and by its vio- 
 lence scared the bird away ; or some 
 stealthy animal, squirrel, cat, or owl, 
 has sought the brooding bird's life, 
 and driven it forth ; or some wander- 
 ing, wanton boy, prowling, has sought 
 the nest, plundered it, and gone on. 
 The bird hides in the thick leaves ; it 
 watches from afar off. In silence it 
 glides from bough to bough, keenly 
 watching. Again and again it cir- 
 cuits about until it is sure of safety. 
 Then, with joyful assurance, it settles 
 back in its nest, and when the sun 
 rises, it pours out its joyful song. 
 
 XXXVI. THE SABBATH AND WORSHIP 
 
 2039. Sabbath Means Rest. — Rest, 
 rest, is the primary idea ; and that 
 falls in entirely with the whole consti- 
 tution of man in every age and na- 
 tion. We know very well that con- 
 tinuity within certain limited bounds 
 is on the way to success, and that be- 
 yond those bounds it is on the way to 
 disaster. We know that one single 
 article of food, being continued for a 
 long time, at last nauseates and dis- 
 gusts. We know that things iterated, 
 iterated, and iterated, often become 
 hateful and injurious. One cannot be 
 a wheel in a machine and revolve 
 with perpetual revolution, and be a 
 man. Variety, change, is indispen- 
 sable to manhood. So there is ap- 
 pointed a great intermission during 
 every single twenty-four hours. One- 
 third of every man's life is a Sabbath. 
 On this principle civilization develops 
 more, apparently, than on any other ; 
 and it is on this principle that the 
 commandment of the observance of 
 one day in seven is founded. 
 
 2040. Rest for Body and Brain. — 
 On that Hebrew Sabbath day a man 
 
 could not be driven afield, or starved 
 if he did not do a given amount of 
 labor. The poorest man was even 
 with the richest. It was a day of 
 emancipation. It perpetually set forth 
 the liberation of the children of Israel 
 from the bondage by which they were 
 ground down in Egypt. Nor was the 
 Mosaic Sabbath in any sense restrict- 
 ive or burdensome. While it set man 
 free from servile toil, it did not have 
 an equivalent of bondage in the form 
 of worship. Not alone the hoe and 
 the plow, but the Confession of Faith 
 and the Catechism, may make men 
 toil and sweat. A man may have rest 
 from bone and muscle weariness, but 
 may have ten times as much fatigue 
 of brain. The day set as a pearl 
 among all the others, and the most 
 blessed of the seven, is the Sabbath: 
 and it should be perpetually observed 
 as a day of Rest. 
 
 2041. Rest for the Workingmen. — 
 Never was there a period of the world 
 in which the great mass of working- 
 men had so much right as now to de- 
 mand absolute rest during one-seventh 
 
THE SABBATH AND WORSHIP 
 
 435 
 
 part of the time. This is eminently a 
 day in which the bottom should come 
 up to the top, and breathe. As you 
 have seen, on some lake, at evening 
 twilight, when man and beast and bird 
 no longer vex, myriad little fishes dot- 
 ting and dimpling the whole surface, 
 as they freely rise out of the water to 
 breathe the air, so on one day of the 
 week every living creature has a right 
 to come to the surface, as it were, 
 and take in the sweet fresh air of 
 God's day of rest. 
 
 2042. The Sabbath for the Poor. — 
 Do not think, because you have this 
 comfortable Sabbath, that the Sab- 
 bath was made for you especially. 
 Your interest in it, perhaps, is purely 
 conventional. It is habitual. You 
 observe it, very likely, because you 
 have been told that the Lord ap- 
 pointed it, and that you must keep it. 
 You are keeping it, it may be, without 
 any particular regard for it. I tell you 
 a man who is rich, and has his house 
 warm, can sleep under one blanket ; 
 but if a man is poor, and his house is 
 not warm, he needs three or four 
 blankets. You are in such a condi- 
 tion that you need only a little ; but 
 there are tens of thousands in the 
 community who are not in your con- 
 dition ; and the Sabbath was made for 
 them, and not for you especially. 
 
 2043. The Sabbath of Puritanism. — 
 There are some aspects of the Lord's 
 day in my mcinory as a day of poetry. 
 On that day it seemed to my young 
 eyes as though the sacredness of God 
 had descended from heaven and 
 clothed the earth. Distances were 
 never so long. Sounds were never so 
 melodious. Never was there mystic 
 brooding of heaven upon earth such 
 as came down to my imagination on 
 summer Sunday mornings that broke 
 with light and beauty upon the Con- 
 necticut hills ; and if then I could 
 
 have been taken by the hand, and led 
 into the garden of the Lord, and 
 taught to hold communion with the 
 invisible, there would not have been 
 one dark spot on my recollection of 
 the supreme beauty of that day of 
 emancipation from labor of soul and 
 body. 
 
 But alas for the catechism ! Alas 
 for the dinners of which I was de- 
 frauded because I could not learn it ! 
 Alas for the hours when I was shut up 
 in a room by myself and made to 
 study it ! Alas for the wearisomeness 
 of going to church ! Alas for the 
 aching of my little legs that could not 
 reach the floor, and swung from the 
 high board seats ! Alas for the rigor 
 of that well-intended Puritan Sunday 
 on which, though I rested in body, I 
 was weary and worn out in mind ! 
 The Sabbath was not a liberty to me : 
 it was to me an imprisonment — a re- 
 striction of my freedom. 
 
 Now, this did not belong to the orig- 
 inal Sabbath day. That day was not 
 meant to be an oppression. It is a 
 misuse of it that makes it a burden in 
 any sense. 
 
 2044. The Rest of Sabbath Wor- 
 ship, — I plead for those that are on 
 the great wheel of society, which is 
 perpetually turning round and round, 
 and that have no Sabbath. . , , If 
 it is a question as to whether a man 
 shall remain in his corner grocery or 
 squalid garret or go to the country on 
 Sunday, let him go to the country, in 
 God's name ! 
 
 But is that the best way in which 
 the laboring man can spend the Sab- 
 bath ? What we want for rest on Sun- 
 day is change, variety, to give vitality 
 to that part of ourselves which is not 
 much developed during the other six 
 days of the week ; and no men need 
 so much cerebral stimulus as men who 
 give six days out of every seven to 
 
43^ 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 nuiscukir or ineclumical work. To 
 make a man think with the highest 
 faculties, to give him inspiration, 
 poetry, moral emotion — that is a reno- 
 vation such as cannot come by merely 
 snoring on a bed, or walking in a gar- 
 den or field ; and I hold that every 
 man, in proportion as he labors during 
 the week, needs the spiritualization 
 and uplifting which come from public 
 worship, with its songs and teachings. 
 
 2045. City and Country Sabbaths. 
 — The complexity of higher civiliza- 
 tion will require more flexibility of law 
 in regard to the Sabbath than is 
 necessary in the rural districts, or 
 where the functions of society are 
 very simple. Civilization is a very 
 large machine ; and as the welfare of 
 the whole is associated in a complex 
 community, we should make up our 
 minds that laws must deal differently 
 in such a community from what they 
 do in an uncompounded community, 
 and that therefore we have no right 
 to enforce these laws on religious 
 grounds. I have no more right to 
 make a man keep Sunday because I 
 think God said he should, than I have 
 a right to make him believe in my 
 creed because I think God said he 
 should. 
 
 2046. Sabbath and the Saloons. — 
 As to the Sabbath day, they are un- 
 dertaking to suppress all those nests 
 out of which disorder and immorality 
 are hatched, not in the individual 
 alone, but in such a way as to impede 
 the progress of law in the community ; 
 and on that ground of general good I 
 hold that they have a right to shut up 
 the grogshops on Sunday. Why do 
 they shut them up on election day ? 
 For the same reason. The law says 
 that men shall not be made crazy. It 
 is the interest of the commonwealth 
 that men shall go to the polls with 
 cool-headed reason ; and on the Sab- 
 
 bath it is the interest of the community 
 that, for the protection of property, 
 and for the protection of life and 
 limb, these places should be closed. 
 It is on that ground, political and 
 social, that I advocate the suppression 
 of them on Sundays. 
 
 2047. Necessary Labors on the 
 Sabbath. — Whatever occupations are 
 really necessary for the welfare of the 
 community, or of the laboring classes, 
 I advocate. The Sabbath is to be- 
 come the servant of men. As our 
 Master said, " The Sabbath was made 
 for man." It is his beast. He has a 
 right to get on it and ride it. It is not 
 to be the beast riding him, as it is 
 with a great many men under religious 
 superstition. 
 
 When the railways were being es- 
 tablished, I was asked to sign a 
 petition against the cars running on 
 Sunday, and I refused to do it. . . . 
 I would say to all the corporations, 
 however, "It is wise for you to ar- 
 range your establishments so that a 
 portion, or portions, of every Sabbath 
 in the year shall come in rotation to 
 every one of your employees." 
 
 2048. Sabbath-Keeping and Public 
 Education. — If we are to gain any- 
 thing by legislation in regard to the 
 Sabbath, we have got to do it by 
 moral power, — by the education of 
 the moral sense of men as regards the 
 benefits of the Sabbath. You must 
 make the day honorable and beauti- 
 ful. You must make it the sweetest 
 day of the whole year. It is the 
 breast of the week, from which we 
 are to draw our nourishment. 
 
 2049. Vitality of the Sabbath. — 
 Circumcision has gone, sacrifices have 
 gone. Mosaic laws and governments 
 have gone ; but the Sabbath moves 
 on. Like the pillar of fire that went 
 by night before the Israelites in the 
 desert, it is luminous. It leads for- 
 
THE SABBATH AND WORSHIP 
 
 437 
 
 ward the civilization of the present. 
 Commencing in remote antiquity, it 
 iias come down to us ; it has been an 
 unspeakable blessing to the races of 
 mankind ; and it is for us to make it 
 more melodious and yet sweeter, and 
 to send it as a grand chant of liberty 
 down through the ages that are yet to 
 come, until at last the earthly Sab- 
 bath shall mingle with the heavenly 
 Sabbath, and the heaven and earth 
 shall be one, to rejoice together for- 
 ever more. 
 
 2050. True Worship. — All the ex- 
 pedients of external worship in this 
 world are but crutches to weak souls. 
 The true worship is in spirit. It re- 
 quires neither altar, nor priest, nor 
 uttered prayer, but only the grateful 
 heart, open before him who knows 
 better than any one can tell him all 
 that men would say. 
 
 2051. Man's Praises Acceptable to 
 God. — What are we, that we should 
 mingle our voices, coarse and dis- 
 cordant, with the voices of those that 
 sing everlastingly, with joy and with 
 love, in thy presence, O God ! And 
 yet the voice of our children, though 
 they be in the cradle and inarticulate, 
 is sweet, and thou canst hear music 
 where we hear but discord, and thou 
 canst gather pleasure where we can 
 only feel pain. For thou art God. 
 
 2052. Religious Symbolism. — If I 
 were to go once into a church with 
 a picture of the Transfiguration, I 
 should be filled with religious fervor ; 
 but to sit Sabbath after Sabbath where 
 it was, until I became familiar with all 
 the gradations of color, the texture of 
 the robes, and all the accessories, and 
 it became a material representation of 
 an immaterial thing, it would cease to 
 have religious power, although it 
 might still be beautiful as a work of 
 art. I think painted windows help a 
 man that does not often go to church. 
 
 but not much those that do go, where 
 they have them. In other words, this 
 principle plays two ways : infrequency 
 of repetition sends a man towards the 
 spiritual, constancy of physical repre- 
 sentation draws a man towards the 
 material. 
 
 2053. Dangers of Ritual. — We have 
 a trellis >r a grapevine in order that 
 the vine lay bring clusters for us ; 
 but suppose the vine should die, and 
 the trellis should remain, and the man 
 should gnaw that, what satisfaction 
 would there be in it? It is precisely 
 so with the ceremonies of the religious 
 life. They first originate as illustra- 
 tions of a higher spiritual truth ; and 
 all such things ai'e useful only in their 
 first flash and revelatory power ; but 
 when they are repeated day after day, 
 day after day, they are apt to degen- 
 erate in the minds of men universally, 
 and the worshipers are prone to 
 descend from the spiritual elements to 
 the human instruments. This is idol- 
 atry. 
 
 2054. Faulty Idea of Unity in 
 Worship. — As to the repetition of the 
 same forms, the creeds, the confes- 
 sions, the psalmody — everything that 
 is used by universal Christian wor- 
 ship — there can, in the necessity 
 of the human structure, be no absolute 
 unity, simply because words have as- 
 sociations as well as etymological 
 conditions, because the same word 
 means one thing to the poet and 
 another thing to the orator, and another 
 thing to the logician, and another 
 thing to the philosopher, and so forth. 
 To me, of all the words in the world, 
 " mother " is the richest, and " father " 
 the stateliest. For my father was a 
 great-hearted, magnanimous man, 
 gentle and most generous. But your 
 father perhaps was a drunkard and a 
 tliief, and all your associations with 
 that name are of vice, and rudeness. 
 
438 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 and cruelty, and ciime. One has 
 one thought, and another has anotlier 
 thought ; though pertaining to the 
 same words, they include the associa- 
 tions of days gone by ; the educated 
 habits, the experience of life-forces 
 that are in you, are struck, and every 
 man is like a steeple with a chime of 
 bells, but every chime is different from 
 the neighboring chime. 
 
 2055. The Sacrifice of the Wicked. 
 — " The sacrifice of the wicked is an 
 abomination to the Lord." Well, 
 now that has become a kind of phrase 
 current ; but when you hear it stated 
 in another way how harmless it is. It 
 is a declaration simply that where a 
 man makes religion a cloak under 
 which to carry on his wickedness, he 
 need not think that all his obsequious- 
 ness under the altar and his offerings 
 in the temple are going to do any 
 good to him. Where a man gambles 
 all the week, and then goes to the 
 communion table, and puts a large 
 handful of money into the box for the 
 poor, and goes out and gambles again 
 all the week, and comes to spend a 
 sort of atoning Sunday in his place, 
 and sings his hymns, and listens to 
 the sermon, and goes out and gambles 
 again all the week long, the Sunday 
 does him no good. The sacrifice of- 
 fered by the wicked is equivalent to 
 the "prayer" of the wicked; and 
 where a wicked man makes his prayer 
 simply to cover up his wickedness, — 
 not to deliver him, but to give him 
 immunity in it— it is an abomination, 
 not only to God, but to every man 
 that has any moral sense. 
 
 2056. Invitation to the Communion. 
 — If there be any who hunger and 
 thirst, come: here is bread, and here 
 is wine. " Rut, I am not a member 
 of any church." That makes no dif- 
 ference. Christ calls not the righteous, 
 but sinners. If there is anybody who 
 
 is really chid from top to bottom in 
 righteousness, he can go : this is no 
 place for him. But if there is a 
 hungry soul here, if there is a thirsty 
 soul here, if there is a man here who 
 knows that he has faults, who knows 
 that he has sinned, who has tried to 
 be a Christian and failed, and who 
 says, " I am so discontented with 
 myself that if God has any love for 
 me I will take it gladly," let him come 
 to this table and be fed. Take the 
 broken bread, and remember by that 
 symbol that Christ's body was broken 
 for you. Come, lean upon him, and 
 trust in him. 
 
 2057. Communion-Day. — As bells 
 answer bells, and strike with sweet 
 collision in the air, so may heart 
 answer heart, and joy answer joy, 
 upon this wedding day, when those 
 who are affianced to God are openly 
 united to him in holy communion. 
 
 2058. Praise-Songs. — Praise is not 
 the recitation of all the good qualities 
 that you can think of in God. It is 
 the utterance of the joy and gladness 
 which the Divine excellence tends to 
 excite in you. As a child I had an 
 idea that angels stood about the throne 
 very white and very pure, and recited 
 before God what they thought of him. 
 I did not like it, and I thought I was a 
 miserable wretch because I did not. 
 But as I grew older, it struck me that 
 my child-instinct was correct, that I 
 was under a misapprehension, and 
 that they who praised God in heaven 
 were represented as doing it musically, 
 because high feeling tends to utter it- 
 self through the medium of music. It 
 struck me that praising God was not 
 so much reciting and rehearsing God's 
 qualities as the report of a man's own 
 inward joy, as excited by the aspect, 
 the glory, the office of God. 
 
 2059. Praise to God, a Human not 
 a Divine Need. — How revolting to us 
 
THE SABBATH AND WORSHIP 
 
 439 
 
 is the idea of angels and archangels 
 circling about the Creator of the uni- 
 verse with harps, praising and flatter- 
 ing him ! We understand what the 
 parasites of the court do. We are fa- 
 miliar with the history of Queen Eliza- 
 beth, who, though she praised herself 
 enough, was covered and saturated 
 with praise on every side. We know 
 that potentates never hear the truth 
 of themselves. And the thought that 
 in heaven there is One who sits su- 
 preme and makes everything that 
 comes into the celestial sphere pay 
 taxes and tributes of praise to him, is 
 abhorrent to every manly sentiment. 
 But if God is intrinsically so noble in 
 nature, so glorious in holiness, so pure 
 in love, and so transcendent in all the 
 functions of his being, that the mo- 
 ment the whole picture is disclosed to 
 your heart, you can no more refrain 
 from praising him than you can re- 
 frain from giving expression to your 
 emotions when wrought upon by in- 
 spiring music, then the case is changed. 
 
 2060. Church Organ Music. — I am 
 accustomed to think of a congregation 
 with an organ, as of a fleet of boats in 
 the harbor or on the waters. The or- 
 gan is the flood, and the people are the 
 boats ; and they are buoyed up and 
 carried along upon its current as boats 
 are borne upon the depths of the sea. 
 
 2061. A Singing Church. — A church 
 that does not sing is like a spring with- 
 out birds, or like a garden without 
 flowers. Singing to the Lord was 
 meant to open up the hearts of those 
 who participate in it, and carry them 
 near to God, 
 
 2062. Singing and Religious Inspi- 
 ration. — A man who does not know 
 how to sing might almost as well be 
 dumb before God. Singing is the 
 natural inspiration of religious feeling 
 and thought. You need not withhold 
 your tribute of service though you do 
 
 not sing well. Do the best you can, 
 even though you do but poorly. If 
 you are an indifferent singer you need 
 not sing like Niagara. Though you 
 have a strong voice, if you do not 
 know how to use it, sing modestly, 
 with that understanding. This is 
 common sense. 
 
 2063. Inspiration of Hymns. — 
 Hymns are like trumpet calls to a 
 sleeping warrior, which wake him and 
 instantly bring him to his feet, sword 
 in hand. 
 
 2064. Uplifting Power of Singing. 
 — There is a railroad to the top of 
 Mount Washington. A man that 
 sings is like a person who gets into a 
 car and is whirled up that mountain 
 by steam, without labor, so that when 
 he reaches the top he is fresh, and can 
 enjoy himself ; but a man that does 
 not sing is like a poor fellow who 
 goes up on foot, over rocks, through 
 ravines, panting, puffing and blowing, 
 so that when he reaches the top he is 
 too tired to enjoy the view. 
 
 2065. Singing a Defence Against 
 Temptation. — If one had a thousand 
 or a hundred hymns in his memory, 
 and if with every changing mood he 
 was accustomed to hum to himself 
 some sweet descant of experience he 
 would not easily be made unhappy, 
 nor would he wander far from the 
 path of rectitude. Singing is the 
 golden bow and arrow with which 
 Satan would be smitten through and 
 through, and temptation would be 
 disarmed. 
 
 2066. Hymnody to be Cultivated. — 
 Congregational singing does not spring 
 out of the ground, nor does it come 
 by accident. Churches do not sing, 
 as birds do, by nature : they sing by 
 grace, if they sing at all ; and the 
 means must be apphed. We there- 
 fore desire to see the cultivation of 
 music going on. 
 
440 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 2067. Congregational Singing. — 
 You never can have congregational 
 singing, if that is all you have. Un- 
 less you have singing in the family 
 and singing in the house, singing in 
 the shop and singing in the street, 
 singing everywhere, until it becomes 
 a habit, you never can have congre- 
 gational singing. It will be like the 
 cold drops, half water, half ice, which 
 drip in March from some cleft of a 
 rock, one drop here and another 
 there ; whereas it should be like the 
 August shower, which comes ten mil- 
 lion drops at once, and roars on the 
 roof. I like to see people sing when 
 they have to stop in the middle of the 
 verse and cry a little. I like such un- 
 written rests and pauses in the music. 
 
 2068. Church Singing.— I would 
 not be understood as undervaluing 
 taste and beauty in song, as you know 
 I do not, by the history of this church, 
 where there has been so much done 
 to promote growth and admirableness 
 of song ; but that is always to be sub- 
 ordinate to the soul. The moment 
 you begin to sing in church for con- 
 cert effects, and to feel that nothing 
 will do but the most exquisite style of 
 music, that moment sacred song goes 
 into Babylon. That moment it is in 
 bondage. For it is the minister of 
 joy to the heart. It is the minister of 
 peace. It is that which gives voice to 
 rapture and hope. It is love. It is 
 fellowship. It is triumph in the Lord 
 Jesus Christ. Song is the wing by 
 wliich we rise higher, with easier 
 l)eats, than by any other ministration 
 of the sanctuary. 
 
 2o6g. Wealth in Ideas. — I would 
 rather have written that hymn of 
 Wesley's, 
 
 " Jesus, lover of my soul, 
 Let me to thy bosom fly," 
 
 than to have the fame of all the kings 
 that ever sat on the earth. It is more 
 glorious. It has more power in it. I 
 would rather be the author of that 
 hymn than to hold the wealth of the 
 richest man in New York. He will 
 die. He is dead, and does not know 
 it. He will pass, after a little while, 
 out of men's thoughts. But that hymn 
 will go on singing until the last trump 
 brings forth the angel band ; and then, 
 I think, it will mount up on some lip 
 to the very presence of God. 
 
 2070. Hymns in Heaven. — There 
 are some of our hymns that make me 
 think of the story that is told of the 
 Brahmins, in their book, of seven 
 brothers who undertook to go to 
 heaven. On the way, first one died, 
 then another died, and then another 
 died, until, finally, the last surviving 
 brother, after indescribable experi- 
 ences, accompanied all the way by 
 his faithful dog, came up to the gate, 
 and was about going in, when an 
 angel said, " You cannot take your 
 dog in with you," and he turned 
 around and went away. 
 
 I think we shall be allowed to take 
 hymns in with us up there — hymns 
 which have been wings to many, many 
 souls, who have been enabled to fly 
 over ground that they could not walk 
 upon. 
 
 XXXFIL THE CHURCH 
 
 207 1 . A Call to Church-Membership . 
 — I appeal to you, by all that is honor- 
 able and all that is right-minded in 
 you, to begin a higher life, and to 
 
 begin it in association with others that 
 are attempting to do the same thing. 
 Do you think you will fail? / think 
 you will fail. I never knew a man 
 
THE CHURCH 
 
 441 
 
 that did not fail. Yet the motto is 
 " Cast down but not destroyed." If 
 you stumble and fall, get up again. 
 You are like men journeying, part of 
 the time through a morass, and part 
 of the time up rugged hills, and part 
 of the time in thickets that tear them. 
 And it is not for you to insist that you 
 will not walk a Christian life unless 
 you can be in the king's highway, and 
 unless you can keep yourself intact. 
 I call you into the church that you may 
 be more profited in it than you can be 
 out of it. 
 
 2072. Well-Wishers. — There are 
 well-wishers in this congregation. 
 You wish me well ; you wish this 
 church well ; you wish the cause well ; 
 you wish everybody well ; you would 
 not do any harm. Ah ! you are seeds 
 that will not sprout, though you be 
 planted never so many times. You 
 are chaff. There is no seed in you. 
 I long to see in you something more 
 than this mere negative well-wishing 
 — some uprising ; some sense of 
 power ; some heart-hunger ; some 
 yearning for noble things ; some indi- 
 cation that, when quickened by the 
 Sun of Righteousness, there is in your 
 soul a power to stretch out branches, 
 to push out dormant buds, to have 
 clusters, to bring forth fruit, and to 
 bring it forth abundantly. 
 
 2073. Receiving One Another. — We 
 are to receive men in our churches in 
 the spirit of love, as Christ has re- 
 ceived us — as we have been received. 
 If men had been strained, and only 
 the pure jelly had come out, and the 
 skins and seeds and all the rest had 
 been thrown away, there would have 
 been very little jelly in this world ; 
 but we are taken in our totality. We 
 are taken with our weaknesses, with 
 our passions, with our erratic courses, 
 with our bad habits, with our strong 
 carnalities. We are taken with our 
 
 ignorances and conceits. We are 
 taken to God through Jesus Christ, 
 not because we are good at all, but 
 because God is good. 
 
 2074. Joining the Church. — I am 
 asked, " Suppose now, Mr. Beecher, 
 one should come to you, in Brooklyn, 
 on communion day, early in October, 
 and say, ' I have been thinking of my 
 past life, and I am not satisfied with 
 it : my mind runs in too low a chan- 
 nel ; my ideals are ignoble, base, 
 worldly, and I have but an imperfect 
 knowledge of the law of God, though 
 so far as I can see it requires right liv- 
 ing, and I am determined to attain it — 
 may I partake of the Lord's Sup- 
 per?' " I would say to him, "Yes, 
 you may. Not that it is going to do 
 you any miraculous good, but that it 
 will produce an impression on your 
 intellect and imagination." " May I 
 join your church ? " " Yes, if I have 
 evidence that you are intelligent 
 enough to know what you are doing, 
 and if I perceive that you are deter- 
 mined, according to the best of your 
 ability, to live a Christian life, and 
 that you have begun it. Under such 
 circumstances I will take you into my 
 church as a child is taken into an 
 academy." Is it asked, whether I 
 require an examination ? Yes, I do. 
 I say to one applying for admission to 
 a school, " If you do not know enough 
 to enter the academy, you had better 
 go into the primary school;" and I 
 take him in, not because he is a per- 
 fect scholar, but because he wants to 
 learn. And to a person applying for 
 admission to the church, I open the 
 door, and say, " Do you want to live 
 a more manly life ? Are you willing 
 and determined to pattern your life on 
 the ideal manhood as set forth by 
 Christ Jesus?" If he gives affirma- 
 tive answers to these questions, I say, 
 " You had better come into the church, 
 
442 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 because the church is a phicc where 
 we take men who are desirous of do- 
 ing these things, and where they do 
 them in little before they can do them 
 in large." 
 
 2075. Duty of Church-Membership. 
 —The banners fly ; and whoever is 
 for the Lord, must come and enlist 
 under the banner of Christ Jesus. Do 
 not sneak and hide, and, because you 
 are relatively imperfect, refuse through 
 your misinterpreting pride to join the 
 church of Christ. 
 
 2075. Church-Helpfulness in Chris- 
 tian Living. — A man living a Christian 
 life outside of the church is like an Irish 
 laborer who takes up a little bit of land 
 in the neighborhood where he had his 
 first jobs, and where the railway per- 
 mitted him to plant his little patches 
 of potatoes outside. All the cattle 
 that range in the neighborhood have 
 access to it if they please ; he has to 
 defend it in every way. And if it be 
 something besides potatoes— if it be 
 strawberries, he will have more help 
 in picking the strawberries than he 
 will want. Every boy and every 
 neighbor that passes by will wish him 
 good luck, and then pluck. When a 
 man is trying to live Christlike out- 
 side the walls of the church, men do 
 not know that he is trying to do it. 
 They think they have a right to pull 
 him this way and to push him that, to 
 tempt him here and to tempt him 
 there ; but when they know that he 
 has gone into the school of Christ, 
 they do not want him to play the tru- 
 ant. It docs help a man. 
 
 2077. Good Men Bettered in the 
 Church. — One of the most favorite 
 pears in the market is the Duchesse 
 d 'Ang07il?me, which was a wilding 
 and grew in a hedge, until one day 
 the proprietor, going to visit his pro- 
 vincial farm, saw the fruit, tasted it, 
 and was delighted with it. So he de- 
 
 termined to transplant it ; and he 
 cleared away the hedge, took up the 
 plant, carried it into his garden, and 
 cultivated it. The result was that it 
 became almost the pear of the world. 
 And it was fitting that, instead of be- 
 ing allowed to bloom and bear its 
 luscious fruit in obscurity, it should 
 have been brought into the garden 
 where it could be seen, and where its 
 fruit could be enjoyed. 
 
 I think there are magnificent fruit- 
 trees growing in worldly hedges yet, 
 which might well be taken out and 
 put in Christ's garden, where there is 
 a better soil and a better exposure, so 
 that they might spread their branches 
 unchecked by surrounding growths. 
 
 2078. The Church a Hospital. — 
 There is nothing that makes discords 
 in churches, and between separate 
 churches so hateful as the conscious- 
 ness of the imperfection of all churches 
 and all church-members. To see a 
 general breaking-out among well, 
 strong men, is bad enough ; but to 
 see men who are gathered together in 
 a plague -hospital fall out with each 
 other, and to see bed rail at bed, and 
 fevers send gibes over to fevers, and 
 dropsies swell with tumid importance 
 and great superiority over emacia- 
 tions, and emaciations point and chat- 
 ter at the hideousness of dropsies — 
 that is worse still. But are not all 
 churches hospitals ? 
 
 2079. Variety in Church Member- 
 ship. — When you take the loaf of so- 
 ciety and cut off the upper crust, 
 slicing it horizontally, you get an elect 
 church. Yes. it is the peculiarly elect 
 church of selfishness itself, the elect 
 church of impious selfishness. But 
 you have got to cut the loaf of society 
 from the top down to the bottom and 
 take in something of everything. Now 
 every church would be very much 
 edified and advantaged if it had in it 
 
THE CHURCH 
 
 443 
 
 scholarly men, knowledgeable men, 
 but a church is strong in proportion as 
 it has in it something of everything 
 from the very top to the very bottom, 
 
 2080. The True Church Welcomes 
 All. — Some astronomers are studying 
 the nebulas, some Jupiter, some Saturn, 
 some the sun, and so on ; and they 
 bring together all the results of their 
 investigations, and unite them ; and 
 the sum total makes the one astron- 
 omy. The true church is that which 
 takes the gifts of all its members, and 
 instead of quarreling with and perse- 
 cuting and treading under foot each 
 the peculiar views of any other, unites 
 them as far as possible. 
 
 2081. Church Unity. — Everybody 
 wants unity in the churches, every- 
 body is striving to bring them to- 
 gether ; and there would be no diffi- 
 culty in uniting them outwardly if that 
 were enough ; but what would be the 
 advantage of a mere external unity 
 of the churches? 
 
 What advantage would it be in a 
 village if all the inhabitants should 
 say, " The citizens of this village 
 should be perfectly united ; and, 
 therefore, let us move our houses up 
 so that they will touch each other. 
 Moreover, let all the people of this 
 town have the one name, Ada?m. 
 Besides, let us all have breakfast and 
 dinner and supper at the same hour 
 and minute, at the stroke of the bell." 
 They might secure unity in these out- 
 ward things, so as to be able to say, 
 " There is not such a united village in 
 the world as we are ; " but what would 
 be the advantage ? 
 
 2082. All One in Christ Jesus. — 
 Every true Christian man is a Jew, in 
 the sense in which the Jews prided 
 themselves as being descended from 
 Abraham, and having all the promises 
 of the covenant. That comes, not by 
 outward blood and historic descent, 
 
 but by the blood of Christ to every 
 man. And see how sweeping this is. 
 Neither is there any difference be- 
 tween civilized and uncivilized per- 
 sons. It was " Greek " and " barba- 
 rian " when the Greek spoke. It was 
 "Jew" and "gentile" when the 
 Jew spoke. It is "Christian" and 
 "heathen" when we speak — for we 
 always elect ourselves to the chief 
 places, and then call all the rest of 
 the world by some other name. 
 
 2083. Honorable Humility. — When 
 you come to chink a log cabin, stubble 
 and mud are very honorable, and 
 very useful. So in the house of God, 
 the humblest man may at least be 
 that, if he is not too proud — for pride 
 runs down, I think, even as strongly 
 as it runs up. 
 
 2084. Complementary Natures. — 
 The conception of the church is that 
 one man supplies another man's lack. 
 If one brother has a large heart and a 
 small head, and you have a large 
 head and a small heart, you and he 
 are twins, and the church is rich by 
 you two, as it is not by either of you 
 alone. If one man has the most pro- 
 found veneration and almost no love, 
 and another man has almost no ven- 
 eration and the most audacious liber- 
 ties of love, they are twins, and one 
 carries the lights while the other car- 
 ries the shadows. If one man has no 
 use of words by which to express his 
 feelings, and another man has such 
 power of language that when he feels 
 the words fly from his lips hke flocks 
 of birds from a tree when one claps 
 his hands near by, those two men 
 ought to stand together. A church is 
 made rich by the sum of the gifts of 
 all its members. 
 
 2085. All Elements Needed. — It is 
 often true that in the economy of 
 church life the experience of the hum- 
 ble, plain man is far more edifying 
 
444 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 than the mere wisdom of the edu- 
 cated man. We are the body of 
 Christ ; we are feet and hands, ears 
 and mouths. Some things are higher 
 than others. The brain is better than 
 the muscle, and the muscle than the 
 bone ; and yet the bone is very neces- 
 sary, the muscle is necessary, and the 
 brain necessary. The church needs 
 the high and the low. 
 
 2086. Help at the Critical Time. — 
 Suppose I had lain where all night I 
 had heard the discharge of minute 
 guns ; suppose as the morning dawned 
 I saw here and there parts of a ship 
 that had sunk, and among the frag- 
 ments I saw a man that had survived 
 the wreck, and that, clinging to a 
 plank, was working his way to shal- 
 low water. Suppose that as he got 
 off and staggered towards the shore a 
 wave took him and swept him out 
 again ; and as he gathered his re- 
 maining strength and got upon his 
 feet once more, and made a desperate 
 struggle to save himself from a watery 
 grave, I sat and said to myself, " I 
 think that fellow may escape : I will 
 watch him, and if he succeeds in get- 
 ting to the shore and out of the water, 
 I will take care of him." I would 
 deserve to be drowned myself ! If 
 you see a fellow-creature in a perilous 
 situation like that, it is your business 
 to rush down and seize him, and give 
 your strength to his weakness, and 
 bear him so that the refluent waves 
 shall not carry him back. How do 
 you treat those who are struggling to 
 escape the tides of sin ? 
 
 2087, The Easier Way. — A man 
 may walk to California across lots if 
 he has a mind to ; and if he gets 
 there, he has got there — that is all ; 
 but that is not the easiest way, and it 
 is not the way that would be most 
 likely to get him there. A man may 
 educate himself and never go to 
 
 school : but it is a great deal better 
 that a man should go to school ; it 
 will facilitate his learning, and enlarge 
 him in many ways. If, by any mis- 
 adventure, a man's history is such 
 that he is morbidly sensitive to the 
 restraints of church life (I have known 
 such), I do not say to him, "You 
 can't be saved outside of the Church." 
 I say to him, "It is a pity that you 
 cannot come into the Church ; but if 
 you cannot come in do the best you 
 can outside. We will help you so far 
 as we are able. You can always come 
 and hear preaching, even though you 
 cannot take upon yourself the obliga- 
 tions and receive the help of church 
 fellowship." 
 
 2088. Christians Outside of the 
 Church. — I was looking around the 
 early part of the week, on my place 
 at Peekskill, and when passing by the 
 borders of crocus and snowdrop, I 
 found in the grass in front of the old 
 cottage quite a number of little, mod- 
 est, blue flowers growing, here one, 
 there one, and yonder one ; and I 
 was delighted to see them growing 
 there. They were crowded, and the 
 grass was greedy of everything that it 
 could suck up, so that they had 
 rather a hard time of it. Still, they 
 had their leaves and blossoms above 
 the ground ; and although they were 
 small they were beautiful. Upon the 
 whole, I do not know but I enjoyed 
 seeing them so much because I was 
 surprised to find them outside of the 
 borders where I had a great many of 
 them, and where they had grown 
 twice the size of those. 
 
 It occurred to me, when I was 
 looking at these little flowers. That 
 is just the way folks try to be Chris- 
 tians outside of the Church. They 
 can grow in the grass, and blossom, 
 but then they have to fight for it. 
 Everything divides nourishment with 
 
THE CHURCH 
 
 445 
 
 them, and though they blossom and 
 are beautiful, yet, after all, they are 
 dwarfed ; and do not do half so well 
 as they would if they were in the 
 border which is prepared, and in 
 which it is meant they should get 
 their full stature. 
 
 2089. Confessed Christianity a Safe- 
 guard. — When I first came from In- 
 diana to the East, I visited an eminent 
 arborculturist in Dorchester. It was 
 known that I was editing an agricul- 
 tural paper, and I was introduced by 
 my friend to his foreman as the editor 
 of the Farmer and Gardener, The 
 foreman, never suspecting that I was 
 a minister, sat down on a bench to 
 talk with me ; and, being a profane 
 man, he poured into my ears a stream 
 of oaths, and nudged me, as much as 
 to say, "Don't you think so.?" ex- 
 pecting me to swear back again. The 
 sense of humor has always been a 
 very strong quality in my mind, and 
 the thought that I was a minister, and 
 did not believe in swearing, and that 
 this man was swearing in my presence 
 with such blessed unconsciousness, 
 presented to my mind a ludicrous 
 state of things. I indicated to my 
 friend that the man did not know who 
 I was. Then I was introduced as the 
 Reverend "^Ir. Beecher, when the man 
 apologized, saying, "I did not know 
 you were a minister, or I would not 
 have used the language I did." 
 
 The moment it is known that a man 
 is a Christian, and a member of the 
 church, a thousand forms of impro- 
 priety, not to say wickedness, no 
 longer present themselves to him. 
 
 2090. The Church for Sinners. — If 
 any man comes to me and says, " Now 
 I am willing to be called a Christian, 
 and I want to join your church, for I 
 think that I am in a state in which 
 I can hve a perfectly Christian life," I 
 say to him, "Go away. We do not 
 
 want you. We have no arrangements 
 for such folks." God sent us to con- 
 duct an institution and economy which 
 has in view the healing of the people. 
 I am, we will suppose, a physician 
 having charge of a hospital. There 
 comes one who has been struck by a 
 bullet, and whose breast is terribly 
 lacerated. I say, " Pass him into 
 Ward No. 6," and away he goes. 
 Here comes another man, bandaged 
 and limping. His arm is broken, and 
 he has received a severe wound in 
 the leg. I give directions for him to 
 be taken to Ward No. 7. Presently 
 there comes up a brisk, fine-looking 
 fellow, who says, " I wish you would 
 let me go in." " What is the matter 
 with you?" I ask. "Oh, nothing," 
 he says ; " I am fit to go in ; I am all 
 right in every respect." "Then you 
 cannot go in," I say. "This is not 
 the place for people with whom there 
 is nothing the matter. It is not a 
 tavern ; it is a hospital." 
 
 2091. The True Church. — Some 
 churches are like lighthouses, built 
 of stone, so strong that the thunder of 
 the sea cannot move them, — with no 
 light at the top. That which is the 
 light of the world in the Church is not 
 its largeness, not its services celebrant 
 with pomp and beauty, not its music, 
 not the influences in it that touch 
 the taste or instruct the understand- 
 ing : it is the Christlikeness of its in- 
 dividual members. 
 
 2092. City Missions. — Our churches 
 are men-of-war ; our mission schools 
 are little steam-yachts that these men- 
 of-war send out into the shallower 
 waters, or where they cannot go. 
 
 2093. Foreigfn Missions. — I believe 
 in foreign missions. I believe that 
 they have their best results, however, 
 at home. The old musket was far 
 more effectual at the butt than at the 
 muzzle, and the kick-back of the 
 
446 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 education which leads us to go out 
 into all the world to preach the 
 gospel elevates the standard of devo- 
 tion in our home churches. I think 
 that our home churches are more 
 profited than the heathen ones, — 
 although they are helped. 
 
 2094. Commerce and Christianity. 
 — As the mail-carrier knows nothing 
 of the messages which he bears and 
 distributes, as he knows nothing of the 
 joy or the woe that comes from 
 those messages, so, though Commerce 
 bears God's messages round and 
 round the globe, it may not know 
 what is does. But it is a missionary ; 
 and its instincts and interests are 
 calling for the education of the 
 nations of the globe. Shall Com- 
 merce, from a blind instinct of selfish- 
 ness, go into the mission field, and 
 shall Christians, inspired by the dying 
 love of Christ, do nothing but stand 
 and say, looking upon schools and 
 churches, "To what purpose is all 
 this waste ? ' ' 
 
 2095. Lack of Sympathy for Men. 
 — As a body of men, the scribes and 
 Pharisees were not men of bad 
 morals, more than are many church- 
 members of the present day. Neither 
 were they men who lacked fidelity to 
 the religious principles in which they 
 were educated. The Pharisees were 
 in some respects the Puritans of their 
 time. They were that portion of the 
 Jews who stood up for reformed 
 Jewish worship. They brought back 
 the faith of Moses from its heathen 
 wanderings, and strictly adhered to it. 
 But they preferred the Church to the 
 people, the State to the people, the 
 Temple to the people, their Denomina- 
 tion to the people. Their guilt was 
 simply this: a contempt for human 
 nature ; utter heartlessness about the 
 common people. And because they 
 were without humanity, and mercy, 
 
 and sympathy, notwithstanding they 
 had personal power, and were faithful 
 to their theologic faith, and were the 
 most enlightened of the times in 
 which they lived, Christ crushed them 
 with mountains of denunciation. 
 There is no such invective as came 
 from the lips of Christ Jesus against 
 men who were utterly devoid of sym- 
 pathy towards their fellow-men, 
 
 2096. Different Kinds of Christians. 
 — So you will find every conceivable 
 degree in the Church. Men are not 
 like plates, in sets. If a plate is 
 broken, you go back to Ovington's 
 and ask him for a plate of this 
 pattern ; and it will not do to give you 
 a plate of any other pattern, in order 
 to make up the set. Thus people 
 think that Christians are made in sets, 
 and that this Christian doesn't match 
 with the rest in the church. " He has 
 a different pattern on him," they say. 
 No ! no ! men are not earthenware or 
 hardware. They are living creatures 
 of every conceivable difference — 
 different in genius ; different in body ; 
 different in appetites ; different in pro- 
 portion of reason, of emotion, of 
 sensibility, or of settled judgment; 
 different in imagination ; in tender- 
 ness ; in scope ; in rapidity ; and 
 every man is converted and grows 
 after his own way and kind. The 
 glory of Christ's garden is its variety ; 
 and that variety runs through moods 
 of quickness or slowness of develop- 
 ment. The development is first here, 
 or first there, in all the endless com- 
 binations. 
 
 2097. Weakness of the Church. — 
 The Church of the present evidently 
 is a church of sinful men not yet 
 sanctified. It is the assembling to- 
 gether of the sick, although they may 
 be convalescent. We should not seek 
 beauty in hospitals ; and as long as 
 pride and selfishness are what they 
 
THE CHURCH 
 
 447 
 
 now are, as long as the spirit of evil 
 so largely baffles the work of grace — 
 so long the Church, comprehensively 
 viewed, will be rather a hospital than 
 a mansion or a household of beauty. 
 
 aogS. Lack of Christian Sympathy 
 in Churches. — Every one has a right 
 to feel that when he goes into the 
 church of Christ he goes into an as- 
 sociation, a brotherhood, where the 
 principle of gentleness and kindness 
 is carried to a higher degree than it is 
 outside of the church. But the 
 Church is keyed, often, very low in 
 the matter of sympathy. Formality, 
 and separations into classes, and 
 divisions by a great many worldly 
 distinctions, break up the sense of 
 brotherhood. Too frequently persons 
 who go into the church are like those 
 who go at night to a hotel. Each 
 lodger has his own room, and calls 
 for what he himself needs, and does 
 not feel bound to take care of any of 
 the other lodgers. And a church, 
 frequently, is nothing but a spiritual 
 boarding-house, where the members 
 are not acquainted with each other, 
 and where there is but very little 
 sympathy. 
 
 2099. Class-feeling in Churches, — 
 Are there not thousands of people 
 round about churches that have oc- 
 casion to say, " No man cares for 
 my soul : they care for music, they 
 care for fine preaching, they care for 
 church ordinances, — but I am an insig- 
 nificant man. I am neither very holy 
 nor very good, and therefore I need 
 somebody ; but nobody cares for my 
 soul. If I go to church, they stick me 
 somewhere in a corner, as though 
 they were ashamed of me, and look 
 at me as though to say, ' What are 
 you here for ? ' That is no place for 
 me." 
 
 Let me say, to the shame of many 
 of our churches, we are much worse 
 
 than the Catholics. . . . When I was 
 abroad and went into their cathedrals, 
 all classes came together. Even in 
 the Madeleine, in Paris, built for 
 glory, magnificent, there was no dis- 
 tinction between the rich and the 
 poor. They all came together. No 
 man looked to see what squalid person 
 knelt beside him on the cold pave- 
 ment. In that regard they set an 
 example to us, as they also do in 
 many other respects, and as we might 
 to them if they would only make a 
 fair exchange. 
 
 2100. Mixed Elements in Churches. 
 — The church gets to be a caravan, 
 or, worse than that, a caravansary, 
 where in the middle of the desert 
 chance travelers stay for a night, and 
 each one travels for his own affairs, 
 not only, but often is disgusted with 
 the nature of his neighbor. How 
 many churches there are of that kind 
 — great containing-shells in which 
 there is very little cohesion of the 
 parts ; and how infinitely they are 
 below the divine conception ! 
 
 2101. The Church and the Man. — 
 A man cannot do a certain duty, be- 
 cause he must save the church ! Now 
 the church is of no more account than a 
 straw, except for the justice and the 
 truth that are in it. When you have 
 sacrificed real piety for the sake of 
 saving the church, you have killed a 
 man and got a corpse. 
 
 2102. The Church, Man's Servant. 
 — When men open the doors of the 
 sanctuary on Sunday, the church is 
 not my master : I am its master, for 
 I am a son of God. It is simply the 
 chariot which he has sent to carry me 
 on my journey. 
 
 2103. Religious Masks. — There is 
 a religious language, "Cant," as it is 
 called by some. It is made up of 
 what are called by others "pious 
 phrases." There are many postures, 
 
448 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 there are many methods of carriage, 
 there are many things that men do or 
 say, or neglect to do or say, which 
 are " churchly " as it is said, and 
 which men take on as signs that they 
 are Christians, until by and by they 
 are covered all over with seemings. 
 They wear particular masks on partic- 
 ular days. They wear a pleasant, 
 cheerful mask at home on week days ; 
 on Sunday they wear a darker mask ; 
 and on fast days they wear a black 
 one. So, like an actor in a theater, 
 they have a costume for every char- 
 acter they wish to personate. 
 
 2104. " Misunderstood." — Could 
 you not point out some in your church 
 that are forever under a cloud be- 
 cause they are not appreciated, — 
 because their worth is not understood, 
 — because their value has never been 
 justly estimated, — because, being 
 weighed in the great scale of society, 
 they are always too light ? You may 
 be sure that nature, and society, and 
 universal experience, do not lie about 
 these men. Where is their labor? 
 Where is the exponent of their in- 
 dustry ? Where is their bountiful 
 beneficence ? What tears have they 
 wiped away ? What useful thing have 
 they done ? Where are the evidences 
 of their desert ? They are barren 
 and granited from head to foot, so 
 that even moss will not grow on them. 
 
 2105. Church-Members to be Trained. 
 — The desire to get men into the 
 church, the driving them in, the 
 throwing the net far and wide to 
 catch them, the sending out shep- 
 herds to run them in, sheep-like, and 
 then letting them alone — that is not to 
 be commended. It is like bringing 
 raw material into a shop, and leaving 
 it unmanufactured. 
 
 2106. The Worst Heresy.— There 
 is no heresy in the long list of those 
 which have invaded the Church, like 
 
 the heresy of negativcness, of inac- 
 tion, of death. The idle church- 
 member is the great heresiarch. 
 
 2107. Authority in Thinking. — The 
 highly organized animals — the birds 
 and beasts of the upper rank — select 
 their own food, and reject what they 
 dislike. They range the air or the 
 earth, find, take, or leave, as it pleases 
 their tongue. It is the round clam 
 that lies still, and lets the water bring 
 him what it will. It is the round clam 
 — that pattern of devotion ! which 
 opens, eats, shuts, and is a clam still. 
 And the clam ranks not a degree 
 higher on the scale because the whole 
 ocean is so big, that brings in his food 
 to him. He is but a clam. 
 
 So, though the Church of two thou- 
 sand years may roll in its waves upon 
 the individual, if the individual only 
 opens, takes, shuts, eats, digests, and 
 opens, takes, shuts, eats, digests, he is 
 but a clam spiritual. 
 
 2108. Independent Workers for God. 
 — When David went out to meet 
 Goliath, Saul, who vvas of the old 
 regulation pattern, said, '* Put on my 
 armor;" and David put it on; but 
 he rattled about in it like a snail in a 
 lobster-shell ; and, throwing it off, he 
 said, " Give me my sling." And he 
 took the sling — a weapon that he 
 knew how to use — and smote the old 
 Philistine in the forehead ; and down 
 he came. Let those use the sling who 
 can best use the sling, and let those 
 use the sword who can best use the 
 sword. Use anything that will answer 
 your purpose in saving men and serv- 
 ing God. 
 
 2109. Past and Future Church 
 Work. — How shall it be in the 
 future? You never saw a successful 
 Christian work begun in any church 
 by hankering after something that was 
 past. A farmer who should sit down 
 and think what a crop he had year 
 
THE CHURCH 
 
 449 
 
 before last, but should do no plough- 
 ing and planting in the spring, would 
 be left with an empty granary in the 
 autumn. 
 
 2 no. Oneness of Creed. — I am 
 suspicious of that church whose mem- 
 bers are one in their beliefs and 
 opinions. When a tree is dead, it 
 will lie any way ; alive, it will have its 
 own growth. When men's deadness 
 is in the Church, and their life else- 
 where, all will be alike. They can be 
 cut and polished any way. When 
 they are alive they are like a tropical 
 forest, some shooting up, like the 
 mahogany-tree ; some spreading like 
 the vine ; some darkling like the 
 shrub, some lying, herb-like, on the 
 ground ; but all obeying their own 
 laws of growth — a common law of 
 growth variously expressed in each — 
 and so contributing to the richness 
 and beauty of the wood. 
 
 211 1. Church Discipline. — A poor 
 woman who sold apples, cakes and 
 candy was a member of a certain 
 church in New York, and was 
 disciplined for keeping her shop open 
 on Sunday. She pleaded that the 
 profits of this one day in the week 
 was just the difference that enabled 
 her to pay her rent — that without it 
 she could not support herself ; but the 
 Session (good men), were obliged to 
 discipline her, although one of the 
 members of that Session kept one of 
 the largest hotels in town. There is a 
 good deal of difference between keep- 
 ing an apple-stand and a hotel. 
 
 21 1 2. Unchristian Fellowship. — My 
 heart is very sore, though not for my- 
 self. During the past few weeks the 
 papers have been filled with things 
 which have come very close to me. 
 A man who stood high in office in this 
 city, who stood higher yet in useful- 
 ness, who was clear of understanding 
 and of the kindest feelings, through a 
 
 mistake which many of you may be 
 committing to-day, and which many 
 men who have died on beds of honor 
 have committed, is discovered, and 
 he comes to the ground. His church 
 lays him on the public dissecting 
 table, and cuts him up with a delibera- 
 tion that is extraordinary. It dwells 
 on his sin, his guilt, his fall, and his 
 destruction, until you find that it is a 
 church clearing its own skirts in deal- 
 ing with him. It is making record 
 before the public as the elder brother 
 did, saying, as it were, "See how 
 much better we are." Where is the 
 sympathy that ought to be shown by 
 Christian men towards an erring fel- 
 low man? I have very little knowl- 
 edge of the facts, but I know that 
 when a Christian brother is in trouble 
 there ought to be a pavilion of Chris- 
 tian hearts into which he can enter. 
 He ought not to be left to die in de- 
 spair. There ought to be tears 
 enough shed for him to wash away his 
 transgression. It is a sad thing to see 
 a cannibal church, and to see men 
 rent and devoured under the name of 
 religion, of honesty, and of purity. 
 
 21 13. Self-Help in Church-Making. 
 — Every single summer, in the water 
 around Peekskill, come swarms and 
 troops of crabs, dropping their old 
 shells ; and they are houseless, and 
 lie tender in the water. We neither 
 pour lime into the stream, nor do we 
 carry them anything at all. We let 
 them wait ; and there develops out of 
 every healthy crab a shell that covers 
 it. They make their own shell. They 
 only want healthy Hfe to take care of 
 the covering. Now, through all the 
 community, the churches of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ have the power in them 
 to develop their outside covering, 
 provided there is zeal, and strength, 
 and fervor, and Christian experience 
 enough. 
 
450 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 21 14. The Real Meeting. — One of 
 the great difficulties with meetings 
 ordinarily is that people are so sepa- 
 rated as to lose the whole social ele- 
 ment. You will notice that, after a 
 prayer-meeting, which has been very 
 dull and very stiff and very proper, 
 has been closed, and the brethren 
 gather around the stove, they com- 
 mence talking socially among them- 
 selves, and then it is that the real con- 
 ference meeting begins. One deacon 
 says, " Brother So-and-so, when you 
 were speaking on such a topic you 
 said so and so." He goes on and 
 makes quite an effective little talk, but 
 you could not have dragged it out of 
 him with an ox-team during the meet- 
 ing ; and so one and another will 
 speak up and join in, and they will 
 get warmly interested in their discus- 
 sion. Around the stove was the real 
 meeting. The other was the mere 
 siinitlacrum of a meeting. 
 
 2 1 15. Speaking in Meeting. — Look 
 around the household. Here is one 
 of the family who talks incessantly to 
 everybody, and all the while, and 
 with reasonably good sense — consid- 
 ering how much there is of it ; but 
 here is another who hardly talks a 
 word all day, except with her eyes. 
 She listens, she hears, she nods as- 
 sent, but she does not speak ; though 
 oftentimes in her silence she is more 
 interesting than one that talks. And 
 you do not take it to be treason against 
 the family, nor to be evidence of a 
 want of affection, that she does not 
 talk. And if freedom in what is called 
 demonstrativeness is allowed to per- 
 sons according to their disposition in 
 the lower circle of friendship, is it not 
 allowable in the higher circles of spir- 
 itual fellowship ? 
 
 21 16. Men Who Should Speak in 
 Meeting. — In meetings, those accus- 
 tomed to speak, emotive and imagina- 
 
 tive persons, persons that are excitable, 
 do the talking ; whereas, the man of 
 thought, the man of patient investiga- 
 tion, the man who has reaped the field 
 of life, and is full of valuable experi- 
 ence, sits silent, a year, five years, ten 
 years. He never opens his mouth. 
 He is a granary full of corn, not a 
 single kernel of which is dropped into 
 the ground. It comes in silent, it 
 stays silent, and goes out silent, and 
 does not propagate itself. And there 
 is many a man of ample resources 
 who keeps those resources to himself. 
 Is that right ? 
 
 21 17. Insincerity. — When I hear 
 brethren rejoicing in conference meet- 
 ings, I am glad of it, unless I have 
 reason to suppose that those are mere 
 banners thrown up, just as we put 
 flags out at any great celebration. A 
 man may be an old hunks, and not 
 care a snap for his country, but if 
 everybody is putting up flags he is 
 going to put them up, too. 
 
 2 1 18. Undisclosed Histories. — We 
 have listened to many interesting ex- 
 periences to-night ; but, after all, the 
 undisclosed histories of our church are 
 more than those that are brought to 
 light. If you take a handful of sand 
 upon the seashore and bring it home, 
 every grain may be like a crystal ; but 
 what is that handful compared with all 
 that you left behind ! If you take a 
 cup and go to the spring on the side 
 of a mountain, and bring it away 
 filled with water, the drops that you 
 bring may be beautiful and refresh- 
 ing ; but what is that cup of water 
 compared with all that flows from the 
 spring, day and night, through the 
 whole round year! And, at best, 
 what are the things that we bring 
 here ? We may be sure that what- 
 ever we say in these meetings, more 
 will remain unsaid than is said. The 
 measure of our hearts does not at 
 
THE CHURCH 
 
 451 
 
 all compass the goodness of God to 
 us. 
 
 21 19. Naturalness in Prayer. — Be- 
 cause a man with a great heart and 
 mighty experience pours out the tides 
 of his devotion before God in sentences 
 that roll and tumble like porpoises in 
 the deep, shall I exclude him from the 
 prayer-meeting and the church ? Be- 
 cause a man has not studied Lindley 
 Murray, because he is not in agree- 
 ment with Webster, shall I deny him 
 a voice in the sanctuary ? Because a 
 man's speech is like a ship rolling and 
 tossing in the wind, shall I say to him, 
 " Take in sails, draw into port, and 
 cast anchor " ? Shall I reject a man's 
 efforts to worship God because his 
 manner is rude, and so not according 
 to the prescribed ideas of movements 
 and methods? And if a man is 
 rhetorical, when he speaks shall I 
 criticise him because, as is natural to 
 him, he uses well balanced sentences, 
 and rounds up his periods in the most 
 polished style ? If his manner of 
 speaking and praying be natural, 
 either with education or without it, it 
 is his liberty, not only, but your riches, 
 
 2120. The Conference-Meeting. — 
 You do not think it needful to bring 
 all the dross that is in the gold from 
 California to exhibit it. You think it 
 is enough to bring the gold and ex- 
 hibit that. And it is not needful that 
 you should exhibit all the dross of ex- 
 perience, and make it equal to the 
 real expei^ience of Christian life. The 
 point where the soul catches the light 
 of heaven ; the point where the Holy 
 Ghost, resting on the affections, kin- 
 dles them into responsiveness to God 
 — that is the point where the world 
 should begin to see religion. 
 
 21 21. Audience not to be Scattered, 
 — You know that to build a fire you 
 lay down a small splinter, and put 
 another on that, and another across 
 
 that, and another upon that, and keep 
 putting one on top of another, so that 
 they readily catch fire when lighted ; 
 and on this you put dry wood ; but if 
 you put one stick in one corner of the 
 stove, another in another corner, and 
 so on, scattering them about so that 
 they do not touch each other, you will 
 not kindle a fire all day long. When 
 you want to build a fire you have got 
 to bring your kindlings together ; and 
 if you want to kindle a fire of the 
 Holy Ghost in a prayer-meeting, or a 
 flame in any meeting, those present 
 should not be scattered here and there 
 about the room, but should sit to- 
 gether, 
 
 2122. Woman in the Prayer-Meet- 
 ing, — The strangest thing in the world 
 to me is, that the church, by a mis- 
 conception of Scripture, has excluded 
 from its benefit one of the choicest 
 parts of devotion, I mean women's 
 praying ; for I do not hesitate to say 
 that God made woman to be the natu- 
 ral priestess, compared with whom we 
 men are but clumsy specimens of 
 virile shallowness. We have not the 
 depth of heart that she has ; and yet, 
 women are not heard to pray in our 
 meetings. They who easily run into 
 heaven by the mere impulsion of 
 thought, they who are almost born to 
 the service of the altar, they who 
 walk in daily familiarity with heavenly 
 things, they whose experiences natu- 
 rally draw them into the channel of 
 prayer — for the most part they never 
 pray, unless it be over our cradles in 
 childhood, when we do not know it. 
 The church has always been lean, and 
 it will always be lean till women pray 
 in its meetings. 
 
 2123. Safety in Expression, — There 
 are a thousand influences in life that 
 are mischievous, which would not be 
 so if they had room to expand. There 
 are men who make trouble in churches 
 
452 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 because they are not allowed to ex- 
 press themselves freely. Let a man 
 spread himself, and relieve his mind, 
 and he will settle down and become a 
 manageable and efficient worker ; 
 whereas, if you hedge him up, and 
 attempt to repress the manifestation 
 of his feeling, by and by, in spite of 
 the deacon on this side, and the dea- 
 con on that side, and the minister in 
 front, he will gather force, and burst 
 out somewhere. Let a man give loose 
 rein to his feeling. You can bear it, 
 and he will be relieved. 
 
 2124. Churches Need Excitement. 
 — Gardeners know full well that plants 
 which grow under glass are never as 
 healthy as those which grow in the 
 open air, among other reasons be- 
 cause they cannot get wind. The 
 plants that grow out of doors where 
 the winds rock them have certain ele- 
 ments of health which you cannot 
 secure in plants that grow under 
 cover. We have an artificial wind in 
 the larger green-houses to remedy, as 
 far as possible, the disadvantage to 
 plants of being grown within doors. 
 Plants require motion. And as it is 
 with plants so it is with churches. 
 They need excitement — social, mental, 
 spiritual. A dull church is apt to be 
 a weak church. 
 
 2125. The Soul in Danger. — If 
 some sweet, fair child, a blossom of 
 love, the dear center of every thought 
 of tenderness, had died ; if when 
 sickness invaded the house, no skill 
 could save ; and the child was dead ; 
 and if the child being laid in its 
 beauty in some adjoining chamber, 
 the mother should commence dancing 
 up and down, and singing the wild 
 song, " My child is dead ! my child is 
 dead!" you would send after the 
 doctor for her. But you are doing it. 
 There is many a man that is doing 
 it. He does not believe the truth. 
 
 "Oh, I know all about this stuff. I 
 was once converted myself. I have 
 been through it. There is no truth in 
 it ; I do not believe in it any more : I 
 am happy enough. These folks are 
 all in bondage." He has lost his 
 soul, and is dancing! 
 
 2126. Rare Virtues Remembered. 
 — I knew a mean but very rich man 
 who one day was surprised into doing 
 a generous act, and never forgot it. 
 Five years afterwards you could hear 
 him tell, in his neighborhood, what he 
 did once ; and ten years afterwards he 
 still rehearsed the old story of what 
 he had once done. But he never re- 
 peated the act, though he recollected 
 it. There are persons who have an 
 experience. They remember when 
 they were roused up once — yes, they 
 remember it, — only ! 
 
 2127. Laboring for a Revival. — 
 When men say to me, " Your revivals 
 are got up," I say. So are crops. So 
 is civiHzation. So are good manners. 
 So is arithmetic. So is business. So 
 is everything else. Of course revivals 
 are got up. There is nothing worth 
 having in life that is not procured in 
 that way. Do you scorn a product 
 because you can say, " Here is the 
 machinery by which it was pro- 
 duced" ? Do you disdain a man's 
 intelligence because you can say, 
 " He went to the primary school, to 
 the high-school, to the academy, to 
 the college, and to the law-school, 
 and it was produced by this ma- 
 chinery " ? Is there any harm in 
 using proper causes to produce cer- 
 tain results? 
 
 2128. Religfious Excitement. — Those 
 denominations and churches and min- 
 isters who believe in revivals, in in- 
 tensity in religion, go to the root of 
 the matter. There are some objec- 
 tionable things in religious excitement; 
 but there is also much that is good. 
 
THE CHURCH 
 
 453 
 
 And if men say tluit passion is not 
 religion, my reply is tliat there is no 
 religion without passion. For, though 
 passion is not religion, religion in its 
 nature is intensive. But the higher 
 feelings are not necessarily boisterous. 
 The most intense feelings are often 
 the stillest. It is when the fire is first 
 kindled that there is the most smoke 
 and crackling, while the bark and 
 softer external parts are being con- 
 sumed. As the fire comes nearer 
 and nearer to flame, the less there is 
 of smoke. And by and by the coal 
 surpasses the flame. And the heat 
 is greatest when there is the least 
 sparkling and snapping and roaring. 
 
 2129. Grades of Religious Revivals. 
 — I see a very perfect overcoat, warm, 
 fine-fitting, lined, all plushed ; and I 
 say, " That is the kind of overcoat for 
 a gentleman." But I cannot get it; 
 I haven't the money. There is a 
 coarse roundabout, that I do not hke 
 as well ; it is not half as good ; but I 
 would take it rather than go without 
 any. Then there is a pea-jacket that 
 is not half as fine as the second one 
 — a great lubberly thing, that, on a 
 man, looks like a cloth box about 
 him. I would rather have that than 
 shiver without any. Then there is a 
 great big army blanket, which is 
 homelier than any of them. I would 
 take that army blanket rather than 
 not have anything. 
 
 Now, the lower forms of religious 
 revival are coarser than the higher 
 forms ; there is more dross in them ; 
 but they are better than nothing, and 
 are acceptable on the way up to the 
 higher forms. 
 
 2130. Revivals and Reactions. — 
 Though intense feeling is not religion, 
 yet true religion tends to excite feel- 
 ing. If not doing any harm is the 
 only thing to be thought of, as many 
 persons seem to think, if being safe 
 
 and having no reactions is the chief 
 idea of religion, then the safest thing 
 in the world is a horse that is spav- 
 ined, and knock-kneed, and broken 
 down, and spare-ribbed, and so feeble 
 that he cannot think of running away, 
 and could not run away if he did 
 think of it. 
 
 2131. Variable Moods. — The vari- 
 ableness of Christian moods is often a 
 matter of great and unnecessary suf- 
 fering. But Christian life does not 
 follow the changes of feeling. Our 
 feelings are but the torch ; our life is 
 the man that carries it. The wind 
 that flares the flame does not make 
 the man waver. The flame may sway 
 hither and thither, but he holds his 
 course straight on. . . . Our wind- 
 blown feelings rise and fall through 
 all our life, and the draught of death 
 threatens quite to extinguish them ; 
 but one moment more, and they shall 
 rise, and forever shine serenely in the 
 unstormed air of heaven. 
 
 2132. Revivals. — It is a glorious 
 thing to have a freshet in the soul, — 
 to have the better feelings overflow 
 their banks and carry out of the chan- 
 nel all the dull obstructions of ordi- 
 nary life. It reveals us to ourselves. 
 It augments the sense of being. 
 
 2133. The Primitive Church. — We 
 have reason to suppose that the Chris- 
 tian church never separated itself 
 from the old Jewish church until after 
 the destruction of Jerusalem. Up to 
 that time the Temple was sacred alike 
 to those that were Jews of the strictest 
 sort, and to those that were Christian 
 Jews. 
 
 We have almost an exact analogy 
 of this in modern history. When 
 Wesley undertook to reform the 
 Church of England, he did not sepa- 
 rate his disciples from the Established 
 Church ; and to the day of his death 
 they did not leave it. They remained 
 
454 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 in it, and observed its ordinances and 
 rules, at the same time holding sepa- 
 rate meetings of their own, over and 
 above those of the Church. And the 
 early Christians still adhered to the 
 Temple-service, though they had their 
 social gatherings besides, until the 
 city was destroyed, and the Temple 
 with it, and they were driven from 
 it. Then they were obliged to frame 
 some other organizations ; they took 
 the synagogue for their pattern, or 
 copied largely from it. And the cir- 
 cumstances of these organizations va- 
 ried almost infinitely. There was no 
 prescribed outward form for the 
 Church. 
 
 2134. The Church a Natural De- 
 velopment. — Christianity, largely con- 
 sidered, is not an organized church, 
 though this is one of its instruments. 
 Churches spring from the spirit of 
 Christianity in the same way that 
 households spring from love and wed- 
 lock. They are not commanded. It 
 is not commanded that one should 
 dwell in a house with a family ; but 
 if persons are united in love there is 
 no need of command. It will take 
 care of itself. There was no com- 
 mand in the New Testament to organ- 
 ize Christian churches. That matter 
 would take care of itself, and did. As 
 soon as men begin to be interested in 
 each other, and to seek each other's 
 welfare, by instruction, by comfort, 
 by help, they have to meet: and, 
 meeting, the law of convenience, 
 time, place, custom, country — all 
 these determine the forms of meeting ; 
 so churches spring up inevitably. 
 And that is the Apostolic Church, 
 that is the real Church, which answers 
 the ends of piety best. 
 
 2135. The Church a Sustainer of 
 Christian Life. — These flowers on the 
 desk before me now depend for their 
 support on the cup in which they are 
 
 placed. They did not, however, a 
 few hours ago. Then they had their 
 own several roots, and drank their 
 own supply, night and day, from the 
 earth. But now that they have been 
 plucked from their own roots, they are 
 dependent upon this extrinsic source 
 of supply. The moment they were 
 deprived of their roots, that moment 
 they ceased to have power to obtain 
 their own sustenance. The Church 
 has been made to be, in a certain 
 sense, a vase, in which Christians, cut 
 off from their roots, have been sup- 
 plied with water by the hand of the 
 priest, and have been dependent for 
 juice and sap upon extrinsic help. 
 
 2136. Church Lineage Interesting 
 — Not Vital, — I have no objection to 
 any Episcopal communion tracing it- 
 self back as far as England. There 
 is no harm in taking an old house to 
 pieces and building a new house out 
 of the materials of the old. And if 
 our Episcopal Church is formed from 
 the elements of the Church of Eng- 
 land, it is no worse for that. It would 
 be a matter of some antiquarian pleas- 
 ure to trace it back to England, and, 
 similarly, for the Church of England 
 to find its source in the older Roman 
 hierarchy. I do not object to persons 
 having a love for such things. All I 
 say is, that they are incidental and 
 collateral, not essential. 
 
 I like to see the clematis climb 
 about the doors of my house — and 
 it does. I hke to plant vines and 
 bushes about my dwelling. They 
 make it sweeter and more delightful. 
 I never open my window in summer, 
 that a hundred flowers do not send in 
 their airy thanks to me. But give me 
 my inside life ; give me my compan- 
 ions in the household, and if there 
 were not a flower on all the lawn, nor 
 a vine on all the building, it would be 
 home to me still. 
 
THE CHURCH 
 
 455 
 
 2137. Baptism. — The ordinance 
 and act of baptism is simply declara- 
 tory. It declares a fact, that is all. 
 It does not make a change, nor seek 
 to make a change. The attempting 
 to live heart-clean by the washing of 
 the Holy Gliost, as by the washing of 
 water we attempt to live body-clean — 
 that is spiritual baptism. And out- 
 ward baptism is the mere sign and 
 declaration to the world that the subject 
 of it is being cleansed in heart by the 
 Divine Spirit — or that he thinks he is. 
 
 2138. Variation of Ritual. — Some 
 men think that baptism is regenera- 
 tion. I don't think it is regeneration 
 or anything like it. It is merely a 
 sign. I do not think a man is a good 
 soldier because he has put a cock- 
 ade on his hat ; but the cockade on 
 his hat is a sign that he is a soldier. 
 Baptism is the outside sign of a cer- 
 tain supposed condition. I respect 
 my own conscience and liberty ; I re- 
 spect the liberty and conscience of 
 everybody else ; and I say, You may 
 sprinkle ; you may pour ; you may 
 immerse ; and I receive you notwith- 
 standing. You are as good as I am ; 
 and all that I ask is : Receive me, too. 
 
 2139. Religious Rites. — "Let not 
 him that eateth despise him that eat- 
 eth not." That was one of the Levitical 
 ceremonials or symbolizations which 
 had as much importance as whether a 
 man shall turn his back to the con- 
 gregation when offering prayer, or 
 whether he shall read from the back 
 of an eagle and call it a lectern. 
 
 2140. Unity of Spirit, Rather than 
 of Thought. — Join with me in the 
 heartiest prayer, not so much that God 
 will unite his people by common 
 thinking, common ordinances, com- 
 mon governments, or any of these 
 external things, but that he will so 
 exalt the power of Cliristian sympathy 
 and Christian love that men of every 
 
 organization, of every sect, and with 
 every way of worship, shall be irre- 
 sistibly brought together, heart to 
 heart. As drops to drops of water 
 make the streams that nourish the 
 land, and make it glad, so may the 
 loving inspirations of heart joined to 
 heart flow down like the river of life ! 
 
 21 41. The Business of the Church. 
 — If the sun should take counsel with 
 itself, and say, " Here am I, a splen- 
 did old sun, and I have got to take 
 care of my light : everything depends 
 on me, and it will not do for me to 
 compromise myself, and go into that 
 deep valley, into that dark cave, or 
 into that obscure thicket. My busi- 
 ness is to keep bright, and to take 
 care of myself." What kind of a sun 
 would it be that should talk thus.'' But 
 you will find ministers and churches 
 talking in the same way. They say, 
 " It is the business of the Church to 
 take care of religion." Did Christ die 
 for religion, or did he die for man ? 
 
 2142. Modern Miracles. — I am 
 amused when I hear sects and 
 churches talk about having evidence 
 of Divine authority because they have 
 miracles. Miracles in our time are 
 like candles in the street at midday. 
 We do not want miracles. They are 
 to teach men how to find out truths 
 themselves ; and after they have 
 learned this, they no more need them 
 than a well man needs a staff, or than 
 a grown-up child needs a walking 
 stool. They are the educating ex- 
 pedients of the early periods of the 
 world. As such they are divinely 
 wise ; after they have served their 
 purpose as such, it is humanly foolish 
 for persons to pretend to have them. 
 
 2143. Piety From Unlikely Con- 
 ditions, — We very properly look for 
 flowers in soil, and not upon rocks. 
 But what if some wind has caught a 
 seed and dropped it in a seam in the 
 
456 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 face of a cliff, and kind rains visit it, 
 and a scanty soil hospitably feeds the 
 beautiful thing, pcrclied up a thousand 
 feet above its fellows, nodding and 
 shining like a pendulous breast-pin 
 on the bosom of a cliff, shall we de- 
 clare that there is no flower there, 
 because it was so little to be 
 expected there ? Christ has followers 
 in every sect. And we are to ac- 
 cept the facts of piety against all 
 presumptions created by the sys- 
 tem in which it may have grown. 
 
 2144. All Churches Needed for the 
 Church. — No church is, or ever was, 
 perfect, nor can be. It transcends 
 the measure of human power. Per- 
 fection means so many things, and in 
 such degrees of excellence, that it 
 does not belong to any one. I think 
 very highly of a great many separate 
 flowers — of the rose, of the camelia, 
 of spring flowers ; I do not know any 
 one flower that does or can represent 
 the floral kingdom. The homeliest 
 have all the perfume, often. The 
 highest have form, and no fragrance. 
 Some have the purity of white. Some 
 have glowing tints of red, scarlet, and 
 what not. Some bloom in spring ; 
 some late in autumn, and only then ; 
 and some all the time. Some are 
 floriferous, and others are scant and 
 parsimonious of their beauty. You 
 cannot conceive of a flower that can 
 be made to represent the sum-total of 
 these ; for a flower cannot be homely 
 and handsome at the same time. It 
 cannot be fragrant and inodorous at 
 the same time. It cannot be chary 
 of its beauty, and at the same time 
 multitudinous in its bloom and blos- 
 som. Therefore, God causes different 
 qualities to inhere in different blos- 
 soms. And the whole vegetable king- 
 dom represents the vegetable king- 
 dom. Nothing short of that will do 
 it. All churches make the Church. 
 
 2145. Denominationalism. — Was 
 there ever anything so foolish, so 
 squeamish, so absurd as all this talk 
 about the sanctity of the Church, and 
 about a man's loyalty to his denomi- 
 nation ! You might as well talk about 
 my loyalty to the fences round about 
 my farm. P'ences are very good 
 things against wandering cattle, but 
 you need not make a life-and-death 
 matter of them. Yet, some one of 
 your crusty old farmers will spend 
 half he is worth on a lawsuit, because 
 a man has three inches of his 
 territory. Life is too short and too 
 precious for these things, and when a 
 man can go into another denomination 
 to preach to their acceptance, and can 
 hold them around about him, in the 
 name of Heaven, in God's name, and 
 in the name of love, let him be ! 
 
 2146. Efficiency of Sects. — The 
 Roman Church thinks it is a broom- 
 handle, and that all other churches 
 in Christendom are like the splints of 
 a broom — spht up into many parts. 
 Well, I never saw any one use a 
 broom-handle for sweeping. It is the 
 splint part that is used for that pur- 
 pose ; and it is by means of the in- 
 numerable splints that one is enabled 
 to sweep clean. It is the multiplica- 
 tion of sects that brings out truth, 
 enterprise and higher manhood ; and 
 it is by what they do that we are to 
 judge of their value. 
 
 2147. Unchristian Orthodoxy. — It is 
 a narrow orthodoxy that cannot work 
 with anything but itself. 
 
 When, during the terrible railway 
 disaster at New Hamburg, men were 
 rushing in crowds to rescue from the 
 wrecked cars those that were in them, 
 or to drag from the water those that 
 had been thrown into it, do you sup- 
 pose it was necessary for them to stop 
 and say, " Are you a Republican, or 
 are you a Democrat? Because I am 
 
THE CHURCH 
 
 457 
 
 not going to be seen working along- 
 side of a man not of my political be- 
 lief, and have people suppose that I 
 endorse all his abominable political 
 doctrines?" Would not that have 
 been monstrous? And yet, in Brook- 
 lyn, within my time, for years and 
 years, the Sunday-schools of the 
 Unitarian churches were not allowed 
 to walk in procession with the Sun- 
 day-schools of the orthodox churches, 
 on Anniversary days ; and the Unita- 
 rian churches had to draw off their 
 schools and form processions on other 
 days ; because it was feared that the 
 little orthodox children would catch 
 some heresy from the little Unitarian 
 children, if they were allowed to walk 
 with them in the street ! Over that 
 scene, Christ was sad, and the devil 
 was glad. 
 
 2148. Religious Intolerance. — As 
 mud on whiteness is a great deal more 
 apparent than mud on greenness, or 
 on blackness, according to the color 
 of the mud on the road ; so nowhere 
 in the world is evil more apt to be 
 indulged and more conspicuous than 
 in religious circles, in the strifes of 
 men in respect to authority in 
 ecclesiastical affairs, in respect to the 
 importance of truth in doctrines, in 
 respect to questions of administration 
 in church life. There is nowhere 
 that men should be so very tolerant 
 of each other, and there is nowhere 
 that the Church of Christ has been 
 more bitterly intolerant than in many 
 church matters. 
 
 2149. Sectarian Misjudgment. — It is 
 the old story over again of the statue 
 of a man and a lion. It is said that 
 a lion, on seeing the image, said, " If 
 I had been the sculptor I should have 
 made the lion on top of the man, and 
 not the man on top of the lion." I 
 never heard a man of one denomina- 
 tion make a statement of another de- 
 
 nomination's doctrines so that that 
 denomination would accept it. 
 
 2150. Christian Esprit de Corps. — 
 To be proud of your company ; to be 
 proud of your officers ; to be proud 
 of your regiment ; to be proud of 
 your division ; to be proud of the 
 army corps to which you belong ; to 
 be proud of the cause which you have 
 espoused ; to have a common feeling 
 of sympathy with those with whom 
 you are associated — this is one of the 
 elements that make a grand army, and 
 ensure success. And that which is 
 true of the outward military life in this 
 respect is even more true of the social 
 and spiritual life of Christian men. 
 They should feel each other's hearts 
 beat. They should rejoice in the 
 sense of being united in seeking a 
 common end and aim. 
 
 2151. The Church Militant. — When 
 the great Army of the Potomac was 
 about to move, there was no feeling 
 of rivalry between the infantry and 
 the cavalry, or between the cavalry 
 and the artillery. They all belonged 
 to the one army ; and these different 
 sections supplied elements which went 
 to make a grand unity, a total whole. 
 
 The army of God is divided into 
 different sects ; and there is no reason 
 why they should stand in jealousy over 
 against each other. They are parts 
 of one great body, and they ought to 
 be in affiliation and sympathy one 
 with another. 
 
 2152. Sects: Variety. — Sects are 
 the flowers, all children of the sun, 
 yet widely different in their structure 
 and appearance. Would you reduce 
 them all to one, and have nothing but 
 daisies, nothing but tulips, or nothing 
 but violets ? Sectarian organizations 
 (but for their thorns and prickles) 
 are all of them wise. I believe in 
 the organization of Christians into 
 churches, as I believe in the forming 
 
458 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 of churches, by elective affinities, into 
 sects. ]Jut sects are not Christianity. 
 They do not represent the whole of it. 
 Christianity is represented by the sum 
 of all the sects, and not by any one 
 of them. 
 
 2153. The Test of Instrumentalities. 
 — Though you have a straight line of 
 apostolic successors, if your work is 
 poor, you are not in the line of suc- 
 cession ; and if your church does not 
 make full-grown men, it is not. I do 
 not care anything about the line of 
 succession of my grapes, if my vine- 
 yard brings forth better wine than 
 your vineyard does. You may say 
 that yours came from those that Noah 
 planted ; but by their fruit ye shall 
 know them. And the test of all 
 churches, as of all orthodoxies, and 
 all doctrines, and all usages, and all 
 governments, is this : What is their 
 effect upon the generations of men ? 
 
 2154. Religion Hindered by Eccle- 
 siasticism. — Perhaps the most extraor- 
 dinary contrast ever known to history 
 is that which exists between the genius 
 of the Gospels and the pompous claims 
 of church hierarchies. Christians 
 made haste to repeat the mistakes of 
 the Hebrews. Religion ran rank to 
 outwardness. The fruit, hidden by 
 the enormous growth of leaves, could 
 not ripen. Spirituality died of eccle- 
 siasticism. If the Church has been 
 the nurse, it has also been often the 
 destroyer of religion. 
 
 2155. Partisanship in Church Life. 
 — Even in our religious feelings, we 
 are prone to follow our sympathies 
 rather than our judgments or con- 
 sciences, and to measure ourselves by 
 the general condition of the church or 
 sect to which we belong. We are as 
 if we were in a ship, and we called its 
 voyage our voyage, and its passage 
 our passage. And if our church or 
 sect is flouiishing, we have a feeling 
 
 that we arc flourishing ; and so we 
 lose our personal identity. 
 
 2156. The Principles of Protestant- 
 ism. — The German Protestant de- 
 clared, " I have rights as against the 
 Church." The Puritan Protestant de- 
 clared, " I have rights as against (Gov- 
 ernment." The Independent or Con- 
 gregational Protestant declared, " I 
 have rights as against civil govern- 
 ments, church governments, and all 
 mankind. Neither the multitudes nor 
 the organized few can take from me 
 what God gave, and I will preserve." 
 These were the three great strides 
 which landed on Plymouth Rock. 
 
 2157. Church Councils and Author- 
 ities. — An " independent church," in 
 the phraseology of our time, would 
 seem to mean a church that is allowed 
 to do just as it pleases, under the dic- 
 tation of a neighboring church. The 
 idea is that there must be competent 
 men enough to determine what the 
 minister shall do, and then, obeying 
 them fully, he may do what he has a 
 mind to ! If I were a Presbyterian 
 minister, and my presbytery would 
 give me authentic certainty that they 
 would stand in my place at the judg- 
 ment seat of Christ and take all the 
 odds there, I would preach as they 
 told me to ; but every man shall give 
 an account oi himself heiore God. If 
 my bishop, kindly and calmly, would 
 enter into bonds satisfactory that he 
 would take care of me in the Day of 
 Judgment, and say that I was his dis- 
 ciple and did what he told me to, 
 that would ease my mind very much. 
 1 have a right to ask a council for in- 
 formation where I need it, and I am 
 grateful for it. 
 
 2158. Congregationalism. — This 
 church has been in the true sense of 
 the term a Congregational Church. It 
 has never been governed by its min- 
 ister. I cannot say that I have no in- 
 
THE CHURCH 
 
 459 
 
 fluence over my church ; I have a 
 good deal of influence over it — fully 
 as much as I ought to have ; but I do 
 not think I have a particle of authority 
 over it. There are no things trans- 
 acted in this church on the sly. 
 There has never been anything fixed 
 here so that you could not help your- 
 selves and choose between what you 
 thought and what your pastor thought. 
 Everything has been as free as air in 
 debate on every question. You have 
 done what seemed to you best, 
 whether I agreed with you or not ; 
 and there has been no ill feeling. I 
 have been bearded by young men in 
 my parish ; I have been put down in 
 discussion here ; I have been over- 
 ruled now and then ; and I have felt 
 very proud of it. I do not want to 
 raise a team of horses and have them 
 act like cows. What I want in my 
 church is a collection of men capable 
 of self-poise, inspired with the highest 
 motives, and competent to act inde- 
 pendently and coherently. 
 
 2159. Christian Men cannot be Dis- 
 fellowshiped. — As a good street-lamp 
 cannot be put out by the wind, and as 
 a city set on a hill cannot be hid, so a 
 church that stands on Mount Zion 
 cannot be put down. Any church 
 whose members love the Lord Jesus 
 Christ in sincerity and in truth, who 
 are rearing well-ordered households, 
 and who are preaching and practicing 
 the great precepts of the Gospel, will 
 stand and shine in spite of all jurisdic- 
 tion, and be loved by all that love 
 Christ. You cannot disfellowship 
 them ; for, although you may say to 
 them, "You shall not come into our 
 councils, our conventions or our con- 
 ferences," you cannot say to them, 
 "You shall not come into our hearts." 
 1 will defy a man who is a Christian 
 not to admire and love whatever is 
 Christian in other people, whether 
 
 they stand inside or outside of his 
 pale. 
 
 2160. The Church of the Future. — 
 Beware of religious faiths that sepa- 
 rate men. Beware of religious faiths 
 that put forth a hand bearing a flail, 
 and go into life beating down, beating 
 down, and beating down each other. 
 Look for those religious administrations 
 that draw men together ; that inspire 
 good will ; that teach patience and 
 gentleness and forbearance. Look 
 for sweetness, and not for bitterness. 
 Look for a forgiving spirit, and not 
 for unrelentingness. Demand and 
 secure, in the religion of the coming 
 day, in the Church that is to be, all 
 that there is of mercifulness without 
 impugning the strictness of justice ; 
 all that there is of gentleness without 
 taking from the strength of the bones 
 of responsibility. 
 
 2161. Generic Unity ; Specific Vari- 
 ation. — Nothing would be more in- 
 structive than to hear the house- 
 keepers in a neighborhood discuss 
 each other's economy. Each is care- 
 ful in some direction, and profuse in 
 another ; and each criticises the 
 others' profuseness. But economy is 
 a question of final results, and not of 
 special methods. All through differ- 
 ent households you find disagreement 
 in specifics and agreement in generics. 
 Now, throughout the world, churches 
 are artificial households. And they 
 are good households. There are 
 sects, scores of them, as there ought 
 to be ; and though they specifically 
 differ, they are generically promoting 
 good morals, inspiring spiritual appe- 
 tites, and lifting men up from the 
 plane of the passions to the plane of 
 the moial sentiments. They are teach- 
 ing men to live, not by sight, but by 
 faith. And one does it in one way, 
 and another does it another way. 
 One does it by ordinances and symbols, 
 
460 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 another by silence and by the teach- 
 ing of the Spirit, and another by intel- 
 lectual disquisitions. And so there is 
 some general unity between them, 
 thougli they are running in their own 
 ruts and channels. 
 
 2162. Mutual Recognition of Sects. 
 — Why cannot common sense prevail 
 among men that are divided into 
 different cliques in religion, but are 
 all seeking one immortality, are all 
 seeking the one disposition by which 
 they shall learn the thing that shall 
 immortalize them ? Do not let us 
 quarrel and steal sheep out of each 
 other's pasture, and then think it is a 
 triumph and glorification. 
 
 2163. Preachers from Other De- 
 nominations. — If a congregational 
 church wants a Methodist Ur. New- 
 man, and they hear him with profit, 
 he has a right to stay there. His ex- 
 terior relations may remain with the 
 Methodists, and there is no harm in 
 that. I do not care where the roots 
 of the tree pasture that hangs over my 
 wall and gives me pears. And if all 
 the glow and enthusiasm and life of 
 our Methodist brethren can be carried 
 into the formalities of some of our 
 other churches I think it would be a 
 great blessing. 
 
 2164. Concord, not Unison. — Na- 
 ture abhors organic unity, as she was 
 said in old times to abhor a vacuum. 
 Nature is contriving after differences 
 all the time. She strives for har- 
 mony ; never for unity, except in that 
 sense. Harmony is not a monotone. 
 Harmony is not unison. It is con- 
 cordant differences. To-day, the 
 reigning idea in most of the churches 
 is that we are to labor for an ideal 
 oneness ; that we are to labor for one- 
 ness in thought, oneness in worship, 
 oneness in organization. The idea of 
 a church that all the world round is 
 repeating precisely on the same hour 
 
 of the same day in every latitude and 
 everywhere one monotone : call that 
 a grand and glorious idea ? It is at 
 discord with the Divine idea. It is 
 running against the genius of creation. 
 
 2165. Church Interchange Whole- 
 some. — The sooner it is understood 
 that churches and sects are just what 
 States are in this government, the 
 better it will be. A man is born in 
 Connecticut, and he thinks it is the 
 best State in the Union — until he sees 
 some other. And when he gets out 
 of it, he does not forget his native 
 State. He goes to New York, and 
 settles there ; but does anybody think 
 of saying to him, "Turncoat! turn- 
 coat! " It is a part of our civic lib- 
 erty that a citizen of one State is a 
 citizen of every State. And it ought 
 to be so in church organization. 
 
 2166. Institutions of Religion. — 
 There is the same difference between 
 the Church and religion that there is 
 between the hand and the soul. The 
 hand is important, and I do not pro- 
 pose to cut it off; but if it is a choice 
 between the hand and the soul, I 
 know which I should choose. Now 
 churches, and seminaries, and Chris- 
 tian institutions of all kinds are feet 
 with which religion walks. They are 
 hands with which it helps itself. They 
 are instruments which God employs in 
 carrying it forward. But when a 
 comparison is made between institu- 
 tions or ordinances and the things 
 which they serve, there is no question 
 which is superior. 
 
 2167. The Church and Religion. — 
 It is said that churchism is wearing 
 out ; that men no longer frequent the 
 house of God. Church-going never 
 has been a besetting sin. I think men 
 go fully as much as ever they did. 
 But, even if it were true that churches 
 are wearing out, churches are one 
 thing, and religion is another. The 
 
THE CHURCH 
 
 461 
 
 church is no more religion than the 
 masonry of the aqueduct is the water 
 that flows in it. Schools are a very 
 different thing from intelligence, 
 though intelligence uses them as in- 
 struments ; so churches are merely 
 instruments of religion. They may 
 vary; the truth remains the same. 
 
 But besides this, the spirit of man, 
 in religion, intermits. There has never 
 been a steady growth in anything, 
 neither in the discoveries of science, 
 nor in the progress of government, 
 nor in religious life. Always, growth 
 comes by intermissions, and it would 
 not be strange if it should be so in 
 the Church. If, then, there were now 
 a decadence of interest in religion, it 
 might show simply that we are in one 
 of these stages of temporary inactiv- 
 ity. But I do not believe the fact to 
 be as it is stated. 
 
 2168. The Best Church. — Jona- 
 than Edwards wrote his Treatise on 
 the Will (one of the most extraordinary 
 pieces of human thought and inge- 
 nuity on record) on a pine table of 
 most execrable construction, in a little 
 room not so large as my platform, 
 sitting in a hard, splint-bottomed arm- 
 chair. Now suppose that a school of 
 philosophers should be found quarrel- 
 ing with a man that produces another 
 Treatise on the Will equally great, by 
 attempting to ascertain whether he 
 wrote it in a room eight by twelve, 
 whether he wrote it on a pine table, 
 every one of whose legs creaked, 
 whether he wrote it sitting in a splint- 
 bottomed armchair, and whether he 
 wrote it on paper of a given age and 
 with a goose-quill of a given pattern : 
 they would resemble exactly the dis- 
 putes that I see among churches as to 
 whether this one or the other one has 
 is the true Church. The room that 
 has a man in it who can turn out a 
 treatise like that of Ed-djards on the 
 
 Will is one to be highly honored. 
 I care nothing about the room ; it is 
 the Treatise that gives power to the 
 room, and not the room that gives 
 power to the Treatise. What care I 
 whether a man is made in a Quaker 
 Church or in an Episcopal Church ? 
 These are all shops, and the doc- 
 trines are tools, and the members are 
 merely workmen. I care nothing for 
 the shop if it does got give me good 
 work, whether the shop be made of 
 gold or of clay. I take the work, and 
 not the shop. 
 
 2169. The Value of Churchly Forms. 
 — I am not one of those who say that 
 repeating the sacred Creed, or per- 
 forming pilgrimages, and fastings, and 
 penances, and mortifications, or be- 
 stowing gifts and charities, is all use- 
 less. On the contrary, if I see a man 
 who by repeating his Credo, or his 
 Ave, or his Pater Nosier is made more 
 devout, I say, "That does him good 
 in the proportion in which it makes 
 him more devout." If a proud man 
 performs penances and mortifications, 
 and it humbles him, I say, " It does 
 him good so far as it humbles him." 
 These things are instruments ; and if 
 they work out any good in a man, 
 they are valuable for just that; but 
 for nothing else. They are school- 
 masters ; and they are good if they 
 teach man, who is their pupil. But 
 in the time of the Reformers it was 
 thought that there was intrinsic merit 
 in them, independent of what they did 
 in a man. 
 
 2170. Communities, not Institutions. 
 — I would not speak one word to 
 undervalue the Church ; but if a man 
 be a hunter, after he has fired, does 
 he look into the rifle, or where the 
 game is ? And am I to look into the 
 Church and the Bible, or at the con- 
 dition of my fellow-men, to see the 
 result of Christianity ? Any good in- 
 
462 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 stitution, wliose design is to affect the 
 whole community, must be studied 
 first in the community, and not in the 
 institution. 
 
 2171. Value and Peril of Priest- 
 hood. — In general, according to the 
 civilization and knowledge of the 
 globe, the priesthood represent the 
 best elements of human nature, and 
 strive to draw people up to those 
 elements ; but when they are organ- 
 ized as a class, with peculiar privi- 
 leges, when they gather wealth to 
 themselves, and when political power 
 comes into their hands as well, then 
 they become a very dangerous class. 
 It is dangerous in a great community 
 to have any class which is immovable, 
 and in which there is no circulation 
 from the bottom to the top. 
 
 2172. The Apostolic Quality. — Oh ! 
 that those men who are so fond of 
 finding the Apostles could only find 
 the inside as well as the outside. What 
 they seem to seek is the Apostles' old 
 coats, their old linen, their cast-off 
 garments — not that glowing soul of 
 cathoHcity, not that large element of 
 true and manly love, not that broad 
 sense of liberty, not that intense feel- 
 ing of personal independence, which 
 was in Paul, and which was in the 
 Master before him. 
 
 2173. Proselyting. — Let us not use 
 our liberty to destroy those who are 
 weaker in faith and in intelligence 
 than we are. If priests are afraid to 
 let their people come to this church, 
 then they do not understand me. I 
 have never said a word against any 
 other church, that I know of, since I 
 have been a minister. I criticise be- 
 liefs freely, and always will ; but I 
 never lifted my hand to proselyte a 
 person. I never strove to take a per- 
 son out of one religion and put him 
 into another. The kingdom of Christ 
 is not profited by such a process, any 
 
 more than I am by taking a ten-dollar 
 bill out of one pocket and putting it 
 into another. 
 
 2174. Church Exclusiveness. — Here 
 is a miserable old cinnamon rose, that 
 does not bear blossoms to amount to 
 anything ; but it is very proud be- 
 cause it stands in rich, yellow loam. 
 And it has great contempt for that 
 damask rose, which stands in gravel 
 and naturally poor soil, although it is 
 covered with fine blossoms, and will 
 not commune with it. Why ? Because 
 it stands in sacred yellow loam, itself ! 
 It makes no account of the fact that 
 it has poorer leaves and poorer blos- 
 soms, and is poorer every way, than 
 the other rose. And so it is often 
 with Christians. You shall see poor, 
 starveling Christians in fair pots, and 
 rich, plump, blossoming Christians in 
 poor pots. 
 
 2175. The Worth of the Church. — 
 No man need say anything against 
 churches or ordinances ; for these are 
 mere tools, they are mere imple- 
 ments. Because you cannot eat the 
 harrow or the plough, it does not fol- 
 low that the harrow and plough are 
 not good in raising wheat that you 
 can eat. But it is the wheat, after all, 
 that has the value — not the imple- 
 ments by which you raise it. Al- 
 though the tree that brings forth 
 peaches, pears or apples cannot be 
 eaten, nor its leaves, it is necessary 
 that there should be a trunk, sap, and 
 then the springing germ, and then 
 the swelling and the ripening, and 
 then the final dehciousness of the per- 
 fected fruit. The fruit is what we 
 want ; but you have got to have the 
 instruments by which it is developed. 
 
 2176, Curative Life-Power. — When 
 a man has symptoms, when he is a 
 little out of order, he doses, and gets 
 worse — as he ought to ; and when 
 churches are a little disordered they 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 463 
 
 dose, and get a good deal worse. 
 When a man is out of order physically, 
 if he is abstemious, and his system 
 has stamina, resiliency, vitality, he 
 gets well. The doctor has the credit 
 of curing him ; but it is his system that 
 does the work. Nothing is so curative 
 as life-power. That is the essential, 
 in man or church. 
 
 2177. Modern Religious Influence. 
 — When the Ohio River, the mountain 
 snow melting, swells up to the measure 
 of its banks, and begins to overflow 
 and overflow, the big Miami bottoms 
 are one sheeted field of water ; and 
 where I once lived — in Lawrenceburg, 
 Indiana — I could take a boat and go 
 twenty-five miles straight across the 
 country, so vast was the volume. 
 Now, suppose a man had taken a skiff 
 and gone out over the fields and 
 plumbed the depth and found only 
 five feet of water, and had said, 
 " Ah ! only five feet of water, and the 
 Ohio had forty feet." Well the Ohio 
 
 has not shrunk one inch. There are 
 forty-five feet there, and there are five 
 feet everywhere else. Religion used 
 to be mainly in the Church, and men 
 used to have to measure the Church 
 in order to know how deep the rehgion 
 was ; but there has been rain on the 
 mountains and the moral feeling that 
 exists in the community and in the 
 world has overflowed the bounds of 
 the Church, and you cannot measure 
 the religious life or the religious im- 
 pulse of this people unless you meas- 
 ure their philanthropy, their house- 
 hold virtue, and the general good will 
 that prevails between classes and 
 communities. 
 
 The Church is not less than it has 
 been, it is more than it ever was, but 
 outside of it also there is a vast 
 volume of that which can be regis- 
 tered under no head so well as under 
 that of rehgious influence, and which 
 never existed in days gone by to the 
 extent to which it exists now. 
 
 XXX Fill. THEOLOGT 
 
 2178. Theory not Practice. — Men 
 sit around a tool-chest quarreling 
 about saws and planes and chisels. 
 They are not building anything ; they 
 are debating about tools. They are 
 fit to be a theological seminary. 
 
 2179. Present and Future Knowl- 
 edge. — There is no possibility of our 
 knowing the truth except in part. 
 
 Now, is like a crystal which some 
 half-cleft rock discloses in part, more 
 being yet buried than is laid open : a 
 face or two, the fine, bounding lines, 
 being visible, but receding into the 
 opaque rock. T/ien is that crystal 
 completely extricated, all its form 
 being disclosed and held up in glorious 
 light, to take and flash back again 
 from all its sides the effulgence of 
 divine light. 
 
 2180. Mere Doctrinal Discussion. — 
 What would you think of a husband- 
 man who was not particularly careful 
 of his mowing lot, or of his grain 
 crops, or of his root crops, or of 
 his orchard, or of his garden, but 
 left them all in a sadly neglected 
 state, because he was giving his 
 whole time to the building of his 
 fences? One large part of his time is 
 employed in setting up his surveyor's 
 instruments, and taking measure- 
 ments, perhaps for the five hundredth 
 time, of the boundaries of his farm. 
 So he goes round and round his whole 
 farm, marking out just where all the 
 lines are. Then he begins to lay 
 his fences. And oh ! such fences ! 
 He must have the best that can be 
 built. 
 
464 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 Did you never hear of spiritual hus- 
 bandmen that were forever defining 
 the great points of doctrine ; forever 
 discriminating just the line between 
 Calvinism and Arminianism, or be- 
 tween High Calvinism and Low 
 Calvinism ; forever drawing the dis- 
 tinction between High-Church and 
 Low-Church of every sort ; forever 
 running round and round boundaries 
 of the kingdom of God, making this 
 place right here, and fixing that crook 
 there ; building and rebuilding the 
 middle walls of partition between one 
 sect and another, but never sowing 
 and never reaping ? Their farms are 
 untilled and unfruitful. Their fences 
 are all good, however. 
 
 2181. Doctrines and Life. — Bring 
 out our confessions of faith. They are 
 called "skeletons of doctrine," and 
 are well called so ; they are skele- 
 tons. Christianity looks, in many of 
 the e.xhibits that are made of it, in- 
 tellectually and doctrinally, as a man 
 would if he had been dead ten years, 
 and there was nothing but his ghastly 
 gaping skull left of him. But when 
 Paul speaks of Christianity, he speaks 
 of it as a life, which is glowing and 
 beautiful. In other words, he goes to 
 the fruit — to the quality of piety. Our 
 theologians, to a very large extent, go 
 to the doctrines or philosophies that it 
 is supposed tend to make piety (they 
 may or may not do it, as the case is) ; 
 but the question of our sympathy is 
 not to be with the plow and the harrow, 
 but with the harvest. 
 
 2182. Doctrinal Preaching. — I be- 
 lieve in doctrines, with my explana- 
 tions ; but I must use them. My 
 duty is to take a plough, to fasten a 
 team to it strong as eternity, and to 
 put it into the soil, and to rip through 
 the sod down to the subsoil, and to roust 
 out all the vermin and the nibbling 
 mice, and turn up the yellow dirt to 
 
 the sun. No doctrine is good for any- 
 thing that does not leave behind it an 
 ethical furrow ready for the planting 
 of seeds which shall spring up and 
 bear abundant harvests. 
 
 2183. Puzzles of Doctrines. — Doc- 
 trinal difficulties are very much like 
 such difficulties as a steed feels that is 
 galled by an over-tight harness. If 
 the owner goes and draws up the 
 buckle one or two holes, will it relieve 
 him ? The tighter you pull, the more 
 you gall. And these morbid intel- 
 lectual difficulties frequently become 
 worse and worse by discussion. For 
 they are insoluble, most of them. No 
 man can frame the Infinite into a pro- 
 portional form. No man can measure 
 God or the infinite Divine government 
 by words. 
 
 2184. Divine Truth : Human State- 
 ments. — Men make no distinction be- 
 tween the Bible and the system which 
 has been wrought out of the Bible, 
 though there is just as much difference 
 between the truth in the Bible and 
 systems that are wrought out of it as 
 there is between the iron ore from the 
 mines of Pennsylvania and the im- 
 plements that are forged out of that 
 ore. You may make good tools out 
 of the ore of the Bible ; but they are 
 not Divine, for you made them. 
 
 2185. What a Creed is — and is Not. 
 — A creed is a good thing to teach a 
 congregation by, and to catechise 
 children by. It is good to lay down 
 general points of beUef around which 
 a congregation may gather. But a 
 creed is not a whip of scorpions by 
 which we are to lash each other's 
 backs. 
 
 2186. Danger of Creeds and Con- 
 fessions. — Creeds and confessions, as 
 helps and as histories are valuable, 
 but as authorities they are the hands 
 of dead men. Mortmain has been ad- 
 judged to be so dangerous in all 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 465 
 
 secular affairs that governments have 
 restricted and destroyed it ; yet mort- 
 main lies on the throat of the church 
 to-day, and a man may not speak that 
 which the dead men of three or four 
 hundred years ago told him he must 
 not speak. 
 
 2187. Varying Views of Truth. — 
 Nor can you find absolute unity of in- 
 tellectualism in regard to high moral 
 truths ; you never can find it on this 
 earth. There are certain departments 
 where men may come to unity, as in 
 arithmetic and in mathematics ; that 
 is to say, in the truths that represent 
 materiality, and He low for the service 
 of the world, men can come to approx- 
 imate unity. But when you consider 
 the infinite variations of men's genius, 
 the attempt to make them see all 
 things alike in the higher realm is use- 
 less. You cannot take the realm of 
 universal truth, and less and less in 
 proportion as you go up, and make 
 men see alike there. The men are 
 not alike. The seer differs from the 
 seer ; and the very structure of man, 
 as approved and adjudicated by the 
 experience of time, compels men to 
 see truth in different colors. 
 
 2188. Organized Variety of Human 
 Nature. — How are you going to take 
 men as they are made, and make 
 them believe alike ? Some persons 
 are so dry that you might soak them 
 in a joke for a month, and it would 
 not go through their skin. No ex- 
 planation would suffice to make them 
 understand it. They must accept it 
 by faith if they accept it at all. And 
 yet, there are other persons who are 
 so sensitive to everything that is 
 humorous or ludicrous that probably 
 there is not a thing on earth that does 
 not, first or last, suggest something 
 funny to them. How are you going 
 to take such minds, and make them 
 look along the track of truth and see 
 
 alike? They are made differently ; 
 and it is not without a purpose. 
 For variety — organized variety — is 
 strength. 
 
 2i8g. Doctrinal Intolerance. — They 
 slew him because he could not say 
 Shibboleth ; and that kind of slaying 
 has been going on ever since. When 
 in the ordinances men cannot say 
 ^/«/5boleth, but say 5z^boleth, they 
 are slain with the sword of the church. 
 Since there have been Christian de- 
 nominations they have not given over 
 making war one upon another on 
 grounds as narrow as that. Every 
 one mounts his conscience for some 
 docrinal distinction ; and then he is 
 riding the devil, — for a fiery con- 
 science is nearer like the devil than 
 anything else that we know anything 
 about. 
 
 2^ go. Apostolic Heresy. — Does it 
 not seem strange to you to hear that 
 John Knox was suspected of being 
 heretical in Edinburgh ? or that Jona- 
 than Edwards was suspected of being 
 unsound in Northampton ? or that 
 John Calvin was suspected of being 
 lenient and lax in Geneva ? And 
 does it not seem strange that St. Paul, 
 in Jerusalem, was not regarded as 
 having got up to the highest mark as 
 a religious man ? So it was. It was 
 not openly charged that he was not 
 orthodox. There were rumors to that 
 effect, but no charges — none what- 
 ever. And so, after twenty years of 
 earnest, faithful labor in almost all the 
 civilized world, Paul came to Jerusa- 
 lem to find that he was not " ortho- 
 dox " according to the views of Chris- 
 tians there. They held him in doubt. 
 The Christian Jews had accepted 
 Christ. They believed in him. And 
 yet they could not bear to break away 
 from the Temple, nor from the routine 
 regularity of the Mosaic law. So, 
 when they heard that Paul had no 
 
466 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 objection to circumcision, but did not 
 care for it ; that he had no objection 
 to sacrifice, but that he did not con- 
 sider it as necessary, they said, " This 
 Paul is an invader of settled opinions ; 
 a dangerous man. He may be right ; 
 but you cannot tell where all this will 
 end. Probably he will go to Hellenic 
 views, and become a teacher of false 
 philosophies "—and that, because he 
 held the whole economy of Moses in 
 a higher sense, and with a nobler 
 purpose, than they did who suspected 
 him ! 
 
 2191. Inspiration Progressive. — If 
 there be one thing that is shown all 
 the way through the divinely inspired 
 record it is the adaptation of methods, 
 institutions, and revelations of truth to 
 the weaknesses and necessities of men 
 in each particular age. The garment 
 was made to fit the figure. The man- 
 ner of teaching was in accordance 
 with the need of the time and nation 
 in which it took place. Not perfec- 
 tion, but right direction, was the aim. 
 
 2192. Early Christianity. — Sup- 
 pose it were proposed to an armed 
 city to pull down its walls, to level its 
 bulwarks and fortifications, to open 
 the doors of the citadel, and to throw 
 away the muskets and the cannon? 
 That would not sound much more 
 strange to a military ear, as a mode 
 of warfare, than it did in olden times 
 to hear a man attempting to propagate 
 a gospel that aimed to build up a new 
 life begin by urging men to abandon 
 all those forces by which they had 
 ever accomplished anything in the 
 field or in the forum. 
 
 2193. Christianity, Original, and 
 Improved. — I think it was Goethe who 
 said, in view of the infinite commenta- 
 tors who had criticised Faust in its 
 First and Second Parts, that there 
 were hundreds of meanings in that 
 work which he never thought of, but 
 
 which his critics had found out ; and 
 it may be said that thousands of 
 things have been discovered as being 
 part and parcel of Christianity which 
 never were thought of by its Founder, 
 Christ, nor by his Father, God. 
 
 2194. Human Knowledge Frag- 
 mentary. — What would be known of a 
 statue, if every part of the marble had 
 been abraded except the chin ? We 
 should know something about that ; 
 we should know that it was a chin ; 
 but what should we know of the rest ? 
 And Paul says, in respect to the world 
 in which we dwell, in respect to the 
 great system of which we are parts. 
 We know only in spots, here and 
 there ; we know solitary facts, single 
 relations, partial elements. 
 
 2195. Theologizing. — Is there no 
 difference between a thing and the 
 philosophy of it ? A mother has been 
 gone from home for two days, leaving 
 her little babe, a year old, in the care 
 of a friend ; and, when she comes 
 back she rushes to the cradle and 
 catches up the child, and covers it 
 with kisses, and says ten thousand 
 sweet, sensible follies to it; and I sit 
 down and say to her, " Now, what do 
 you understand to be the nature of 
 motherly love ? What is there in that 
 child that is so attractive to you ? " I 
 am theologizing to that mother : all 
 very proper in its place and time, but 
 an ocean of philosophy would never 
 start a rill of the thing itself. 
 
 2196. Systematic Theology. — Sys- 
 tematic theology includes in a general 
 way, to be sure, a sound morahty, an 
 mi perfect mental philosophy, an an- 
 alysis of God's nature and govern- 
 ment, in which good and evil, truth 
 and fiction, are blended, as in Daniel's 
 vision ; and this vision is an admirable 
 description of the present condition of 
 theology. The image's head was of 
 fine gold, his breast and arms were of 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 467 
 
 silver, his belly and thighs of brass, 
 his legs of iron, his feet part iron and 
 part clay. So stands theology to-day. 
 
 2197. Antiquated Thought-Forms. 
 — When civilization was as yet very 
 imperfect, and government was as yet 
 distraught, great nobles sought se- 
 curity by building castles on emi- 
 nences, and lived in them as in forts 
 and fortifications. But the times grew 
 better, and peace reigned, and men 
 could come down, now, and live on 
 the plains, and in pleasant houses and 
 mansions ; and the old forts are for 
 travelers to gaze at. So the intel- 
 lectual and theological forts that men 
 built in those troublous times of re- 
 ligious persecution stand yet in our 
 confessions of faith and in our creeds, 
 and we are enjoined to live in them. 
 But we are coming down on to the 
 plains, and we shall abandon those old 
 castles, not because they did not have 
 truth in them, but because they had 
 truth in them in such a mode of state- 
 ment that, with the reigning disposi- 
 tions and currents of public thought, 
 they do not now produce the right 
 impression. They may be true in a 
 sense, and yet false in their effects 
 upon mankind. 
 
 2198. Changing Value of Creeds, — 
 Catechism and creed may both have 
 most important truths, and often in 
 most unfortunate expression for per- 
 manent value. For it is with thought 
 a good deal as it is with dress. A 
 man that should dress as our Lord 
 did, with turban and robe — the boys 
 would run after him in the street. A 
 man that should bring into our Occi- 
 dental life the details and peculiarities 
 of Oriental desert life, or the life of 
 the wilderness — men would justly re- 
 proach him. And so it is. There be 
 many things that fit a man for one 
 age, or one country, but do not fit him 
 for another. 
 
 2199. Problem of Evil. — This has 
 been the cob which men have been 
 gnawing for a thousand years ; but no 
 one ever got a kernel from it. It was a 
 cob when they began gnawing it, and it 
 is a cob yet. The origin of evil? 
 The very system of creation originated 
 evil. God chose to create such a state 
 of things as exist ; and, he having 
 chosen it, evil was organic, created, 
 universal, characteristic, designed. 
 It did not come in by accident ; it was 
 put in on purpose. 
 
 2200. Power of Calvinism, — You 
 may put some musk in a chest, and 
 when it is exposed to the air after 
 three hundred years it will smell 
 about as strong as when you put it 
 there. Now old John Calvin lived in 
 Geneva, and they have not been able 
 to get him out ! That place smells 
 strong of him to this hour ! Calvin- 
 ism gave a conception of God as a 
 God supreme, infinite, omnipotent, for 
 justice, for rectitude. This was the 
 power of Calvinism. There were 
 other things belonging to it — such, 
 for instance, as the "five points" — 
 original sin, subjection of the will, 
 Divine grace, predestination, and per- 
 severance of the elect — but its grand 
 central power was this : the dignity it 
 gave to man in the character of a 
 God presented to him as supreme 
 Governor. 
 
 2201. Calvinism and Arminianism. 
 — What is a Calvinist? Any mind 
 that is so constituted that it is in sym- 
 pathy with intense ideas of governor 
 and government is Calvinistic, A 
 man, on the contrary, that has large 
 benevolence and social feelings, and 
 not large self-esteem and conscien- 
 tiousness, is almost of necessity an 
 Arminian. What is an Arminian, as 
 thus distinguished from a Calvinist? 
 He is one that is in sympathy with the 
 governed, Calvinism goes for gov- 
 
4^)8 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 ernor and government : Arminianism 
 goes for the people. They are botli 
 of tliem partialisms, and they are 
 both of them true. 
 
 2202. Calvinism and Democracy. — 
 We break our teeth trying to break 
 the nuts of Calvinism. They are not 
 nuts ; they are marbles : but they 
 were the best that time could form. 
 So long as the community had no 
 knowledge of the rights of the indi- 
 vidual, or of the interior spirit of the 
 New Testament, it did not hurt any- 
 body's feelings when it was said, 
 "The King can do no wrong; we 
 have no rights, and we must not 
 meddle " ; but now what has come to 
 pass in the growth of the human race 
 and the better understanding of the 
 Gospel? Men are emancipated. 
 Every citizen is a factor in the gov- 
 ernment. We are all of us partners, 
 joint stockholders, and have a right 
 to dividends of power everywhere. 
 
 2203. Freedom of the Will. — Many 
 men are swamped in the doctrines of 
 election and predestination, but this 
 is supreme impertinence. They are 
 truths which belong to God, and if 
 you are troubled by them, it is be- 
 cause you are meddling with what 
 does not belong to you. You only 
 need to understand that all God's 
 agencies are to assist you in gaining 
 your salvation, if you will but use 
 them rightly. To doubt this is as if 
 men in a boat, pulling against the 
 tide, and, with all their efforts, going 
 backwards every hour, should by and 
 by find the current turning, and see 
 the wind springing up with it and 
 filling the sails, and hear the man at 
 the helm exclaim, " Row away, boys ! 
 Wind and tide are in your favor," 
 and they should all say, " What shall 
 we do with the oars? Do not the 
 wind and the tide take away our free 
 agency ?' 
 
 2204. Doctrine of Election. — The 
 elect are whosoever will, and the non- 
 elect whosoever won't. 
 
 2205. Calvinistic Shadows. The 
 
 fact is that the scoffers at the old 
 Testament are really all the time firing 
 at the construction that is put upon 
 these things by the theologians of the 
 old Calvinistic church. If you say 
 Calvinism is not believed in any 
 longer, what is the reason they get 
 angry when I attack it ? I do not at- 
 tack it because I am fond of firing 
 into the dust-heap of old theology, 
 but because the influences of it still 
 hang in the heavens as a cloud to 
 hide the glory of God. It is for 
 Christ's sake, and for humanity's 
 sake that I would contend against the 
 fictions and burn all the dreams of 
 the old medieval theologians. 
 
 2206. The Religion of Fate. — They 
 have preached such theological views 
 as misrepresented human nature, man 
 and God to the world. The doctrine 
 was taught that man was born cor- 
 rupt into the world, dislocated and at 
 variance both with knowledge and 
 with all forms of moral purity, abso- 
 lutely helpless, and to be saved only 
 by an act of Divine special volition ; 
 utterly unable to procure that act by 
 anything that he does, either by tears, 
 or persuasions, or endeavors of his 
 own, but depending absolutely upon 
 the uncovenanted free will of God ; 
 and that only a small part would ever 
 become the subjects of that free will, 
 while the rest would go glooming, 
 darkling, moaning down to perdition 
 by a stream of fate that was as irresist- 
 ible to them as Niagara would be to an 
 infant. This did make it seem as 
 though religion was a terrible thing — 
 nothing so terrible, except the want 
 of it. 
 
 2207. A Worn-out Creed. — God so 
 loi'ed the world that he gave his Son 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 469 
 
 to die for it. Any view of the Divine 
 nature that makes him first angry, 
 and then placated, is blasphemous. 
 It is not only not orthodox, but it is 
 as heterodox as hell. God's brooding 
 love, not God's irritable law, is the 
 doctrine of the Bible. I have written 
 on that subject and preached on that 
 subject, and have been criticised in 
 this wise : " Mr. Beecher knows when 
 he is making these onslaughts that he 
 is beating down a man of straw." 
 No, I am not beating down a man of 
 straw ; I am beating a mummy that 
 still stands in its environments in the 
 confessions of the world to-day, and 
 that every generation of ministers 
 swears to believe in and preach. But 
 the point that I make is not that these 
 mummies are believed in very widely, 
 it is that the popular impression is 
 derived from these representations of 
 the creeds, and that the men who are 
 to preach them — nineteen out of every 
 twenty, ninety-nine out of every hun- 
 dred — do not believe in them. 
 
 2208. Varied Ripening-time of 
 Truths. — All truths are not indeed 
 alike important, and all truths do not 
 show the effects of being believed or 
 rejected with equal rapidity. There 
 are many truths which bear such a 
 relation to our everyday life, that the 
 fruit of believing or rejecting appears 
 almost at once. These are spring 
 truths, that come up and bear fruit 
 early in the season. There are other 
 truths that require time for working 
 out their results. They are summer 
 truths, and the fruit of belief or dis- 
 belief does not ripen till July or 
 August. Other truths, in respect to 
 showing the results of belief or disbe- 
 lief, are like late autumnal fruits, that 
 require the whole winter to develop 
 their proper juices. In these last the 
 connection is just as certain, although 
 it is longer in making itself appear, as 
 
 in the first, where the distance be- 
 tween cause and effect is shortest, and 
 the development is most rapid. . . . 
 But there is no way of holding any 
 great rehgious truth that does not, first 
 or last, work out a result answering 
 exactly to the nature of the thing 
 believed. 
 
 2209. The Garden of Eden. — 
 Among the legends that are grouped 
 in the earlier portions of Genesis stands 
 the Garden-Parable of Eden and our 
 first parents. If treated as a poem, in 
 literature, conveying the simplicity of 
 the earliest notions of the origin of the 
 Human Family, it is both harmless 
 and pleasing. If treated as fact, it 
 loses all its color, and withers as a 
 flower in the desert. If treated as 
 theology has for a thousand years 
 treated it, it is an awful morass, out 
 of which have flowed down streams 
 of mischief, and filled the sphere of 
 religion with dreary and poisonous 
 influences. 
 
 2210. Scriptural Treatment of Adam. 
 — There is idyllic beauty in the vision 
 of a blessed garden inhabited by two 
 ignorant and innocent beings ; the 
 simple story that their wrongdoing 
 led to unhappiness and expulsion is a 
 good moral for children. There let 
 it rest — harmless and even beautiful ! 
 There the whole Old Testament lets it 
 rest. No priest, lawgiver, or prophet 
 makes this legend a part of his in- 
 struction. The legend dies out. Not 
 once does Jesus speak of it. Only 
 Paul touches it. The fall of Adam 
 and the imputation of his guilt to all 
 his posterity was a bastard belief of 
 the Jews, grown up, with other glosses 
 and absurdities of Pharisaic theol- 
 ogy, outside of Scriptural authority or 
 teaching ; and the Apostle, neither 
 denying nor affirming it, but alluding 
 to it as a theory familiar to his readers, 
 based upon it the great truth that 
 
470 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 Christ broiiglu into life a remedy for 
 all its ills. It was Christ's moral suf- 
 iiciency to heal all evil — no matter 
 how it was supposed to have entered 
 the world, even if through Adam — 
 that was in Paul's heart. 
 
 221 1. The Fall of Man. — The whole 
 civilized Christianity of the world 
 hitherto has been based upon the 
 doctrine of the fall of the whole hu- 
 man family in Adam. Man never did 
 fall ; men never could fall because all 
 men were born at the bottom ; and if 
 there has been any turn at all, it has 
 been upward. There is not a word in 
 the whole Bible about a fallen world. 
 There is not a word in the whole Bible 
 about a lost world. Christ came to 
 seek and to save the lost. Multitudes 
 of men have been lost, and many 
 found ; but that is never spoken of 
 the human race, nor of the whole 
 world : and yet it is the absolute foun- 
 dation on which the current theolo- 
 gies, and the theologies of the past 
 have been based. 
 
 2212. Responsibility for Adam. — 
 Suppose a man should call his five 
 children, and begin, in the order of 
 their ages, and give each of them a 
 good sound whipping ; suppose he 
 should say to them, "Off with your 
 jackets!" and give it to them; sup- 
 pose they, standing around and cry- 
 ing, should ask, " Father, why is 
 this?" and he should reply, "Your 
 great-grandfather jumped over into an 
 orchard and stole some apples — that 
 is what it is for ! " The idea is enough 
 to make one laugh. How misleading 
 would be such a figure employed to 
 interpret the nature of God's justice ! 
 
 2213. "In Adam's Fall." That 
 after such imputation of sin that men 
 knew nothing about, God should have 
 gone on and turned the crank of crea- 
 tion, and multiplied them, and 
 multiplied them, and multiplied them, 
 
 swarming the earth with them in 
 every generation — why, how long 
 would you let a man with smallpox 
 wander up and down the world ? But 
 suppose a man were to create it, and 
 should be suffered to go into society ! 
 All the instincts of jusdce, all the 
 humanities, rise up against the con- 
 tinued creation of inevitable and 
 unbounded evil. Yet men have been 
 taught by the ascetic medieval and 
 scholastic theology that God has done 
 it, — and on the pattern of infinity. 
 
 2214. Doctrinal Differences. — How 
 about toleration when men hold such 
 doctrines as the absolute ruin of the 
 human race in Adam's fall ; and 
 ■where they hold and teach that in 
 consequence of that ruin the whole 
 world is lost, that men are going to 
 hell, and that hell is everlasting ? I 
 hold neither. I could not. I could 
 sooner take hold of a red-hot sword 
 and wield it than attempt to take 
 hold of a theology of that kind and 
 wield it. Nor do I see how anybody 
 can do it. Nevertheless, I do see how 
 men form their conclusions, and how 
 they hold them. 
 
 2215. No Original Righteousness. 
 — Every man is born at zero. He is 
 nothing at first. We are told that 
 men are born without original right- 
 eousness : but this is not half of it ; 
 they are born without original any- 
 thing, except a little sack of pulpy 
 matter. The supreme function at 
 birth is suction. Men are born with- 
 out a name and without a trade. 
 They are born without power to walk, 
 without power to handle anything, 
 without power to see, and without 
 power to hear. Their senses are not 
 born until they have been in the 
 world months and months. It is a 
 mere seed that is born. When, 
 therefore, I am told that men are born 
 without original righteousness, I do 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 471 
 
 not find any difficulty in believing 
 that. 
 
 22 1 6. Cruel Views of God. — Some 
 of the noblest, the whitest-lifed men 
 that ever lived have held the most 
 horrible views in regard to God, 
 human life and destiny that it is pos- 
 sible to conceive of ; and when I look 
 at them, and see out of what soil they 
 grew, I can liken them to nothing but 
 a white flower growing out of a dung- 
 hill. The ground in which their roots 
 are is accursed ; and yet they are 
 beautiful, and their lives are fra- 
 grant. 
 
 2217. Christ Variously Preached. — 
 Some of the sweetest men in the world 
 hold a barbaric view of God and the 
 world, and their lives are as sweet as 
 the heart of Jesus. It is not for me 
 to account for these things. I thank 
 God for the hves of such men ; and if 
 they can take those doctrines, and can 
 get honey out of the lion, for God's 
 sake let them use lions for that pur- 
 pose ! But I do not cultivate them 
 for the purpose of getting any honey 
 out of them. I receive these men, 
 though. As far apart as is possible in 
 the interpretation of Scripture are we ; 
 as wide apart are we in the interpreta- 
 tion of Divine Providence as the gulf 
 between heaven and earth : but love 
 can put a bridge over any gulf, no 
 matter how wide ; and I see them 
 serve Christ, and I receive them, 
 notwithstanding all our doctrinal dif- 
 ferences. 
 
 2218. Striving Against the Light. — 
 Often, the men that are opposed to the 
 hopeful views and to the theology out 
 of which they spring, are neverthe- 
 less unconsciously working for God. 
 There are some men who go to heaven 
 with their faces thitherward. There 
 are some men who will back into 
 heaven. They fight all the way 
 against that very influence which is to 
 
 be their salvation, and the salvation 
 of the world. 
 
 2219. Futureof the Wicked. — Some- 
 times, in the dark caves, men have 
 gone to the edge of unspeaking 
 precipices, and wondering what was 
 the depth, have cast down fragments 
 of rock, and listened for the report of 
 the fall, that they might judge how 
 deep that blackness was ; and listen- 
 ing — still hstening — no sound returns ; 
 no sudden plash, no clinking stroke as 
 of rock against rock — nothing but 
 silence, utter silence ! And so I stand 
 upon the precipice of life. I sound the 
 depths of the other world with curious 
 inquiries. But from it comes no echo 
 and no answer to my questions. No 
 analogies can grapple and bring up 
 from the depths of the darkness of the 
 future world of the wicked the prob- 
 able truths. No philosophy has line 
 and plummet long enough to sound 
 the depths. 
 
 2220. Interchange of Theologies. — 
 The great plains of the West grow 
 more corn than they want. In the 
 East we make more goods than we 
 want. They receive the goods they 
 want, and we receive the corn we 
 want, and so we interchange. I think 
 if I had somebody to teach me a little 
 more logic, and I taught some others 
 a little more liberty, we should all be 
 better for it. If I had alongside of 
 me somebody that believed in hell-fire 
 and damnation, and I opened my 
 views to him of salvation and the 
 eternity of the heavens, possibly, at 
 least, he might be better off. 
 
 2221. The Proving of Doctrines. — 
 Let one say to me, who could neither 
 write nor read : " Take that type and 
 put it down there ; now take that 
 one and put it down there," and so 
 go through ten or fifteen types until 
 they spell out my name. I do not 
 know how to read, or write, or spell, 
 
472 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 but I obey, and take the separate 
 types and ]nit them one after the 
 other. Then 1 bring up some man and 
 say, "What does that spell?" " Henry 
 Ward Beecher." He said it would 
 come out so. If a chemist were to 
 come and say to you, who were un- 
 acquainted with substances : " Take 
 one-quarter portion of that clement, 
 and take just exactly so much meas- 
 ured portion of that element, and so 
 much of that element." What does 
 it come to ? Cologne water. . . . 
 "How do you prove it ? " you ask. 
 "Try it, that will prove it." You 
 must give practical trial of your doc- 
 trines if you would prove them. 
 
 2222. New Truths. — When the 
 question is, How shall truths authen- 
 ticate themselves, and gain a lodg- 
 ment in the minds of men ? then it is 
 important to know what bow sends 
 them ; but after they have been sent, 
 after they have struck, after they have 
 been admitted to be truths, after they 
 have proved themselves to be divine, 
 then it makes no difference whether 
 they came in from the power of 
 prophecy or from the force of science. 
 
 2223. To-day Needs To-day's 
 Thought. — You might as well go to 
 the catacombs of Egypt and scrape 
 up the dust of the mummies, and 
 knead it into forms, and bake them in 
 your oven, and call such things men, 
 and present them, as citizens and 
 teachers, for our regard, as to bring 
 old, time-worn institutions to serve the 
 growth and the living wants of to- 
 day. 
 
 2224. The Old and the New. — The 
 condition of things in religion and 
 medicine is very nearly the same. 
 The regular Orthodox Church looks 
 upon all new movements in religion 
 with disestcem, and pronounces vari- 
 ations from the standards of the past 
 to be heterodox. They know that 
 
 they are right, and that those who do 
 not agree with them are wrong. On 
 the other hand, the men of new ideas 
 and new light insist upon it that the 
 old religions have grown musty, and 
 no longer represent the disclosures of 
 truth made through nature and sci- 
 ence to our times. So they stand over 
 against the Church. The old think 
 the new to be vagrant, restless, run- 
 ning after novelties ; and the new 
 think the old to be bigoted. Both of 
 them are selfish, because both are 
 human. It therefore comes to pass 
 that in almost every department of 
 life there are the old and the new, the 
 conservative and the progressive, the 
 orthodox and the heterodox, opposed 
 to each other. 
 
 2225. Liberty in Religious Think- 
 ing. — Along down through the ages 
 nothing has been so much distrusted 
 as the average experience, wisdom 
 and conscience of the great mass of 
 the common people ; but in the ex- 
 periment which our nation has been 
 working out, God has shown the world 
 at last that in all things commercial, 
 in all things industrial, in all things 
 moral, in all things civic and govern- 
 mental, it is safe to trust the common 
 people. There is still the barbaric, 
 despotic, monarchic doctrine that the 
 people are not to be trusted in the 
 matter of religion, and in that only. 
 But I hold that God's will covers that 
 ground just as much as it does every 
 other ground in human life and so- 
 ciety. For liberty corrects its own 
 mistakes in a little time. That which 
 claims to be truth is on trial when first 
 announced. When on trial, if it fails, 
 it is not true, and men reject it. There 
 is a steady agitation in an intelligent 
 and reasonably well-educated and 
 moral population, that is perpetually 
 acting like a bolter of grain, sifting 
 and leaving the chaff behind. 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 473 
 
 2226. Temptation of the " Liberal." 
 — How many times do we find persons, 
 as they are developing into a higher 
 religious life, who feel, as the first 
 fruits of their spiritual liberty, con- 
 tempt for their past selves, and con- 
 tempt for other people who are in 
 that state from which they have just 
 emerged ! But let me say that con- 
 tempt is not a Christian grace. This 
 you would do well to put down in 
 your memorandum book ; for a great 
 many of you think it is ! 
 
 Contempt, you know is a crow, that 
 cries, " Caw, caw, caw ! " Pity is the 
 egg that hatched the crow. When 
 you see one man showing pity for an- 
 other, just get him a little mad, and it 
 is contempt instantly. We begin by 
 pitying men who do not know as much 
 as we do ; and then, because they 
 will not mind us, we feel contempt for 
 them. 
 
 2227. Puritanism, — The idea of Hfe 
 to the old Puritans was stern on ac- 
 count of the spirit of the age in which 
 they lived. They forbore pleasures 
 because those had been so prostituted 
 and perverted. They had such an 
 intense sense of the final results of 
 human life in this world that they 
 were apt to seek only things that were 
 solid and profitable. In some minds 
 the old-fashioned doctrines were like 
 the old-fashioned wagons, the box of 
 which was set right down on the axle- 
 tree, so that every single pebble over 
 which the wheels ran caused a jolt 
 which was distinctly felt. Now come 
 the younger sons ; and they want to 
 put springs under the box ; but the 
 father says, " You were not brought 
 up so. Keep to the old solid riding. 
 That is the true kind." 
 
 2228. Sermon on the Mount : Past 
 and Future. — One would scarcely 
 know from the Sermon on the Mount 
 whether the Jews had altar or temple, 
 
 priests or ritual. The pure wheat is 
 here garnered ; the straw and chaff, 
 so needful for its growth, but now in 
 its ripeness so useless, and even per- 
 nicious, were cleared away. It is a 
 discourse of the past for the sake of 
 the future. 
 
 To interpret the Sermon on the 
 Mount as the charter of Christianity, 
 is to misconceive not only this dis- 
 course, but the very nature of Chris- 
 tianity itself, which is not a system of 
 new truths, but a higher development 
 of existing forces. 
 
 2229. Infidelity as to Primitive Rev- 
 elation. — Science is but the decipher- 
 ing of God's thought as revealed in 
 the structure of this world ; it is a 
 mere translation of God's primitive 
 revelation. If to reject God's revela- 
 tion of the Book is infidehty, what is 
 it to reject God's revelation of himself 
 in the structure of the whole globe ? 
 
 2230. The Revelation of the Rocks. 
 — With what eagerness has the world 
 heard of the discovery in Egypt of the 
 tomb that contained the buried kings 
 of the Pharaohnic dynasty ! But what 
 are all these mighty kings, wrapped 
 for three thousand years in the shroud 
 of silence, compared with the discov- 
 ery of God's method and the results 
 of creation millions of centuries ago, 
 retained in the rocks ? Were the two 
 tables of stone, written by the finger 
 of God, a memorial to be revered, 
 and their contents to be written in let- 
 ters of gold in all men's churches, and 
 yet his ministers and priests turn with 
 indifference or with denunciation, even 
 with scorn, sometimes, from the litera- 
 ture of the rocks written by the hand 
 of God all over the earth ? 
 
 2231. New Light. — There are two 
 ways in which these new develop- 
 ments of scientific truth may be met. 
 One is by stubborn refusal, and the 
 other is by modified acceptance. If, 
 
474 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 on tlie one side, men receive the new 
 light that God is bringing into the 
 world, but refuse the Gospel, and go 
 off, they will be like men in the North 
 who are taking a voyage on an ice- 
 berg. They will sail on the sides of 
 politics and of cold intellectual, scien- 
 tific results, without affinities, without 
 warmth, without summer, except a 
 summer that would melt the very 
 foundations on which they stand. On 
 the other hand, if, afraid, the Church 
 refuses this light, then the Church is 
 like a man who is in a dungeon. The 
 sun is shining, and the summer is 
 coming, but he is none the wiser. 
 
 2232. Time for Changes. — France 
 is better to-day because she had a 
 revolution, horrible as that revolution 
 was. Many a man is better to-day 
 because he had a bilious fever, and 
 was cleansed by the remedies which 
 he was obliged to take ; and I think 
 that when you look at the list of vict- 
 uals which the Church has eaten for 
 the last thousand and a half years, 
 you will all agree that a little purga- 
 tion would not do it any harm ! 
 
 2233. Theological Transitions. — 
 When Galileo discovered the truths 
 of astronomy, and was rebuked by 
 the Church, the Church authorities 
 thought that all their beliefs would be 
 swept away if the prevalent notions 
 about the world should be uprooted. 
 They attempted to stop the sun in his 
 course, and the earth in its course. 
 IJiit not long after that the growing 
 light emancipated men's minds ; the 
 reformation took place, and Europe 
 was deluged with new spiritual in- 
 fluences. The very light which led 
 Galileo to his great discoveries was 
 the twilight or dawn of that great re- 
 ligious movement which emancipated 
 the human race. 
 
 You may be sure that anything that 
 shakes men to the very bottom, that 
 
 enlarges their sense of the universe, 
 while for the first moment it may put 
 back their distinctive religious feeling, 
 will, in the end, give power to it. And 
 although the present discussions, both 
 in literature and in science, may seem 
 to be bringing the name of Christ 
 away from the honor and the glory of 
 days gone by, we need only wait for 
 the night to roll away, when the morn- 
 ing of the new era will come, and the 
 thought of God, the thought of Christ 
 and the thought of eternal life will 
 deepen and rise with a majesty of 
 power unknown to any of the days 
 gone by. We are standing at a great 
 epoch. This is a transition period. 
 
 2234. Progress Conditioned on 
 Movement. — Men say, " If you let go 
 the old, standing doctrines, where are 
 you going to swing to?" Well, if 
 you were to put a child in a boat, fast- 
 ened to a wharf by a painter, and take 
 away his oar, and still leave him a 
 child, and then unfasten the rope, and 
 let him go, what would become of 
 him ? What would ? But if a man is 
 a man, and has a pair of oars, we let 
 go the painter without any hesitation, 
 because he is able to take care of the 
 boat himself; he is skilled, and the 
 instruments of propulsion and guid- 
 ance are with him ; and to let him go 
 from the wharf is not a mischief, but 
 the very condition of progress. 
 
 If men were still children, or if the 
 world were yet in an inchoate condi- 
 tion, it might be necessary — as it was 
 — to put up a great many fences ; it 
 might be necessary to establish a 
 great many dogmas and creeds : but 
 after, by the experience of these 
 truths, even in their imperfect condi- 
 tion, you have raised up a Christian 
 conscience, you have raised up a 
 spiritual, discerning sense ; when you 
 have equipped men, and carried them 
 so far along a spiritual education that 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 475 
 
 they can discern what is right and 
 what is wrong, then the stabiHty of the 
 Church does not turn on its articles 
 of faith, but on the Hves of its mem- 
 bers ; and the power and safety of the 
 Church lies in its living force, not in 
 its intellectual force ; in its dispositions 
 of love, joy, sympathy, genuine phil- 
 anthropy ; and about these things 
 there are no differences among men. 
 
 2235. Paul a Darwinian. — Paul's 
 doctrine of double consciousness, as set 
 forth in the seventh chapter of Ro- 
 mans, is, that there is a law of the spirit 
 and a law of the members ; that there 
 is the higher I, and a lower I ; that 
 there are passions and appetites which 
 have in them no moral character, — 
 that is, which are not holy, which are 
 not necessarily unholy, but which are 
 not of the moral nature, which are 
 animal, which are fleshly. There is, 
 he teaches, a power that is triumphant 
 over these lower faculties. Men have 
 been reading this for ages ; yet when 
 Mr. Darwin says, " Man is first 
 animal, and afterwards he is de- 
 veloped into a spiritual being super- 
 induced on the animal," they start 
 back, and say, " Is it not the devil 
 coming out of hell that is plowing 
 at the face of the old theology ? ' ' 
 Before Mr. Darwin was thought of, 
 his great-great-great-grandfather Paul 
 had been a Darwinian, and had 
 taught that every man is two men, 
 and that one of the men is an animal, 
 while the other is a spiritual creature. 
 
 He had carried his argument right 
 through with an intuition that scents 
 the theory, without unfolding a philos- 
 ophy and proving all the steps. In 
 looking through his moral conscious- 
 ness he came to that conclusion. 
 
 2236. Evolution among Scientists. 
 — The theory of Evolution is the 
 working theory of every department 
 of physical science all over the world. 
 
 Withdraw this theory, and every de- 
 partment of physical research would 
 fall back into heaps of hopelessly dis- 
 located facts, with no more order or 
 reason or philosophical coherence than 
 exists in a basket of marbles, or in the 
 ju.xtaposition of the multitudinous 
 sands of the seashore. We should 
 go back into chaos if we took out of 
 the laboratories, out of the dissecting- 
 rooms, out of the fields of investiga- 
 tion, this great doctrine of Evolution. 
 2237. Creative Design by Evolution . 
 — Here is a vast system running 
 through the ages, a system that has in 
 general one single tendency, namely : 
 the things that are poor go under, and 
 the things that are better survive, and 
 the better yet still overtop them and 
 go on, and this has been so through 
 ages and running through vast spheres 
 of dispensation, and all of them 
 working together and working har- 
 moniously. Is there no evidence of 
 design with regard to this vast system 
 and its tendencies? . . . There is a 
 carpet-loom, a great power-loom, and 
 when you stand before it you almost 
 think the thing ought to vote, it looks 
 so intelligent. Now, if you were to 
 see an Oriental woman squatting upon 
 the ground and making exquisite rugs, 
 putting in bits here and there, thrust- 
 ing in the shuttle once in a while and 
 fixing it, and by and by comes out in 
 glowing colors a beautiful carpet, you 
 say, " What a magnificent design ! of 
 course somebody did it." But sup- 
 pose a man can make a machine that 
 can do all this, is not that man a 
 designer much greater than were the 
 women who were making these in- 
 dividual rugs? The man who can 
 create the greater design for produc- 
 ing these inferior executions is greater 
 than the one who can merely do the 
 inferior things. And the development 
 of the method of God in the whole 
 
476 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 universe, wlieii it comes to be looked 
 at from tlic higher point of view, is a 
 subhnier evidence of design than the 
 creation and the continuance of this 
 
 globe. 
 
 2238. The Darwinian Hypothesis. — 
 I am not now undertaking to say that 
 this human development from the 
 animal kingdom is proved. It is but 
 a hypothesis ; but if the hypothesis 
 answers all the varied conditions that 
 you apply to it, — if it has a plan and 
 a solution in it, then it is taken for 
 truth. Do you know that three-fourths 
 of all that you believe in common 
 daily life is merely hypothesis ? When 
 a man finds ocean shells on the top of 
 a mountain, he says, "It is evident 
 that this was once the bottom of the 
 sea. Here are signs and marks that 
 there has been a change, that the 
 earth has been heaved up, and that 
 some parts of it were raised while 
 other parts were depressed." Every- 
 body but a theologian would say, 
 "Yes, that is true;" but some old 
 theologian would say, " No, no, God 
 could just as well create shells as he 
 could flowers ; and he could just as 
 well create them on the tops of moun- 
 tains as he could in the bottom of the 
 sea ; and you cannot prove that he 
 did not create them on the tops of 
 mountains." 
 
 2239. The New View of Sin. — 
 When you teach men that they 
 are guilty of Adam's sin they will 
 laugh in your face. When you in- 
 terpret to a man his body, his appetites 
 and his passions, and then put him to 
 looking inwardly, he cannot dispute 
 that he is sinful. And I say that the 
 doctrine of sin as it is coming to be 
 understood by some, and more and 
 more by many — a doctrine founded 
 on the conflict between the original 
 animal man and the superinduced 
 reasoning man — is going to throw a 
 
 Hood of light upon the world which 
 will be far more truthful than the old 
 doctrine, and will give a power to the 
 preaching of the Gospel which it never 
 had before. 
 
 2240. Spiritual Enrichment of the 
 New Era. — I hail the incoming of new 
 thought ; and though it is wasteful, I 
 remember that all great developments 
 are wasteful. Everything that has 
 lifted the world one stage higher has 
 done so with waste. It is wasteful 
 when the plough goes through the 
 turf-bound field. How many roots it 
 wastes, rolhng them over and under 
 the clod ! How many insects it de- 
 stroys, as it crushes them ! How many 
 flowers such as the daisy, that Burns 
 so sweetly sang, are passed over and 
 perish ! Nevertheless, when the new 
 harvest is gathered in, and the reap- 
 ers' song is heard floating on the 
 evening air, who regrets the waste that 
 the plough made in the old, untilled 
 and turf-bound field ? Yes, not only 
 have we arrived, I think, at an epoch 
 of a greater knowledge of nature and 
 of science, but science itself is bring- 
 ing us to a realm of spiritual and 
 religious life and beliefs such as the 
 world has never seen before. 
 
 2241. Imperfect Truths. — It is not 
 a presumption that the truth as now 
 stated is not truth, because it is wast- 
 ing. Waste ! The name of God 
 might be called Prodigality. Of all 
 wasters there is no such waster as he, 
 in nature, in human society, every- 
 where. He creates to express his 
 abundance. Many are called, few 
 are chosen ; and the major part of the 
 forces in this world go back, as it 
 were, simply to constitute, by their 
 decay, a soil out of which, by and by, 
 better things shall grow. It is not a 
 sign that the great truths of God are 
 not growing in our day because there 
 is such unbelief, such skepticism, such 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 477 
 
 indifference, and such agnosticism. 
 It haSsibeen so many times before. 
 
 2242. Evolution and Theology. — 
 Evolution, applied to religion, will 
 influence it only as the hidden temples 
 are restored, by removing the sands 
 which have drifted in from the arid 
 deserts of scholastic and medieval 
 theologies. It will change theology, 
 but only to bring out the simple tem- 
 ple of God in clearer and more beau- 
 tiful lines and proportions. 
 
 2243. God's Method of Develop- 
 ment. — The whole power of the evo- 
 lutionary system is intensified and 
 made magnificent by the supposition 
 that it is a divine thought that lies be- 
 hind ; that what men call "Force" 
 is the impulse or the utterance that 
 comes from God's nature ; that evo- 
 lution is his method of unfolding it. 
 It gives a more sublime conception 
 of design as running through all na- 
 ture, and as consummating this un- 
 folding finally in the perfection of the 
 race in the heavenly home. It is a 
 much sublimer conception of creation 
 that it should have been made to un- 
 dergo this unfolding and this edu- 
 cating, than to suppose that God 
 whittled the world out, as it were, as 
 a mechanic, and made everything off- 
 hand. 
 
 2244. Revelations Cannot be Hid- 
 den. — When once a seed has unfolded 
 itself, you cannot throw back the 
 blossom or the fruit to the condition 
 from which it came. And when 
 rocks and creatures have risen up and 
 testified as to God's creative method, 
 you cannot put back into its germ- 
 state the witness which they bear. 
 
 2245. The Law, and the Gospel. — 
 The world and the Church still vi- 
 brate, with incessant pendulum, be- 
 tween Sinai and Zion, between force 
 and persuasion, between fear and af- 
 fection, between the Law and the 
 
 Gospel, between all that is severe and 
 terrible and all that is lenient and 
 comforting. But methinks that, more 
 and more as the ages go on, men are 
 brought into the spirit of the New 
 Dispensation ; more and more the 
 thunder ceases to be heard by man- 
 kind ; more and more we are lifted 
 above its noise. 
 
 2245. The Theology of Love. — No 
 man knows God except he knows love, 
 , and that is really the spinal marrow, 
 the brain and root of what is called 
 " advanced theology." It is not to get 
 rid of the doctrine of total depravity, 
 though it may modify the statement 
 of that. It is not to get rid of this 
 thing and that thing. It is an attempt 
 to form a philosophy that shall make 
 all facts and all experiences come 
 naturally crystalhzing round about 
 that one central element, God is love. 
 2247. Love as Judge. — I break a 
 civil law ; I am brought before a 
 magistrate ; and the fact is proved. 
 The judge has no option, and he says, 
 "The law is broken, the criminal is 
 convicted, and it is my duty to affix 
 the penalty." There is the fine, the 
 imprisonment, the shame, and the 
 public disgrace. A child violates a 
 law of the household. It is now the 
 mother, one that loves, before whom 
 he is to be tried. The fact of viola- 
 tion of duty or law is as patent in this 
 case as it was in the other. The two 
 cases are the same in every respect 
 except in jurisdiction. The mother 
 sits on a throne of love, and the civil 
 magistrate on a throne of justice. 
 And when you bring the wrongdoing 
 into the court of love, what takes 
 place? The offender says, "I am 
 guilty, but I am sorry for the wrong ; 
 I hate it ; and I will forsake it and 
 turn away from it ; " and Love says, 
 "Then I will forsake the memory of 
 it, and will destroy the record of it, 
 
478 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 and it shall be as though you had 
 never committed it." 
 
 2248. God the Father ; God the 
 Ruler. — The God whom love beholds 
 rises upon the horizon like mountains 
 which carry summer up their sides to 
 the very top ; but that sternly just 
 God whom sinners fear stands cold 
 against the sky, like Mont Blanc ; and 
 from his icy sides the soul, quickly 
 sliding, plunges headlong down to 
 destruction. 
 
 2249. Doctrine of Total Depravity. 
 — How long I went around about the 
 thought of God, even in my youth ! — 
 which was relatively an unsullied 
 youth. The doctrine of total de- 
 pravity as the result of Adam's fall, 
 and the universal sinfulness of the 
 race, I accepted as I did everything 
 else, in the fullest faith. I was like a 
 child in England, who goes around a 
 magnificent garden, the wall of which 
 is built of brick, ten feet high, by its 
 selfish owner, so that no one can see 
 the beauties within. So was the mercy 
 of my God hidden ; and I went weep- 
 ing around and around about the high 
 wall that stood about it ; longing for 
 the time to come when I might, by 
 some miraculous experience, get into 
 that state where he would deign to 
 look upon me, and say, " Henry, 
 come up." 
 
 2250. Future Retribution.— The lov- 
 ing, the gentle, the sympathetic, the 
 sacrificial Saviour, who loved sinning 
 men so that he came to die for them 
 — he, calmly, deliberately, over and 
 over again, did teach his disciples in 
 such a way that they at that time, and 
 since then the great body of the 
 Church, have believed that he meant 
 us to understand that there is a future 
 state of punishment, and that it is so 
 great and dreadful a thing that all 
 men should with terrible earnestness 
 flee from it. 
 
 He announced the fact. He did 
 not reason upon it, nor point out its 
 place in a system of moral truth, nor 
 give it philosophical definition, nor 
 consider objections to it, nor attempt 
 to reconcile it with any theory of Di- 
 vine love or Divine power. He raised 
 his hand to the sky to draw aside the 
 curtain, and there, right before his 
 hearers, rose the dark grandeur of fu- 
 ture Retribution. He bore witness to 
 it as a fact. He did not discourse 
 upon it as a philosophy. From the 
 beginning of his ministry to the end, 
 he went about saying, "Repent! 
 repent ! " 
 
 I preach the love of God, and I do 
 not know what the scope of that love 
 is. I do not know where it would 
 logically lead. But I am sure that I 
 am right in preaching that all punitive 
 elements are under the control of love. 
 I am perfectly sure that love will bring 
 everything right in the end. I there- 
 fore preach without qualification, and 
 almost without limitation on that side. 
 But I am not to be understood, on 
 that account, as not believing what 
 Christ himself deliberately says in re- 
 spect to the peril of sin, or in regard 
 to punishment in the life which is to 
 come. 
 
 2251. Fear and Love. — It is said 
 that I have cast out fear from my 
 preaching, and introduced an element 
 of love which lacks the ribs and the 
 backbone of those great systems of 
 truth by which the world has thus far 
 been conquered ; that the doctrine of 
 love becomes mawkish, enfeebled, 
 and must run out, producing senti- 
 ment in the first instance, and 
 sentimentality thereafter ; and that to 
 have a doctrine that will meet the 
 wants of all classes of men, all sorts 
 of need, you must employ the great 
 substantial elements of conscience 
 and righteousness and fear. 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 479 
 
 Now, the fact is, I give up neither 
 conscience nor fear. I preach them 
 all the time ; but I preach them as if 
 you were tnen, and not unintelligent 
 animah. If you are driving a yoke 
 of oxen, and you say, quietly, "Gee," 
 and they gee, you do not want to ram 
 them with a goad. You would a great 
 deal rather that they would go to your 
 word than that they should go to your 
 rod. Or, if you were training an intel- 
 ligent horse, and he should see by the 
 motion of your head, or if you are an 
 accomplished rider, by the mere sway- 
 ing of your body, which way you 
 want him to go, and should move that 
 way, you would like it better than that 
 he should be trained in any other way. 
 
 Well now, when men are so low 
 that nothing but fear in its coarsest 
 form will touch them, I believe in fear. 
 That is to say, anything is better than 
 death ; and no matter how coarse the 
 fear is, if men are so brutal that you 
 must teach them as brutes, then you 
 must. But to insist upon it, when a 
 different state of society has been in- 
 troduced, and a civilization has grown 
 up, and Christianized households 
 have been established, on an ascend- 
 ing scale, until the whole tendency of 
 men is changed — to insist that then 
 we are to go on in the fear of fire and 
 brimstone and hell and damnation, 
 that we are to have burning coals for 
 motives, and that unless we do it we 
 are unfaithful to the truth — that is to 
 barbarize the Gospel. It is to misun- 
 derstand the fundamental philosophy 
 of the truth. 
 
 2252. Justice and Love. — In the 
 kitchen are two girls. One is hired. 
 She is conscientious enough, and she 
 says, " I serve my mistress because 
 she gives me my wages every month. 
 It is right that I should give her my 
 service." Who is the other girl ? 
 Well, when this good, kind woman 
 
 was one day wandering about, she 
 found in the street a poor girl, half 
 blind, and sick, with no one to care 
 for her ; and, as no asylum could 
 easily be found for her, took her to 
 her own house, and put her on her 
 own bed, and watched over her, and 
 nursed her, and healed her. Besides, 
 seeing that she was bewildered in 
 ignorance, she instructed her. The 
 girl has been under that woman's roof 
 for five or six years, and has learned 
 to love the one that never forsook her 
 in her time of need. She is not on 
 pay. She does not receive a cent. 
 She has her clothing and food, to be 
 sure, but she is not hired. And yet, 
 she works harder than the other girl, 
 rises earlier, sits up later, and is 
 more particular to have things just 
 right. What makes her so faithful ? 
 It is not money. It is not justice. 
 " Ah ! " she says, "if it had not been 
 for that blessed woman I should have 
 been in my grave, or a pauper in the 
 poorhouse, to-day." These two girls 
 are both serving from honorable mo- 
 tives ; but which is the more powerful 
 motive, justice or love? I tell you, 
 love will do all that justice will, and 
 ten times more ; for, while justice is 
 always good for a pattern, love has a 
 long fringe to it. 
 
 2253, Obedience to Law and to 
 Love. — I was afraid to do a great 
 many things when my mother who 
 brought me up had forbidden me to 
 do them — I was afraid of the con- 
 sequences; and the fear which I felt 
 worked very salutarily. And yet right 
 along side of her was a good old nurse 
 who lived in the family, and who by 
 kindness had won my heart ; and 
 when she told me not to do anything 
 I had come to that state of obedience, 
 through love, that I would not even 
 go out in the morning and pick up the 
 apples that had fallen during the night, 
 
4So 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 before anybody else could get them. 
 Father had said that I must not do it ; 
 but I obeyed not for that reason, but 
 simply because Aunt Chandler said, 
 " Don't do it ! " 
 
 2254. The Father-View of God. — 
 Vindictive justice was once thought to 
 be perfectly right ; but it cannot be 
 defended in the great court of love. 
 Penal suffering, discipHnary and 
 educatory, can ; but not vindictive 
 justice. The Fatherhood of God is 
 taking the place of Oriental monarchy. 
 Once it was held that God might do 
 just what he pleased, because he 
 pleased. Now we are taught that God 
 may do what he pleases, because love 
 always pleases to do the best of things. 
 The question that arises is not, " What 
 may a supreme monarch do with his 
 subjects? " but, " What must a Father 
 do with his erring children? " 
 
 2255. Divine Law and Divine 
 Mercy. — One would think, to hear 
 theologians reasoning about God and 
 the methods of salvation, and the 
 motives of divine procedure, that the 
 Deity was a fourth-proof lawyer 
 judge, and that he sat surrounded by 
 infinite volumes of statutes and laws, 
 running back to eternity and running 
 forward to eternity ; and that in every 
 case of mercy he said, " Let me con- 
 sider first. Does it agree with the 
 statute ? " When a poor sinner comes 
 to him, undone, wretched, miserable, 
 he has to consult his books to see 
 whether he can be saved so as not to 
 injure the law, saying, " Let us ex- 
 amine the law to see if it will do to 
 save him." 
 
 Oh ! away with this pedantic judge ! 
 Such a judge is bad enough in the 
 necessities of a weak earthly govern- 
 ment, and is infinitely shameful when 
 brought to the center of the universe, 
 and deified. There 1 behold God, 
 naming with love, filling infinite space 
 
 with the magnitude and blessedness 
 of his love ; and, if some questioning 
 angel asks, " How shalt thou save, 
 and yet keep the law?" He says, 
 "I will have mercy on whom 1 will 
 have mercy. My own will, my own 
 impulse, my own desire, my own 
 heart— that shall guide me." 
 
 2256. Law not Religion. — What 
 the bones are to the body, that is law 
 in the system of religion. It is that 
 which stiffens and strengthens ; but 
 bones are poor company that have no 
 meat on them, whether in society or 
 religion. There is many a man whose 
 religion grins like a skull on long, lank 
 vertebne ; or, if it is covered by the 
 skin at all, it is a ghastly skin, for it is 
 dried on. This is not religion, any 
 more than anatomy is a man. 
 
 2257. Conditions of Salvation. — 
 There is an old German legend, 
 which represents that a noble knight 
 asked in marriage the daughter of the 
 king, who ironically told him that 
 when he should ride in full armor on 
 his steed up to the castle gate, on a 
 certain side, he should wed her. 
 Now on that side it was sheer prec- 
 ipice. There were abysses and ra- 
 vines sunk between rocks hundreds 
 and hundreds of feet. And although 
 there was a promise made by the king 
 to the knight, the conditions necessary 
 to its fulfillment were impossible to be 
 complied with. The legend, how- 
 ever, states that the knight was on 
 such good terms with gnomes and 
 fairies that they lifted up ponderous 
 stones, and built a bridge ; and, sure 
 enough, up he came riding over the 
 rocks and across the ravines and 
 abysses. For the point of the whole 
 story is, that love will teach a man to 
 climb any height. 
 
 Now, although the story is well 
 enough for a legend, what can be 
 said of the king's promise ? What is 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 481 
 
 a promise made to the demands of 
 love, the conditions of which are 
 simply impossible to be complied 
 with ? And what would be a promise 
 of salvation to all men, if the condi- 
 tions were riding up the steep precipice 
 of impossibility ; if the conditions 
 were such that no mortal power could 
 enable a man to comply with them ? 
 
 2258. Knowledge Passeth Away. — 
 " I am all gold," says the great 
 nugget, as it comes out of the mine. 
 " I will see what you are," says the 
 chemist ; and he puts it into the 
 crucible. A part of it proves to be 
 gold, and a part of it slag. The 
 lump of gold is not so big by one half 
 when it comes out as it was when it 
 went in ; but it is pure gold that comes 
 out, and dross that is left behind. 
 
 We are full of conceit. The de- 
 velopments of the ages accumulating 
 upon us, have filled us with what we 
 think to be knowledge and certainties. 
 Much of it will prove to be false. 
 But when we come out after having 
 been put into the alembic, the little 
 that we shall bring with us will be 
 worth more than all that we carried 
 in, in its gross condition. 
 
 2259. Perfection in Differentiation. — 
 Suppose that the butt of an oak-tree 
 should take it into its head to be one 
 of the modern theologians, and should 
 insist upon unity, and should say to 
 all the branches, " Come back ! You 
 have been spreading to dangerous 
 latitudes and longitudes. Come and 
 get back into my loins here. Be 
 united in me." What would the tree 
 be worth for bird or for beast, for 
 painter or for man ? If you were to 
 reduce it back again into that state in 
 which it would be nearest to absolute 
 unity, you would carry it back into 
 the condition of the acorn, or into the 
 condition of wood. And as you carry 
 it away from its seminal point, you 
 
 carry it where there are subdivisions, 
 disclosures, these dividing again infin- 
 ilesimally. And this is not simply 
 an illustration : it is an absolute and 
 established philosophical law, that 
 perfection hes in the direction of dis- 
 closure, diversity, differentiation. 
 
 2260. Power in Diversity. — It is 
 with truth as it is with trees. The 
 part that stands in the ground is a 
 solid unit — the trunk ; but the part 
 which deals with the sun, and there- 
 fore has in it the principle of life, is 
 forever branching, and branching, 
 and branching. And if a tree hates 
 anything, it is a straight stalk. It 
 wants to bend and turn here and there. 
 And so it goes on sphtting and divid- 
 ing. But does it injure the tree ? 
 Does the fruit grow on the solid part, 
 or on the twigs? The power of truth 
 lies in diversity, and not in unity. In 
 great basic developments, unity ; in 
 the higher elements, ramification. 
 
 2261. Different Roads to the Same 
 End. — The structure of the mind for- 
 bids this absolute believing alike, and 
 yet we may believe in a substantial 
 unity ; we may believe alike in a gen- 
 eral way. 
 
 The New Jerusalem is pictured in 
 the Revelations as having twelve 
 gates. Of course the idea came from 
 the twelve tribes of Israel and the 
 twelve patriarchs (not one of whom I 
 should think got into Heaven, though, 
 by the way they acted) ; but one 
 thing is very certain, that if a city has 
 twelve gates, the men that cannot go 
 in at one gate can go in at another 
 and opposite one, and they have to 
 take different roads to get into them. 
 Now, if a man wishes to go from New 
 York to Chicago, and wishes to go by 
 the way of Alabama, it is perfectly 
 permissible ; it will take him longer 
 and cost him more, and fatigue him 
 more, but when he has come to 
 
482 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 Chicago he has got there, just as 
 much as if he had gone in a straight 
 line. So, in regard to the great things 
 of rehgion, and love to God and love 
 to man, if once they reach tliat, the 
 road is a matter for individual judg- 
 ment and convenience. 
 
 2262. Apocalyptic Figures. — New 
 England has one fundamental heresy. 
 The typical New England man thinks 
 that everything in God's universe can 
 be reduced to an idea, and expressed 
 in an intellectual form. New Eng- 
 landers, therefore, are always attempt- 
 ing to take the marrow out of things. 
 As we take the crab, and suck the 
 marrow out of each particular joint, 
 so they take every figure, illustration 
 and symbol in the prophecies or in 
 the Revelations, and want to crush it, 
 and squeeze out the marrow that is in 
 it, and bring it into the form of an in- 
 tellectual statement ; but that is abso- 
 lutely impossible. It is absurd. 
 
 2263. Unity and Harmony. — Throw 
 away that misleading word " unity." 
 Put in its place instead the word 
 "harmony," and then all theology 
 will become reconciled. Then we 
 can go altogether, though we differ ; 
 yea, the more can we rejoice, going 
 together, that we differ. The infantry 
 need never envy the cavalry nor the 
 artillery the infantry. They are all 
 composite elements of the one grand 
 army. 
 
 2264. The Mother-Creed. — Allusion 
 has been made to creeds, and the 
 brethren have delicately intimated 
 that I have no creed. I have what I 
 call the mother of creeds, and it is one 
 
 made out for me in the New Testa- 
 ment, and which I can subscribe to. 
 
 " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
 with all thy heart, and with all thy 
 mind, and with all thy strength." 
 That is the first Article, and the sec- 
 ond is: "Thy neighbor as thyself." 
 There is the creed that never was 
 acted up to yet, except by Jesus ; and 
 I have struggled for it, and therefore 
 I have had to be at variance with a 
 good deal of the theology that is go- 
 ing. I have had a struggle, and a 
 big one, with the doctrines in which I 
 was brought up, and I have got them 
 mostly under. They had to be con- 
 verted a good deal. I was brought up 
 by an orthodox New England father, 
 and in a time of great controversy be- 
 tween the Unitarians and the ortho- 
 dox, and, sitting at my father's table, 
 heard all the differences between the 
 new and the old theology. I went 
 through it all, as we have to go 
 through chicken-pox and measles, 
 but I got over it, and have enjoyed 
 good health since. 
 
 2265 . Three Fundamental Elements. 
 — I think that these are the three fun- 
 damental elements in the Gospel — 
 universal human sinfulness, universal 
 recovering love, and the universal 
 immortality of men. This gives the 
 horizon and the atmosphere ; this 
 gives the great motive and efficient 
 power ; this gives the subject on 
 which the atmosphere and the power 
 work. Man sinful ; immortality his 
 destiny ; God, the Redeemer, work- 
 ing out his salvation. It is a sublime 
 drama. 
 
 XXXIX, PREACHING 
 
 2266. What is Preaching ? — Preach- 
 ing is simply the extension of that which 
 has existed from the beginning, and 
 in all forms of society, all conditions 
 
 and institutions ; it is the application 
 of personal emotion and thought to 
 living people. I hold that emotion 
 with intellect — emotion as the bow 
 
PREACHING 
 
 483 
 
 and the intellect as the arrow — that is 
 preaching ; that is the philosophy of 
 it in a figure. 
 
 2267. Narrowness of Conceit. — No 
 man can be very broad who will 
 build with nothing but what he quar- 
 ries from himself. 
 
 2268. Preaching Must Suit Its Era. 
 — Preaching like every other function 
 or instrument, must be an unfolding, 
 and it must adapt itself to the cliang- 
 ing conditions of society, and to the 
 larger and richer conceptions of truth 
 which God sends from period to period 
 to mankind. The preaching that is 
 now existing in the organized churches 
 of the world is as far removed from 
 the preaching of the apostolic day as 
 the almanacs of to-day are different 
 from the alr^nacs of that day. Its 
 fundamentar'':^^* .and genius are that 
 it is an instruti^ent^'by which a living 
 man works upon living men for the 
 furtherance of their Tajftral and spiritual 
 condition. That does not change ; 
 but the mode of carrying it out 
 changes from age to age. 
 
 2269. Simple Truths. — The small- 
 est key, being put into a music-box 
 rightly made and rightly tuned, may 
 cause that box to go on for an hour, 
 rolling out exquisite tunes. What the 
 box performs is in no proportion to the 
 size of the key. And the size of the 
 truth that winds up a man's experi- 
 ences and feelings is no proportion to 
 the breadth of those feelings and ex- 
 periences. That truth may be simple ; 
 and yet, as a key in the hand of God 
 applied to the music-box of the soul, 
 it may unfold and develop that which 
 shall fill a whole life. 
 
 2270. Heart-Eloquence. — A man 
 that is rude and ignorant, who cannot 
 speak the English tongue within sight 
 of grammar, who would not be toler- 
 ated in an ordinary audience, but who 
 has a great soul, and is filled with 
 
 sympathy for his kind, will do a hun- 
 dredfold more than Aristotle and Plato 
 and Bacon rolled together, standing 
 before a community and preaching to 
 them simply with knowledge. 
 
 2271. The Ardent Preacher.— A 
 true preacher is God's mint. God 
 heats his heart till the truth flows 
 hke molten gold, and his utterance is 
 prepared, as dies are, to stamp on the 
 coin what God has cut in him. But 
 thousands of preachers are only ex- 
 change brokers, who run between 
 bank and customer to carry old coin 
 back and forth for commercial uses. 
 There is need for these too, only 
 lower down. 
 
 2272. Personality in the Preacher 
 
 It makes no difference who the man is 
 that makes a mathematical calculation, 
 if he is correct ; he may be as cold as 
 a stone or as hot as fire, and it does 
 not make the slightest difference : but 
 in moral truth it makes all the dif- 
 ference in the world. If a man be 
 stern, acerb, litigious, and preach the 
 truth of Jesus Christ, it goes down to 
 zero ; but if a man is Christlike, and 
 covers up a heresy with all the sweet- 
 ness of a true Christian disposition, 
 the heresy is better for the world than 
 the truth is under the opposite manifes- 
 tation. It is the personal element that 
 characterizes the Christian ministry. 
 
 2273. Cold-hearted Preachers. — 
 There is great meaning in the person- 
 ality of a man that preaches. It is 
 that of God which is in us and is our 
 actual dispositional life that has in it 
 the power for preaching. A hard, 
 proud man may preach the Gospel of 
 love technically, but he does not really 
 preach it ; and a good deal of the 
 preaching to-day is like a score of 
 music which a man cannot play, he 
 can only call off the letters on the 
 scale as if he were playing it ; but 
 that is not the music. 
 
484 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 2274. Preachers Born, Not Made. — 
 A man should be born to the pulpit. 
 A musician is one whose brain nat- 
 urally secretes musical ideas ; a poet 
 thinks in blossoms just as naturally as 
 honeysuckles do ; an inventor's head 
 is made to work out mechanical com- 
 binations. The men that ought to 
 preach should be ordained in birth. 
 The laying on of hands can't make 
 an empty head full, nor a cold heart 
 warm, nor a silent nature vocal. A 
 true preacher is a genius in moral ideas, 
 as a poet is in beautiful ideas, and 
 an inventor in physical ideas, 
 
 2275. Every Preacher a Partialist. 
 — The attempt of any one man to 
 represent in himself every conceivable 
 form of the human mind is the very 
 height of impertinence and self-con- 
 ceit. No man, even if he is built 
 larger than Shakespeare or Bacon, 
 can be universal in knowledge, or can 
 represent truth in all the endless man- 
 ifestations which it takes on. Every 
 man who gives forth the truth has to 
 do it as every bird gives forth its 
 song. The robin sings as a robin ; 
 bluebirds sing as bluebirds (I heard 
 them yesterday) ; the song-sparrow 
 sings as a song-sparrow ; and that is 
 all they can do. If a sparrow should 
 undertake to imitate thunder, or 
 mimic an eagle, how absurd it would 
 be ! yet it would not be more 
 preposterous and absurd than that 
 which many preachers try to do, 
 and which many persons of sup- 
 posed wisdom and prudence encour- 
 age them to do. 
 
 2276. The Individual Message. — 
 God sent into the world every man 
 who is a witness for the truth to be a 
 witness in some respects as no other 
 person is or can be. A minister is 
 afraid to preach poor sermons, but I 
 hold that a man who does not preach 
 poor sermons will never be a good 
 
 preacher. There would never be any 
 mountains unless there were valleys 
 between. That is an illustration only, 
 but this is certain — that a man must 
 himself be so commanded by the truth 
 that he shall not be afraid to let him- 
 self out, 
 
 2277. Native Ordination. — A 
 clergyman is a man ; he is a citizen ; 
 he is a teacher of moral things, with- 
 out any privilege to teach more than 
 anybody else. Anybody may teach 
 that can and wants to. And if he 
 tries and succeeds, that is call enough. 
 That is the best evidence that he is 
 ordained to teach. Four hundred 
 thousand angels blowing trumpets for 
 a fool would not give him a right to 
 preach ; and without a trumpet, with- 
 out a call, a man that has it in him, 
 and loves men, and understands what 
 is for their welfare, and is willing to 
 tell them of it, has a right to preach. 
 The whole matter is as simple as com- 
 mon-sense itself. 
 
 2278. Apostolic Succession. — There 
 has been a great dispute as to 
 whether there are any legitimate 
 descendants of the Apostles. I think 
 there are. They are supposed to 
 come by the imposition of hands. / 
 believe they come by the imposition 
 of hands. It is supposed that the 
 hand is placed on the head of the 
 candidate. No, it is placed a little 
 lower down — upon the heart. And it 
 is the hand of the Holy Ghost. He 
 is a lineal descendant of the Apostles 
 who has a clearer and higher under- 
 standing of the truth than those about 
 him, and who so preaches it that it 
 disturbs the consciences, the peace 
 and the settled order, of those about 
 him, and disturbs them just so far as 
 is necessary to the work of reforma- 
 tion. 
 
 2279. Adaptation to the Times. — 
 It is said, "Are we wiser than the 
 
PREACHING 
 
 485 
 
 Apostles were?" I hope so. I 
 should be ashamed if we were not. 
 "Are we better preachers than they 
 were ? ' ' Yes, we ought to be better 
 preachers in our time than they 
 would be. They were adapted to 
 their times, admirably ; but I think it 
 is as much a misapplication of things 
 to bring down literally the arguments 
 of the Apostles from Jerusalem to our 
 times, as it would have been, were it 
 possible, to carry back all the scientific 
 knowledge, and all the developed 
 political economy which we now have, 
 and preach them in old Jerusalem, 
 within the Temple. We should be 
 barbarians to them, and they would 
 be comparative barbarians to us. 
 Adaptation to the times in which we 
 live, is the law of Providence. The 
 Apostles were adapted to their times. 
 We must be similarly adapted, 
 
 2280. Pulpit and Pew. — It is not 
 the trumpeters that fight the battles — 
 though you would think so to hear 
 them ! And it will not be the men 
 that make the loudest proclamations, 
 or that utter them with the most 
 eloquent lips, that shall stand highest 
 in the world that is to come. 
 
 I do not expect to stand half so high 
 as many an unheard name will, to 
 whom my words bring some comfort. 
 There is many a timid eye that looks 
 up and wishes she were as good as I 
 am. Dear mother-heart and soul ! 
 you are a thousand times better. 
 And in the other land I shall not be 
 worthy to unloose your shoe's latchet. 
 
 2281. The Ministerial Instinct. — 
 Artists love form, and color; minis- 
 ters love men. The mechanic loves 
 inventions and machines, and looks 
 with a curious eye upon whatever is 
 ingenious and fruitful of results ; the 
 minister loves men. The drunkard 
 loves his cup— that is his inspiration ; 
 the minister loves men. The glutton 
 
 loves his food ; the minister loves 
 men. The angler loves to catch fish 
 from the running brook; the minister 
 loves to fish for men. It is, then, this 
 longing for men that makes the minis- 
 ter, just as the love of children makes 
 the mother. 
 
 2282. Knowledge of Human Nature. 
 — A man may know the Bible from 
 Genesis to Revelation, he may know 
 every theological treatise from the day 
 of Augustine to the day of Ur. Taylor, 
 and if he does not understand human 
 nature, he is not fit to preach. 
 
 Suppose a man should undertake to 
 cut off your leg because he had been 
 an instrument-maker. He had made 
 lancets, probes, saws, and that sort of 
 thing, all his life ; but he had never 
 seen a man's leg amputated, and did 
 not know exactly where the arteries or 
 veins lie. Suppose he should think 
 that making surgeons' tools fitted him 
 to be a surgeon ; would it ? The 
 surgeon must know his tools and how 
 to handle them, but he must know, 
 too, the system on which he is going 
 to use them. And shall a man, 
 charged with the care of the soul, 
 sharpen up his understanding with 
 moral distinctions and learned argu- 
 ments, and know all about the theories 
 of theology from Adam down to our 
 day, and yet know nothing of the 
 organism upon which all these in- 
 strumentalities are to be used? Shall 
 he know nothing about man himself ? 
 
 2283. The Study of Men. — The 
 lawyer must study human nature, in 
 order to get at the facts of his case ; 
 the merchant, for the sake of his own 
 profits ; the politician, for the sake of 
 carrying out certain political ends ; but 
 these do not imply that men are to be 
 made better or worse. A minister 
 studies human nature for the purpose 
 of Tet^enerating men. We study men 
 as florists do flowers, when they wish 
 
486 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 to change them from simple blossoms 
 into rare beauties. It is to make more 
 out of human nature than we origi- 
 nally fmd in it, that we are studying 
 it and training it. 
 
 2284. The Preacher, All Things to 
 All Men. — A man overhears a woman 
 — a famed poet and literary woman — 
 teaching an infant-class. He has 
 heard that she is a wonderful genius, 
 and he stands and listens as she talks 
 to half a dozen small children. She 
 makes not one classical allusion, she 
 utters no great truth, she does nothing 
 but address the simplest language to 
 them. He goes away and says : "I 
 heard her teach that class for an hour, 
 and she gave them no history, no 
 poetry, nothing but the merest child's 
 talk." But she made herself a child 
 for the time being, in order that she 
 might instruct those children. 
 
 2285. Like Priest, Like People. — 
 When our evening meetings have 
 fallen off, I have always said to my- 
 self, " You are falling off, and not the 
 people." Even when I have not 
 remedied the evil, I have known the 
 cause of it all the time. And, on the 
 other hand, the moment my own soul 
 was full, and my sympathies flowed 
 out in overwhelming tides towards my 
 fellow-men, I have noticed that my 
 meetings have gone up. If a man 
 sleeps under my preaching, I do not 
 send a boy to wake him up ; but I feel 
 that a boy had better come and wake 
 me up. 
 
 2286. Great Sermons. — "Great 
 sermons," ninety-nine times in a 
 hundred are nuisances. They are 
 like steeples without any bells in 
 them ; things stuck up high in the 
 air, serving for ornament, attracting 
 observation, but sheltering nobody, 
 warming nobody, helping nobody. 
 
 2287. Power of the True Preacher, 
 — As the live sparks from the hunter's 
 
 pipe, thrown carelessly into the ripe 
 grass of the prairie, will kindle a 
 flame that sweeps over leagues 
 and leagues, so one single glowing 
 coal of a man has burned over a 
 superstitious age and changed the 
 whole aspect of humanity. And if 
 there be multiplied men, ordained of 
 God and not of their fellow-men, in- 
 spired by divine zeal to work for the 
 welfare of their fellow-men, — men 
 who have that as their ambition, as 
 their occupation, as their pride, as 
 their joy, as their light and reward 
 forever, and whose motto is, " Not 
 yours, but you" ; is there any con- 
 ception of vocation that is grander 
 than that ? 
 
 2288. Oratory. — There are two 
 great elements in organ-playing. One 
 is to render music that has been writ- 
 ten by others ; the other is to originate 
 music one's self. A man who has 
 command of an organ, and can ex- 
 press his own thoughts with fluency, 
 power and ability, stands in the first 
 rank, and far above the man who 
 merely renders the musical composi- 
 tions of others. 
 
 Organ-playing has a correspondence 
 to oratory. There are readers and there 
 are extemporaneous speakers. I hold 
 that a man who can speak out of his 
 own thought and feeling, and speak, 
 too, without the bondage and impris- 
 onment of written notes — who can 
 gush forth things which men love to 
 hear and need to hear — stands higher 
 than the man who reads what he him- 
 self thinks or has thought ; and he 
 stands a world higher than the man 
 who reads another man's oration or 
 sermon. Reading other men's dis- 
 courses is very good. A man might 
 read Dr. Chalmers' sermons, or the 
 discourses of any of the great sermon- 
 izers of the world, with large profit. I 
 think feeble preachers are oftentimes 
 
PREACHING 
 
 487 
 
 at fault because they do not read 
 others' sermons — only they should tell 
 their hearers what they are doing. 
 
 2289. The Talker. — This is preemi- 
 nently the talking age. A preacher 
 must be a good talker, and must have 
 something in him that is worth talking 
 about. People say, " Show me a 
 man of deeds, and not of words." 
 You might as well say, " Show me a 
 field of corn ; I don't care about 
 clouds and rain." Talking makes 
 thought and feeling, and thought and 
 feeling make action. Show me a man 
 of words who knows how to incite 
 noble deeds ! 
 
 2290. Greatness of the True Orator. 
 — He is a great man who can play 
 upon the human soul ! We think him 
 a great artist, ,who can play on an 
 organ with sixty stops, combining 
 them infinitely, and drawing out har- 
 mony and melody, marching them 
 through with grand thought, to the 
 end of the symphony ; that indicates 
 a master, we think. It does ; but 
 what organ that man ever built does 
 not shrink in comparison with the one 
 that God built and called Man ? 
 Where you have before you a whole 
 congregation or a whole community, 
 and all their wants and needs are 
 known, and you are trying to draw 
 out of them a higher and nobler life, 
 what an instrument you have to play 
 upon, and what a power it is when 
 you have learned it, and have the 
 touch by which you can play so as to 
 control its entire range and compass ! 
 
 2291. Preaching to Please. — There 
 is a great deal of moral drunkenness 
 produced by stimulating preaching 
 which does not inspire a man to think 
 anything or do anything, but which 
 burns and burns, and makes him 
 happier and happier, but not better, 
 A man that is happier and not better 
 is worse. 
 
 2292. Brilliant Ministers. — Accord- 
 ing to the popular notion the business 
 of a minister is to throw rockets into 
 tile air, taking care that the sticks do 
 not come down on men's heads. And 
 you shall often see a minister throw 
 up a rocket, of which men exclaim, 
 "Splendid sermon! magnificent dis- 
 course! " as it splits into five or six 
 applications, one green, another red, 
 and the rest of other bright colors. 
 He does not hit anything. He aimed 
 at the stars. One shot goes back to 
 the flood, another goes forward to the 
 millennium, another goes to Asia, 
 another goes to Africa, another to the 
 rising of the sun, and another to the 
 setting thereof. 
 
 2293. Unthinking Ministers. — There 
 are a great many slumbering ministers 
 who do not have any trouble ; but 
 their people are full of trouble. There 
 come to laymen questions which they 
 cannot solve, and they are like per- 
 sons groping in dark passages. For 
 the most part they go with their 
 mouths shut. If now and then one 
 ventures to come to his minister he is 
 told, "You are straying into by and 
 forbidden paths. Let such matters 
 alone and attend to your duties." 
 That is all very well, provided one can 
 do it. If a man has no wings he can 
 keep upon his feet ; but if a man has 
 wings he will fly. You cannot make 
 an eagle run round and round a barn- 
 yard like a hen. 
 
 2294. The Orator's Voice. — The 
 best of all properties in a speaking- 
 hall is a man that knows how to 
 speak, and has something to speak 
 with ! What does a rooster care for 
 acoustic aids? He mounts a fence 
 lustily, gives a preliminary flap of his 
 wings, as if to say, " I could have 
 flown twice as high," and then lets off 
 a crow that rings and echoes for a 
 mile around. A bull will sound you a 
 
488 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 bass note that would make old West- 
 minster Abbey shake. A crow will 
 caw to you at two miles distance with- 
 out the fear of bronchitis. A dog will 
 bark to a whole town without the 
 slightest inconvenience — to himself. 
 And yet men who are brought up to 
 speaking as the business of their lives 
 cannot make themselves heard at a 
 hundred feet distance, or, only by ex- 
 ertions that send them home for 
 liniments, bandages, and caustic ! 
 
 2295. Vocal Power to be Trained 
 for. — The newsboys stand at the head 
 of a street and send their voice down 
 through it as an athlete would roll a 
 ball down an alley. We advise men 
 training for speaking professions to 
 peddle wares in the streets for a little 
 time. Young ministers might go into 
 partnership with newsboys a while, till 
 they got their mouths open, and their 
 larynx nerved and toughened. 
 
 2296. Pulpit and Platform. — This 
 period in which we are living is a 
 period of great doubt. [Mr. Beecher, 
 who was speaking in an English 
 church, from a platform under the 
 pulpit, began in a low tone of voice, 
 and at the end of the first sentence 
 there were cries of "Pulpit!" and 
 "Can't hear!" from the congrega- 
 tion.] If you will make less noise 
 you will hear me before I get through. 
 As to the pulpit, I think about it as 
 Daniel Webster did ; he regarded the 
 continuance of religion in this world, 
 in spite of pulpits, to be one of the 
 signs of its divinity. I suppose pul- 
 pits were originally framed after the 
 apocalyptic vision of a candlestick, 
 and ministers have been too much like 
 wax candles in candlesticks, hard and 
 stiff, with very little light. No man 
 would ever undertake to plead for the 
 life of a fellow-man from a pulpit. No 
 man would ever undertake to go before 
 a crowd for votes, and be perched up 
 
 on the top end of a candlestick. 
 When a man is in earnest in preach- 
 ing he ought to preach from the top of 
 his head to his toe. It is not the voice 
 alone ; it is the man informed with his 
 subject that preaches. The platform 
 is the place for the preacher. 
 
 2297. Platform, Not Pulpit. — When 
 a man is made by God he is made 
 all over, and every part is necessary 
 to each and to the whole, A man's 
 whole form is a part of his public 
 speaking. His feet speak and so do 
 his hands. You put a man in one of 
 these barreled pulpits, where there is 
 no responsibility laid upon him as to 
 his body, and he falls into all manner 
 of gawky attitudes, and rests himself 
 like a country horse at ahitching-post. 
 He sags down, and has no conscious- 
 ness of his awkwardness. But bring 
 him out on a platform, and see how 
 much more manly he becomes, how 
 much more force comes out ! The 
 moment a man is brought face to face 
 with other men, then does the influence 
 of each act and react upon the other. 
 
 2298. Artificial Style in Speaking. — 
 Involved sentences, crooked, circui- 
 tous, and parenthetical, no matter how 
 musically they may be balanced, are 
 prejudicial to a facile understanding 
 of the truth. Never be grandilo- 
 quent when you want to drive home a 
 searching truth. Don't whip with a 
 switch that has the leaves on, if you 
 want to tingle. 
 
 2299. Simplicity of Language. — He 
 who uses mainly the Anglo-Saxon vo- 
 cabulary, giving preference to the 
 idioms and phrases which are homely, 
 will have a power which cannot be 
 derived from any other use of human 
 language. Such language is an echo 
 in the experience of men ; and as a 
 phrase in a mountainous country, 
 when roundly uttered, goes on repeat- 
 ing itself from peak to peak, running 
 
PREACHING 
 
 489 
 
 in alternate reverberations through 
 the whole valley, so a truth runs 
 through all the ranges of memory in 
 the mind of the hearer, not the less 
 real because so extremely rapid and 
 subtle as to defy analysis. The words 
 themselves, full of secret suggestions 
 and echoes, multiply the meaning in 
 the minds of men, and make it even 
 more in the recipient than it was in 
 the speaker. Words are to the thought 
 what musical notes are to melodious 
 ideas. As an instance of contrasted 
 style, let one read the immortal alle- 
 gory of John Bunyan in contrast with 
 the grandiose essays of Dr. Johnson. 
 Bunyan is to-day like a tree planted 
 by the rivers of water, that bringeth 
 forth his fruit in season ; his leaf shall 
 not wither. Johnson, with all his 
 glory, lies like an Egyptian king, 
 buried and forgotten in the pyramid 
 of his fame. 
 
 2300. Christ's Methods of Illustra- 
 tion. — It was peculiar to Christ's 
 teaching that he developed the high- 
 est truths from the commonest events. 
 His mind perceived the unity of crea- 
 tion. He instantly traced the filament 
 by which the smallest thing runs up and 
 joins the very center. As by nerves 
 every pore and every particle of skin 
 is connected with the great sentient 
 cerebral center in the human body, so 
 every single event that takes place in 
 connection with man has its termina- 
 tion in the Eternal. Therefore it was 
 Christ's way to mount from the most 
 inconspicuous and unimportant events 
 and happenings to the very highest 
 range of being, and to truths relating 
 to man in his highest range. 
 
 2301. Rhetorical Illustrations. — An 
 illustration is never to be a mere orna- 
 ment, although its being ornamental 
 is no objection to it. If a man's ser- 
 mon is like a boiled ham, and the il- 
 lustrations are like cloves stuck in it 
 
 afterwards to make it look a little 
 better, or like a bit of celery or other 
 garnish laid around on the edge for 
 the mere delectation of the eye, it is 
 contemptible. But if you have a real 
 and good use for an illustration, that 
 has a real and direct relation to the 
 end you are seeking, then it may be 
 ornamental, and no fault should be 
 found with it for that. 
 
 2302. How to Use Illustrations. — 
 With illustrations, there should be 
 energy and vigor in their delivery. 
 Let them come with a crack, as when 
 a driver would stir up his team. The 
 horse does not know anything about 
 it until the crack of the whip comes. 
 So with an illustration. Make it 
 sharp. Throw it out. Let it come 
 better and better, and the best at the 
 last, and then be done with it. 
 
 2303. Mirthful Illustrations. — Never 
 turn aside from a laugh any more 
 than you would from a cry. Go 
 ahead on your Master's business, and 
 do it well. And remember this, that 
 every faculty in you was placed there 
 by the dear Lord God for his service. 
 Never try to raise a laugh for a laugh's 
 sake, or to make men merry as a piece 
 of sensationalism, when you are 
 preaching on solemn things. That is 
 allowable at a picnic, but not in a 
 pulpit where you are preaching to 
 men in regard to God and their own 
 destiny. But if mirth comes up natu- 
 rally, do not stifle it ; strike that chord, 
 and particularly if you want to make 
 an audience cry. If I can make them 
 laugh, I do not thank anybody for the 
 next move ; I will make them cry. 
 Did you ever see a woman carrying a 
 pan of milk quite full, and it slops 
 over on one side, that it did not im- 
 mediately slop over on the other also? 
 
 2304. Preaching : Dullness and Lev- 
 ity. — Whoever hides the truth by em- 
 bellishment of words, by a vain exhi- 
 
490 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 bition of wit or fancy, by opaque 
 learning, by the impenetrable thickets 
 of nice distinctions, by stupidity and 
 lifelessness, by inane solemnity, and 
 sanctimonious conventionalism, is a 
 desecrator of the pulpit and a breaker 
 of the Sabbath day. Stupidity hides 
 the truth just as fatally as levity. 
 Consecrated dullness is no better than 
 flippant folly. If a window fails to 
 let the light through, it makes little 
 difference whether the obscuration 
 comes from the web of a big, lazy, 
 spider, or from the nimble weavings 
 of a hundred pert little spiders. 
 
 2305. Concrete Truth Better than 
 Abstract Doctrine. — You will observe 
 that while Dr. Finney, and men of the 
 old-fashioned school who were so suc- 
 cessful, brought in rigor of logic to 
 develop before their congregations the 
 whole moral scheme of God's govern- 
 ment with tremendous effect, Mr. 
 Moody does not go through with that 
 reasoning. He does not deal with 
 doctrine. He does what is a great 
 deal better, so far as concerns the 
 audiences to which he is called to 
 minister— he deals with truth. He 
 gives them bread ; and that is a great 
 deal more to the purpose when they 
 are hungry than giving them wheat in 
 the kernel would be. 
 
 2306. Dangers of Being Praised. — 
 We all love praise, but praise should 
 follow us and never precede us. If 
 you have done right and men like it, 
 then it comes under the category of 
 things that are of "good report," 
 which we are commanded to ponder 
 and to think upon. But remember 
 you [young ministers] are going into 
 the midst of fire with inflammable gar- 
 ments on you, and there is nothing 
 that weakens a man so quickly and is 
 so dangerous to him as measuring 
 everything by its relation to his popu- 
 larity and to his success in life. And 
 
 then he has his own church to try to 
 spoil him. Of course, God raises up 
 deacons by whom men are held in 
 sometimes. Oftentimes, in this world 
 a thorn in the flesh is one ray for a 
 man's crown by and by ; but where 
 there is one deacon that is a vexatious 
 intruder on your individual liberty, 
 there are a hundred old women or 
 young women that are praising you 
 and flattering you, saying kind things 
 to you, and seeking to soften you. I 
 believe in softness in the heart ; but I 
 do not believe in having a man's head 
 soft. That is one of the things you 
 must watch against. 
 
 2307. Place-Hunting, for Ministers. 
 — Have you never seen, at sunset, a 
 hen walking around a tree irresolute 
 as to the bough which she would take, 
 stooping for one, and then quitting 
 that and stooping for another, and 
 then quitting that and stooping for 
 another? Just like such a hen are 
 some ministers that I have seen run- 
 ning about for a settlement, stooping 
 for one, and then, thinking that it was 
 not quite good enough, quitting it and 
 stooping for another, thus frittering 
 away their time and energies to no 
 purpose. Let such men turn away at 
 once from the camp of God, and go 
 to the camp of the world. There they 
 belong. 
 
 2308, Preaching and Practice. — 
 Men say, whenever they give way to 
 violent passions, though they be 
 Christians : " It's all very well for 
 you to stand in the pulpit, and teach 
 us such things as this, but if you were 
 in my place, you would have done 
 just such things as I have done." I 
 think very likely, my beloved, for I 
 am as big a fool as you are, in many 
 things, strange as it may seem to you. 
 But because two men sin, and one the 
 teacher, it does not follow that the 
 teacher was not right in his doctrine. 
 
PREACHING 
 
 491 
 
 2309. An Obstacle for Ministers. — 
 A man at the bank hands you the 
 money for your check. It is ten thou- 
 sand dollars, and it is going to save 
 you from bankruptcy. But you do 
 not account him a benefactor. You 
 express not a word of gratitude to 
 him. He is the teller ; you hand him 
 the check, and he pays you the 
 money ; he does not care for you, and 
 you do not care for him. It is his 
 business to hand you the money, and 
 he does it, and that is all there is of 
 it. And so men seem to think of a 
 minister, salaried and appointed to 
 stand in the pulpit and dispense the 
 Gospel, that he does it professionally 
 and as a matter of course. 
 
 2310. The Range of the Preacher. — 
 Like the artist at the great organ, the 
 preacher should introduce in his teach- 
 ing something of everything that be- 
 longs to mankind ; its sacred rage and 
 passion, its abhorrence of things evil, 
 its genius, all imagination, all the ra- 
 diance and sparkle of its wit, all the 
 tenderness of its love — all that belongs 
 to the sub-bass, also all that belongs 
 to the highest stops, that seek to rival 
 tlie very bird -notes. That is the great- 
 est preacher. Ministers are afraid. 
 They are afraid to be true ; they are 
 afraid to be natural. They are afraid 
 to bring something of everything that 
 belongs to human nature into their 
 pulpits, because their critics sit before 
 tliem. Men say of them : " O, you 
 shall never hear anything that violates 
 taste. He never makes a mistake." 
 
 The man that never makes a mis- 
 take is not fit to preach. The man 
 that never makes a mistake is a man 
 that lives in mediocrity. You may 
 furnish and decorate it as much as 
 you please, it is not possible for a man 
 to be in earnest, even in agriculture, 
 mechanics or engineering, and make 
 no mistakes. 
 
 231 1. Attractive Presentation of 
 Truth. — I should like to see fastid- 
 ious, hidden, sensitive fish caught by 
 thrashing the pool with your rod or 
 fishing line. Ministers are to be fish- 
 ers of men ; and as men study the 
 nature of fish — the pout, the eel nest- 
 ling in the mud, the fierce pickerel, 
 the shining trout, the gamy black 
 bass, the salmon or the deep-sea fish 
 — and adapt their mode of fishing to 
 the nature of the fish desired to be 
 caught, so men are to study the mode 
 of influence of one soul upon another, 
 in such a way as to make the truth 
 which they would lay before men, and 
 into the practice of which they would 
 draw them, efficacious and success- 
 ful. ... A man's truth is like bait 
 on a hook ; it must be such a bait as 
 fish will take, and it must be on such 
 a hook as will attract the fish. 
 
 2312. Fishers of Men. — The more 
 you look at this figure the more im- 
 portant it becomes. To fish well, it 
 is necessary to study the peculiarities 
 of fish. It is necessary to know more 
 than the science of ichthyology. 
 What a book can tell a man about 
 fishes is worth knowing, but it is little 
 that a book can do towards making a 
 man a true fisherman. If a man is 
 going to fish {ox fish, he must become 
 their scholar before he becomes their 
 master ; he must go to school to the 
 brook to learn its ways. And to fish 
 for men, one must learn their nature, 
 their prejudices, their tendencies, and 
 their courses ; he must not only know 
 their habits, but their tastes and their 
 resorts ; he must humor them accord- 
 ing to their different natures, and 
 adapt his instruments to their pecul- 
 iarities, providing a spear for some, a 
 hook for others, a net for others, and 
 baits for each one as each one will. 
 To sit on a bank or deck, and say to 
 the fishes, " Here I am, authorized to 
 
492 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 command you to come to me and to 
 bite what I give you," is ridiculous, 
 even though it does resemble some 
 ways of preaching. 
 
 You must go to the fish. They cer- 
 tainly will not come to you. You 
 must note times and seasons. You 
 must creep sometimes, lie down some- 
 times, sometimes hide, sit patiently in 
 the leafy covert at other times, and 
 work frequently without filling your 
 basket, and await a better time. You 
 must study the sky, and for their food 
 you must search all manner of insects, 
 and everything that relates to the 
 work in which you are engaged. 
 The one act of catching fish must de- 
 termine your whole manner. 
 
 Luke adds to the force of this figure 
 very much, Matthew says, " Ye shall 
 be fishers of men;" but Luke says, 
 " Ye shall catch jnen." It is very well 
 to be a fisher, but it is a great deal 
 better to catch what you fish for. 
 
 2313. Theologizing and Preaching. 
 — To make fishing-tackle is one thing, 
 and to catch fish is another. There 
 are hundreds of men who, when they 
 go into the pulpit, make rods, and 
 fines (very long lines), and hooks, and 
 reels, and baskets. They take this or 
 that doctrine, and pound it out into a 
 hook, bending and kinking it just so, 
 and stick it up on a paper, and label 
 it, and that is the end of it. And this 
 is called preaching ! But Christ says 
 that that is preaching which catches 
 men. 
 
 2314. Dry Preaching. — In my own 
 profession, the church has been 
 starved because ministers have been 
 under the idea that the dignity of the 
 pulpit was so great, and the sanctity 
 of the office of preaching was such, 
 that a man must use only the most 
 sacred parts of his nature ; and reason 
 has been supposed to be that. " Not 
 too much feeling, not too much ; re- 
 
 strain your feeling, but lay a sohd 
 foundation of thought. Fasten it 
 together as links of iron are wrought 
 into a chain connectedly, and carry it 
 to its legitimate conclusion, and then 
 if men are not held by it, it is their 
 fault, not yours." 
 
 And so — to change the figure — they 
 shut down the windows that let in the 
 light. They are of a discursive im- 
 agination ; but they don't think it 
 proper to bring in dainty figures, or to 
 have pictures in their sermons ; that is 
 wandering into by-paths. They starve 
 themselves till they have scarcely the 
 substance of a mosquito, and then 
 think they are " sacred." 
 
 2315. The Best Ministers. — Who is 
 the best fisherman ? The man that car- 
 ries the largest basket, and the best 
 rod and line and hook ? No ; but the 
 man who brings home the best basket- 
 ful of fish. Who is the best minister ? 
 Not the man who makes the hour 
 most charming to you, or excites you 
 with the most intellectual enjoyment ; 
 but the man who, grappling with 
 human nature, from week to week 
 makes you more and more discon- 
 tented with your lower self, and brings 
 you into such communion with God 
 that you are more and more fascinated 
 with your higher and better life. 
 
 2316. Variety in Preaching. — Does 
 the sun shine on the sunflower and 
 despise the daisy ? Does the sun 
 shine on the orchard and despise the 
 moss that gathers on the rock ? There 
 is no great and there is no small be- 
 fore the coming of the sun. To the 
 sun all things are small and all things 
 are great, and they all alike receive 
 beneficent power from it. So, in the 
 preaching of the Gospel it is the busi- 
 ness of every preacher to preach to 
 every man and to all men. 
 
 2317. Subjects for Preaching. — To 
 ask a preacher how he finds subjects 
 
PREACHING 
 
 493 
 
 for his sermons is like asking the pro- 
 fessor of botany how he finds his 
 botanical specimens. He goes forth, 
 and finds some in marshes, some in 
 the woods, some in meadows, and 
 some in the mountains, and finds 
 them not on any rule or prescription. 
 They are to be found everywhere. 
 Subjects for discourses are suggested 
 by the reading of newspapers ; they 
 occur in conversations with men ; or 
 they glance from the experiences of 
 people. There are two generic forms 
 of selection in this matter. One is 
 where you want to round out a truth 
 before your audience, and let it help 
 whomever it will ; the other is where 
 you want to meet the definite case of 
 a particular person, and where the 
 truth is to be, like a suit of clothes, 
 adapted to that person, or, like medi- 
 cine or food, suited to specific wants. 
 
 2318. Finding the Sermon-Sub- 
 ject. — You look for your subject. You 
 know what you are after the whole 
 time. It is exactly like the watch- 
 maker, who has opened your watch 
 and discovered that something is 
 wrong. He turns to his bench and 
 pokes around among his tools, but 
 cannot find what he wants ; he looks 
 everywhere for it, and at last, there it 
 is, and he takes it and uses it, for it is 
 the only instrument exactly fitted to do 
 just the thing he wanted to do in that 
 watch. Now, in preaching to a con- 
 gregation there are living men to 
 reach ; and there is a particular way 
 of doing it that you want to get at. 
 You search for it in the Bible ; and 
 you make your sermon to answer the 
 end. This is psychological preach- 
 ing, drawing from your own gradually 
 augmenting intelligence and expe- 
 rience, which will make you skillful in 
 the ends you want to effect. 
 
 2319. Spiritual Prescription, — It 
 seems to me that the highest concep- 
 
 tion of a sermon is, that it is a pre- 
 scription which a man has made, 
 either for a certain individual, or for a 
 certain class, or for a certain state of 
 things that he knows to exist in the 
 congregation. It is as much a matter 
 of prescription as the physician's 
 medicine is. For instance, you say, 
 " In my congregation there has been 
 a good deal of affliction, which I think 
 I ought to comfort. Now, of all ways 
 of comforting, how shall I do it? 
 Shall I show the hand of God in all 
 his administration ? What will that do ? 
 That mode of consolation will raise 
 people up into the conception of God ; 
 but those that cannot rise so high will 
 fall short of it and not get it. Or, I 
 can show them how afflictions will 
 elevate the soul ; and that will have 
 another range. Or, it may be that I 
 will not say a word about that, but 
 strike a blow that exhilarates men and 
 lifts them up, independent of any al- 
 lusion to troubles ; I may strike a chord 
 to awaken the courage of men. 
 What subject can I take which will 
 most successfully sound that chord ? " 
 
 2320, Tender Places in Hard Na- 
 tures. — You know how it is with lame- 
 ness. Sometimes there will be what 
 we call a " stitch." There will be a 
 sore muscle that lies buried in the 
 side. If you carry yourself in a cer- 
 tain way, you do not feel it ; but if you 
 happen to turn a little, you get a 
 wrench. When you have such a sore 
 muscle about you, wherever you walk 
 you have a consciousness of it, and 
 you carry yourself so as to keep it 
 from being twisted and hurt. 
 
 Now, even wicked men, given up 
 to revelries, have a sore place about 
 them. There is a tender spot that the 
 mother left. There is a sore spot that 
 their own experience has caused — a 
 sore conscience. And every once in 
 a while, when they are inadvertently 
 
494 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 carrying on their wicked ways, they 
 give it a twist, and it sends a pang 
 through them. And in company, or 
 alone, wherever they go, and what- 
 ever they do, they are conscious that 
 there is this sore place, as it were, 
 in their moral nature. The skillful 
 preacher can reach these, sometimes. 
 
 2321. Differences of Approach to 
 Men. — I have known districts in the 
 West, along the banks of the Missis- 
 sippi, where pickpockets, thieves, 
 horse thieves, riotous men, men of 
 blood and violence, having fled across 
 the border, had taken refuge, and 
 where populations of such men had 
 grown up in vice and crime. Now, 
 if I were to go into a community like 
 that, and preach the Gospel, do you 
 suppose I would talk to those low, 
 degraded men as I do to you, who are 
 shaved and washed, and who have 
 been tenderly cared for, and are sus- 
 ceptible to the higher truths ? No ; I 
 would address their fears. I would 
 hold up before them the terrors of the 
 law. I would attack them where 
 they were accessible. The highest 
 feehngs are the best to work on ; but 
 if you cannot reach those, the inter- 
 mediate ones must be assailed. As in 
 a great conflagration, if you cannot 
 get into the burning building at one 
 place, you must force your way in 
 somewhere else ; so in dealing with 
 men in religious matters, if you can- 
 not produce an impression on one side 
 of their nature, you must approach 
 them on another. 
 
 2322. Preaching: God's Desire to 
 Save All, — Whatever else you do, 
 don't slam the door of possibility in 
 any man's face. Don't hold up any 
 of the truths of the Gospel in such a 
 way that the man who looks at them 
 shall say it is not possible to be saved. 
 The teaching of Christ and the Apos- 
 tles was that God wanted all men to 
 
 be saved, and made overtures to 
 them ; that there is a possibility of 
 every man's being regenerated by the 
 power of the Holy Ghost. Build up 
 such a spiritual superstructure that 
 every little child shall feel it to be 
 easier to live a Christian life than an 
 ungodly life. 
 
 2323. Failures in Sermons. — The 
 Apostle never said a truer or more in- 
 spired word than when he spoke of 
 the foolishness of preaching. It is all 
 empirical. How many times have I 
 set up a sermon for a particular man, 
 and let off all its batteries at him, and 
 never hit him ; while a man that I 
 knew nothing about was struck, and 
 dashed all to pieces ! That is skill, is 
 it — not to hit what you meant to, and 
 to hit what you did not mean to ? As 
 compared with nothing, preaching is 
 glorious ; as compared with no fruit, 
 its fruit is great ; but I take it that the 
 day is coming when God will give 
 men such sense of the nature of man 
 and truth that heart shall speak to 
 heart, as now hp speaks to ear. 
 
 2324. Exclusive Preaching. — As if 
 in an hospital there were a set of con- 
 valescents, that now, having come to 
 eggs and jelly and wine, rejoice in 
 it, and flatter the surgeon and the 
 physician, until he begins to say in 
 himself: "These folks don't want 
 medicine ; they hate that ; I guess I 
 will give the patients extras, wine and 
 jelly, all over the hospital, no matter 
 what ails them ! " So there are minis- 
 ters that have been beguiled by the 
 relish and taste of a single section in 
 their church to pour out eternally food 
 for those that they think stand highest, 
 and starvation for those that are low 
 down. They are corrupted. 
 
 2325. Imaginative Truth-Seekers. — 
 There are a great many persons who 
 are keenly sensitive on the side of 
 imagination, and they never really 
 
PREACHING 
 
 495 
 
 receive anything as true until the fact 
 or principle is, as it were, enveloped 
 in a little haze. They need the mystic 
 element. They do not want sharp 
 outlines. There is something in mys- 
 tery which is attractive to them. And 
 yet some preachers insist that truth 
 should be set before all men in its 
 most accurate and exact form. You 
 might just as well attempt to reduce 
 the clouds to triangles and circles, in 
 order to mathematically demonstrate 
 their beauty to the eye of an artist. 
 
 2326. Imagination Stronger than 
 Reason. — Do you know that the im- 
 agination is a stronger element than 
 the reason ? You might suspect it by 
 the fact that the Bible employs imagi- 
 nation ten times where it does philoso- 
 phy once. 
 
 When old people go back to their 
 childhood, what things do they re- 
 member most ? Arguments ? Not at 
 all. What do you remember about 
 your mother that is gone ? Not any- 
 thing by which she was formally made 
 known to the world, but some picture, 
 some scene of tenderness, some fra- 
 grant sentiment which lingers in your 
 imagination. What is it of your 
 friends that you remember longest ? 
 Not the shape of their eyebrows, or 
 of their face, which was drawn as 
 they sat like a wooden dunce having 
 their portrait made, but that expression 
 which they had when they came to 
 the door and looked in and glanced 
 at you ; or which flashed over their 
 face when at table some story was 
 told. You remember that. You 
 never will forget it. The memory of 
 man is kept alive by dreams, by 
 superstitions, or by pictures which ap- 
 peal to the imagination and the fancy. 
 These things get a hold upon you 
 which can never be lost. 
 
 2327. " The Life, Indeed." — It does 
 not follow that our intellect will be the 
 
 same in the other life that it is here. 
 W^c know that much that we learn is 
 higher than what we learn by the per- 
 ception of material and physical qual- 
 ities, and through the reasoning intel- 
 lect. We know perfectly well that 
 what we call the intuition, or the im- 
 agination, takes in things which it is 
 impossible for the intellect to compre- 
 hend. The intellect, as we have it 
 here, is adapted simply to the condi- 
 tions of this lower state ; but when we 
 rise into the other life we may have a 
 different intellect. There, instead of 
 reducing music, or higher truths of any 
 kind, to the form of statement by our 
 earthly intellect, we shall, I think, 
 have an intellect which will reject 
 such mechanical or formal proposi- 
 tions, and intuitively apprehend all 
 manner of glorious qualities and truths. 
 Thus we shall think by feeling, and 
 not feel by thinking. 
 
 I am distinctly conscious, in preach- 
 ing, when my health is perfectly good, 
 and my subject is congenial to me and 
 adapted to my nature, of rising into 
 states in which I have an outlook and 
 insight into a realm before which 
 words are as powerless as hands are 
 to grasp the landscape on the other 
 side of the mountain. The truth, 
 under such circumstances, is more 
 clear to my inward vision than is any- 
 thing that I see or hear or feel to my 
 outward senses. I apprehend things 
 that are absolutely non-expressible by 
 any human words. I experience what 
 may be likened to the opening of a 
 window into heaven ; and it gives me 
 a feeble conception of what the future 
 may be. 
 
 2328. The Lesson Must Suit the 
 Scholar. — I could read the Ten Com- 
 mandments to my mule when he did 
 not do his work well ; but I do not 
 know that that would quicken him at 
 all. I could describe to my mule the 
 
49^ 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 beauty of fidelity to his master, but I 
 think he would trudge on about the 
 same with his long ears. I address 
 him further, and say, " O mule, in the 
 equities of hfe, in the grand scheme 
 of equivalence it is not fair that you 
 should receive and not also give ; " I 
 may give him a Httle political econ- 
 omy ; but it does not make any differ- 
 ence. I try his feelings, and say, " O 
 sweet and beautiful mule ! O precious 
 mule ! " in the hope that thus I may 
 induce him to perform his duty ; but 
 he does not do it. By and by I get 
 angry, and put my spurs into him, and 
 say, " Get up ! " and he gets up — for 
 that is the first time that I have come 
 into the sphere where he lives. 
 
 2329. Discrimination in Preaching, 
 — All sickness is not just the same, 
 and all medical prescription is not just 
 the same. If the physician is called 
 to one who is easily touched, one 
 whom the shadow of medicine, falling 
 on him, cures, he gives him attenuated 
 remedies ; but if he is called to a great 
 cast-iron man, whose nerves lie bedded 
 deep, and are thread-like at that, and 
 who is hard to be made to feel and to 
 be made to move, the physician will 
 put into him raking medicines which 
 would kill a sensitive, nervous person. 
 Although, ordinarily, it is not best for 
 men to take harsh and purgative 
 medicines, it is better to do that than 
 to die. The means to be employed 
 are relative to the end you propose to 
 gain, and the circumstances of the 
 case. The remedy must be adapted 
 to the patient and his needs. 
 
 2330. Substantial Thought in 
 Preaching. — While the early preach- 
 ing of Jesus seems to have been of 
 the most arousing character, we are 
 not to suppose that instructiveness was 
 sacrificed, nor that the next period, 
 beginning with the " Sermon on the 
 Mount," was devoid of pungency be- 
 
 cause the instructive elements pre- 
 dominated. Only to arouse men, and 
 to leave them no solid substance of 
 thought, is to kindle a fire of shavings 
 that but flames up and dies in ashes. 
 
 2331. Good Thoughts Not Apphed. 
 — If a minister preaches real thoughts, 
 but leaves them without application 
 he is like a man who draws a bucket 
 of water from a deep, deep well, 
 good water, clear, cold, wholesome ; 
 and, just as he brings the bucket up 
 within a few feet of the curb, he fastens 
 it there, where you can't reach it, and 
 leaves you thirsty. A cup of water 
 that you cannot reach is as far off 
 from you two feet below the face of 
 the well as if it were at the bottom 
 again ! 
 
 2332. The Preacher's Opportunities. 
 — The events that take place every 
 day are God's furrows. It is the busi- 
 ness of the pulpit to sow seeds of in- 
 struction whenever any furrows open ; 
 and the times we have been living in 
 for the last few weeks [financial dis- 
 turbances], the premonitions of which 
 have been months in the air to the 
 prophetic eye, are the ploughings of 
 God. Now is our time to sow the seed 
 of instruction. 
 
 2333. Transientness of Sermons. — 
 No matter if sermons are transient in 
 their effects. So are drops of rain. 
 But in both cases, shower follows 
 shower, and, while no drop endures, 
 the vegetable kingdom grows and 
 thrives through all ages. Sermons 
 perish, but men live. 
 
 2334. The Average Congregation. — 
 When I stand and look at my congre- 
 gation, I am like a man in a picture- 
 gallery. Here is a bright, radiant 
 landscape. Right next to it is a land- 
 scape that is storm-clad and dark. 
 There is the picture of a calm, tran- 
 quil sea. Right next to it is the pic- 
 ture of a sea that is rough and bolster 
 
PREACHING 
 
 497 
 
 ous. Here is a scene of love. Right 
 next to it is a tragic scene. There is 
 a representation of wealth. Next to 
 it is a representation of poverty. Thus 
 throughout the picture-gallery the most 
 striking contrasts are seen ; and I see 
 just such contrasts when I stand and 
 look from my pulpit. I see all these 
 various conditions of life. I see light 
 and dark shades commingled all 
 through the congregation. Some- 
 times I feel inclined to preach to 
 those who are hopeful. At other 
 times I cannot help preaching to those 
 who are in darkness and great trouble. 
 
 2335. Individual Preaching. — A 
 bunch of needles put together is as 
 blunt as a board ; but if you take each 
 one out, and use it by itself, it is sharp, 
 and pierces. If men are called to re- 
 pentance in a bunch, they will be very 
 apt to repent in a bunch, and their re- 
 pentance will be very superficial. 
 
 2336. The Preacher a Man-Builder. 
 — When a master-builder goes to the 
 forest for material, he does not take 
 trees of any and every kind, and then 
 put them together at haphazard, or so 
 as to accommodate his building to the 
 form of the trees. The trees must 
 conform to the house that is to be. 
 The builder carries in his eye the fu- 
 ture house, and selects his trees from 
 the wood by the known wants of the 
 house ; this one for a sill, that one for 
 a corner-post, others for beams, and 
 so on. Thus all truths, all sermons, 
 are merely subordinate material and 
 instruments ; the preacher's real end 
 is to be found in the soul-building 
 that is going on. He is an artist of 
 living forms, of invisible colors ; an 
 architect of a house not built with 
 hands — Jesus Christ, the foundation. 
 
 2337. Varied Material in Preaching. 
 — Go, ye that have lived in a cold phi- 
 losophy, and cannot understand how 
 a man may turn on every side to find 
 
 truth as in a forest he looks on every 
 side for sticks of timber with which 
 to build his house. Every minister 
 ought to turn towards every gleam of 
 light to see if there is not some instru- 
 ment by which he can better touch 
 the hearts of men. 
 
 2338. External Pulpit Influences : 
 Helpful. — If, when a man feels that 
 his life-power is consecrated to trans- 
 forming the human soul towards the 
 higher ideal of character for time and 
 eternity, he looks around upon the 
 great forces of the world and says to 
 them, "You are my servants" ; to 
 the clouds, " Give me what you have 
 of power" ; to the hills, "Bring me 
 of your treasures"; to all that is 
 beautiful, " Come and put your gar- 
 ment upon me" ; and to all that is 
 enjoyable, " Fill me with force, and 
 give abundance to the fullness of my 
 feeling" — if a man makes himself 
 master of the secrets of nature that he 
 may have power and strength to do 
 his work — then he is not carrying on 
 three or four kinds of business at the 
 same time. He is carrying one busi- 
 7tess, and he collects from a hundred 
 the materials and forces by which he 
 does it. 
 
 2339. External Pulpit Influences : 
 Harmful. — If, when a man comes back 
 from his garden, his lectures, his 
 journeys, and his esthetic studies, or 
 from his scientific coteries and seances, 
 he finds himself less interested in his 
 proper work ; if the Sabbath is getting 
 to be rather a burdensome day to 
 him, and it is irksome to be preach- 
 ing, he must quit one or other of those 
 things. The stream runs from the 
 pulpit instead of into it. 
 
 2340. Spiritual Truth the Pulpit 
 Theme. — I hold that, in a proper way, 
 there is no theory or philosophy 
 which relates to the welfare of states, 
 or communities, or families, or indi- 
 
498 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 viduals, or to any part of a man's life, 
 that may not be discussed in the pul- 
 pit, and measured by the law of love, 
 and truth, and justice. But when a 
 man tells me that the power of the 
 pulpit is to be the discussion of social 
 tpicstions, and that that is to be the 
 chief clement of the ministry, I look 
 upon him with amazement. Give me 
 the root of the oak, and I will very 
 soon produce the leaves ; but if I have 
 only the leaves of the oak, can I with 
 them produce the root? All these 
 various subjects are but outgrowths, 
 the branches, the leaves of the great 
 central spiritual truths that evolve the 
 nature of God and man, and reveal 
 man's destiny. 
 
 2341. Christ's Preaching. — Do you 
 note our Lord's example in preaching ? 
 Did expositions of the Old Testament 
 or disquisitions upon the reigning 
 themes of religion fill up his dis- 
 courses ? Did he consider human 
 affairs as too vulgar, and social life 
 too secular, and the natural world too 
 unreligious for his sermons? His ser- 
 mons reflect all passing events. Birds 
 sang in his discourses ; the grass grew 
 in his pulpit ; flowers blossomed there ! 
 Now the vineyard was his text ; then 
 the husbandman and his oxen ; the 
 steward and his shrewd calculations ; 
 the exchange and its coins ; the civil 
 tribunal; the army and the tax-gath- 
 erer ; the publican and the courtesan. 
 He discoursed upon the dispositions, 
 the thoughts, the errors, the virtues, 
 the strifes or necessities of the age in 
 which he lived, and of the people 
 right before him. He spoke, too, 
 about religious things, not in the sa- 
 cred phrase of the Temple and the 
 Synagogue, but in the familiar lan- 
 guage which men employ in every- 
 day life. 
 
 2342. Paul's " Christ Crucified." — 
 It did not enter into Paul's contempla- 
 
 tion that he would not preach about 
 war and peace ; public and private 
 economy ; whatever, in brief, had ref- 
 erence to the welfare of men individ- 
 ually and collectively. Only this is to 
 be inferred from his declaration : 
 " Whatever themes I discuss, it is 
 upon the supernatural, divine power 
 that I rely for success." This course 
 was a stepping-stone out of the then ap- 
 proved method of religious teaching. 
 
 But in our day, Paul's very origi- 
 nality, and this very declaration of 
 his new liberty, have become the 
 standing authority for routine ; for 
 conventional teaching ; for a restric- 
 tion of liberty in the pulpit. That 
 which was a declaration of pulpit in- 
 dependence has become a declaration 
 of pulpit bondage. It is the impres- 
 sion of large classes of men — some 
 of them most excellent men — that the 
 Sabbath-day is too good to be spent 
 in discussing any topics that are not 
 strictly rehgious, and the church is a 
 place too holy to be employed for 
 speaking upon anything except reli- 
 gious doctrines and technically Gospel 
 truths. The introduction into the pul- 
 pit of what are called secular subjects 
 is not considered to be in consonance 
 with the Word of God, or the example 
 of Christ, or the declaration of the 
 Apostle, who says, " I determined not 
 to know anything among you save 
 Jesus Christ, and him crucified." 
 
 This is a misinterpretation, a per- 
 version, a falsification of the whole 
 temper and meaning of the language 
 of the Apostle. 
 
 2343. Caution with New Ideas. — 
 There is nothing in this world that re- 
 quires such long seasoning and ripen- 
 ing as new thoughts. Men seem to 
 think that the pulpit ought to be like 
 an apple-press where greedy boys 
 run, and each sticks his straw into the 
 vat, and sucks the unfermented juice. 
 
PREACHING 
 
 499 
 
 The farmer would say to the boys, 
 " No, let the juice stand, and let the 
 impurities be worked off; and then, 
 in six or eight months, you will see 
 the real, true cider, or wine of the 
 apples." And so it is with truth. It 
 takes longer for the truth to work 
 itself free from impurities than any 
 other thing. Only after it has some 
 age do you know the real quality of 
 truth. The truth requires the concur- 
 rent thoughts of myriads of men, to 
 give it confirmation. God does not 
 reveal the truth through single heads, 
 but by multitudes and through the 
 ages. Therefore, for a man who 
 thinks he has a brilliant idea to rush 
 at once into publicity with it, is not 
 acting in the spirit of true charity, nor 
 according to the dictates of sound 
 philosophy. 
 
 2344. Truth to be Adopted to 
 Hearers. — I have heard a great many 
 people criticise the ministry, and say, 
 " They don't preach all they believe." 
 You may depend upon it they don't. 
 That is as if a hardy old trapper, from 
 the borders of the continent, living in 
 the open air, capacious of mouth and 
 capacious of belly, should walk into a 
 hospital, and, looking at the diet of 
 the sick man there, should say, 
 "Good heavens! these doctors are 
 not sincere. See how they eat at 
 home, and then see what stuff they 
 give to these creatures here ! Why, 
 they ought to give them chunks of 
 beef!" Ought they? Ought a man 
 to teach his little children as he 
 teaches grown folks ? Ought a man 
 to diet sick folks as he diets the well ? 
 
 2345. The Gospel and Public Af- 
 fairs. — He that does not know how 
 wisely to meddle with public sins in 
 preaching the Gospel, does not know 
 how to preach the Gospel. What 
 would you think of one of the 
 Apostles in the time of Christ, who 
 
 had been commissioned to give sight 
 to the blind and hearing to the deaf, 
 if he had gone about reading dis- 
 courses on medicine and never curing 
 anybody ? And what is the use of 
 preaching a theology that does not 
 disturb and cure ? Is the Gospel a 
 sing-song lullaby to put people to 
 sleep in carnal indulgences, to give 
 peace to men in their sins ? 
 
 2346. Fertility in Freedom. — Lib- 
 erty in prophesying is more fruitful 
 than restraint can be. A good, rich, fat 
 soil always has weeds, but to refuse 
 cultivation of the soil because if you 
 begin to cultivate it you will have 
 weeds, is not good husbandry. Keep 
 down the weeds by cultivation — not 
 by refusing to sow grain. Where 
 there is liberty, especially in the 
 earlier period of transition, of course 
 there will be difficulties ; but the 
 difficulties are fewer than the objec- 
 tions to liberty, and they cure them- 
 selves. 
 
 2347. Liberty in the Pulpit. — All 
 liberty is intoxicating. If you bring 
 up a generation of young men with 
 this doctrine of freedom in the pulpit, 
 you must expect that many will be 
 imprudent, and foolish, and mischiev- 
 ous. And when men point to them 
 and say, "There, that is the fruit of 
 your famous liberty of the pulpit," we 
 may reply, " The beginnings of greater 
 freedom are like the beginnings of 
 daylight." When Christ had touched 
 the man's eyes once, he said, " I see 
 men as trees walking." When he had 
 touched them twice — that is, when he 
 had given him more of the same sort 
 — he saw every man clearly. If a 
 little Uberty does not make men stable, 
 give them more of it. Put responsi- 
 bility on them, forbear with their mis- 
 takes, encourage them, and when the 
 pressure of responsibility is more and 
 more realized, they will be more sta- 
 
500 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 ble, and move in larger circuits, and 
 with more glory to God, and quicker 
 salvation to the human family. 
 
 2348. Preaching : Politics and Com- 
 merce. — Have you a church that is like 
 a boy's play-room, and am I to stand 
 and play on my trumpet for the amuse- 
 ment of the nursery ? Am I to see 
 humanity damaged to its very core ; 
 am I to see the nation shaken to its 
 deepest foundations ; am I to see 
 God's cause in imminent peril, and 
 must I remember that I am a minister, 
 and not talk about these things ? Was 
 that the course that made Isaiah and 
 Jeremiah what they were ? 
 
 2349. New Aspects of Truth not to be 
 Hastily Preached. — I am very sensitive 
 about the preaching of things that will 
 unsettle faith, about turning up new 
 ground in which there may be unlim- 
 ited quantities of malaria, and of wan- 
 tonly bringing in unbelief instead of 
 belief. I am sent of God to save men ; 
 but I am to win them by gradual ap- 
 proaches, by education, and by giving 
 them the light by which they shall re- 
 ceive the fullness of the new truth, see 
 it, and feed on it. To bring a man off 
 from his old faith before he is estab- 
 lished at all, or prepared to be estab- 
 lished, in the new, is wanton ; it is 
 mischief-breeding ; it is wicked. 
 Therefore no man should rashly and 
 hastily teach new truths, or truths that 
 are new to him. 
 
 2350. New Truth to be Separated 
 from Error. — All truth in the begin- 
 ning is very much like gold at first. 
 There is more rock than gold, and it is 
 only after it has been stamped and 
 ground to powder, and has gone 
 through the chemical bath, that the 
 gold is separated from the dross. The 
 pulpit may be preaching new things 
 destructively, in combating with the 
 old, and a people may be unsettled in 
 the old forms of belief, without being 
 
 rooted in the new. I take it for 
 granted that if I had preached thirty 
 years ago what I preach now, it would 
 have been a great mischief to you ; 
 but I have been cautious, and have 
 held back. When I think a thing to 
 be true, and have proved it to be true, 
 God has given me the courage of ex- 
 phcitness, and of thunder if it was 
 needed. Men think I am careless and 
 without caution ; but until compara- 
 tively recent years I have not preached 
 truths that lay on the horizon in my 
 mind for thirty years. 
 
 2351. Essentials of Theology and 
 Preaching. — Any true theology must 
 have power to convince men of sin ; 
 it must have power to convert men, 
 and build them up in holy life ; and it 
 must have power to sustain them in all 
 the emergencies of human life by the 
 sense of an infinite and eternal life — a 
 life in the near future. It must have 
 power to insjjire men with the gran- 
 deur of that life which is only kindled 
 here, but which extends itself into the 
 hereafter. All preaching and all 
 schemes which leave out the bound- 
 lessness of the great invisible world, 
 that are made up of mere ingenuities, 
 and that have no tidings, no voice 
 from beyond, will be futile. They may 
 be beautiful ; and so is the moon ; but 
 what harvest was ever the child of the 
 moon? 
 
 2352. God and Man. — God's love 
 because of his fatherhood ; man's 
 worth and mutual brotherhood be- 
 cause of his sonship to God : — These 
 are the two halves of the one great 
 theme. ... I was like the man in 
 the story to whom the fairy gave a 
 purse with a single piece of money 
 in it, which he found always came 
 again as soon as he had spent it. 1 
 thought I had found at least one thing 
 to preach : I found it included every- 
 thing. 
 
REFORMS 
 
 501 
 
 2353. The Christ-Heart in the Chris- 
 tian Ministry. — The marrow of the 
 ministry as an instructor is sympathetic 
 personal influence. A man may have 
 sympathy for God and not any for 
 man. That is not uncommon. A man 
 may have sympathy for the truth. I 
 hear a vast deal about the importance 
 of the truth, of sound words, of a 
 sound system of doctrine. " Maintain 
 the truth " — all of which is very good 
 indeed ; but it is outside of the Gos- 
 
 pel. The Gospel is love. If one has 
 not a Christ-heart and a Christlike- 
 ness he is not the typical minister of 
 Christ. 
 
 2354. Theology and Preaching. — 
 Others may blow the bellows, and turn 
 the doctrines in the fire, and lay them 
 on the anvil of controversy, and beat 
 them with all sorts of hammers into all 
 sorts of shapes ; but I shall busy my- 
 self with usmg the sword of the Lord, 
 not vcv forging it. 
 
 XL, REFORMS 
 
 2355. New Truth from Single 
 Men. — Truth never enters the world as 
 an army a thousand men abreast. 
 Truth always comes as John the Bap- 
 tist came, in the wilderness, clothed 
 in camel's hair, and eating locusts and 
 wild honey for the most part. 
 
 Were it better that Luther should 
 have been silenced when he stood al- 
 most alone against the power of the 
 world? Were it better that Tyndale 
 should have been hindered when he 
 sought to bring to light the truth, at a 
 time when it was considered very dan- 
 gerous to do it, by a translation of the Sa- 
 cred Scriptures ? Was not his liberty 
 for the good of the world ? Was it better 
 that Wesley should follow the orders 
 of his bishop, or the motions of the Di- 
 vine Spirit? When God sends new 
 hght he sends single stars. The star 
 that overhung the Babe of Bethlehem 
 was an illustration as well as a phe- 
 nomenon. 
 
 2356. Power of Weakness Allied 
 with God. — If you look at the efforts 
 of the most learned statesmen, if you 
 look at the most laborious plans and 
 the wisest endeavors of the chief men 
 of almost every nation, you will find 
 that they have toiled and labored to 
 build up things that stood only while 
 they had their hand upon them — and 
 
 hardly as long as that. Laws have 
 been overthrown almost before the 
 face of men that thought they had 
 done most curious and wonderful 
 things in the scale of legislation. Ad- 
 ministrations have ceased almost be- 
 fore the last note had rung upon them 
 in their structure. The things that 
 men have done in their own strength 
 have been things that have scarcely 
 outlived their makers. 
 
 Now compare with these things the 
 things that were wrought out through 
 the weakness of the ApostoHc period. 
 The men that were the offscouring of 
 the world ; the men that died deaths 
 daily ; the men that had neither coun- 
 try nor home, nor friends ; the men 
 that arrayed themselves against the 
 organized power of the world ; the 
 men that seemed to be fanatical and 
 insane ; the men that were charged 
 with madness, and seemed to live in a 
 perpetual hallucination and phantasy ; 
 the men that lifted themselves up in 
 their weakness in opposition to mon- 
 archs, and priests, and statesmen, and 
 literature, and learning, and institu- 
 tions — what did these men do but rev- 
 olutionize the globe? And in imita- 
 tion of these, how did Savonarola in 
 Italy, Hussin Bohemia, and the noble 
 army of reformers in Germany and in 
 
502 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 England, out of obscurity, oppose 
 themselves to the most august powers 
 and dignitaries and customs and opin- 
 ions of the world ! How did they 
 bear up in their weakness until they 
 became strength like adamant ! The 
 things that have seemed the weakest 
 and the most worthless, have been the 
 things that have lived and grown. 
 For weakness with God behind it is 
 omnipotent, and strength that is God- 
 less is as a spider's web. 
 
 2357- The Pulpit and Reforms. — 
 The day has gone by in which men 
 said they could not teach of Slavery 
 in the pulpit, because they were or- 
 dained to preach the Gospel and not 
 to go into all the moral reforms which 
 might be scared up. This is as if a 
 man, a physician, called to a case of 
 desperate disease — cholera, plague, 
 or what not — should refuse to consider 
 that, saying, " I am educated to 
 spread abroad a knowledge of hygiene 
 in general ; but I don't meddle with 
 such cases in particular." A church 
 that teaches men in general, and 
 touches no particular instances, is as 
 dry as a thousand-year-old dead man. 
 The same is true as to Intemperance. 
 I beheve that the pulpit that will not 
 give forth its influence on that subject 
 is already vacant and void. This pre- 
 tence that a man is to preach the Gos- 
 pel and not touch a single one of the 
 things which the Gospel is meant to heal 
 — a wayfaring man, though a fool, 
 would understand the fallacy of that ; 
 but there be many fools that are not 
 wayfarers who don't seem to under- 
 stand it. 
 
 2358. The Church and the World. 
 — It is the most hideous form of sel- 
 fishness out of hell — this attempt of a 
 great moral institution, that is set to be 
 the light of the world, and the teacher 
 of men in every visible relation in life, 
 and that is ordained to lay the law of 
 
 God on thought and feehng and con- 
 duct, to draw back from its great 
 work, and say, " It is not our business 
 to take care of these things." It is 
 fundamental apostasy. It is egregious 
 recreancy. And that dark-lantern 
 church that shines on nothing outside, 
 and only on that which is inside of 
 itself, does not belong to Christ. 
 
 2359. Getting and Giving. — A rich 
 church ought to be like a fire-engine, 
 which sucks in at one end and spurts 
 out at the other, putting out the fire of 
 hell which the devil is always kindhng. 
 
 2360. Selfish Churches. — I am 
 ashamed to see great churches, whose 
 wealth is counted by miUions, build 
 themselves stately houses, give to 
 them everything that can make them 
 comfortable in the pew, attractive in 
 the choir, eloquent and desirable in the 
 pulpit, and when they have done, pay 
 their minister and all the expenses lib- 
 erally, and then sit themselves down 
 and fold around themselves the robe 
 of complacency, saying, "There, if 
 the Lord doesn't think we have done 
 well, he is unreasonable." What 
 have they done, but for themselves.'' 
 They have embellished the chariot 
 which is carrying them to heaven, as 
 they think, — though sometimes that is 
 a mistake. 
 
 2361. Christian Unity. — Shall a man 
 say, in the heat of battle, as at Gettys- 
 burg, to the man by his side, " Before I 
 fight with you any longer, I must 
 know what your notions are about the 
 creed"? Is he responsible for what 
 that man believes? There is one 
 thing on which they are agreed, and 
 that is patriotism ; and being agreed 
 on that, let them work together for 
 patriotic ends. Because I work with 
 a man in a thing about which he and 
 I are agreed, I am not responsible for 
 the other things about which we are 
 not agreed. 
 
REFORMS 
 
 503 
 
 2362. Patience in Reform. — A man 
 gives out his plan of a house to an 
 architect, and goes to Europe. In six 
 months' time he comes back, and 
 thinks he is going to move right in. 
 When he arrives at the spot there is 
 nothing but brick and stone and mor- 
 tar and scaffolding, and all sorts of 
 litter, dirt, and confusion. He is 
 amazed at it. But in proportion to 
 the elaborateness and largeness of the 
 dwelling is the time that is required to 
 construct it. So it is with moral ideas 
 in the community, educating the whole 
 people, enabling men to look without 
 prejudice upon truth, and bringing 
 them forward step by step. It is very 
 slow work, and ministers, reformers, 
 teachers of schools, parents, and all 
 those whose desires are set for the 
 furtherance of the welfare of men 
 have need of patience, great pa- 
 tience. 
 
 2363. Civic Preaching. — Suppose a 
 plant should be endowed with momen- 
 tary intelligence, and should cry out 
 and protest that it was potted in bad 
 earth, and surrounded by poisonous 
 vapors ! And suppose the earth should 
 say, " Mind your own business, and I 
 will mind mine;" and the atmos- 
 phere should say, "You take care of 
 yourself and I will take care of my- 
 self"? It would be very much hke 
 these enemies to society saying to us, 
 when we raise our voice against them, 
 " You ministers, mind your own busi- 
 ness ! " That is just what we are do- 
 ing. Our own business is to breathe 
 and to grow, and we must have pure 
 air and good soil. And if we are liv- 
 ing in a community where we find our 
 roots starved, and our leaves poisoned, 
 we have a right to take care of our- 
 selves and defend ourselves. 
 
 2364. Ministers and Reform of Evils. 
 — Men seem to think that if it were 
 not for the meddhng of ministers and 
 
 impertinent philanthropists running 
 about and interfering with saloon- 
 keepers and all manner of people that 
 have an interest in corruption, it would 
 be a great deal better. These people 
 do not want to be meddled with. 
 Neither did Sodom and Gomorrah 
 want to be meddled with ; they wanted 
 to be left free to pursue their evil 
 courses : and wicked men are full of 
 high-swelling and contemptuous words 
 against those who are meddlers, as 
 they call them. 
 
 2365. The Saloon. — 
 
 " But if the ox were wont to push 
 with his horn in time past, and it hath 
 been testified to his owner, and he hath 
 not kept him in, but that he hath 
 killed a man or a woman; the ox 
 shall be stoned, and his owner also 
 shall be put to death." 
 
 Is there a rumseller in this town that 
 does not know what it is to have his 
 cups push with the horns ? Is there a 
 man that is selling liquid damnation, 
 day and night, who does not know 
 what is the peril that it carries with it? 
 Do not we know that there are ten 
 thousand devihsh bulls that push with 
 the horns as dangerously as any 
 animal, and that intoxicating drink is 
 one of them? And is the reckless 
 dealer in such drink to go scot-free ? 
 Might we not wisely go back for our 
 laws to the desert, and take counsel 
 of Moses and the old Israelites ? 
 
 2366. The Radiance of Fidelity. — 
 In the days of anti-slavery, here and 
 there were men who dared to speak 
 out ; but the great majority, certainly 
 in the East, were afraid for their pul- 
 pits, afraid of their parishioners, and 
 they used to say, "We hate slavery as 
 much as anybody, but then, we be- 
 lieve in moderation. Why should a 
 man sacrifice himself unnecessarily ? 
 Why should a young man throw away 
 his prospects? Why should a man 
 who has a standing that is becoming 
 
504 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 more and more influential put it in 
 peril, and lose his power ? Every- 
 body, your friends, your parish, your 
 best men, your wisest men, are sorry 
 that you are even soiled with the anti- 
 slavery heresy ; but as to going into 
 the fight and making a martyr of 
 yourself, why the whole world will 
 cry shame on you!" Yet to-day, 
 even so soon as now, what men are 
 more honored in American history 
 than these very ones who were mobbed 
 and hissed, and who died poor and in 
 obscurity, but whose names now shine 
 out as stars in the firmament of 
 heaven ? 
 
 2367. Reform Arouses Complaint. — 
 How perfectly sweet and gentle that 
 little brook is that runs through the 
 meadow ! Put an obstruction six 
 inches high across it, and see how it 
 will complain day and night. Every 
 minute it murmurs its complaint. 
 Build the obstruction higher, and see 
 how its voice increases ! Build it still 
 higher, and see how it pours itself over 
 complaining incessantly and loudly. 
 It is not until you lay an obstruction 
 across the passions of men that you 
 know the force of that stream which 
 you are checking. 
 
 2368. The Reformer's Truth. — If 
 there were a hundred violins together, 
 all playing below concert pitch, and I 
 should take a real Cremona, and with 
 the hand of a Paganini should bring it 
 strongly up to the true key, and then 
 should sweep my bow across it like a 
 storm, and make it sound forth clear 
 and resonant, what a demoniac jargon 
 would the rest of the playing seem ! 
 Yet the other musicians would be en- 
 raged at me. They would think all 
 the discord was mine, and I should be 
 to them a demoniac. So it is with re- 
 formers. The world thinks the discord 
 is with them, and not in its own false 
 playing. 
 
 2369. The Forerunner. — John was 
 Christ's forerunner, as the ploughman 
 goes before the sower. Before good 
 work can be expected, there must be 
 excitement. The turf-bound surface 
 of communities must be torn up, the 
 compacted soil turned to the air and 
 light. Upon the rough furrows, and 
 not on the shorn lawn, is there hope 
 for the seed. 
 
 2370. Social Proprieties Disre- 
 garded. — It is best for me to walk the 
 street clad ; but if I were working in 
 the street at a fire, and a child were 
 in danger of perishing in the flames, I 
 would strip off my coat to rescue that 
 child ; and I would say to every man 
 and boy, "Off with your coat and 
 help ; " but suppose one, hearing that, 
 should go about saying, " Beecher 
 teaches that a man ought to walk the 
 street with his coat off " ! For battle, 
 one thing ; for peace, another. 
 
 2371. Disturbance the Price of Prog- 
 ress. — When anything starts out 
 anew in progressive unfolding, men 
 scoff and say, " See what sort of scum 
 it sdrs up. See what kind of people 
 it produces. See how things run to- 
 gether. See what quarrelings there 
 are. See what ups and downs there 
 are on every hand." I should like to 
 know if John the Baptist came with 
 robes and velvet slippers. I should 
 like to know if he did not come eating 
 locusts and wild honey. I should like 
 to know if when he came he was not 
 rude and hirsute, and if all reforma- 
 tions do not come with flails. I should 
 like to know if the world has traveled 
 in smooth paths. I should like to 
 know if from the beginning there have 
 not been attritions, and quarrels, and 
 contendons. Has there been any- 
 thing else? Has not God produced 
 every great element of change by tears? 
 Tears and blood have been the cement 
 by which God has built this world. 
 
REFORMS 
 
 50^ 
 
 2372. Disturbances of Reform. — 
 The woman of the house says, " I 
 will have neatness here," and behold 
 her upon her knees on the floor (I am 
 speaking of the old-fashioned times) ; 
 and behold the floor all covered with 
 dirt and soap and water. Through 
 dirt she gets neatness. First comes 
 the scrubbing ; then after the scrub- 
 bing comes the dry and cleanly floor. 
 So it is with all processes of cleaning 
 or polishing. Brilliance is what is 
 wanted on the shield, and it is bur- 
 nished ; but the substances by which 
 that brilliance is brought out are 
 blacking and'disfiguring. 
 
 2373. Conflict Leading to Peace. — 
 The inward, the philosophic tendency 
 of a thing may be one way, while its 
 external course may be another way. 
 Thus, a medicine may have in it a 
 tendency towards health and comfort, 
 and that too through days and weeks 
 and months when it is working dis- 
 comfort. All the stages of the opera- 
 tion of a medicine may be disquieting, 
 and yet it may be bearing health and 
 comfort to the patient. And so a 
 moral course may be tending towards 
 peace, omnipotently ; and yet, at 
 every step of the way it may be a 
 cause of conflict. 
 
 2374. Freedom of Speech. — Free 
 speech is to a great people what winds 
 are to oceans and malarial regions, 
 which waft away the elements of dis- 
 ease, and bring new elements of 
 health. And where free speech is 
 stopped miasma is bred, and death 
 comes fast. 
 
 2375. Condemnation not Reforma- 
 tion. — I may lay a diseased man on 
 the surgeon's table, and demonstrate 
 morbid anatomy all day long ; but it 
 does not cure a man to demonstrate 
 his disease. To reveal evil is not 
 necessarily the way to cure it. They 
 are not the men that are doing the 
 
 world the most good who, with tongue 
 as with a surgeon's knife, go into 
 society cutting and slashing, and mak- 
 ing the blood flow on every side. 
 
 2376. Respect for Prejudices. — 
 Suppose a surgeon should go into a 
 household where a man had a vast 
 wen on his neck, and, while he shook 
 hands with him very gently with one 
 hand, should hit the wen a terrible 
 blow with the other ; and suppose, 
 when the man complained that that 
 was rude treatment, the surgeon 
 should say, " Oh, that is nothing but 
 a wen. It is no part of you. I have 
 no idea of respecting your wen. I 
 respect jou ; but that wen has noth- 
 ing to do with you." Such a sur- 
 geon would be like many reformers, 
 who, because they are men of truth, 
 and perceiving that other men have 
 many prejudices and superstitions, 
 strike them, justifying themselves by 
 saying, "They are superstitions ; they 
 are prejudices : am I bound to respect 
 these?" No, perhaps not; but you 
 are bound to respect the palpitating 
 heart that lies behind them. 
 
 2377. Temper Provoking Temper. 
 — We are called to expose men's 
 errors, and rebuke their wrongs, and 
 correct their faults ; and we can do it 
 with our claws or with our lips. We 
 can do it as animals, or as angels. 
 We can do it in the spirit of wrong, or 
 we can do it in the spirit of right. 
 We can do it with pride and temper, 
 or we can do it with love. The ad- 
 ministration of rebuke by the lower 
 feelings, invariably excites the lower 
 feelings of those who are exposed to 
 this tempest and this storm. The feel- 
 ing that you carry to a man you will 
 awaken in him. 
 
 2378. Unwise Reformers. — When I 
 was a boy, and I would go over to 
 Aunt Bull's, who had several ugly 
 dogs about her premises, I used to go 
 
5o6 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 barefooted, and make as little noise as 
 possible, and climb over fences, and 
 go a roundabout way, so as, if possi- 
 ble, to get into the house before the 
 dogs knew that I was coming. If I 
 had acted as many reformers do, I 
 should have gone with my pockets 
 full of stones, and fired handful after 
 handful at the dogs ; and in the uni- 
 versal barking and hullabaloo should 
 have said, " See what a condition of 
 things this is ! What a reformation is 
 needed here ! How the dogs bark and 
 bite!" Who made them bite? 
 Thousands of men are set to barking, 
 and thousands of men are set venom- 
 ously to biting, because that which 
 is bad in them is so treated that it is 
 roused up, not only into oppugnancy, 
 but into dominancy. 
 
 2379. Reforms and Reformers. — 
 God calls men to work for reforms, 
 but he never calls them to work for 
 reform as if they were crocodiles with 
 gnashing teeth. I really think the 
 greatest obstacle to some reformations 
 is the ugliness, the harshness, the bit- 
 terness, the uncharitableness, the un- 
 symmetry, the moral unbeauty of the 
 men who advocate them. The re- 
 forms are well enough, but I cannot 
 always swallow the reformers. Re- 
 formers must be fighters, but the pre- 
 scription of the Bible is, " Speaking 
 the truth in love." You cannot speak 
 the truth in love and be long unbeau- 
 tiful. The man that can thunder one 
 moment and shed tears the next is the 
 man most likely to carry a reform. 
 
 2380. Fanatical Reformers. — When 
 an August day has been lowering, and 
 murky, and there is no air to be 
 breathed, and every man wilts, by 
 and by there comes a roaring thunder- 
 crack in the heavens, and the wind 
 swings from the south to the north, 
 and sweeps out all the poisoned air, 
 and men stand up and say, " Bless 
 
 God for such a thunder, and for such 
 a storm ! " 
 
 Now and then you come across a 
 robust, ugly-mouthed man, who talks, 
 and fights, and deals heavy blows 
 against wickedness ; and everybody is 
 afraid to come near him ; but each 
 one, standing back, says, "Good! 
 good ! how it does my soul good to see 
 one man that knows how to give it to 
 them ! " But if you did your duty, 
 there would not be such a need of 
 single men to undertake this work. 
 What are called " fanatics " and " ex- 
 tremists " are only the men that God 
 sends to make up the general average 
 which your unfaithfulness lowers. 
 
 2381. Medicinal Power of Chris- 
 tianity, — Christianity says, "There is 
 a bright beyond. Hope in the future 
 and be strong." We not only can 
 thus medicate men and institutions, 
 but we can alleviate the disorders and 
 troubles that spring up in the working 
 of the process among ourselves. We 
 are told that the deity Hera sent ser- 
 pents to strangle the young Hercules, 
 in his cradle ; and the serpents are 
 running to and fro swiftly and sting- 
 ing among ourselves — crimes, vices, 
 lusts, appetites, and intemperance in 
 a hundred forms ; and men look, and 
 oftentimes say, "These things will at 
 last eat out the very life of the nation," 
 and they preach discouragement. 
 Such men are descended from the 
 bats. Though they cannot yet see, 
 they will evolve rapidly, I hope. 
 These are the men who say, " You 
 can't cure these intestine disorders in 
 society." I say you can. 
 
 2382. Peace Begins in Confusion. — 
 When summer comes to Alpine re- 
 gions, it comes to bring harvest-flow- 
 ers, flocks, and melodious songs in all 
 the air ; but when summer, coming to 
 bring music and abundance and peace, 
 begins its sway, its first work is to melt 
 
BENEVOLENCE 
 
 507 
 
 the snow, and down thunder ava- 
 lanches innumerable, carrying wreck 
 and ruin in their path. Torrents 
 swell to floods, and cover the fields 
 with destructive freshets. And the 
 earth is full of conflict and confusion 
 at the first steps of that summer which 
 
 is to bring harvests and peace and joy. 
 And so the advance of God's kingdom 
 in this world is through confusion to 
 peace ; through darkness to light ; 
 through rectification with pains and 
 penalties to that final harmony which 
 is the prediction of the Scripture, 
 
 XLI. BENEVOLENCE 
 
 2383. Selfish Men, Solitary. — The 
 man who has lived for himself has the 
 privilege of being his own mourner 
 when he dies. 
 
 2384. " Charity Begins at Home." 
 — There is a good deal of benevolence, 
 but it does not get about much. It 
 stays at home, for the most part and 
 does not become acquainted with its 
 neighbors. 
 
 2385. Giving. — There are some 
 men that give as springs do. Whether 
 you go to them or not they are always 
 full, and your part is merely to put 
 your dish under the over-flowing 
 stream. Others give just as a pump 
 does where the well is dry and the 
 pump leaks ! 
 
 2386. Generosity and Benevolence. 
 — Generosity is the kindness of the 
 lower nature ; benevolence is the kind- 
 ness of the higher nature. The one 
 carries with it the sense element ; the 
 other carries with it the sou/ element. 
 Generosity is the kindness of our bod- 
 ily life and the faculties which are 
 more immediately connected with it ; 
 benevolence is the kindness of the 
 soul-life and the faculties belonging to 
 it. Generosity is the militia that enlist 
 for three months, while benevolence is 
 the regular force that enlist for the 
 war. 
 
 2387. Benevolence Limited. — Be- 
 nevolence has a speaking acquaintance 
 with almost all men's faculties, and 
 that is all. It is intimate and visits in 
 only one or two places in men's minds. 
 
 2388. Generosity, not Benevolence. 
 
 — Many generous men are not benevo- 
 lent men. There are a great many 
 who live in fragmentary, unconnected 
 kindnesses. They are ready to relieve 
 trouble when it comes to them. When 
 a want is presented to them, they give 
 it a moment's notice, and only a mo- 
 ment's. Everything that touches them 
 receives an instant response, but that 
 is all. 
 
 If a little child goes past a piano and 
 strikes it, and returns and strikes it 
 again, and passes it again, and strikes 
 it yet again, it certainly produces 
 musical sounds ; but what is the report 
 of a piano touched by the random 
 finger of a vagrant child, compared 
 with the magnificent pressures of him 
 that has a theme which his broad and 
 multiplex hand is evoking through all 
 the harmonies and progressions of this 
 lordly instrument ? There should be 
 intelligence, and connection, and plan, 
 and sequence, and application in our 
 benevolence. 
 
 2389. Giving and Receiving. — He 
 who selfishly hoards his joys, thinking 
 thus to increase them, is like a man 
 who looks at his granary, and says, 
 " Not only will I protect my grain 
 from mice and birds, but neither the 
 ground nor the mill shall have it." 
 And so, in the spring, he walks around 
 his little pit of corn, and exclaims, 
 " How wasteful are my neighbors, 
 throwing away whole handfuls of 
 grain!" But autumn conies; and, 
 
5o8 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 while he has only his few poor bush- 
 els, their fields are yellow with an 
 abundant harvest. " There is that 
 scattereth and yet increaseth." 
 
 2390. Unchristian Givers. — When I 
 was in California I went down eighteen 
 hundred feet to see where they dug 
 gold. The influx of water was such 
 that the mightiest engines were em- 
 ployed, at vast expense, to draw it up 
 from the bottom, and throw it out, I 
 thought to myself, "About such en- 
 ginery is required to get money out of 
 some rich men. ' ' They are not ready ; 
 they are peevish ; they are suspicious ; 
 they hedge themselves about so that 
 they shall not be subjected to impor- 
 tunity ; and when they do give, they 
 give as a man gives a tooth to the 
 dentist. 
 
 2391. Affinity, and Benevolence. — 
 When you walk along the street and 
 notice a cluster of children that are 
 rosy, and well dressed, and comely, 
 and well behaved, you are not with- 
 out the greatest interest in them. You 
 are attracted towards them. But you 
 will observe that it is admiration and 
 sympathy that you feel in beholding 
 them. For when on turning the cor- 
 ner you perceive another group of 
 children that are emaciated, somber 
 of eye, and squalid, you are conscious 
 of being drawn towards them just as 
 powerfully, only by a very different 
 feeling. In the first instance you sym- 
 pathize with the health of the children, 
 and with their apparent goodness. 
 You rejoice in them, and with them. 
 In the second instance you feel that it 
 is because the children are so poor and 
 miserable and needy, that you are 
 drawn towards them. In tlie first 
 place you are acting from the love of 
 affinity, and in the second place you 
 are acting from the love of benevo- 
 lence, which are very different, one 
 working towards the objects on ac- 
 
 count of what they have, and the other 
 working towards the objects on ac- 
 count of what they have not. The 
 qualities possessed, call out the first 
 kind of love, and the qualities needed 
 call out the second kind. 
 
 2392. Personal Love, and Benevo- 
 lence. — If I sought a child to carry in 
 my bosom, I should seek one with a 
 sweet disposition, and that had been 
 well reared ; but if, in a spirit of be- 
 nevolence, I sought a child that I 
 might do it good, I should seek one 
 that was uncared for, and I should 
 feel that the lower and the worse it 
 was, the more it needed me. Personal 
 love always works upward ; but be- 
 nevolence, or that love which is char- 
 acterized by good-will and compassion, 
 works also downward. 
 
 2393. Almsgiving. — Jesus cautions 
 his disciples against doing right things 
 from wrong motives. They must give 
 alms, not for the sake of reputation, 
 not for their own interests, but out of a 
 simple benevolence. The love of 
 praise may go with benevolence, but 
 must not take the place of it. It is 
 hypocrisy to act from selfish motives, 
 while obtaining credit for disinterested 
 ones. The passing off of our baser 
 feelings for our noblest is a species of 
 moral counterfeiting as prevalent now 
 as in the times of our Lord. 
 
 2394. Pleasure of Doing Good. — 
 Even selfish, avaricious men know in 
 a very limited degree the pleasure of 
 doing good. A man rides along a 
 river's side, and hears a cry of distress. 
 He is thinking how he can circumvent 
 his neighbor and get the heavy end 
 of a bargain ; but he springs out of 
 his wagon, and goes and looks, and 
 sees that a fellow man is in the water, 
 and is sinking ; and he pulls him out, 
 and saves his life ; and receives the 
 man's thanks. This occurrence puts 
 the bargain entirely out of his head. 
 
BENEVOLENCE 
 
 509 
 
 He does not think of it again during 
 the whole day. When he gets home 
 he tells his family what has happened ; 
 and in the evening the neighbors come 
 together, and he tells it over to them. 
 For a whole week, everywhere he goes 
 he has to tell how he saved a man's 
 life. Really, it is a pleasure to the old 
 fellow. It did not cost him anything 
 either — that helped it, perhaps, but as 
 long as he lives he remembers with 
 agreeable sensations that he did that 
 thing — and he ought to, because he 
 has not many resources of that kind. 
 
 2395. Goodness Finds Goodness. — 
 A benevolent man sees wonderful in- 
 dications of divine benevolence in na- 
 ture, and in society, and the quality 
 and beauty of benevolence in his fel- 
 low men. A man that is himself full 
 of benevolence, going out and walk- 
 ing through the day, comes back at 
 night, and marvels that there is so 
 much gold streaked through the rock 
 of human life. He finds what he car- 
 ries. He is susceptible to that which 
 is strong in himself. 
 
 2396. Variations in Sympathy. — He 
 is a bad man who does not sympathize 
 with his own kin — though often you 
 find men who do not do it. Not un- 
 frequently you find that men who are 
 benign on the street are ugly at home ; 
 and, quite as frequently, you find that 
 men who are hard, and whose teeth 
 are like knives in business, are very 
 saints at home. You could not pry 
 open their hand with a burglar's tool 
 on the street ; but when they go home 
 it is broad open. They would not give 
 anything outside of their household ; 
 but if their wife and children want any- 
 thing they readily grant it. If you 
 saw them at home and nowhere else 
 you would say that they were princes 
 of generosity ; but if you saw them 
 abroad and nowhere else you would 
 say that they were tighter than the 
 
 bark on growing trees. Now, we 
 should expect a man to be in sympathy 
 with those who bear his name and 
 carry his blood ; but that is not enough. 
 "If ye love them that love you, what 
 thank have ye? " 
 
 2397. Benevolence Needs Force. — 
 The benevolent surgeon who cuts off 
 the leg that is diseased and that would 
 destroy the life of a fellow man if it 
 were not cut off, and who has the en- 
 ergy which enables him to destroy for 
 the sake of saving — he is a truly be- 
 nevolent man ; but the sapless man 
 of benevolence, who faints when he 
 sees a drop of blood — what use is he 
 for a surgeon or anything else? You 
 want to give a man a great deal of 
 thunder if you are going to make much 
 of him in the direction of benevolence. 
 
 2398. Unwise Charity. — In the 
 Roman Church the doctrine of charity 
 was preached to such an extent that it 
 was made one of the cardinal virtues, 
 and was esteemed above almost every- 
 thing else ; in the matter of personal 
 service it was carried to saintship ; but 
 the giving out of doles, the distribu- 
 tion of bread perpetually, day by day, 
 through institutions, by the hundred 
 loaves, or by the five hundred loaves, 
 was the means of educating men to 
 indolence. The effect of constantly 
 supplying men's wants in the supposed 
 fulfillment of the duty of charity was 
 to debauch the whole under-class in 
 Italy. It made mendicancy there, with 
 all its horrible train of vices and mis- 
 eries, common. And that divine 
 principle of beneficence which was 
 meant to increase the sum of human 
 happiness by making men more manly 
 was perverted so that it corrupted man- 
 hood in its very center, degraded men, 
 and brought on them curses infinite. 
 
 2399. Poor-Relief to Stimulate, not 
 Enervate. — After England had passed 
 from the state of an agricultural peo- 
 
510 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 l)le to that of a manufacturing people, 
 concentrating capital, and gathering 
 together vast bodies of laborers whose 
 support depended upon the fluctuating 
 conditions of the market of the world, 
 there came an influx of want, at times, 
 which it was attempted to meet by 
 great bounties ; and workhouses and 
 almshouses were multiplied till they 
 corrupted and well-nigh destroyed the 
 yeomanry of the land. The danger 
 became so great (since a vast propor- 
 tion of the lower classes were going 
 into these workhouses and almshouses, 
 and the very nerve of enterprise and 
 industry was being cut, and the sense 
 of shame which sensitive men natur- 
 ally feel in being dependent was dis- 
 appearing) that a reaction took place ; 
 and for many years the statesmen of 
 Great Britain labored, and successfully, 
 to get back to something like the old 
 condition of things, to put affairs on a 
 better foundation, so that if there was 
 rehef it should be administered in har- 
 mony with this fundamental principle 
 of self-love or self-care. 
 
 2400. Good that Lives. — That 
 which a man administers in his own 
 life — his charities, his generosities, his 
 minor benevolences — strewing with 
 flowers instead of thorns the path 
 where other people's feet are to tread, 
 is surely well bestowed. It is a great 
 thing for a man to be generous, and, 
 seeing affliction and trouble, to follow 
 his eye witli his hand ; but it is not the 
 highest thing. There is that which is 
 infinitely higher. It is noble to do 
 good that shall produce its effect in 
 the immediate present ; but it is nobler 
 to organize or establish a larger good, 
 that shall have its outcome not only in 
 the present but also in the future ages. 
 The one is living by sight, and the 
 other is living by faith. 
 
 2401. Wise Giving. — Mr. Vassar, 
 of Poughkeepsie, while living, built. 
 
 and saw in operation, a very noble 
 monument of his benevolence. He 
 lived to enjoy it. Peter Cooper lived 
 a score of years to have the enjoyment 
 of a wisely disposed charity from out 
 of his large property. Late in life, Mr. 
 Vandcrbilt founded and organized the 
 University of Nashville, which is open 
 and in full prosperity. Mr. Durant 
 built the great college for women at 
 Wellesley, in Massachusetts, and he 
 lived to see to it that his charity was 
 wisely employed. The man who earns 
 money is far more apt to organize it 
 into an institution wisely than any set 
 of trustees into whose hands he can 
 put it. It is a good thing, therefore, 
 for a man who means to give when he 
 dies, to consider that he is likely to die 
 to-morrow ; and give to-day. 
 
 2402. Longevity of Endowed Bene- 
 factions. — If you liad countless wealth, 
 and all the poor in Brooklyn should 
 make procession by your house, and 
 you should give them bountifully of 
 your store, you could not do by your 
 alms anything like the good that you 
 would if you should build a hospital 
 or some other charitable institution 
 which would go on benefiting the 
 poor long after you were dead. Your 
 personal sympathy will reach but a 
 little way ; but here is the sympathy of 
 this organized wealth which will go on 
 dealing with generations, and gener- 
 ations, and generations ; and it will be 
 just as fresh a thousand years hence, 
 unwearied and unspent, as it was the 
 hour when it was established. 
 
 Oh ! what a benefaction for any 
 man that has money, and has faith 
 to see how it can work after he is 
 gone, and a heart to set it to work! 
 Being dead, he speaks, and speaks 
 chorally. 
 
 2403. Advantage in Organized Char- 
 ity. — I admit that in a large popula- 
 tion various difficulties occur from the 
 
BENEVOLENCE 
 
 511 
 
 deceptions of those who apply for 
 charity. I also see that men are ex- 
 cessively driven in their own business, 
 and have not much time for personal 
 sympathy, and that it is therefore 
 cheaper for a man to say, " I can't go 
 out and spend an hour in the day, not 
 even for two months in the year : here 
 is a hundred dollars." He puts it into 
 the hands of an organization that has 
 a clerk and a committee, and they do 
 it for him. So a man, instead of 
 grinding his own bread of charity, as 
 in ancient days every house ground 
 its own flour, sends his grist to the mill, 
 and has it ground for him. 
 
 2404. Danger in Organized Charity. 
 — Organization for charity is rendered 
 necessary by the exigencies of civi- 
 hzation ; but it has its dangers as well 
 as its benefits. The danger consists 
 in this, that you will do your charity 
 by machinery, and that you will give, 
 you know not to whom, and that they 
 receive they know not from whom ; 
 and I tell you that the gift is not worth 
 half so much to many and many a 
 soul as the giver. You need to lay 
 your heart alongside other hearts, that 
 are as different from yours as can pos- 
 sibly be. You need it, and they 
 need it. 
 
 2405. Alms, and Benevolence. — Ex- 
 perience teaches us that there is nothing 
 in the world so cheap as giving. If a 
 poor man comes to my door, and I 
 give him a quarter, and send him 
 away, I buy my own peace with that 
 quarter. To take my hat and go with 
 him to the miserable den where he 
 lives, and explore the history of his 
 case, and ascertain what his wants 
 are, and institute a systematic remedy 
 for his troubles which shall relieve 
 them, not for to-day merely but for his 
 whole life — that would be benevolence. 
 It is a cheap commutation to give him 
 a quarter and turn him off. 
 
 2406. The Widow's Mites. — How 
 little she thought what she was doing ! 
 How little she thought how much she 
 was enriching the world ! Two mites 
 — one-tenth of a penny — she threw 
 into the chest ; and she has made the 
 world richer than all the tributes which 
 were paid that year in Jerusalem, by 
 her unconscious humility, and by her 
 simple generosity and benevolence. 
 
 It is still the same. We think those 
 gifts most influential which have most 
 of record ; but it is not so. I believe 
 that the God who made this case so 
 eminent, I believe that that ascended 
 Christ who so emphasized this little 
 history that it has been fruit-bearing 
 for thousands of years, still adminis- 
 ters in the same way. 
 
 2407. Gifts of Love Lasting. — The 
 widow's mite, that went tinkling 
 through the brazen throat of the treas- 
 ury is sounding yet ; the escaping fra- 
 grance of the alabaster box fills the 
 world with sweetness. 
 
 2408. Better than Almsgiving. — If 
 a man asks for a dollar at my door, 
 and I put him into my garden and 
 teach him to work there, and pay him 
 a dollar a day for ten days, and send 
 him away with ten dollars and some 
 knowledge of floriculture, it is better 
 for him than if I had sent him away 
 with a dollar and nothing else. 
 
 2409. How to Give. — Generosity 
 was inculcated ; but it was not enough 
 to be simply generous. " He that 
 giveth, let him do it with simphcity ; " 
 not pompously, not ostentatiously, not 
 boastfully. Do not give, as many 
 rich men do, hke a hen, that lays her 
 ^gS' ^""^ then cackles. 
 
 2410. Habitual Generosity. — A 
 habit of generosity is like oil on ma- 
 chinery, and makes life run smoothly. 
 And there is more in it to teach men 
 to love their fellows than in all the 
 preaching in the world. 
 
9«2 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 241 1. Native Benevolence. — When 
 they sought to lay the foundations of 
 the Navy Yard dry-docks there were 
 springs in the ground. These were 
 small, to be sure, but men labored for 
 months and months, with piles and con- 
 crete, to hide down those springs. Still 
 the brave little omnipotences lifted 
 themselves up, and shattered and 
 drove hither and thither whatever im- 
 
 pediments presented themselves. At 
 last it was found necessary to make a 
 wall about them, and let them lift them- 
 selves up. As there are springs that 
 will flow, so there are hearts that have 
 an impetus of benevolence and an in- 
 tensity of desire that nothing can 
 check. If there be no want that so- 
 licits at the gate, they go out and so- 
 licit at the gate of want. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 XLII. EDUCAriON AND LITERATURE 
 
 2412. Individuality. — Men are like 
 trees ; each one must put forth the 
 leaf that is created in him. Education 
 is only like good culture — it changes 
 the size but not the sort. 
 
 2413. Imperfect Men. — I remember 
 standing by the side of Mr. Hicks, the 
 artist, when he was preparing his 
 colors. He put in one, and another 
 and another, to get this tint and that, 
 from the red and the yellow all the 
 way down along the scale ; and as I 
 looked on his palette it was all a blur 
 of color, but as he looked upon it ever 
 so many pictures were there. 
 
 So in the hands of God the things 
 that in human life seem to us to be 
 mere broken, disconnected elements, 
 not very nearly brought together, will 
 be made perfect. In the imper- 
 fect and rude beginnings of the hu- 
 man soul he sees a complete and per- 
 fect portrait that by and by is to shine 
 out to the honor and glory of his name 
 and to the exceeding great joy and re- 
 joicing of myriads of souls. 
 
 2414. Teachers and Preachers. — Is 
 he that carved Moses' statue, is he 
 that spanned the dome of St. Peter's, 
 is he that knows how to make the mar- 
 ble breathe, to be remembered as a 
 son of genius through all the ages, and 
 is not he to be counted worthy of 
 thought who works, not in marble, nor 
 in clay, nor in metal, but in the living 
 souls of men ? That man who can 
 take the poor, the despised, the 
 blind, the passion-bound creature, and 
 work out in him the Divine image, 
 yet one day will rise higher by his 
 work than any artist genius that ever 
 lived and wrought upon the earth. 
 
 For there is no material like human 
 nature, and there is no dignity like 
 working in it, and there is no grandeur 
 like success in thus working. 
 
 2415. The Teacher's Noble Work. 
 — The older I grow, the more I feel 
 that though a man's work in the school 
 does not show immediately, though 
 there is less ostentation and less pub- 
 licity about it than about almost any 
 other work, and though far less credit 
 is given to teachers than those of any 
 other profession, yet there is no place 
 where a man's skill and integrity and 
 knowledge take hold so immediately, 
 where so Httle is lost and so much is in- 
 vested at interest, and compound in- 
 terest, as in the school. . . . The suc- 
 cessful teacher who loves his work is a 
 pubhc benefactor of no mean kind. I 
 think the profession of teaching not 
 only ought to have an honored place 
 among the learned and liberal profes- 
 sions, but ought to stand very near the 
 top in the gradations of respect and 
 honor. 
 
 2416. Baby Possibilities. — It seems 
 that Manoah's wife had a vision of 
 angels, and it was repeated in dreams, 
 concerning the birth of a child, which 
 in those days, as in all times, was 
 thought to be a blessing from the hand 
 of God. The promise of children is 
 divine, and to every noble nature the 
 thought of bringing a child into hfe 
 should be hke a visit and vision of 
 angels from God's very throne. It is 
 the dearest, the divinest, the deepest, 
 and the purest experience of human 
 hfe. The ministration of angels was 
 not, however, in this case, so much to 
 declare the coming birth as to declare 
 that the child was to be a hero, and 
 
 515 
 
5.6 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 that it must be brought up with that 
 thought in view. But is not every 
 child a subject of angelic visitation ? 
 Every mother's babe is perhaps capa- 
 ble of becoming a hero ; yet it is not 
 every mother that brings her child up 
 as if he were so. 
 
 2417. The Truth in Simphcity. — 
 Suppose a mother, hearing the child 
 cry and scared in the night, goes to 
 the door and says, " Martha, behold, 
 present, invisible to thyself, thy ma- 
 ternal ancestor in the immediate suc- 
 cession ascending," she would state 
 the truth. Whether the child would 
 understand it or not, that is the truth. 
 What does the mother say ? " Hush ! 
 hush! it is your mother." That set- 
 tles the whole thing in a minute. 
 "Your mother," and that carries a 
 whole encyclopedia to the child's un- 
 derstanding. 
 
 2418. Naturally Good Children. — If 
 your children are easy to bring up, 
 you need not fret lest they will be 
 mere moralists. Many people are 
 concerned because their children are 
 sweet, loving, and compliant, so that 
 they cannot get an awful religious ex- 
 perience out of them. It is as if the 
 bass viol should mourn because it can- 
 not do what the flute does. It is as if 
 the bass should complain because it is 
 not like the tenor ; the tenor because 
 it is not like the contralto ; and the 
 contralto because it is not Hke the so- 
 prano. . . . Your children are sus- 
 ceptible of different degrees of educa- 
 tion. They begin at different points 
 in relation to moral perfection — some 
 far away, and some much nearer ; and 
 that, according to the great principle 
 of heredity, as shown in the Old Tes- 
 tament. Every one must take his 
 children where he finds them, and 
 bring them up as best he can. 
 
 2419. Educational Taxation Wise. 
 — The wisest expenditure a State can 
 
 make is for the support of common 
 schools. For, every time you educate 
 a child, you stop up a hole at the bot- 
 tom of the ship of the Commonwealth. 
 
 2420. The Common Schools. — 
 Make such provision for the education 
 of the commonest people, that the 
 richest uncommon people will ask for 
 their children the privilege of partici- 
 pating in the advantages of the com- 
 mon school. And keep it common. 
 Bring everybody to it, and let them 
 there learn each other's brotherhood. 
 And thus society, beginning and pass- 
 ing through the common school, will 
 form sympathetic associations which 
 will go on unfolding themselves after- 
 wards, and which will no more be for- 
 gotten by man than the wide-spreading 
 branches of a tree forget the roots 
 from which all their magnificence 
 draws sustenance. 
 
 2421. Comradeship in the Public 
 Schools. — The common school must 
 be studiously employed to build up, 
 not simply light and knowledge, but 
 that sympathy between men which 
 comes from their minghng together in 
 the same sphere of life. I remember 
 that the year I came to Brooklyn, I 
 found in one of the churches a man 
 who had been a boy alongside of me 
 in old Litchfield. We had gone to 
 the unpainted brown schoolhouse to- 
 gether. We had secretly whittled the 
 benches together. We had together 
 caught flies instead of ideas. We had 
 played together. We had scuffled to- 
 gether. We had whipped each other 
 — taking turns from day to day. And 
 so we had grown up, he the child of 
 an almost outcast shoemaker, and I 
 the child of Dr. Beecher. I had not 
 met him for thirty years, but no sooner 
 did he mention his name than my 
 blood tingled, and we grasped hands 
 as if we had had the same mother. 
 It was because we had sat on the same 
 
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE 
 
 517 
 
 bench in the common school, and had 
 played together, when boys, although 
 our parentage and our conditions in 
 society were far apart — things which 
 boys know but little about. And I 
 think we cannot overestimate that 
 sympathy which comes from the ming- 
 ling of the high and the low, the rich 
 and the poor, the strong and the 
 weak. The common school lays the 
 foundation among boys for a knowl- 
 edge of each other, a confidence in 
 each other, and a sympathy with each 
 other, which will not wear out during 
 their whole life. 
 
 2422. Democracy of the Public 
 School. — The common school is dem- 
 ocratic, because it is bringing back to 
 a common level again the irregulari- 
 ties produced by active life. Knowl- 
 edge, riches, skill, create classes, and 
 so inequalities. If, in the spring, you 
 should look along a level cultivated 
 field where corn grew the previous 
 year, you would see ridges that re- 
 main. Now comes the plow to turn 
 over the soil, and all the old hillocks 
 go down, and lie level again for the 
 next crop. The common school is the 
 plow that levels each generation of 
 human life. All the children, without 
 regard to superiorities or excellencies 
 of parentage, have to come together 
 and stand on a common dead-level in 
 the schoolhouse. . . . There is a 
 public sentiment of the school which 
 is just as real, and as vital, and as 
 despotic even, as the public sentiment 
 of the great community ; and it is a 
 good thing to bring down to the origi- 
 nal starting point all the elevations 
 and inequalities which the various 
 forces of active life produce, and to 
 say to all the boys, " Your feet must 
 stand on one level : now shoot your 
 heads as high as you please ! " 
 
 2423. Self-Education. — Many men 
 are said to be self-taught. No man 
 
 was ever taught in any other way. 
 Do you suppose a man is a bucket to 
 be hung on the well of knowledge and 
 pumped full? Man is a creature that 
 learns by the exertion of his own fac- 
 ulties. No matter how many aids a 
 man may be surrounded by, after all, 
 the learning is that which he himself 
 acquires. And whether he is in col- 
 lege or out of college, in school or out 
 of school, every man must educate 
 himself. 
 
 2424. Learning Liberty. — My Amer- 
 ican notion of political economy would 
 work freedom out of this : You must 
 make the poor intelligent. It will not 
 do to give the suffrage to ignorance 
 and brutality, and still less to keep it 
 away from them. The dangerous 
 citizen is the man without responsibil- 
 ity. The way to teach a man to vote 
 is to let him vote. The way to teach 
 a man archery is to let him shoot ; to 
 look at a match will never teach him 
 to shoot. 
 
 2425. Worthlessness of Ignorance. 
 — An uneducated mind is like undug 
 ore. Iron on my farm is nothing. 
 When I have dug it out, and smelted 
 it, and purified it, and when it has 
 been made into a sword, into knives, 
 into utensils or machinery of any sort, 
 then the mineral has been educated. 
 The first step in education of men con- 
 sists in digging them out in the rough, 
 preparatory to bringing them to their 
 perfect form. 
 
 2426. Helplessness of the Unedu- 
 cated. — There are walking-sticks that 
 are made for seats as well. When 
 they are shut up, they are like walk- 
 ing-sticks, and they cannot stand of 
 themselves ; but if you open them, 
 there sprout out legs, that enable them 
 not only to stand, but to support a 
 man's weight. An uneducated man 
 is like an unopened walking-stick of 
 this kind. He cannot stand alone. 
 
5.8 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 He needs to lean on some king or 
 government. It is not until he has 
 been taken and developed and ex- 
 panded that he can hold himself up. 
 And it is this idea of developing that 
 which God has put in every man, so 
 that he can stand alone, that is the 
 foundation of self-government, — the 
 only divinely instituted government in 
 this world, 
 
 2427. Self-Government the Ideal. — 
 All government in the family, all 
 methods of civil government, all insti- 
 tutions of education and religion, ought 
 to set this ideal before themselves. I 
 have sometimes heard people say, 
 " How poorly those boys have turned 
 out! It is strange, too, because there 
 never were boys more strictly brought 
 up. To my certain knowledge, they 
 used to be whipped once a week!" 
 Yes, they were watched ; they were 
 kept out of evil ; they were carefully 
 instructed ; and when they were of 
 age, and went out of the family, they 
 plunged into every liberty and every 
 license, and proved themselves fallible 
 and imperfect in every way. They 
 learned a great many things in the 
 family, but they never learned how to 
 govern themselves. There are a great 
 many fathers and mothers whose na- 
 ture is to govern. They govern their 
 children not to teach those children to 
 govern themselves, but for the sake of 
 governing them ; and the children 
 never learn self-government. But the 
 object of governing a child is to get 
 rid of the necessity of governing him. 
 
 2428. Knowledge and Intelligence. 
 — Knowledge is that which a man 
 knows. Intelligence is that which 
 knows it. Knowledge bears the same 
 relation to intelligence that invested 
 wealth does to that spirit of enterprise 
 which creates wealth. One is the 
 active cause ; the other is the product 
 or effect of that cause. Mere knowl- 
 
 edge will not save men. Intelligence 
 is a preservative force. 
 
 2429. The Cure of Ignorance. — It is 
 a great loss to a man to have had a 
 head put on him with nothing in it, 
 and next to that it is a great misfortune 
 to a man to have had a good deal put 
 into his head and not know it is there. 
 It is a curse to an ignorant man to be 
 ignorant. Eyes he has, but he cannot 
 see the length of his hand ; ears he 
 has, and all the finest sounds in cre- 
 ation escape him ; a tongue he has, 
 but it is cursed with blundering. An 
 ignorant man is one whom God packed 
 up and men have not yet unfolded. 
 If a man has as a mechanic a chest of 
 tools and knows how to use a gimlet 
 and a saw, and that is all, it is a great 
 deprivation to him ; he cannot keep up 
 in the race of life ; and an ignorant 
 man must of necessity be dropping 
 down, down to the bottom. 
 
 2430. Man's Possibilities. — When a 
 man is first born, he is like an acorn. 
 But in an acorn — that is, in its possible 
 future — there is timber. In a bushel 
 of acorns there are ships, there are 
 dwellings, there are curiously carved 
 cornices and statues. And when men 
 are born, they are born into philoso- 
 phers, into statesmen, into orators, into 
 patriots, into wise men, — provided 
 that, being born, they are planted, and 
 developed, and given an opportunity 
 to grow to that which God thought of 
 when he created them. But the belief 
 of the human race has been that 
 knowledge was dangerous for the 
 common people. 
 
 2431. Getting Knowledge Brings 
 Wisdom. — Men say, " It would be 
 better if knowledge had been given to 
 us outright." Why should one send 
 his apprentice into the forge to find 
 the instruments he is to make all ready 
 for his hand ? If they are made and 
 left there for him, when will he learn 
 
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE 
 
 519 
 
 his trade ? If he is left there and 
 works it out by himself, his blunders 
 are his schoolmasters. They teach him 
 how to do, and when he has learned 
 his trade his trade has developed him. 
 
 2432. Transgression as Education. 
 — Did God make laws to have them 
 broken ? In one sense, no ; but in an- 
 other sense, yes. Yes, when he put 
 nascent, germinating creatures under 
 them ; for he knew perfectly well that 
 they would break those laws. Every 
 step upward was a step that had to be 
 accomplished by endeavor. You set 
 a copy for your boy to write in school ; 
 a beautiful copy it is ; but you know 
 perfectly well that he will make 
 sprawling letters, and mar every 
 single line. Did you set that copy to 
 have that child make such sprawhng 
 letters ? Did you not know he would 
 make them? Certainly you did. 
 You set the copy that he might find 
 his way up to it by long-continued 
 effort. 
 
 2433. Scholastic Prejudice. — " How 
 knoweth this man letters [religious 
 literature], never having learned?" 
 Certainly Jesus had not been educated 
 in the school of the Rabbi ! The 
 Jewish school-men would not accept 
 the best wheat unless it grew upon the 
 right kind of straw. Just such slaves 
 of routine and regularity still exist ; 
 the poorest of fruit growing upon the 
 grafted tree is by them accounted bet- 
 ter than the noblest fruit growing upon 
 its own natural root. But he who can 
 speak important truth is educated. 
 Education is but the pickaxe which 
 digs out the gold, and the gold cares 
 not when once coined by what instru- 
 ment it came to the light. Yet in 
 every age spiritual pedantry demands 
 that gold should be stamped with the 
 image and superscription of a school 
 or a sect, or else be accounted base 
 metal. 
 
 2434' Quick Learning. — Sudden 
 learning is superficial gilding ; learn- 
 ing that is deep-seated comes with 
 long-breathed, long-paced industry. 
 
 2435' Books. — Books are the win- 
 dows through which the soul looks 
 out. A house without books is Uke a 
 room without windows. 
 
 2436. Ministry of Books. — A book 
 is a garden. A book is an orchard. 
 A book is a storehouse. It is good 
 company. It is a counselor. It is 
 a multitude of counselors. The best 
 things that the best men have ever 
 thought in past times, and expressed 
 in the best manner, lie in books ; and 
 he who knows how to use these may 
 be said, almost, to have control of the 
 world. I would give more for the 
 ownership of books than for that of all 
 the gold in California, if in ownership 
 I sought happiness — various, self-re- 
 specting happiness, continuous amidst 
 cares, and burdens, and disappoint- 
 ments in youth, in middle age, and in 
 old age. There is nothing like a book 
 to one who knows how to pluck fruit 
 from it, and how to prepare it for his 
 palate. 
 
 2437. Power of Greatness. — If a 
 man is great he prepares the way for 
 twenty men, each of whom is perhaps 
 not equal to him, but the twenty to- 
 gether are five times as great as he 
 was. He distributes himself, and is 
 buried, and lives again in the tenden- 
 cies which he has educated. 
 
 2438. Greatness of Great Minds. — 
 Not once in an age, not once in a hun- 
 dred ages, is there a Paul. But such 
 great natures disperse their powers in 
 others, and live on. Not another 
 Shakespeare ; but, by reason of his 
 having lived, a hundred poets have 
 sung who would not have been in- 
 spired otherwise. Not a great many 
 Bacons ; but there have been whole 
 schools of philosophers and investigat- 
 
520 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 ing men because Bacon's genius was 
 distributed, and it stimulated them, 
 and brought them out. From one 
 great man, raised up by God to mould 
 the age and to expand before the im- 
 agination and the reason of men a 
 larger manhood, and to make it possi- 
 ble, hundreds, sometimes thousands, 
 take a conception and verify it in a 
 better life. He is lifted up ; and there 
 will be a thousand greater than they 
 ever would have been but for him. 
 
 2439. Direct and Indirect Influence. 
 — The intensity of influence on others 
 is rendered much greater by personal 
 presence, but its duration and potency 
 seem rather to depend upon instru- 
 mentality than personality. A great 
 nature may influence you ; but it is 
 not probable that Raphael ever did 
 influence men with his personal pres- 
 ence while he lived as he has since 
 with his pictures, nor is it probable 
 that Bacon's influence while he was 
 alive was so great as it had been since 
 his death. Moses was a natural legis- 
 lator and leader ; and yet his influ- 
 ence by his statutes and institutes has 
 been far greater than the power which 
 he exerted when he was yet alive. 
 Socrates had a certain influence ; he 
 stirred Athens as a spoon stirs the con- 
 tents of a goblet : but Socrates would 
 have lived almost none at all if he had 
 not had his subsequent life through 
 the Platonic writings. Though Jesus 
 while on earth was influential, his in- 
 fluence was circumscribed ; but 
 through books, laws, and institutions 
 his personal influence has been car- 
 ried on through nearly two thousand 
 years, and will go on to the end of the 
 world, augmenting. 
 
 While, then, you stand in the pres- 
 ence of a living being, and feel the 
 throb of his heart, you feel his per- 
 sonal influence more intensely ; but 
 for breadth, variety and extent, its 
 
 spread through other instrumentalities 
 is more potent. 
 
 2440. Self-measurement Upwards. 
 No man who looks down for his meas- 
 ure will rise. Are you a poet ? Then 
 do not read poetasters and say, " I 
 write better poems than they do, and 
 therefore I am a better poet." Read 
 Milton ; read Shakespeare ; read 
 Homer ; go to the old Englishmen of 
 immortal thought, whose drums and 
 trumpets have sounded clear down 
 through the ages to this day ; go to 
 the grandest and noblest of our think- 
 ers and writers ; sit in council with 
 them ; and then see if you are not a 
 dwarf — a pigmy. It will make you 
 humble to have high ideals. But a 
 man who forever measures himself by 
 pigmies and dwarfs, and thinks he is 
 better than they — what is he but a 
 mountebank among pigmies and 
 dwarfs ? 
 
 2441. Life Interprets Language. — 
 It is said that words express what they 
 represent. No, words do not express 
 anything. We might spell them 
 backward, and it would be all the 
 same, if we had always spelled them 
 backward. The words are nothing. 
 They are dead. The thing which 
 they express must be a living thing in 
 your consciousness at present, or in 
 your memory of the past. 
 
 Take the word joy. How many ex- 
 periences there are in connection with 
 joy ! How strange are the forms 
 which it assumes ! How complex it 
 is ! How infinitely various ! It is like 
 the windings of a band of music where 
 there are a hundred instruments. 
 And yet, to represent this, you have 
 only this simple word Joy, which is 
 but a mere hint. You contain in 
 yourself the definition. It is the mem- 
 ory of your own experience. It is the 
 glitter of ten thousand influences that 
 interprets it. 
 
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE 
 
 521 
 
 2442. Speaking and Thinking. — 
 Words are but the bannerets of a 
 great army ; thoughts are the main 
 body as it moves. Words show here 
 and there a gleam in the air, but the 
 great multitude of thoughts march un- 
 seen below. 
 
 2443. Power of Good Phrasing. — 
 If a proverb is true, it is of incalcula- 
 ble service. It lives through genera- 
 tions. It needs no settlement, no sti- 
 pend, no pulpit. It goes everywhere, 
 preaching to everybody for nothing. 
 But if a proverb is bad, it is equally 
 influential, just as enduring, and no 
 less ubiquitous. Thus a selfish thing, 
 shrewdly expressed, will cultivate self- 
 ishness for centuries. A bit of sinister 
 wisdom, wittily phrased, will inoculate 
 a whole nation with a malignant influ- 
 ence. 
 
 2444. Nimbleness of Proverbs. — 
 These proverbs — you cannot hunt them 
 easily. They fire and run. They are 
 everywhere, and they are nowhere. 
 You turn out your great argument to 
 hunt a proverb, and the proverb is 
 gone before you can bring your argu- 
 ment to bear upon it. It is like a park 
 of artillery used to hunt mosquitoes. 
 The mosquitoes dodge here and there 
 in the air, and all of them escape. 
 And when you hunt proverbs, they 
 elude your grasp, and go where they 
 please, carrying good, bad, or indiffer- 
 ent matter, according to their nature. 
 
 Nevertheless, if they are evil, their 
 mischievousness requires that they 
 should not be let alone. And so, now 
 and then, a proverb which touches 
 vital and distinctive truth with malice 
 should be taken up, and like a venom- 
 ous insect be pinned to the wall. 
 
 2445. Novel-Reading. — There are 
 fifty novels taken out from our public 
 libraries where there is one solid 
 and substantial work drawn. I have 
 not a word to say against novels. I 
 
 believe in them. I think that if they 
 are good they are useful. I believe 
 that they are no more to be disallowed 
 than any other part of literature. 
 They can be made to serve the very 
 best ends of economy, of virtue and 
 morality, to say nothing of religion ; 
 but a man who feeds on nothing but 
 these — how miserable and wretched he 
 is! These are the whip-syllabubs of 
 life. They are not the bread nor the 
 meat. But ought a man to sit down 
 and eat for his dinner nothing but 
 sugar-plums ? 
 
 2446. Fact and Fiction. — In these 
 days, when there is so much magazine 
 writing and when there are such good 
 novels, we are liable to overindulge in 
 light reading — for novels and maga- 
 zine-writing are to solid matter what 
 liquid food is to solid food. A little 
 soup is very good ; but soup all the 
 time is not so good. Many people 
 solace themselves with the thought 
 that there is philosophy, history, hu- 
 manity and reformation in novels ; but 
 it is worth their while now and then to 
 listen to fact as well as to fiction. 
 
 2447. Fiction a Condiment. — Use 
 fiction as you would spices in your 
 diet. No man takes a quart of cloves, 
 nor exhausts the cruet at a single 
 meal. 
 
 2448. Cr3rptic Parables of Jesus. — 
 He likewise taught by pictures ; for 
 such are his exquisite little fables, as 
 the Greeks would have called them, 
 and which we style parables. But 
 Jesus explicitly declared to his disci- 
 ples, that, for wise purposes, he often 
 employed an outward form to hide 
 within it a meaning which they were 
 not yet prepared to accept. The out- 
 ward form, therefore, acted the part 
 of the lobes of a seed. They first pre- 
 serve the germ till planting time, and 
 then supply its food until it has roots 
 of its own. 
 
522 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 2449. Reading with Discrimination. 
 — A man docs not think it necessary 
 to cat a whole ox piece by piece. He 
 takes the tenderloin, and leaves the 
 rest ; that suffices for him. Now, 
 books have a tenderloin ; and if you 
 get at it you get all that those books 
 have for you — that is, if you are read- 
 ing for general information. 
 
 2450. Sympathetic Moods for Read- 
 ing. — It is not for everybody, nor for 
 anybody at all times, to read the Book 
 of Ruth. You cannot prepare to read 
 it with your dictionary and your com- 
 mentary. There are some strains of 
 poetry which a man can read only 
 when, in the mutations of feeling, he 
 comes around to the very point of feel- 
 ing from which those poems came. A 
 man in the heyday of joy and hilarity 
 cannot read the "In Memoriam " of 
 Tennyson. A man cast into profound 
 grief cannot enter into some of the 
 most exquisite poems of joy and fan- 
 tasy. The Book of Ruth should be 
 read when the world has subsided from 
 about us. 
 
 2451. Noble Poesy Immortal. — 
 Those who have the gift of embodying 
 moral truths and noble experiences 
 (which are the best truths that ever 
 dawn on the world) in verse ; those 
 who have the power to give their 
 higher thoughts and feelings the wings 
 of poetry — they, being dead, speak 
 far back. We hear Homer chanting 
 yet, and chanting the best things that 
 men knew in his day. And the world 
 is still willing to listen to the oldest 
 poet. Going further back, in the 
 majestic numbers of the Hebrew Tes- 
 tament we find the most sublime truths 
 of God and of destiny in poetic forms ; 
 and the world is never weary of listen- 
 ing to them. They reappear in every 
 form of translation. They are as fresh 
 to-day as they were on the day they 
 were uttered. And since that time, in 
 
 every nation, bards have sprung up. 
 The voice of men who speak for love 
 and purity and immortality, grows 
 sweeter and clearer with time. And 
 he who has had permission to write 
 one genuine hymn, to send forth one 
 noble sonnet, to sing one stately epic, 
 may well fold his wings and his hands, 
 and say, " Now let thy servant depart 
 in peace." 
 
 2452. " Whatsoever Things Are 
 Pure." — To-day, there is a school that 
 has sprung up from the loins of Greece. 
 Infidelity, crossed upon paganism, has 
 bred a school of authors who delight 
 to dabble, if not in the midst yet upon 
 the edge of the Styx ; and their poems 
 seem like bubbles of mephitic gas that 
 come up from the mud beneath. They 
 linger for a moment in outwai'd beauty, 
 and then go out in stench. 
 
 If the spirit is to be set free from the 
 entanglements of the flesh, then what- 
 ever in food, whatever in drink, what- 
 ever in intercourse, tarnishes pure 
 thought, obscures the vision, and 
 draws men down from spiritual joy 
 towards the animal, whatever sullies 
 the intellect in literature, whatever by 
 wit or in any other way distempers the 
 purity of the loving heart by salacious 
 thought — these are all frowned upon 
 by the spirit of Christ ; and whatso- 
 ever things are pure in private thought 
 and feeling, in personal conduct, 
 Christianity demands. 
 
 2453. The World's Bulletin.— The 
 drayman, at his nooning, divides the 
 time between his little tin kettle and 
 his newspaper. A man, though he 
 goes home tired, yet must know what 
 is the news. The vast majority of 
 laboring men — not to speak of pro- 
 fessional men, and men whose busi- 
 ness requires that they shall read — 
 know before the setting of the sun, on 
 any given day, what is being done in 
 Asia, in Turkey, in Cahfornia, what is 
 
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE 
 
 523 
 
 being done the world around — for this 
 is a pocket-world now, when every 
 man can carry it round for himself, in 
 his newspaper. 
 
 2454. The Newspaper. — For us, the 
 newspaper is a greater treasure than 
 uncounted millions of gold. If a man 
 be worth his millions, he is all the 
 more dangerous if he be ignorant. 
 No nation can bear wealth that is not 
 intelligent first. The newspaper is 
 every year increasing in circulation ; 
 and as it increases in circulation, it 
 increases in importance, not only as a 
 moral power, but as a political power 
 allied to morahty, to a degree that 
 most who conduct it do not suspect. 
 Newspapers are to the body politic 
 what arteries are to the human body, 
 their function being to carry blood and 
 sustenance and repair to every part of 
 the body. Multiply them, and give 
 them wider circulation ! Would to 
 God that those who conduct them 
 might realize the full measure of their 
 responsibility. 
 
 2455. The Ignorance of Science. — 
 When Science lifts up its head and 
 pretends that it is going to displace 
 Christianity and the Church, and bring 
 in an era of truth, it has not learned 
 yet that scientific truth is Christian 
 truth. Christ, in the spirit that he 
 gives to his people, declares through 
 Paul : "Whatever is true — that is to 
 be included." 
 
 2456. Humanization of Literature. 
 — As late as the day of Cowper, Eng- 
 lish literature, from its day-dawn down 
 through Dryden and Pope, and all 
 that class of poets, was one that stung 
 the under-classes with a perpetual 
 contempt. Nothing was more des- 
 picable than this paganism of English 
 literature, to the days of its deliver- 
 ance at the hands of such poets as 
 
 Cowper and Wordsworth, and the 
 whole modern school. The deliver- 
 ance of English literature is within our 
 own memory. But a great revolution 
 has taken place. Even the literature 
 of France, not alone in its higher 
 branches, but even in its infamous 
 depths, has received this touch of hu- 
 man sympathy ; and now it works for 
 the poor, for the unfriended, for the 
 neglected classes. It must be said 
 that the reigning ideas in philosophy 
 and in hterature to-day are in behalf 
 of the despised classes, which a cen- 
 tury ago had no recognition and no 
 standing before the judgment of man- 
 kind. The bottom is coming up and 
 the top is going down to meet it, not 
 for the sake of losing its power, but 
 because the valleys shall be exalted 
 and the mountains brought down in 
 the day when the Lord's highway shall 
 be cast up. 
 
 2457. Wickedness of Selfish Cul- 
 ture. — It is wicked for a man who is 
 blessed of God with great intellectual 
 power, and who is born to a station in 
 which he can command his support 
 without labor, to shut himself up in a 
 library, and be a student, and devour 
 books for eighty years, even though 
 he may never injure a fellow-creature. 
 To gormandize books is as wicked as 
 to gormandize food. You have no 
 more right to be a literary epicure 
 than to be a physical epicure. And 
 if a man makes his only aim in life 
 scholarship, and lives merely for his 
 own mental gratification, he is a crim- 
 inal. If a man follows art simply for 
 his own pleasure, he cannot justify 
 himself by saying, " I never injured a 
 fly." That is not the question. Did 
 you ever benefit a fly ? With all your 
 powers and opportunities, what have 
 you done for the good of others? 
 
5^4 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 XLIIL THE HUMAN RACE 
 
 2458. The Hope for Humanity. — As 
 the traveler on earth has a double 
 journey ; as in addition to the journey 
 which he is himself making, he is swept 
 along by the earth in its revolutions ; 
 so I beheve that not only the individ- 
 ual but the human race is being swept 
 in vast aerial circles towards better 
 climes and nobler societies. What- 
 ever may be done by tears, by sor- 
 rows, by temptations, by weariness, 
 by study, by toil, there is something 
 better than all that. The irresistible 
 power of God is carrying the universe 
 upward and onward to its final perfec- 
 tion and glorification. 
 
 2459. The Saving Spiritual Ele- 
 ment. — Who would ever think, on 
 opening the ground, and seeing the 
 black dirt and manure, and casting 
 the seed into it, that out of such filth 
 there would come the fair stem and 
 the pure, clean, white blossom, so 
 fragrant and so beautiful ! And who, 
 looking back into those pest holes of 
 antiquity, so feculent with the deprav- 
 ity of the human passions, would sup- 
 pose could come from them the glori- 
 ous fruits of faith in God ! Yet, in 
 that matchless picture gallery, the 
 eleventh of Hebrews, among the he- 
 roes held up to view are Rahab, the 
 harlot, Barak, the general, Gideon, 
 Jephthah, and Samson, and such as 
 they, who were, after all, brought up 
 in households of idolatry, and sur- 
 rounded by all that was impure, but 
 who believed in an invisible God. 
 They had that saving quality which 
 can come from nothing but the spirit- 
 ual element. 
 
 2460. Human Development. — When 
 the child is hungry, and the mother 
 has no bread, she has to knead the 
 flour, and the child cries, "Give me 
 bread." The mother says, "It is not 
 
 ready yet" ; she must bake it ; and 
 the child still cries, " Give me bread." 
 All these steps are necessary ; and we 
 cannot omit any of them, and immedi- 
 ately have the food. 
 
 I tell you, this world is a big trough, 
 and God is kneading a very large 
 batch ; and when it has gone through 
 the preparatory forms, and is finished, 
 he will give it to us. We shall know 
 it then. 
 
 2461. Transition Periods. — The 
 transition from worse to better, from 
 lower to higher, is always indirect, 
 like the track of the Israelites towards 
 the promised land, there being a des- 
 ert between. 
 
 2462. Progress. — Truths are first 
 clouds, then rain, then harvests and 
 food. The philosophy of one century 
 is the common sense of the next. Men 
 are called fools, in one age, for not 
 knowing what they were called fools 
 for averring in the age before. We 
 should so live and labor in our time 
 that what came to us as seed may go 
 to the next generation as blossom, and 
 that what came to us as blossom may 
 go to them as fruit. This is what we 
 mean by progress. 
 
 2463. Slow Growth of Christ's Peace. 
 — Look at the great mixed Roman em- 
 pire, with lordly wealth and squalid 
 poverty, with crowned princes and ab- 
 ject slaves, with degraded soldiers and 
 downtrodden husbandmen. But re- 
 member yet that through that air was 
 breathed, amidst the sound of trum- 
 pets, sweeter than any lute that was 
 ever heard by men, a voice saying, 
 " Good will ! " 
 
 Where is Rome? Where are the 
 glittering Cassars ? Hush the tocsin ; 
 sound no more the trumpet ; for good 
 WILL is proclaimed. But the roar 
 went on, the cries ascended, and the 
 
THE HUMAN RACE 
 
 S^S 
 
 whole creation groaned in pain then, 
 as it has until now. Yet the procla- 
 mation was, " Peace, good will to 
 men." 
 
 2464. Men Must be Bom Better. — 
 The final age, the perfect age, must 
 be made up of men that come into life 
 better than the generations do to-day. 
 Men do not have a fair chance. A 
 man who is born with robust health 
 has a better chance than the man who 
 is born an invalid for his fath- 
 er's sins. But do you not believe 
 that in the coming time there is to be 
 such knowledge of heredity as shall 
 lead men to wiser selections, and that 
 the world which has learned how to 
 breed sheep for better wool, horses for 
 better speed, and oxen for better beef, 
 will not by and by have it dawn on 
 their minds that it is worth while to 
 breed better men too, and to give 
 them the chance that comes from vir- 
 tuous parentage on both sides? As 
 goods well-bought are half-sold, so 
 men well-born are half-converted. 
 There is going to be a vast change on 
 this subject. 
 
 2465. Lower Law a Step Towards 
 Higher Law. — A fine handwriting is 
 eminently desirable in itself ; but in the 
 mind of every intelligent teacher it is 
 simply something on the way to that 
 which is better. What the boy writes, 
 or is going to be able to write, is more 
 important than that his handwriting 
 should be good. 
 
 Now, obedience to physical law, and 
 social law, and civil law, and indus- 
 trial law, is important in these respect- 
 ive spheres ; but only an initial proc- 
 ess leading to something higher — 
 namely, the development of the whole 
 manhood in man. 
 
 2466. Development in Material Life. 
 — Christianity includes every develop- 
 ment of man. I suppose there was a 
 time when a wheel-barrow was 
 
 counted an extravagance. It is not 
 so now. A man was once called to 
 disciphne in a town in Connecticut for 
 riding to church in a wagon. He was 
 the first man there that had a wagon. 
 Things have changed since then. And 
 there is to be a time when refinement, 
 and education, and all manner of 
 wealth, will so lift men in masses that 
 what are now called luxuries will be 
 considered necessaries of fife. 
 
 2467. Interplay of Humanity. — As 
 there is a drawing of vapor from the 
 sea, and a changing of it in the air 
 from its invisible form to rain, and a 
 plunging down of it in the storm, and 
 its reascension and continuous se- 
 quence completing the round in nature, 
 so it is with the forces of men ; so it is 
 with their undertaking ; so it is with 
 all things that belong to them. 
 
 2468. The Good Time Coming. — 
 When the nut goes into the ground 
 in autumn it cannot let out the root, 
 and the frost bites it, and bites it, until, 
 by spring, the shell gives way, and the 
 hickory finds out how to throw down 
 its roots, and how to throw up its stem. 
 God is planting the seeds of salvation 
 everywhere, and they are coming up, 
 and the harvest waves, in the angelic 
 sight. If we had prophetic vision we 
 could see it. On every side of society 
 I sec fife and fertility, — promise of rich 
 harvest. 
 
 2469. The World's Growth. — Slow 
 as it is, I believe the world is certainly 
 advancing in excellence. Diffusion 
 always seems slow. Plant a tree. The 
 first year, how it shoots ! The second 
 year, how it has grown ! In the third 
 year it begins to branch, and whereas 
 last year it may have gained fifteen or 
 eighteen inches, we see now it has 
 only gained about four inches. But it 
 is branching, and the branches being 
 taken together, it makes more than 
 eight or twelve for the last year. As 
 
526 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 it spreads wider and wider the growth 
 of each particular httle stem is dimin- 
 ished, but the growth of the whole 
 tree is vastly augmented. So, in the 
 human race, the diffusion of moral ex- 
 cellence, a little here and a little there, 
 but everywhere distributed, is an 
 enormous growth when you take the 
 whole realm and region of human life 
 into account, though it may seem in 
 any one particular spot to have been 
 a very small development or accre- 
 tion. 
 
 2470. Infant Humanity in the Bible. 
 — We permit in a child things which, 
 if he were to continue them until he 
 became grown, would deprive him of 
 good standing and throw him out of 
 society. And in the infancy of the 
 race things were permitted which, 
 judged by our modern standards of 
 honor and right, would condemn a 
 man as utterly base. They were bad 
 then, and they would have been worse 
 in every age since, by reason of the 
 growing light that has been brought to 
 bear upon truth and duty ; and yet 
 they are narrated in the Word of God 
 without a single protest. 
 
 2471. Early Development Slow. — 
 "The whole creation groaneth and 
 travaileth in pain until now " — a vast 
 struggle for extrication and ascent. 
 It is impeded growth, ignorant growth ; 
 but with all reactions there has been 
 one continuous tendency ; and as the 
 plant grows slowly under ground, 
 dark, imperceptible, but faster when 
 its stem reaches the light, and rapidly 
 when it comes to the blossom and the 
 fruit, so the earlier developments of 
 humanity were the slowest. The more 
 the world advanced, the more rapidly 
 it could advance. 
 
 2472. The Wasting of Men. — It is 
 enough to see the wastes of antiquity 
 — the battered statues ; the toppled- 
 down columns ; the fractured walls ; 
 
 the ruins of the Parthenon. It is a sad 
 experience, mingling both pain and 
 gladness. But of all the destructions 
 that have gone on in this world, and 
 that are now going on every day in 
 the great cities which are grinding and 
 crushing out manhood, the destruction 
 of men is the saddest. Men are as 
 clusters in the vine-vat ; and the feet 
 of temptation tread them down as the 
 vintner's feet tread the clusters. And 
 blood flows out as wine. 
 
 2473. Dissensions of Humanity. — 
 If in a great crowd assembled on some 
 public occasion there should spring up 
 a panic of alarm, and forthwith every 
 person should commence rushing, 
 dashing, overthrowing the weak, and 
 treading down children, the whole 
 great throng doing mischief upon each 
 other, it would imperfectly represent 
 what is going on all over the world. 
 There is not a house where there are 
 not frictions. There is not a neigh- 
 borhood where there are not misunder- 
 standings. I had almost said, there is 
 not a church where there are not 
 quarrels. From the very fountain of 
 sanctity, wedded love, from that little 
 imperial realm, the household, the em- 
 pire of affection, we still hear the mur- 
 mur, the outcry, or sometimes even 
 the passionate voice of discord. 
 
 2474. The Voyage of Life. — When 
 shipmen go to sea, they have their 
 ship built first, and then make their 
 voyage. But if they were obliged to 
 start out with their ship built so as to 
 be but just above the waves, and were 
 obliged to finish it during the voyage, 
 they would be in the condition that 
 we are in in this world. We are born 
 half-built. We have to navigate the 
 sea of life in an unfinished state. Our 
 business is to construct our bark as we 
 go along. 
 
 2475. Erection of God's Kingdom. 
 — You cannot build a great house so 
 
THE HUMAN RACE 
 
 527 
 
 quick as you can a small one. You 
 cannot build a city so quick as you 
 can a hut or a hovel. If God was go- 
 ing to build his kingdom in one family, 
 he miglit do it quickly ; but as he is to 
 do it in all the families of every coun- 
 try, the work is so vast that it cannot 
 be done in a day, nor in a year, nor in 
 a hundred years, nor in many rolling 
 ages. It takes times to build things 
 that are to be so well built and so 
 glorious as God's kingdom will be 
 when it is completed. And we are 
 living in an age that resists this work 
 of God — sometimes on purpose, and 
 sometimes not knowing what it does. 
 
 2476. This World's Work,— The 
 world is not God's show-room, but his 
 work-shop. It is not surprising that 
 rudeness and dust and confusion 
 should prevail here. If one should go 
 to a watchmaker's, and look upon an 
 exquisite watch, should know the reg- 
 ularity of its pulsations, the exquisite 
 framework and adjustment of every 
 part, the completeness and finish of 
 the whole instrument, would he be 
 wise in saying, " The shop where this 
 was made must be rarely clean and 
 exquisitely adjusted " ? Let him go 
 back and search for its beginnings ; 
 let him see the iron ore coming to 
 steel ; let him see the gold smelting ; 
 let him listen to the clatter of ham- 
 mers and files ; let him see th? con- 
 fusion of much-used tools, — the fur- 
 nace, the bellows, the vice, the anvil, 
 — and learn that infinite apparent con- 
 fusions may conspire together to the 
 production of perfect symmetries. 
 And when the watch is made, its regu- 
 lation and its adjustment for perfect 
 time-keeping are more difficult than 
 the mere construction of its parts. 
 Thrust into an oven, it was left to 
 throb in high degrees of heat. Then, 
 with sudden change, plunged into ice, 
 it was demanded of it with equal beats 
 
 to measure time in this opposite con- 
 dition. Nor will the adjustment be 
 complete and the regulation perfect, 
 until the instrument bears itself sub- 
 stantially even and ahke under all 
 temperatures, in all positions, and in 
 all conceivable 'circumstances. How 
 simple and foohsh is he who, seeing 
 the watch without having seen the 
 shop, imagines that so much perfect- 
 ness must needs imply regulated har- 
 mony, cleanliness, beauty, in the in- 
 strumentation ! The very idea of this 
 life is that it is a place in which to pre- 
 pare men for perfectness in the life to 
 come. 
 
 2477. Man in the Making. — In 
 Switzerland, where they make watches, 
 one man never makes a whole watch. 
 The different parts are made by differ- 
 ent men. One man makes hair- 
 springs, another man mainsprings, 
 another the various wheels, and an- 
 other cases. Each man takes some 
 separate part, and expends his skill in 
 manufacturing that particular part. 
 Each has a shop of his own in which 
 he works. And if you should go to 
 all these various shops, and take from 
 each a part, when you had gone the 
 round, would you have a watch? 
 Human life in this world is just like 
 the watch that you would have — a 
 heap of unpohshed, unfitted parts, in- 
 capable of keeping time. It is only 
 when the various parts have been 
 taken from the different shops, and 
 finished, and put together, that it can 
 keep time. And you never would 
 suspect from seeing the elements, 
 what the completed whole was to be. 
 It is only when the various faculties 
 of the human mind are brought to 
 their final condition, and united into 
 a harmonious whole, that it will be 
 what God designed. 
 
 2478. Man-Making Takes Time. — 
 Look upon some building in process 
 
528 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 of construction. All round about it 
 are stones disconnected. The archi- 
 tect knows for \\ hat they were cut, but 
 you do not. Whether it is cornice or 
 window cap, whether it is the top of 
 this column or of that, you do not 
 know. Vast timbers, in the framer's 
 mind fitted for their places and brought 
 together here, give to your eye no in- 
 dication of their function or their posi- 
 tion. ' They lie around in their several 
 heaps. As the workmen hoist them 
 to their places, some order seems to 
 begin. Yet it doth not appear what 
 the whole is to be ; nor will the beauty 
 and fairness of the whole appear un- 
 til it is completed. And what a build- 
 ing is whose materials are gathered 
 and gathered ready for construction, 
 that is man in this world, — a creature 
 whose parts are yet under the ham- 
 mer. This virtue, that grace ; this 
 self-denial, that restriction ; this cour- 
 age, that patience ; this faith, that 
 love ; this sentiment, that affection, — 
 all these varied elements, touched now 
 by one instrument, and now by an- 
 other, form, little by little, but never 
 shape into a whole in this world, that 
 structure which is to rise into perfect- 
 ness in the other life. 
 
 2479. Invisible Growths of Good. — 
 You would never know, by looking at 
 a forest of maple trees, that they were 
 manufacturing sugar ; but they are. 
 If it freezes at night, and the sun 
 shines bright in the day, the sap runs, 
 and when the sap runs there is sugar, 
 if you boil the sap down. 
 
 So there are processes going on in 
 humanity that do not at all by their 
 exterior show what their real result is 
 going to be. And a nation that has 
 the church, the school, and the intel- 
 ligent work of industry, has those ele- 
 ments in it which will find the way to 
 prosperity by adjustments through so- 
 cial experiment. 
 
 2480. Men Ready to be Helped. — 
 You never know, till you reach 
 them, how accessible men are ; and 
 if, with an earnest desire to promote 
 their eternal welfare, you seek to 
 bring them to a knowledge of the 
 truth, you shall find that outside of 
 churches, and outside of ordinary in- 
 lluences, by the mystery of provi- 
 dence, as well as by the mystery of 
 grace, God is working in the hearts of 
 men, and preparing them to be gath- 
 ered by us into his fold. 
 
 It is said that at the battle of Sol- 
 ferino, what with the fear of being 
 crushed, what with the mortal fear of 
 the barbarity of the French soldiers, 
 of which they had heard, hundreds of 
 wounded men crept out of the fields 
 into ravines, and coppices, and thick- 
 ets ; that after three days had been 
 passed in searching for them, many 
 were still lying unfound. 
 
 There are hundreds of men hiding 
 themselves in ravines, and coppices, 
 and thickets, on the battlefield of life, 
 who need medicament, healing, care, 
 and consolation ; and if you were to 
 go out searching for them, you would 
 every day find men, here and there, 
 crying out in their distress, and asking 
 for sympathy and help. 
 
 2481. The Loom of Time. — The 
 events that are flying backward and 
 forward in this world are God's shut- 
 tles, that carry the thread out of which 
 are to be woven the garments that we 
 are to wear hereafter ; and blessed are 
 they whose shuttle carries a thread 
 which shall glow in garments of white 
 evermore. 
 
 2482. God's Work Continuous. — 
 When men make a chain, they make 
 the links separately, and join the sec- 
 ond to the first, the third to the sec- 
 ond, the fourth to the third, and so on 
 till the chain is completed ; and it is 
 good for nothing if any link is left out. 
 
THE HUMAN RACE 
 
 529 
 
 We are links of that chain which 
 God is making. Here is a man that 
 undertakes a good work in this world, 
 and carries it forward a certain dis- 
 tance, and then dies. But that work 
 does not stop. Another man takes it 
 up where he left it, and carries it for- 
 ward still farther, and then he dies. 
 Another man takes it up where he 
 left it, and carries it forward farther 
 yet. And so on, this one, and that 
 one, and others that follow them, are 
 links of an endless chain that shall 
 reach to the very heaven. 
 
 2483. March of Humanity. — God's 
 hand, like a sign-board, is pointing to- 
 wards the elevation of mankind, and 
 saying, "This is the way, walk ye in 
 it." The road is very muddy in some 
 spots, and the march will be slow, but 
 the progress will be in one way. 
 Though it be like the march into sum- 
 mer out of winter, self-government 
 will at last be reached. 
 
 2484. Man's Weakness. — Shall I 
 refuse to take my plants because 
 they come up but two leaves ? They 
 were made to come up but two leaves. 
 Shall I refuse to take them because 
 they go through months of evolution 
 before they come to blossom ? They 
 were meant to do so. And shall God 
 turn back from the work of care and 
 kindness, from his faithfulness towards 
 the human race, because the human 
 race, in the earlier periods of their ex- 
 istence, during the period of their 
 growth, are inchoate, rude, full of vari- 
 ous imbecilities ? 
 
 2485. Humanity and the Gospel. — 
 Does the sun shine on the orchard and 
 despise the moss that gathers on the 
 rock ? There is no great and there is 
 no small before the coming of the sun. 
 To the sun all things are small and all 
 things are great, and they all alike re- 
 ceive beneficent power from it. So, 
 in the preaching of the Gospel it is the 
 
 business of every preacher to preach to 
 every man and to all men. Though 
 he may be better adapted to reach 
 some classes than others, yet he must 
 make use of the instrumentation which 
 is put in his hand ; and the spirit, the 
 genius, the inspiration, is man; — not 
 institution, not law, not system, not 
 philosophy, not learning, but man. 
 
 2486. Man's Chaotic Incomplete- 
 ness. — I remember very well when 
 this organ was built. We gave up the 
 lecture-room to it. The materials of 
 which it was constructed were scat- 
 tered about in that room. Various 
 stops, huge pipes and small lay in 
 great confusion up and down through 
 the room, in the midst of all manner 
 of dust and litter. And if you had taken 
 one who had never seen an organ, and 
 shown him the various parts of this 
 one, lying inchoate through the whole 
 adjoining room, how little conception 
 would he have formed of the instru- 
 ment as it now stands, brought to or- 
 der and regularity, tuned, and under 
 a master hand ! Now, we are dis- 
 persed. We are full of crookedness. 
 We are stops and pipes not yet 
 brought to order and regularity, and 
 not yet tuned ; but we are being 
 brought to order and regularity, and 
 are being tuned. " We are sons of 
 God, and it doth not yet appear what 
 we shall be.*' 
 
 2487. Forelooking. — As the leaf and 
 stalk prophesy the blossom, and the 
 blossom prophesies seed and fruit, so 
 it may be that the Divine love to man 
 prophesies something grander than we 
 can now imagine. 
 
 2488, Human Unity and Variety. — 
 Though men say " Yes" to the same 
 things, if you could look back and see 
 that " Yes " on the sensorium ; if you 
 could see the interior picture of which 
 it is the outward expression, you would 
 be convinced that men are capable of 
 
530 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 being united generically, but that spe- 
 cifically they are never just alike. 
 The apple-tree, the quince-tree, the 
 blackberry and the rose all belong to 
 one botanical genus, or family ; but 
 each one is separate and different from 
 the others. Run them back from their 
 specific differences, and you will find 
 that they come nearer and nearer to 
 generic unity. If you say " Patriot- 
 ism," all men agree in a certain sense 
 in regard to it ; but if you question 
 each of them about his idea of patriot- 
 ism you will find that their ideas 
 change until you get down to the vul- 
 gar impulse of the uneducated, bloody 
 man, or until you rise from that to the 
 self-sacrificing and illustrious concep- 
 tion of the poet-patriot. Men vary 
 endlessly in their impressions of pa- 
 triotism, courage, faith, hope, and love. 
 
 2489. Elevation Means Effort. — If 
 you do not want to go upstairs you 
 can always live on the ground floor ; 
 but if you live higher up you have got 
 to go upstairs ; and if the world is 
 going upstairs it has got to work for it 
 — to lift up its feet, and to carry itself 
 up. Settle things as many men would 
 wish, upon a sort of level prosperity 
 and undisturbed tranquillity, and you 
 will get torpidity. It is the running 
 brook that is a healthy brook. It is the 
 brook that won't run that is the 
 swamp ; and the swamp is the mother 
 of malaria ; and malaria is disease 
 and death. 
 
 2490. Temples of God in Humanity. 
 — The earliest temples were built of 
 rude stones, clumsily framed together. 
 Gradually, in after times, these were 
 polished, and the several parts devel- 
 oped into beauty. And then, still 
 later, came the Egyptian period ; and 
 at last the Grecian age, when her im- 
 mortal architects and sculptors, Ictinus 
 and Phidias, combined the successive 
 excellences of the past into a glorious 
 
 symmetry, and placed the Parthenon 
 upon the Acropolis, where from every 
 side men saw the temple of their god- 
 dess glowing in lines of beauty against 
 the clear heaven for a background. 
 And so men work out one quality and 
 another trait, one excellence and an- 
 other attribute, and Christianity at last 
 gathers them all together, giving them 
 fit conjunction and proportion, and 
 places them against the background 
 of the eternal world ! 
 
 2491. The Larger View. — In brood- 
 ing hours of darkness one takes a de- 
 sponding view. When one sees what 
 human nature is, even Christian hu- 
 man nature, when one sees in the great 
 conflict of temptation, in the collisions 
 and strife of the outward world how 
 little stamina there is, and how few men 
 can stand up against temptation, he is 
 almost discouraged. He feels as 
 though men were whitewashed with 
 Christianity and not transformed — 
 changed essentially by it. But when 
 I take a larger view of it, I see that 
 this is a part of that gradual struggle 
 which has been running on through 
 thousands of years, and very likely 
 will run on through thousands of years 
 yet to come, till these animal elements 
 will be finally purged out of it, and a 
 larger intelligence, and a better, more 
 transparent moral element shall reign, 
 to the glory of God and the joy of the 
 universe. 
 
 2492. Man's Capacity for Growth. 
 — Men are carried around now on 
 earth in little pots, as it were ; but they 
 will stand in the other life spreading 
 abroad their branches beyond all 
 measurable space ; and they are valu- 
 able, not for what they show them- 
 selves to be here, but for the capacity 
 which they have in them, and for that 
 which they are going to be. 
 
 2493. Social Averages. — Society 
 moves upon averages. It is not 
 
THE HUMAN RACE 
 
 531 
 
 enough for making society progressive, 
 to develop the top of it. In the dairy 
 it may be all very well to have the 
 cream on the top, but it is very poor 
 in society to have the thing repeated ; 
 for society does not move by the force 
 of its top — that influences some — but 
 it is the average of the mass that either 
 accelerates or retards the movements 
 of society in advance. It is the hull 
 and the freight, and not the sails alone, 
 that determine the quickness of the 
 voyage, and ignorance at the bottom 
 of society over-weights society ; it is 
 obliged to drag this vast bulk. 
 
 2494. Popular Refinement. — In 
 going to my little place in the country, 
 I have often ridden past great tulip 
 trees. I have noticed that those sturdy 
 trees bear just such blossoms, and 
 blossoms as full of beauty and fra- 
 grance, as the tiny tulip-plant does ; 
 and I have thought : "So may it be 
 one day with sturdy labor. May ro- 
 bust laborers ere long be covered over 
 on their sides and tops, as those great 
 stalwart trees are, with blossoms of 
 beauty and refinement." 
 
 2495. Brotherhood and Equality. — 
 Grass is grass, and trees are trees ; 
 and no amount of railing on the part 
 of the one will make it equal to the 
 other. No destruction of the top is 
 going to lift up the bottom. . . . 
 The brotherhood of man does not im- 
 ply any notions of equality, either 
 actual or possible. To the end of the 
 world there will be gradations. 
 
 2496. Value Measured by Brain- 
 power. — Men are ranked according to 
 the part of their brain which is the 
 most productive. The grand blunder 
 of the Commune and of the Interna- 
 tional theories consists in the supposi- 
 tion that men can be made to stand on 
 the same level, whom God did not 
 make of the same force ; and that all 
 men can have precisely the same re- 
 
 muneration, who do not contribute the 
 same quantities to society ; and that 
 the same values attach to manual work 
 which attach to other work ; that the 
 things which are produced by the bot- 
 tom of the brain should bring as much 
 as those which are produced by the 
 top. A man shears sheep. There 
 are five hundred men in his township 
 who can do the same work. The 
 wool, when once it is sheared, is sent 
 to be manufactured — scoured, cleaned, 
 dyed, spun. It is to be woven into a 
 fabric ; but there are not five hundred 
 men who can weave that wool into an 
 exquisite piece of cloth. The man 
 who can do it has something in him 
 finer than the man who can simply 
 shear the wool. Why is the man who 
 weaves paid more than the man who 
 shears ? It is occasioned by the differ- 
 ence which there is between the part 
 of the brain which one sells, and the 
 part of the brain which the other sells. 
 The man who sells work with but little 
 thought in it gets a low price, and the 
 man who sells work with a great deal 
 of thought in it, and fine thought at 
 that, gets a higher price. 
 
 2497. Literal Human Equality Im- 
 possible. — A man taking a watering- 
 pot full of water into his garden, and 
 pouring it down, and determining that 
 he will make a Niagara of it, will suc- 
 ceed just as quick as those who under- 
 take to raise up the poor in thought, 
 the poor in execution, the wasteful and 
 squandering, and make them the 
 equals of the frugal, the thoughtful, 
 the large-minded. 
 
 2498 . Folly of Equalizing Wages. — 
 What if a man should act on the prin- 
 ciple that all grains should be valued 
 alike, not only, but that chaff should 
 be reckoned in the same category ? It 
 would be about as sensible as the at- 
 tempt in the great labor-market to 
 lump men together, and equalize 
 
532 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 them, high and low, strong and weak, 
 skilled and unskilled, and make them 
 all alike, cutting down all natural 
 processes of ranking. 
 
 2499. Worth of Each in His Place. 
 — God deals with us very differently. 
 I have no doubt that on the other side 
 we shall see that there is good reason 
 why every one is what he is. When 
 we evolve and come out we shall all 
 be like flowers in a bouquet, which 
 grow separately, and differ widely, 
 but which, when put together skillfully, 
 are of equal importance. The large 
 ones are no better than the small ones. 
 The fine, dust -like blossoms fill up 
 their own place, and are as essential 
 to the perfection of the whole as any 
 others. 
 
 2500. Significance of the Insignifi- 
 cant. — Did you ever see a mosaic, a 
 picture made of little stones which can 
 be brought in by the bushel or the 
 basket or the cart, and not one of them 
 worth sixpence ? Take them up indi- 
 vidually, and they are of no particular 
 value or beauty ; but when the artist, 
 upon the pliant background, uses one 
 and another, and another, and another, 
 and, having finished in darkness, 
 withdraws the curtain, there shines out 
 Raphael's resplendent Ascension of 
 Christ ; it is made up of all these little 
 insignificant bits of glass and stone. 
 Here we are mere fragments ; but 
 when, after death, we are put together 
 by the hand of the artist, God, we 
 shall find that though individually we 
 amounted to very little, when we are 
 taken collectively, and put into proper 
 relations, the glory of the Lord will 
 shine out of our individual smallness. 
 
 2501. Weak Units Mighty in Com- 
 bination. — What is a drop of water of 
 itself? What can be more harmless? 
 What is weaker? What is less potent 
 for any effect? It is mist, invisible. 
 It rises through the imperceptible paths 
 
 of the air, and hangs unseen in the 
 heavens, till the cold strikes it, and it 
 congeals into clouds, and falls in the 
 form of rain, perhaps upon the moun- 
 tain's top, and is sucked up by the 
 greedy earth. Still sinking through 
 the earth, it reaches the line of the 
 rocks, from whose sides it oozes out 
 and trickles down, when, finding other 
 drops as weak as itself, they unite their 
 forces ; and the sum of the weakness 
 of all these drops goes to make the 
 rill ; which flows on, making music as 
 it flows, until it meets counter streams. 
 These, combined, form the river ; the 
 river forms the estuary ; and the estu- 
 aries the ocean itself. And now, when 
 God has marshaled the sum of the 
 weakness of myriad drops together, 
 they lift the mightiest ship as if it were 
 but a feather, and play with the winds 
 as if they were mere instruments of 
 sport. And yet, that very drop, which 
 a man could bear upon the end of his 
 finger, is there, and has its part and lot 
 in the might of the whole vast, un- 
 bounded sea. 
 
 We in our singleness, in our indi- 
 viduality, in our own selves, are 
 weaker than a drop of water, and more 
 unstable ; but as kept together by the 
 mighty currents which God's provi- 
 dences make, as gathered together in 
 the great ocean of life, we attain, work- 
 ing together with him, under the in- 
 spiration of his Spirit, to a might that 
 makes life not ignoble, but sublime. 
 
 2502. Popular Intelligence. — The 
 moment the sap begins to rise under 
 the warmth of the spring's sun, that 
 moment the tree begins to feel that it 
 must do something. The bud wakes 
 up, the leaves are getting ready, the 
 very twigs themselves are empurpled 
 and change color. Popular intelli- 
 gence — the growth of knowledge of 
 the common people, which is promoted 
 by schools all over the world, by the 
 
THE HUMAN RACE 
 
 533 
 
 facility of books and literature, by the 
 intercourse of man with man, through 
 commerce, through war, through 
 everything ; the development of the 
 thought-power and will-power of the 
 great mass of men at the bottom of 
 society — this is the sap that is bringing 
 spring and summer to the human 
 race. 
 
 2503. Silent Coming of Great 
 Events. — The gravest events dawn 
 with no more noise than the morning 
 star makes in rising. All great devel- 
 opments complete themselves in the 
 world, and modestly wait in silence, 
 praising themselves never, and an- 
 nouncing themselves not at all. 
 
 2504. Upward Progress of Human- 
 ity. — Day and night, the tides are ris- 
 ing along our shores, filling bay and 
 estuary, silently for the most part, yet 
 surely. The power that draws them 
 resides afar off in the heavenly bodies, 
 and is not seen nor noticed, but only 
 inferred. All the goodness of men, 
 their generous impulses, their loves 
 and faiths and inspirations of purity, 
 their zeal and enthusiasm in self-denial 
 and devotion — that great human tide 
 of goodness which is moving in upon 
 the human heart — is derived from 
 God, who, afar off, silent as the moon 
 in summer nights, is drawing all men 
 unto him. The rising of the waters 
 towards the planets is by force : the 
 rising of human affections is by influ- 
 ence. Matter has no conscious part 
 in its own motion. But though God 
 efficiently quickens men, they work 
 together with him responding to his 
 influence, and are drawn towards him. 
 
 In God's creation we find a steady 
 progress from force towards voluntary 
 life, from power towards persuasion, 
 from coercion towards liberty. The 
 lines of development in the human 
 race are running steadily in these 
 directions. 
 
 2505. Dangers of Co-operative Capi- 
 tal. — Many thought that when slavery 
 was overthrown the devils had gone 
 out of the nation. Nay, they only 
 changed quarters, and as yet no steep 
 place has been found down which the 
 infernal brood has rushed to destruc- 
 tion. Mammon, enthroned in privi- 
 lege, is our danger and our despot. 
 Capital may, if wisely used, overhang 
 the land like beneficent clouds, drop- 
 ping down bounty upon every leaf and 
 blade that grows ; or, it may hang 
 above us surcharged with lightning, 
 and move like a destroying storm. 
 
 2506. The Coming Day. — Suppose 
 that when Moses divided the Red Sea, 
 and brought the Israelites into the 
 wilderness, some one had unrolled to 
 him this fair republic, settled in ten 
 thousand valleys, and on as many 
 hills, from ocean to ocean, by an in- 
 telligent and prosperous people. Sup- 
 pose some one had unfolded to him 
 the laws and institutions of this land, 
 which are God-created, and shall en- 
 dure because they are God-sustained. 
 Suppose these things had been por- 
 trayed to the magistrate of the desert, 
 as he was making his first mark. Do 
 you think that even Moses could have 
 believed them possible ? He could 
 not. 
 
 And now, when for nearly four 
 thousand years since Moses the world 
 has been growing and growing in 
 every direction, when the material 
 treasure of the world has been vastly 
 augmented, and when the mental re- 
 sources of the race have been very 
 much developed, it seems impossible 
 to imagine a time in the distant future, 
 not when there will be a general aver- 
 age intelligence merely, but when 
 every person will have such strength, 
 such purity, such volume and vastness 
 of nature, that he can rely upon his 
 own integrity ; that he can stand on 
 
534 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 his own root ; tliat he can take care 
 of himself. But such a time is coming. 
 
 2507. The Ages to Come. — If fifty 
 men in Bedlam, each having a sepa- 
 rate instrument of music, should play 
 on that instrument, each in his own 
 way, and without any reference to the 
 others, who, going by, could form any 
 idea of what would come from those 
 instruments if every one of these men, 
 having got back to his reason, was 
 playing in perfect harmony and in a 
 sweet concord ? The hideous cacoph- 
 ony, the din and the jar, of such a 
 Bedlamite band — would it not be very 
 much hke the play of our affections 
 and feelings — sweet instruments, but 
 played in horrible dissonance ? And 
 what shall that state be in which God 
 shall make the whole of them to be 
 united sympathetically, and all of 
 them played together in harmony — 
 every power, every emotion, every 
 instinct of love, sweetened, deepened, 
 broadened, inspired, rendered divine 
 by the presence of God ? But this is 
 for " the ages to come." 
 
 2508. The World's Long Growth. — 
 The world is nothing but a great com- 
 plex seed ; and that it is growing and 
 developing, that it is to go through 
 periods that are not days, nor one 
 summer, but ages in the vast period of 
 time, and that it shall at last come to 
 its blossoming period, is no more sur- 
 prising than that a plant should go 
 through all its periods, and come to its 
 blossoming period. 
 
 The seed runs through its organic 
 periods of development in a single 
 summer ; but even in the vegetable 
 kingdom, time becomes of vast im- 
 portance. An acorn and a cone of 
 pine, as we now know, carry centuries 
 in them. There are cedars of Lebanon 
 growing to-day, probably, which saw 
 King Hiram's lumbermen when cut- 
 ting down their fellows to get timber 
 
 for the temple of Solomon, and heard 
 them say, as they went by : " Spare 
 them, they are not yet big enough." 
 The great trees of California were 
 giants when Columbus espied our 
 shores. They were large and vigorous 
 when the unknown and now perished 
 race were building the cities of Central 
 America, whose mere ruins, almost 
 overgrown, remain to us. 
 
 Now, as it takes a vast amount of 
 time to develop a perfect vegetable, 
 which is simple, compared with socie- 
 ties of men and races, why is it sur- 
 prising that the greater thing, the later 
 and sublimer development, the unit 
 of a final and perfected society, 
 should run through long ages and 
 cycles? 
 
 2509. God's Kingdom a Long Re- 
 sult of Time. — Late in the history of 
 the world came Michael Angelo. 
 There had been painters before him ; 
 and there had been painters before 
 them ; and there had been painters 
 before them again. He was the prod- 
 uct of generations of striving men. 
 And what he did — well, he did it ; but 
 he was simply the point through 
 which all the efforts of the time past 
 were expressing themselves. His art 
 was the result of ages. Great as he 
 was, he stood in his place in a long 
 line of those who before him were 
 working out the beautiful art by Di- 
 vine guidance. And so, this kingdom 
 of God, which consists in the sum of 
 all the sanctified forces of the human 
 race on earth, and which is a gradual 
 and progressive kingdom, has been 
 spreading from the first, sometimes in 
 one direction and sometimes in an- 
 other ; to-day in this nation, and to- 
 morrow in another nation, and the 
 next day in another. But the sum of 
 all is finally to be gathered up by the 
 great Worker, the one Artist, the only 
 supervising Mind — God. 
 
THE HUMAN RACE 
 
 535 
 
 2510. World-Neighborhood. — Our 
 magnificent harvest this year taxes the 
 car, boat, and ship for its conveyance ! 
 It makes America the purveyor and 
 benefactor of impoverished nations 
 abroad, whose famine keeps Fast to- 
 day, while we roll in abundance and 
 keep Thanksgiving. The world is but 
 a neighborhood. Such is the facility 
 of travel that one continent compen- 
 sates the unequal seasons of another. 
 This interlacing is but the primary and 
 rude form of interchange which, with 
 growing intelligence and skill in all 
 nations, will bring in the joyful day of 
 freedom to commerce and trade. 
 Then, when we have free schools, free 
 books, free papers, free conscience, 
 free suffrage for man and for woman, 
 and free trade, the whole world will 
 have advanced far towards a world of 
 fellow men — towards brotherhood and 
 universal liberty. 
 
 251 1. Warlike Energies Used for 
 Peace. — It does not follow, because we 
 do not any longer make war upon 
 each other, that the armed hand will 
 go out of use. No, swords are not to 
 be thrown away ; they are to be 
 beaten into pruning-hooks. The 
 spear is not to be wasted ; it is to be 
 made into an instrument of industry. 
 So the crushing power, the organized 
 physical force, that men now form into 
 armies, and by which they sweep fel- 
 low nations, is to be directed against 
 nature — against the soil, against the 
 rock, against metal. We are to pierce 
 mountains ; we are to tunnel hills ; we 
 are to cut ways for industry ; we are to 
 rear up fleets ; we are to battle storms. 
 We are to be warriors still, but war- 
 riors for peace. And the ratio of civ- 
 ilization will be found to be just in 
 proportion to the difference that exists 
 between the use of physical force for 
 managing men, and the use of phys- 
 ical force for controlling nature. 
 
 2512. Fanaticism of the Je ws . — An 
 Oriental nation is peculiarly accessible 
 to excitement, and the Jews above all 
 Orientals were open to its influence. 
 Fanaticism lay dormant in every 
 heart. Every Jew was like a grain of 
 powder, harmless and small until 
 touched by the spark, and then in- 
 stantly swelling with irresistible and 
 immeasurable force. 
 
 2513. Moral Inferiority of the Greeks . 
 — The Greek nation was and is con- 
 spicuous above all that ever lived for 
 intellectual genius. But in so far as 
 any genuine development of social and 
 moral character was concerned, you 
 might as well undertake to bring forth 
 harvest by starlight, as to have 
 brought forth morality by Greek intel- 
 lectual superiority. It was a nation 
 beyond every other nation on the globe 
 blessed with genius and cursed with 
 immorahty. There never was con- 
 science enough in the Greek people to 
 maintain a cohesion that should estab- 
 lish a government, and they fell apart 
 and perished in their own moral rot- 
 tenness. 
 
 2514. French Estheticism. — The 
 French people imagine themselves to 
 be the modern Greeks. They are, in 
 just the same way that swallows are 
 eagles ! The Greek was at one ex- 
 treme a sensualist, and at the other 
 extreme a rationalist. The French 
 have all the Greek sensuousness ; they 
 have modern sentimentality, which 
 the Greeks had not ; and they lack the 
 abstract reasoning which the Greeks 
 had. So they imitate the Greek at one 
 end, and that the lower and less. 
 
 2515. The Irish. — The Irish people 
 stand alone. They are the most mer- 
 curial, the most generous, the most 
 distinguished for men of genius, the 
 most admirable creatures that ever 
 troubled the earth. Whether Ireland 
 will ever be quiet depends on how 
 
S^(' 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 many Irishmen emigrate. They are 
 like whiskey, — not to be taken straight, 
 but in mixture. 
 
 2516. Germanic Spirit of Freedom. 
 — We do not know exactly what is to 
 take place in Germany. We know 
 two things — that God reigns in heaven, 
 and Bismarck on earth ! When Bis- 
 marck dies, I do not know what the 
 Lord will do ; something very different, 
 I think, though. There is so much in- 
 telligence, such a dawning sense of 
 civil liberty, such an expansible force 
 there, that though there may be a good 
 deal of dislocation and ground-heav- 
 ing, yet Germany, the Germanic stock, 
 out of which have come most of our 
 free institutions, laws, customs, will, I 
 think, assert itself. Long smothered 
 and held under, after a suitable time 
 it will come to supremacy. 
 
 2517. Despotism in Russia, — If you 
 look at Russia it seems anomalous ; 
 but it is not. It is avast inchoate em- 
 pire made up of multitudes of people 
 undertaking to live by the absolute 
 will of the Emperor. If he could 
 keep all people at a certain level, and 
 take cognizance of it, Russia might 
 get along very well ; but you cannot 
 repress the intelligence that comes 
 from the enlightenment of the com- 
 mon people. It drifts through the air ; 
 it is infectious, blessedly infectious ; 
 and in all the provinces of Russia there 
 is more or less development of human 
 consciousness ; it is fermenting. There 
 are no channels through which the 
 great mass of the Russian peasants and 
 citizens, with their rising intelligence 
 and will, can act with the government. 
 It acts on them, and does not want 
 any reaction from them on it. This 
 will be reconstructed. The recon- 
 struction will come through long 
 periods of sorrow and distress ; and 
 yet, in the centuries it will be a won- 
 derful mercy. It is like the plowing 
 
 of an old field ; it turns under the 
 grass and roots that remain ; it turns 
 under weeds ; it turns under the nests 
 of mice and sparrows ; it turns under 
 crickets and insects : but the crop that 
 comes afterwards makes up for the 
 whole. 
 
 2518. Negro and Indian, — The Afri- 
 can is as different from the Indian as 
 the vine is from the bamboo. A bam- 
 boo grows without a tendril from top 
 to bottom, and does not touch any- 
 thing ; and that is the way the Indian 
 grows. The vine, as it grows, throws 
 tendrils out on every side, at every 
 point, and in every direction. It 
 clasps and leans upon everything that 
 it can reach. And so it is with the 
 African. 
 
 2519, The American Negro, — I do 
 not expect the blacks ever to come to 
 their full possession of liberty and 
 civility until they have had the equiv- 
 alent of the Jews' forty years of pil- 
 grimage. For saying so ten years ago 
 [in 1866] I was held in derision and 
 contempt by the Republican press at 
 large ; but we shall have, at our leis- 
 ure, time to revise all such judgments 
 as that. Whenever you can construct 
 human nature by a vote, or change it 
 by legislation ; whenever you can 
 handle men as the potter handles clay, 
 then you may by an edict convert 
 slaves into intelligent men instantly, 
 blowing them, as you would soap-bub- 
 bles, into objects of beauty ! But hu- 
 man nature is the toughest thing that 
 man ever works on. To take four 
 million men of an inferior race, edu- 
 cated in the school of slavery, and, by 
 a constitutional vote of the people, 
 make them as if they had never been 
 ignorant slaves, is impossible ; and if 
 men have expected it, it only shows to 
 what overfed enthusiasm they were led. 
 
 Men £-fV2v : and of all growths there 
 is nothing that grows so slowly as 
 
THE HUMAN RACE 
 
 537 
 
 manhood. The reason why it grows 
 so slowly is that there is so much of it, 
 that it is so subtle, and that it is so 
 precious in its results — for the best 
 things are the scarcest, and are the 
 longest in coming to perfection. 
 
 2520. Delight of Peace After War. 
 — [December, 1865.] The sudden and 
 complete extinction of a national con- 
 flagration of unparalleled magnitude 
 has in it something that is sublime. 
 The roar of battles has ceased ; armies 
 are dissolved ; squadrons that shook 
 the continent are distributed through 
 shops, upon farms, and in all the ways 
 of commerce. The suddenness of the 
 beginning of the war has no parallel, 
 except in the suddenness of its close. 
 It opened with a sweep of fire, wide 
 and rushing, like autumnal burnings 
 on the prairie. It closed as when 
 equinoctial storms pour down on the 
 conflagration, and in one night drown 
 every spark. And the end is com- 
 plete and peremptory. No fretting 
 and fiery edges of war remain; no 
 spiteful guerillas ; no dens and lairs of 
 skulking soldiery. The shock is over, 
 and peace is established, to the con- 
 fusion of every foreign prophet who 
 predicted a long and tedious issue. 
 How grateful is peace ! 
 
 2521. Nomadic Americans. — Our 
 people, nomadic as the Arabs, impetu- 
 ous as the Goths and Huns, pour 
 themselves along our Western border, 
 carrying with them all their wealth 
 and their institutions. They drive 
 schools along with them as shepherds 
 drive sheep, and troops of colleges go 
 lowing over the Western plains like 
 Jacob's kine. 
 
 2522. The Common Language of 
 America. — The time was when the na- 
 tions of the earth were gathered round 
 the old Tower of Babel to build it, 
 and there was confusion of tongues, 
 and they were driven apart from each 
 
 other, and went every whither because 
 they could not understand each other; 
 but God has founded this continent as 
 a new tower, and men that are speak- 
 ing different languages are coming to- 
 gether to build it up ; and they do un- 
 derstand what each other is saying in 
 silent language, and that is, that every 
 other man is a brother. What was 
 dispersed at the Tower of Babel is 
 brought together again in America. 
 
 2523. The Chinese in America. — We 
 are in danger of repeating in our deal- 
 ings with this race, the same violences 
 which have so disfigured our history 
 in reference to the African. It is the 
 lion and the bear that will not suffer 
 anything to come near them without 
 putting their paw upon it ; and it is the 
 animal blood-loving element in nations 
 that rends the weak and the poor in 
 their neighborhood. 
 
 If this great civilized and Christian 
 commonwealth cannot endure the con- 
 tact of the Mongolian race, they 
 should no longer lay claim to civi- 
 lization and Christianity ; for the 
 Christianity, the civilization, that sets 
 itself against human beings of any 
 class or country, instead of being the 
 wisdom of God and the power of God 
 unto salvation, is a mere soap-bubble, 
 and the sooner it is burst the better. 
 I am not sure that it would not be a 
 good exchange to export some of our 
 own heathen, and bring back some of 
 the decent heathen from foreign lands 
 in their place. 
 
 2524. The Rise of Humanity. — The 
 mistakes of men in one generation 
 have constituted the seed-wheat of 
 truths for the next generation. The 
 heresies of one age are the orthodoxies 
 of the next age. The infidelities of 
 one period are the fidelities of another 
 period. So the world has gone on 
 opening and thinking, in chains, in 
 bonds, and in gyves. Under all man- 
 
538 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 ner of hindrances men have thought ; 
 and much good has been wrought out 
 by their thinking. But nothing ever 
 had so hard a time in this world as the 
 spiritual in man striving to get out of 
 the reach of the material. It seems as 
 though every man were born with a 
 lion under him, and an angel on him, 
 — and the angel has a hard time ! 
 
 2525. Rise of the People. — When 
 Christ was on earth potentates were 
 kings " by the decree of God" ; subjects 
 were to be obedient to them as a part 
 of their duty to God ; and subjects 
 had no rights which kings were bound 
 to respect. If a king was humane, 
 just and merciful, it was an accom- 
 plishment ; and if he was not, he had 
 a right to do what he pleased with his 
 own : but to-day there is not a king in 
 Europe that dare pronounce such a 
 doctrine as that with any practical fol- 
 lowing of it. Every man that reads or 
 thinks knows that in the civilization of 
 the globe, magistrates are servants, 
 not masters. The people are the power. 
 All authority is in them. . . . Never 
 were there so many kings gone on pil- 
 grimage as there have been within the 
 last fifty years, ousted, thrust off from 
 their thrones, sent abroad. There has 
 been a gradual unfolding through cen- 
 turies. When you look at the abso- 
 lute subjection of the people two thou- 
 sand years ago, and at their imperious 
 and imperial rule to-day, in the great 
 civilized nations of the earth, you will 
 see what a change has run through the 
 world. 
 
 2526. Elevation of Christian Democ- 
 racy. — When you cross the continent 
 westward on the Union Pacific Rail- 
 way, and reach the Rocky Mountains, 
 you do not know it. You have been 
 running up at a rate that seemed as if 
 you were in a valley, almost. It was 
 simply because the grade was so easy 
 that when you got up to the top of the 
 
 mountains they did not seem any 
 higher than the plains below, and it 
 was rising so gradually that first made 
 them seem so low. But when you begin 
 to go on the other side, and plunge down 
 the gorges and caiions, the mountains 
 seem very high from those low points. 
 The general tendency of Christian 
 democratic institutions is to raise the 
 average of mankind, and as the aver- 
 age goes up it becomes harder and 
 harder for single men to stand as much 
 above the level of their fellow-men as 
 they did formerly. 
 
 2527. Human and Divine View of 
 Man. — Measured by their secular 
 value, the greatest part of the human 
 family are scarcely deserving of sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 There are ten hundred million men 
 on the globe to-day, and I declare that 
 the greater part of them are no better 
 than caterpillars, so far as anything 
 that they have done, or are doing, in 
 this world is concerned. Caterpillars 
 creep up on trees, and grow fat, and 
 curl up, and die, and that is the his- 
 tory of the greatest number of the 
 human race. And now, of the vast 
 swarms of human creatures on the 
 earth, of the ten hundred million in- 
 habitants of the globe, if you were to 
 sweep out all except those who 
 are making an impression on life, 
 and who are measured by what 
 they are doing, there would scarcely 
 be one hundred million left ; the 
 immense, immense majority would 
 sink into utter contempt ! And noth- 
 ing can redeem them from that state, 
 but the belief that every one of them 
 carries a spark which, though it be but 
 the least sparkle of a flickering light, 
 is to kindle the wick of that lamp 
 which is never to go out. They are 
 little enough now, because they have 
 not grown much : but their life is not 
 to end here ; it has only just begun; 
 
THE HUMAN RACE 
 
 539 
 
 it is to go sphering onward and onward 
 beyond this world. 
 
 2528. The Past not to Rule the 
 Present. — The acorn has to die before 
 the oak-tree can start. Early and 
 rude developments are superseded by 
 later and higher developments. The 
 plowmen of our time do not shape 
 their plows after the plows of antedi- 
 luvian times, which were only crooked 
 sticks. It is preposterous to say that 
 we must go back to the past to find out 
 what we may do. 
 
 2529. Modern Increase of Fine 
 Character. — As the sun never had such 
 harvests as now, so there were never 
 such harvests of the Sun of Righteous- 
 ness as now. As there is more raised 
 in the State of Illinois in a year now 
 than there was in ten thousand years 
 before the prairies were brought into a 
 state of cultivation, so the products of 
 morality and spirituality in this world 
 are much more abundant to-day than 
 they ever were before. In proportion 
 as the minds of men are cleared, 
 broken up, and rendered susceptible 
 to the activity of the Divine mind, hu- 
 man inspiration is increased, individ- 
 ual by individual, family by family, 
 and nation by nation. 
 
 2530. Brotherhood Growing. — Take 
 the element of humanity. Was there 
 ever a time when the whole world's 
 heart throbbed as it does to-day in 
 response to calls for help that come 
 from the needy? Let Chicago be 
 burned, and, before the last peal of 
 the alarm bells has sounded, from 
 London thousands and hundreds of 
 thousands of dollars are coming in. 
 Let there be famine in India, and 
 American Christians instantly send 
 ships thither laden with supplies. Let 
 disease sweep New Orleans, and every 
 village or hamlet in New England 
 takes steps for its relief. And do you 
 tell me that humanity is growing less? 
 
 It never was so broad and high and 
 deep as it is to-day. 
 
 2531. Benefactions of Inventors. — 
 Inventors pre-eminently are benefac- 
 tors, if they but knew it, and would 
 take a benevolent view of their occu- 
 piitions. A tool is but the extension 
 of a man's hand ; and a machine is 
 but a complex tool. And he that in- 
 vents a machine augments the power 
 of man. Men are as much mightier 
 to-day than they were five hundred 
 years ago, as all the machines of the 
 world make them to be. For the ma- 
 chinery of the globe, after all, is but 
 the manhood of the globe, and repre- 
 sents human power as it has been or- 
 ganized. And he who increases this 
 power by inventing a machine or tool, 
 although he walks frequently unrec- 
 ognized except as a mere commercial- 
 ist, although he is called a mechanic, 
 yet, if he be wise, he is a benefactor, 
 and has a right to think so. 
 
 2532. Divine Law of Betterment. — 
 The treatment that is recorded from 
 Genesis to Revelation indicates that 
 somewhere or other there was an un- 
 derlying science with regard to the 
 characters of men. All solid science 
 is working in this direction. Science 
 is finding out what was hidden, and 
 making known the unknown ; and the 
 road that it is walking on to-day it has 
 found recorded not on papyrus or 
 parchment, not written on any tablet 
 of brass or perishable stone, not ciph- 
 ered on undecipherable brick, nor on 
 any monument high in the air like 
 Cleopatra's needle, but on the humble, 
 low-lying rocks that contain the rec- 
 ords of the earth's history. Science is 
 deciphering it ; and among other 
 things it says, " We have found out 
 from these documents, preserved 
 through uncountable ages, that things 
 began at the very simplest elements. 
 We have found out that there was a 
 
540 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 current of influence which carried 
 them on from siniphcity to complexity, 
 and that tliere was an influence that 
 carried them up from complexity to 
 still higher and higher development 
 and evolution, both of function and 
 organ. We have found out that there 
 is a stream of tendency that goes from 
 worse to better, from lower to higher, 
 from less beautiful to more beautiful, 
 and from less useful to more useful." 
 
 2533. Falling by the Way. — What 
 army ever marched without raising the 
 dust, without having some fall out of 
 the ranks, without more or less igno- 
 rance, and more or less sickness? And 
 shall the whole population of the globe, 
 in its unequalcd expansion and devel- 
 opment, be supposed to go from lower 
 to higher with no disturbance, no mis- 
 chief? 
 
 2534. Order in Disorder. — There 
 seems to have been in this great turbu- 
 lent world no more order, law, pro- 
 cedure, than there is when two whirl- 
 winds meet upon the ocean, and the 
 heavens are black and vociferous with 
 thunder, and the ocean is torn and 
 scattered every whither; yet even in 
 the most rending storms there are laws 
 as clear and as determinate as those 
 that are found in crystallography or in 
 growth. There are laws under dis- 
 order just as much as under order; 
 and to those who look out upon the 
 world as it is and has been, and have 
 seen the universal strife and disorder, 
 and have almost fallen into the unbe- 
 lief of a providence, or of any tend- 
 ency in human affairs, it is a great 
 comfort if they can believe that, 
 slowly as it is unfolding, there is a 
 great tendency, and that the termina- 
 tion of it, like the termination of vege- 
 table growth, shall be the blossom and 
 the fruit. 
 
 2535. Law in the World's Tumult. 
 — If you want to see confusion ap- 
 
 parently worse confounded, go into 
 a general post-office. Bushels of let- 
 ters are tumbled around the great 
 center-table. The nimble hands of 
 the men catch them up faster than you 
 or I can follow them, and every letter 
 is turned the right way. After going 
 through certain processes they are 
 thrown into leather bags that are scat- 
 tered all about the room, according to 
 their respective destinations. The 
 morning comes, and the mails go out, 
 and each one of that enormous pile 
 that seemed so tangled and confused 
 having a special message and direc- 
 tion, takes its own course. Though it 
 seemed impossible that they could 
 reach the places for which they were 
 intended, they go north, and south, 
 and east, and west, through streams 
 and over railroads, and one is dropped 
 in this hamlet, another in that village, 
 and another in some other place, till 
 they are all properly distributed. A 
 million letters go forth from this single 
 point, and not one fails to reach the 
 person to whom it is addressed. 
 
 Now the world is God's great post- 
 office, where everything is turmoil and 
 apparent disorder ; but there is a dis- 
 tributive hand of Providence by which 
 all things are disentangled. The issues 
 and results show that in the midst of 
 this tumult and disorder there is a 
 guiding Power. 
 
 2536. Regulation of Popular Unrest. 
 — See what the ocean can do. Why, it 
 storms and puts out the sun ! It sends 
 to the bottom as an eggshell, the 
 stoutest men-of-war. It lifts itself up 
 in wrath such as no man can restrain, 
 and men cower before it, and are as 
 mere pigmies. Yet, a night goes, and 
 the ocean is a mirror ; and the sun has 
 not yet been wiped out ; and in its 
 wildest confusion there was just as 
 much law as in its calm, and under- 
 neath it was held by the hand of Om- 
 
THE HUMAN RACE 
 
 541 
 
 nipotence. These were but moods ; 
 yet all such moods run by law : and 
 in regard to the tumults of the people, 
 the concussions of interests, and all the 
 changes that are going on, they are 
 under regulation ; the calm will come. 
 
 2537. World-Restlessness. — All Eu- 
 rope to-day may be said to be boiling 
 like a crater or a cauldron. It is at- 
 tributed by some to the unmannerly 
 restlessness of the common people, 
 and by some irreligiousness and infi- 
 delity are said to be the causes of it. 
 That there may be some complication 
 given to it by those undertones or dis- 
 temperatures is very possible ; but I 
 see in all these things the movement 
 of that divine universal Providence 
 which is lifting the world steadily up 
 from its lower forms and conditions to 
 higher ones. 
 
 2538. Advance of Truth by Science. 
 — Science has, one might say, un- 
 packed the world ; for the world has 
 been hke a huge trunk, with all sorts 
 of things, fancy and worthless, in it ; 
 and science has picked the lock, and 
 opened the lid, and is gradually taking 
 out the contents. 
 
 2539. An Era for Glad Life. — It is 
 a period of the world when men 
 should take courage and be glad. I 
 thank God every morning and every 
 night, and a thousand times a day, 
 that he permitted me to be born in such 
 an age as this. Now a man lives a 
 year in a day. Now men are not liv- 
 ing in the world's January, in mid- 
 winter, in a frozen ground where the 
 roots can suck no juice, where no 
 leaves are playing in the wind ; we 
 are living in the month of May, when 
 winter is gone, when the snows no 
 longer cover deeply the earth, and 
 when birds are singing in the air. 
 There are storms, to be sure, but, 
 after every thunderstorm, the leaves 
 play, the roots grow, and ten thousand 
 
 influences are operating to bring sum- 
 mer. Let us, then, be patient. Let us 
 be hopeful. Let us have faith in God. 
 
 2540. The Chicago Fire : a Lesson 
 in Heroism. — Where a whole commu- 
 nity of men, who have been known as 
 headlong in enterprise, as almost reck- 
 less in speculation, were visited by this 
 sweeping judgment, which paralyzed 
 and bewildered those even a thousand 
 miles distant, stand up again after this 
 raging fire, brave and strong, their ex- 
 hibition of manhood is incalculable in 
 its benefit to the whole human family. 
 It is a treasure to Asia, and may 
 awake even her sluggish life. It is a 
 treasure to Europe. It is a treasure 
 wherever men care for and think 
 about men. And tens of thousands 
 of youth will be more than they would 
 have been if it were not for this her- 
 oism. Men in ranks, by hundreds, 
 communities of men, will be nobler 
 and more courageous for having be- 
 held such a spectacle. Burn, build- 
 ings ! go down, churches ! that we 
 may see what lies beyond you. What 
 the church has bred, and what the 
 family has nourished, we see when the 
 church is gone and the house has per- 
 ished, and nothing is left but the men 
 that have been made in them. 
 
 2541. Three Stages of World- 
 Growth. — I believe I have not used it 
 for four or five years, though I often 
 used it before that time — the figure 
 that Agassiz uses ; namely, that the 
 growth of a plant is in three stages : 
 first, by the root, which is invisible, 
 and is the slowest and longest ; second, 
 by the stem, which is accelerated, and 
 perhaps not half as long ; and third, 
 by maturation or ripening, which is 
 the quickest of all. The root takes a 
 great while to grow ; the stem takes a 
 Httle less time ; and when these two 
 have become developed, they rush to 
 the blossom, and through the blossom 
 
542 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 to the fruit. And the last of the three 
 periods is the shortest. 
 
 So it is in history. The carher 
 stages are very slow ; the intermediate 
 stages are far faster ; and the final or 
 ripening stages are very rapid. 
 
 Now, as the past has been largely 
 occupied by root-growth in moral 
 things, and as the present may be con- 
 sidered the period of growth by the 
 stem, so I think we are standing on the 
 eve of the period of growth by matura- 
 tion and ripening. And when the 
 world has entered upon this last period, 
 then things will go forward with greater 
 strides. Then the steps will be quicker 
 and quicker, and the fruits will be 
 more abundant. 
 
 2542. Upward Movement of the 
 Ages. — In organic and material nature 
 there is an impulse, whatever it may 
 be, by which things unfold and work 
 steadily towards higher excellence. 
 It is with immense waste, it is circui- 
 tous, slow, with something of retro- 
 action ; but the unfolding of nature by 
 this mute and latent tendency to go 
 towards a better future, leavens the 
 world like yeast, and develops it as 
 well. This is the spirit of the ages, 
 the genius of the universe. All crea- 
 tion is on the march. The stars are 
 revolving. The dead crust of the 
 earth feels the necessity of moving. 
 The whole vegetable kingdom is mov- 
 ing onward and upward. The animal 
 kingdom, too, keeps step, unconscious 
 of the impelling cause. Man, as if he 
 heard the music drowsily and afar ofif, 
 joins the strange procession, and strug- 
 gles on and upward also. 
 
 It is a strange march of creation, 
 moving to unheard music, with unseen 
 banners, to some great enterprise. 
 When it shall finally encamp, and 
 hang out the banners of victory, no 
 one knoweth but Him who liveth in 
 eternity, before whom a thousand 
 
 years are but as one day, and one day 
 as a thousand years. 
 
 2543. Salvation of the Race. — Dis- 
 miss the unworthy conceptions of 
 Christ's " saving " which have sprung 
 from a judgment formed upon the in- 
 choate and undeveloped state of 
 things that has existed hitherto. Many 
 men seem to think that the Gospel is 
 sent into this world as a lifeboat, to 
 pick off from the foundering wreck as 
 many of the great population as they 
 possibly can, and let the rest go down. 
 Thousands of churches and societies 
 proceed upon the philosophy that there 
 is no use of attempting to save the race. 
 But Christianity is not a mere wreck- 
 er's boat. In saving men, we ought 
 to do it with the feeling that we are 
 aiming towards the final consummation 
 — the salvation of mankind. 
 
 2544. The Splendor of Hope. — 
 Looking down through the ages and 
 hearing the thunder of groans, and the 
 clash of battles, and seeing rivers of 
 blood still rolling along the gulf-stream 
 of time, seeing the world bestormed, 
 and lurid tornadoes sweeping over the 
 earth, it is an unspeakable gladness to 
 see at the end, and on the horizon, the 
 bright and glowing colors of triumph. 
 I stop to gaze ; and that administra- 
 tion which has seemed so doubtful, so 
 dark, seems lighter and plainer. They 
 who stand disengaged from the igno- 
 rance and darkness of time ; they who 
 are lifted up, and are at a point of 
 vision where they can see the past, the 
 present and the future — I behold them, 
 not bearing witness to us, but in their 
 own unconsciousness breaking out 
 into ecstasies of gladness because God 
 is justified. He who brought into ex- 
 istence this globe, with all its miser- 
 able populations, in the last estate 
 shall be glorified in the thought and 
 feeling of those who behold the end as 
 well as look back to the beginning. 
 
NATURE 
 
 543 
 
 XLIV, NATURE 
 
 2545. Love of Flowers. — A man 
 that carries a garden in his heart, has 
 got back again a part of the Eden 
 from which our great forefather was 
 expelled. 
 
 2546. The Poet's Inspiration. — God 
 gave Shakespeare power to breathe 
 himself upon the world, and God gave 
 us that nature by which we feel the in- 
 spiration. Is this divine arrangement 
 exhausted in man's earthly history ? 
 
 2547. Illustrations from Nature. — 
 Artificial hieroglyphics differ with age 
 and nation. The Oriental cities had 
 their special characters — the Egyptian 
 his — the Aztec his ; and they differ 
 one from another, so that one could 
 not have read the written signs of the 
 other. But the sun, the mountain, the 
 ocean, the storm, the rain, the snow, 
 the winds, lions and eagles, the spar- 
 row and the dove, the lily and the 
 rose, grass, earth, stones, and dirt, are 
 the same in all ages, in all latitudes, to 
 all people. And those truths that are 
 expressed in the figures drawn from 
 the natural world have relationships ; 
 they are the most useful of all in the 
 Bible, and the most frequent. 
 
 2548. Mother Nature. — He early 
 manifested a strong taste for Natural 
 Science, yet was never satisfied with 
 that part which the books contain, but, 
 with an instinct as strong as that which 
 leads an infant to its mother's breast 
 for food, he turned from the dry de- 
 scriptions and classifications to the 
 living things themselves. 
 
 2549. Artificial Religious Symbols. 
 — I admit the need which men have 
 of some concrete representation of in- 
 visible truths. For that express pur- 
 pose the whole globe has been fash- 
 ioned. But men are absolutely afraid 
 of Materialism in religion ! They 
 dread to use the instruments which 
 
 God ordained. With the saddest ego- 
 tism, they set up artificial signs that at 
 best but poorly suggest the pure, the 
 true, the good, the infinite. Stars and 
 suns give way to candles ; cotton and 
 wool from the loom set aside the gar- 
 ments of light with which God glorifies 
 the world ; and while ten million flow- 
 ers around the world offer perfume, 
 men burn handfuls of frankincense in 
 cramped temples. When the perfect 
 day comes, all men will worship, and 
 in Nature they will find all the sym- 
 bols needed to set forth the glory of 
 the incommunicable God. 
 
 2550. Reading Nature Aright. — The 
 roots of Nature are in the human mind. 
 The life and meaning of the outward 
 world is not in itself, but in us. He 
 will see the most without who has the 
 most within ; and he who sees only 
 with his bodily organs sees but the sur- 
 face. This superficial reading of Na- 
 ture is as if one had been taught, like 
 Milton's daughters, to read the Greek 
 language fluently without understand- 
 ing any part of its meaning. The 
 sound is sweet, the reading is fluent ; 
 but all the life and contents are want- 
 ing. And he that reads Nature reads 
 God's language ; but he only pronoun- 
 ces the words, without the meanings, 
 who sees the natural world by his senses 
 only, and not also by his feelings. 
 
 2551. How to Look at Scenery. — 
 The eye is a daguerrotype-plate. It is 
 set to receive pictures, not compose or 
 paint them. The art of seeing well is 
 not to think about seeing. Let your 
 eye alone. Let it go as clouds go, 
 floating hither and thither at their will. 
 Things will come to you if you are pa- 
 tient and receptive. No man knows 
 what he sees, but only what he has 
 seen. One looks at a great many 
 things, but sees only a few ; and those 
 
544 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 things which come back to him spon- 
 taneously, which rise up as pictures, 
 afterwards, are the things which he 
 really saw. 
 
 2552. Mind-Ownership. — When I 
 go by the stately grounds and the 
 house of the generous owner of 
 Wellesley, do I envy him ? When I 
 pass the mansion of Adams, who lives 
 near Boston, in a kind of royal mag- 
 nificence, do I envy him ? Do I envy 
 them those gorgeous gardens, those 
 rare and beautiful trees, those fine ter- 
 races that look as if they might have 
 been carved out of solid marble ? 
 Why, I own them ! I can sit and 
 pluck more flowers by my eyes than 
 twenty gardeners can by their hands. 
 I see these things, and I carry them 
 away, and no sheriff arrests me. All 
 that you who have such places get 
 from them is that which you gather 
 from them in the form of visible 
 growths ; but I get more than that 
 from them. You own the ground, 
 and pay the taxes, and have the vex- 
 ation of looking after your gardens, 
 and wear yourself out with care ; and 
 I get the honey. 
 
 2553. Intangible Property. — When 
 I am a bankrupt, and my creditor 
 takes my house and my ground, I 
 shall laugh at him if he thinks he has 
 touched my properties. Above my 
 roof are finer pictures than are under 
 it. In the trees I have winged instru- 
 ments which a sheriff will hardly 
 catch. 
 
 2554. Country Rest. — Even one 
 day in the country is good. But not 
 till you settle down, and cut the 
 strings that bind you to the city, shove 
 out its cares, and rid yourself of its 
 excitements, can you feel the genuine 
 comfort and happiness of being in the 
 country. 
 
 Now you have come to stay. The 
 heaven arches over you with peculiar 
 
 welcome. The clouds cluster along 
 the horizon, or disperse and go a-sail- 
 ing through the great aerial deep, as 
 if to get up for you a celebration. 
 You are adopted — a child at home. 
 The great circle of hills gird you 
 about, and all that dwells within its 
 sphere greets you. 
 
 2555. Natural Law. — No man, in 
 his own case, dissevers mind and 
 body, and says, " It was not I, but the 
 body, that did it." And why should 
 we disconnect God from nature, and 
 say, "It was a natural law," as if a 
 natural law was anything but God 
 speaking, God pre-determining, and 
 God letting his purpose stand ? 
 
 2556. Law and Providence. — The 
 popular idea is, and it is partaken of 
 very largely by philosophical men, 
 that natural laws are unchangeable, 
 irresistible in their sphere, that they 
 are not to be controlled, and that they 
 compel all. It is felt as though the 
 forces which they regulate were great 
 energies that moved as bars of steel 
 would move through crowds, over- 
 turning, bruising and destroying 
 all that came in their way. The 
 irresislibleness of natural law is an 
 illusion. Natural laws are constantly 
 checked, constantly contradicted and 
 made inoperative by man. They are 
 set in conflict one against the other. 
 The laws of chemical affinity are per- 
 petually thwarted in the laboratory. 
 The acid cannot have its way when it 
 meets with an alkali, or the alkali 
 when it meets an acid ; they make a 
 compromise. In mechanics the law of 
 gravity cannot pull down the stone 
 which you put an iron pillar under to 
 support. Everywhere throughout the 
 world you can put law against law, 
 and you can make a compromise not 
 only, but you can make forces do, by 
 the infusion of human reason and hu- 
 man will, that which they would never 
 
NATURE 
 
 545 
 
 do of themselves. That is the root 
 and fundamental quality of civiliza- 
 tion, that at last large communities 
 have gained such a knowledge of nat- 
 ural laws that they have harnessed 
 them and drive them for all work 
 everywhere. Not by violating, either, 
 but by using the laws of nature, men 
 can and do create a providence ; and 
 thus we come back to the gist of the 
 matter. I can use the laws of nature 
 so that they shall be a providence to 
 me, and to my family. Surely, God 
 ought to be able to do almost as much 
 as that in the wider use of natural 
 forces ! 
 
 2557. Man Controlling Nature. — As 
 man pursues upon the pampas of the 
 South the wild steeds, and subdues 
 them with bit and saddle, mounts and 
 rides them, giving all their strength 
 and speed to his own loins, so man is 
 pursuing the forces and the laws of na- 
 ture ; and all nature, as represented 
 by this terraqueous globe, is now fol- 
 lowing the weakness of the human 
 thought. Against the mighty energies 
 that seem omnipotent, the silent forces 
 of the brain are acting. Thought, 
 noiselessly — gentle as the light, as the 
 falling dew — walks forth, revealing 
 and subduing the mighty forces of na- 
 ture that, at first, terrified, crushed 
 and annihilated man. 
 
 2558. Waste, in the Creative Proc- 
 ess. — Through long periods all things 
 tended to vary more or less from their 
 original forms, and adapted themselves 
 to their necessary conditions ; and 
 what could not do this perished ; for 
 the theory of Evolution is as much a 
 theory of destruction and degradation 
 as of development and building up. 
 As the carpenter has numberless shav- 
 ings, and a vast amount of wastage of 
 every log which he would shape to 
 some use, so creation has been an 
 enormous waste, such as seems like 
 
 squandering, on the scale of human 
 life. 
 
 2559. Superstition Dispelled by 
 Righteousness. — I used to rise early 
 and look over the valley of the Con- 
 necticut, and see the sweet river and 
 the whole beautiful country perfectly 
 shrouded in dark, chilling mists. If I 
 had gone with bellows and fanning 
 machines and brooms and attempted 
 to clear the fog out of that valley, I 
 might have worked to this day without 
 accomplishing the task. Yet, as I 
 stood in the tower of the chapel, and 
 watched the sun as it came quietly up, 
 without boasting or pretence, but 
 steadily shining, I saw, little by little, 
 the wreathed mists begin to move and 
 spread their wings, and, like birds dis- 
 turbed, they flew away and left the 
 great valley empty of their presence. 
 
 Just as the sun knows how by its 
 shining to deal with the chilling mists 
 and to drive them forth from the val- 
 ley, so the Sun of Righteousness 
 knows how by its influence to deal 
 with those things which envelope and 
 obscure and chill the souls of men. 
 
 2560, The Sun as a Symbol of 
 Deity. — Sunlight as an object of pleas- 
 ure, of admiration, and even of affec- 
 tion, in the sense in which the term 
 is applied to insentient things, is far 
 beyond all other natural elements. 
 There are no storms or convulsions in 
 it. Its waves fill up the universe, but 
 never rage nor utter sound. There is 
 unwasting power, in utter silence. 
 Sounds are very impressive, but silence 
 is far more so; and to me no silence is 
 like that of universal sunlight. Out of 
 its stillness come all those energies 
 which awaken life upon the globe. It 
 is father of the forest and the field. 
 It creates the currents of the ocean 
 and the storms of the air, and yet the 
 sunlight itself is forever tranquil. It 
 is to me the most impressive feature of 
 
546 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 the world. It is that symbol which 
 most nearly represents the universality 
 of God, the energy and fruitfulness of 
 Divine power, and its modesty, as well. 
 
 2561. The Word of God. —The 
 snow came as death comes ; its ap- 
 pearance was that of a shroud, but it 
 bore in its bosom a silent hfe — a life 
 not unfolded. It gave itself to the 
 earth, and when by and by in vapors, 
 little by little, it comes up again to 
 hang as beautiful clouds in the sum- 
 mer hang throughout all these re- 
 gions, it has not returned unto God 
 void. It has gone as a missionary 
 goes, and has borne its message of 
 life and growth to all the fields, and 
 has accomplished that whereunto it 
 was sent. "So shall my word be," 
 saith God. 
 
 2562. Nature's Wealth to be Found 
 Out. — There were men that lay down 
 and shook with cold and burned with 
 fever, right under trees that possessed 
 properties which, if they had availed 
 themselves of them, would have cured 
 them ; but they knew nothing about 
 that. One day a poor Indian crept 
 down to a spring where one of these 
 trees had been overthrown by the wind, 
 and drank of the water, which was 
 bitter, and the drinking of which cured 
 him. Some of his friends drank of it 
 and were cured, also. And it was 
 found out that in quinine there was 
 cure for chills and fever. Before them, 
 millions of men shook to pieces for the 
 want of just that knowledge, and no- 
 body gave it to them. There was 
 cure in the bitter of these trees, but a 
 knowledge of it was not disclosed. 
 Trees have been full of remedies, the 
 clouds have been doctors, every river 
 has been adapted to cure disease by 
 the most normal and appropriate 
 methods ; and yet men have sickened 
 and bloated and died for want of 
 knowledge of these things. 
 
 2563. The Curative Mountains. — 
 Here are many afflicted ones, and all 
 of them behaving just as if there was 
 no such thing as Hay Fever. Think 
 of such charming doctors as these 
 mountains ! Cast back the memory 
 to the powders, the pills, the decoc- 
 tions, the elixirs, the snuff, the baths, 
 the bandages, the goggles, the gar- 
 gles, the vapor for the eyes, the 
 trochees for the throat, the saline 
 drinks to work off the various abom- 
 inable draughts. But here are no bot- 
 tles, vials, boxes, papers, but ?nountain 
 air! The sun feels your pulse daily, 
 looks you all over, and tells you to 
 come again to-morrow. To-morrow 
 he again inspects your case, and puts 
 you upon a full course of air. The 
 great round blue heaven above your 
 head is your medicine-chest, and 
 down drop from it every moment those 
 restorative prescriptions which cure 
 both soul and body. 
 
 In despair of nurses, doctors and 
 medicines, v/e devoutly join with the 
 venerable Jew, and exclaim, " I will 
 lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from 
 whence cometh my help." 
 
 2564. Gross Measurements. — There 
 are a great many men that do not 
 count that worth anything in this 
 world which has not its representative 
 in some physical good. There are 
 men who, if you take them into your 
 flower garden, will say, " Eh! auric- 
 ulas, you call them ? Cinerarias, are 
 they ? What do you do with them ? 
 Are they good for greens? Do you 
 boil them and eat them?" "No." 
 " Do you sell them and get money for 
 them?" "No." "Then what do 
 you do with them?" "I look at 
 them." "Look at them! And is 
 that all they are good for, — to be 
 looked at? I think if I were in your 
 place I would spend my time in some- 
 thing besides raising flowers just to 
 
NATURE 
 
 547 
 
 look at!" If they would feed the 
 mouth or fill the pocket they would 
 tempt such men. The fact that these 
 things give comfort to the affections, 
 feed the imagination, inspire the better 
 feelings, and fill the higher ranges of 
 a man's life, is nothing to them, for 
 they are accustomed to measure every- 
 thing by how it tastes, or how it feels 
 in the pocket. 
 
 2565. Filial Love. — I have, in my 
 house, a little sheet of paper on which 
 there is a faint, pale, and not particu- 
 larly skillful representation of a hya- 
 cinth. It is not half as beautiful as 
 many other pictures I have, but I re- 
 gard it as the most exquisite of them 
 all. My mother painted it ; and I 
 never see it that I do not think that 
 her hand rested on it, and that her 
 thought was concerned in its execution. 
 
 Now, suppose you had such a con- 
 ception of God that you never saw a 
 flower, a tree, a cloud, or any natural 
 object, that you did not instantly 
 think, "My Father made it," what a 
 delightful world this would become to 
 you ! How beautiful would the earth 
 seem to you, and how would you find 
 that nature was a revelation of God, 
 speaking as plainly as his written 
 Word ! And if you are alone, in soH- 
 tude, without company, desolate in 
 your circumstances, it is because you 
 have not that inner sense of the Divine 
 love and care which it is your privi- 
 lege to have. 
 
 2566. Jewels, Spiritual Emblems. — 
 A man is said in the Bible to be more 
 precious than the gold of Ophir ; and 
 of a woman it is said, " Her price is 
 far above rubies." These were com- 
 mon comparisons. There is some- 
 thing in the glow of precious stones 
 that peculiarly fits them to serve for 
 such spiritual figures. There is about 
 them a subtle light — a brilliancy — 
 that burns without fire ; that consumes 
 
 nothing, and requires no supply ; that 
 forever shines without oil ; that is ever 
 living, unwasting, unchanged by any 
 of the natural elements. A diamond 
 that glows in the sunlight flashes yet 
 more beautifully in the night. No 
 mould can get root upon it ; no rust 
 can tarnish it ; no decay can waste it. 
 Such stones seemed to the ancients, 
 and are, fit emblems by which to repre- 
 sent spiritual qualities, and the beauty 
 and imperishableness of Christian 
 virtue. 
 
 2567. Recuperative Power of Good. 
 — If the wild boar of the forests shall 
 whet his teeth against some sapling 
 oak, cutting it hither and thither, it 
 lops and seems ready to fall, but 
 steadies itself, and instantly nature be- 
 gins to throw out new juices and form 
 a line around the wound, and little by 
 little new wood forms and the wound 
 begins to be skinned over and heals 
 itself; and after fifty years you come 
 and you shall find a little scar there, 
 and another bark formed on the old, 
 and the tree is strong and vigorous 
 again. Even in nature we have a 
 symbol of the restorative power of 
 good over evil. 
 
 2568. God in Nature. — I have stood 
 in the Milan cathedral ; I have stood 
 in York Minster and in Westminster ; 
 I have stood at Sahsbury ; I have 
 stood at Winchester, noblest of them 
 all ; and my soul has felt the inspira- 
 tion and grandeur of these places. I 
 have stood in the Temple Church of 
 London, where the service lifted me 
 on angel's wings, so that I scarcely 
 knew whether I was in the body or out 
 of the body ; and I thank God for 
 these transcendent times — transfigura- 
 tion hours, as it were. And yet up at 
 Peekskill, on the side hill, among the 
 crickets and grasshoppers and spiders, 
 among the insects and birds, among 
 the shrubs and leaves and tufted 
 
548 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 grass, I have come as near to God as 
 ever I did under the pomp of worship 
 in Italy, or under the inspiration of 
 choral song in old England — God 
 bless her ! 
 
 2569. God's Thoughts in Nature. — 
 Such is the profusion of blossoms this 
 summer that you can scarcely see leaf 
 or twig. All through the country it is 
 so. The peach-trees are holding up 
 their silent lessons in pink, the cherry- 
 trees and the pear-trees are holding up 
 theirs in white, and the apple-trees are 
 holding up theirs in both colors. All 
 the grass is full of dormant flowers. 
 Since it pleased God to give us the 
 rains of a day or two past the grass is 
 lifting up its hands and clapping them 
 for joy. Already the staple birds are 
 here — the weather-sparrows, the rob- 
 ins, the bluebirds and the goldfinches, 
 or yellow-birds. Also, the wanderers 
 are coming back. Last night I heard 
 geese flying, and to-day the bobolinks 
 were in the field. Every other bird, 
 almost, that we shall have through the 
 summer, is present with us. All day 
 long I have been thinking, sometimes 
 of birds, sometimes of the Bible, some- 
 times of flowers, and sometimes of the 
 Saviour. It is difficult to tell where 
 the transition is from one to the other. 
 I have been pleased to sit and look at 
 the meadows and the trees, and to 
 think of the expressions in the Old 
 Testament of the Psalmist, who spoke 
 of the multitude of God's thoughts to- 
 wards him. Innumerable, uncount- 
 able, are the thoughts of God, and un- 
 speakable in their tenderness. 
 
 2570. The Kingdom of the Beauti- 
 ful.— I wish you might have the com- 
 fort that I have in looking upon the 
 whole kingdom of the beautiful from a 
 high point of view. Since I have 
 learned to see in beauty a language of 
 God and of the better world, there has 
 been no measure nor bound to the 
 
 comfort I have had in it. It has 
 grown with my years and with my 
 manhood. By reason of it I have 
 company all the while. I have com- 
 pany in artificial elements of beauty, 
 and I have more company in natural 
 elements of beauty. The winter is 
 beautiful, and the summer is beautiful. 
 All the gradations from winter to 
 summer, and from summer back to 
 winter again, abound in beauty. The 
 whole round year is an encyclopedia 
 of beauty that has as many volumes 
 as there are days, and as many pages 
 as there are minutes and seconds in 
 each day. 
 
 2571. Divine Love for Man. — Do 
 the roots and grass and early flowers 
 break forth from winter, and send 
 messengers for the sun to come back ? 
 or does the sun, come from its far 
 voyaging, long to overhang the sleep- 
 ing places of flowers until they feel his 
 presence, and, drawn by his warm 
 hands, wake and come forth into a 
 warmth and a light that waited above 
 them while they were dead, and that 
 would have bathed them yet, and all 
 summer long, though they had still 
 lain torpid? 
 
 2572. Beauty Inherently Divine. — 
 As God has created the world, beauty 
 is not a kind of seasoning scattered 
 upon the weightier realities. Men 
 think that the beauty of this natural 
 world is a sort of decoration. As one 
 builds a house, and then puts pictures 
 in it, which are not really necessary to 
 the well-being of the house ; as one 
 spreads a table, and over and above 
 that heartiness of food which is needed 
 to supply the body with strength, gives 
 something for the eye, sugaring over 
 the loaf, and tucking in flowers here 
 and there — things that are very well, 
 but things that are not food, and 
 might be dispensed with ; so men 
 think that there is beauty, to be sure, 
 
NATURE 
 
 549 
 
 in the world, but that it is incidental in 
 the great framework of things. But I 
 aver that beauty is not only a part of 
 the course of nature, so that if it were 
 excluded the whole structure would be 
 changed and reformed to a new ideal ; 
 that it is not merely a decoration ; but 
 that all things in the great scheme of 
 evolution and development tend to- 
 wards their highest estate by tending 
 towards beauty. Maturity, whether it 
 be of fruit, or flower, or what not, 
 works by stages^towards beauty, in the 
 material globe. 
 
 So that beauty is not an accident. 
 Still less is it the trimming which God 
 gave to the perfected work. It is the 
 Divine idea of a mode of creation. 
 
 2573. Help of the Esthetic Element. 
 — I find a great many persons who 
 say, " I do not much enjoy going to 
 church, but if I am permitted to 
 wander out into the fields, along the 
 fringes of the forests, and to hear the 
 birds sing, to watch the cattle, and to 
 look at the shadows on the hills, I am 
 sure it makes me a better man." 
 Some others, like my dear old father, 
 would say, "That is all moonshine; 
 there is nothing in it, no thought, no 
 truth, and no doctrine of edification." 
 But there is truth in it. There are 
 minds that open to spiritual things 
 through that side of their nature more 
 readily and easily than through any 
 other. This should be recognized. 
 
 2574. True Art. — Artist is Inter- 
 preter. He teaches men by opening 
 through imitation the message of 
 deeds, events, or objects, so that they 
 rise above the senses, where before they 
 had exclusively presented themselves, 
 and speak to the higher feelings. A 
 man who sees in Nature nothing but 
 materiality, is no more an artist than 
 he is a musician who, in one of Bee- 
 thoven's symphonies, hears only 
 noise. 
 
 2575. The Great Artist. — Behold in 
 the morning frost-pictures, wrought 
 without color and kissed upon the 
 window by the cold lips of Winter, 
 another instance of that Divine ben- 
 eficence of beauty which suffuses 
 the heavens, clothes the earth, and 
 royally decorates the months to fill 
 the world with joy, pure as the 
 Great Heart from which it had its 
 birth. 
 
 2576. The Meanings of Flowers. — 
 Do you think that words, in and of 
 themselves, have any signification ? 
 Words mean whatever they have the 
 power to make us think of when we 
 look on them. So flowers mean what 
 sentiment they have the power to pro- 
 duce in us. The image which a 
 flower casts upon a sensitive plate is 
 simply its own self-form ; but, cast 
 upon a more sensitive human soul, it 
 leaves there not mere form, but feel- 
 ing, excitement, suggestion. God 
 gave it power to do that. 
 
 2577. A Border Line. — We love to 
 fancy that a flower is the point of 
 transition at which a material thing 
 touches the immaterial. It is the 
 sentient vegetable soul. 
 
 2578. Associations with Nature. — 
 Young trees and young men are got 
 up too nicely — trim and snug ! Only 
 when a tree opens its top, and lets the 
 sunlight clear into its very center, 
 does it begin to be noble. Old trees ! 
 unlike old men, they have no infirmi- 
 ties. Their strength does not depart, 
 and their glory abides ! Happy are 
 they who frolic under them in child- 
 hood, and who sit in old age calmly 
 beneath their shadow. We give out 
 something of our life to the things 
 which surround us. And trees, water- 
 brooks, beetling rocks and hill-tops 
 register our thoughts of sorrow, or our 
 great joys ; and, in after years, we re- 
 call much of our inward experience 
 
SSo 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 from the voiceless teachings of inani- 
 mate things ! 
 
 2579. Bird-Nature. — A robin may 
 be chased with as much impunity as a 
 house fly. It does not disgust him. 
 He comes back. In cherry time you 
 cannot drive them away. If you 
 come close to the tree, they merely 
 get higher, or skulk behind the leaves ; 
 or if you pelt them, they fly but a rod 
 or two, hold their tongues, and the 
 moment you turn your back, they fly 
 again into the tree. Robins have no 
 delicacy, no tender sensibilities, that 
 keep them back in the world. But 
 their cousins, the wood-thrushes, are 
 sensitive and retiring. They shrink 
 from observation. No compliment 
 can be greater to a dwelling than to 
 have wood-thrushes adopt it, and 
 build in its new trees, and sing their 
 bits of melody right over your head. 
 Colleges give many diplomas not de- 
 served. Nature is the only university 
 that can confer a diploma worth hav- 
 ing, and that conveys no false praise. 
 
 2580. A Bird's Lesson, — " Behold 
 the fowls of the air ; they sow not, 
 neither do they reap, nor gather into 
 barns." 
 
 I thought of that to-day, for when I 
 was very busy sowing some seed, a 
 bobolink flew over my head, with a 
 wild, sarcastic descant, as much as to 
 say, "Go on, old clod-crusher! you 
 sow, and I will rejoice." He flew 
 past, and I understood him. 
 
 2581. Modest Merit. — What is the 
 magnificent dome of St. Peter's but 
 the highest development of that idea 
 which you shall see expressed or 
 hinted in every well-conditioned 
 pumpkin ! Thus a few acanthus- 
 leaves, touched by human genius, 
 gave us the Corinthian capital. The 
 arches of the forest, we are sometimes 
 told, are the primitive types of Gothic 
 architecture. Do not leaves, stems, 
 
 roses, flower-de-luces, sunflowers, 
 clover-leaves, and scores of other 
 things, furnish to architecture its rich- 
 est decorations ? But it was reserved 
 to the pumpkin to crown the whole, by 
 giving to architects the conception of 
 a ribbed dome. 
 
 Thus it is that modest merit often 
 finds itself honored. 
 
 2582. The Aspen-Tree. — At times, 
 in certain moods, one cannot help 
 thinking that the aspen is striving to 
 communicate something. It seems to 
 sigh and pant. It supplicates as one 
 that suffers. Then, changing sud- 
 denly, it coaxes and winks and blinks 
 at you as if it was only in fun. It will 
 stand perfectly still a minute, as if 
 looking to see what you will do, and 
 then a laughing ripple runs all over it. 
 It frolics with the same tireless grace 
 as a kitten. Indeed it is a kind of 
 compound kitten-tree, each leaf a par- 
 ticular kitten, all frolicking together, 
 though there is not one of them, if the 
 rest won't play, that is not ready, 
 kitten-like as it were, to chase its own 
 tail. 
 
 2583, The Elms of New England, 
 — They are as much a part of her 
 beauty as the columns of the Parthe- 
 non were the glory of its architecture. 
 Their towering trunks, whose massive- 
 ness well symbolizes Puritan inflexi- 
 bility ; their over-arching tops, facile, 
 wind-borne and elastic, hint the end- 
 less plasticity and adaptableness of 
 this people ; — and both united, form a 
 type of all true fnanhood, broad at the 
 root, firm in the trunk, and yielding at 
 the top, yet returning again, after 
 every impulse, into position and sym- 
 metry. What if they were sheared 
 away from village and farmhouse ! 
 Who would know the land? Farm- 
 houses that now stop the tourist and 
 the artist, would stand forth bare and 
 homely ; and villages that coquette 
 
NATURE 
 
 SS^ 
 
 with beauty through green leaves, 
 would shine white and ghastly as 
 sepulchers. Let any one imagine 
 Conway or Lancaster without elms ! 
 Or Hadley, Hatfield, Northampton, or 
 Springfield ! New Haven without 
 elms would be like Jupiter without a 
 beard, or a lion shaved of his mane ! 
 
 2584. Trees. — Though money can 
 do almost all things, it cannot make 
 young trees old, nor old folks young. 
 Here am I surrounded with old, old 
 elms, huge in trunk, with vast 
 branches, each large as a tree, 
 stretched out afar, to gain some light 
 and liberty, and yet all feeding by the 
 same root. One looks up into this 
 vast canopy as into the nave of a 
 cathedral ; yet no cathedral was ever 
 so beautiful. What architect would 
 dare stretch out stone like these 
 branches ? With their immense 
 weight, they lie upon the air as seem- 
 ingly light as a feathery spray. Run 
 your eye from their summit back to 
 the trunk. What immense leverage ! 
 Upon these huge arms winds play and 
 storms have wrought. Out of these 
 rude and shapeless things storms have 
 even evoked music. All along the 
 
 weather-open spaces, moss in green 
 patches lies along the rugged boughs, 
 poor and weak in itself, yet able, of 
 its mere beauty, to add grace to this 
 giant tree. ... I look enviously 
 upon this and its companion trees. 
 No money can build such as these. 
 Nature cannot be bribed to furnish 
 them to order. While waiting for 
 them we die ! One should have an- 
 cestors. No matter about what they 
 put in their wills, if only they will 
 plant enough trees, which, when we 
 come along, shall be old and huge ! 
 
 2585. The Balm of Nature. — So, 
 spent by labor and worn out by grief 
 of heart, Jesus yearned for the wilder- 
 ness. No man attempts to do great 
 things for his time and for his people, 
 that he does not long for the wilder- 
 ness. The more you love men, the 
 more, sometimes, it is impossible to 
 endure them ; at times you go into the 
 forest, when trees seem more to you 
 than men with their selfishness, un- 
 charitableness, and hardness ; and it 
 is a comfort to me to know that my 
 Master was homesick and worksick, 
 and longed to get into the wilderness, 
 where no man could find him. 
 
INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Abhorrence — Definition of, 1379. 
 
 dangerous but needful — Fire, 1379. 
 Achievement demands further achievement 
 — Mountaineering, 478. 
 happiness in — Not fly, but beaver, 552. 
 Activity, duty of — Puddle and flowing 
 stream, 536. 
 excessive — Cavour, Bismarck, Bright, 
 
 Lincoln, 582. 
 outruns trouble — Dust on the road, 555. 
 quality in — Fly and bee, 548. 
 Account, taking, of one's self — Business 
 
 department record, 465. 
 Adam as a type of mutable man — Unlike 
 perfect animals, dove, eagle, 70. 
 fall of — Unscriptural bastard Jewish 
 belief, 2210. 
 
 theory of human ruin in — Red-hot 
 sword, 2214. 
 our responsibility for — \\Tiipping child 
 for great-grandfather, 2212. 
 Adolescence, dangers of — Fermentation, 
 
 46. 
 Adversity — Brazier's hammer on kettle, 
 
 633- 
 
 — God's mint, 623. 
 
 and prosperity — Wax and rock, sun and 
 frost, 627. 
 
 beneficence of— Palette ;"violence ; grape- 
 crushing, 638. 
 
 heroes of — Acceptance of losses, 640. 
 
 man's need of — Dull tools, 629. 
 
 nobility in — Southern gentlemen after 
 civil war, 676. 
 
 recuperation under — Fruit after prun- 
 ing, 669. 
 
 revealing hidden beauty — Geologizing 
 for crystal, 646. 
 
 sweetness after — Ripened fruit after 
 frost, 635. 
 in — Flowers beside glacier, 691. 
 
 tests friendship — Wave-crest, trough of 
 sea, 672. 
 Affections transitory — Lamps burned out, 
 
 380. 
 Affliction hardens or softens — Clay or wax, 
 227. 
 
 comforted by comforting others — Be- 
 reaved mother caring for orphans, 239. 
 
 Affliction, darkness of, indispensable- 
 Shining of stars, 272. 
 tempered — Boy whipped with clothes 
 
 on, 667. 
 works out character — Tempering of 
 steel, 657. 
 
 Ages to come — Development of human 
 reason, 345. 
 
 Aggressiveness arouses evil — Pole stirs 
 mud, 754. 
 
 Agnosticism natural — A Raphael demon- 
 strable only to art-lover, 11 12. 
 
 Alcoholic drinking — Navigating Hell-gate, 
 
 1374. 
 Almsgiving for reputation, hypocrisy — 
 
 Counterfeit coin, 2393. 
 America, brotherhood the language of — 
 Babel dispersion regathered, 2522. 
 feeding the nations — World-neighbor- 
 hood, 2510. 
 Chinese in — Our Christian treatment, 
 
 lOOI. 
 
 American armies dissolved — Summer 
 
 storm, 984. 
 civil war, approach of — Barometers, 
 
 981. 
 constitution — Caissons of Brooklyn 
 
 bridge, 964. 
 fame of Grant — Towers of Brooklyn 
 
 bridge, 988. 
 flag — Description of, 985. 
 immigration — Fertilizing mud of floods, 
 
 995- 
 
 perils — Mammon worse than Despo- 
 tism, 1002. 
 
 political elasticity — Thoroughbred horse, 
 989. 
 
 polyglot population — Tower of Babel, 
 1014. 
 
 prosperity and peril — Wealth and ig- 
 norance, 990. 
 
 public amusements — Rest, 999. 
 
 righteous national career — Ship and 
 compass, 1015. 
 
 soldiers in civil office — Washington and 
 Grant, 988. 
 
 suppressed repudiation — Measles, 1004. 
 
 the nomadic — Drive schools like sheep, 
 colleges like kine, 2521. 
 
 553 
 
554 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 American In-atmcut of Indians — Faulty 
 
 insli unients of Providence : Jacob ; 
 Engl-'ind, 994. 
 
 Amusement to be discriminated — Food, 
 
 54- 
 
 Anarchism and communism — Pliilosopliy 
 of the gutter, 996. 
 
 Anniiiilation an unnatural idea — Harriet 
 Marlineau, 338. 
 
 Angelic ministrations to Jesus — Twilight 
 of dawn, splendor of morning, 1921. 
 
 Anger, just, purifies — Fierce summer 
 storms, 424. 
 trutli in — A straight-shooting bow, 951. 
 
 Antiquated religious thought-forms — Me- 
 dieval castles, 2197. 
 
 Anxiety — Friction in machinery, 2022. 
 may paralyze — Water-logged timber, 
 
 739. 
 morbidly desired — Stimulus of poison, 
 1994. 
 Apocalypse — Sunset ; irregular drama ; 
 strange music ; conflicts ; tableau, 195 1. 
 and arithmetic — Frescoes and weight- 
 measurement, 1949. 
 Apocalyptic figures not reducible to in- 
 tellectual ideas — Sucking joints of 
 crab, 2262. 
 Apostolic arguments now — Modern 
 science in Jerusalem Temple, 2279. 
 heresy — Knox, Edwards, Paul, 2190. 
 quality — Spirit, not old clothes, 2172. 
 succession — Hand of Holy Ghost on 
 heart, 2278. 
 Approach to God easy — Uphill is down- 
 hill, 1203. 
 
 men varied — Access to burning 
 building, 2321. 
 Architecture from nature — Examples, 
 
 2581. 
 Artist, tlie great — Frost-pictures, 2575. 
 Ascetic Christianity — Abandonment of 
 
 arms in war, 2192. 
 Asleep in Jesus — Weary child in mother's 
 
 arms, 302. 
 Aspiration — Vine-clinging and climbing, 
 
 exacting — Climbing Natural Bridge, 
 Va., 1662. 
 
 transient — Lightning at night, 1437. 
 
 undeveloped — Wistaria, stunted, trans- 
 planted, 1085. 
 
 yearnings of — Evaporation under the 
 sun, 1329. 
 Association, power of — Eating; the table, 
 
 ,S42. 
 Athletics, clean — Bowling and garden- 
 hoeing, 209. 
 
 improving — Billiards and bowling in 
 Christian institutions, 55. 
 
 Atonement in God's love — Silver arrow 
 from eternal bow, 1157. 
 human side of the — Starlight, 1290. 
 self-sacrificing love — Motherhood, 1289. 
 Attraction of God — Sun's evaporation of 
 
 water, 2027. 
 Avarice — Sea-worm piercing ships, 1007. 
 Avoidance of evil, negative — Keeping 
 down weeds, 1029. 
 
 Baby, birth of — Bird flown in at window, i. 
 lessons taught by — Little preacher in 
 
 cradle, 3. 
 lost, is kept — Shrined in imagination 
 
 ever a babe, 262. 
 never ugly to mother's eye — Feather- 
 less lark-squab, 2. 
 Ballot, power of — Spring rains, 974. 
 
 silence of — Voice of millions of men, 975. 
 Bankruptcy, generous dread of — Fall of 
 huge tree in forest, 560. 
 manliness in — Athlete stripped for con- 
 test, 561. 
 Baptism, declaratory not active — Heart- 
 clean as body clean, 2137. 
 disputes over method — Husk of exter- 
 nality, 1923. 
 outward sign of supposed inward condi- 
 tion — Soldier's cockade, 2138. 
 Beatitudes, the — Beauty of precious stones, 
 
 1931- 
 — Jewel case for beautifying God's 
 
 bride, 1523. 
 — Solemn hymn before service, 
 1932. 
 Beautiful, the, speaks of God — Year a 
 
 cyclopedia of beauty, 2570. 
 Beauty a divine idea in creation — Evolu- 
 tion towards perfectness, 2572. 
 helpful towards spirituality — Esthetic 
 needs of the soul, 2573. 
 Beginning life aright — Building above 
 flood-line, 64. 
 of evil to be resisted — Prairie fire, spread 
 
 of, 58. 
 of good encouraging — Gold particles to 
 miner, 1023. 
 Belief and imagination — The Phidian 
 Zeus, 1976. 
 easy to unsettle, hard to fashion — Au- 
 gustine, Arminius; Calvin; Edwards, 
 1979. 
 sincerity and wrong — Lead for tools, 
 triangle for wheel, 1977. 
 Beliefs, commonly liyjiothetical — Marine 
 shells on inouiitain-top, 2238. 
 enforcing uniformity of— Fitting all feet 
 to one foot print, 1973. 
 
 — Minting men as dollars impos- 
 sible, 1973. 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 555 
 
 Beneficence, spirit of — Summer Ihundcr- 
 
 showcr, 1 171. 
 Benefits remembered — Mountain peaks in 
 
 sunset, 1093. 
 Benevolence ami affinity — Interest in the 
 needy, and in the happy, 2391. 
 
 and ahns — Helping a life; giving 
 
 quarter, 2405. 
 generosity — Regular army and 
 militia, 2386. 
 genuine, even humble, influential — 
 
 Widow's mites, 2406. 
 in God — Genius for music, poetry, 
 
 "45 
 
 limited — Speaking acquaintance with 
 faculties, not intimate, 2387. 
 
 long-lived — Endowed benefactions, 
 2402. 
 
 native, irrepressible — Ground-springs in 
 foundations, 241 1. 
 
 not enterprising — Stays at home, 2384. 
 
 or personal love — Ministering to a low 
 or a charming child, 2392. 
 
 permanent, belter than charities — Or- 
 ganized institutions, 2400. 
 
 requires force — Surgeon amputating leg, 
 
 2397- 
 Benevolent man sees divine benevolence 
 
 — Gold streaked through rock, 2395. 
 Bereavement, expansion of life — 
 
 Mourner seeks the lost beyond 
 
 earth, 270. 
 God says is grievous — Foolish parent's 
 
 lie about medicine, 234. 
 Best, the, for God — Not chaff and shucks, 
 
 '535- 
 Betterment, divine law of — Written on the 
 
 rocks, 2532. 
 Between sorrow and gladness — Pendulum, 
 
 255- 
 Bible, The— A map, i860. 
 — A telescope, 1834. 
 — Winchester cathedral, 1844. 
 a growth — The human race, 1837. 
 an everyday book — Pitched to key of 
 
 common life, 1846. 
 as furniture — Unlighted candles, 1859. 
 associations with — Old family estate, 
 
 1872. 
 blind reading of — Unseen wood-carvings 
 
 in forest, 1857. 
 buried under rubbish — Oriental cities, 
 
 1953- 
 
 careless reading of — Country lane, 
 
 sward and flowers, 1858. 
 coeval with man's need — Medicine of 
 
 sorrow, 18S3. 
 conflict over — Garden desolated, 1957. 
 does not create but expounds truth — 
 
 Scientific books, 1838. 
 
 Bible, The, doubt of, bad as unbelief- 
 Compass, 1870. 
 guidance of, far-reaching — Candle to 
 
 lost traveler, 1873. 
 guides moral life-centers — Key to clock, 
 
 ■^63- 
 guide to right living — Navigation chart, 
 
 1869. 
 ignorance of its promises — First use of 
 
 tea, potatoes, 1854. 
 immutability of — Stars independent of 
 
 astronomy, 19 13. 
 individual interpretation of — Learning 
 
 natural law, 1850. 
 infested by controversialists — Summer 
 
 insects, 1954. 
 interpreted by the world — A flower, 
 
 1838. 
 interprets laws of life — Expert phy- 
 sician, 1862. 
 literary carelessness of — Roughness of 
 
 trees, 1847. 
 man's duty not dependent on — Path, 
 
 guide ; voyage, compass, 1969. 
 man's regulator — Ship's chronometer, 
 
 1868. 
 many-sidedness of — Alphabet, 1845. 
 most delightful portions of — Webster on 
 
 Shakespeare, 1968. 
 mystical interpretations of — Clouds 
 
 without rain, 1842. 
 not dependent on any one of its books — 
 
 Imperfect joist in building, i960, 
 manufacture but germ — Seed of 
 divine life, 1966. 
 of conflict — Lovely valley after battle, 
 
 1959- 
 letter not spirit — Winter bird's-nest, 
 
 564- 
 opened, not made known, by scholarly 
 
 helps — House-key, 1840. 
 jiermanence of Divine memorials in — 
 
 Greek gods in Louvre, 1963. 
 perpetuity of — Grape-cluster and wine, 
 
 1912. 
 petty errors in — Spiders or dust in Par- 
 thenon cornices, 1965. 
 printed, a memorial of life — Chart of 
 
 the ocean, 1836. 
 readers of, find their own affinities — 
 
 Magnet and iron, 1849. 
 reading, for conflict — Arsenal, 1958. 
 skimming — Skating not reading, 
 
 1856. 
 small texts of, with great meaning — 
 
 Boy's kite-string, 1911. 
 spiritual discernment of — Metallurgist 
 
 and ore, 1851. 
 study of, followed by practice — New 
 
 York harbor-chart, 1865. 
 
55f' 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 Bible, The, study of, needs bctlcr instiu 
 mcnts — Tools for maliogany, 1952. 
 texts useless unless piaclically used — 
 
 Farm, 1S48. 
 to aid in, not solve, man's perplexities 
 
 — No gardens created, 1967. 
 to be applied — Chart and navigation, 
 1852. 
 practiced — Reading and speaking 
 
 French, 161 2. 
 read for siiccific purposes — Medical 
 
 book for cure, 1S53. 
 searched for treasure — Bees after 
 
 honey, men after gold, 1855. 
 tested by experiment — Cookery 
 recijie, 1865. 
 trifles in, often significant — Fossil fern, 
 
 1874. 
 
 truths newly discovered in, not new- 
 Gold newly dug, 1841. 
 
 of inspiration in — Wheat growing 
 on straw, 1876. 
 
 unfound treasures in — Medicinal roots, 
 1861. 
 
 unity in diversity of — Winchester ca- 
 thedral, 1961. 
 
 unknown beauties of — Heir of baronial 
 estate, 1866. 
 
 unused parts of — Chambers in old cas- 
 tles, 1875. 
 
 use of, good or bad — Iron ore, forest 
 timber, 1S71. 
 
 vital elements of, universally accepted 
 — Laws of electricity, 1889. 
 Biblical allusions explained by facts — Sil- 
 ver ore, 1843. 
 
 commentary, the best — Living Chris- 
 tian, 1715. 
 
 controversy hurtful — Wounds and scars 
 of war, 1955. 
 
 exactitude a fatal claim — Unimportant 
 printer's error on chart, 18SS. 
 
 excision of errors not invalidating — 
 Wrong paper among deeds, 1964. 
 
 inspiration — I'oetic insjiiration, 1835. 
 method of, unimiiortant — Rose-fra- 
 grance, 1867. 
 
 inspired use of uninspired material — 
 Official genealogies, 1886. 
 
 literature adapted to original readeis — 
 No legal expositions in nursery, 18S1. 
 
 texts — Lulian amulets, 1848. 
 Bird nature — Description, 2579. 
 
 lesson from the — Bobolink, 2580. 
 Blessings despised — Israelite and manna, 
 I197. 
 
 for curses — Artillery, 1687. 
 Body and soul — Rock and crystal, 652. 
 
 a sound, i)areiital obligation — Temple 
 or hut for the children, 137, 
 
 Body, care of the — Engineer with his ma- 
 chine, 184. 
 food for the soul — Leaves of leguminous 
 
 plant, ioi8. 
 marvelous organization of — Members 
 
 described, 181. 
 to be left on earth — Sepulcher as a 
 
 sieve, aio. 
 tends to obey mental suggestion — Im- 
 pulses to be guarded, 365. 
 Bondage of body and brain — Hoe and 
 
 catechism, 2040. 
 Book, a — Cjarden ; orcliard ; storehouse ; 
 company ; counselor ; multitude of 
 counselors ; fruit-tree, 2435. 
 Books — Windows, 2436. 
 
 of science and physical truth — The 
 Bible and moral truth, 1838. 
 Border line between material and im- 
 material — A flower, 2577. 
 Born again, and again — Tree, every 
 spring, 1595. 
 
 cajiacity to be — Elasticity of soul, 
 '586. 
 Boys in pious biographies and the real — 
 Chicken dressed for eating, and free 
 fowl, 18. 
 Brain ])ower without health — Razor with- 
 out a handle, 195. 
 Brains and natural law — Taming wild 
 
 horses, 2557. 
 Brotherhood does not imply equality — 
 Grass is grass, trees are trees, 2495. 
 growing — Chicago fire; famine in India, 
 
 2530. 
 of man — Acquaintances; companions; 
 brethren, 877. 
 Burden bearing, noble — W^asherwonian 
 
 with bundle on head, 1732. 
 Business and religious feeling — Sponge 
 squeezed dry, 584. 
 belter morals in — Partner with God, 
 
 557- 
 
 Christianity in — Unwelcome Bible texts, 
 566. 
 
 complications — Tangled knot, 558. 
 
 crafty devices in — Sleight in chess-play- 
 ing. 565- 
 
 crooked self-deception in — Man's ear, 
 devil's pulpit, 568. 
 
 danger-signals in — Torpedo-mines in 
 war, 569. 
 
 dejiression demoralizing — Fungi on 
 trees, 700. 
 
 failures and recoveries — Death and res- 
 urrection, 6S0. 
 
 man retiring from — Last year's mullein- 
 stalk, 586. 
 
 men's virtues — Polar expeditions, 
 science, etc., 588, 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 557 
 
 Business, moral principle in — Compass in 
 navigation, 563. 
 
 other men's crookedness in — Bank 
 clerk, 567. 
 
 unfavorable to meditation — Astronom- 
 ical observatory in city, 556. 
 
 Calvinism and Arminianism — Governor 
 
 and governed, 2201. 
 inlluences of — Cloud hiding glory of 
 
 God, 2205. 
 persistent power of — Musk in a chest, 
 
 2200, 
 problems of — Not nuts but marbles, 
 
 2202. 
 Capital, may succeed slavery, as national 
 
 evil — Devil gone into something else, 
 
 2505- 
 Care — Friction of the mind, 736. 
 
 — Rust, 481. 
 casting, on God too temporary — Soldiers 
 
 stacking arms for dinner, 1S30. 
 not to be emphasized — Soldier recount- 
 ing petty camp-troubles, 73S. 
 to be lived above — Birtls flying above 
 
 dust, 740. 
 Carelessness, dangerous — Roots grow 
 
 dee])er, 728. 
 Caressing children — Green leaves of the 
 
 drooping tree, 13. 
 Catching men — How to fish, 2312. 
 Cause and effect — Sowing and reaping, 
 
 140 1. 
 Character and countenance — Washington, 
 
 895. 
 
 credit — Commercial credit a moral 
 
 premium, 900. 
 reputation — Sweet odors and 
 stenches, 896. 
 
 beautified by experience — China decora- 
 tion, 73. 
 
 beginnings of — Drops, rill and river, 
 899. 
 
 building — Erection of great edifice, 
 4S0. 
 
 compensations in — Good (jualities cover 
 blanks, 390. 
 
 depth of — Heaving the lead, 907. 
 
 durability of — Well-built ship, 469. 
 
 inlluence of — Lying boy with manly 
 man, 865. 
 
 matures slowly — Late-bearing apple- 
 tree, 1705. 
 
 nature of — Woven web, 892. 
 
 not judged by single traits — Lovable 
 man and burglar, 470. 
 
 revelation of — Cocoanut, 697. 
 
 slow growth of — Acorn and oak, 1638. 
 
 strong, takes best polish — Knotty tim- 
 Ic", 476. 
 
 Character, substance in — Iron for temper- 
 ing, 1644, 
 three tests of — Sound timber, 479. 
 to be perfected — Becoming an artist, 
 
 '593- 
 polished — Engines and mathemat- 
 ical instruments, 17 14. 
 
 unwise, building — Swiss cottage in Alps, 
 631. 
 Cheating, petty — Water drops in river 
 
 levee, 747. 
 Cheerfulness, curative effect of — Dr. Grid- 
 ley, 494. 
 
 power of — Happy workman, 486. 
 Child death needs heaven for consolation 
 — Snowy March burial, eternal sum- 
 mer, 223. 
 
 greeted with peace — " I give you 
 joy my darling," 224. 
 
 Christ in the heart of a — Babe Jesus to 
 be treated as a babe, 38. 
 
 feeds on mother mentally — As physi- 
 cally, II. 
 
 habits — Faster than colors dyed in the 
 wool, 12. 
 
 training continuous — Dish seasoned 
 while cooking, 10. 
 
 worthless except for future — Acorn, 5. 
 Childhood disciples of Christ — Budding 
 and grafting in spring, 29. 
 
 conversions need tender care — Newly 
 born babe ; growing tree, 37. 
 
 the time for impressions — The " bis- 
 cuit " stage of porcelain, 30. 
 Children and God's handiwork — Gardener 
 and chaplain, 40. 
 
 departed — Dandelion : mat, circle, 
 globe, 231. 
 
 driven to deception — Hare pursued by 
 Fox, 14. 
 
 inheritance of — Thief, drunkard, and 
 godly parent, 41. 
 
 lies told to — Thick as cloves in a ham, 
 20. 
 
 managed by inciting right moods — 
 " Like breeds like," 25. 
 
 ministry of, to memory — Artists of in- 
 visible pictures, 42. 
 
 need simplicity — Long words hail on 
 slate roof, 34. 
 
 not to be worried — Bell mutllcd by 
 hand, 39. 
 
 sensitive, promise high things — Spring, 
 summer and autumn, 33. 
 
 Sunday of, to be joyful — Author's boy- 
 hood, 26 
 
 taught truth by fiction — Lion, wolf, 
 lamb, 35. 
 
 teaching parents — The miner going 
 home, 36. 
 
558 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 Children to be guided in Old Testament — 
 Cromwell's portrait with wart, 27. 
 held to present duties — Birds forc- 
 ing their young to fly, 31. 
 treated with respect — Not rug to 
 wipe feet on, 19. 
 well brought up — Willow branch taking 
 
 root in own soil, 154. 
 will respond to culture — Development 
 of wild roses, 32. 
 Child's faculties — Tools unused, 8. 
 
 feeble morality — Lameness, blindness, 
 
 deafness, 17. 
 gift of love — More precious than older 
 
 sister's accomplishments, 21, 
 immoral tendencies — Little animals to 
 be trained, 9. 
 Chinese ill treated in America — Lion and 
 
 bear nature, 2523. 
 Choosing, more than desiring — Blossoms 
 and fruit, 51. 
 a life-partner — Baxter's opinion, 112. 
 Chosen not, because not clioosing — Naa- 
 
 man, 1 560. 
 Christ — The one door, 1284. 
 
 abiding influence of — Friendship; great 
 
 men, 1259. 
 admiration not love of — Plato; watch- 
 maker, 1224. 
 and the Church — Husband and wife, 121. 
 Jewish law — Apple-tree, winter and 
 spring, 1243. 
 as leader — Inspiration of great com- 
 manders, 1276. 
 bearing the Cross — Early and later art- 
 conceptions, 1248. 
 body of, the — Mankind, 879. 
 coming to — Friend, not magistrate, 1287. 
 conceptions of — Spiritual photographs, 
 
 1295. 
 confessed — Marriage service, 1447. 
 continuing power of — Picture hung in 
 
 air, 1258. 
 controversies about — Battlefields on 
 
 jieaceful meadows, 1938. 
 convincing beauty of, in men — Natural 
 
 beauty contrasted, 1279. 
 fasliioned by — Vase from artist-potter, 
 
 1270. 
 gifts of love to — Forget-me-not sprig to 
 
 maiden, 1277. 
 gratitude to — Appreciation of poor 
 
 child's gift, 1269. 
 higher view of — Copernicus and Galileo, 
 
 1223. 
 historic and personal — Pigments for 
 
 portrait, 1221. 
 humiliation of— Illegitimacy, 1226. 
 ideal of, fashioned by experience — Vine 
 formed on tree, 1263. 
 
 Christ interpreter of God's goodness 
 
 Author's experience, 1220. 
 judgments of, interior — Widow's mite, 
 
 1245. 
 limitations of God in— ^L^n of culture 
 
 in slums, 1255. 
 mediatorship of— Not as ambassador, 
 
 1268. 
 miracles of — Orator's gestures, 1232. 
 name of — Great men associated with 
 
 tlieir achievements, 1260. 
 nature of— Painting portrait of opal, 
 
 1222. 
 only standard, the — Chronometer set by 
 
 the sun, 1261. 
 our hope — Rising sun, 1218. 
 peace through — Haven after storm, 
 
 personal Saviour to each — World gives 
 
 poetry to poet, 1264. 
 philosophy scorning an invisible — Owls 
 
 and bats doubting sun, 1271. 
 l)ower of — Sun on strawberries, 1265. 
 preaclied imperfectly yet truly — Shat- 
 tered mirror, 1283. 
 radicalism of — Physician treats cause of 
 
 illness, 1242. 
 soul-house illumined by — Candle in 
 
 window, 1235. 
 soul's imaginings of — Beginnings of sub- 
 stantial thought, 1266. 
 spirit however gained is Christianity — 
 
 Education, 1098. 
 sure guide, the — Skilled physician ; 
 
 trapper in the woods, 1262. 
 tlie ever-present — Letter from friend, 
 
 1278. 
 to be learned — Disciple, scholar, 1648. 
 unconfessed — Secret j/iesa/liaiice, 1546. 
 visions of — Examples, 1296. 
 walking with — Court rccejition by king 
 
 and nobles, 1294. 
 youthful eclipse of — Human growth of 
 Jesus, 1229. 
 Christian activity to continue — Silk-worm 
 cocoon, 1728. 
 almost a — Bud ready to blossom, 1557. 
 and pagan conceptions of God — Sacri- 
 fice and lust, 1256. 
 a " pattern," ugly at home — Home 
 
 character tells, 164. 
 attainment meager — Barbarian's cloth- 
 ing, 1657. 
 choice immediate — Weights on scale, 
 
 '574- 
 development — Opening of Christian 
 
 graces, 1620. 
 good-will — Mother of all graces, 1687. 
 help at critical time — Wrecked mariner, 
 
 2086. 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 559 
 
 Christian kindness spontaneous — Mother 
 serving cliild, 1781. 
 life begins slowly — School among col- 
 liers, 1597. 
 
 conflicts with passions in — Fighting 
 
 heirs to will, 1627. 
 discouragements in early — Stream 
 
 to river, 1629. 
 enlargement of — Spark, blaze, fire, 
 
 1645. 
 geniality in — Newly married wife, 
 
 1579- 
 needs concordant faculties — Un- 
 tuned violm, 1710. 
 requires training — Not eagle but 
 
 pupil, 1662. 
 starting aright in — Scion from de- 
 sirable tree, 1591. 
 swelling in volume — Rivers increas- 
 ing to sea, 17 13. 
 under various conditions — Seed in 
 different soils, 1634. 
 to show goodness — Light in the win- 
 dow, 15 16. 
 training — Harness; violin-learning, 
 
 '633- 
 
 truth for all men — Hotel table, 
 1660. 
 
 unity in reform work — Patriotic soldiers 
 in battle, 2369. 
 Christianity, a divine incitement — Vital 
 force in body, 1308. 
 
 aims to save humanity — Not wrecker's 
 boat saving few, 2543. 
 
 effects of, manward and Godward — 
 Chestnuts on ground and tree, 1742. 
 
 embraces all estimable qualities — Ex- 
 amples, 1481. 
 
 fruits of Spirit, however gained — Edu- 
 cation: slave, collegian, 1457. 
 
 fruits — Protestant soldiers and Catholic 
 nurses, 1734. 
 
 judged by its professors — Embassy from 
 king, 1502. 
 
 new efflux of Divine Spirit — Climate, 
 
 1307- 
 not stoicism — Drinking bitterness and 
 
 calling it sweet, 236. 
 original and improved — Goethe on 
 
 critics of Faust, 2193. 
 scope of — Farm develops stone, gold, 
 
 and rubies, 1480. 
 true — Lamp shedding light, 1446. 
 unconscious preparation for — Young 
 
 artist, 1575. 
 without love — Cob without corn, 1776. 
 Christians for Sunday only — Intermittent 
 
 fireflies, 1740. 
 make Christians — Diamonds ground 
 
 with diamond dust, S63. 
 
 Christians not made instantly — Stamp on 
 wax, 1608. 
 querulous — No effervescence ; smoke of 
 
 expiring wick, 1502. 
 towards heaven and not towards earth 
 — Freight train's headlight, 1522. 
 Christ's divinity measured by love, not 
 texts — Chemist's scales, 1 28 1. 
 interpretation of God — Father in family, 
 
 II75- 
 love for his enemies — Hen brooding 
 
 chickens, 1272. 
 motive man's need — Orphan asylum, 
 
 1280. 
 valuation of humanity — Worth of its 
 
 seed, the child, 5. 
 Church — Hotel not home, 1284. 
 
 altar and pulpit — Less than home, 155. 
 a natural development — Households 
 
 from love and wedlock, 2134. 
 and religion — Body and soul, 2166. 
 
 — Aqueduct and water, 2167, 
 business of the, not self-preservation — 
 
 The sun, 2141. 
 Christian life easiest in the — Walking 
 
 to California, 2087. 
 
 outside of — Flowers amid grass, 
 
 2088. 
 — Unfenced potato patch, 2076. 
 Christians vary — Not plates in sets, 
 
 2096. 
 class feeling in — Madeleine in Paris, 
 
 2099. 
 councils and authorities — Presbytery ; 
 
 bishop, 2157. 
 discipline with differences — Apple-stand 
 
 and hotel, 211 1. 
 enriched by sum of all members — Com- 
 plementary natures, 2084. 
 examination for admission to — Entering 
 
 academy, 2074. 
 exclusiveness — Flowers not soils, 2174. 
 for sinners — Hospital for sick, 2090. 
 future not in past — Last year crop, 
 
 2109. 
 going, decline of — Intermissions in sci- 
 ence, 2167. 
 good man bettered in — Wilding pear 
 
 set in garden, 2077. 
 harmony means concord not unison — 
 
 Nature's variety, 2164. 
 improved by agitation — Fever patient 
 
 cleansed by remedies, 2232. 
 lack of Christian sympathy in — Hotel- 
 lodgers, 2098. 
 less than — Christian household, 161. 
 life-power needed in — Curative force of 
 
 nature, 2176. 
 lineage interesting not vital — Vines on 
 
 the home, 2136. 
 
560 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 Church, making, solf-hclp in — Sofl-shcUcd 
 crabs, 2113. 
 malcin^ true men the true — Edwards 
 
 on "Tiie Will," 2i6S. 
 member, the idle — The worst heresiarch, 
 
 2106. 
 members — Travelers over bad roads, 
 2071. 
 
 all needed — Bodily members, 
 
 2085. 
 discord among — Hospital patients 
 
 quarreling, 2078. 
 humblest, may be useful — Stubble 
 
 and mud in log-cabin, 2083. 
 imperfect — Cooked fruit not strained 
 
 jelly, 2073. 
 " misunderstood " — Barren granite, 
 
 2104. 
 sinful men not sanctified — Sick not 
 yet cured, 2097. 
 niembersliip, duty of — Enlisting under 
 Christ, 2075. 
 
 interchange wholesome — United 
 
 States citizenship, 2165. 
 untrained — Unmanufactured ma- 
 terial, 2105. 
 variety needed in — Slice of social 
 
 loaf, 2079. 
 with single creed — Dead cut tim- 
 ber, 21 10. 
 mixed elements in — Caravansary, 2100. 
 of future loving not fighting — Flail- 
 bearing faiths, 2160. 
 partisanship — Passengers on vessel, 
 
 2155- 
 poor, members no excuse for avoiding 
 
 Christianity — Citizenship, 1452. 
 primitive Christian and Judaism — 
 
 Wesley and English Church, 2133. 
 refusing to deal with reforms — Cark- 
 
 lantern, 2358. 
 religion to care for the weak — Babe in 
 
 cradle, 2092. 
 sacrificing piety to save — Killed man 
 
 and got corpse, 2101. 
 servant of man — Chariot, 2102. 
 sustainer of Christian life — Vase with 
 
 water for flowers, 2135. 
 the true, welcomes all — Astronomy, 
 
 2080. 
 unity valueless — All townspeople one 
 
 name, meal-hour, etc., 2081. 
 valuable though imperfect — Gold-bear- 
 ing quartz, 68. 
 vibrates between law and gospel — 
 
 Pendulum, 2245. 
 worth of the — Plow needed for wheat, 
 
 tree-trunk for fruit, 2175. 
 Churches, all needed — All growth for veg- 
 etable kingdom, 2144. 
 
 Churches need excitement — Open-air 
 plants, 2124. 
 rich, should give as well as get — Fire- 
 engine, 2359. 
 with fine buildings but small benevo- 
 lence — Gilding own chariot, 2361. 
 without Christlike members — Light- 
 houses without lights, 2091. 
 
 Churchly cant — Religious mask, 2103. 
 forms valuable accortling to effect — 
 Schoolmaster, 2167. 
 
 Cities, importance of — Nerve-plexus of 
 nation, 1012. 
 ruin of men under temptations of — 
 Parthenon, 2472. 
 
 City, evils of — Volcanoes, 838. 
 
 Civilization high and low — River and 
 canal, 987. 
 
 Civil War, approach of — Barometers, 981. 
 dissolution of armies — Summer 
 storm, 984. 
 
 Classes for temporary use — Passing 
 tlirough a wood, 933. 
 
 Colts — Youthful excesses, 60. 
 
 Combative disposition — Unexploded tor- 
 pedo, 751. 
 
 Combination of weak units powerful — 
 Water from mist to ocean, 2501. 
 
 Comfort in one's own trouble — Widow of 
 Gen. Wallace aiding wounded, 256. 
 
 Coming day not now realized — Moses scep- 
 tical of vision of America, 2506. 
 
 Commerce, moral intelligence of — Seeks 
 liberty, order, industry, 589. 
 
 Common-sense better than uncommon — 
 Cake, bread ; artificial drinks, water, 
 360. 
 
 Commune of 1871 in Paris — Cat watching 
 for birds, 935. 
 
 Communists, iconoclasm of — Barefoot boy 
 and stone, 997. 
 
 Communion, the, heart answering heart 
 in — Wedding-bells, 2057. 
 sinners not righteous invited — Christ's 
 supjicr for hungry and thirsty, 2056. 
 
 Companionship in labor — Paul's cloud of 
 witnesses, 533. 
 
 Complaint of calling, unmanly — Flowers 
 and fruit on other vocations, 580. 
 
 Compliment — Crystallized praise ; proverb, 
 947- 
 
 Conceit — Opinion of Solomon, 1397. 
 
 magnifies its own — Flies on lens, lions 
 
 in moon, 761. 
 narrowness of — Building-material quar- 
 ried from self, 2267. 
 
 Concord not unison is harmony — Nature's 
 variety, 2164. 
 
 Condemnation not reformation — Morbid 
 anatomy, 2375. 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 561 
 
 Conditions of salvation not impossible — 
 (ieiman legend, 2257. 
 
 Conduct needs continuance — Ship's mo- 
 mentum, 1337. 
 tested by God's word — Carpenter's 
 straight-edge, 1632. 
 
 Confessed Christianity a safe-guard — Pro- 
 fanity before minister, 2089. 
 
 Conflict leading to peace — Medicine, 
 
 2373- 
 Congregation, an average— Picture-gallery, 
 
 2334- 
 Congregationalism — Plymouth Church, 
 
 Brooklyn, N. Y., 2158. 
 Conscience and reason — Organ-pipes and 
 
 key-board, 1342. 
 as guide — Shiji's compass, 1345. 
 
 habit of duty — Reservoirs in West- 
 ern New York, 1343. 
 covers evil and good — Mask, 1335. 
 department — For church, not home, 
 
 1338. 
 dimming of — Insects on lighthouse 
 
 lantern, 1349. 
 finds out evil — Detective, 1357. 
 loveless — Square end of a log, 8S2. 
 microscopic — Stopping watch to see if it 
 
 goes, 1337. 
 no — Man without a dog, 1331. 
 on Sunday and week-days — Justice's 
 
 court reversed, 134 1, 
 other men's — Driver on the street, 
 
 1344- 
 punishes not rewards — Flagellating 
 
 despot, 1799. 
 selfish, for others — Convert giving away 
 
 her feathers, 135 1. 
 sensitive, a — Musician hates discord, 
 
 . ^333- 
 
 sinning for other sentiments — Lackey ; 
 liar ; advocate ; mule ; blank checks, 
 1346. 
 spontaneity of — Instinct in walking — 
 
 »339. 
 sullying of — Scratches behind mirror, 
 
 1348. 
 unloving — Ill-loaded gun, 1334. 
 works with other faculties — Inquisition, 
 
 1340. 
 wrong use of — Drawn sword, 1332. 
 Consciousness needed for realization — 
 
 Italy to Austria, Connecticut to New 
 
 York, 1576. 
 Conservatives — Brakes on wheel, 440. 
 and progressives — Breeching and traces, 
 
 543- 
 Consolations of the Bible — Breasts for 
 
 nursing, 1846. 
 Constancy of God's goodness — Light by 
 
 day and night, 1216. 
 
 Constitution, native, a permanency— Dove ; 
 sunflower, 450. 
 of United States, early perils of — 
 Caissons of Brooklyn Bridge, 964, 
 Contempt from pity — Crow from egg, 
 
 2226. 
 Contentment with mortality unnatural — 
 Blossoms ; insects, 337. 
 poor — Mummies, 419. 
 Continuance, hunger for — Frost pictures 
 
 and paintings, 342. 
 Conversion — Dawn, 1539. 
 
 a change of method — Using telescope, 
 
 1561, 
 and sanctification — Clearing forty acres, 
 
 1594- 
 but the start — Convalescence not health, 
 
 1583. 
 is aim not performance — Alphabet and 
 literature, 1592. 
 
 study of Christian living — Entering 
 professions, 1575. 
 mode of, not important — Escape from 
 
 drowning, 1582. 
 not edification — foundation not build- 
 ing, 1617, 
 perfection — Instant increase in 
 
 stature, 1588. 
 to be reluctant — Quarreling chil- 
 dren, 1572. 
 quiet — Feeling not soap and sand, 
 
 1581. 
 turning aright — Going to California, 
 
 1587. 
 violent, not needed — Disciples of Jesus, 
 1580. 
 Conviction of sin not to be displayed — Ex- 
 hibiting sores, 1570. 
 without choice — Business vacillation, 
 1544- 
 Co-operation, divine and human — Sun and 
 plant, 1305. 
 Holy Spirit inspires to — Captain in bat- 
 tle, 1304. 
 Corinthians, I, Epistle to, XIII — Bee- 
 tlioven's Fifth Symphony, 1944. 
 painted cathedral window, 1945. 
 Corporate wealth in politics — Lion cubs to 
 
 be watched, loio. 
 Corruption dislikes to be meddled with — 
 Sodom and Gomorrah, 2364. 
 with propriety — Order and cleanliness 
 on pirate ship, 1034. 
 Corruptors of the young — Spreading in- 
 fection, 1402. 
 Country rest — Description, 2554. 
 Courage, physical and moral or mental — 
 Hercules and Socrates, 473. 
 lower and higher — Peter, and Joseph of 
 Arimathea, 1249. 
 
562 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 Courage under failure — Plants withstand- 
 ing autumn frosts, 679. 
 varieties of — Pour heart's blood like 
 water, fear to avow unpopular belief, 
 472. 
 Courtesy better than catechism — Seat in 
 
 car, 8S9. 
 Coveting — Examples of, 748. 
 
 undue gains — Stock gambling, 749. 
 Creation, modern account of, useless in 
 
 Genesis — Optics in nursery, 1891. 
 Credit for effort — Reform of habitual 
 
 swearer, 456. 
 Creeds, changing value of — Oriental dress 
 in Occident, 219S. 
 danger of — ^Mortmain, 2186. 
 for teaching not discipline — Whip of 
 
 scorpions, 2185. 
 not religion — Plows not harvest, 1508. 
 worn out — Mummies, 2207. 
 Crime, preparation for — Hazael, 1400. 
 Criminality, casual and habitual — Pimples 
 
 and bad blood, 1403. 
 Criticism, personal — Cat watching for 
 mice, 775. 
 the habit of — Examples, 776. 
 Croalcers — Patriarchs of the pool, 757. 
 Cross, bearing the — Ideal description of, 
 1726. 
 taking up, in Christian life — Alphabet; 
 piano-playing, 145 1. 
 Cruel views of God by good men — Dung- 
 hill bearing white flower, 2216. 
 Cruelty of man — Of animals, 82. 
 Culture, sellishness of — Burglar and 
 householder, 376. 
 wickedness of selfish — Gormandizing 
 food, 2457. 
 Customs restrain conduct — Walls, 1440. 
 
 David, warrior and poet — Bow and sword ; 
 
 shafts of song, 1910. 
 Death a beginning of life — Sunset is also 
 
 sunrise elsewhere, 309. 
 advancement — Morning growing to 
 
 noon, 311. 
 a grade — School to university, 288. 
 and resurrection — Sleep and waking, 
 
 202. 
 appearing before God — Preparation to 
 
 meet eminent people, 292. 
 approach of — Autumnal glory, 286. 
 beauty of — The pearly gate, 298. 
 certain and uncertain — Hidden sharp- 
 
 sliooter, 289. 
 disrobing not for sleep but glory — 
 
 Thanatopsis, 330. 
 forethinkings about — Talking with 
 
 friend, 293. 
 glory of — Blossom and fruit, 303. 
 
 Death hope in — Maize ripened and 
 reaped, 295. 
 hour, a hope for — Birds under impulse 
 
 of transmigration, 305. 
 house put in order for — Smoke of pas- 
 sions, etc., 291. 
 is of the body — Railway car the vehicle, 
 
 not the person, 309. 
 Jewish view of — Setting not rising sun, 
 
 302. 
 not exile for the Christian — Emigrants 
 
 in strange land, 308. 
 perfecting — (^old ore minted, 311. 
 preparation for — Autumnal foliage, 307. 
 repose of — Sleeping child in mother's 
 
 arms, 300. 
 river of, bridged by bereavements — En- 
 gineers, 306. 
 solitariness of — Moses on Nebo, 304. 
 sudden, a blessing — Decay or overthrow 
 
 of sound tree by tornado, 313. 
 the natural — Clock run down, 296. 
 transplantation — Raised under glass, re- 
 moved to air, 312. 
 vacation — Going home from school, 310. 
 wholesome thinking about — Bathing in 
 shore-waters of eternity, 290. 
 Decisions, critical— Railway switch ; weight 
 
 on scale, 1469. 
 Definitions of — Abhorrence, 1379. 
 — Books, 2436. 
 —Sin, 1381. 
 Degeneracy — Downward movement of 
 
 glaciers, 1413. 
 Delicacy — Spring in the rock, 409. 
 Democracy starts all from same level — 
 
 Trees, 971. 
 Democratic self-government — Church and 
 state in Europe, 933. 
 institutions raise average of mankind — 
 Crossing Rocky Mts., 2526. 
 Denomlnationalism — Fences, 2145. 
 Depravity, doctrine of total, hiding God — 
 
 High garden-wall, 2249. 
 Descriptions of — After the Galilean par- 
 ables, 1 106. 
 
 — Aspen tree, 2582. 
 
 — Bearing the cross, 1726. 
 
 — Bird nature, 2579. 
 
 — Bodily members, 181. 
 
 — Country rest, 2554. 
 
 — Delight of peace after war, 2520. 
 
 — Elms of New England, 2583. 
 
 — Empire of thought, 1440. 
 
 ^Escape from captivity, 1590. 
 
 — Gulls flying with wind, 1618. 
 
 — Ideals of God, Grecian, Roman, 
 
 Medieval, Humanitarian, 1121. 
 — Impersonal Gods, varieties of, 
 1 1 16. 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 5^3 
 
 Description of — Irish peoi)le, 2514. 
 
 — Jewels as spirtual emblems, 2566. 
 
 —Joy, 2441. 
 
 — Mist, cloud, rain, stream, river, 
 
 estuary, ocean, 2501. 
 — Morning after storm, 1253. 
 — Mountains as curative agents, 
 
 3563- 
 — Prayer-meeting, spirited negro, 
 
 and while, 181 1. 
 — Stars and stripes, 985. 
 — Tide fdling bay, 1748. 
 — Trees, 2584. 
 Design, greater evidence of — Watch, 
 watch-making machine; flower, floral 
 system, 1 128. 
 Desiring not choosing — Blossoms and 
 
 fruit, 51. 
 Desultory action — Scattering bricks, not 
 
 house-building, 732. 
 Deuteronomy — Washington's farewell let- 
 ter, 1S97. 
 Devil, arrows of— Living above tempta- 
 tion, 1380. 
 tempts the temptable — Plays on tuned 
 chords, 794. 
 Development, slowness of early — Plant 
 
 germination, 2471. 
 Devotion not piety — Fire, food ; mill, 
 flour, 1464. 
 that must be kindled — Altar-fire, 
 1685. 
 Devotional exercises net finding Christ — 
 Simmering over fire, 1556. 
 impulses — Natural, habitual, occasional, 
 1685. 
 Dictionary — House-key, 1839. 
 Disagreement without quarrel — Pruning 
 
 trees, 926. 
 Discipleship, shallow — Populace and Jesus, 
 
 1654. 
 Discomfort glorified — Rain and rainbow, 
 
 666. 
 Discouragement — Mephitic gas, 1730. 
 Discrimination among men — Dressing fish 
 
 for food, 940. 
 Disfellowship of real Christians impossible 
 
 — Street-lamp in wind, 2159. 
 Dishonesty, folly of — Poor bargaining with 
 
 devil, 572. 
 permeating — An atmosphere, 746. 
 unprofitable — Thievery a hard master, 
 
 7 so- 
 Disinterested goodness — Father in heaven, 
 
 1782. 
 Dispositions vary — Sunshine, northeast 
 
 wind, 807. 
 Disputatious man — Bramble-bush, 745. 
 Dissipation increasingly dangerous — 
 
 Whirlpool, 61. 
 
 Distinction between good and bad men 
 
 interior — Not in clothing, 15 12. 
 Disturbance the price of progress — John 
 
 the Baptist, 2371. 
 Diversity, power in — Fruit on branches, 
 
 not trunk, 2260. 
 Divine and human nature — Bee's sting and 
 
 needle, 1188. 
 and human sympathy — Helping an 
 
 enemy, 1193. 
 comforter, the — Caravan of pilgrims, 
 
 1 194. 
 father not avenger — Obstinate parent, 
 
 1 1 78. 
 fullness — Man's lamp and God's sun, 
 
 1200. 
 guidance a privilege — Coast-lights, 1324. 
 impulse of love — Violet's perfume for 
 
 others, 1172. 
 intercourse, tokens of — Fruit from 
 
 orchard, 15 10. 
 justice as considerate as human — I>egal 
 
 maturity, 1 182. 
 law and divine mercy — Pedantic judge, 
 
 loving God, 2255. 
 lightening of burdens — Increase of 
 
 strength, 171 1. 
 love eternal — Restored blind man re- 
 alizes existent beauty, 1 183. 
 love for man — Sun drawing forth vege- 
 tation, 2571. 
 measurement of men— Shakespeare and 
 
 cobbler alike, 1181. 
 mercies — Dew, 1 196. 
 modeling of man's glory — Sculptor's 
 
 clay-work, 1723. 
 paternity — Key to Christianity, 1 177. 
 patience — Schoolmaster, 1195. 
 truth, human statements — Iron ore and 
 
 forged tools, 2184. 
 Doctrinal difficulties — Overtight harness, 
 
 2183. 
 discussion — Fence-building not farming, 
 
 2180. 
 intolerance — Shibboleth and Sibboleth, 
 
 2189. 
 preaching to be practical — Subsoil plow, 
 
 2182. 
 Doctrine of retribution taught by Christ — 
 
 Drawing back curtain, 2250. 
 of total depravity hiding God — High 
 
 garden-wall, 2249. 
 Doctrines and life — Skeleton and body, 
 
 2181. 
 
 truth — Wheat in the kernel and 
 bread, 2305. 
 old-fashioned — Wagon without springs, 
 
 2227. 
 to be proved by trial — Typesetting; 
 
 chemical formula, 2221. 
 
sH 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 Doubt and faith — Horn twins, 19S5. 
 
 chcerlessncss of — Newfoundland fogs, 
 
 1971. 
 cleared by times of vision — Landmarks 
 
 for traveler, iyS6. 
 eras of — Ploughing for a new crop, 
 
 1972. 
 power of — Question of counterfeit coin, 
 
 1978. 
 Doubters of the invisible — Bulb's talk 
 
 about flowers, 1696. 
 soul bestead by — Unanchoredship, 1981. 
 Duty and destiny — Flaw in the weaving, 
 
 446. 
 fidelity to — Gardening for the public 
 
 eye, 525. 
 shirking, means disuse — Unworked iron 
 
 worthless, 550. 
 Dying, act of — Folding of flower; wind 
 
 dropping away ; ebbing tide ; taper 
 
 going out ; spark extinguished ; bird 
 
 seeking its nest, 297. 
 ease of — Falling of ripe apple, 299. 
 peace of — Tired child falling asleep, 
 
 301. 
 
 Ear and tongue leagued for evil — Sewer 
 
 and scavenger, 792. 
 Earth and heaven — Seasickness and 
 beauty of foreign lands, 351. 
 connection with heaven — Electric key- 
 board and organ, 1434. 
 judgments in heaven — Invoices reap- 
 praised, 317. 
 Earthly experience foundations of heavenly 
 conceptions — Water for clouds, 1155. 
 undertakings should aim at heaven — 
 Jacob's ladder, 1599. 
 Eating — ^Firing an engine, 180. 
 
 on principle — Fuel proportioned to work, 
 1S6. 
 Education begins in simplicity — Mother- 
 language, 2417. 
 changes size but not sort — Tree-culture, 
 
 2412. 
 does not originate — Pick-axe and gold, 
 
 2433- 
 for great possibilities — Manoah's wife, 
 
 2416. 
 in voting by voting — Shooting to learn 
 
 to shoot, 2424. 
 mind without — Undug ore, 2425. 
 taxation for, wise — Stopping holes in 
 
 ship of state, 2419. 
 varies for different children — Bass viol, 
 
 flute, 2418. 
 Effort source of power — Hard-worked 
 
 father, pampered children, 593. 
 Elect and non-elect — Whosoever will and 
 
 won't, 2204. 
 
 Elevation means efibrt — Going upstairs, 
 2489. 
 
 Elijah, irregularity of — Mountain stream, 
 1906. 
 
 Elms of New England — Description, 25S3. 
 
 Emotion and motion — Cascade and mill- 
 stream, 410. 
 deep, not common — Giant chords in 
 
 German castle, 418. 
 develops conduct in wedded love — 
 
 Blood of life, 113. 
 pernicious if not practical^Theater; re- 
 ligion, 1497. 
 
 Emotional extremes — Tides in Bay of 
 Fundy, 411. 
 natures — Swollen streams ; full reser- 
 voirs, 452. 
 
 Emotions soiled by worldliness — Delicate 
 blossoms, 1070. 
 
 Energy in strong natures — Quartz-crush- 
 ers, pile drivers, 452. 
 or mildness of goodness — Cutting edge, 
 or October sun ; June sun or moon- 
 shine, 434. 
 unprofitable — Unbroken colt, 733. 
 
 Enjoyment, power of — Quality of musical 
 instrument, 6 1 3. 
 
 Enterprise, commercial, high results of — 
 Lamp of science, roots of literature, 
 bread of learning, support of religion, 
 588. 
 
 Enthusiasm, power of — White heat in 
 brain, 869. 
 
 Environment, early — Relic of mother, 844. 
 not all — Wayside blossoms, 662. 
 superior to — Fine bird in smutty chim- 
 ney, 837. 
 
 Epistles, living — Theory and example, 
 light killmg darkness, 1509. 
 
 Equality of poor and good workmen im- 
 possible — Watering-pot not Niagara, 
 2497. 
 
 wages for all absurd — Wheat and 
 chaff, 2498. 
 
 Equanimity to be learned — Avoiding sea- 
 sickness, 161 1. 
 
 Equivalence, law of — Making haste to be 
 rich, 609. 
 
 Equivalents of temperament — Icebergs 
 and equator, 378. 
 
 Era for gladness — May, not January, 
 
 2539. 
 Error exposed in love or in temper — 
 
 Angels or animals, 2377. 
 Escape bom storms of life — Top of Mt. 
 
 Holyoke, 1755. 
 Esprit de corps of Christianity — Of army, 
 
 2150. 
 Eternal life, promise of — Sun's talk to 
 
 flowers, 1676. 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 565 
 
 Eternity, background of life — Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, 314. 
 
 refreshment in thought of — Summer 
 bath in ocean, 294. 
 
 to show earthly work — A sealed check 
 for payment, ^i^. 
 Evanescence of experience — Summer mem- 
 ories in winter, 414. 
 Events — God's shuttles weaving future 
 garments, 2481. 
 
 silence of great — Morning star, 2503. 
 Evil, accustomed to — Small doses of poison, 
 14 1 9. 
 
 active and passive — Fire and decay, 
 922. 
 
 always evil — Spider in morning-glory, 
 1368. 
 
 courses, escape from, improbable — 
 Sliding down a glacier, 1416. 
 
 disguised, still evil — Harlot, 770. 
 
 finds evil — Examples, 793. 
 
 for the sake of good — Satan's fishing- 
 line, 562. 
 
 individual power of social — One instru- 
 ment in orchestra, 920. 
 
 insensibility to — Working in gas mains, 
 1418. 
 
 mysterious powers of — Shadow of hawk, 
 
 135'- 
 
 origin of, with God — Labor pains, 1 127. 
 
 overcome with good — Children's see- 
 saw, 950. 
 
 propagation of — Self-sowing poisonous 
 weed, 1424. 
 
 resist beginnings of — Prairie fire, 58. 
 
 strength of, in men — Cable tested by 
 stress, 1426. 
 
 traits reclaimed — Sub-draining morass, 
 
 723; 
 
 varieties of — Destroying watch, 1395. 
 Evils in society can be destroyed — Hercules 
 
 and the serpents, 2381. 
 Evolutionary theory of universe greater 
 than creative — Power- loom and rug- 
 makers, 2237. 
 sublime conception of design — Not me- 
 chanical whittling, 2243. 
 without, physical research gives only 
 unrelated facts — Basket of marble, 
 2236. 
 Example, force of — River-boom, 866, 
 Examples of — Architecture from nature, 
 2581. 
 
 — Christ's themes, 2341. 
 
 — Coveting, 748. 
 
 — Criticism, habit of, 776. 
 
 — Evil finds evil, 793. 
 
 — Forgiving without forgetting, 767. 
 
 — Fraud in manufacturing, 774. 
 
 — Frugality under temptation, 69S. 
 
 Examples of — Good things embraced in 
 
 Christianity, 1482. 
 — llluslrations from nature, 2547. 
 — Lower pleasures : thief, robber, 
 
 miser, reveler, 1393. 
 — Luminous hours after darkness : 
 
 frontier preacher, city missionary, 
 
 worker for the world, Christ, 1763. 
 — Minister's instinct for men : 
 
 artist, mechanic, drunkard, glut- 
 ton, angler, 22S1. 
 — Study of human nature : lawyer, 
 
 merchant, politician, iiorist, 2283. 
 — Opening the lock of God's will, 
 
 1777. 
 — Right, unconscious rebuke of 
 
 wrong, 825. 
 — Salutations, ancient and modern, 
 
 808. 
 — Spirituality misunderstood, 1067. 
 — Symbols in religion, natural and 
 
 artificial, 2549. 
 — Visions of Christ, 1296. 
 — Voice for orator: rooster, bull, 
 
 crow, dog, 2294. 
 — Volition and disposition, 1739. 
 Excellences, small — Cochineal insect dye, 
 
 799- 
 Excitement, energizing power of — Anger, 
 
 439- 
 national — Freshet and good tilling, 
 
 979- 
 natural desire of men — Dissipation, 
 
 chase, war, 438. 
 of higher feelings — Molten iron in 
 
 foundry, 1553. 
 safety in lack of religious — Broken- 
 down horse, 2130. 
 Excuses flimsy — Frost-pictures on win- 
 dow, 1408. 
 Experiments in religion — Horse-back rid- 
 ing, 1550. 
 Explanations profitless — Kitten chasing 
 
 its tail, 894. 
 Expression by deeds — Mary Magdalene, 
 loSo. 
 gives development — Clouds and rain, 
 
 1688. 
 increases emotion — Maiden and lover, 
 
 1577- 
 
 of pleasure — Bell, 802. 
 
 safety in — Emotive man in church ac- 
 tivities, 2123. 
 Extremes and means in morals — Zero : 
 
 cold nor hot, 445. 
 Faculties brightened by use — Bodily mus- 
 cles, 389. 
 
 condition of, for work — Clear or cloudy 
 weather ; astronomer ; lawyer ; doctor, 
 preacher, 388. 
 
566 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 Faculties inharmonious — Tenants in lodg- 
 ing house, 3S3. 
 
 to be controlled not destroyed — Prob- 
 lem requires all its elements, 450. 
 
 to be regulated — Steeds awaiting hit and 
 training, 430. 
 Fading impressions of good — P>ell vibra- 
 tions, 1 105. 
 Faitli, activity of Christian — Light, heat, 
 2026. 
 
 and reason — Turkey flying and walking, 
 2028. 
 
 comfort in Christian — Remedial force 
 of nature, 2034. 
 
 deals with the invisible — Merchant 
 prince, 2010. 
 
 imaginings of, beautiful — Frost-picture, 
 dew on flower, 201 1. 
 
 in God — Trust in the pilot, 2023. 
 
 in practice — Lyman Beecher, experience 
 of, 2025. 
 
 is trust — Forest-guide ; ship-captain ; gen- 
 eral, 2008. 
 
 lack of, foolish — Children in nursery, 
 2032. 
 
 living by — Farmer and apple-tree, 2036. 
 
 man without — Headless fly, 2007. 
 
 not single but universal — Not a diamond 
 but treasure, 2010. 
 
 outgrowth of, from idolatry — White 
 flower from dirt, 2459. 
 
 steadfastness of — ^Napoleon's marshal 
 and the bomb, 2018. 
 
 the Order of, in Hebrews — Peerage, 
 2021. 
 
 without knowledge — Poor man and rich 
 helper, 2009. 
 Fall of man — Never was; but upward if at 
 
 all, 221 1. 
 Falling by the way in humanity's march — 
 
 The weak of the army, 2533. 
 Fame brief — Names on ocean-beacli, 535. 
 Family, a large — Ladder for the children, 
 160. 
 
 prayer — A celestial bath, 174. 
 
 unity, of the spirit — Marriage, living 
 under one roof, physical not spiritual 
 oneness, 166. 
 Fate, the religion of — Stream irresistible as 
 
 Niagara, 2206. 
 Father and daughter — Home-quarrel 
 blocks conversion, 172. 
 
 and Judge — Home and court-room, 
 141. 
 Fatherhood, the Divine — Parents and 
 
 erring children, 148. 
 Father's love attracts the errant — Prod- 
 igal's return, 149. 
 Fault-finding — Turkey-buzzards and car- 
 nun crows, 778. 
 
 Faults, corrigible — Crooked timber, 1650. 
 in full natures — Weeds in rich soils. 
 
 404. 
 lead to sins — Equivocation and lying, 
 
 711. 
 little, hide God — Breath on glass ; pricks 
 
 on shield, 714. 
 repeated, dim moral sight — Spider-web 
 
 in window, 713. 
 small, baits to larger ones — Trapping 
 
 turkeys, 7 12. 
 unseen — Mines under the wall, 721. 
 Fear — Bell or gong of warning, 1987. 
 
 — Lash for steed of industry, 1990. 
 
 — Moral tonic, 19S8. 
 
 — Pain of spur, 1989. 
 and hope — Twilight and sunrise; miasma 
 
 and quinine, 1997. 
 but restraining agency — Bayonets ; hang- 
 man, 1991. 
 corroding — Secretes acids, 1992. 
 deteriorating — Poison, 1993. 
 excessive, a hindrance — Water-logged 
 
 timber, 1992. 
 folly of — Dreading fords in the West, 
 
 1995- 
 Feeling before reason in higher truth — 
 Justice, beauty, wit, 407. 
 community of — Burning stick, fagot, 
 
 bonflre, furnace, S72. 
 great, for great occasions — Battle ; fire ; 
 
 illness, 416. 
 growth and diffusion of — Mulberry tree, 
 
 1613. 
 in shallow natures — Ripples ; surface- 
 plowing, 415. 
 law of — Emotion and harnessed motive 
 
 power, 441. 
 power of — Mill-streams, 408. 
 reaction of — R. H. Dana, Jr., returns 
 
 from voyage, 443. 
 transientness of high — Color-excite- 
 ment in I^ouvre, 413. 
 variability of — Torch-flame, 2132. 
 Fellowship, unchristian, to errant church 
 
 members — Cannibalism, 21 12. 
 Fervency effective — Apostles; men in active 
 life, 435. 
 makes thinking and doing easy — Weld- 
 ing iron in heat, 554. 
 Fiction and fact — Soup and meat, 2446. 
 
 not food — Spices and condiments, 2447. 
 Fidelity — Shipmaster in wreck, 820. 
 
 in labor — Silk-worms, 1737. 
 Filial liberties attract love — Children 
 
 treating older friend as father, 22. 
 Financial disturbances — God's furrows for 
 
 good seed, 2332. 
 Find wliat we bring, we — The cinder and 
 the lamp, 861. 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 567 
 
 Flag, the American — Described, 985. 
 
 Flatterer — Needle threaded with selfish- 
 ness, 773. 
 
 Flattery, lying — Thread of truth, web of 
 insincerity, 772. 
 
 Flesh and spirit — Cob and corn reversed, 
 1065. 
 cannot discern spirit — Anger ; peace ; 
 greed ; equity, 1062. 
 
 Flowers, love of — Eden in the heart, 
 
 2545- 
 Force, interchange between mind and 
 
 physical world — Tides, IO73. 
 Forgiveness — Restored stream of confi- 
 dence between souls, 16. 
 ground of, in God's nature — Generous 
 
 man ; poetic speaker, 1205. 
 of God absolute — Destroying indictment, 
 1207. 
 remedial — Tree overgrowing in- 
 jury, 1206. 
 surly — Dog rebuked for barking, growls, 
 
 766. 
 without desire to retaliate — Burn arrow 
 and bow too, S15. 
 
 forgetting — Example, 767. 
 Forward, not backward — Swimming 
 
 Charles river, 686. 
 Fraud in manufactures — Examples, 774. 
 Free agency and God — Oars with wind 
 
 and tide, 2203. 
 Freedom, evils of, cured by more freedom 
 — Christ and the blind man, 2347. 
 more fertile than restraint — Fat soil has 
 
 weeds, 2346. 
 of speech — Winds in malarial regions, 
 
 2374. ... 
 spirit of, irresistible — Stopping a spring, 
 966. 
 French esthetics, Greek sensualism without 
 mental genius — Swallows and eagles, 
 2514. 
 Fretting, foolish — Pestered by a fly, 744. 
 shows weakness — Little dog at door, 
 741. 
 Friend in household — Thread in needle; 
 sunlight in window, 1274. 
 labors for a — God's disinterestedness, 
 
 912. 
 talking with a — Forethinkings about 
 death, 293. 
 Friends, companionship with absent — 
 
 Recognition of God, 1 138. 
 Friendship broken — Cracked tumbler, 910. 
 in separation — Abiding influence of 
 
 Christ, 1259. 
 ordinary — Baxter, 909. 
 responsiveness of — Bell, 911. 
 self-seeking — Shepherd ; gardener, 768. 
 true — Mutual love-slavery, 909. 
 
 Frugality, self-government — Temptations 
 
 described, 698. 
 strengthens manliness — Parents not to 
 
 depend on children, 828. 
 Fundamentals, sinfulness, love, immortality 
 
 — Atmosphere, power, subject, 2265. 
 Future, a thought of the — Unhindered 
 
 social power of spirit-world, 341, 
 disclosures of the — Michael Angelo's 
 
 scaffolding, 335. 
 joy, a present help — Rejoicing at close 
 
 of Civil War, 334. 
 probation, perils of — Circuitous route 
 
 from Greece to New York, 318. 
 revelations of character — Carpets in loom 
 
 and in market, 349. 
 splendor of the unimaginable — Esqui- 
 maux' idea of the tropics, 356. 
 
 Gains, ill-gotten, destructive — Phosphores- 
 cence of decay, 543. 
 Garden^'parable of Eden — Poem ; desert 
 
 flower ; morass, 2209. 
 Gardener and chaplain — Children and 
 
 God's handiwork, 40. 
 Generosity and benevolence — Militia and 
 regular army, 2386. 
 fragmentary, benevolence complete — 
 
 Child and pianist, 2388, 
 habit of — Oil on machinery, 2410. 
 in the money-getter — Ship's leaking 
 seam, 576. 
 Genius but the soil — Must be tilled, 394. 
 labors of — Ant and eagle ; Ceesar ; Fred- 
 erick ; Napoleon, 508. 
 needs industry— Bacon ; Michael Angelo, 
 
 507. 
 not to be suppressed — Germ will burst 
 
 the shell, 372. 
 obligations of, to lofty life — Byron; 
 
 Goethe, 373. 
 to live superiorly- — ^Eagles and sparrows, 
 
 1518. 
 undeveloped — Unlighted candle, 372. 
 Gentleness, power with sweetness — 
 
 Blacksmith and baby, 812. 
 Germanic free spirit — To arise after Bis- 
 marck, 2516. 
 Gifts measured by motives — Smart-weed 
 and flower, 887. 
 of love lasting — Widow's mites; ala- 
 baster box, 2407. 
 Giving and receiving — Grain sown for 
 harvest, 2389. 
 freely or stingily — Spring or leaky 
 
 pump, 2385. 
 to be done simply — Not like hen cack- 
 ling over egg, 2409, 
 unwise, makes mendicancy — Italy and 
 charity, 2398. 
 
568 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 Giving wise — Vussar College ; Nashville 
 Univ.; Wi'llcsley College, 2401. 
 
 with gnuigiiig — Water pumped from 
 mine; tootli to dentist, 2390. 
 Glory out of obscurity — Huguenots, Vau- 
 
 dois, 657. 
 God, an unsympathetic, admirable not 
 lovable — Ice])erg, 1134. 
 
 apprehended spiritually — Seeing music, 
 hearing pictures, I151. 
 
 as center — Light-rays and sun, 1704. 
 
 as father, as ruler— Verdure clad moun- 
 tain, Mont Blanc, 2248. 
 
 central in human affairs — Suns and 
 satellites, 1 164. 
 
 comforting, the — Mother soothing child, 
 
 II35- 
 
 conceptions of — Barbarian, Greek, 
 Christian, 1 1 13. 
 
 distorted views of — Concave mirror, 
 1 1 19. 
 
 gifts to — Children's fruitful lives please 
 father, 12 17. 
 
 governmental view of — Indians killing 
 weak children, 1 144. 
 
 growing views of — Increasing tele- 
 scopic power, 2014. 
 
 human judgments of — Ant and moun- 
 tain, 1120. 
 
 hunger and thirst for — Worship not 
 enough, 1117. 
 
 ideals of — Grecian ; Roman ; Medieval ; 
 Humanitarian, 1121. 
 
 immanence of — Mind in body, 1129. 
 
 impersonal, unlovable — Varieties de- 
 scribed, 1 1 16. 
 
 interpretation of — Throne of iron ; crys- 
 tal ; mystery ; grace, 12 19. 
 
 interrogated Ijy intelligence — Potter and 
 clay, 1 1 26. 
 
 knowledge of, growth not impression — 
 Photographic j^late, 1060. 
 
 known by love — Summer's warmth, 
 1 107. 
 through man's best qualities — 
 Music ; heroism, 1 154. 
 
 longing for — Potato-vines in cellar, 1088. 
 
 love for an unknowable — Morning- 
 glory twining on shadow, 1 1 14. 
 
 loves as men need — Seeking mission- 
 school children, 1215. 
 
 making use of — Different effects of sun- 
 shine, 1 169. 
 
 not a self-flatterer — Nebuchadnezzar, 
 1 156. 
 
 of law, a — Captious judge on bench, 
 1 140. 
 
 originator of evil — Growing-pains, 1 127. 
 
 pantheistic, unsatisfying — Chewing this- 
 tle-down, 1 1 18. 
 
 God, partial views of — Lost in the forest, 
 1 132. 
 
 passes comprehension — Tyndall's ex- 
 periment on ligiit spectrum, 1169. 
 
 personal, fundamental — Love demands 
 personality, 1 1 16. 
 
 right to — Fellow - countrymen 
 abroad, 1 136. 
 
 philosopher's, not adorable — Proposition 
 in Euclid, 1 1 15. 
 
 recognition of — Companionship with 
 absent friends, 1138. 
 
 regards all alike — The great democrat, 
 1122. 
 
 seeing, through purity — Correct tele- 
 scope-lens, 1 1 24. 
 
 seen as he is — Vision of Parthenon, 
 1159. 
 
 symbolized in human love — Mother, 
 lover, 1 185. 
 
 the mover, man the actor — Water-power 
 and mill, 436. 
 
 thoughts about — Drop and ocean, 1147. 
 
 understanding of, grows with experi- 
 ence — Child and parents, 1 137. 
 
 universal medicament — Blood of the 
 universe, 1 180. 
 
 varying conceptions of — Observers of 
 Milan Cathedral, II23. 
 
 working in us — Ante-natal maternal 
 sustenance, 1091. 
 God's abundance — Light, rain, air, 1191. 
 
 beneficence — Mother and babe, II31. 
 
 bosom — Mothering tired children, 1201. 
 
 brooding love — Eagle in the nest, 1089. 
 
 children not forgotten — Mother's heart, 
 1 108. 
 
 com])anionship not provable — Man's 
 love for his wife, 2012. 
 
 creation of unsalvable evil men — 
 Spreader of smallpox, 2213. 
 
 dealings with men — Sculptor with mar- 
 ble, 1643. 
 
 delicacy towards the repentant — Tran- 
 quil skies not brooding storm, 1202. 
 
 discipline — Author's days of boy whip- 
 pings, 1 192. 
 
 disinterestedness — Labors for friend, 
 912. 
 
 emotion — Greek and Hebrew concep- 
 tions of God, 1 21 3. 
 
 generosity — Thousand-dollar bills and 
 small ones, 12 14. 
 
 glory — Moses and God's goodness, 1 176. 
 
 goodness waits for men — Miners find 
 light above, 1 184. 
 
 government — Right and wrong its pil- 
 lars, 1 133. 
 
 gracious bounty — Sun and blossoms, 
 1 1 90. 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 569 
 
 God's great heart — Tlie ocean ; a cup, 
 1 198. 
 
 heart man's standard — Chronometer, 
 1 170. 
 
 heirs not poor — Wealthy traveler loses 
 letter of credit, 709. 
 
 influence on man's development — Sun- 
 light on plant, 1 125. 
 
 kingship — Best monarchs, not worst, 
 the criterion, 1179. 
 
 knowledge of all experience — Young 
 mother and grandmother, 2020. 
 
 love for his children — Bird plucking 
 breast-feathers, earthly fathers, 1 140. 
 to his world — Mother-soul, 4. 
 
 personality known by love not analysis 
 — Eating a peach, 1141. 
 
 rejoicing over rescued souls — Lost and 
 found on the prairie, 1158. 
 
 severe dealings — Digging well ; sinking 
 mine-shaft ; threshing with flail ; rot- 
 ting flax-fiber, 677. 
 
 spirit, attraction of — Sun's evaporation 
 of sea, III I. 
 
 sympathy — Mountain echo, 1173. 
 
 tenderness for the weak — Babe rescued 
 in conflagration, 1186. 
 
 unselfish life — Centrifugal not centrip- 
 etal, 1 1 49. 
 
 love — Cold marble throne, or blaz- 
 ing with love, 1 1 39. 
 
 willingness to give — Apple-tree, 1174. 
 to help — Man glad to advise friend, 
 1832. 
 
 will on earth and in heaven — Orchestral 
 tuning and performance, 1187. 
 
 words heard by his children, — A touch- 
 stone, 1067. 
 
 writing legible — Marks of passions, 
 
 57- 
 Golden mean in property — Temperate 
 
 zone, 591. 
 Good-bye — " God be with you," shrunk 
 to a skin, 808. 
 deeds — Dewdrops ; pearls, 15 17. 
 
 one's own, to be forgotten — Wor- 
 shiping one's own shadow, 1785. 
 for evil as coals of fire — Consuming 
 
 offences on altar, 1797. 
 growth, slow growth — Mushroom and 
 
 tree, 16 16. 
 in every man — Eat the fruit, not whole 
 
 tree, 447. 
 men opposing hopeful views of God — 
 
 Backing into heaven, 2218. 
 nature evident — Fragrance of grape- 
 vine blossoms, 806. 
 
 influence of — Daylight, 860. 
 works for growth not contentment — 
 Sails not anchors, 1626. 
 
 Goodaess amid evil — Lighted candle out- 
 doors, 814. 
 
 artistic — Fine-finished cutlery, 461. 
 
 effluence of — Fragrance of hidden 
 flowers, 1072. 
 
 everyday — Flowers, 1504. 
 
 influence of visible — Flowers and bot- 
 any, 1503. 
 
 made apparent — Mignonette, 1521. 
 
 multiplies — One rose demands another, 
 1671. 
 
 needs divine nourishment — Seed grow- 
 ing, 1690. 
 
 not of sudden growth — Fruit not ripened 
 by fire and bellows, 1607. 
 
 not to shun the world — Plague-stricken 
 district, 544. 
 
 to be positive — Palette of rich colors, 
 1749. 
 Gospel, irregularity of stories — Not dis- 
 sected map but index, 1920. 
 
 leveling tendency of — Liliputians and 
 Brobdignagians, 970. 
 
 life of Christ to be read entire — Tribune 
 or Times, 19 19. 
 
 of St. John, New Testament without — 
 Golden candlestick with unlighted 
 candle, 1937. 
 Gossip malicious — Mosquitoes and gnats, 
 
 785- 
 Grumbling — Small change of treason; 
 
 Noah's raven, 756, 
 Guidance human and divine — Weather- 
 cocks and their upright rods, 2015. 
 Government, civil, a natural development 
 — Clothing ; shadow, 956. 
 fits the people — Hooded blossom, 957. 
 Grace, free — Generosity of sunlight, 1189. 
 God's — Mother and sucking babe, 
 1152. 
 Grant's fame — Brooklyn bridge-towers, 
 
 988. 
 Grateful natures — Grape-blossom ; mi- 
 gnonette ; honeysuckle, 1094. 
 Gratitude an inspiration — Bailed culprits 
 kept faith, 8 19. 
 as motive power — Child rescued from 
 
 fire, 1095. 
 discoveries of — Magnet with iron in 
 
 sand, 1096. 
 everyday — Bells in Antwerp cathedral 
 spire, 1097. 
 Great experiences and minor events — Mat- 
 terhorn and smaller peaks, 1756. 
 man influential — Distributes himself, is 
 
 buried, lives again, 2437. 
 men associated with their deeds — The 
 
 name of Christ, 1260. 
 mindedness in humble callings — Henry 
 Wilson; Hugh Miller, 511. 
 
570 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 Great minds stimulative — Paul ; Shake- 
 speare ; Bacon, 2438. 
 
 Greek genius without morality — Moral 
 rottenness destroyed cohesion, 2513. 
 
 Greed, empty— Sculpin, 575. 
 
 soul destroying — Chords of harp broken, 
 581. 
 
 Grief to be recalled only for courage — 
 Spent eggs will not hatch life, 251. 
 girds in unexpected places — Harness and 
 pads, 682. 
 
 Gross measurements of value — Flowers 
 not practically useful, 2564. 
 
 Growth of man variable — Seed-growth al- 
 most invariable, 74. 
 
 solidified — Rhododendrons, 1702. 
 
 Grudge, holding a — Raking up embers, 
 765- 
 
 Habit, beauty of — Beau and farmer ; plow 
 and society, 835. 
 of doing good — Atmosphere of life, 
 1520. 
 Habits formed in childhood — Colors dyed 
 in the wool, 12. 
 bad, eradicating — Grubbing up black- 
 berry bushes, 724. 
 
 hard to change — Tree grown 
 
 crooked, 62. 
 release from — Prison doors and 
 
 shackles broken, 1432. 
 pertinacity of — Chickens and swine 
 
 in low-built houses, 725. 
 revealed — Lanced by chance sen- 
 tence, 710. 
 Half-truths, lies — Throwing shadows, 719. 
 Happiness, from within — Harp, oak, 490. 
 from health — Plants outgrow aphides, 
 
 493- 
 interior not external — Decorated violins, 
 
 488. 
 
 made manifest — Flame from coals of 
 hickory fire, 497. 
 
 making — Phosphorescent ship's wake, 
 502. 
 
 not having but being — Chords respon- 
 sive to joy, 496. 
 
 not to be hunted — Butterfly chasing, 489. 
 
 the highest, under great sorrow — Wine 
 from the crushed grape, 254. 
 Happy, makmg others — Adagio from Bee- 
 thoven's Symphony, 803. 
 Hardness in life, enduring — Recruit in 
 
 army, 692. 
 Hardship, early, good fortune — Arctic 
 fowls. New England, Sinai, 655. 
 
 makes strong men — Puritans, steel-forg- 
 ing, 656. 
 Health — Mainspring of civilization, 178. 
 
 a man of — A fountain, 177. 
 
 Health, degrees of — Under-shot and over- 
 shot wheel, 183. 
 
 depends on activity — Pure water, clean 
 air, 179. 
 
 duty of preserving — Inherited estate, 
 182. 
 
 gone — A beached ship, 196. 
 Hearing, habits of— Sentinels awake to 
 evil, 794. 
 
 of evil — Bolting-cloth catches bran, 795. 
 Heart associations of life — Seeds wind- 
 sown, 843. 
 
 belief with the — Milton and mathe- 
 matics ; Tennyson and microscopy, 
 403. 
 
 desires of the worldly — Murmurs of 
 the sea, 1106. 
 
 eloquence of the — Aristotle ; Plato, 
 Bacon, 2270. 
 
 gifts of the — Flowers from garden, 801. 
 
 God found through the — Old colored 
 man, 1477. 
 
 uses the head — Man looks through 
 field-glass, 405. 
 Heaven, " abundant entrance " — Ancient 
 victor's triumph, 325. 
 
 conceptions of, from earthly experience 
 — Titian's pictures and their pigment, 
 324. 
 
 earthly conditions forgotten in — Freshet 
 escaped, 348. 
 
 earthly preparation for — Emigrant's out- 
 fit, 323. 
 
 equivalent theory of — Weighing sugar 
 and coffee, 1467. 
 
 in the heart — Blind man in Louvre ; 
 deaf man amid music, 332. 
 
 sickness — Homesick child at school, 
 
 319- 
 standard for earth — Tuning-fork, 1754. 
 Heavenly joys, intimations of — Faint, far 
 
 music, 323. 
 growth to complete earthly — Vine in 
 
 Labrador and further south, 328. 
 reward — cup of cold water ; wells in the 
 
 desert, 340. 
 the earthly and the — Harvested grain, 
 
 next crop, 339. 
 things revealed but not understood — 
 
 Sunlight on stone, 323. 
 view of earthly dangers — Tree like man 
 
 with gun, 1996. 
 vision, the — Birds cleaving the air, 1764. 
 welcome — Watchman not asleep, 326. 
 Hebrews, epistle to, eleventh chapter — 
 
 Picture gallery, 2459. 
 
 not Paul's language — Choctaw not 
 English, 1947. 
 though imperfect, to be thanked for 
 
 Bible — Sea with mud at bottom, 1879. 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 571 
 
 Heedlessoess, poor thinking — Bungling 
 
 use of fine tool, 727. 
 Help better than almsgiving — The tramp 
 beggar, 2408. 
 time for Christian — Gambler trying to 
 reform, 1559. 
 Helpers, humble — Little girl taking dinner 
 
 to workman, 522. 
 Heredity, the child's start in life — The 
 thief; the drunkard; the godly, 41. 
 derives from more than the parents — 
 
 Natural bent to be heeded, 50. 
 to be more studied — Goods well-bought, 
 half-sold, 2464. 
 Helpfulness, mutual — Bearing one an- 
 
 ollier's burdens, 884. 
 Hereafter, the — Fledged eagle free from 
 
 nest, 347. 
 Heresy, the worst — Idleness in the church, 
 
 2106. 
 Hero worship — Kossuth in New York, 
 
 1047. 
 Heroism, inspiration of — Joan of Arc, 1058. 
 lesson in — The Chicago fire, 2540. 
 moral quality of — Early schools of paint- 
 ing, 462. 
 unselfish — John Brown, 1778. 
 Holiness, beauty of — Rose, 1505, 
 
 expressed in face — Cosmetic, 153 1. 
 Holy Ghost, the sin against — Dissipation 
 
 of bodily forces, 81. 
 Holy Spirit and man — Individual blossom 
 under sunlight, 129S. 
 
 man's spirit — Engine and sails, 
 
 1311. 
 new birth — Falling in love, 1299. 
 the Church — Science and the hus- 
 bandman, 13 1 2. 
 cause of higher life— Atmosphere, 1318. 
 direct inspiration of, indistinguishable — 
 
 Reading of authors, 1302. 
 fruits of, various — Peach and partridge- 
 berry, 1321. 
 general but specially used — Raising 
 
 black IIaml)urg grapes, 1316. 
 guidance of — North star to escaped 
 
 Southern captive, 1328. 
 in man mightier than world forces — 
 Growing roots, 13 14. 
 
 every soul — Summer in each grow- 
 ing thing, 1317. 
 inspires to cooperation — Captain in bat- 
 tle, 1304. 
 reconciles condemnation and hope — 
 
 Pendulum, 1310. 
 required for spiritual life — Archer and 
 
 mark, 1309. 
 ripening power of — Fruit, nations, indi- 
 viduals, 1320. 
 stimulus needed — Instructor, 1302. 
 
 Holy Spirit to be intelligently utilized — 
 Farmer; florist ; summer, 1319. 
 to human hearts — Sun to flowers, 
 
 1297- 
 
 universal but specialized — Sunlight and 
 window, 1315. 
 
 works through human spirits — Vision 
 through window, 1 3 13. 
 Home, bad temper at — Aphides killing 
 plants, 169. 
 
 use of tongue at — Smoky fireplace, 
 168. 
 
 blessings radiated — Candle in window, 
 163. 
 
 built by heart — Jiird finishing nest, 
 126. 
 
 character tells — "Pattern Christian" 
 ugly at home, 164. 
 
 happiness to be shared outside — (jiving 
 away flowers, 176. 
 
 happy when humbly begun — Author's 
 experience, 157. 
 
 influence keeps hold — Reeling in by 
 love-lines, 156. 
 
 is the family — House-building and home- 
 making, 158. 
 
 life the test of character — A home pic- 
 ture, 162. 
 
 peace bought with a price — Vigils, tears, 
 strivings, 159. 
 
 ruined by evil temper — Seducer, 171. 
 
 selfishness — East wind, 167. 
 
 training gets what it gives — Good and 
 evil beget their kind, 138. 
 Hope, a firm — Steady anchor, 688. 
 
 and conscience — Diet for fatness or 
 leanness, 2003. 
 
 faith for use — Bright armor without 
 
 fighting, 1528. 
 patience — Candle and candlestick, 
 1998. 
 
 cures weariness — Blue spot in stormy 
 sky, 1999. 
 
 experience and — Hope indefinite, ex- 
 perience defines, 2001. 
 
 in faint beginnings — Recovering from 
 drowning, 15S4. 
 
 reason for, in susceptibility to the Di- 
 vine — Photographer's plate, 2002. 
 
 splendor of, for the world — Bright hori- 
 zon after storm, 2544. 
 
 without, most miserable — Bug on leaf, 
 2004. 
 Horizons, widening, of life — Art of music, 
 
 1669. 
 Household, and education of children — 
 More important than church, altar, or 
 pulpit, 155. 
 
 a Christian, more potent than — A church, 
 161. 
 
572 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 Household made known l)y general elVect 
 Fragrance betrays llowers, 165. 
 
 quarrel blocks reconciliation with Christ 
 — Father and daughter, 172. 
 
 the motive power — Mainspring of watch, 
 
 '73- 
 Human development and Divine inlluencc 
 — Harp strings and harper, 1300. 
 needs Divine stimulus — Education 
 and instructor, 1302. 
 dissensions — Panic in crowd, 2473. 
 growth from Divine influence — Harvest 
 
 and atmosphere, 1330. 
 imperfection — Portrait-painting, 1637. 
 
 in Bible record — Childhood, 2470. 
 interplay of, forces — Vapor, clouds, 
 
 rain, 2467. 
 larger view of slow, betterment — Evo- 
 lution from animalism, 2491. 
 life to be developed hereafter — Tropical 
 
 seeds in temperate zone, 327. 
 nature right if used aright — Hand, 1563. 
 organized for variety — Sense of 
 
 humor, 2188. 
 without religion — Overgrown 
 forest, 1441. 
 soul but beginning of perfection — 
 
 Hicks, portrait-painter, 2413. 
 unity generic, variety specific — Apple, 
 quince, blackberry, rose, one genus, 
 2488. 
 work unfinished but continued — Links 
 in God's chain, 2482. 
 Humanity entire, to receive the gospel — 
 Sun shines on all, 2485. 
 in trouble — A letter of introduction, 878. 
 march of, to self-government — Into sum- 
 mer from winter, 2483. 
 rise of — Angel and lion, 2524. 
 temples of God in — Egyptian and 
 
 Grecian architecture, 2490. 
 unitary idea of — Family, not subject- 
 race, 1 125. 
 upward progress of — Rising of the tides, 
 2504. 
 Humble beginnings of greatness — The 
 
 Wesleys ; Jesus, 643. 
 Humor — Lubrication of life's wheels, 482. 
 friend of conscience — Public assemblies, 
 
 1336. 
 sense of — Cat's eyes in the dark, 485. 
 Hypocrisy — Tree rooted in uncleanness, 
 
 769. 
 Hymns — Trumpet calls to sleeping war- 
 riors, 2063. 
 admitted to heaven — Unlike Hindoo's 
 
 faithful dog, 2070. 
 emotional effect of — Wings, 1496. 
 writer of great — Richest man in New 
 York, 2069. 
 
 Ideal l^cyond the real — Art and artists, 
 1043. 
 of God enlarging — Architect, builder, 
 
 materials, 1727. 
 perfection through [iresent duly — Gen- 
 eral and [licket, 17 16. 
 Idealization — Child, apple, imagination, 
 
 1045. 
 Ideals, danger in lofty — Jonathan Edwards, 
 1052. 
 false — Unregulated watches, 538. 
 growth of — Rising sun, 1058. 
 low — Village painter, 1670. 
 must be high — Writing and drawing, 
 
 1046. 
 new — German painting in Italy, 1050. 
 given by Christ — New horizon, 
 mists blown away, 1048. 
 steadfast — Loving enemies yesterday 
 and to-day, 1668. 
 Ignorance and education — Chest of tools 
 unpacked, 2429. 
 dangers of — V^ermin in dark places, 
 
 990. 
 invites tyranny — January follows Au- 
 gust, 958. 
 Illness, as a teacher — Strong man learns 
 humility, 214. 
 disgraceful or honorable according to 
 
 cause — The temple of God, 217. 
 heroism in — Girl of eighteen, 219. 
 motherly love in — Light in darkness, 
 
 218. 
 no time for resignation — Not threaten- 
 ing storm-cloud, but accomplished fact, 
 is revelation, 221. 
 punishment for violated physical law — 
 Remorse in morals, 216. 
 Illustration, Christ's method, the low to 
 the lofty — Skin connects with heart, 
 2300. 
 mirthful, related to pathos — Full milk- 
 pan slops both, ways, 2303. 
 most useful class — Drawn from nature, 
 
 2547- 
 rhetorical, for mere ornament — Cloves 
 
 stuck in boiled ham, 2301. 
 to be uttered with vigor — Crack of 
 
 teamster's whip, 2302. 
 Imagination and belief — The Phidian Zeus, 
 
 1976. 
 beautifies homeliness — Heart-varnish, 
 
 529- 
 divinest of faculties — God's messenger 
 
 and prophet, 379. 
 stronger than reason — Memories, 2326. 
 Imaginings of Christ — Peginnings of sub- 
 stantial thought, 1266. 
 Immigration — Fertilizing mud of floods, 
 995- 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 573 
 
 Immorality inflated into prosperity — 
 
 I'ursting bladder, 543. 
 Immortality adds value to life — Bubble 
 and crystal, 343. 
 happiness of — Heavy earthly tread, 
 
 light heavenly step, 329. 
 hope of — The soul's anchor, 346. 
 taught by love — Love of mother, wife, 
 
 child, etc., 315. 
 things hoped for in — Identity, faculties, 
 
 better conditions, 354. 
 things of, beyond thought — Stellar uni- 
 verse, telescope, 355. 
 unbeliever in — Man with consumption, 
 in prison, 320. 
 Impatience in personal career — Husband- 
 man works and waits, 731. 
 Imperfections to be forgotten — Disappear- 
 ing leaves and moss, 2000. 
 impulses, prompt action on noble — Money 
 for worthy cause, 1554. 
 to be guarded — Body tends to obey 
 
 mental suggestion — 365. 
 towards Christian life — Less wind, more 
 sails, 154S. 
 Incarnation of God in Christ — Father to 
 children at school, 1 288. 
 second, the — Brain controlling entire 
 body, 1293. 
 Independence in Christian work — David 
 
 with the sling, 2108. 
 Indian independent, negro dependent — 
 
 liamlioo and vine, 2518. 
 Indifference and unbelief — Sahara, 1970. 
 to God — Niagara Falls unappreciated, 
 1087. 
 Indirect guilt — Neglect of fire-alarm, 730. 
 Individuals and communities — Water-drop 
 
 and ocean, 874. 
 Indolence breeds morbidness — House un- 
 occupied, 372. 
 corrupts the mind — Bad air and dust, 530. 
 is poisonous — Stagnant water, 726. 
 Indolent man ready for temptation — Prairie 
 
 and seeds, 1377. 
 Industry, needed by genius — Bacon; 
 Michael Angelo, 507. 
 the law of success — Arabian Nights not 
 New York, 515. 
 Inequalities of condition disregarded — 
 
 California emigrants, 699. 
 Infinity incomprehensible — Columbus and 
 
 the Western Continent, 1130. 
 Infirmity not sin — Ignorant transgression 
 
 of nature, 1384. 
 Influence, duty of — Orange tree, 857. 
 excitation not creation — Kindling fire 
 
 on prepared fuel, 437. 
 exerted by all — Flower ; candle ; mag- 
 net, 854. 
 
 Influence higher than authority — Ripen- 
 ing of fruit, 972. 
 independent of circumstance — Jonathan 
 
 Edwards; bird on a bough, 374. 
 of good nature — Cloud over the sun and 
 daylight, 860. 
 
 indirect, more permanent than 
 
 direct — Raphael ; Moses ; Socrates ; 
 
 Jesus, 2439. 
 
 posthumous — After-glow of sunset, 1750. 
 
 prayer for steady Divine — Sunshine in 
 
 winter and summer, 1759. 
 the measure of value — Letter from lost 
 
 lover, 858. 
 unconscious — Locomotive sparks, 856, 
 unnoticed — Dew reveals spider-webs, 
 
 855- 
 Influences, formative, not conspicuous — 
 
 Silent forces of summer, 431. 
 Inhumanity, intelligent — Jesus and the 
 
 Pharisees, 883. 
 Injury, repayment of — Hurt man cares 
 
 for assailant, 817. 
 Insignificant, significance of the — Mosaic 
 
 of Raphael's " Ascension," 2500. 
 Inspiration not creation — Original nature 
 
 of Moses, 1306. 
 of the Bible — Poetic utterance of things 
 
 lived, 1835. 
 power from — Napoleon's music crossing 
 
 Alps, 2016. 
 progressively adapted — Garment to fit 
 
 wearer, 2191. 
 Institutions, civil, limit power — Fortifica- 
 tions, 961. 
 valued for effect — Rifle and game, 2170. 
 Instrumentalities, test of — Vines and 
 
 grapes, 2153. 
 Intellect colored by emotion — Musical 
 
 theme, organ-stops, 360. 
 electrified by emotion sees higher truths 
 
 — Love of children, 361. 
 Intellection inimical to feeling — Singing 
 
 bird, 1090. 
 Intelligence and knowledge — Enterprise 
 
 and wealth, 2428. 
 Intensity required in religion — Smoke, 
 
 flame, coal-fire, 2128. 
 Intents of the heart — Hidden mosses, 
 
 1076. 
 Interpretation of language by life — Joy, 
 
 2441. 
 Intimacy, sudden — Wells quickly dug, 908. 
 Inventors, benefactions of — Machinery en- 
 larges manhood, 2531. 
 Invisible growths of good — Sugar in maple- 
 tree, 2479. 
 visions of the — Distant music, 321. 
 Irish people, the — Characterization of, 
 
 2514- 
 
574 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 Irregular habits and immortality — Prairie- 
 
 firc wind-blown, 59. 
 Irritable man — Horse kept at livery, 
 
 spurred by all, 809. 
 
 Jehovah, representations of — By Hebrews 
 
 and by Jesus, 1 1 50. 
 Jesus and John the Baptist — Conscience, 
 faith and love, 1230. 
 
 Mary after resurrection — Name-as- 
 sociations, 1936. 
 
 as God — Saviour regnant and crowned, 
 1219. 
 
 at Emmaus, wishing invitation — Lamp 
 fed with oil, 1254. 
 
 childhood of — Mere seed of manhood, 
 1227. 
 
 crucifixion, tomb, resurrection — Thun- 
 derstorm, night, morning, 1253. 
 
 death of, foreknown by him — Eclipse 
 and astronomer, 1247. 
 
 detached from his environment — Per- 
 fume of vines, 1237. 
 
 disciples of — Virgin soil, 1233. 
 
 education of — Old Testament, 1228. 
 
 gratitude to — Thomas Hughes and 
 Arnold of Rugby; 1291. 
 
 impersonality of — Subject of great pic- 
 ture, 1237. 
 
 in garden-sepulcher — Root of David in 
 true soil, 1250. 
 
 knew human nature — Violinist's knowl- 
 edge of strings, 1241. 
 
 last Supper discourses of — Fruit on lofty 
 trees, 1935. 
 
 leaves Galilee — Along the lake, 1 106. 
 
 life of — Partial portraits, 1225. 
 
 look of — Opal colors, 1234. 
 
 parables of — Not closet poems, but 
 creatures of life, 1926. 
 
 without orderly sequence — Pearls 
 cast into jewel-case, 1927. 
 
 peaceful presence of — Genial friend in 
 household, 1274. 
 
 persons associated with — Magic lantern 
 pictures, 1934. 
 
 refreshment of, in solitude — Coolness of 
 night to flowers, 1236. 
 
 resurrection of — Dawn from the night, 
 1251. 
 
 — Opening of the door of the fu- 
 ture, 1252. 
 
 simple and mystical — Parents with chil- 
 dren, 1238. 
 
 salvation through — Ferry-boat ; pilot ; 
 leader, 1275. 
 
 teaching of — Broadening of river, 
 1239. 
 humanized by apostles — Dilution 
 of strong wine, 1240. 
 
 Jesus, temptation of — Sjjirit of this world, 
 1231. 
 — Drifted boulder from earlier pro- 
 phetic scenes, 1924. 
 the guide — Polar star to slave, 1267. 
 transfiguration of, and old dispensation 
 
 — Blossom falling before fruit, 1246. 
 with Solomon's philosophy — Shake- 
 speare with history, 1925. 
 Jew, every true Christian a— Not Greek 
 and barbarian, Jew and Gentile, etc., 
 2082. 
 fanatical patriotism of the — Grain of 
 powder, 2512. 
 
 — Internal fires of earth, 917. 
 separateness of the — Cliildren in bad 
 neighborhood, 976. 
 Jewels as spiritual emblems — Description, 
 
 2566. 
 John the Baptist and Jesus — Conscience, 
 faitli anil love, 1 230. 
 noble yielding of ]>lace to Jesus — Blos- 
 som for fruit, 1922. 
 Joseph, Saint — A shadow on the canvas, 
 
 870. 
 Joy and sorrow — Bread and medicine, 
 1729. 
 a part of religion — Provided by Moses, 
 
 487. 
 sanctified — Difference between Puritan 
 
 and Hebrew .Salihnth, 499. 
 soul's longing for — Cellar-plant seeks 
 
 light, 495. 
 worldly and Christian — Melodies and 
 harmony, 503. 
 Joys, the highest, hardest to get — Honey 
 in deep flowers, 1745. 
 waiting for us — Birds on the roof, 
 501. 
 Judgment by law and by love — Magistrate 
 
 and mother, 2247. 
 Judgments heedless — Reckless reports, 
 
 779- 
 of others not measured by self — Actor 
 
 and critic, 452. 
 uncharitable — Soul's judgment-hall, 938. 
 Justice, itself simple, becomes complex — 
 
 Alphabet, 821. 
 
 Kingdom of God built slowly — A great 
 edifice, 2475. 
 
 sum of sanctified human forces — 
 Michael Angelo result of gener- 
 ations, 2509. 
 Knowledge, getting of, lirings wisdom — 
 Apprentice to learn trade, 2231. 
 human, fragmentary — Statue marred 
 
 except chin, 2194. 
 incomplete — Philosopher's remark to 
 author, 371. 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 575 
 
 Knowledge, present and future — Geode and 
 
 crystal, 2179. 
 to be sought — Not distilled as dew, 513. 
 transient — Stairs, 1631. 
 variable in value — Gold-ore in crucible, 
 
 2258. 
 
 Labor organizations strong through the 
 ballot — Genie and bottle, 931. 
 
 patient under discouragement — Seeds 
 watered with tears, 528. 
 
 source of independence — Hebrew child- 
 training, 544. 
 
 unions, danger of — Roman idea of the 
 state, 930. 
 
 training in — Unsought good, 928. 
 Laborer emancipated by machinery — Iron 
 
 and human muscle, 532. 
 Language, homely, arouses memories — 
 
 Echo in mountains, 2299. 
 Law aims at liberty — Jails and honest 
 men, 955. 
 
 and love — Stern father, comforting 
 mother, 146. 
 
 failure of the — Authority and love, 1244. 
 
 helps human force — Harness, 954. 
 
 lower, a step towards higher — Hand- 
 writing, 2465. 
 
 not religion — Bones not a man, 2256. 
 
 obedience to love and to — Kindly nurse, 
 parental order, 2253. 
 
 public — Ramparts around city, 1203. 
 
 simple, and customs for simple lives — 
 Pea-brush for pea-vines, 850. 
 
 unpopular — Gun without powder, 667. 
 
 used by Providence — Human manage- 
 ment of nature, 2556. 
 
 violation of, surely punished — Wounded 
 tree, 190. 
 Laws of life generally obeyed — Truth-tell- 
 ing and lying, 1037. 
 
 nature universally distributed — Nerve- 
 filaments, 1384. 
 Laziness gets no premiums — Sowing and 
 
 gathering, 504. 
 Learning God's nature — Sacrifice for 
 friend, 1790. 
 
 sudden — Superficial gilding, 2434. 
 Lenten intermission of sin — Truce with 
 
 enemy, 1410. 
 Liberty in religious thinking — Matters 
 civic, 2225. 
 
 needs means of activity — Steam and en- 
 gine, 963. 
 
 not dangerous — Learning and intelli- 
 gence, 960. 
 
 obedience to law — Factory-operative, 
 78. 
 
 of amusements, American and European 
 — Discordant, looo. 
 
 Liberty, vital force of — Planted seed, 965. 
 Lies hacked by a truth — Blade and handle, 
 718. 
 
 cannot face truth — Burrow ; veil ; pre- 
 tend to be truth, 825. 
 
 little, dangerous — Emery destroys sur- 
 face, 717. 
 
 told to children — Thick as cloves in a 
 ham, 20. 
 Life — An art ; a trade ; a profession, 927. 
 
 active, liable to errors — Full bucket 
 spills, 404. 
 
 a march — Unsettled pilgrims, 549. 
 
 an education — University, 1466. 
 
 complexity of — Melody and harmony, 
 382. 
 
 effects of, on the soul — Motion affecting 
 universe, 357. 
 
 fruitful — Tree dropping ripe apples, 1530. 
 
 imperfection of — Badly played Bee- 
 thoven Symphony, 457. 
 
 inactive, low grade of — Savage, a leaf 
 on a stream, 551. 
 
 increases vision — Payson on deathbed, 
 1694. 
 
 inspires life — Revivals of religion, 891. 
 
 in this world unfinished — Ungathered 
 watch-parts, 2477. 
 
 inward, the — Watch-spring, 1066. 
 
 joy of the new — Sunshine after cloud- 
 shadow, 1600. 
 
 knowledge of evil — Volcano crater, 
 1366. 
 
 lower, enriched by higher — Broad- 
 leaved plants, 1697. 
 
 unsatisfying — Plate not food, 1699. 
 
 need of another — Petty robberies by 
 trouble, 350. 
 
 of man associated with nature — Old 
 trees, 2578. 
 
 on too low a plane — Houses wrecked in 
 river-floods, 685, 
 
 outward and inward — Medieval Jew, 
 1286. 
 
 soul, hidden — Cryptic knowledge in 
 books, 1069. 
 
 the good, the bad — Beautiful edifice, 
 burned districts in Charleston, 83. 
 
 time for kind words — Flowers on coffin, 
 805. 
 
 transitoriness of — Summer and autumn 
 foliage gone, 501. 
 Life under difficulties — Voyage in half- 
 built ship, 2474. 
 
 upper and lower — Lombardy poplar, 
 1680. 
 
 with and without religion — Fertile land 
 in winter and spring, 1442. 
 Light, inward and outward — Sacred lamp 
 in temple, 1712. 
 
57f> 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 Lincoln's death, effect on government — 
 Pyramid, 982. 
 name — On roll of immortals, 983. 
 Literature, humanization of — English and 
 French writings, 2456. 
 sensual school of — Mephitic bubbles 
 from mud, 2452. 
 Live, learning to — New machinery, 1623. 
 Living aright, difficult — Lighted torch in 
 wind, 839. 
 a feat of balancing — Cable- walker over 
 
 Niagara, 540. 
 beyond malice — Mob attacking wrong 
 
 house, 660. 
 complexity of — Organ-playing, 1689. 
 soul's material for enduring work — 
 Spiritual labor immortal, 535. 
 Long-suffering — Castle, joy within, storm 
 
 without, 694. 
 Looks remembered — Heat lightning at 
 
 evening, 1234. 
 Lord's Prayer crystallization of other 
 prayers — Brightest gem of devotion, 
 
 1933- 
 Losing and finding — God's harvesting 
 
 gleans all losses for us, 352. 
 Losses, acceptance of — Heroes of adver- 
 sity, 640. 
 earthly, insignificant — Mr. Astor's pocket 
 
 picked, 708. 
 material and spiritual — Soul-bankruptcy, 
 
 703- 
 profitable — Smelting of quicksilver ore, 
 707. 
 Lost cares precious — Children departed, 
 260. 
 and found — Abyss and safety, 1470. 
 souls — Lost sheep, 1 562. 
 Love above all — Seraph winged by Faith 
 and Hope, 1800. 
 
 and hatred — Rainbow and storm- 
 cloud, 1780. 
 
 justice — Grateful beneficiary and 
 hired servant, 2252. 
 beareth all things — Traveler in storm, 
 
 829. 
 believeth all things — Cavour and new 
 
 diplomacy, 1771. 
 chastening for cure — Surgery, 144. 
 Divine, in the soul — Tide filling bay, 
 
 1748. 
 enthusiasm of — Dog; St. Paul, 1789. 
 falling in — Holy Spirit and new birth, 
 
 1299. 
 God AND neighbor — AND, inseparable 
 
 rivet, 1468. 
 grows with years — Development of 
 
 seasons, 108. 
 in God, productive — The summer sun, 
 1 199. 
 
 Love, in heart to abound — Small flame 
 blown out; large, increased, 1642. 
 justice — Mother punishing child, 
 
 1208. 
 Saviour and in Paul — Atmosphere, 
 new inspiration, 1774. 
 key to God's will — Opening lock, ex- 
 amples of, 1777. 
 law of, smitten by Christ to gush for 
 
 poor — Man, not institutions, 1798. 
 lightens labor — Hospital work for pay 
 
 and for son, 135. 
 measured only by love — Worth of a 
 
 month's work, 115. 
 not to be occasional — Arrow at special 
 
 target, 1775. 
 of enemies — Spring and frozen ground — 
 1772. 
 God to man j)rophecy of grandeur 
 — Stalk, leaf, blossom, 2487. 
 omitted — Band playing cymbals only, 
 
 1795- 
 
 persistence of — Faithless husband, faith- 
 ful wife, 1788. 
 
 power of — Sword and wreath, 1148. 
 
 primal source of — Parental instinct, 136. 
 
 punitive and healing — Sinai and Cal- 
 vary, 140. 
 
 seeks the low — Teacher cares for the 
 dull, 1770. 
 
 spontaneous — Sun coloring objects, 
 1794. 
 
 supreme — Cathedral tower and spire, 
 1766. 
 
 teaches immortality — Mother, wife, 
 child, etc., 315. 
 
 temporal, is temporary — Fresco in 
 water-colors, 175. 
 
 the atmosphere of growth — Sun's lieat 
 and light, 1604. 
 
 the one thing needful — Mainspring of 
 watch, 1 79 1. 
 
 to be manifested — Alabaster box broken, 
 805. 
 
 tokens — The white stone, 353. 
 
 transforming selfishness — Maiden be- 
 come mother, 1602. 
 
 unselfish, for Christ — Child for parent, 
 1784. 
 Lovers, true — Concordant parts of music, 
 
 lOI. 
 
 Love's anger — Thunder of summer shower, 
 
 145. 
 Loving kindness — Inexhaustible water- 
 spring, 1793. 
 
 necessity of — Heathen idolatry, 
 
 17S7. 
 
 Luminous hours after darkness — Frontier 
 preacher ; city missionary ; workers 
 for world, Christ, 1763. 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 577 
 
 Malign feelings cured liy oppositcs — Anger 
 
 and good-nature, 949. 
 Man, a " ruined " — Property not vital pos- 
 sessions, 702. 
 
 building, a slow process — Construction 
 of house, 247S. 
 
 capacity of, for growth — Here in pots, 
 other life freely, 2492. 
 
 chaotic incompleteness of — Building an 
 organ, 2486. 
 
 grandeur of — Surpassing greatness of 
 sculptor making image of man, 72. 
 
 hater, no Clod-lover — Serpent in soul, 
 1796. 
 
 in (iod's likeness — Candle-flame and 
 sun, 1114. 
 
 is mind — The body his tool-chest, 506. 
 
 judged by general aim — Generous com- 
 radeship in evil, 1033. 
 
 measured by goodness — Animals by 
 special superiorities : swine ; oxen ; 
 dogs, 71. 
 
 needs God — Branch and vine, 1017. 
 
 perfecting slowly — Baking bread for 
 hungry child, 2460. 
 
 possibilities of— Timber in acorn, 2430. 
 
 susceptible of cultivation — Fruits and 
 flowers, 75. 
 
 the real — Corn: stalk, husks, kernel, 696. 
 
 views of, human and divine — Cater- 
 pillars; spark of eternal life, 2527. 
 
 voluntarily advancing with creation — 
 Spreads sail to help current, 2542. 
 Manhood, beautified by love — Earth's at- 
 mosphere, 1485. 
 
 ideal, complicated — Babbage's calcu- 
 lating machine, 80. 
 
 of — Not cathedral but elm, 1042. 
 
 the beauty of man — Greek statues, 79. 
 
 true, strong while suffering — Stoic and 
 Christian, 87. 
 Manners often superficial — Color and shell 
 
 of dead thing, S48. 
 Man's access to God — As on angel's wings, 
 1 142. 
 
 complexity of nature — Cathedral organ, 
 3S1. 
 
 cruelty — Surpassing that of animals, 82. 
 
 higher nature unfruitful — Mont Blanc, 
 1650. 
 
 ignorance, God's providence — Napoleon 
 and his marshals, 2033. 
 
 ineptness — The pickets and the gate, 
 
 541. 
 
 need measure of God's love — Physician 
 for the sick, 1212. 
 
 perfection by growth, the idea of cre- 
 ation — Puppet made perfect origi- 
 nally, 76. 
 
 variability — Unlike seed-growth, 74. 
 
 Man's varied aspects — ^Tree, to the lumber- 
 man, poet, botanist, etc., 77. 
 
 Manufacturing deceit, robbery — Baron; 
 pirate ; king, 101 1. 
 
 Many-sided temptations — Whole armor of 
 God, 1691. 
 
 Market and church — Wall Street and 
 Trinity, 539. 
 
 Marriage in discord — A sulphurous match, 
 104. 
 of counterparts — Isaac and Rebekah, 
 
 116. 
 permanent, according to Jesus — School 
 
 of life, 123. 
 for this world, not the other — Flower 
 calyx and seed, 125. 
 
 Marriages, early and late — Twining vines, 
 iron columns, iii. 
 uncertainty in — Lottery, 118. 
 
 Material improvements Christian — Wheel- 
 barrow, wagon, 2466. 
 
 Meanness repulsive — Toad, horned snake, 
 942. 
 
 Meditation, empty — Mill without grist, 386. 
 
 Meel( to inherit earth — Dove among hawks, 
 
 1773- 
 Meelcness, benevolent bearing of evil — 
 Poisoned darts of malice, 1752. 
 coming triumph of — Advance of spring 
 
 and summer, 1779. 
 harmonized power and peace — Foun- 
 tains of influence, 1 100. 
 not mere unprovokableness — No discord 
 from slack string, 175 1. 
 
 selfish endurance — Politician, mer- 
 chant, 1752. 
 positive patience under provocation — 
 
 Pelting storm, 816. 
 quiet power of — Lofty mountain ; Christ, 
 
 '753- 
 Men need other men — Many sticks for a 
 fire, 876. 
 
 put forth individual nature — Trees, 
 2274. 
 
 ready to be helped — After battle of 
 Solferino, 2480. 
 Mercy attribute of Divinity — Nourishment 
 and cordial for helpless, iioi. 
 
 not surly — Threatening dog, 823. 
 Merrymaker and his soul — Fiddling ship- 
 master and wreck, 1406. 
 Mind force and muscle-force — Jacob and 
 Esau, 370. 
 
 growth of, transitory — Bud, blossom, 
 fading, 380. 
 
 hunger — Yankee driver's curiosity, 369. 
 
 ownership — Enjoyment of others' gar- 
 dens, 2552. 
 
 servants, insubordinate — Unfaithful con- 
 fidential clerks, 466. 
 
578 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 Mind sliouKl (loiuiiuUc — Bodily disteinpeia- 
 ture under pain, 364. 
 
 temperaments of — Body, sensitive or 
 tough, S27. 
 
 work at night — Lamp fed by student's 
 marrow, 392. 
 Minister as paid oiiticial — Bank teller, 
 2309. 
 
 careless behind barreled pulpit — 
 Country horse at hitching-post, 2297. 
 
 hunting a position — Hen finding roost- 
 ing-place, 2307. 
 
 instinct of, to love men — Artist ; me- 
 chanic ; drunkard ; glutton ; angler, 
 22S1, 
 
 must know man — Surgeon, not instru- 
 ment-maker, 2282. 
 
 not preaching all he believes — Hospital 
 diet discriminated, 2344. 
 
 the best, the most helpful — Best fisher- 
 man, most tish, 2315. 
 
 study of human nature by — Lawyer; 
 merchant ; politician ; florist, 2283. 
 
 the young, amidst praise — Inflammable 
 garments in fire, 2306. 
 
 unthinking — Hen in a barn-yard, 2293. 
 Ministry, sympathy for men indispensable 
 
 in — Marrow, 2353. 
 Miracles for early education — Child's 
 walking-stool, 2142. 
 
 appear and pass quietly — Floating 
 clou J, 19 1 7. 
 
 caused belief in the invisible — Loco- 
 motive engine, 1904. 
 
 now unnecessary — Lighted candle in 
 daytime, 1905. 
 
 of New Testament rejected — Throwing 
 away tlie wheat, 19 16. 
 
 sujiplemental — Donkey engine to ma- 
 rine engine, 1903. 
 
 treatment of — Supernatural in Shake- 
 speare, 1917. 
 Mirtli — Oil better than emery, 481. 
 Misfits in life — Trees transplanted in 
 
 spring, 579. 
 Missions, city, and churches — Steam- 
 yachts and warships, 2093. 
 
 foreign, have best results at home — Old- 
 fashioned kicking musket, 2093. 
 
 through commerce — Letters from mail- 
 carrier, 2094. 
 Mistal(es sharpen men — Grindstone, 399. 
 
 witli activity — Life with steam hissing, 
 404. 
 Moderation in work and play — Lamps 
 
 with quadruple wicks, 20I. 
 Modern increase of fine character — Har- 
 vests in Illinois, 2529. 
 
 religious inliuence — Ohio river overflow, 
 2177. 
 
 Money crazes more than religion — Harden- 
 ing of the heart, softening of the 
 brain, 559. 
 
 deviously gotten — Every dollar a lens, 
 568. 
 
 getters, emptiness of — Bell-towers with- 
 out bells, 577. 
 
 getting, damages of — Generosity calked 
 up, magnanimity cut down, 576. 
 
 lovers — Athenians worshiping golden 
 idol, 607. 
 
 makers — Philadelphia mint, 606. 
 
 not the man — Warrior's sword, 162 1. 
 
 unused — Reservoir become stagnant 
 frog-pond, 595. 
 
 worshiping — Description of money- 
 makers, 608. 
 Moods, exalted, above care — No dust on 
 eagle's wings, 1701. 
 
 pro or con — Tide favorable or opposite, 
 422. 
 Moral activity needed for vitality — Use of 
 muscle, 1606. 
 
 character, beauty of — Music in melody, 
 harmony, symphony, 1735. 
 
 danger unheeded — Ship's magazine, 
 1409. 
 
 depravity and physical beauty — Fine 
 house, bad inmate, 460. 
 
 deterioration — Shabby-growing raiment, 
 722. 
 
 disability — Prayers of struggling drunk- 
 ards, 1825. 
 
 element, superiority of — Aaron Burr 
 and George Washington, 463. 
 
 excellence means labor — Science of 
 music, 1649. 
 
 impulse commuted to intellectual idea — 
 Grapes to wine, 1151. 
 
 intuition — Perceptions in music, 454. 
 
 judgment important — Thermometer ; ba- 
 rometer, 141 2. 
 
 judgments, personal equation in — As- 
 tronomer, 454. 
 
 life needs love — Plants and climate, 1769. 
 
 measurements individual — Feeble and 
 healthy rose, 455. 
 
 purpose, lack of — Leaves before the 
 wind, 1020. 
 
 sense, intuitive and taught — Ulysses, 
 Sparta, 459. 
 
 sentiments strengthened by basilar ele- 
 ments — Foundation-colors in painting, 
 
 sensibility discovers sinfulness — Plowed 
 
 soil and malaria, 1652. 
 training imperfect — Counting of money, 
 
 449. 
 truth, earth-view of— Mole and hyacinth, 
 
 464. 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 579 
 
 Morality a beginning — W'licat in tlie grass, 
 1024. 
 
 and piety — Magnolia stem and blossom, 
 1474. 
 
 better than nothing — Rags and naked- 
 ness, 1028. 
 
 conceit in— Convicting a fool of igno- 
 rance, 1543. 
 
 but partial — Root, stem, blossoms with- 
 out fruit, 1026. 
 
 human and divine — Nebuchadne/zar, 
 1 156. 
 
 incomplete character — Fair marksman ; 
 short anchor; almost a jiortrait, 1025. 
 
 mere — Clean corked empty bottle, 1030. 
 
 moderate — Alloyed gold, 1036. 
 
 necessary to spirituality — Fuel and 
 flame, 1019. 
 
 negative — Farm without crops; knitting 
 machine, 1482. 
 
 not enough — Foundation of house, 1022. 
 
 root of religion — Cut flowers and plants, 
 
 selfish — Literary epicure, 1032. 
 weak, worthless — Mushrooms and tim- 
 ber, 1040. 
 without spirituality — Portrait without 
 head, 1021. 
 Morals at home and abroad — New York 
 
 and Paris, 847. 
 Mosaic legal details — Cutting the beard; 
 blue and butternut, 1894. 
 training — Cockroach in the food, 1895. 
 Mother, prophetic love of — Sees orator in 
 speechless baby, 6. 
 memory of — Reverence for woman, 89. 
 author's, dancing — Natural gifts to 
 be consecrated, 94. 
 the typical — The Madonna, 151. 
 to lead child in the new birth — Natural 
 birth, 150. 
 Motherhood, divine slavery of — Mrs. 
 Browning, 133. 
 forecastings — Ripples of the sea on un- 
 discovered shore, 129. 
 nobility of — No artist-work to be com- 
 pared, 130. 
 transforming frivolity to joy — Dew upon 
 flowers, 132. 
 Mother's ideal and the real outcome — 
 Dandelion, 134. 
 heart — A well that never dries, 147. 
 influence remains — Unfading patterns 
 
 woven, 139. 
 memory never lost — Morning star of 
 goodness, 152. 
 Motive in conduct, grades of — Swimming, 
 walking, flying, 458. 
 of action, self-portraiture — Sculptor's 
 chisel, 432. 
 
 Mountains curative — Description, 2563. 
 Mourning for death — No crape for blossoms 
 
 fallen, presaging fruit, 257. 
 under sorrow and trouble — Wailing of 
 
 tuned piano, 632. 
 Movement upward of the ages — March of 
 
 creation, 2542. 
 Municipal prosperity and condition of poor 
 
 — Rich, cream; poor, skim-milk, 1013. 
 Mystery of life cleared — Mt. Pleasant 
 
 thunderstorm, 2037. 
 
 Nagging — Darwinian development, not 
 
 claws but tongue, 783. 
 Name, a good — Living plant, not in her- 
 barium, 901. 
 
 value of — President Lincoln's way, 
 902. 
 associations — Jesus and Mary after 
 resurrection, 1936. 
 Names, significance of ancient — Naomi, 
 
 Mara, 1896. 
 Nation and the States — Banyan tree, 
 
 980. 
 National ailments — Divers diseases, 986. 
 Native gifts not measure-standard — 
 Twelve disciples and John, 1738. 
 qualities to be used — Landscape garden- 
 ing, 165 1. 
 Natural law and God — Man's body and 
 
 mind, 2555. 
 Nature better than books about it — 
 Mother's breast, 2548. 
 God in — The great cathedrals and 
 
 Peekskill hill, 2568. 
 illustrations from — Most useful class, 
 
 2547. 
 
 interpreted only materially — Bee- 
 thoven's symphonies but noise, 2574. 
 
 overpowering grace — Grafts overgrown 
 by tree, 15 19. 
 
 read superficially — Milton's daughter 
 reading Greek, 2550. 
 
 revealing God — Painting by author's 
 mother, 2565. 
 Nature's balm — Jesus longing for the wil- 
 derness, 2585. 
 
 forgiveness, limited — Repentance and 
 diet for stomach, 189. 
 
 remedial force — Comfort in Christian 
 faith, 2034. 
 
 variety — Church harmony means con- 
 cord not unison, 2164. 
 
 wealth to be found out — Discovery of 
 quinine, 2562. 
 Natures, disproportionate — Unbalanced 
 floating battery, 471. 
 
 luminous — Unclouded sun, 1049. 
 
 variable — Clouds and sunshine, 1049. 
 Negative goodness — St. Joseph, 870. 
 
580 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 Negro dcpciulent, Indian independent — 
 Vine and bamboo, 2518. 
 not to be made full man but by growth 
 — Not clay and potter, 2519. 
 Neglect, robponsibility of — The shipmaster, 
 
 729. 
 Nerves, torpid, give small enjoyment — 
 Deadness of tow, vibration of rope, 
 444. 
 " Nevertheless, afterwards " — Golden 
 
 door, 263. 
 New aspects of truth unsettling — Malaria 
 from new ground, 2349. 
 light from single stars — Star of Bethle- 
 hem, 2355. 
 thouglit wasteful — Plow in field, 2240. 
 thoughts not to be preached hastily — 
 
 Cider, 2343. 
 truth from single men — John Baptist; 
 Luther; Tyndale; Wesley, 2355. 
 to be separated from error — Gold 
 ore, 2350. 
 Newspaper — The pocket- world, 2453. 
 carries morality — Arteries for blood, 
 
 2454- 
 New Testament— Blossoms from the Old 
 Testament, 1228. 
 hand-book of religion — Principles of 
 
 agriculture, 1915. 
 miracles of, rejecting — Dropping wheat, 
 
 eating chaff, 19 16. 
 silences of, impressive — Summit of 
 
 White Mountains, 19 18. 
 spirituality supreme element of — Win- 
 dows finer than furniture, 1914. 
 No — Shield ; sword, 1376. 
 Non-fulfillment not violation of law — Po- 
 mology and destruction, 1636. 
 Nobility compels admiration — Bell must 
 ring when struck, 867. 
 recognized, not made, by outward hon- 
 ors — Kniglithood, 477. 
 Nothing for nothing— Studying mathe- 
 matics, 516. 
 Novels — Whip-syllabub, 2445. 
 
 Obedience to law gives power — Uses of 
 
 electricity, 1444. 
 Obstacles to higher life — Rowing up- 
 stream, 1692. 
 Obstructions to truth — Voltaire, 1974. 
 Old age, a lovely — Close of stormy summer 
 day, 287. 
 approach of — Coming of autumn and 
 
 winter, 2S3. 
 beautiful — October, 284. 
 early sweetness soured in — Wine ; vine- 
 gar. 275- 
 good life completed in — Mansion built 
 and occupied, 276. 
 
 Old age.hope in — Breezes from otiier world 
 over sea of death, 273. 
 hope of heaven in — Moses on Nebo, 282. 
 losses of — Tree disbranched, 279. 
 maturity in, has used life well — Aster, 
 
 277. 
 obscuration of faculties in — Lyman 
 
 Beecher, 280. 
 scheme of life completed in — Close of 
 
 symphony, 285. 
 standards of life degenerated in — Worn- 
 out fruit-tree, 281. 
 steady character in — Glow of tire after 
 
 early flaming, 275. 
 still time for work — Industrial rivers, 
 
 full to ocean, 278. 
 weakness of — Caged eagle, 274. 
 Old letter, new spirit — Chicken without 
 
 egg-shell, 1884. 
 Old Testament indispensable — Early Eng- 
 lish history, 1877. 
 judged by the New — Joshua's severities, 
 
 1896. 
 laws of — Modern police court, 1893. 
 literature of — Valleys among mountains, 
 
 1878. 
 much of, outworn but precious — Family 
 
 cradle, 1882. 
 not exhausted — Flowers and grapes yet 
 
 growing, 1879. 
 rejection of — Throwing away gold-ore, 
 
 1890. 
 truthfulness of — Genuine child-biog- 
 raphy, 1880. 
 Opportunity for doing good — Furrows for 
 
 seed, 1520. 
 Orator avoids involved sentences — Switch 
 with the leaves on, 2298. 
 moving men's souls — Musician playing 
 
 great organ, 2290. 
 or reader — Organist extemporizing or 
 
 rendering others' music, 2288. 
 voice of — Rooster; bull; crow; dog, 
 2294. 
 Ordination by nature — Four hundred thou- 
 sand trumpets no good, 2277. 
 Organ church-music and congregation — 
 
 Flood of water and boats, 2060. 
 Organized charity — Grinding flour at mill 
 instead of at home, 2403. 
 
 danger of — Doing good by ma- 
 chinery omits personality, 2404. 
 Origin of evil — A cob without corn, 2199. 
 
 with God — Labor- pains, 1 127. 
 Original righteousness, man without — 
 
 Without original anything, 2215. 
 Orthodoxy and heterodoxy in religion — In 
 medicine, 2224. 
 
 Unitarian Sunday-schools — Rail- 
 way wreck, 2147. 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 58, 
 
 Other=world tliiuking — Author's experi- 
 ence of exalted conditions, 2327. 
 
 Outdoor life for health — Dr. Sun and Dr. 
 Cloud, 197. 
 
 Outside rough, inside sweet — Chestnut in 
 burr, 448. 
 
 Owning of ofTences — Frank confession dis- 
 arming, 829. 
 
 Pain, by Divine intention — Nerve sensi- 
 bility, 213. 
 kindness of — Surgeon setting broken 
 
 limb, 653. 
 physical, a moral lesson — Eflfects of 
 poison, intoxication, etc., 191. 
 
 teaching of — The stake; the gout, 
 etc., 215. 
 Painful forethought — Making future chilly 
 
 storm-ground, 2005. 
 Paper money in war and peace — Medi- 
 cine, not food ; crutches, 1005. 
 Parable and fable as teachers — Mother's 
 
 fairy stories, 28. 
 Parables of Jesus — Not closet poems but 
 creatures of life, 1926. 
 
 often cryptic — Lobes of a seed, 
 
 2448. 
 without orderly sequence — Pearls 
 cast into jewel-case, 1927. 
 Parentage, a goodly — A safe nest, 131. 
 perplexities of — Navigating through 
 
 Hell-gate, 143. 
 revelations of — Man, not a parent, an 
 unread book, 153. 
 Parental instinct in men and animals — 
 Primal source of love, 136. 
 obligation to have sound body — Temple 
 or hut for the children, 137. 
 Parents and erring children — The Divine 
 
 Fatherhood, 148. 
 Parents' task to train, not think evil — 
 Children born of the dust, and dirt 
 sticks ; not Neros and Catalines, but 
 to be drilled, 142. 
 Passions, the — Dynamite tubes for blast- 
 ing, 425. 
 folly of indulgence in — Gypsies in fine 
 
 house, 1398. 
 of lust — Volcanic fires, 426. 
 power of — Tides; fire; storm, 1358. 
 purified — Miasmatic marsh-lights, 1075. 
 reformation of, disturbing — Gadarene 
 
 swine, 1564. 
 to be avoided — Wild beasts in dark re- 
 cesses, 1 36 1. 
 Past and future — Grave-stone and sculp- 
 tor's clay, 1568. 
 not to rule present — Ancient and mod- 
 ern plows, 2528. 
 the, still exists — Courses of masonry, 65. 
 
 Past victory over the — No longer stumbling 
 
 at (lead things, 1605. 
 Patience, in obedience — Results of pruning, 
 1621. 
 is self-control — Reining in a steed, 420. 
 of God with human development — 
 Plant-growth, 2484. 
 the dull — Crocodile and mosquitoes, 
 421. 
 trouble the time for — Impending bank- 
 ruptcy, 558. 
 with incompleteness — Awaiting ripe 
 apples, 1678. 
 Patriarclis, the, times of— View from Mt. 
 
 Washington, 1892. 
 Patriotic, bodily devotion noble — The 
 
 body a living sacrifice, 192. 
 Patriotism concentrated and diffused — Pil- 
 lar of fire, daylight, 978. 
 of Jews — Internal fires of earth, 976. 
 Paul, egoism of — /'j thick as spears in bat- 
 tle, 1946, 
 Paul's " know nothing but Christ cruci- 
 fied " — Declaration of Independence, 
 2342. 
 law of spirit and members — Darwinism, 
 2235. 
 Peace and righteousness — Concordant 
 sounds in symphony, 1747. 
 begets peace — Calmness to nurse ner- 
 vousness, 818. 
 begins in confusion — .Alpine avalanches 
 
 bring summer, 2382. 
 delight of, after war — Description, 2520. 
 God's dwelling — Cyclone center, 1148. 
 of God — Bay filled with the tide, 1765. 
 serene joy of activity — Peacemakers 
 
 children of God, 1 102. 
 slow growth of Christ's — Rome gone, 
 but war remains, 2463. 
 Peaceful spirit, the — Scott's " Lady of the 
 
 Lake"; Mercury's shoes, 813. 
 Penitence, real, a sure possession — First 
 
 oratorical inspiration, 1640. 
 People like priest — Sleepy in church, 2285. 
 sources of strength — Tree growing tough 
 
 wood, 962. 
 the rising power — Kings gone on pil- 
 grimage, 2525. 
 Perception trained — Stock exchange ; 
 
 mother at party, 366. 
 Perseverance in self-cleansing — Rat-hole 
 stopped, 1 54 1, 
 in well-doing — Tree with buds, blos- 
 soms, and ripened fruit, 1 603. 
 to the end — Ascending dome of St. 
 Peter's, 174. 
 Persistence, lack of spiritual — Pendulum, 
 1760. 
 of deeds done — Early forgeries, 1420. 
 
582 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 Persecutiun for rij^lUeousness — Invisible 
 realm of joy, 659. 
 sours some men — Frost sweetens nuts, 
 
 autumn fruit, 670. 
 truth bprcad by — limiting thistle and 
 barky, 644. 
 Personal power — Fire, 862. 
 
 Saviour, a — World gives poetry to poet, 
 1264. 
 Personality in associations — Father's 
 " 11cm! " reassuring frightened child, 
 
 23- 
 power of — Wine of being, 868. 
 
 Petty sins destroy character — Moth in gar- 
 ment, 715. 
 
 Pharisees, sacred heats of — Rash upon the 
 skin, 75S. 
 
 Phases of Christian love — Mother's doing 
 for child, 1683. 
 
 Phllippians, Epistle to — Dying voice of 
 I'aul, 1946. 
 
 Phrases of consolation lose meaning — 
 Hard-worn road, 247. 
 
 Phrasing, power of good — Ubiquity of a 
 proverb, 2443. 
 
 Piety in unlikely conditions — Flower in 
 rock-cleft, 2143. 
 may be partial — Furnace and registers, 
 
 1472. 
 professional — Smell of odorous handi- 
 crafts, 1527. 
 working — Mill-brook, 1506. 
 
 Plans destroyed — Threads broken in loom, 
 
 639- 
 
 Pleasure must make man feel better, not 
 worse — Bath, 200. 
 of doing good — Mean man enjoys sav- 
 ing a life, 2394. 
 simple, the best — Dew and rains versus 
 storms, 498. 
 
 Pleasures, lower destroy higher — Ex- 
 amples, 1393. 
 
 Poesy immortal — Homer ; Old Testament ; 
 hymn-writers, 2451. 
 
 Poetic inspiration — Not exhausted in 
 Shakesjjeare, 2546. 
 
 Poor^relief to stimulate not enervate — 
 English almshouses, 2399. 
 
 Popular discernment of truth — Bolter of 
 grain, 2225. 
 intelligence — Sap rising in spring, 
 
 2502. 
 refinement — Blossoms on great tulip- 
 trees, 2494. 
 unrest, regulation of — Law in ocean's 
 storm or calm, 2531. 
 
 Political elasticity, American — Thorough- 
 lired horse, 989. 
 
 Position does not make the man — Apple- 
 blossoms and fruit, 49. 
 
 Postponement of the new life — Withered 
 
 rose for friend, 1446. 
 Poverty, an evil, unless voluntary for a 
 
 purpose — Moravian missionary, 701. 
 l)rimary cause of — Moral and industrial 
 
 avoirdupois, 704. 
 sainthood in — Sheaves gathered by 
 
 angels, 693. 
 wealth in— Prodigality in abundance,642. 
 Power, earthly and heavenly in reform — 
 
 Scientists and moon on tides, 1325. 
 Powers, lower, in higher life — Engine in 
 
 the basement, 368. 
 Praise, earthly and heavenly — Experts in 
 
 concert-audience, 1092. 
 human not Divine need — Joyous chil- 
 dren, not parasites, 2059. 
 lightens trouble — Psalms of David, 242. 
 love of, for noble things — Top of head, 
 
 not bottom, 898. 
 songs utterance of inward joy — Author's 
 
 child-instinct, 2058. 
 Prayer and self-help — Driving fiery horses, 
 
 1827. 
 
 watching — Divine and human 
 power, 1829. 
 aspiration of, Godward — Kindling 
 
 wood-fire, 1805. 
 communion with God — Sunning one's 
 
 spirit, 1801. 
 delayed answer to — Christ and Syro- 
 
 Phenician woman, 1 820. 
 for others especially pleasing to God — 
 
 Children, 1831. 
 from inward emotion — Wine forcing 
 
 cork from bottle, 1808. 
 importunate — Clusters giving wine, 
 
 1822. 
 in emergency — Starving beggar, 1818. 
 instant in — Not by the clock, 1814. 
 interprets God through life — Laying 
 
 train for life to fire, 1809. 
 liturgical or extempore — Easiest road to 
 
 heavenly gate, 181 2. 
 measured by quality — Not by the yard, 
 
 1813. 
 not needing formal address — Mailing a 
 
 letter, 1833. 
 of duty — Whipped child kissing 
 mother, 18 17. 
 the penitent — Knocks louder than 
 battle-ax at castle, 1826. 
 wicked — Prodigal son, 1824. 
 pleases God — Father knows but listens 
 
 to child, 1802. 
 resisting answers to prayer — Sick child ; 
 
 sluggard ; drunkard, 1828. 
 silent — Incense, 1807. 
 spiritual not material — Father cheating 
 child with sled, 1810. 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 583 
 
 Prayer spontaneous rather than dutiful — 
 Son to father, 18 16. 
 the Lord's, demands affection not awe 
 — Lifts up not breaks down, 1804. 
 
 under pressure — Son asking money for 
 
 debt, 1819. 
 universal — Struggles of bad men against 
 vice, 1823. 
 
 varied elements of — Orchestra, 1806. 
 
 without ceasing — Education of tendency 
 in taste, etc., 1815. 
 Prayerful thoughts but weak — Broken 
 
 winged bird, 2006. 
 Prayer-meeting disclosures not all — Hand- 
 ful of sea-sand ; cup of water, 2118. 
 
 gathering to sit close — Sociable crowd 
 at end, 21 14. 
 
 insincere rejoicings in — Miser raising 
 flag on Independence Day, 21 17. 
 
 people not to be scattered — Kindlings 
 gathered for fire, 2121. 
 
 praying at, to be natural — Variety en- 
 riches, 2119. 
 
 related experiences to be the best — Gold 
 not dross, 2120. 
 
 speaking in, not to be forced — Home- 
 silences, 2115. 
 
 thinkers who do not speak in — Ripe 
 grain unsown, 21 16. 
 
 to be warm — Negro and stiff white 
 meeting, 181 1. 
 
 woman to pray in — Natural priestess, 
 2122. 
 Prayers, short — Brief stellar observation, 
 1813. 
 
 without thought useless — Multiplication 
 table, 1803. 
 Preacher a talker — Rain-clouds to make 
 crops, 2289. 
 
 in old-fashioned pulpit — Candle in can- 
 dlestick, 2296. 
 
 must be himself, not imitation — Song- 
 sparrow and eagle, 2275. 
 
 neglecting public sins — Apostle lectur- 
 ing on medicine, without cures, 
 
 2345- 
 personality in the — Mathematics or 
 
 moral truth, 2272. 
 
 power of a true — Spark kindling prairie- 
 fire, 2287. 
 
 real, a genius in moral ideas — Poet ; in- 
 ventor, 2274. 
 
 the true — God's mint, 2271. 
 Preachers all things to all — Famous woman 
 and infant-class, 2284. 
 
 cold-hearted — Callingoff letters of mu- 
 sical score, 2273. 
 
 commonplace — Exchange brokers, 2271. 
 
 from other denominations — Fruit hang- 
 ing over wall, 2163. 
 
 Preaching adapted to audience — Bait to 
 tish, 231 1, 
 and practice — Teacher may be wrong, 
 doctrine right, 2308. 
 public spirit — Dilapidated village, 
 969. 
 Christ individually — Sun and all flowers, 
 
 1292. 
 discrimination in — Remedy and patient, 
 
 2329. 
 dull, hides the truth — Window-light ob- 
 scured by cob-webs, 2304. 
 everyday lay — Artillery, short sword, 
 
 864. 
 exclusive — Hospital luxuries instead of 
 
 medicine, 2324. 
 God's fatherhood, man's brotherhood, 
 includes all — Inexhaustible fairy 
 purse, 2352. 
 individual — Bunch of needles blunt; 
 
 one, sharp, 2335. 
 is emotion and intellect — Bow and arrow, 
 
 2266. 
 logical, to the imaginative — Reducing 
 
 clouds to triangles, 2325. 
 must be apt for hearers — Spurs for 
 the mule, 2328. 
 suit its time — Almanacs, 2268. 
 not practically applied — Water-bucket 
 out of reach, 2331. 
 theology — Using, not forging, 
 sword of the Lord, 2354. 
 of Christ familiar and timely — Ex- 
 amples, 2341. 
 should include all elements of human 
 
 nature — Great organ, 2310. 
 tested by effects — Farmer and harvest, 
 
 1513- 
 
 theological and practical — Dr. C. G. 
 
 Finney and D. L. Moody, 2305. 
 through love and fear — Animals trained 
 
 not goaded, 2251. 
 to please — Stimulating drinks, 2291. 
 variety in — Sun shines onall alike, 2316. 
 without imagination — Shutting out 
 window-light, 2314. 
 eternal life beautiful but futile — 
 
 Moon and harvest, 2357. 
 solid thought — Fire of shavings, 
 
 2330- 
 Preferring one another — Motherhood 
 
 ideal, 1783. 
 Preparation to meet eminent people — 
 
 Death, appearing before God, 292. 
 Present and future — Hind-sight and fore- 
 sight, 1682. 
 
 — Orchestra in Bedlam, and con- 
 cordant, 2507. 
 sorrow future joy — Pattern woven in 
 loom of God, 225. 
 
584 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 Priesthood, value and i)cril of — ropular 
 
 elevation; class privilege, 2171. 
 Pride, men of — Useless leaky hulls, 759. 
 sofleneil by love — I'crtile lava-soil, 
 1719. 
 Principles follow rules — Child-tiaining, 
 
 1630. 
 Process and product unlike — Dye-vats and 
 
 silks, 1641. 
 Prodigality of God — .World-forces decay 
 
 to make better soil, 2241. 
 Profanity, harm of — Rasps that wear oflf 
 
 the skin, 946. 
 Progress by generations — Clouds, rain, 
 harvests, food, 2462. 
 of individual and of race — Earth's revo- 
 lution and orbital motion, 2458. 
 ujjward, of humanity — Rising of the 
 tides, 2504. 
 Promises of God as laws of nature — Stars ; 
 sun, 2031. 
 earnest — Proffered hospitality, 121 1. 
 fail lacking conditions — Promises to 
 
 children, 1 703. 
 neglected — Plundredpound note, 1209. 
 sincere — No under-tow, 12 10. 
 to be earned — Child and knife ; harvest, 
 2030. 
 Proneoess to evil — Cat up a tree ; re- 
 versed for men, 1394. 
 Property, intangible — Enjoyment of na- 
 ture, 2553. 
 
 not circulated — Generates miasma 
 
 and disease, 596. 
 manhood — Failing in business, 641. 
 Prosperity and adversity — Wax and rock ; 
 sun and frost, 627. 
 obscuring vision — Summer foliage, win- 
 ter view, 620. 
 other men's — Giving to beggars optional, 
 
 705- 
 perils of — Vines girdling a tree, 611. 
 
 Propiiecy of good time coming — Hickory- 
 nut germinating, 2468. 
 
 Propiiet and poet — Birds singing from 
 trees and in air, 1053. 
 
 Proplietic visions translated into facts — 
 Aurora in brick and mortar, 1950. 
 
 Prophets appealed to imagination — Fres- 
 coed wall, 1 90 1, 
 spontaneity of Hebrew — Water-rock in 
 wilderness, 1 907. 
 
 Proselyting no advantage — Money from 
 one pocket to another, 2173. 
 
 Protestantism, principles of — German, 
 Puritan, Independent, 2156. 
 
 Proverbs, nimbleness of — Mosquitoes, 
 2444. 
 
 Providence and natural law — Wool grow- 
 ing, spinning, and weaving, 1166. 
 
 Providence, faulty instruments of — Eng- 
 land in hulia; America and Indians, 
 994. 
 guidance of — Father steering child's 
 
 rowing, 1 161. 
 in nature — Weaving of power-loom, 
 
 1 163. 
 natural and supernatural — The family, 
 
 1167. 
 problems of — Child's understanding of 
 
 parent, 1 1 60. 
 rough handling by — Cooper with bar- 
 rel, 645. 
 superficial judgments of — Chestnut burr 
 
 and nut, 1 162. 
 using natural law — Human manage- 
 ment of nature, 2556. 
 Providences uncompleted — Cactus, 1165. 
 Puritans made by hardship — Swords of 
 
 God, 656. 
 Psalm, the Twenty-third — Brief opening 
 of home-light on winter night, 1908. 
 — The nightingale of Psalms, 1909. 
 Psalms of David — Silver arrows, 1910. 
 Public affairs, corruption in — Worm-eaten 
 ship, 1007. 
 
 low standards in — Clock running 
 down, 993. 
 amusements — American rest ; European 
 
 safety-valves, 999. 
 conscience deteriorating — Deceit in 
 
 manufactures, loii. 
 life dangerous to young men — Pots- 
 herds back of the pottery, 991. 
 dulls moral sense — Physical sleep, 
 992. 
 opinion — Snowstorm, 873. 
 spoilsmen — Boils on the body politic, 
 1009. 
 Pulpit and pew — Trumpeter and soldier, 
 2280. 
 ignoring reforms — Physician neglecting 
 
 special diseases, 2357. 
 influences ; helpful — World-forces, 2338. 
 
 harmful — Worldly pursuits, 2339. 
 or platform — Mr. Beecher in an English 
 
 church, 2296. 
 politics and commerce in the — Isaiah 
 
 and Jeremiah, 2348. 
 theme always spiritual truth — Root of 
 the tree, 2340. 
 Punishment to be actuated by love — Not 
 combativeness with monkey-cap of 
 conscience, 1282. 
 Purpose, essence of crime — Murder in 
 realm of feeling, 1392. 
 
 Quality interior not exterior — Purple or 
 drab ; silk or tow, 603. 
 in virtues — Pictures; cloth, 830. 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 5S5 
 
 Quarreling as a preparation for Heaven — 
 
 Garment, 170. 
 Quarrels, how to end — Knotted rope, 764. 
 Quick maturity, quick decay — Lettuce, 
 1639. 
 
 Rahab from harlotry — Pearl from rough 
 
 oyster, 1948. 
 Raillery — Discord for modulation to har- 
 mony, 948. 
 Reading, sympathetic moods for — Book of 
 Ruth ; In Menioriam, 2450. 
 with discrimination — Eating the tender- 
 loin, 2449. 
 Reason — A steed, 1990. 
 
 and faith — Turkey walking and fly- 
 ing, 2029. 
 sentiments — Key-board and organ- 
 pipes, 1342. 
 Recreation after work — Sharpening tools, 
 199. 
 a necessity — Winding up a clock, 207. 
 neglected — Violin kept at concert pitch, 
 
 585- 
 Refinement, dangers of — Alpine climber, 
 
 377- 
 
 not to be exclusive — Wall ; Sahara, 108. 
 
 uses of — Spider-web ; silk-worm's web, 
 849. 
 Reformation, critical moments for — Swim- 
 ming for shore, 14 14. 
 
 difficult — Climbing giddy cliff, 1366. 
 
 manifests evil — Obstructions in stream, 
 1427. 
 
 not immediate — Washing off filth, 1421. 
 Reformers, fanatical, bring up average un- 
 faithfulness — Thunder-storm, 2380. 
 
 need not be harsh and bitter — Croco- 
 diles, 2379. 
 
 once obscure now illustrious — Anti- 
 slavery agitators, 2366. 
 
 should respect prejudices — Physician's 
 rough treatment, 2376. 
 
 truth of, makes discord with wrong — 
 Violins, 2368. 
 Reforms arouse disturbance — Obstruction 
 in stream, 2367. 
 
 complained of by evil-doers — The plant, 
 earth and air, 2363. 
 
 disregard conventionalities — Man's coat 
 off" at a tire, 2370. 
 
 disturbances of — Scrubbing for neat- 
 ness, 2372. 
 
 ignored by pulpit — Diseases neglected 
 by physician, 2357. 
 
 in politics and commerce — Isaiah and 
 Jeremiah, 2348. 
 
 of public evil by church — Devil's fire 
 and tire-engine, 2359. 
 
 patience in — House-building, 2362, 
 
 Reforms preceded by agitation — Turf 
 
 plowed up for seed, 2369. 
 unwisely driven — Dogs excited by ston- 
 ing, 2378. 
 Regenerated man will live by Spirit — 
 
 Tropical climate, 1661. 
 Regeneration — Outline sketch, 1540. 
 Rejoicing amid sorrow — Sun bursting 
 
 through clouds, 266. 
 in iniquity — Living in sewer, 791. 
 Religion and church— Knowledge and 
 
 schoolhouse, 1489. 
 cheerfulness in — Stars, flowers, birds, 
 
 500. 
 caution in — Falling up a precipice, 
 
 1470. 
 conservatism in — Ice-house, 1500. 
 demands courtesy — Paul, 1495. 
 enjoyment of real — Fresh bread and 
 
 mouldy loaf, 1496. 
 emergency — Life preservers, 1526. 
 esthetic — Agriculture by moonlight, 
 
 1449. 
 fervor of, to be regulated — Weeds in 
 
 rich soil, 1501. 
 first work of, destroying evil — Clearing 
 
 for tillage, 1596. 
 formal, and worldliness — Anchor to 
 
 windward, 1474. 
 for time of trouble — Ship's aiiclior- 
 
 chain, I447. 
 genuine fruits of, acceptable — Pomology 
 
 and apples, 1485. 
 getting the start — Art student, 1585. 
 half-hearted — Valetudinarian, 1492. 
 human nature without — Overgrown 
 
 forest, 144 1, 
 merely ceremonial — Cloud without rain, 
 
 1532- 
 
 not a make-shift — Garment, 1445. 
 
 mechanical arrangement — Ticket 
 to heaven ; life insurance, 
 1462. 
 mysterious — Secret society initia- 
 tion, 1456. 
 reason — Eyes and spectacles, 148S. 
 transient enthusiasm — Brandy to 
 half-drowned man, 1466. 
 occasional — Church bell in steeple, 1525. 
 partial — Slack harp-strings, 492. 
 perennial — Sacrifices of mothers, min- 
 isters, good men, 1453. 
 popular conception of — Tied up with 
 
 nots, 1483. 
 receiving and giving — Min'or, 1463. 
 right life — Praying cream and living 
 
 skim-milk, 1433. 
 sacred dignity of — Summer as well as 
 
 winter, 1500. 
 soul's health — Bodily soundness, 1465. 
 
586 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 Religion, theories of — Life-lioat for indi- 
 viduals ; world-saving, 1443. 
 
 true, of heart not head — Paul and Greek 
 culture, 1743. 
 
 without love — Hot-house without 
 
 furnace, 1478. 
 sympathy is sin — Scribes and Phari- 
 sees, 2095. 
 
 work for lifetime — Not finding a mine, 
 1484. 
 Religious depth relieves trouble — Tide 
 floats shoaled ship, 1529. 
 
 despair — Father Champion's prayer- 
 meeting in hell, 1491. 
 
 development misjudged — Heathen for- 
 saking idols, 1494. 
 
 emotion pernicious if not practical — 
 Bonfire, 1497. 
 
 excitement not indecorous — Geometric 
 garden ; forest, 1499. 
 
 geniuses — Moses and David, Paul and 
 John, 1939. 
 
 inquirer needs sympathy — Fire needs 
 air, 1558. 
 
 inspiration, evanescence of — Twilight 
 cathedral organ-music, 1 104. 
 
 intolerance conspicuous — Mud on white 
 clothing, 2148. 
 
 life difficult in proportion to fineness — 
 Cabinet-work, 1479. 
 
 phraseology — Strong talk only for strong 
 feeling, 1498. 
 
 pride — Thick hide of self-conceit, 
 762. 
 
 professions uncertain — Apple-blossoms 
 and apples, 1720. 
 
 progress conditioned on movement — 
 Man in boat, 2234. 
 
 reverie — Footsteps washed out by tide, 
 
 '545- 
 transient, feeling — Violin with bow 
 
 hung up, 1487. 
 Remnants of human life — Wind-blown 
 
 leaves, 678. 
 Repeated acts, power of — Snake in spider's 
 
 web, 1405. 
 Repentance for outgrown sins — Old craters 
 
 and new, 1411. 
 manliness of — Ambushed man beating 
 
 off enemies, 1565. 
 not immediate reformation — Washing 
 
 off filth, 1421. 
 towards God — Esquimaux seeking 
 
 tropics, 1566. 
 Repented sins to be forgotten — Mummies ; 
 
 gravestones, 1567. 
 Reprobation possible — Destroyed sensi- 
 bility of nerve, 1423. 
 Republics — Throned empires, ruling self, 
 
 975- 
 
 Republics demand jiopular virtue — Steam- 
 engine needs steam, 973. 
 South American — Earthquakes and vol- 
 canoes, 968. 
 Repudiation morally more dangerous than 
 war — Serpent ; lion, 1006. 
 supjiressed — Measles, 1004. 
 Reputation and character — Reaping and 
 sowing, 897. 
 
 social connections — Vine and trellis, 
 
 903- 
 emptiness of — Shadow, 939. 
 from everyday life — State chamber and 
 
 living-room, 904. 
 without character — Poorly built house, 
 
 893- 
 Resist beginnings of evil — Prairie-fire, 58. 
 Resolution and performance — Descending 
 
 mountain, 846. 
 Rest of God, the — Scared bird returning 
 
 to nest, 2038. 
 Restorative power of good — Tree healing 
 
 its wound, 2567. 
 Restraint needed by man — Messenger colt, 
 
 423- 
 Resurrection, a type of — Dandelion, 331. 
 Retribution, physical, inevitable — Scars, 
 maiming, etc., 188. 
 taught by Christ — Drawing back cur- 
 tain, 2250. 
 Retrospect at end of year — Taking ac- 
 count of stock, 1664. 
 Retrospection to be helpful — Honey not 
 
 bitterness from flowers, 1758. 
 Revenge a torment — Dante's Hell, 427. 
 Revelation, unveiling of things not known 
 — Mother teaching child, 1887. 
 cannot be undone — Blossom cannot be 
 
 returned to seed, 2244. 
 of God requires receptivity — Sun on 
 
 Sahara and prairie, 1707. 
 the primitive — Opened by science, 2229. 
 the rocks — More important than Egyp- 
 tian excavations, 2230. 
 Revelations of old, modern commonplace 
 
 — Baby's bottle and man, 1885. 
 Reverence for women — Mother ; sisters, 89. 
 Revivals of religion, awaken life — Robin 
 on eggs, 155 1. 
 
 grades of desirability in — Cloth- 
 ing, 2129. 
 natural — Business boom, 871. 
 sweep away worldly obstructions — 
 
 Freshet in the soul, 2132. 
 working for, proper — Crops ; civ- 
 ilization ; arithmetic, etc., 2127. 
 Rich fool, the — Men's naming, and God's, 
 615. 
 making haste to be, criminal — Law of 
 equivalence, 609. 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 587 
 
 Rich, selfish, men — Unfaithful army 
 nurses, 605. 
 
 Riches and religion — National develop- 
 ment proportioned to national wealth, 
 
 599- 
 interior — Pearls and diamonds, 1074. 
 inward and outward — Pauper and 
 
 prince, 695. 
 Right unconscious rebuke of wrong — Ex- 
 amples, 825. 
 and wrong variable — Assassin's and 
 
 surgeon's knife, 1039. 
 Righteousness, a natural law — Health and 
 
 hospital, 1473. 
 importunate longing for — Hunger and 
 
 thirst, 1 103. 
 physical and social, not spirituality — 
 
 House without roof, 1027. 
 thrives — Trees along Hudson River, 
 
 1514- 
 
 Rights, personal, for giving away — Cour- 
 tesy in the home, 924. 
 
 Ritual not vital — Trellis for grape-vine, 
 
 2053- 
 observances respected not obligatory — 
 Levitical eatings, etc., 2139. 
 Roman Catholic Church and the Sects — 
 Broom-handle and broom-splints, 
 2146. 
 Romans, Epistle to the — St. Peter's at 
 Rome, 1942. 
 VII chapter imprisoning conscience — 
 
 Leaf in eddy, 1941. 
 VII and VIII — Mountain stream, 
 meadow brook, 1940. 
 
 — Overture to Wagner's Tann- 
 haeuser, 1943. 
 VIII, close of — Dome of St. Peter's,i942. 
 Romantic love, " at sight " — Spark from a 
 flint, 114. 
 
 beginning of, beautiful — Flower- 
 ing blossom and fragrance, 99. 
 growth of — May, June, July, August, 
 
 100. 
 higher life in — Bud in sunshine 
 
 starts the root, 103. 
 in brief attachments — Hyacinth, 
 
 107. 
 must rise above passion — Bird's 
 nests built in the grass, cut down, 
 105. 
 needs nourishment — Unfed, starves, 
 
 114. 
 
 without God — Lamp without oil, 
 106. 
 Rudeness, good-natured — Newfoundland 
 
 flog. 753- 
 Rule — A mould, 952. 
 Rules teach principles — Walking-chairs for 
 
 babies, 953. 
 
 Russian despotism to be reconstructed — 
 
 Plowing of an old field, 2517. 
 Ruth, the Book of — Vibration of a bell ; 
 peace after war, 1900. 
 story of — A pearl, 1899. 
 
 Sabbath — Pearl among days, 2040. 
 
 for workingmen — Fish coming up to 
 breathe, 2041. 
 
 laws to vaiy with community — City and 
 country, 2045. 
 
 luminous leader of civilization — Pillar of 
 fire, 2049. 
 
 made for man — Man's beast to be ridden, 
 2047. 
 
 means " rest " — Continuity of effort hm- 
 ited for success, 2039. 
 
 necessary labors on — Railroads, 
 2047. 
 
 needed by poor — Warm house one 
 blanket, cold house three, 2042. 
 
 of Puritanism — Author's boyhood ex- 
 perience, 2043. 
 
 rest of, worship — Poor man's garret, 
 fields, or church, 2044. 
 
 saloons to be closed — On clcction-day ; 
 in school vicinity, 2046. 
 
 sweetest day — Breast of the whole 
 week, 2048. 
 
 vitality of the — Other Mosaic insti- 
 tutions gone, 2049. 
 Sacrifice, joy of — Mother with sick child ; 
 
 father in Indian raid, 7. 
 Saloon-keepers to be held responsible — 
 
 Ox in Mosaic law, 2365. 
 Salutations, ancient and modern — Ex- 
 amples, 808. 
 Salvation and salvableness — Conversion 
 without change, 1454. 
 
 in Christ's name alone — Collins's axes, 
 1476. 
 
 never shown as impossible — Slamming 
 door in face, 2322. 
 
 simplicity of — Life-boat, 1549. 
 
 to be wrought out — Artist and picture, 
 
 1589. 
 Satan, fishing line of — Evil for the sake of 
 
 good, 562. 
 medieval conception of — Sooty monster, 
 
 1231. 
 Saviour, a personal — World gives poetry 
 
 to the poet, 1264. 
 Saxon tongue in self-description — Arrow 
 
 to mark, 789. 
 Scandal — Venomed arrow, 796. 
 Scenery to be viewed recei)tively — Daguer- 
 reotype plate, 2551. 
 Sceptic may be dropping old for better 
 
 new — Dead leaves and fresh growth, 
 
 1983. 
 
5S3 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 Scepticism good aiul bad — Plus and 
 minus, Iy82. 
 dogmatism poor remedy for — i'ut eyes 
 
 out for ophthalmia, 1975. 
 of to-day — Commercial, political, re- 
 ligious, 564. 
 Scholastic prejudice rejecting truth — Rab- 
 bis and Jesus, 2433. 
 Sctiool, common, associations permanent — 
 Tree-branches and root, 2420. 
 
 comradeship teaches sympathy — 
 Author and old schoolmate, 2421. 
 democracy of — Plow leveling corn- 
 ridges, 2422. 
 of Christ — School of Raphael, 1722. 
 Science and sentiment — Walking and fly- 
 ing, 2038. 
 discovering truth — Picking lock and un- 
 packmg trunk, 2538. 
 Scientific trutli in Christian — Whatsoever 
 things are true, 2465. 
 
 refused — Man in dungeon, 2231. 
 without gospel — Sailing on iceberg, 
 2231. 
 Seclusion not religion — Sponges and oys- 
 ters, 547. 
 Secretiveness — Wall for defence ; veil for 
 
 shelter, 1386. 
 Sects, divisions of God's army — Cavalry, 
 infantry, artillery, 215 1. 
 efficiency of — Splints of broom for 
 
 sweeping, 2146. 
 for specific variation in generic unity — 
 
 Households, 2161. 
 misjudging each other — Statue of man 
 
 and lion, 2149. 
 mutual respect of rights — Stealing sheep 
 
 from pastures, 2162. 
 variety of — All flowers children of Sun, 
 2152. 
 Seeking good not evil — Doves, buzzards. 
 
 Self, selling one's — Harp without strings, 
 
 614. 
 Self=absorption — Goose on a spit, 398. 
 consciousness — Tape-measure; safe- 
 lock, 763. 
 
 bad in good deeds — Dyspepsia, 859. 
 
 deception in Christian hope unlikely — 
 
 Loving a woman ; enjoying a peach, 
 
 1601. 
 
 description, Saxon words in — Arrow to 
 
 mark, 789. 
 education invariable — Man not bucket 
 
 pumped full, 2421. 
 examination advisable — Grain worth 
 straw and husk, 147 1. 
 
 true — Copying Raphael's Trans- 
 figuration, 1665. 
 unpleasant — Pulling do\\ n hat, 400. 
 
 Self-government not from over-government 
 — Severe parents, 2427. 
 gratulation on old religious experience 
 
 — Mean man's generosity, 2126. 
 immured — Italian story, woman built in 
 
 wall, 615. 
 judgment through others — Hedgehog, 
 905. 
 
 uncertain — Buoy, 906. 
 knowledge — Merchant's account-books, 
 1436. 
 as to tendency — Anchored, sailing, 
 or drifting, 1666. 
 measurement upwards — The poet, 2440. 
 portraiture by motives — Sculptor's 
 
 chisel, 432. 
 recognition — Portrait of an angel, 433. 
 revelation — Painting one's own portrait, 
 
 401. 
 righteousness sign of low attainment — 
 Learning to write, 1628. 
 Selfisfl aspirations — Rising to ice-clad 
 heights, 851. 
 man solitary — At death his own mourner, 
 
 2383- 
 service — Ants caressing flowers, 574. 
 superiority — Spinning silk to embroider 
 own life, 1736. 
 Selfishness and love in conflict — Whirl- 
 wind, 1786. 
 Sensibility to the Divine — The aspen-tree, 
 
 19S4. 
 Sensitiveness — Thin-skinned and thick- 
 skinned, 777. 
 to injury — Tinder in certain faculties, 
 816. 
 Sentiment undervalued by sordid sense — 
 Birds and farmer, 406. 
 value of — Perfume of Magdalen's vase, 
 
 1068. 
 without ethics — Narrow ship, wide- 
 spread sails, 1450. 
 Serenity, in consciousness of God — Child 
 
 and mother, 1537. 
 Service, lowly — Washing of feet, 1768. 
 Sermon on the Mount — development of 
 future from past — Wheat from old 
 straw, 2228. 
 best of Old Test, truths— Mount of 
 vision towards promised land of Spirit, 
 
 1932- 
 
 loftiness of — Keyed to high pitch, 1928. 
 
 not original — New sprout from old stock, 
 1929. 
 
 opening of — Bell chimes, Antwerp 
 cathedral, 1930. 
 Sermons, brilliant — Rockets, 2292. 
 
 failures in — Shot missing its aim, 2323. 
 
 for certain conditions — Medical pre- 
 scription, 2319. 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 589 
 
 Sermoas, " great " — Steeples without bells, 
 2286. 
 materials and tools for man-building — 
 
 Architect selecting woods, 2336. 
 poor, must sometimes be — No valleys, 
 
 no mountains, 2276. 
 subjects for, found everywhere — Botani- 
 cal specimens, 2317. 
 
 how to find — Watchmaker seeking 
 right tool, 2318. 
 transientness of — Showers of rain, 
 
 2333- 
 Shame for sin — Wind-stricken bulrush, 
 
 1435- 
 Sharing good things — Magnolia-fragrance, 
 
 417. 
 Sick bed — God's flower-bed, 212. 
 Silence, heroism of — Indian under torture, 
 
 96. 
 Silent corrupting forces — Malaria, 1369. 
 Sincerity — Older and later painters, 
 
 Italian and German, 822. 
 Sin — Definition of, 1381. 
 
 against the Holy Ghost, general not 
 
 specific — Bodily dissipation, 81. 
 destroys great natures — Girdled trees, 
 
 1417. 
 disjointed faculties — Dislocated limbs, 
 
 1390. 
 evolutionary view of, convincing — 
 
 Preaching Adam's fall, 1383. 
 fundamental in theology — Disease and 
 
 medical science, 1382. 
 is against God, not law — Cheating cus- 
 tomer, not scales, 1429. 
 latent — Raked-up fire; powder, 1399. 
 meanness of intelligent — Dog's grati- 
 tude ; man's ingratitude, 1428. 
 new view of — Conflict between animal 
 
 and spiritual, 2239. 
 not hereditary — Soot in flues, 139 1. 
 offending divine parent — Mother and 
 family law, 1430. 
 Sickness neglected — Bodily ills attended 
 to, 1083. 
 wrong use of right faculties — Sccretive- 
 ness, 1386. 
 Sincerity and wrong belief — Lead for 
 tools; triangle for wheel, 1977. 
 makes no error right — Fire always fire, 
 
 1609. 
 motive power of good or evil — Mallet, 
 
 1977- 
 
 Sinfulness of man and God's forgiving love 
 — Memory of mother, 1204. 
 tested by trying on Jesus Christ — Gar- 
 ments, 1569. 
 
 Singing, congregational, not without home- 
 singing — March dripping, August 
 shower, 2067. 
 
 Singing, congregational, to be cultivated — . 
 Not like birds, 2066. 
 church, a — Garden with flowers, 2061. 
 the highest ministration of sanctuary 
 — Wings, 206S. 
 defence against temptation — Golden 
 
 bow and arrow, 2065. 
 uplifting ])ower of — Railroad to top of 
 
 Mt. Washington, 2064. 
 with untrained voice to be modest — Not 
 like Niagara, 2062. 
 Single instances — Single wedges, 1725. 
 Sinner needs God — Sick man and physi- 
 cian, 1431. 
 Sins great and little — Conflagration ; 
 teredo, 1396. 
 insidious — Not lions but serpents; 
 
 moth, 1359. 
 secret — Ships anchored, 1397. 
 Slander — Cannibalism, 944. 
 Slang — Warts on the tongue, 790. 
 Sleep, a forgetting — Sponge to wipe out 
 fatigue, 204. 
 and waking — Death and resurrection, 
 
 202. 
 not to be gauged by other's deeds — 
 
 Wesley; Napoleon, 205. 
 swallows one-third of life — Sea, 204. 
 Small meannesses empty the heart — 
 Worms at wine-cask, 716. 
 transgressions damage the soul — Steal- 
 ing an apple, 735. 
 vexations annoy — Dust sifting through 
 cracks, 737. 
 Smartness, dangers of — Spider's webs and 
 
 cordage, 570. 
 Smooth natures admirable, not attractive 
 
 — Canals, 84. 
 Social duty of healthful living — Rotten 
 thread in fabric, 918. 
 effect of feeling — Contagion, 1459. 
 gain through suffering — Cost of liberty, 
 
 917. 
 influence — Making photographs, 834. 
 interdependence — Animal and vegetable 
 
 nature ; the body, 832. 
 liability to disaster — Foundation of 
 
 neighbor's house, 919. 
 life, diversity of — Trees, not jointed 
 
 logs, 923- 
 
 polish — Boulders worn smooth in river, 
 831. 
 
 relationships changed — Hebrew and 
 American slavery, 853. 
 
 solidarity — Trees in forest and in clear- 
 ing, 875. 
 
 suffering — Family and friends of wrong- 
 doer, 913. 
 
 unrest in Europe — Volcanic conditions, 
 998. 
 
590 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 Social violation of, law, punished — Thorn- 
 hedge, 852. 
 Society, bottom of, all-important — Foul 
 cellar, 936. 
 
 burdened by dishonesty — Ancient armor, 
 914. 
 
 limitations of — Trees in forest, 836. 
 
 more wholesome than solitude — Child, 
 rock, toadstool, 833. 
 
 moves by average mass — Not cream ; 
 not sails alone, 2493. 
 
 suffering between labor and capital — 
 Carcass between vultures, 929. 
 
 to control individual conduct — Pump 
 from bad well, 921. 
 
 top and bottom of — Blossom and root of 
 magnolia, 934. 
 
 varying standards in — Ship's forecastle 
 and college, 937. 
 Solitude — Wood-thrush in, 841. 
 
 no safety in — Devil at leisure in wilder- 
 ness, 840. 
 
 sweet after society — Rests in music, 841. 
 Sonship, conscious — Noble Hungarian 
 refugees, 1538. 
 
 evidence of, in personal attraction — 
 Child and parents, 1709. 
 Sorrow carries germ-forms of joy — Seeds 
 planted seek light, 222. 
 
 develops peace — Frost unlocks seed- 
 shells, 241. 
 
 earthly, suggests heavenly joy — Dis- 
 comforts of sea-voyage, 238. 
 
 exercising men — Wrought-iron at Nu- 
 remberg, 264. 
 
 followed by joy — Storm-clouds, sun- 
 lighted, 232. 
 
 for Lincoln's death — Huge storm sweep- 
 ing continent, 246. 
 
 helps to bear fruit instead of leaves — 
 Pruning-knife, 237. 
 
 intermittent — The motion of the sea, 
 240. 
 
 persisted in — Raking out coals from 
 ashes, 249. 
 
 present, joy to come — Fair pattern 
 woven in looms of God, 225. 
 
 retained too long, works injury — Etch- 
 ing plate over-exposed to acid, 250. 
 
 sometimes paralyzes soul — Cold late 
 rains on vegetation, 248. 
 
 sounds from all humanity — Distant 
 moan of surf, 269. 
 
 sweetens the spirit — Frost ripens nuts 
 and fruits, 268. 
 Soul bondage, release from — Escape from 
 war-captivity, 1590. 
 
 building — Solomon's temple, 1659. 
 
 cheerless, culture — Farm and family, 
 491. 
 
 Soul, Christ in the, a growth — Begins as 
 baby, 1646. 
 
 creation — House built by architect, 1061. 
 
 effects of, on others — Comet, 800. 
 
 enriched by love — Summer abundance, 
 1524. 
 
 evil powers of — Torture machines and 
 arms in London tower; Springfield 
 armory, 734. 
 
 exhaustion — Candle consumed, 1407. 
 
 finding God — Sunrise, 1533. 
 
 health — Bodily hygiene, 17 18. 
 
 in danger — Scornerat conversions, 21 25. 
 
 life, value of — Books, hymns, songs, in- 
 ferior, 1077. 
 
 manifested — Furnace ; lamp, 1079. 
 
 ojien to Divine influence — Slate and 
 glass roof, 1 30 1. 
 
 qualities disproportionate — Military 
 band; chorus, 1684. 
 
 regimen — Regularity in eating, 17 17. 
 
 response of the, to God — Memnon and 
 rising sun, 1675. 
 
 resurrection — Grave-clothes to be re- 
 moved, 1542. 
 
 self- building of — Kentucky caves, 1635. 
 
 sickness ignored — Bodily ills doctored, 
 
 1439- 
 torpidity of, favors disease — Bark-bound 
 
 tree, 1663. 
 unexplored, the — Columbus, 1086. 
 South American republics — Earthquakes 
 
 and volcanoes, 968. 
 Sown in dishonor, raised in glory — 
 
 Autumn seeds, spring flowers, 265. 
 Speculators, ruthless, worse than law- 
 breakers — Piercing with plans, 573. 
 Speaking evil — Wild-fire ; cannibalism, 
 787. 
 habits of — Sparks of fire or oil, S04. 
 truth in love —Quaker and fiery aboli- 
 tionist, 925. 
 Spirit of man, God's image — Statue and 
 packing-case, 362. 
 
 unequally developed — Bodily mon- 
 strosities, 363. 
 races beyond man — Musical theme 
 elaborated, 86. 
 Spiritism and spiritual longing — Stalactites 
 
 and stalagmites, 1084. 
 Spiritual achievement permanent — Sun- 
 drawn clouds, 1698. 
 ancestry — Family pride, 1099 
 betterment, process of — Medication for 
 
 sickness, 1625. 
 conflicts — Kaulbach's painting, 1610. 
 contagion — Sympathy of moods, 890. 
 culture — The rose, 1667. 
 
 becomes easier — Plowing same 
 field, 1673. 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 591 
 
 Spiritual death — Drowned man, 1326. 
 development takes time — Planting and 
 
 transplanting, 1708. 
 discernment not questionable — Tastes ; 
 
 observation, 1063. 
 early aids in, outgrown — First leaves of 
 
 bean, 1647. 
 grace to be cultivated — Garden crops, 
 
 1695. 
 growth gradual — Stages of plant-growth, 
 
 1618. 
 slow in proportion to fineness — 
 Cutting wax, marble, diamond, 
 1615. 
 guidance — Instructor in algebra, 1323. 
 hindrances — Back-water on wheel, 1693. 
 impulse superior to law — Hat off to 
 
 lady, 1686. 
 kindred — Heloise, 1731. 
 labor immortal — Work on men's souls, 
 
 535- 
 life begins obscurely — Vegetable growth, 
 
 '573- 
 uncertainly — Wick just kindled, 
 1598. 
 missed without Holy Spirit — Archer 
 
 and mark, 1309. 
 moods — Traveler's interrupted views, 
 
 1056. 
 nature of unspiritual men — Pyramids, 
 
 1016. 
 not gauged by senses — Higher and 
 
 lower courts, 1064. 
 persistence, lack of — Swinging of pendu- 
 lum, 1760. 
 qualities not abundant — Flowers in a 
 
 button-hole, 1674. 
 refreshment — Mountains from clouds, 
 
 1679. 
 skill gained by self-denial — Learning 
 
 the violin, 1614. 
 subject to natural laws — Peasant woman 
 
 and winnowing machine, 1672. 
 union — Jesus after and before ascension, 
 
 1082. 
 value of secularities — Chaff to wheat; 
 
 husk to corn, 545. 
 Spirituality AND Morality— " And " has 
 
 iron hands, 1041. 
 hindered by ecclesiasticism — Fruit under 
 
 leaves, 2154. 
 immature yet genuine — Developing oak, 
 
 1619. 
 individual growth in — Each tree more 
 
 fruitful, 1534. 
 late of development — Kindling a fire, 
 
 1706. 
 misunderstood — Vulgarity, delicacy; 
 
 glutton, temperance ; cruelty, tender- 
 ness, 1067. 
 
 Spirituality without God — Swimming not 
 
 sailing, 1460. 
 Spontaneous virtue — Water in well- 
 
 jilumljed house, i486. 
 Standards, men judged by their own — Tl>e 
 
 " good fellow " ; the religious man, 
 
 474- 
 of self-judgment — Men four feet high, 
 
 359. 
 
 Steadfastness — Every link of the chain 
 firm, 468. 
 
 Stimulants — Destroying house to feed fire, 
 195. 
 
 Strength of man in God — Sojourner Truth 
 and Frederick Douglas, 2028. 
 
 Strenuous life, trials of — Business ; poli- 
 tics, 845. 
 
 Strong natures attractive — Rough land- 
 scape, 85. 
 phrases for strong feelings —Religion ; 
 
 battle, 1498. 
 the, duty of — Higher branches shade 
 lower, 598. 
 
 Style, complexity and simplicity of — Dr. 
 Johnson, John Bunyan, 2299. 
 
 Success, character the test of— Puff-ball 
 and prince, 622. 
 dishonest, transient — Dandelion-gold, 
 
 571- 
 
 exacts effort — No " deadheads " in na- 
 ture, 510. 
 
 unsuccessful — Sahara of gold sand, 612, 
 Suffering cleanses — Baptism, 271. 
 
 endurance of, transmutes lower elements 
 into higher — Philosopher's stone, 258. 
 
 from one's own fault needs balm before 
 criticism — Good Samaritan, 881. 
 
 God's fashioning of manhood — Sculp- 
 ture, 647. 
 
 means elevation — Sheep's wool in King's 
 robe, 259. 
 
 not typical of Christianity — Medicine, 
 not food, 252. 
 
 ripens the spirit — Early frost autumnal 
 leaves, 261, 
 
 seekers of — Weeping willows, 1994. 
 
 the price of good — Household tears and 
 vigils, 658. 
 
 the test of love — Christ the exemplar, 
 
 Sulkiness a sin — Family in smoke, 742. 
 Sulphurous match — A marriage in discord, 
 
 104. 
 Sunday (See Sabbath). 
 Superficial betterment — Arboriculture, 
 
 1038. 
 Superstition dispelled by righteousness — 
 
 Mists before the sun, 2559. 
 Surrender, beautiful — Smiling dead on 
 
 battlefield, 687. 
 
59^ 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 Susceptibility of man — Thermometer, 834. 
 Sweet'SOuted men under barbaric views of 
 
 (ukI — Honey from lion, 2217. 
 Sweetness under injury — Maple-sugar sap, 
 
 S17. 
 Symbol of Deity — The sun, fatlicr of ener- 
 gies, 2560. 
 Symbolism of Bible not reducible to art- 
 form — Shakespeare's supernaluralism, 
 1902. 
 Symbols and rituals — Ladder, 1257. 
 
 in religion, natural and artificial — Ex- 
 amples, 2549. 
 Sympathy, comfort of mere — Jesus in 
 Gethsemane ; child and mother, 885. 
 lack of, infidelity — Severity to God's 
 
 children, 945. 
 of heart — Poultice on bruise, 880. 
 
 moods — Management of children, 
 
 soul unappreciated — Critics of spirit- 
 ual help, 886. 
 practical — Surgeon, 888. 
 rich man without general — Tree with 
 
 one root, 604. 
 seeks the needy — Whittling pine and 
 
 lignum vita;, 1770. 
 variations of — Hard in business, gener- 
 ous at home, 2396. 
 
 Talents, man of few — Firefly, star, 358. 
 Talk, needless — Wind for cockle-boat and 
 
 for ship, 780. 
 Talking, endless — Printed in a volume, 781. 
 Tampering with evil — Chopped bait before 
 
 the hook, 1422. 
 Teacher and preacher nobler than artist — 
 
 Michael Angelo, 2414. 
 work of, most profitable — Investment at 
 
 interest, 2415. 
 Teaching, divine — Boy learning to swim. 
 
 Tearless grief — Rain turned to ice, 224. 
 Tears — God's seeds, 159. 
 
 and blood — Cement by which God 
 
 builds world, 2371. 
 make souls beautiful — Dew on flowers, 
 
 226. 
 relief in sorrow — Glaciers softened by 
 
 warmth, 228. 
 reveal God — Telescope, 235. 
 Teasing — Black thread in white web, 784. 
 Temper not destroyed but used — Mountain 
 
 brook, 752. 
 Temperament, equivalents of — Iceberg ; 
 
 equator, 378. 
 Temple of God defaced — Illness from 
 abuse of body, 217. 
 or hut for children — Health a parental 
 obligation, 137. 
 
 Temptableness variable — Tests of different 
 
 woods, 1370. 
 Temptation almost saved from — Undertow 
 of sea, 1415. 
 dallying with — Thoughtless maiden, 
 
 deceitfulness of — Ambush in war, 1375. 
 
 finds welcome — Seed in prepared 
 ground, 793. 
 
 inconspicuous, most dangerous — Treach- 
 ery in fort, 1 37 1. 
 
 indirect — Flanking the enemy, 1373. 
 
 living above — Devil's arrows, 1380. 
 
 marks danger-line — Driving near preci- 
 pice, 1355. 
 
 of Jesus — Spirit of this world, 1 231. 
 
 like earlier prophetic scenes — 
 Drifted boulder, 1924. 
 
 perils of — Lord Clive in India, 1376. 
 
 power of, in soul — Spark on powder, 
 
 1350- 
 prompt escape from — Cat and mouse, 
 
 1365- 
 resistance to — Dikes of Holland, 1372. 
 seeks the indolent — Wind sowing seeds 
 
 on prairie, 1377. 
 steadiness under — Anchored vessels, 
 
 1354. 
 suggestive not compulsory — Inspiration, 
 
 1353- 
 to be avoided — Maelstrom, 1356. 
 
 fled before it comes — Promontories 
 
 and tide, 1364. 
 watched against at dangerous hour 
 — Indian attacks, 1362. 
 works in secret — Yeast; seed, 1378. 
 Tempter and tempted — Harper and harp, 
 
 1352- 
 as angel of light — Morning star, 123I. 
 Tender places in hard natures — Sore 
 
 muscle, 2320. 
 Theological controversies — Chicken-pox 
 and measles, 2264. 
 transformation of Bible — Mother's boy 
 
 changed to martinet, 1956. 
 transition dawn of great future — Galileo, 
 2233. 
 Theologies, intercliangc of — Goods for 
 
 grain, 2220. 
 Theologizing and preaching — Making 
 tackle and catcliing lish, 2313. 
 a question of implements — Men discuss- 
 ing tools, 2178. 
 on God in Clirist — Changing grapes to 
 
 wine, no longer grapes, 1151. 
 only philosopliizing — Mother love and 
 theory, 2195. 
 Theology, God's love root of the " ad- 
 vanced " — Spinal marrow and brain, 
 2246. 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 593 
 
 Theology not preaching — Forging, n(jt 
 using, sword of the Lord, 2354. 
 religion — Dissected body not a 
 man, 1461. 
 systematic — Image in Daniel's vision, 
 
 2196. 
 to be restored by Evolution — God's 
 temple cleared of sand-drift, 2242. 
 Theory and practice — Catalogue and fruit, 
 
 '536. 
 Thievery, legislative and private — Albany 
 
 and Sing Sing, looS. 
 Thinking and doing — Flying and hopping 
 of bird, 452. 
 
 praying — Arithmetical problems, 
 
 393- 
 in a murk — Old-fashioned sermon- 
 making, 395. 
 ineffective — Cherry blossoms without 
 
 cherries, 385. 
 under authority — The clam, 2107. 
 Thought and feeling — Arrow and bow, 402. 
 
 empire of — Description, 1440. 
 Thoughts and things — Indolent youth ig- 
 norant of work, 519. 
 hidden, the best — Pearls to be dived for, 
 
 384. 
 multiplicity of — Drops of a river, 391. 
 noble — Greater than star-making, 396. 
 transitory — Meteors, 380. 
 Time and tasks — Husbandman in spring, 
 
 537- 
 best seasoner — Tan-bark, 1639. 
 Toil, pleasure in homely — Planting rough 
 
 ground for beauty, 529. 
 Toleration compulsory — Fruit guarded by 
 
 wall, 151 1. 
 Tomb, the, to reveal the infinite beyond — 
 
 Telescope, 244. 
 Tongue and ear leagued for evil — Scav- 
 engers and sewer, 793. 
 control of — Flashes like powder, 782. 
 power of — Contrasted with pen, 943. 
 Tragedies in life, unnoted — Sudden desti- 
 tution, 706. 
 Train up a child — Rub education into 
 
 muscle and bone, 12. 
 Training changes use, not nature — Hot, 
 irritable temper, 429. 
 earthly, often valueless for heaven — 
 Emigration without language or busi- 
 ness ability, 578. 
 God's, and earthly father's alike — 
 
 Child to meet troubles, 673. 
 in righteousness — Learning to write, 
 
 1624. 
 of character — Horse's fine qualities dis- 
 ciplined, 428. 
 
 perceptions — Stock exchange ; 
 mother at party, 366. 
 
 Training to calmness — Well-broken horse, 
 
 367- 
 value of — Amateur house-painting, 509. 
 Transgression as education — Boy learning 
 
 to write, 2232. 
 Transition periods barren — Desert between 
 
 Israelites and promised land, 2461. 
 Transitoriness of human experiences — 
 
 Meteors, 380. 
 Trials prove men — Without strain, all 
 
 timber equal, 671. 
 test strength — House on sand good in 
 
 fair weather, 624. 
 Tribulations, issue of — Flax and white 
 
 raiment, 650. 
 Trifles soil life and hide heaven — Dust, 
 
 1700. 
 Trouble, blessing in — Connecticut floods, 
 
 ^34- 
 borrowing, foolish — Livingstone and 
 
 lion, 6S1. 
 braving — New England boy in winter, 
 
 648. 
 certainty of — Daisy in furrow, 630. 
 discipline of — Grindstone, 636. 
 escape from — Birds fly above shot, 684. 
 God called in time of — Child and 
 
 parents, 2019. 
 God's nearness in — Mother and chil- 
 dren, 1552. 
 great, has cleansing power — Summer 
 
 storm, 267. 
 guidance by — Quagmire warning, 663. 
 heroism in — Soldiers' duty, 674. 
 may not be selected — P'ine house, loved 
 
 ones gone, 243. 
 persistent — Kettle-holes in brooks, 683. 
 petty, robberies of — Man's need of other 
 
 life, 350. 
 present, understood hereafter — Dying 
 
 child and father, 230. 
 purification by — Insects and summer 
 
 shower, 664. 
 regulation by — Piano-tuning, 649. 
 right effect of — Threshing out wheat, 
 
 628. 
 small, destroyed by great thoughts — 
 
 Fire-rescue, 665. 
 softening the heart — Preparing plate for 
 
 engraving, 245. 
 sometimes benumbs — Persons wrongly 
 
 judged, 253. 
 training by — Mining, crushing, smelt- 
 ing ore, 668. 
 Troubles — Windows towards heaven, 639. 
 bearing present — Voyage for sake of 
 
 coming joy, 690. 
 transient — Modulating discords, 689. 
 Trust in God — Faith of child in parent, 
 
 2024. 
 
594 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 Trust in (Iml — Luhiicating oil, 2022. 
 
 time of distress — Bishop of Geneva, 
 2017. 
 simplicity of — CiiiKlreu with Jesus, 
 
 '-35- 
 Trusting God — Hoys learning to swim, 
 
 -035. 
 Truth, broad views of— Prospect from ele- 
 vation, 1067. 
 crushed to earth — Seed dies to live, 661. 
 immortal — Chemical transmutations, 
 
 1322. 
 telling adulterated — Gold of eighteen 
 
 carats, 720. 
 
 to be learned — Archery, 15. 
 unity in material, variety in higlier, 
 
 views of — Arithmetic and religion, 
 
 2187. 
 varies — Neatness in bedroom and in 
 
 stone-mason's stiop, Sio. 
 Truthfulness— Backbone, 467. 
 
 of men generally accepted — Deposits in 
 
 bank, 81 1. 
 Truths, new, to be questioned ; admitted, 
 
 to be used — Bow and arrows, 2222. 
 simple, may begin great effects — 
 
 Music-box key, 2269. 
 varied ripening-time of — Early and late 
 
 fruit-trees, 2208. 
 
 Unattainable, value of the — Jacob's ladder, 
 1044. 
 
 Unbelief — Wilderness, 1970. 
 
 emptiness of — Abandoned tenement, 
 1980. 
 
 Unconscious beauty of Christ-spirit — Mag- 
 nolias in blossom, 1792. 
 goodness — Leaking grain-wagon, 1744. 
 
 Uneducated, the — Unopened seat-walking- 
 stick, 2426. 
 
 Unforeseen effects — Rain, vegetable 
 growths, 1327. 
 
 Unity of spirit not of thought — Refreshing 
 streams from joined drops, 2 140. 
 to be harmony — Different arms of same 
 military force, 2263. 
 
 Unseen indulgences — Hidden mine under 
 fort, 1360. 
 
 Unsocial temper — Trip-hammer, 755. 
 
 Unsought good — Training in labor unions, 
 928. 
 
 Unwritten realities — Exhalations of un- 
 stopped vase, 412. 
 
 Use through waste — Sea of sleep drowns a 
 third of life, 204. 
 
 Vacations of the workers — Antieus, 583. 
 Value, law of — Cost in brain-work, 542. 
 measured by quality of labor involved — 
 Shearing and weaving, 2496. 
 
 Vanity — Midges and butterflies, 760. 
 Variations from purpose — Ship and steer- 
 ing line, 451. 
 Variety needed — Food; man not machine, 
 
 2039. 
 Ventilation disregarded — Eating refuse, 
 
 198. 
 Vicarious penalty — Poor-house, 915. 
 Vice easily propagated — Seeds sown by 
 
 wind, 1377. 
 Victory from defeats of predecessors — 
 
 Moses; Luther; etc., 534. 
 Violation of law not always sin — Child 
 slapping nurse, 1385. 
 
 cumulative — Snow-flakes and ava- 
 lanche, 1404. 
 Virtue, automatic — Type-setter, 1 681. 
 easy for one born virtuous — Water runs 
 
 down-hill, 1389. 
 not negative — Mullein stalk, 1037. 
 pays for vice — Caulking leaky hull, 916. 
 Virtues dependent on love — Tropical 
 fruits on climate, 176/. 
 little — Grass, 798. 
 of slow growth — Rye, 48. 
 quality in— Pictures ; clolli, 830. 
 single, and character — A garden and a 
 
 farm, 1655. 
 to be automatic — Dancing-school, 797. 
 Vision, clouded — Observatory in misty re- 
 gion, 1055. 
 hours of — Stellar observation, 1054. 
 mortal and immortal — Candle and 
 
 lightning, 344. 
 of faith — View from Mt. Washington, 
 2014. 
 Vital functions agreeable — Specifications, 
 
 185. 
 Vocal power to be trained for — Newsboys, 
 
 2295. 
 Volition and disposition — Examples from 
 
 ordinary life, 1739. 
 Vote — Genie escaped from bottle, 931. 
 
 Waiting on the Lord — God stretching time 
 wide, 1821. 
 
 War energy used for peace — Swords into 
 pruning-hooks, 25 1 1. 
 
 Warnings against moral corruption — 
 Plague hospital ; fire alarm ; preci- 
 pice, 53. 
 
 Waste in creative process — Carpenter's 
 shavings, 2558. 
 
 Watch temptation at dangerous hour — In- 
 dians' attack, 1362. 
 
 Ways of salvation various — Gates to New 
 Jerusalem, 2261. 
 
 Weak, power of the — Rain, 520. 
 
 Weakness, power of, with God — Apostles; 
 Savonarola ; Huss, 2356. 
 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 595 
 
 Wealth burying aspiration — Statues in 
 overwhelmed cities, 6i6. 
 
 dangers of — Dangers God's whetstones, 
 6oi. 
 
 hoarded — Dust of sepulcher; powder, 
 594- 
 
 honor or shame depends on use — Pedes- 
 tal or pillory, 592. 
 
 lost, appreciated — Bag full of holes, 619. 
 
 making, civic virtue — Arabs, 6cx). 
 
 national, measures civilization — Riches 
 and religion, 599. 
 
 no title to remembrance — Cloud; muck- 
 rake; coalo,cuttle, 617. 
 
 to be diffused — Manure-heap, 602. 
 
 used for mankind — Peter Cooper, 618. 
 
 with goodness — Saint in a golden niche, 
 
 597- 
 wrung from the poor — Molten gold 
 down the children's throats, 610. 
 Wedded love comprehendeil only through 
 life — Rill, stream, river, 109. 
 changes emotion to action — Rain, 
 
 vegetation, 127. 
 disappointment in — Summer brook, 
 
 119. 
 failing under trials — Burnt-out 
 
 candles, 120. 
 ideal of — Gold veined in rock, 1 10. 
 in service — The brook and the mill- 
 race, 128. 
 infidelity in — Treachery in the for- 
 tress, 122. 
 lacking, wealth is poverty — Candle 
 
 and candlestick, 124. 
 of mere emotion short-lived — Feel- 
 ing, developing conduct, 113. 
 should grow with years — Develop- 
 ment of seasons, 108. 
 Welh wishers — Chaff without seeds, 2072. 
 Wicked, future of the, unknown — Caves of 
 unsounded depth, 2219. 
 prayer of the — The prodigal son, 
 
 1824. 
 sacrifice of the, abomination — Gambler 
 contributing on Sunday, 2055. 
 Wife, influence of — Atmospheric, 117. 
 
 and husband — Church and Christ, 121. 
 Will, the human — Rudder, 1458. 
 Willingness the ground of adoption — Five 
 
 Points children, 157 1. 
 Wisdom, search for divine — Prospecting 
 
 for gold, mo. 
 Wishing and willing — Liking and loving, 
 
 1653. 
 Wit — Spark to light guiding torch, 482. 
 
 evil — Harlotry of wickedness, 771. 
 Without me, nothing — Parental blessing, 
 
 1 168. 
 Witness, false — Judgment-seat, jSS. 
 
 Woman at the sepulcher — Root seeking 
 moisture, 91. 
 
 beauty of, made for daylight — Flowers, 
 birds, etc., 95. 
 
 Godless, in marriage — Lamb to the 
 slaughter, 106. 
 
 influence of — Salt air east of Alle- 
 ghanies, 90. 
 
 nature of, not changed by development 
 — Sex dyed in the wool, 93. 
 
 power of, in trouble — Man's bank- 
 ruptcy, 98. 
 
 reverence for — Memories of mother and 
 sisters, 89. 
 
 strength of, compared with man's — 
 Branches and roots, 92. 
 Womanhood, men without faith in — Hiss- 
 ing serpents, 88. 
 Woman's natural gifts to be consecrated — 
 Memory of author's mother, dancing, 
 
 94- 
 
 silence heroic — Indian under torture, 96. 
 
 servitude in love, a glory — Florence 
 
 Nightingale, Miss Barton, Miss Wool- 
 
 sey, 97- 
 Word, associations vary — Every man 
 
 different chime of bells, 2054. 
 of God effective — Snow with message of 
 
 life, 2561. 
 the homely, arouses memories — Echo in 
 
 mountains, 2299. 
 Words and thoughts — Bannerets and great 
 
 army, 2442. 
 as related to thought — Musical notes to 
 
 melodious ideas, 2299. 
 mean what they make men think of — 
 
 Flowers produce sentiment, 2576. 
 ugly — Thorn-bush seed, 786. 
 Work, blessedness of — Ship under head- 
 way, 553. 
 good, in unconspicuous places — Phidias, 
 
 524. 
 high destiny of humble — Building of 
 
 Solomon's Temple, 521. 
 honesty in — Building good houses, 826. 
 love of — Lyman Beecher; old war- 
 horse, 505. 
 makes possible better work — Soil from 
 
 former materials, 531. 
 measures man — Mind using body as 
 
 tools, 506. 
 obscure- — Bud for future growth, 527. 
 on beginnings — Foundation-work; St. 
 
 Paul, 523. 
 seemingly unfruitful — Seed-sowing in 
 
 mid-ocean, 526. 
 the providence of — " Fowls of the air," 
 
 517- 
 
 — " Lilies of the field," 518. 
 World — A grindstone, 626. 
 
596 
 
 INDEX OF THOUGHTS 
 
 World, n place of [)rL'iKuati(>ii---\Vatcli- 
 making, 2476. 
 
 disorder in progress of, yet orderly — 
 Whirlwind under law, 2534. 
 
 good for its purposes — Watch, 546, 
 
 growth of the — Expansion of tree, 
 2469. 
 
 growth, three stages of — By root, stem, 
 and maturation, 2541. 
 
 law in tumult of — Sorting letters in 
 post-office, 2535. 
 
 life helps soul-life — Husk of corn, 
 1658. 
 
 long growth of the — Oak ; cedars ; Cal- 
 ifornia redwoods, 2508. 
 
 neighborhood — America feeding the na- 
 tions, 2510. 
 
 restlessness — Boiling like a cauldron, 
 
 2537- 
 the, not our home — Schoolhouse, not 
 
 dwelling, 336. 
 the place for Christianity — Navigation 
 
 and ship; agriculture and field, 
 
 1721. 
 this, and the other — Walking on stilts, 
 
 1555- 
 a preparation — Tuning-room of or- 
 chestra, 1677. 
 Worldly life — South African rivers, begin 
 large and end small, 17 13. 
 things measured by relation to higher 
 nature — Home furnishing and chil- 
 dren, 1733. 
 Worship, external expedients of — Crutches 
 for weak souls, 2050. 
 praises of, acceptable to God — Children's 
 
 voices, 2051. 
 symbolism of, in repetition — Painted 
 
 windows, 2052. 
 unity of, impossible — DiiTering word- 
 associations, 2054. 
 
 Worth, in tlic olhcr world — Unniaiketable 
 investments, 316. 
 of each in liis place — Large and small 
 flowers in bouquet, 2499. 
 
 Year, last day of the, to be purified — 
 
 Photographic plate, 1757. 
 Yes — Precipice; open city-gate, 1376. 
 Yielding to God — Gulls flying with the 
 
 wind, 1618. 
 Young Christians not to be discouraged — 
 Pessimism in farming, 66. 
 
 to be joyful — Birds of bright plu- 
 mage and song, nut crows, 67. 
 love and its growth — May, June, July, 
 
 August, 99. 
 manhood opening of — Spring; fermen- 
 tation, 46. 
 men to hold faith in the imperfect 
 church — Gold-bearing quartz, 68. 
 Youth and immortality — In Greek litera- 
 ture, 69. 
 ashamed of saintly parents — Children 
 
 of Raphael, 63. 
 beginning manhood — Embarkation on 
 
 stormy sea, 45. 
 critical season for — Amazon ocean- 
 estuary, 43. 
 misjudgment of — College-success and 
 life-success, 44. 
 Youth's appetites and passions to be 
 trained, not suppressed — Fractious 
 horse, 47. 
 excesses — Colts ; treasures ; food, 60. 
 exposure to vice — Infectious disease, 52. 
 natural bent to be heeded — Poet from 
 
 practical parents, 50. 
 passions leave marks — God's hand- 
 writing, 57. 
 recreations improving — Billiards and 
 bowling, 55. 
 
INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 Abandonment of arms in war — Ascetic 
 
 Cliristianity, 2192. 
 Abyss and safety — Lost and found, 1490. 
 Academy, entering the — Examination for 
 
 ciiurch membership, 2074. 
 Access to burning building — Approaches 
 
 to men varied, 2321. 
 Account-books of merchant — Self-knowl- 
 edge, 1436. 
 of stock, taking — Retrospect at end of 
 year, 1664. 
 Acids secreted — Fear corroding, 1992. 
 Acorn — Child worthless except for future, 5. 
 and oak — Slow growth of character, 
 
 1638. 
 timber in — Man's possibilities, 2430. 
 Acquaintances, companions, brethren — 
 Brotherhood of man, 877. 
 not friends — Benevolence in man's 
 soul limited, 2387. 
 Adam, preaching fall of — Evolutionary 
 
 view of sin convincing, 1383. 
 Advocate, hired, of the soul — Conscience, 
 
 1346. 
 After-glow of sunset — Posthumous influ- 
 ence, 1750. 
 Agricultural manual — New Testament the 
 
 hand-book of religion, 1915. 
 Air, bad, and dust decay the house — Indo- 
 lence corrupts the mind, 530. 
 cleansed by motion — Health, 179. 
 Alabaster Iwx broken — Love to be mani- 
 fested, 805. 
 
 still fragrant — Gifts of love lasting, 
 2407. 
 Albany and Sing Sing — Thievery, legisla- 
 tive and private, 1008. 
 Almanacs — Preaching must suit its time, 
 
 2268. 
 Alpine avalanches bring summer harvests 
 — Peace begins in confusion, 2382. 
 climber — Dangers of refinement, 377. 
 Alphabet — Justice itself simple, becomes 
 complex ,821. 
 
 —The Bible an, 1845. 
 learning — Taking up cross in Christian 
 life, 145 1. 
 Altar, consuming offences on — Good for 
 evil as of coals of tire, 1797. 
 
 Altar fire — Devotion that must be kindled, 
 
 1685. 
 Amazon, ocean estuary — Critical season 
 
 for youth, 43. 
 Ambassador not type of Christ — Medi- 
 
 atorship, 1268. 
 Ambush in war — Deceitfulness of tempta- 
 tion, 1375. 
 Ambushed man beating off enemies — Man- 
 liness of repentance, 1565. 
 Anchor short of cable — Morality incom- 
 plete character, 1025. 
 soul's — Hope of immortality, 346. 
 steady — A firm hope, 688. 
 to windward — Formal religion and 
 worldliness, 1454. 
 Anchored vessels — Steadiness under temp- 
 tation, 1354. 
 
 sailing or drifting — Self-knowl- 
 edge, 1666. 
 Angel and lion — Rise of humanity, 2524. 
 
 of light — Tempter of Jesus, 1231. 
 Anger — Energizing power of excitement, 
 
 439- 
 judging peace — Flesh cannot discern 
 
 spirit, 1062. 
 to put down, pry up good-nature — To 
 cure malign feeling, 949. 
 Ant and mountain — Human judgments of 
 
 God, 1 1 20. 
 Amateur liouse-painting — Value of train- 
 ing, 509. 
 Amulets of Indian — Bible texts unintelli- 
 
 gently read, 1848. 
 Angler loves catcliing fish — Minister loves 
 
 to fish for men, 2281. 
 Animal and vegetable nature — Social inter- 
 dependence, 832. 
 development perfect — Unlike man, 70. 
 man and spiritual man — Darwinian 
 view of sin, 2239. 
 Animals hiding from pursuit — Children 
 driven to deception by fear, 14. 
 little — Child's immoral tendencies, 9. 
 measured by special superiorities : swine, 
 
 oxen, dogs — Man, by goodness, 71. 
 not so cruel as — Man, 82. 
 or angels — Exposing error in temper or 
 in love, 2377. 
 
 597 
 
«8 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 AntSUS — Vacalioiis of the workers, 583. 
 Ant and cnj^le — Labors of genius, 508. 
 Anti-slavery agitators — Obscure reformers 
 
 now illustrious, 2366. 
 Ants caressing flowers — Sellish service, 
 
 574- 
 Aphides killing plants — Bad temper at 
 home, 169. 
 outgrown by strong plants — Hap- 
 piness from health, 493. 
 Apostle lecturing on medicine, without 
 cures — Preacher neglecting public 
 sins, 2345. 
 Apostles, the — Fervency effective, 435. 
 
 — Power of weakness allied with 
 God, 2356. 
 Apple and pomology — Fruits of real re- 
 ligion acceptable, 1455. 
 blossoms and apples — religious pro- 
 fessions uncertain, 1720. 
 
 and fruit — Position does not make 
 the man, 49. 
 falling of ripe — Ease of dying, 299. 
 quince, blackberry, rose, one genus — 
 Human unity generic, variety specific, 
 248S. 
 stand and hotel — Church discipline with 
 differences, 211 1. 
 Apple=tree — God's willingness to give, 
 1174. 
 in winter and spring — Hebraism and 
 
 Christ, 1243. 
 late-bearing — Character matures slowly, 
 
 1705- 
 Apprentice to learn trade — Getting of 
 
 knowledge brings wisdom, 2431. 
 Aqueduct and water — Church and religion, 
 
 2167. 
 Arabian Nights not in New York — In- 
 dustry, law of success, 515. 
 Arabs — Wealth -making, civic virtue, 600. 
 Arboriculture — Superficial betterment, 
 
 1038. 
 Archer and mark — Spiritual life missed, 
 
 1309. 
 Archery — Trutli-telling to be learned, 15. 
 Architect, builder of house — Soul-creation, 
 
 1081. 
 master-builder ; materials — Enlarging 
 
 ideal of (iod, 1727. 
 selecting materials — Preacher seeking 
 
 truths, 2336. 
 Arctic fowls — Early hardship, good for- 
 tune, 655. 
 Aristotle- Plato- Bacon— Heart eloquence 
 
 greater than philosophy, 2270. 
 Arithmetic and religion — Unity in lower, 
 
 variety in higher, views of truths, 
 
 2187. 
 gained by work — Revivals, 2127. 
 
 Arithmetical problems — Thinking and 
 
 praying, 393. 
 Arminius— (ienius in theology, 1979. 
 Armor, ancient — Society burdened by dis- 
 honesty, 914. 
 for fighting — Hope and faith for use, 
 
 1528. 
 of God, the whole — Many-sided tempta- 
 tions, 1691. 
 Army nurses, unfaithful — Rich selfish men, 
 
 605. 
 Arnold of Rugby and Thomas Hughes — 
 
 Gratitude to Jesus, 1291. 
 Arrow and bow — Thought and feeling, 
 402. 
 at special target — Love not to be oc- 
 casional, 1775. 
 silver, from eternal bow — The atone- 
 ment in God's love, 1157. 
 to the mark — Saxon words in self-de- 
 scription, 789. 
 Arrows of devil — Living above temptation, 
 
 1380. 
 Arsenal — Reading Bible for conflict, 1958. 
 
 venomed — Scandal, 796. 
 Art — Life an, requning long training, 927. 
 and artists — Ideal beyond the real, 
 
 1043. 
 conceptions, early and late — Christ 
 
 bearing the cross, 1248. 
 student — " Getting religion," the start, 
 
 1585- 
 Arteries for blood — Newspapers carry 
 
 morality, 2454. 
 Artist and picture — Salvation wrought out, 
 
 1589. 
 becoming an — Character to be perfected, 
 
 1593- 
 loves form and color — Minister loves 
 
 men, 2281. 
 work not comparable to — Motherhood, 
 
 129. 
 young — Unconscious preparation for 
 Christianity, 1575. 
 Artillery for bombardment — Blessings for 
 curses, 1687. 
 of pulpit — Every-day lay preaching, 864. 
 Aspen tree — Description, 21^82. 
 
 — Sensibility to the Divine, 1984. 
 Aster — Maturity in age, 277. 
 Astor's pocket picked — Earthly losses in- 
 significant, 708. 
 Astronomer — Condition of faculties for 
 work, 388. 
 personal equation of — Moral judgments, 
 454- 
 Astronomical observation not debatable — 
 Spiritual discernment, 1063. 
 observatory in city— Business unfavor- 
 able to meditation, 556. 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 599 
 
 Astronomy and all celestial bodies — True 
 
 church welcomes all, 2080. 
 Athlete stripped for contest — Manliness in 
 
 bankruptcy, 561. 
 Atmosphere an — Dishonesty permeating, 
 746. 
 native, and new inspiration — Love in 
 
 Christ and in Paul, 1774. 
 power, and subject — Sinfulness, love, 
 
 immortality, as fundamentals, 2265. 
 requisite — Holy Spirit cause of higher 
 
 life, 1318. 
 without penetrates within — Wife's in- 
 fluence, 117. 
 Augustine — Genius in theology, 1979. 
 Aurora in brick and mortar — Prophetic 
 
 visions translated to fact, 1950. 
 Authors read for stimulus — Holy Spirit, 
 
 Autumnal foliage — Preparation for death 
 in joy, 307. 
 glory — Approach of death, 286. 
 Avoirdupois, moral and industrial — Pri- 
 mary cause of poverty, 704. 
 
 Babbage's calculating machine — Ideal 
 
 manhood complicated, 80. 
 Babe, Jesus to be treated as — Child-Christ 
 in child-heart, 38. 
 in cradle — Church-religion to care for 
 
 the weak, 2092. 
 new-born, needs tender care — Childhood 
 
 conversions, 37. 
 rescued in contlagration — God's tender- 
 ness for the weak, 1186. 
 Babel, tower of — America's polyglot popu- 
 lation, 10 14. 
 Baby-beginning — Christ in the soul a 
 
 growth, 1646. 
 Baby's bottle and man — Ancient revela- 
 tions modern commonplaces, 18S5. 
 walking-chair — Rules teach principles, 
 
 953- 
 
 Backbone — Truthfulness, 467. 
 
 Backing into heaven — Good men opposing 
 hopeful views of God, 2218. 
 
 Back-water on wheel — Hindrances to 
 spiritual life, 1693. 
 
 Bacon, Lord — Genius needs industry, 507. 
 — Great minds stimulative, 2438. 
 
 Bag full of holes — Lost wealth appre- 
 ciated, 619. 
 
 Bailed culprits kept faith — Gratitude an 
 inspiration, 819. 
 
 Bait, adapted to fish — Preaching to audi- 
 ence, 231 1, 
 chopped, before the hook — Tampering 
 with evil, 1422. 
 
 Baker — Worry about bread, 625. 
 
 Bamboo — Iiuiian independent, 2518. 
 
 Band, playing cymbals only — Love omit- 
 ted, 1795. 
 Bank clerk — Other men's crookedness in 
 business, 567. 
 deposits in — Truthfulness of men gener- 
 ally accepted, 81 1. 
 note for hundred pounds — God's prom- 
 ises neglected, 1209. 
 teller — Minister as paid official, 2309. 
 Bankruptcy impending — Trouble the time 
 for patience, 558. 
 of husband — Woman's power in trouble, 
 98. 
 
 soul — Material and spiritual losses, 
 
 703- 
 
 Bannerets and great army — Words and 
 thoughts, 2442. 
 
 Banyan tree — Nation and the Slates, 980. 
 
 Baptism — Suffering cleanses, 271. 
 
 Barbarian's passions — Conceptions of Ciod, 
 II 13. 
 
 Barefoot boy and stone — Iconoclasm of 
 Paris communists, 997. 
 
 Barley, smiting ripe — Persecuiion spread- 
 ing truth, 644. 
 
 Barometer — Approach of Civil War, 9S0. 
 — Moral judgment important, 1412. 
 
 Baronial estate, heir of — Unknown beau- 
 ties of Bible, 1866. 
 
 Barton, Clara — Woman's servitude in 
 love, a glory, 97. 
 
 Bass-viol and flute — Education varies for 
 different children, 2418. 
 
 Bastard Jewish belief — Fall of Adam, 2210. 
 
 Bath, a celestial — Family prayer, 174. 
 regulation — Pleasure to make man bet- 
 ter, not worse, 200. 
 
 Battle — Great feelings for great occasions, 
 419. 
 fight not flight in — Trouble to be met, 
 not shunned, 637. 
 
 Battle-ax at castle-gate — -Cry of penitent at 
 God's bosom, 1826. 
 fields on peaceful meadows — Contro- 
 versies about Christ, 1938. 
 
 Bay filled with the tide — The peace of 
 God, 1765. 
 
 Bayonets — Fear but a restraining agency, 
 1991. 
 
 Bean, first leaves of — Early needs out- 
 grown, 1647. 
 
 Beast to be ridden — Sabbath made for 
 man, 2047. 
 
 Beau and farmer, plow and society — Beauty 
 of habit, 835. 
 
 Beautiful edifice — Good man's life, 83. 
 
 Beauty known by taste — Feeling before 
 reason, 407. 
 
 Beaver and fly — Happiness in achieve- 
 ment, 552. 
 
6oo 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Bee ami lly — Ouality in activity, 54S. 
 
 after honey — IJibleto be searched, 1S55. 
 
 hive, glass — Transparent character, 590. 
 
 sting of, and needle — Divine and human 
 
 workmanship, 1 188. 
 
 Beecher, H. W., all-embracing theme for 
 
 preaching — Inexhaustible fairy purse, 
 
 235 «• 
 
 amateur house-painting — Value of train- 
 ing, 509. 
 
 and Aunt Chandler — Obedience to love 
 and to law, 2253. 
 
 old schoolmate — Common school 
 comradesliip, 242 1. 
 
 Aunt Bull's dog — Reforms unwisely 
 driven, 2378. 
 
 boy-days of whipping — God's discipline, 
 1 192. 
 
 boyhood experience of Sunday — Puritan 
 Sabbath, 2043. 
 
 child-instinct of heaven^Praise, utter- 
 ance of inward joy, 2058. 
 
 determined to preach, not theologize — 
 Use, not forge, sword of the Lord, 
 
 2354- 
 experience at Lane Seminary — Christ 
 and God's goodness, 1220. 
 
 of exalted conditions — Other-world 
 tliinking, 2327. 
 witli Pres. Lincoln — Value of a good 
 name, 902. 
 first married home — Home happy, 
 humbly begun, 157. 
 
 oratorical inspiration — Real peni- 
 tence rare possession, 1640. 
 fords in the West — Folly of fear, 1995. 
 high garden-wall — Doctrine of total 
 
 depravity hiding God, 2249. 
 in an English church — Pulpit or plat- 
 form, 2296. 
 instructed in algebra — Spiritual guid- 
 ance, 1323. 
 learning from bobolink — Lesson from 
 the birds, 2580. 
 
 philosopher — Knowledge incom- 
 plete, 371. 
 memory of second mother's dancing — 
 
 Consecration of gifts, 94. 
 Ohio River overflow — Modern religious 
 
 influence, 2177. 
 painting of flower by his mother — Na- 
 ture revealing God, 2565. 
 jirofane man rebuked — Confessed Chris- 
 tianity a safe-guard, 2089. 
 preaching retribution under love — 
 
 Taught by Christ, 2250. 
 relic of mother — Early environment, 
 
 844. 
 studying mathematics — Nothing for 
 nothing, 516. 
 
 Beecher, H. W., teaching boys to swim — 
 Trusting Ciod, 2035. 
 theological controversies, brought up on 
 
 — Chicken-pox and measles, 2264. 
 thunderstorm on Mt. Pleasant — Mystery 
 
 of life cleared, 2037. 
 tree like man witli gun — Heavenly view 
 
 of earthly trouble, 1996. 
 with Hicks, portrait painter — Human 
 soul yet imperfect, 2412. 
 Beecher, Lyman — Experience of faith in 
 practice, 2025. 
 
 — Obscuration of faculties in age, 
 
 280. 
 — Work, love of; old war-horse, 505. 
 Beethoven ai/a^'-io from symphony — Mak- 
 ing others happy, 803. 
 discords resolved — Rough gorge to 
 
 lovely valley, 689. 
 Fifth symphony of — 1 Corinthians XIII, 
 
 1944. 
 symphony badly played — Imperfection 
 of life, 457. 
 
 but noise — Nature interpreted only 
 materially, 2574. 
 Beggar, starving — Prayer in emergency, 
 
 iSi8. 
 Beggars giving to, optional — Other men's 
 
 jirosperity, 705. 
 Bcil — -Responsiveness of friendshij), 911. 
 in steeple — Occasional religion, 1525. 
 muffled by hand — Children and paren- 
 tal anxiety, 39. 
 of warning — Fear, 1987. 
 rings when struck — Nobility compels 
 
 admiration, 867. 
 vibrations — Fading impressions of good, 
 
 1 105. 
 warbling vibration of — Book of Ruth, 
 1900. 
 Bells answering wedding-bells — Heart to 
 heart on Communion day, 2057. 
 in Antwerp Cathedral-spire — Everyday 
 
 gratitude, 1097. 
 towers without — Mere money-getters, 
 
 .577- 
 vibrations of — Expression of pleasure, 
 802. 
 Bereaved mother caring for orphans — Af- 
 fliction comforted, 239. 
 Bible texts unwelcome — Christianity in 
 
 business, 566. 
 Billiards and bowling — Youth's recrea- 
 tions improving, 55. 
 Bird broken-winged — Prayerful thoughts 
 but weak, 2cx>6. 
 cleaving the air — The heavenly vision, 
 
 1764. 
 flight of, affects universe — Effect of life 
 on soul, 357. 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 601 
 
 Bird flown in at window — Birth of 
 baby, I. 
 frightened, returning to nest — The rest 
 
 of God, 2038. 
 nest in grass, cut down — Love higher 
 than passion, 105. 
 
 finished witii the breast — Home 
 built by heart, 126. 
 scared by scrutiny — Intellection inimi- 
 cal to feeling, 1090. 
 seeking rest at evening — Act of dying, 
 
 297. 
 singing on bough — Independence of 
 circumstance, 374. 
 Birds fly above fowler's shot — Escaping 
 trouble, 684. 
 flying and hopping — Thinking and 
 doing, 452. 
 
 above dust — Living above care, 
 740. 
 forcing young to fly — Children and 
 
 present duties, 31. 
 nests in winter — Bible of letter, not 
 
 spirit, 564. 
 not the model — Congregational singing 
 
 to be cultivated, 2066. 
 plucking breast-feathers — God's love for 
 
 his children, 1140. 
 seeking entrance — Joys awaiting us, 501. 
 singing from trees or in air — Poets and 
 
 prophets, 1053. 
 under impulse of transmigration — A 
 
 hope for death-hour, 305. 
 undervalued by farmer — Sentiment and 
 sordidness, 406. 
 Bishop of Geneva — Trust in time of dis- 
 tress, 2017. 
 Bishops and responsibilities — Church 
 
 councils and authorities, 2157. 
 Bismarclc — Excessive activity, 582. 
 
 a despotic ruler — Germanic spirit of 
 freedom, 2516. 
 Bitter draughts not to be called sweet — 
 
 Christianity not stoicism, 236. 
 Blacliberry bushes, grubbing up — Eradi- 
 cating bad habits, 724. 
 Blacl(Smlth and baby — Gentleness, power 
 
 with sweetness, 812. 
 Bladder, bursting — Immoral prosperity, 
 
 543- 
 Blade and handle — Lies backed by truth, 
 
 718. 
 Blind man in Louvre — Heaven in the 
 heart, 332. 
 restored, realizes existent beauty — Di- 
 vine love eternal, 1183. 
 touched twice by Christ — Evils of free- 
 dom cured by more freedom, 2347. 
 Blood of the universe — God the universal 
 medicament, 1 1 80. 
 
 Blood poured like water; fear to avow un- 
 popular belief — Varieties of courage, 
 472. 
 Blossoms cannot be put back to seed — 
 Revelations cannot be undone, 2244. 
 
 care not for fruit — Contentment with 
 mortality unnatural, 337. 
 
 delicate — Emotions soiled by worldli- 
 ness, 1070. 
 
 fallen not mourned — Crape for death, 
 
 257- 
 falling before fruit — John the Baptist 
 
 for Jesus, 1922. 
 from Old Testament — New Testament, 
 
 1228. 
 not fruit — Desiring not choosing, 57. 
 Blue and butternut; cutting the beard — 
 
 Mosaic legal details, 1894. 
 spot in stormy sky — Hope cures weari- 
 ness, 1999. 
 Boat must be loosed to go — Religious 
 
 progress means movement, 2234. 
 Bodily distemperature under pain — Mind 
 
 should dominate, 364. 
 exercise — Ilorse under rider, 206. 
 health without spiritual is poverty — 
 
 Flower-pot and soil without seeds, 211, 
 hygiene — Soul-health, 17 18. 
 ills attended to — Sin-sickness neglected, 
 
 1083. 
 members — Church members all needed, 
 
 2085. 
 monstrosities — Man's spirit unequally 
 
 developed, 363. 
 muscles — Faculties brightened by use, 
 
 389- 
 soundness — Religion, soul's health, 
 
 1465. 
 
 Body, a living sacrifice — Patriotic, noble ; 
 sensual, despicable, 192. 
 and soul — Church and religion, 2166. 
 members of, described — A marvelous 
 
 organization, 181. 
 rebuilt by various foods — Social interde- 
 pendence, 832. 
 
 Boils on body politic — Public spoilsmen, 
 1009. 
 
 Bolter of grain — Popular discernment of 
 truth, 2225. 
 
 Bolting-cloth catches bran — Hearing of 
 evil, 795. 
 
 Bomb percussion — Story explodes when it 
 strikes, 483. 
 
 Bones not a man — Law not religion, 2256. 
 
 Bonfire — Religious emotion pernicious if 
 not practical, 1497. 
 
 Book^Invention for living after earthly 
 death, 1077. 
 man not a parent an unread — Revela- 
 tions of parentage, 1078. 
 
6o2 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Books, hymns, songs, inferior — Value of 
 
 soullife, 1077. 
 Botanical specimens found everywhere — 
 
 Subjects for sermons, 2317. 
 Bottle, empty — Merely moral man, 1030. 
 Bow, a straight shooting — Truth in anger, 
 
 and arrow — Preaching is emotion and 
 intellect, 2266. 
 
 arrows — Truths, their sources and 
 
 value, 2222. 
 to smite Satan — Singing defence 
 against temptation, 2065. 
 Boys, teaching, to swim — Trusting God, 
 
 2035- 
 
 Brain of war, shafts of song — David, war- 
 rior and poet, 1910. 
 work, cost in — Law of value, 542. 
 
 Brake on wheel of progress — Conserva- 
 tism, 440. 
 
 Bratnb!e=bush — Disputatious man, 745. 
 
 Branch of vine — Man needs God, 1017. 
 
 Branches and root — Common school asso- 
 ciations permanent, 2420. 
 higher, shade lower — Duly of the strong, 
 
 598. 
 not trunk fruitful — Power in diversity, 
 2260. 
 
 Brandy to half-drowned man — Religion 
 not transient enthusiasm, 1466. 
 
 Brazier's hammer on kettle — Adversity, 
 
 633- 
 Bread and medicine — Joy and sorrow, 
 
 1729. 
 cake — Common sense better than 
 uncommon, 360. 
 fresli ; mouldy loaf — Enjoyment of real 
 
 religion, 1493. 
 making for hungry child — Man per- 
 fecting slowly, 2460. 
 of learning — High results of commercial 
 
 enterprise, 588. 
 Breast of whole week — The Sabbath, 
 
 2048. 
 Breeching and traces — Conservatives and 
 
 progressives, 542. 
 Bricks, scattering, not house-building — 
 
 Desultory action, 732. 
 Bridge*building by successive cords — River 
 
 of death liy bereavements, 306. 
 Bright, John — Excessive activity, 582. 
 Brook — Temper not destroyed but used, 
 
 752- 
 Broom-handle and broom-splints — Rom. 
 
 Catholic church and sects, 2146. 
 Browning, Mrs. — Divine slavery of mother- 
 hood, 133. 
 Brown, John — Unselfish heroism, 1778. 
 Bubble and crystal — Life and immor- 
 
 t-il'ty. 343- 
 
 Bucket, full, spills — Active life liable to 
 error, 404. 
 man not a, pumped full — Self-education 
 invariable, 2423. 
 
 Bud, blossom, fade — Growth of mind 
 transitory, 3S0. 
 in sunshine starts root — Higher life in 
 
 young love, 103. 
 of future growth — Obscure work, 527. 
 
 Budding and grafting in spring — Child- 
 hood disciples, 29. 
 
 Buds ready to blossom — Almost a Chris- 
 tian, 1557. 
 
 Bug on a leaf — Without hope, most miser- 
 able, 2004. 
 
 Building above flood-line — Beginning life 
 aright, 64. 
 good houses — Honesty in work, 826. 
 
 Bulb's talk about flowers — Doubters of the 
 invisible, 1696. 
 
 Bull — Orator's voice, 2298. 
 
 Bullrush, wind-stricken — Shame for sin, 
 
 H35- 
 
 Bundle on head of washerwoman — Noble 
 burden-bearing, 1732. 
 
 Bunyan, John, and Dr. Johnson — Sim- 
 plicity and complexity of style, 
 2299. 
 
 Burdens, bearing one another's — Mutual 
 helpfulness, 884. 
 
 Burglar and householder — Selfishness of 
 culture, 376. 
 
 Burned district of Charleston — Bad man's 
 life, 83. 
 
 Burning stick, fagot, bonfire, furnace — 
 Community of feeling, 872. 
 
 Burr and Washington — Superiority of 
 moral element, 463. 
 
 Business boom — Revivals of religion 
 natural, 87 1, 
 department-record — Taking account of 
 
 one's self, 465. 
 failing in — Property, not manhood, 641. 
 temptations of active — Trials of stren- 
 uous life, 845. 
 vacillation — Conviction without choice, 
 1544. 
 
 Butterfly-chasing — Happiness not to be 
 hunted, 489. 
 
 Byron — Obligations of genius to lofty liv- 
 ing. 373- 
 
 Cabinet-work — Religious life difficult in 
 jjroportion to fineness, 1479. 
 
 Cable tested by stress — Strength of evil in 
 men, 1426. 
 
 Cactus — Uncompleted Providences, 1165. 
 
 Cssar — Laliors of genius, 508. 
 
 Caissons of Brooklyn Bridge — Early perils 
 of United States Constitution, 964. 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 603 
 
 Cake ; bread — Common-sense better tlian 
 
 uncommon, 360. 
 Californian emigrants — Inequalities of 
 condition disregarded, 699. 
 redwoods — Long grovvtii of the world, 
 2507. 
 Calvin — Genius in theology, 1979. 
 Canals — Smooth natures admirable, not 
 attractive, 84. 
 and rivers — Low and high civilization, 
 9S7. 
 Candle and candlestick — Wedded love and 
 wealth, 124. 
 
 — Hope and patience, 1997. 
 lightning — Mortal and immortal 
 vision, 344. 
 consumed — Soul-exhaustion, 1407. 
 flame and sun — Man in God's likeness, 
 
 1 1 14. 
 in candlestick — Preacher in old-style 
 pulpit, 2296. 
 
 window — Christ in soul-house, 
 1285. 
 
 — Home blessings radiated, 163. 
 light — Unconscious influence, 854. 
 lighted in day-time — Modern miracles, 
 1905. 
 outdoors — Goodness amid evil, 814. 
 to lost traveler — Bible guidance far- 
 reaching, 1873. 
 unlighted — Undeveloped genius, 372. 
 — New Testament without Gospel 
 of John, 1937. 
 Candles burnt out — Wedded love failing 
 under trials, 120. 
 unlighted — The Bible as furniture, 1859. 
 Cannibalism — Speaking evil, 787. 
 — Slander, 944. 
 
 — Unchristian fellowship to errant 
 church members, 21 12. 
 Captain in battle — Holy Spirit and man's 
 
 cooperation, 1504. 
 Caravan of pilgrims — The Divine com- 
 forter, 1 194. 
 Caravansary — Mixed elements in churches, 
 
 2100. 
 Cargoes reappraised — Earth-judgments in 
 
 heaven, 317. 
 Carpenter's shavings — Waste in creative 
 process, 2558. 
 straight-edge — Conduct tested by God's 
 word, 1632. 
 Carpets in loom and in market — Future 
 
 revelations of character, 349. 
 Cascade and mill-stream — Emotion and 
 
 motion, 410. 
 Castle chambers abandoned — Unused parts 
 of Bible, 1875. 
 joy within, storm without — Long-suffer- 
 ing, 694. 
 
 Cat and mouse — Prompt escape from 
 temptation, 1365. 
 up a tree; reversed for men — Pronencss 
 
 to evil, 1394. 
 watching for mice — Personal criticism, 
 
 775: 
 
 birds— Commune of 1S71 in Paris, 
 
 935- 
 
 Cathedral and Peekskill hill — God in 
 nature, 2569. 
 tower and spire — Love supreme, 1766. 
 window — I Corinthians XIII, 1945. 
 
 Cauldron, boiling like a — World restless- 
 ness, 2537. 
 
 Caulking leaky hull — Virtue pays for vice, 
 916. 
 
 Catalogue and fruit — Theory and practice, 
 1536. 
 
 Caterpillars — Human view of man, 2527. 
 
 Cavalry, infantry, artillery — Sects divisions 
 of God's army, 215 1. 
 
 Cavour and new diplomacy — Love be- 
 lie veth all things, 177 1. 
 
 Cedars of Lebanon— Long growth of the 
 world, 2508. 
 
 Cellar foul — Bottom of society all impor- 
 tant, 936. 
 
 Cement by which God builds the world — 
 Tears and blood, 2371. 
 
 Centrifugal not centripetal activity — God's 
 unselfish life, 1 149. 
 
 Chaff and shucks not wanted — The best 
 for God, 1535. 
 straw and grain — Imperfections of great 
 
 men, 375. 
 to wheat — Spiritual value of secularities, 
 
 545- 
 without seeds — Well-wishers, 2072. 
 
 Chart and navigation — Bible to be ap- 
 plied, 1852. 
 of New York harbor — Bible study fol- 
 lowed by practice, 1865. 
 
 the ocean — Printed Bible a memo- 
 rial of life, 1836. 
 Chariot — The church man's servant, 
 
 2102. 
 Chemical transmutations — Truth immortal- 
 1322. 
 formula tested — Doctrine proved by 
 trial, 2221. 
 Check, a sealed, for payment — Eternity 
 
 shows earthly work, 333. 
 Checks signed in blank for passions — 
 
 Conscience, 1346. 
 Cherry-blossoms without cherries — Inef- 
 fective thinking, 385. 
 Chess-playing — Crafty devices in business, 
 
 565- 
 Chestnut burr and nut — Outside rough, in- 
 side sweet, 448. 
 
6o4 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Chestnut — Siii>cificial judgments of Provi- 
 
 dciuo, 1 162. 
 Chestnuts on ground and tree — Cliiistian 
 
 fruits nianward and Godward, 1742. 
 Chicago Inc — A lesson in licroism, 2540. 
 quick aid for — Brotherhood growing, 
 
 2530. 
 Chicken dressed foi- eating, and free fowl 
 
 — Boys in pious biographies and real 
 
 boys, 18. 
 pox and measles — Theological contro- 
 versies, 2264. 
 without eggsliell — Old letter, new 
 
 spirit, 1SS4. 
 Chickens and swine in low-built houses — 
 
 Pertinacity of bad habits, 725. 
 Child and parents — Understanding of God 
 
 grows with experience, 1137. 
 
 knife — Promises to be earned, 2030. 
 appealing to parents — God called in time 
 
 of trouble, 2019. 
 apple, and imagination — Idealization, 
 
 1045. 
 biography — Truthfulness of Old Testa- 
 ment, 1S80. 
 dying, and father impotent to explain — 
 
 To know hereafter, 230. 
 feeds on mother, physically — So too, 
 
 mentally, 11. 
 frightened, reassured by father's " Hem " 
 
 — Personality in associations, 23. 
 or pianist — Generosity or benevolence, 
 
 2388. 
 reassured by mother — Man's serenity ia 
 
 God, 1537. 
 rescued from fire — Gratitude as motive 
 
 power, 1095. 
 slapping nurse — Violation of law not 
 
 always sin, 1385. 
 tired, falling asleep — Peace of dying, 
 
 301. 
 to meet troubles— God's training and 
 
 earthly father's, alike, 673. 
 training — Principles follow rules, 1630. 
 wearied, asleep in mother's arms — 
 
 Repose of death, 302. 
 Childhood permissions — Human life in 
 
 Bible record, 2470. 
 Children departed — Lost cares precious, 
 
 260. 
 God's, not to be ill-treated — Lack of 
 
 sympathy, infidelity, 945. 
 in bad neighborhood — Separateness of 
 
 Jews, 976. 
 
 nursery — Lack of faith foolish, 
 2032. 
 joyous, not parasites — Praise human not 
 
 Divine need, 2059. 
 love of — Intellect colored by emotion 
 
 perceives higher truths, 361. 
 
 Children of others and our own— Judg- 
 ments of law and of love, 23. 
 pleading for each other — Prayer to God 
 
 for others, 1S31. 
 promises to — God's promises fail, lack- 
 ing conditions, 1703. 
 treating older friend as father — Filial 
 
 liberties awaken love, 22. 
 with Jesus — Simplicity of trust, 1235. 
 Children's fairy tales — Parable and fable 
 as teachers, 28. 
 fruitful lives please the father — Gifts to 
 
 God, 1217. 
 voices — Praises acceptable to God, 2051, 
 Child's attraction to parents — Evidence of 
 Divine sonship, 1709. 
 love for parents — Unselfish love for 
 
 Christ, 1784. 
 poor gift, appreciation of — Gratitude to 
 
 Christ, 1269. 
 understanding of parent — Problems of 
 Providence, 11 60. 
 Chime of bells in every man's steeple — 
 
 Word-associations vary, 2054. 
 Chimney, smutty, bird in — Sui)erior to en- 
 vironment, 837. 
 Chips of substantial thought — Soul's imag- 
 inings of Christ, 1266. 
 Choctaw not English— Epistle to Hebrew, 
 
 not Paul's language, 1947. 
 Chords, playing on tuned — Devil tempts 
 the temptable, 793. 
 responsive to joy — Happiness not having 
 but being, 496. 
 Chorus — Soul qualities disproportionate, 
 
 1684. 
 Christ — Quiet power of meekness, 1753. 
 and Syro-Phenician woman — Delayed 
 
 answer to prayer, 1S20. 
 in the manger — Humble beginnings of 
 
 greatness, 643. 
 the exemplar — Suffering the test of love, 
 
 233- 
 Christian affections, highest — Conceptions 
 
 of God, 1 1 13. 
 living — Best Biblical commentary, 17 15. 
 treatment, our — Chinese in America, 
 
 lOOI. 
 
 Christ's body and blood for hungry and 
 thirsty — Sinners, not the perfect, in- 
 vited to communion, 2056. 
 
 Chronometer — God's heart man's standard, 
 1170. 
 
 Cider — New thoughts not to be preached 
 hastily, 2343. 
 
 Cinder and lamp — We find what we bring, 
 861. 
 
 Citizenship, poor and good — Poor church 
 members no excuse for neglecting 
 Christian life, 1452. 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 605 
 
 city and country — Sabbath laws to vary 
 
 with community, 2045. 
 CIvk freedom — Liberty in religious think- 
 ing, 2225. 
 Civil War, the, rejoicing at close — Future 
 
 joy a present help, 334. 
 Civilization result of proper causes — Re- 
 vivals, 2127. 
 Clam, the — Thinking under authority, 
 
 2107. 
 Clay and potter — Negro must grow, can- 
 not be made, full citizen, 2519, 
 hardened by fire — Hearts, by affliction, 
 227. 
 Clearing for tillage — First work of re- 
 ligion in soul, 1596. 
 forty acres — Conversion and sanctifica- 
 tion, 1594. 
 Cliff, climbing a — Difficulty of reforma- 
 tion, 1366. 
 Climate, a new — Christianity, 1307. 
 
 tropical — Regenerated man will live by 
 Spirit, 1661. 
 Climbing Natural Bridge, Va. — Aspiration 
 
 exacting, 1662. 
 Cllve, Lord, in India — Perils of tempta- 
 tion, 1367. 
 Clock not measure of prayer — Instant in 
 prayer, 18 14. 
 run down — The natural death, 296. 
 running down — Low standards in public 
 
 affairs, 993. 
 to be wound up — Recreation necessary, 
 206. 
 Cloth — Quality in virtues, 830. 
 Clothing — Civil government a natural de- 
 velopment, 956. 
 Cloves in a ham — Lies told to children, 20. 
 stuck in boiled ham — Illustrations for 
 mere ornament, 2301. 
 Cloud forgotten by thirsty — Wealth no 
 title to remembrance, 617. 
 hiding glory of God — Influences of Cal- 
 vinism, 2205. 
 over sun — Influence of cool disposition, 
 
 860. 
 quietness of — New Testament miracles, 
 
 1917. 
 without rain — Merely ceremonial re- 
 ligion, 1532- 
 Clouds and rain — Expression gives de- 
 velopment, 1688. 
 
 sunshine — Variable natures, 1049. 
 of glory from evaporated water — 
 Heavenly conception from earthly ex- 
 periences, 1 155. 
 rain, harvests, fruit — Progress by gener- 
 ations, 2462. 
 sun-drawn — Spiritual achievement per- 
 manent, 1698. 
 
 Clouds with no rain — Mystical interpre- 
 tations of the Bible, 1842. 
 
 Clusters giving wine — Syro-Phenician 
 woman's case, 1822. 
 
 Coal, live, raked out from ashes — Sorrow 
 persisted in, 249. 
 scuttle not coal — Wealth no title to re- 
 membrance, 617. 
 
 Coat oft" at a fire — Reforms disregard con- 
 ventionalities, 2370. 
 
 Cob and corn reversed — Flesh and spirit, 
 1065. 
 
 Cochineal insect-dye — Small excellences, 
 
 799- 
 Cockade of soldier — Baptism outward sign, 
 
 2138. 
 Cock-crow — Preaching on secular aff"airs, 
 
 1003. 
 Cock°roach in the food — Mosaic training, 
 
 1895. 
 Cocoanut shell and rind^ — Revelation of 
 
 character, 697, 
 College-success and life-success — Misjudg- 
 
 ment of youth, 44. 
 Collins' axes — Salvation in Christ's name 
 
 only, 1476. 
 Color dyed in the wool — Child habits, 12. 
 —Sex, 93. 
 excitement in Louvre — Transientness of 
 
 high feelings, 413. 
 foundation, in painting — Moral senti- 
 ment on lower elements, 475. 
 palette full of rich — Goodness to be pos- 
 itive, 1749. 
 Colored man, old — God found through the 
 
 heart, 1477. 
 Colt, Messenger — Man needs restraint, 
 
 423- 
 unbroken — Unprofitable energy, 733, 
 Columbus and the continent — Infinity in- 
 comprehensible, 1 1 30. 
 
 — Unexplored powers of soul, 1086. 
 Comet — Effects of soul on others, 800. 
 Commanders, inspiration of great — Christ 
 
 the leader, 1276. 
 Company — A book, 2436. 
 Compass, doubt of, bad as unbelief — The 
 Bible, 1870. 
 in navigation — Moral principle, 563. 
 of ship — Conscience the guide, 1345. 
 overboard, voyage to be made — Bible 
 destroyed, duty the same, 1969. 
 Complementary natures — Church enriched 
 
 by all members, 2084. 
 Concordant sounds in symphony — Peace 
 
 and righteousness, 1747. 
 Confession frank, disarming — Owning of 
 
 offences, 829. 
 Conflagration ; teredo — Sins, great and 
 little, 1396. 
 
606 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Conflicts :ind stupciulous images — Tlio 
 Apocalypse, 195 1. 
 
 Conscience — Jolin the Baptist, 1230. 
 
 for churcli, not liome — Department-con- 
 science, 1338. 
 monkey-cap of — Punishment not actu- 
 ated by love, 1282. 
 
 Construction of house — Man-building a 
 slow process, 2478. 
 
 Consumption, man with — Unbeliever in 
 immortality, 320. 
 
 Contagion — Social effect of feeling, 1459. 
 
 Cookery recipe ^ — -Bible to be tested by ex- 
 periment, 1864. 
 
 Cooper, Peter — Wealth used for mankind, 
 618. 
 with barrel — Rough handling by Provi- 
 dence, 645. 
 
 Copernicus — ^ifigher view of Christ, 1223. 
 
 Corn without grain — Christianity without 
 love, 1776. 
 
 Cosmetic — Holiness expressed in face, 
 
 1531- 
 
 Cost of liberty — Social gain tlirough suffer- 
 ing, 917. 
 
 Counterfeit coin — Almsgiving for reputa- 
 tion, hypocrisy, 2393. 
 
 question of — Power of doubt, 1978. 
 
 Country lane, sward and flowers — Careless 
 Bible-reading, 1858. 
 
 Counsel to friend — God's willingness to 
 help, 1832. 
 
 Counselor — A book, 2436. 
 
 Court, justice's reversed — Conscience, Sun- 
 day and week-days, 134 1, 
 reception by king and nobles — Walk- 
 ing with Christ, 1294. 
 room and home — Judge and father, 141. 
 
 Courtesy at home — Personal rights for 
 yielding, 924. 
 
 Courts, higher and lower — Spiritual life 
 not gauged by senses, 1064. 
 
 Crabs, soft-shelled — Self-help in church- 
 making, 21 13. 
 sucking joints of — Trying to change 
 Apocalyptic figures to ideas, 2262. 
 
 Crack of teamster's whip — Illustrations 
 uttered with vigor, 2302. 
 
 Cradle still cherished— Much of Old Testa- 
 ment outworn but precious, 1882. 
 
 Craters old and new — Repenting of out- 
 grown sins, 141 1. 
 
 Cream and skim-milk — Rich jiraying and 
 poor living, 1433. 
 on top in dairy — But society moves by 
 average mass, 2493. 
 
 Credit, wealthy traveler loses letter of — 
 ( iod's heirs not poor, 709. 
 
 Critics of spiritual aid — Soul sympathy 
 unappreciated, 886. 
 
 Crocodile and mosquitoes — Patience of the 
 
 dull, 421. 
 Crocodiles with gnashing teeth — Un- 
 charitable refuimers, 2379. 
 Cromwell's portrait with wart— Old Testa- 
 ment fidelity to truth, 25. 
 Crops worked for — Revivals, 2127. 
 Crow, carrion — Fault-finders, 778. 
 
 far-heard " caw " of — Orator's voice, 
 
 2294. 
 from egg — ContemjH from pity, 2226. 
 Crowned — Jesus as Clod, 1219. 
 Crutches for lame — Paper-money, 1005, 
 
 weak souls — Externalities of wor- 
 ship, 2050. 
 Cryptic knowledge in books — Soul-life 
 
 hidden, 1069. 
 Crystal and blows — Soul to be protected, 
 
 387- 
 
 bubble — Immortality and earthly 
 life, 343- 
 
 Crystallized praise — Compliment, 947. 
 
 Crystals, geologizing for — Adversity re- 
 vealing beauty, 646. 
 
 Culture, man of, in slums — God's limi- 
 tations in Christ, 1255. 
 of soil — Genius must be tilled, 394. 
 
 Curiosity, Yankee driver's — Mind-hunger, 
 369- 
 
 Curtain drawn aside — Christ preaching 
 retribution, 2250. 
 
 Customer, not scales, cheated — Sin against 
 (]od, not law, 1429. 
 
 Cutlery, fine-finished — Artistic goodness, 
 461. 
 
 Cutting wax, marble, diamond — Spiritual 
 growth slow in proportion to fineness, 
 1615. 
 
 Cyclone°center — Peace God's dwelling, 
 1 148. 
 
 Daguerreotype=plate— Scenery to be viewed 
 
 receptively, 2551. 
 Dana, R. H., Jr., return from voyage — 
 
 Reaction of feeling, 443. 
 Dancing'SChool — Virtue to be automatic, 
 
 797- 
 Dandelion — Mother's ideal and real out- 
 come, 134. 
 
 — Type of resurrection, 331. 
 gold — Dishonest success transient, 571. 
 mat, circle, and globe — Departed chil- 
 dren, 231. 
 Daniel's image in the vision — Systematic 
 
 theology, 2196. 
 Dante, hell of — Revenge a torment, 427. 
 Dark°lantern — Church refusing to touch 
 
 reforms, 2358. 
 Darwin, theory of, not with claws but 
 tongue— Nagging, 7S3. 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 607 
 
 Darwinism — Paul's law of spirit and mem- 
 bers, 2235. 
 David to Moses as John to Paul — Great 
 religious geniuses, 1939. 
 with the sling — Independent methods of 
 work, 2108. 
 Dawn — Conversion, 1539. 
 
 from night — Resurrection of Jesus, 
 1251. 
 Daylight — Influence of good-nature, 860. 
 
 — Patriotism diffused, 978. 
 Dead-heads, none in nature — Success exacts 
 effort, 510. 
 things not to be stumbling-blocks — 
 Victory over past, 1605. 
 Deaf man amid music — Heaven in the 
 
 heart, 332. 
 Death and resurrection — Business failures 
 and recoveries, 680. 
 of children — Help only when needed, 
 1491. 
 Decay of world-forces to make soil — Prodi- 
 gality of God, 2241. 
 phosphorescence of — Splendor of ill- 
 gotten gains, 543. 
 Deceit in manufactures — Public conscience 
 
 deteriorating, ion. 
 Declaration of independence — Paul's " only 
 
 Clirist crucified," 2342. 
 Democrat, the great — God regards all 
 
 alike, 11 22. 
 Desert between Israelites and Canaan — 
 
 Transition periods barren, 2461. 
 Despot, flagellating — Conscience a pun- 
 
 isher, 1799. 
 Destitution, sudden — Unnoted tragedies in 
 
 life, 706. 
 Detective — Conscience finds out evil, 1357. 
 Devil, the, gone into something else — 
 Capital may succeed slavery as 
 national evil, 2505. 
 poor bargaining with — Folly of dis- 
 honesty, 572. 
 Dew and ram versus storms — Simple 
 pleasures best, 498. 
 diamonds of morning — Angelic minis- 
 trations to Jesus, 1921. 
 distilled from heaven — Knowledge to be 
 
 sought, 513. 
 drop beautiful, if evanescent — Imagin- 
 ings of faith, 201 1. 
 drops — Good deeds, 15 18. 
 impartially distributed — The Divine 
 
 mercies, 1 196. 
 on flowers — Motherhood changing 
 frivolity to joy, 132. 
 Diamonds and pearls — Interior ornaments, 
 1074. 
 ground with diamond dust — Christians 
 make Christians, 863. 
 
 Dikes of Holland — Resistance to tempta- 
 tion, 1372. 
 Disciple, scholar — Christ to be learned, 
 
 1648. 
 Disciples of Jesus — Violent conversions not 
 needed, 1580. 
 the twelve, and John — Native gifts no 
 measure-standard, 1738. 
 Discords, modulating — Transient troubles, 
 689. 
 soon modulated to harmony — Friendly 
 raillery, 948. 
 Diseases and medical science — Sin funda- 
 menial in theology, 1382. 
 divers — National ailments, 986. 
 Dislocated limbs — Sin, disjointed faculties, 
 
 1390. 
 Dispersion of Babel regathered — Brother- 
 hood America's language, 2522. 
 Dissected body not a man — Theology not 
 
 religion, 1461. 
 Dissipation, etc. — Excitement a natural de- 
 sire, 438. 
 Distributed power — Influence of great men, 
 
 2437. 
 Divine and human power — Prayer and 
 
 watching, 1829. 
 Doctor — Condition of faculties for work, 
 
 388. 
 Dog, afiection of — Enthusiasm of love, 1789. 
 bark of — Orator's voice, 2294. 
 gratitude of; man's ingratitude — Mean- 
 ness of intelligent sin, 1428. 
 little, at door — Fretting, 741. 
 made ugly by stoning — Reforms un- 
 wisely driven, 2378. 
 man without a — No conscience, 1 331. 
 Newfoundland — Good-natured rudeness, 
 
 753- 
 
 of Hindoo barred from heaven — Hymns 
 admitted, 2070. 
 
 rebuked for barking, growls — Surly for- 
 giveness, 766. 
 
 threatening — Mercy with cheerfulness, 
 823. 
 Donl<ey°engine — Miracles supplemental, 
 
 1903. 
 Door from dreariness to brightness — 
 " Nevertheless," 263. 
 
 of future — Easter Sunday, 1252. 
 
 slammed in face — Salvation shown as 
 impossible, 2322. 
 
 the one — Christ, not the church, 1284. 
 Douglas, Fred'lc, and Sojourner Truth — 
 
 Man's strength in God, 2028. 
 Dove among hawks — Meek to inherit 
 earth, 1773. 
 
 and its colors — Native constitution per- 
 manent, 450. 
 
 or buzzard — Seeking good or evil, 941. 
 
r)o8 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Drama williout plot— The Apocalypse, 195 1. 
 Drinks, ;ii tilicial ; water — Common sense 
 
 better than uncommon, 360. 
 Driver on street — Other men's consciences, 
 
 1344- 
 Driving near precipice — Temptation marks 
 
 danger-line, 1355. 
 Drop and ocean — Human thoughts about 
 
 God, 1 147. 
 Drowned man — Spiritual death, 1326. 
 Drowning, recovery from — Hope in faint 
 
 beginnings, 1584. 
 Drunkard loves the cup — Minister loves 
 
 men, 2281. 
 Drunkard's prayers — Moral disability, 
 
 1825. 
 Dungeon, man in — Scientific truth refused, 
 
 2231. 
 Dunghill bearing white flower — Cruel 
 
 views of God by good men, 2216. 
 Dust — Trifles soil life and hide heaven, 
 
 1700. 
 children born of the — Parents not to 
 
 think evil, 142. 
 in Parthenon cornices — Petty errors in 
 
 Bible, 1965. 
 of the sepulcher — Unused wealth, 594. 
 on the road — Activity outruns trouble, 
 
 555- 
 sifting through cracks — Small vexations 
 annoy, 737. 
 
 Dye=vatS and silks — Process and product 
 unlike, 1641. 
 
 Dynamite-tubes for blasting — The pas- 
 sions, 425. 
 
 Dyspepsia — Bad influences of self-con- 
 sciousness, 859. 
 
 Eagle and ant — Labors of genius, 508. 
 caged — Drooping old age, 274. 
 fledged, free from nest — The Hereafter, 
 
 347- 
 no dust on wings of — Exalted moods 
 
 above care, 1701. 
 not trained, but pupil is — Christian life 
 
 needs training, 1622. 
 on her nest — God's brooding love, 1089. 
 Eagles and sparrows — Genius to live su- 
 periorly, 15 18. 
 Ear, man's, devil's pulpit — Self-deception 
 
 in crooked business, 568. 
 Early English history — Old Testament in- 
 dispensable, 1877. 
 Earth, internal fires of — Fanatical patriot- 
 ism of Jews, 977. 
 Earthquakes and volcanoes — South Amer- 
 ican Republics, 968. 
 East wind — Home selfishness, 167 
 Eating, regularity in — Soul-regimen, 17 17. 
 at the table — I'ower of association, 842. 
 
 Echo in mountains — Homely language 
 arouses memories, 2299. 
 
 Eclipse and astronomer — Christ's death 
 foreknown by him, 1247. 
 
 Eden in the heart — Love of flowers, 2545. 
 
 Edifice, a great — Kingdom of heaven built 
 slowly, 2475. 
 
 Education of slave ; collegian — Fruits of 
 Spirit are Christianity, 1457. 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan — Apostolic heresy, 
 2190. 
 
 — Genius in theology, 1979. 
 — Danger in lofty ideals, 1052. 
 — Influence independent of circum- 
 stance, 374. 
 and his writing-room — Church making 
 true men the true church, 2168. 
 
 Effervescence, without — (Querulous Chris- 
 tians, 1502. 
 
 Eggs nested too long — Griefs recalled for 
 misery, 251. 
 
 Egyptian and Grecian architecture — Tem- 
 ple of God in humanity, 2490. 
 excavations — Less important than reve- 
 lation of the rocks, 2230. 
 
 Elasticity of soul — Capacity to be born 
 again, 1586. 
 
 Election-day reason — Saloons to be closed 
 on Sunday, 2046. 
 
 Electricity, uses of — Obedience to law 
 gives power, 1444. 
 
 Elevation, prospect from — Broad views of 
 truth, 105 1. 
 
 Elm, American — Ideal of manhood, 1042. 
 
 Embassy and king — Christianity judged 
 by its professors, 1502. 
 
 Embers, raking up — Holding a grudge, 
 
 765- 
 
 Emery destroys surface — Little lies danger- 
 ous, 717. 
 
 Emigrants in strange land — Death not 
 exile, 308, 
 outfit of — Preparation for heaven, 323. 
 
 Emotive man in church activities — Safety 
 in expression, 2123. 
 
 Empire throned, self-ruling — Republic, 
 
 975- 
 Endowed benefactions — Long-lived be- 
 nevolence, 2402, 
 Enemy, poisoned darts of — Meekness, 
 
 benevolent bearing of evil, 1752. 
 Engine and sails cooperate — Divine and 
 human powers, 1311. 
 filing up an — ICating, 180. 
 in the basement — Lower powers in 
 
 higher life, 368. 
 machinery of, well kept — Care of the 
 
 body, 184. 
 relation of parts, fuel, etc. — Eating on 
 principle, 186. 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 609 
 
 l^nglaild in India — Faulty in;>tiiuncnts of 
 
 I'lovidence, 994. 
 Eaglish almshouses — Poor-relief to slim 
 
 ulate, not enervate, 2399. 
 and French writing — Humanization of 
 
 literature, 2456. 
 Enjoyment of nature — Intangible property, 
 
 2553- 
 
 others' gardens — Mind-ownership, 
 
 2552. 
 
 Enlisting under Christ — Duty of church 
 membership, 2075. 
 
 Epicure, literary — Selfish morality, 1032. 
 
 Erection of great edifice — Character-build- 
 ing, 480. 
 
 Escape from drowning — Mode of con- 
 version unimportant, 1582. 
 
 war-captivity — Release from soul- 
 bondage, 1590. 
 
 Esprit de corps of army — Of Christianity, 
 2150. 
 
 Esquimaux seeking tropics — Repentance 
 towards God, 1566. 
 
 Esthetic needs of the soul — Beauty helps 
 to spirituality, 2573. 
 
 Euclid, proposition in — Philosopher's God 
 not adorable, II 15. 
 
 Europe, church and state in — Democratic 
 self-government, 933. 
 
 Evaporation under the sun — Yearnings of 
 aspiration, 1329. 
 
 Evolution towards perfectness — Beauty in- 
 herently divine, 2572. 
 
 Evolutionary purging from animalism — 
 Slow human betterment, 2491. 
 
 Exchange-brokers — Commonplace preach- 
 ers, 2271. 
 
 Exhalation from unstopped vase — Un- 
 written thoughts, 412. 
 
 Exhibition of sores — Conviction of sin not 
 to be displayed, 1570. 
 
 Exiles in heaven — Earthly training often 
 valueless for other life, 578. 
 
 Experts in concert-audience — Earthly and 
 heavenly praise, 1092. 
 
 Eyes and spectacles — Religion and reason, 
 1488. 
 feline, in the dark — Sense of humor, 485. 
 
 Fable of lion, wolf and lamb — Teaching 
 truth by fiction, 35. 
 
 Fairy purse inexhaustible — God's father- 
 hood, man's brotherhood, 2352. 
 
 Faith of child in parent — Trust in God, 
 2024. 
 
 Family not subject-race — Unitary idea of 
 humanity, 1 125. 
 pride — Spiritual ancestry, 1099. 
 the — Natural and supernatural Provi- 
 dence, 1 167. 
 
 Famous woman and infaiilclass — Preacher 
 
 all things to all, 2284. 
 Farm develops stone, gold, etc. — Growing 
 scope of Christianity, 1480. 
 useless unless cultivated — Bible texts 
 
 1848. 
 witliout crops — Negative morality, 1482. 
 Farmer and apple-tree — Living by faith, 
 2036. 
 
 beau, society and plow — Beauty of 
 
 habit, S35. 
 harvest — Preaching tested by ef- 
 fects, 15 13. 
 summer — Holy Spirit to be utilized, 
 
 1319- 
 
 Farmer's last year crop — Future church 
 work needs new effort, 2109. 
 
 Father cheating child with sled — Prayer 
 spiritual not material, 1810. 
 hard-working, children pampered — Ef- 
 fort, source of power, 593. 
 in heaven — Disinterested goodness, 
 
 1782. 
 in Indian raid — Joy of sacrifice, 7. 
 knows but listens to child — Prayer 
 
 pleases God, 1802. 
 on earth and in heaven — God's love for 
 
 his children, 1140. 
 steering child's rowing — Guidance of 
 
 Providence, 1161. 
 to children at boarding-school — God's 
 incarnation not strange, 1288. 
 
 Fatherly authority and motherly love — 
 Failure of the law, 1244. 
 
 Fatness or leanness— Eating hope or con- 
 science, 2003. 
 
 Feathers given away by convert — Selfish 
 conscience for others, 135 1. 
 
 Feeling not soap and sand — Quiet conver- 
 sions, 1581. 
 
 Fence=building not farming — Doctrinal dis- 
 cussion, 21S0. 
 
 Fences — Denominationalism, 2145. 
 
 Fermentation — Opening of young man- 
 hood, 46. 
 
 Ferryboat — Salvation through Christ, 
 1275. 
 
 Fever-patient cleansed by remedies — 
 Church bettered by agitation, 2232. 
 
 Field glass used by man — Heart uses the 
 head, 405. 
 the place for agricultural science — 
 World for Christianity, 1721. 
 
 Filial affection lifts towards God — Lord's 
 prayer demands love not awe, 1804. 
 
 Flail-threshing — God's severe dealings, 
 677. 
 
 Finney, Dr. C. C, and D. L. Moody — 
 Theological and practical preaching, 
 2305- 
 
6io 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Fire — The passions, 1358. 
 
 alarm of — Warning against corruption, 
 
 always fire — buicenty makes no error 
 
 right, 1609. 
 and decay — Active and passive evil, 922. 
 dangerous but needful — Abhorrence, 
 
 '379- 
 engine — Rich cliurch giving while get- 
 ting. 2359. 
 glowing after early flame — Character in 
 
 age, 275. 
 hottest after smoke and flame — Intensity 
 
 in religion, 2128. 
 kindling, on fuel — Influence, excitation 
 not creation, 437. 
 
 wood — Aspiration of prayer, God- 
 ward, 1805. 
 needs air — Religious inquirer needs 
 
 sympathy, 1558. 
 not food — Devotion not piety, 1464. 
 of shavings — Preaching without solid 
 
 thought, 2330. 
 pillar of — Concentrated patriotism, 978. 
 raked-up — Latent sin, 1399. 
 rescue from — Creat feelings for great 
 occasions, 416, 
 
 of chilli from — Great thoughts de- 
 stroy small troubles, 665. 
 simmering over — Devotional exercises 
 
 not finding Christ, 1556. 
 warmth of— Personal power, 862. 
 Firefly, intermittent — Christian for Sun- 
 day only, 1740. 
 not star — Man of few talents, 358. 
 Fish baited with what they like — Catching 
 men, 2312. 
 coming up to breathe — Sabbath for 
 
 workingmen, 2041. 
 dressing, for food — Discrimination 
 among men, 940. 
 Fisherman, the best, most fish — -The best 
 
 minister, 2315. 
 Fishing-tackle, manufacturer of, and fish- 
 ing — Theologizing and preaching, 
 
 2313- 
 
 Five Points children — Willingness, ground 
 of adoption, 1571. 
 
 Flaihbearing faiths — Future church loving 
 not fighting, 2160. 
 
 Flame, small, blown out ; large, increased 
 — Love in the heart, 1642. 
 
 Flanking the enemy — Indirect tempta- 
 tion, 1373. 
 
 Flax and white raiment — Issue of tribu- 
 lation, 650. 
 fiber rotting — God's severe dealings, 
 677. 
 
 Floating battery, unbalanced — Dispropor- 
 tioned natures, 471. 
 
 Floods in Connecticut — Blessing in adver- 
 sity, 634. 
 Florence Nightingale — Woman's servitude 
 
 in luve, a glory, 97. 
 Florist and summer — Holy Spirit to be 
 utilized, 13 19. 
 study of flowers by — Minister's study of 
 human nature, 2283. 
 Flower, a — Border line between material 
 and immaterial, 2577. 
 
 in and out of Bible — The Book in- 
 terpreted by world, 1837. 
 and floral system — Greater evidence of 
 
 design, 1 128. 
 bed, God's — Sick-bed may be, 212. 
 growing amid grass — Christian outside 
 
 of church, 2088. 
 in desert — Parable of Eden as a fact, 
 2209. 
 
 rock-cleft — Piety in unlikely condi- 
 tions, 2143. 
 perfume — Influence unconscious, 854. 
 pot and soil without seeds — Bodily health 
 
 without spiritual, 211. 
 white, out of black dirt — Faith growing 
 out of itlolatry, 2459. 
 Flowers — Beauty of woman made for de- 
 light, 95. 
 always dressed up — Every day good- 
 ness, 1504. 
 and botany — Influence of visible good- 
 ness, 1503. 
 
 frost — The soul to be protected, 
 
 387-. 
 beside glacier — Sweetness in adversity, 
 
 691. 
 calyx and seed of — Marriage for this 
 
 world only, 125. 
 cut or growing — Morality root of reli- 
 gion, 1035. 
 folding at night — Act of dying, 295. 
 from garden — Gifts of the heart, 801. 
 given away — Home-happiness to be 
 
 shared outside, 176. 
 imagined on other vocations — Complaint 
 
 of calling unmanly, 580. 
 in blossom and fragrance — Young love, 
 100. 
 button-hole — Spiritual qualities not 
 
 abundant, 1674. 
 the world — Cheerful traits in re- 
 ligion, 500. 
 large and small in bouquet — Worth of 
 
 each in his place, 2499. 
 mean sentiment — Words mean what 
 
 they make men think of, 2576. 
 not practically useful — Gross measure- 
 ments of value, 2564. 
 
 soils — Church exclusiveness, 2174. 
 on cofliii — I^ife, time for kind words, 805. 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 611 
 
 Flowers, varied but all children of sun — 
 Sects, 2152. 
 varieties — Man susceptible of cultivation, 
 
 75- 
 yet growing — Old Testament values, 
 1879. 
 Fly and bee — Quality and activity, 548. 
 
 beaver — Happiness in achieve- 
 ment, 552. 
 on glass, lions in moon — Conceit mag- 
 nifies its own, 761. 
 pestereil by a — Fretting, foolish, 744. 
 Fogs of Newfoundland — Cheerlessness of 
 
 doubt, 1 97 1. 
 Foliage, sununer and autumn, gone — 
 Transitoriness of life, 501. 
 summer and winter view — Prosperity 
 obscuring vision, 620. 
 Food — Amusement to be discriminated, 
 
 54- 
 change of — Variety needed by man, 
 
 2039. 
 wasted — Youthful excesses, 60. 
 Fool convicted of ignorance — Conceit in 
 
 morality, 1543. 
 Footprint, all feet to fit — Enforcing uni- 
 form beliefs, 1973. 
 Footsteps washed out by tide — Religious 
 
 reverie, 1545. 
 Fords in the West — Folly of fear, 1995. 
 Forecastle and college — Varying social 
 
 standards, 937. 
 Forest guide — Faith is trust, 2008. 
 
 in the — Christ, sure leader, 1262. 
 lost in the — Partial views of God, 
 
 I132. 
 overgrown — Humanity without religion, 
 
 144 1, 
 timber — Use of Bible good or bad, 
 
 1871. 
 unseen wood carvings in — Blind read- 
 ing of Bible, 1857. 
 Forgeries, early — Persistence of deeds 
 
 done, 1420. 
 Forget=me-aot sprig to maiden — Love- 
 tokens to Christ, 1277. 
 Fortifications — Civil institutions limit 
 
 power, 961. 
 Fossil fern — Trifles in Bible often sig- 
 nificant, 1874. 
 Foundation not building — Conversion not 
 edification, 1617. 
 of house — Morality not enough, 1022. 
 neighbor's house — Social liability, 
 419. 
 Fountain, a — A man of health, 177. 
 Fountains of influence — Meekness harmon- 
 ized power and peace, 1 100. 
 Fowls of the air — Providence of work, 
 5'7- 
 
 Fragrance betrays flowers — Atmosphere of 
 Christian household, 165. 
 of grape-vine — Good-nature evident, 
 806. 
 
 hidden blossoms — Effluence of 
 
 goodness, 1072. 
 magnolia — Sharing good things, 
 
 417- 
 Frederick the Great — Labors of genius, 508. 
 Freight'-train's head-light — Christians only 
 
 towards heaven, 1522. 
 French, reading and speaking — Bible to be 
 
 practiced, 161 2. 
 Fresco estimated by weight of pigment — 
 Apocalypse and arithmetic, 1949. 
 in water-colors — Temporal love, 175. 
 of future — Prophets appealed to imagi- 
 nation, 1901. 
 Freshet and good tilling — National ex- 
 citements, 979. 
 escaped — Earthly conditions forgotten in 
 
 heaven, 348. 
 in the soul — Revival of religion, 2132. 
 Friction in machinery — Anxiety, 2022. 
 
 of the mind — Care, 736. 
 Friend in household — Peaceful presence of 
 Jesus, 1274. 
 not magistrate — Coming to Christ, 1287. 
 Frost early, on autumn leaves — Sorrow 
 matures, 261. 
 picture beautiful if evanescent — Imag- 
 inings of faith, 201 1. 
 jiictures and painting — Hunger for con- 
 tinuance, 342. 
 
 from Divine gift of beauty — The 
 
 great Artist, 2575. 
 on window — Flimsy excuses, 1408. 
 ripens fruits and nuts — Sorrow sweetens, 
 
 268. 
 sweetens nuts — Persecution sours some 
 men, 670. 
 Fruit after pruning — Recuperation under 
 adversity, 669. 
 for eating, not whole tree — Good in 
 
 every man, 446. 
 from orchard — Tokens of divine inter- 
 course, 1 5 10. 
 guarded by wall — Compulsory toler- 
 ation, 151 1. 
 hanging over wall — Preachers from 
 
 other denominations, 2163. 
 matured by light and heat — Power of 
 
 Holy Spirit, 1 320. 
 not ripened by fire and bellows — Good- 
 ness not a sudden growth, 1607. 
 on lofty trees — Last Supper discourses 
 
 of Jesus, 1935. 
 plucked when ripe — Glory of death, 303. 
 rijiened after frost — Sweetness after ad- 
 versity, 635. 
 
6l2 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Fruit, ri|Kiiiiig of — Influence higher tlian 
 authority, 472. 
 
 shadowed by leaves — Spirituality hin- 
 dered by ecclcsiasticism, 2154. 
 
 tree — A book, 2436. 
 
 trees, early and late — Varied ripening- 
 time of truths, 2208. 
 
 varieties of — Man susceptible of culture, 
 
 75- 
 FMiitfulness in single trees — Individual 
 
 spirituality, 1534. 
 
 Fuel and flame — Morality and spirituality, 
 1019. 
 
 Fuagl on trees — Business depressions de- 
 moralizing, 700. 
 
 Furnace and registers — Piety may be par- 
 tial, 1472. 
 glow of — Soul manifested, 1079. 
 of machine — Stomach as related to 
 head, 187. 
 
 Furnishing of home as to children — Meas- 
 urement of worldly things, 1732. 
 
 Furrow, daisy in the — Certainty of trouble, 
 630. 
 for seed — Opportunity for doing good, 
 1520. 
 
 Galileo — Higher view of Christ, 1223. 
 
 — Theological transitions dawn of 
 great future, 2233. 
 Gambler contributing on Sunday — Sacrifice 
 of wicked, abomination, 2055. 
 trying to reform — Time for Christian 
 help, 1559. 
 Gambling saloons — Spider's web, 56. 
 Garden — A book, 2436. 
 
 and farm — Single virtues and character, 
 
 1655- 
 
 crops — Spiritual grace to be cultivated, 
 
 1695-. 
 geometric, and forest — Religious excite- 
 ment not indecorous, 1499. 
 not created — Bible to aid in, not solve, 
 
 man's perplexities, 1967. 
 with flowers — A singing church, 2061. 
 Gardener for market — Self-seeking friend- 
 ship, 768. 
 Gardening for ilie public eye — Fidelity to 
 
 duty, 525. 
 Garments — Quarreling as preparation for 
 heaven, 170. 
 
 — Religion not a make-shift, 1445. 
 inflammable, amid fire — Young minister 
 
 amid praise, 2306. 
 to fit wearer — Inspiration progressively 
 adapted, 2191. 
 Gas-mains, working in- — Insensibility to 
 
 evil, 1418. 
 Gate and the pickets — Man's ineptness, 
 541- 
 
 Gate open to enemy — Yes, 1376. 
 
 the ]iearly — Beauty of death, 298. 
 Gates to New Jerusalem — Ways of sal- 
 vation various, 2261. 
 Gauze and fire — The soul to be protected, 
 
 387. 
 
 Gem of devotion — Lord's Prayer crystal- 
 lization of others, 1933. 
 
 Genealogies — Inspired Biblical use of un- 
 inspired material, 1886. 
 
 General of army — Faith in trust, 2008. 
 
 Generous comradeship in evil — Judgment 
 by general aim, 1033. 
 man — Ground of forgiveness in God's 
 nature, 1205. 
 
 Genie escaped from bottle — The vote, 931. 
 
 Genius for music and poetry — Benevolence 
 in God, 1 145. 
 
 Geode and crystal — Present and future 
 knowledge, 2179. 
 
 Geometrical figures for clouds — T>ogical 
 preaching to the imaginative, 2325. 
 
 German legend — Conditions of salvation, 
 not impossible, 2257. 
 Protestantism — Principles of, 2156. 
 
 Gestures of orator — Miracles of Jesus, 
 1232. 
 
 Giant chords in German castle — Deep 
 emotion uncommon, 418. 
 
 Gilding, superficial — Sudden learning, 
 
 2434- 
 their own chariots — Rich selfish 
 
 churches, 2360. 
 Girl of eighteen — Heroism in illness, 
 
 219. 
 taking dinner to cathedral workman — 
 
 Humble helper, 522. 
 Giving a quarter ; helping a life — Alms ; 
 
 benevolence, 2405. 
 Glaciers, downward movement of — De- 
 generacy, 1413. 
 sliding down a — Escape from evil 
 
 courses improbable, 14 16. 
 softened by warmth — Tears give relief 
 
 in sorrow, 228. 
 Gladstone — Excessive activity, 582. 
 Gleaning, God's, saves our losses for us — 
 
 Losing and finding, 352. 
 Glutton loves food — Minister loves men, 
 
 2281. 
 Goblet with wine of life — Sky on morning 
 
 after storm, 1253. 
 " God be with you," shrunk to a skin — 
 
 Good-bye, 808. 
 God's handiwork and worship not enough 
 
 — Longing for God, 11 17. 
 Goetbe — Obligations of genius to lofty life, 
 
 373- 
 on critics of Faust — Christianity, original 
 and improved, 2193. 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 613 
 
 Gold alloyed — Moderate nioralily, 1036. 
 bearing quartz— Cluircli valuable though 
 
 imperfect, 68. 
 mining, crushing, smelling — Training by 
 
 trouble, 668. 
 newly dug, not new — Bible truths, 
 
 1841. 
 not dross — Related experiences in meet- 
 ing to be the best, 2120. 
 of eighteen carats — Truth-telling adulter- 
 ated, 720. 
 ore, in crucible — Knowledge variable in 
 value, 2258. 
 
 throwing away — Rejection of Old 
 Testament, 1890. 
 particles to miner — Good beginnings en- 
 couraging, 1023. 
 prospecting for — Search for divine wis- 
 dom, 1 1 10. 
 seeking — Bible to be searched for treas- 
 ure, 1855. 
 separated from ore — New truth cleared 
 
 from error, 2350. 
 streaked through rock — Divine good- 
 ness found by the good, 2395. 
 veined in rock — Ideal of love, no. 
 Good fellow and religious man — Men 
 judged by their own standards, 474. 
 Samaritan — Balm before criticism, 881. 
 Goods for grain — Interchange of theologies, 
 
 2220. 
 Goose on a spit — Self-absorption, 398. 
 Gormandizing food — Wickedness of selfish 
 
 culture, 2457. 
 Governor and governed — Calvinism and 
 
 Armenianism, 2201. 
 Graces, opening of Christian — Christian 
 
 development, 1620. 
 Grafts overgrown by tree — Grace over- 
 come by nature, 15 19. 
 Grain harvested here ; next crop — The 
 earthly and the heavenly, 339. 
 ripe but not sown — Thinkers who do 
 
 not speak in meeting, 21 16. 
 sown for harvest — Giving and receiving, 
 
 2389. 
 worth straw and husk — Self-examina- 
 tion advisable, 147 1. 
 Granite, barren — Church members " mis- 
 understood," 2104. 
 Grant — Military Americans in civil office, 
 
 988. 
 Grape-cluster and wine — Perpetuity of the 
 
 Bible, 1912. 
 Grapes, black Hamburg — Holy Spirit 
 specially used, 1316. 
 changed to wine — God in Christ a 
 
 moral force, not an idea, 1151. 
 crushed to wine — Beneficence of ad- 
 versity, 638. 
 
 Grass and trees must be dilTercnt — Brother- 
 hood does not im])ly equality, 2495. 
 blades of — Little virtues, 798. 
 Grave clothes to be removed — Soul resur- 
 rection, 1542. 
 stones — Sins repented of, 1567. 
 
 and sculptor's clay — Past and fu- 
 ture, 1568. 
 Great-grandfather's apple-stealing — Re- 
 sponsibility for Adam, 2212. 
 Greed judging equity — Flesh discerning 
 
 spirit, 1062. 
 Greek and barbarian, Jew and Gentile, 
 etc. — Every Christian a Jew in Christ, 
 2082. 
 
 Hebrew ideas of God — God's emo- 
 tion, 1213. 
 esthetical feelings — Conceptions of God, 
 
 gods in Louvre — Divine memorials in 
 
 Bible, 1963. 
 statues — Manhood the beauty of man, 
 
 79- 
 Greenhouse without furnace — Religion 
 
 without love, 1478. 
 Gridley, Dr. — Curative effect of cheerful- 
 ness, 494. 
 Guide gone, path the same — Man's duty 
 
 and the Bible destroyed, 1969. 
 Grindstone — Discipline of trouble, 636. 
 — Mistakes sharpen men, 399. 
 — This world, 626. 
 Ground=springs under foundation — Native 
 
 benevolence irrepressible, 241 1. 
 Growing pains — Origin of evil with God, 
 
 1 127. 
 Gulls flying with the wind — Yielding to 
 
 God, 1618. 
 Gun ill-loaded — Unloving conscience, 1334. 
 
 without powder — Unpopular law, 967. 
 Gutter, philosophers of the — Anarchists 
 
 and communists, 996. 
 Gypsies in fine house — Folly of indulging 
 
 passions, 1398. 
 
 Hail on slate roof — Long words to chil- 
 dren, 34. 
 
 Hand of Holy Ghost on heart — Apostolic 
 succession, 2278. 
 untrained or skillful — Human nature 
 right if used aright, 1563. 
 
 Handwriting — Lower law a step towards 
 higher law, 2465. 
 
 Hangman of divine government — Fear, 
 1991. 
 
 Harlot — Evil disguised, 770. 
 
 Harlotry of wickedness — Evil wit, 771. 
 
 Harness — Christian training, 1633. 
 
 and pads — Grief in unexpected places, 
 682. 
 
614 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSrilATIONS 
 
 Harness increases strength— Law helps 
 human force, 954. 
 over-tight— Doctrinal difficulties, 2183. 
 Harp anil harper — Man's growth and 
 divine influence, 1300. 
 
 — Tenii)ted and tempter, 1352. 
 chords broken — Soul-destroying greed, 
 
 5S1. 
 strings slack — Joyless religion, 492. 
 without strings — Selling one's self, 
 614, 
 Hard in business, generous at home — 
 
 Variations of sympathy, 2396. 
 Harvest and atmosphere — Human growth 
 and God, 1330. 
 in Illinois — Modern increase of fine 
 
 character, 2529. 
 to be cultivated — Promises to be earned, 
 2030. 
 Hat off to a lady — Spiritual impulse su- 
 perior to law, 1686. 
 jnilled down — Self-examination, 400. 
 Haven after storm — Peace through Christ, 
 
 "73- 
 Hazael — Preparation for crime, 1400. 
 Head, top not bottom of — Love of praise for 
 
 nol)le things, 898. 
 Headless tly — Man without faith, 2007. 
 Health and hospital — Righteousness a 
 
 natural law, 1473. 
 Heart, hardeninjj of, softening of the brain 
 
 — Money crazes more than religion, 
 
 559- 
 varnish — Liiagination beautifies homeli- 
 ness, 529. 
 
 Heat must radiate — Activity of Christian 
 faith, 2026. 
 wiiite, in brain — Power of enthusiasm, 
 869. 
 
 Heathen forsaking idols — Religious de- 
 velopment misjudged, 1494. 
 
 Hedgehog — Self-judgment through others. 
 
 Hell, prayer-meeting in — Religious de- 
 spair, 1491. 
 Heloise — Spiritual kindred, 173 1. 
 Help only when needed — Death of chil- 
 dren, 220. 
 Hen brooding chickens — Christ's love for 
 his enemies, 1272. 
 cackling over egg — Not model for gen- 
 erous giving, 2409. 
 in barnyard — The unthinking minister, 
 
 2293. 
 seeking roosting-place — Minister hunt- 
 ing position, 2307. 
 Hercules and Socrates — Physical and moral 
 courage, 473. 
 
 the serpents — Evils in society can 
 be destroyed, 2381. 
 
 Heroism appreciated by heroic instinct— 
 (lod known through man's best quali- 
 ties, 1 154. 
 
 Hickorynut germinating — Prophecy of 
 good time coming, 2468. 
 
 Hicks, the portrait-painter — Human soul 
 but beginning of perfection, 2413. 
 
 Hide of self-conceit — Religious pride, 762. 
 
 Hills ahead, but slight ascents — Needless 
 worry, 743. 
 
 Hlnd'Sight and fore sight of rifle — Present 
 and future, 1682. 
 
 Hoe and catechism — Bondage of body and 
 
 brain, 2040. ■ 
 
 Hogs of Gadara — Reformation of passions, ^ 
 1564. 
 
 Holes stopped in ship of state — Taxation 
 for education, 2419. 
 
 Home light opened on winter night — 
 Twenty-third Psalm, 1908. 
 
 Homer still chanting — Poesy immortal, 
 2451. 
 
 Honey from lions — Sweet-souled men, with 
 barbaric views of God, 2217. 
 in deep flowers — Highest joys hardest 
 
 to get, 1745. 
 not bitterness from flowers — Retrospec- 
 tion to be helpful, 1758. 
 
 Hooded blossom — Government fits the peo- 
 ple, 957. 
 
 Horizon of immortality — New ideals given 
 by Christ, 1048. 
 
 Horizon, bright, after storm — Splendor of 
 hope for the world, 2544. 
 
 Horse, country, at hitching-post — Careless 
 minister in pulpit, 2297. 
 fine qualities of, disciplined — Training 
 
 of character, 428. 
 fractious — Young passions to be trained, 
 
 not suppressed, 47. 
 kept at livery — Irritable man, 809. 
 spavined and feeble — Safety in lack of 
 
 religious excitement, 2130. 
 tlioroughbred — American political elas- 
 ticity, 989. 
 under rider — Bodily exercise, 206. 
 well-broken — Training to calmness, 367. 
 
 Horseback riding — Experiments in re- 
 ligion, 1550. 
 
 Horses, driving fiery — Prayer and self-help, 
 1827. 
 taming wild — Brains and natural law, 
 
 2557- 
 Hospital diet discriminated — Ministers not 
 
 preaching all they believe, 2344. 
 for the sick — Church for sinners, 2090. 
 luxuries instead of medicine — Exclusive 
 
 preaching, 2324. 
 patients quarreling — Church members 
 
 discordant, 2078. 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 615 
 
 Hospital work for pay and for son — Love 
 
 lightens labor, 135. 
 Hospitality proffered — (iod's promises 
 
 earnest, 121 1. 
 Hotel lodgers — Church lack of Christian 
 sympathy, 2098. 
 table — Christian truth for all men, 1660. 
 Housebuilding and home-making — The 
 home is the family, 158. 
 
 a slow process — Patience in reform, 
 2362. 
 destroyed to feed fireplace — Stimulants, 
 
 I95-. 
 
 fine, inmate bad — Physical beauty, 
 moral depravity, 460. 
 
 poorly built — Reputation without char- 
 acter, 893. 
 
 unoccupied — Indolence breeds morbid- 
 ness, 312. 
 
 without roof — Physical and social right- 
 eousness not spirituality, 1027. 
 Household growth from love and wedlock 
 — Church a natural development, 
 
 2134- 
 economy — Sects for specific variation, 
 
 generic unity, 2160. 
 peace, parental vigils — Suffering the 
 price of good, 658. 
 Huguenots — Glory out of obscurity, 657. 
 Hulks, old — Men of pride, 759. 
 Human growth of Jesus — Youthful eclipse 
 of Christ, 1229. 
 management of nature — Providence and 
 
 law, 2556. 
 race — The Bible a growth, 1837. 
 Humor, sense of — Human nature organ- 
 ized for variety, 2188. 
 Hunger and thirst — Importunate longing 
 
 for goodness, H03. 
 Husbandman in spring — Time and tasks, 
 
 537- 
 works and waits — Impatience in per- 
 sonal career, 731. 
 Husk of corn — Spiritual value of secular- 
 ities, 545. 
 
 — World-life helps soul-life, 1658. 
 externality — Disputes on form of 
 baptism, 1923. 
 Huss — Power of weakness allied witli 
 
 God, 2356. 
 Hyacinth — Brief young attachments, 107. 
 Hymn, a solemn, before service — The 
 Beatitudes, 1932. 
 writer of one genuine — Poesy immortal, 
 2451. 
 
 Iceberg — Unsympathetic God admirable 
 not lovable, 1134. 
 sailing on an — Scientific truth without 
 gospel, 2231. 
 
 Identity, faculties, better conditions — 
 Things hoped for in immortality, 
 
 354- 
 Idol worshiping — Love of money, 607. 
 Idolatry not condemned — Necessity of 
 
 loving, 1787. 
 "I give you joy, my darling" — Child- 
 death greeted with peace, 224. 
 Illegitimacy — Humiliation of Christ, 1226. 
 Illness, mother's sacrifice in — Great feel- 
 ings for great occasions, 416. 
 Imagination shrines dead child ever as 
 
 child — Baby lost is kept, 262. 
 Incense— Silent prayer, 1807. 
 Independent or Congregational Protestant- 
 ism — Principles of, 2156. 
 Index, a copious, to Life of Christ — The 
 
 Gospels, 1920. 
 Indian attacks — Watch temptation at dan- 
 gerous hour, 1362. 
 famine, aid for — Brotherhood growing, 
 
 2530. 
 under torture — Heroism of silence, 96. 
 Indictment destroyed — God's forgiveness 
 
 absolute, 1207. 
 Indolent youth ignorant of work — Thoughts 
 
 and things, 519. 
 Infection spreading — Corrupters of the 
 
 young, 1402. 
 Infectious disease — Youth's exposure to 
 
 vice, 52. 
 Inherited estate — Health to be preserved, 
 
 182. 
 Initiation into secret society — Religion not 
 
 mysterious, 1456. 
 " In Memoriam " — Sympathetic moods for 
 
 reading, 2450. 
 Inquisition, the — Conscience with other 
 
 faculties, 1340. 
 Insects on lighthouse lantern — Dimming 
 
 conscience, 1349. 
 Inspiration — Temptation suggestive not 
 
 com])ulsory, 1353. 
 Instructor and education — Holy Spirit, 
 
 1302. 
 in algebra — Spiritual guidance, 1323. 
 Instrument in orchestra — Individual power 
 
 of social evil, 920. 
 Instruments discordant — American and 
 
 European amusement, 1000. 
 Intermissions in science — Decline of 
 
 church-going, 2167. 
 Intoxication, effects of — Physical pain a 
 
 moral lesson, 191. 
 Invisible pictures revealed by death — 
 
 Children's ministry to memory, 42. 
 Inventor genius in physical ideas — 
 
 Preacher in moral ideas, 2274. 
 Investments at interest — Work of teacher 
 
 most profitable, 2415. 
 
6i6 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Investments uiimarkctablc — Worth in the 
 
 other world, 316. 
 Iron columns— Many late marriages, III. 
 for tempering — Substance in character, 
 
 1644/ 
 haniLs— Spirituality AND morality, 1041. 
 molten, in foundry — Excitement of 
 
 hijjher feelings, 1553. 
 ore — Use of Bible good or bad, 1871. 
 unworked, worthless — Sliirking duty 
 
 means disuse, 550. 
 welded in heat — Fervency makes think- 
 ing antl doing easy, 554. 
 work at Niiremberg — Sorrow exercising 
 men, 264. 
 Isaiah— Tolitics in the pulpit, 2348. 
 Italy and charity — Unwise giving makes 
 mendicancy, 2398. 
 
 Jacob's ladder — Earthly undertakings 
 should aim at heaven, 1599. 
 
 Jails and honest men — Law aims at 
 liberty, 955. 
 
 January follows August — Ignorance in- 
 vites tyranny, 958. 
 
 Jelly, cooked fruit not strained for — 
 Church members imperfect, 2073. 
 
 Jeremiah— Politics in the pulpit, 2348. 
 
 Jesus after and before ascension — Spiritual 
 union, 1082. 
 and the Pharisees — Intelligent in- 
 humanity, 883. 
 in books, laws, and institutions — In- 
 direct influence, 2439. 
 representations of God by, and by He- 
 brews — Jehovah, 1 150. 
 
 Jew and gentile — Every Christian a Jew in 
 Christ, 2082. 
 medieval — Outward and inward life, 
 1286. 
 
 Jewel case for God's bride — The Beati- 
 tudes, 1523. 
 
 John to Paul as David to Moses — Great 
 religious geniuses, 1939. 
 
 John the Baptist — Disturbance the price 
 of progress, 2371. 
 
 — New truths from single men, 
 
 2355- 
 plowman before Christ — Reform pre- 
 ceded by agitation, 2369. 
 
 Joan of Arc — Inspiration of heroism, 1098. 
 
 Johnson, Dr., and John Bunyan — Com- 
 plexity and simplicity of style, 2299. 
 
 Joseph of Arimathea — The higher courage, 
 1249. 
 
 Joist, imperfect, in building — Bible inde- 
 pendent of any one book, i960. 
 
 Joseph, Saint — Negative goodness, 870. 
 
 Joshua's severities — (Jld Testament judged 
 by the New, 1895. 
 
 Joy — Interpretation of language by life, 
 2440. 
 not flattery — Source of praise to God, 
 2058. 
 Judge and father — Court room and home, 
 141. 
 captious, on bench — A God of law, 
 
 "43- 
 pedantic, and loving God — Divine law 
 and divine mercy, 2255. 
 
 Judgment-seat — False witness, 788. 
 
 Judgments of law and of love — Measuring 
 (ilher people's children and our own, 
 24. 
 
 Justice known by conscience — Feeling be- 
 fore reason, 407. 
 
 Kaulbach's painting — Spiritual conflicts, 
 1 6 10. 
 
 Kentucky caves— Self-building of soul, 1635. 
 
 Kettle-holes worn by rocks — Persistent 
 troubles, 684. 
 
 Key — Dictionary, 1838. 
 
 to Christianity — Divine paternity, 1177. 
 clock — Bible guide of moral char- 
 acter, 1863. 
 
 Kindling a fire — Spirituality a late de- 
 velopment, 1706. 
 
 Kindlings gathered for fire — Prayer-meet- 
 ing not to be scattered, 2121. 
 
 Kindly nurse, parental order — Obedience 
 to love and to law, 2253. 
 
 King robbing subjects — Manufacturing de- 
 ceit, lOII. 
 
 Kings gone on pilgrimages — People the 
 rising power, 2525. 
 
 Kite-string — Small Bible texts with great 
 meaning, 1911. 
 
 Kitten chasing its tail — Profitless explana- 
 tions, 894. 
 
 Knife, assassin's and surgeon's — Right and 
 wrong variable, 1039. 
 
 Knighthood — Nobility recognized, not 
 made, by outward honors, 477. 
 
 Knitting-machine that does not knit — Neg- 
 ative morality, 14S2. 
 
 Knot, tangled — Business complications, 
 
 558. 
 Knotted rope — How to end quarrels, 764. 
 Knotty timber and white pine — Strong 
 
 character takes best polish, 476. 
 Knowledge and schoolhouse — Religion 
 
 and church, 1489. 
 Knox, John — Apostolic heresy, 2190. 
 Kossuth in New York — Hero-worship, 
 
 1047. 
 
 Lackey of the soul — Conscience, 1346. 
 Ladder — Symbols and rituals, 1257. 
 for the children — Large family, 160. 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 617 
 
 Lamb to the slaughter — Godless woman 
 
 entering marriage, 106. 
 Lamp and sun — The Divine fullness, 1200. 
 fed by student's marrow — Mind-work at 
 
 night, 392. 
 light of — Soul manifested, 1079. 
 needs oil — ^Jesus at Emmaus desired 
 
 invitation, 1254. 
 of science — High results of commerce, 
 
 588. 
 sacred, in temple — Inward and outward 
 
 light, 17 1 2. 
 shedding light — True Christianity, 1448. 
 Lamps burned out — Transitory affections, 
 
 380. 
 Lanced by chance sentence — Habits re- 
 vealed, 710. 
 Landscape gardening — Native qualities to 
 be used, 1651. 
 rough and romantic, is attractive — Strong 
 characters, 85. 
 Lash for steed of industry — Fear, 1990. 
 Lark-squab beautiful to parent — Baby to 
 
 its mother, 2. 
 Lava-soil — Pride softened by love, 17 19. 
 Lead for tools — Sincerity and wrong be- 
 lief, 1977. 
 heaving the — Depth of character, 907. 
 Leaf, fall of, affecting universe — Efiects of 
 life on the soul, 357. 
 on a stream — Savage life, 551. 
 Laws of electricity — Vital elements of 
 
 Bible universally accepted, 1889. 
 Lawyer — Condition of faculties for work, 
 388. 
 study of human nature by — By min- 
 ister, 2283. 
 Leader — Salvation through Christ, 1275. 
 Leaf in eddy of stream — Conscience in 
 
 Romans VII, 1941. 
 Leaking grain-wagon — Unconscious good- 
 ness, 1744. 
 Learning and intelligence — Liberty not 
 
 dangerous, 960. 
 Leaves, before the wmd — Lack of moral 
 purpose, 1020. 
 dead, and fresh growth — The sceptic for 
 
 betterment, 1983. 
 dying, disappear — Imperfections to be 
 
 forgotten, 2000. 
 of leguminous plant — Body food for the 
 
 soul, 1018. 
 wind-blown — Remnants of human life, 
 678. 
 Legal expositions in nursery — Bible 
 
 adopted to original readers, 1 88 1. 
 Lens, every dollar a — Money deviously 
 
 gotten, 568. 
 Letter from lost lover — Influence the meas- 
 ure of value, 858. 
 
 Letter from friend — The evcr-prescut 
 Christ, 1278. 
 mailing a — Prayer not needing formal 
 
 address, 1833. 
 of introduction — A man's trouble, 878. 
 through mail-carrier — Missions through 
 commerce, 2094. 
 Lettuce — Quick maturity, quick decay, 
 
 1639. 
 Levitical eatings, etc. — Rites to be re- 
 spected, not obligatory, 2139. 
 Liar, diplomatic, of the soul — Conscience, 
 
 1346. 
 Lifeboat — Simplicity of salvation, 1549. 
 for individuals ; world-saving — Theories 
 of religion, 1443. 
 Life insurance — Religion not mechanical, 
 1462. 
 power needed in church — Curative force 
 
 of nature in man, 2176. 
 preservers — Emergency-religion, 1526. 
 Light by day and night — Constancy of 
 God's goodness, 1216. 
 houses to mariner — Divine guidance a 
 
 privilege, 1324. 
 in darkness — Motherly love in illness, 
 218. 
 
 window — Christian to show good- 
 ness, 1516. 
 killing darkness, theory and example — 
 
 Living epistles, 1509. 
 must travel — Activity of Christian faith, 
 
 2026. 
 rain and air — God's abundance, 1191. 
 rays and sun — God as center, 1704. 
 sought by cellar-plant — Joy longed for 
 by soul, 495. 
 Lighthouse without light — Churches with- 
 out Christlike members, 2091. 
 Lightning at night — Transient aspirations, 
 
 1437- 
 heat — Looks remembered, 1234. 
 Liking and loving — Wishing and willing, 
 
 1653- 
 
 Lilies of the field — Providence of work, 518. 
 
 Liliputian and Brobdignagian — Leveling 
 tendency of gospel, 970. 
 
 Lincoln, way of — Value of a good name, 
 902. 
 
 Links in chain — Steadfastness, 468. 
 
 of God — Human work unfinished 
 but continued, 2482. 
 
 Lion and bear nature — Chinese ill-treated 
 in America, 2523. 
 cubs to be watched — Wealthy corpo- 
 rations in politics, loio. 
 
 Livingstone's experience with lion — Bor- 
 rowing trouble, 681. 
 
 Loaf of society sliced vertically — Church 
 membership, 2079. 
 
6i8 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Lobes of a seed — Tarables of Jesus often 
 cryptic, 2448. 
 
 Locomotive engine — Miracles caused be- 
 lief in invisible, 1904. 
 sparks — Unconscious influence, 856. 
 
 Log, scjuarc end of a — Loveless conscience, 
 8S2. 
 
 Lombardy poplar — Upper and lower life, 
 1080. 
 
 London Tower, torture machines and arms 
 — Evil powers of the soul, 734. 
 
 Loom and rugniakers — Evolution grander 
 than creation, 2237. 
 threads broken in — Plans destroyed, 
 
 639- 
 weaving — Providence in nature, 1 163, 
 
 Lovable man with burglar — Character not 
 judged by single traits, 470. 
 
 Love for one's wife not mathematically 
 demonstrable — God transcends knowl- 
 edge, 2012. 
 
 Lover; mother — God symbolized in human 
 affection, 1185. 
 
 Loving a woman — Self-deception in Chris- 
 tian hope unlikely, 1601. 
 enemies yesterday and to-day — Stead- 
 fast ideals, 1668. 
 
 Lubricating oil — Trust in God, 2022. 
 
 Luther — New truth from single men, 
 
 2355- . 
 
 — Victory from defeats of pred- 
 ecessors, 534. 
 Lying boy with manly man — Influence 
 of cliaracter, 865. 
 to children about medicine — God 
 says affliction not joyous but grievous, 
 234- 
 
 Machinery, doing good by, omits person- 
 ality — Danger of organized charity, 
 2404. 
 enlarged manhood — Benefaction of in- 
 ventors, 2531. 
 new — Learning to live, 1623. 
 
 Madeleine church of the, Paris — Class feel- 
 ing in churches, 2099. 
 
 Madonna, the — Typical mother, 151. 
 
 Maelstrom — Temptation to be avoided, 
 '356. 
 
 Magic lantern pictures — Persons associated 
 with Jesus, 1934. 
 
 Magistrate and motiier — Judgment by law 
 and by love, 2247. 
 
 Magnet — Unconscious influence, 854. 
 and iron — Bible readers find their own 
 
 affniities, 1849. 
 with iron in sand — Discoveries of grati- 
 tude, 1096. 
 
 Magnolia blossom and root — Top and 
 bottom of society, 934. 
 
 A\agnolia in blossom — Unconscious beauty 
 of Christ spirit, 1792. 
 stem and blossom — Morality and piety, 
 1474. 
 Maiden and lover — Expression increases 
 emotion, I577. 
 become mother — Love transfoiming 
 
 selfishness, 1602. 
 thoughtless — Dallying with temptation, 
 
 1363- 
 Mainspring of civilization — Health, 178. 
 
 watch— Home the motive power, 
 
 173- 
 — Love the one thing needful, 
 
 1791. 
 — Passions and appetites funda- 
 mental, 193. 
 
 Maize ripened and reaped — The hope in 
 death, 295. 
 
 Malaria — Silent corrupting forces, 1369. 
 from new ground — New aspects of truth 
 unsettling, 2349. 
 
 Mallet — Sincerity drives home good or 
 mischief, 1977. 
 
 Mammon, demon of — American perils, 
 1002. 
 
 Man killed for sake of corpse — Piety sacri- 
 ficed to save church, 2101. 
 
 Mankind — The body of Christ, 879. 
 
 Manna and the Israelite — Blessings de- 
 spised, 1 197. 
 
 Manoah's wife — Child-education for great 
 things, 2416. 
 
 Man's body and mind — Natural law and 
 C]od, 2555. 
 
 Mansion built and occupied — Good life 
 completed, 276. 
 
 Manure-heap — Wealth to be diffused, 602. 
 
 Map— The Bible, i860. 
 
 not a dissected — The Gospel history, 
 1920. 
 
 Maple sugar sap forming in tree — Invisible 
 growths of good, 2479. 
 
 — Sweetness under injury, 817. 
 
 Marbles, basket of — Physical researches 
 without evolution, 2236. 
 not nuts — Problems of Calvinism, 2202. 
 
 March of creation — Upward movement of 
 the ages, 2542. 
 
 Marine shells on mountain-top — Most be- 
 liefs hypothetical, 2238. 
 
 Marksman almost hit mark — Morality in- 
 complete, 1025. 
 
 Marriage service — Christ confessed, 1547. 
 
 Marrow— Sympathy for man indispensable 
 in ministry, 2353. 
 
 Alarsh'-lights, miasmatic — Passions puri- 
 fied, 1075. 
 
 Martineau, Harriet — Annihilation un- 
 natural idea, 338. 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 619 
 
 Martinet, boy cliant^ed to — Tlicological 
 transformation of Bible, 1956. 
 
 Mary Magdalene — Expression by deeds, 
 1080. 
 and disciples — Sordidness judging 
 sentiment, 406. 
 
 Mask — Conscience covers evil and good, 
 
 1335- 
 religious — Churchly cant, 2103. 
 
 Maternal ante-natal sustenance — God 
 working in us, 1091. 
 
 Mathematical instruments — Character to 
 be polished, 17 14. 
 
 Mathematics or moral truth — Personality 
 in the preacher, 2272. 
 
 Matterhorn and lesser peaks — Great and 
 minor experiences, 1756. 
 
 Maturity, legal — Divine justice considerate 
 as human, 1182. 
 
 May not January— Tlie present an era for 
 gladness, 2539. 
 
 Mean man enjoys saving a life — Pleasure 
 of doing good, 2394. 
 man's generosity — Self-gratulation on 
 past religion, 2126. 
 
 Measles — Suppressed repudiation, 1004. 
 
 Mechanic loves inventions and machines — 
 Minister loves men, 2281. 
 
 Mechanical vv'hittling out of world — Evo- 
 lution sublimer conception, 2243. 
 
 Medical book read for cure — Bible for 
 specific needs, 1853. 
 prescription — Sermons for certain con- 
 ditions, 2319. 
 
 Medication for sickness — Spiritual better- 
 ment, 1625. 
 
 Medicinal roots undiscovered — Bible treas- 
 ures unfound, 1861. 
 
 Medicine — Paper money in war and peace, 
 1005. 
 in action — Conflict leading to peace, 
 
 2373- 
 not food — Sorrow not typically Chris- 
 tian, 252. 
 of sorrow — Bible coeval with man's 
 
 need, 1883. 
 orthodoxy and heterodoxy in — Religious 
 differences, 2224. 
 Medieval castles — Antiquated religious 
 
 thought-forms, 2197. 
 Melodies and harmony — Worldly and 
 
 Christian joy, 503. 
 Memories — Imagination stronger than 
 
 reason, 2326. 
 Men four feet high — Standards of self- 
 judgment, 359. 
 Mephitlc gas — Discouragement, 1730. 
 
 bubbles — Poems of sensual school, 2452. 
 Merchant prince — Faith deals with the 
 invisible, 2010, 
 
 Merchant, selfish endurance of — Not meek- 
 ness, 1752. 
 study of human nature by — By min- 
 ister, 2283. 
 
 Mercury's winged sandals — The peaceful 
 spirit, 813. 
 
 Messenger, God's — Imagination, 379. 
 
 Metallurgist knows ore — Spiritual discern- 
 ment of Bil)le, 1851. 
 
 Meteor — Transitoriness of thought, 380. 
 
 Miasm and quinine — Fear and hope, 
 1997. 
 
 Miasma from stagnation — Property not 
 circulated, 596. 
 
 Michael Angelo, art of — Teachers and 
 preachers nobler than artists, 2414. 
 result of generations — God's kingdom 
 
 long result of time, 2509. 
 scaffolding of — Disclosures of future, 
 
 335- 
 works of — Genius needs industry, 507. 
 Midges and butterflies — Vanity, 760. 
 Mignonette — Goodness made apparent, 
 
 1521. 
 Milan cathedral, observers of — Varying 
 
 conceptions of God, 1123. 
 Militia and regular army — Generosity and 
 
 benevolence, 2386. 
 Military band — Soul qualities dispropor- 
 tionate, 1684. 
 divisions of same army not jealous — 
 Unity should be harmony, 2263. 
 Milk°pan, full, slops both ways — Mirth and 
 
 pathos, 2303. 
 Mill Ijrook — Working piety, 1506. 
 
 grinding flour at, instead of at home — 
 
 Organized charity, 2403. 
 not flour — Devotion not piety, 1464. 
 streams — Power of feeling, 408. 
 
 and cascade — Motion and emotion, 
 410. 
 without grist — Empty meditation, 386. 
 Miller, Hugh, quarryman and philosopher 
 — Great-mindedness in humble call- 
 ings, 511. 
 Milton and mathematics — Belief with the 
 heart, 403. 
 daughter of, reading Greek — Seeing 
 nature superficially, 2550. 
 Mind in body — Immanence of God, 
 
 1 1 29. 
 Mine, finding a — Religion a life-work, 
 1484. 
 shaft-sinking — God's severe dealings, 
 
 677. 
 untler the fort — Unnoted indulgences, 
 1360. 
 wall — Unseen faults, 721. 
 water pumped out — Giving with grudg- 
 ing, 2390. 
 
620 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTHATIONS 
 
 Ministering to a low or a charming child 
 — liencvolcncc or personal love, 
 2392. 
 iVlint, coining molten truth — Ihe true 
 preacher, 2271. 
 God's — Adversity, 623. 
 in rhiladelphia— Mere money-makers, 
 606. 
 Minting men like dollars— Enforcing uni- 
 form beliefs, 1973. 
 of gold ore — Death an advancement, 
 
 Mirror, concave — Distorted views of God, 
 1119. 
 retlecting light — Religion, receiving and 
 
 giving, 1463. 
 scratches behind — Sullying of con- 
 science, 1348. 
 shattered — Imperfect preaching of Christ 
 reflects truth, 12S3. 
 Miser raising flag on Independence Day — 
 
 Insincere rejoicings, 21 17. 
 Mission-sctiool children — God loves as 
 
 men need, 1215. 
 Mist before the sun — Superstition dis- 
 pelled by righteousness, 2559. 
 blown away — New ideals given by 
 
 Christ, 1048. 
 poor medium for observatory — Clouded 
 vision, 1055. 
 Mob attacking wrong house — Living be- 
 yond malice, 660. 
 Mole's view of hyacinth — Earth-view of 
 
 moral truth, 464. 
 Momentum of ship — Conduct needs con- 
 tinuance, 1337. 
 Monarclis, the best, not worst, as ideals — 
 
 God's kingsliip, 1179. 
 Money, counting of — Moral training im- 
 perfect, 449. 
 for wortliy cause — Prompt action on 
 
 noble impulses, 1554. 
 from one pocket to another — Proselyting 
 
 among sects, 2173. 
 maker, description of — Money-worship, 
 608. 
 Mont Blanc — Man's higher nature unfruit- 
 ful, 1656. 
 Moody and Sankey — Holy Spirit works 
 through men, 1313. 
 D. L., and Dr. C. G. Finney — Prac- 
 tical and theological preaching, 2305. 
 Moon beautiful but futile for harvests — 
 
 Preaching without eternal life, 2357. 
 Moonlight for agriculture — Estlietic re- 
 ligion, 1449. 
 Morass of evil influence — Parable of Eden 
 in old theology, 2209. 
 sub-drained — Reclamation of evil traits, 
 723- 
 
 Morbid anatomy — Condemnation not refor- 
 mation, 2375. 
 Morning-glory twining on shadow — Loving 
 an unknowable God, 1 1 14. 
 star — Satan tempting Jesus, 1231. 
 Mortmain — Danger of creeds and con- 
 fessions, 2186. 
 Mosaic institutions mostly gone — Vitality 
 of Sabbath, 2040. 
 of Raphael's Ascension — Significance of 
 the insignificant, 2500. 
 Moses and God's goodness — God's glory, 
 1 176. 
 could not have believed a vision of 
 America — Coming day not now re- 
 alized, 2506. 
 died without the sight — Victory from 
 
 predecessor's defeats, 534. 
 in laws and institutes — Indirect in- 
 fluence, 2439. 
 on Nebo — Hope of heaven in age, 282. 
 
 — Solitariness of death, 304. 
 original nature of — Inspiration not crea- 
 tion, 1306. 
 provided music and dancing — Joy a part 
 
 of religion, 487. 
 with David, as Paul with John — Great 
 religious geniuses, 1939. 
 Mosquitoes — Malicious gossip, 785. 
 
 — Nimbleness of proverbs, 2444. 
 Mosses, cryptogamous — Intents of the 
 
 heart, 1076. 
 Moth — Insidious sins, 1359. 
 
 in garment — Petty sins destroy char- 
 acter, 715. 
 Mother and babe — God's beneficence, 
 1131. 
 family law — Sin against divine 
 
 parent, 1430. 
 sick cliild — Joy of sacrifice, 7. 
 suckling — God's grace, 1 152. 
 at party — Trained perceptions, 366. 
 child, wife, love of — Immortality, 315. 
 heart — God's children not forgotten, 
 
 1 108. 
 language — Education begins in sim- 
 plicity, 2417. 
 love and theory — Theologizing only 
 
 philosophizing, 2195. 
 of all graces — Christian good-will, 1687. 
 relic of — Early environment, 844. 
 serving chdd — Christian kindness spon- 
 taneous, 1 78 1, 
 soothing frightened child — The com- 
 forting God, 1 135. 
 soul — God's love to his world, 4. 
 teaching child — Revelation, unveiling 
 
 things not known, 1887. 
 with hurt child — God's nearness in 
 trouble, 1552. 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 621 
 
 Mother, young, and grandmother — God's 
 
 knowledge of all experience, 2020. 
 Motherhood — The atonement, 1289. 
 
 ideal — Preferring one another, 1783. 
 Mothering tired children — God's bosom, 
 
 1 201. 
 Mother's breast — Nature better than books 
 about it, 2548. 
 doing for child — Phases of Christian 
 love, 1683. 
 Motion earth's revolution and orbital — In- 
 dividual and race-progress, 2458. 
 Motive power harnessed — Secondary state 
 
 of feeling, 442. 
 Moulds A rule, 952. 
 
 Mountain, descent of — Resolution and per- 
 formance, 846. 
 echo — God's sympathy, 1 173. 
 ice-clad summit — Selfish aspiration, 
 
 851. 
 lofty — Quiet power of meekness, 1753. 
 peaks in sunset — Benefits remembered, 
 
 1093. 
 stream — Irregularity of Elijah, 1906. 
 and meadow-brook — Romans VII 
 and VIII, 1940. 
 verdure-clad ; Mont Blanc — God as 
 father; as ruler, 2248. 
 Mountaineering — Achievement demands 
 
 more achievement, 478. 
 Mountains and clouds — Spiritual refresh- 
 ment, 1679. 
 Mount Holyoke, top of — Eseape from life's 
 storms, 1755. 
 of vision towards promised land of spirit 
 
 — Sermon on mount, 1932. 
 Pleasant thunder-storm — Mystery of life 
 
 cleared, 2037. 
 Washington, railroad to top of — Uplift- 
 ing power of singing, 2064. 
 
 view from — Vision of faith, 2013. 
 Mourner, his own at death — Selfish man 
 solitary, 2383. 
 seeks lost beyond earth — Bereavement, 
 expansion, 270. 
 Muck-ralte — Wealth no title to remem- 
 brance, 617. 
 Mud, fertihzing, of floods — Immigration, 
 
 995- 
 on white clotliing — Religious intoler- 
 ance conspicuous, 2148. 
 
 Mulberry-tree — Growth and diffusion of 
 feeling, 1613. 
 
 Mule for men's evil errands — Conscience, 
 1346. 
 
 Muliein-stalli — Virtue not negative, 1031. 
 last year's — Man retiring from business, 
 586. 
 
 Multiplication-table — Prayers without 
 thought — 1S03. 
 
 Mummies — Poor contentment, 419. 
 — Sins repented of, 1567. 
 — Worn-out creeds, 2207. 
 Muscle, iron and human — Machinery frees 
 lalDor, 532. 
 to be used — Moral activity for vitality, 
 1606. 
 Mushroom and timber — Weak morality 
 worthless, IO40. 
 
 tree — Good growth, slow growth, 
 1616. 
 Music, art of — Widening horizons of life, 
 1669. 
 box key — Simple truths may begin 
 
 great effects, 2269. 
 distant — Visions of the invisible, 321. 
 faint, far — Intimations of heavenly joys, 
 
 322. 
 heard not seen — God spiritually appre- 
 hended, 1 153. 
 in melody, harmony, symphony — Beauty 
 
 of moral character, 1735. 
 rests in — Solitude after society, 841. 
 science of — Moral excellence means 
 
 labor, 1649. 
 strange and irregular — The Apocalypse, 
 
 1951- 
 Musical genius discerns faint discord — 
 Moral intuitions, 454. 
 instinct needed for music — God known 
 
 through man's best qualities, 1154. 
 instrument, quality of — Power of enjoy- 
 ment, 613. 
 melody and harmony — Complexity of 
 
 life, 382. 
 notes to melodious ideas — Words to 
 
 thought, 2299. 
 parts concordant — True lovers, 10 1, 
 score called oft' by letters — Cold-hearted 
 
 preaching, 2273. 
 theme elaborated — Spirit races beyond 
 men, 86. 
 
 changed by organ-stops — Intellect 
 colored by emotion, 361. 
 Musician hates discord — A sensitive con- 
 science, 1333. 
 Musk in a chest — Persistent power of 
 
 Calvinism, 2200. 
 Musket, old-fashioned kicking — Foreign 
 missions best effect at home, 2093. 
 
 Naaman — Not chosen because not choos- 
 ing, 1560. 
 Naming, men's and God's — The rich fool, 
 
 615. 
 Naomi; Mara — Significance of ancient 
 
 names, 1898. 
 Napoleon — Labors of genius, 508. 
 
 — Sleep not to be gauged by others* 
 needs, 205. 
 
622 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Napoleon and his marshals — Man's ig- 
 norance ; God's providence, 2033. 
 marshal of, and the bomb — Steadfastness 
 
 of faith, 2018. 
 music of, crossing Alps — Power from 
 inspiration, 2016. 
 Nashville University— Wise giving, 2401. 
 Natural bent to be heeded — Poet from 
 practical parents, 50. 
 birth — Mother to lead child in new 
 
 birth, 150. 
 law, learning of — Individual interpre- 
 tation of Bible, 1850. 
 spiritual and, beauties — Christ-life in 
 men, 1279. 
 Navigating through Hell-gate (East River) 
 — Perplexities of parentage, 143. 
 — Alcoholic drinking, 1374. 
 Navigation-chart — Bible a guide to right 
 
 living, 1869. 
 Neatness in bedroom and in stone-mason's 
 
 shop — Truth varies, 810. 
 Nebuchadnezzar — Human and divine mo- 
 rality, 1156. 
 Needle threaded with selfishness — Flatterer, 
 
 773- 
 Needles in bunch, blunt ; single, sharp — 
 
 Individual preaching, 2335. 
 Needy or attractive children sought — Be- 
 nevolence or aflinity, 2391. 
 Neglect of fire-alarm — Indirect guilt, 730. 
 Nerve destroyed — Reprobation possible, 
 
 1423. 
 plexuses of nation — Cities, 1012. 
 sensibility — Pain by Divine intention, 
 
 213. 
 Nest, a safe — A goodly parentage, 131. 
 New England — Early hardship good for- 
 tune, 655. 
 New sprout from old stock — Sermon on 
 
 Mount not original, 1929. 
 New York and Paris — Morals at home and 
 
 abroad, 847. 
 Newsboys and voices — Vocal power to be 
 
 trained for, 2295. 
 Niagara, crossing on cable — Difficulty of 
 
 living right, 540. 
 irresistible power of — Religion of fate, 
 
 2206. 
 falls unappreciated — Indifference to 
 
 God, 1087. 
 not the model — Poor singing in church 
 
 to be modest, 2062. 
 Nlcodemus and Peter — Higher and lower 
 
 courage, 1249. 
 Night, coolness of — Jesus' love of solitude, 
 
 1236. 
 Nightingale of Psalms — Thirty-third Psalm, 
 
 1909. 
 Noah's raven — Grumbling, 756. 
 
 Noble Hungarian refugees — Conscious son- 
 ship, 1538. 
 
 Noon growing from morning — Death an 
 advance, 31 1. 
 
 Nourishment and cordial for helpless — 
 Mercy, divine attribute, iioi. 
 
 Nurse for nervousness, calmness — Peace 
 begets peace, 818. 
 
 Oak and harp — Happiness from within, 
 
 490. 
 developing — Immature yet true spirit- 
 uality, 1619. 
 for the centuries — Long growth of the 
 
 world, 2507. 
 Oars with wind and tide — Free agency 
 
 and God, 2203. 
 Obstinate parent — The divine Father, not 
 
 avenger, 1 178. 
 Ocean, summer bath in — Refreshment in 
 
 thought of eternity, 294. 
 storm or calm of, under law — Regulation 
 
 of popular unrest, 2536. 
 the, a cup — God's great heart, 
 
 1 198. 
 October — Beautiful old age, 284. 
 Odorous handicrafts, smell of — Professional 
 
 piety, 1527. 
 Odors or stenches — Character and reputa- 
 tion, 896. 
 Ohio river overflow — Modern religious 
 
 influence, 2177. 
 Oil lubricating — Humor, 482. 
 
 on machinery — Habit of generosity, 
 
 2410. 
 Old family estate — Associations of the 
 
 Bible, 1872. 
 Old Testament — Education of Jesus, 
 
 1228. 
 
 bards — Poesy immortal, 2451. 
 Opal colors — Look of Jesus, 1234. 
 
 painting portrait of^ — Nature of Christ, 
 
 1222. 
 Operative in factory — Liberty, obedience 
 
 to law, 78. 
 Ophthalmia cured by putting eyes out — 
 
 Poor remedy for scepticism, 1975. 
 Optical treatise in nursery— Modern account 
 
 of creation in Genesis, 1S91. 
 Orange=tree — Duty of sweet influence, 
 
 857. 
 Orator in speechless baby — Mother's pro- 
 phetic love, 6. 
 Oratorical inspiration, the first — Real 
 
 j)enitence a sure possession, 1640. 
 Orchard — A book, 2436. 
 Orchestra — Varied elements of prayer, 
 
 1S06. 
 in Bedlam, and concordant — Present 
 
 and future, 2507. 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 623 
 
 Orchestral tuning and performance — 
 God's will on earth and in heaven, 
 1189. 
 Ore and forged implements — Divine truth, 
 human statements, 2184. 
 undug — Mind not educated, 2425. 
 Organ building an — Chaotic incomplete- 
 ness of man, 2486. 
 cathedral — Complexity of man's nature, 
 
 381. 
 music in cathedral twilight — Evanes- 
 cence of religious inspiration, 1 104. 
 pipes and key-board — Conscience and 
 
 reason, 1342. 
 playing — Complexity of living, 1689. 
 
 — Oratory, 2288. 
 range of, stops — Preaching to include 
 
 all human nature, 2310. 
 stops modify musical theme — Intellect 
 
 colored by emotion, 361. 
 with distant electric keyboard — Earth- 
 connection with heaven, 1434. 
 Organized institutions — Permanent be- 
 nevolence, 2400. 
 Oriental cities — Bible buried under rub- 
 bish, 1953. 
 dress in Occident — Changing value of 
 creeds, 2198. 
 Orplian asylum — Man's need Christ's mo- 
 tive, 1280. 
 Our countrymen abroad — A personal right 
 
 to God, 1 136. 
 Overcoats — Grades of desirability in re- 
 vivals, 2129. 
 Owls and bats doubting sun — Philosophers 
 
 scorning invisible Christ, 127 1. 
 Ox, the, in Mosaic law — Saloon-keepers to 
 
 be responsible, 2365. 
 Oysters and sponges— Seclusion not re- 
 ligion, 548. 
 
 Package of deeds including wrong paper — 
 Biblical errors thrown out without in- 
 jury, 1964. 
 
 Painter, German, in Italy — New ideals, 
 1050. 
 the village — Low ideals, 1670. 
 
 Painters, older, and later, Italian and 
 German — Sincerity, 822. 
 
 Painting, by author's mother — Nature re- 
 vealing God, 2565. 
 early schools of — Moral quality of hero- 
 ism, 462. 
 one's own portrait — Self-revelation, 401. 
 
 Palette and painting — Beneficence of ad- 
 versity, 638. 
 
 Panic in crowd — Dissensions of humanity, 
 
 2473- 
 Parental blessing—" Without me, nothing," 
 1 168. 
 
 Parents not to depend on children — Fru- 
 gality and manliness, 828. 
 with children — Jesus simple and mys- 
 tical, 1238. 
 Paris and New York — Morals abroad and 
 
 at home, 847. 
 Parthenon restored vision of — God seen as 
 he is, 1 159. 
 
 — Ruin of men under city tempta- 
 tion, 2472. 
 Partnership with God— Business methods 
 
 for better morals, 557. 
 Patriarchs of the pool — Croakers, 757, 
 Patriotic soldiers in battle — Christian unity 
 
 in reform work, 2361. 
 Pattern woven in God's loom — Present 
 
 sorrow future joy, 225, 
 Paul and early orthodoxy — Apostolic 
 heresy, 2190. 
 
 Greek culture — True religion of 
 heart not head, 1743. 
 cloud of witnesses of — Companionship 
 
 in labor, 533. 
 dying voice of — Epistle to Philippians, 
 
 1946. 
 gcntlemanliness of — Religion demands 
 
 courtesy, 1495. 
 living in others — Great minds stim- 
 ulative, 2438. 
 love of, for Christ — Enthusiasm of love, 
 
 1789. 
 to John as Moses to David — Great re- 
 ligious geniuses, 1939. 
 Pauper and prince — Inward and outward 
 
 riches, 695. 
 Payson on death-bed — Life increases 
 
 vision, 1694. 
 Pea-brush for pea-vines — Simple customs 
 
 for simple lives, 850. 
 Peace after war — Ruth after Judges, 
 
 1900. 
 Peacemakers children of God — Peace se- 
 renity in activity, 1102. 
 Peach and partridge-berry — Fruits of spirit 
 various, 1321. 
 eating a — God's personality known by 
 
 love, not analysis, 1141. 
 enjoying a — Self-deception in Christian 
 hope unlikely, 1601. 
 Pearl, a— The Story of Ruth, 1899. 
 among days — The Sabbath, 2040. 
 from rough oyster — Rahab from har- 
 lotry, 1948. 
 Pearls cast into jewel-case — Parables of 
 Jesus, 1927. 
 
 — Good deeds, 15 16. 
 to be dived for — Hidden thought the 
 best, 384. 
 Pedestal or pillory — Honor or shame in 
 wealth, 592. 
 
624 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Peerage — Tlic Order of Kailh, in Hebrews, 
 
 202 1. 
 Pen— Contrasted with tongue, 943. 
 Pendulum — Between sorrow and gladness, 
 255. 
 — Church vibrates between law 
 
 and gospel, 2245. 
 — Condemnation and hope recon- 
 ciled, 1 3 10. 
 — Lack of spiritual persistence, 
 1760. 
 Perfume of Magdalen's vase — Value of 
 sentiment, 1068. 
 
 vines — Jesus detached from his en- 
 vironment, 1237. 
 Personal etjuation in moral judgment — 
 
 Astronomer, 453. 
 Phidias — Ciood work in unseen places, 524. 
 the Zeus of — Imagination and belief, 
 1976. 
 Philosopher's stone — Endurance trans- 
 muting lower to higher, 258. 
 Photograpiiic plate — Knowledge of God 
 not mere impression, 1060. 
 
 — Susceptibility to the Divine, 
 2002. 
 Photographs, spiritual — Individual con- 
 
 ce]5tions of Christ, 1295. 
 Photography — Social influence, 834. 
 Physical deficiencies of children — Moral 
 feebleness, 17. 
 ills doctored — Soul-sickness ignored, 
 
 1439- 
 Physician giving bodily regimen — Bible 
 interpreting laws of life, 1862. 
 neglecting special diseases — Pulpit ig- 
 noring reforms, 2357. 
 rough treatment by — Reformers not 
 
 respecting prejudices, 2376. 
 skilled, acceptable — Christ the sure 
 
 leader, 1262. 
 treats cause of illness — Radicalism of 
 Christ, 1242. 
 Piano playing — Taking up cross in Chris- 
 tian life, 145 1, 
 tuning — Regulation by adversity, 649. 
 wailing of tuned — Mourning under 
 trouble, 632. 
 Pick-axe and gold — Education does not 
 
 originate, 2433. 
 Picket and general — Ideal perfection and 
 
 present duty, 17 16. 
 Picture gallery — An average congregation, 
 
 2334. 
 
 a matchless — Eleventh chapter of He- 
 brews, 2459. 
 
 hung in air — Continuing power of Christ, 
 1258. 
 
 of a home — Domestic life test of char- 
 acter, 162. 
 
 Picture, subject of a great — Impersonality 
 
 of Jesus, 1237. 
 Pictures seen not heard — God spiritually 
 
 apprehended, 1153. 
 Pigments for portrait — Christ of history, 
 
 art, and philosojihy, 1221. 
 Pile-drivers — Energetic natures, 542. 
 Pilgrims unsettled — Life a march, 549. 
 Pillar of fire — Sabbath luminous leader of 
 
 civilization, 2049. 
 Pillars of right and wrong — God's govern- 
 ment, 1 1 33. 
 Pilot — Salvation through Christ, 1275. 
 Pins and plans — Ruthless speculators worse 
 
 than law-breakers, 573. 
 Pirate — Manufacturing deceit, loii. 
 Pitch, keyed to a high — Loftiness of 
 
 Sermon on Mount, 1928. 
 Pitched to key of common life — Bible an 
 
 everyday book, 1846. 
 Plague hospital — Moral corruption, 53. 
 stricken district — Goodness not to shun 
 world, 544. 
 Plant, a living — A good name, 901. 
 
 earth and air — Reforms complained of 
 
 by evil-doers, 2363. 
 evolution gradual — God's patience with 
 
 man, 2484. 
 germination — Early development slow, 
 
 2471. 
 growth, stages of — Spiritual growth 
 gradual, 161 8. 
 Planting and transplanting — Spiritual de- 
 velopment takes time, 1708. 
 rough ground with beauty — Pleasure in 
 homely toil, 529. 
 Plants and autumn frosts — Courage under 
 failure, 679. 
 broad- leaved — Lower life enriched by 
 
 higher, 1695. 
 dependent on climate — Moral life needs 
 
 love, 1069. 
 hot-house, taken outdoors — Death a 
 
 transplanting, 312. 
 in open air — Churches need excitement, 
 2124. 
 Plate not food — Lower life unsatisfying, 
 
 1699. 
 Plates in sets — Varying kinds of Chris- 
 tians, 2096. 
 Plato — Admiration not love of, 1224. 
 Plow crushing field life — New thought 
 wasteful, 2240. 
 in the field — Trouble comes to enrich, 
 
 229. 
 leveling old corn-ridges — Democracy of 
 
 public schools, 2422. 
 needed for wheat — Worth of the church, 
 
 2175- 
 not harvest — Creeds not religion, 1508. 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 625 
 
 Plowed soil releases malaria — Moral sensi- 
 bility discovers sin, 1652. 
 Plowing an old field — Eras of doubt, 1972. 
 for new crops — Russian despotism re- 
 constructed, 2517. 
 of furrows for good seed — Financial dis- 
 turbances, 2332. 
 same field — Spiritual culture grows 
 
 easier, 1673. 
 surface — Feeling in shallow natures, 
 415. 
 Plows, ancient and modern — Past not to 
 
 rule present, 2528. 
 Plus and minus — Good and bad scepticism, 
 
 1982. 
 Plymouth Church, Brooklyn — Congre- 
 gationalism, 2158. 
 Pocket-World — The newspaper, 2453. 
 Poem — Garden-parable of Eden, 2209. 
 Poet a genius in beautiful ideas — Preacher 
 in moral ideas, 2274. 
 finds poetry in world — Saviour personal 
 
 to each, 1264. 
 the — Self-measurement upwards, 2440. 
 Poetic speaker — Ground of forgiveness in 
 
 God's nature, 1205. 
 Poison — Pure fear, 1993. 
 
 small doses of — Accustomed to evil, 
 
 1419. 
 stimulus of — Anxiety morbidly desired, 
 1994. 
 Polar expeditions, etc. — Business men's 
 virtues, 588. 
 star to slave — Jesus the guide, 1267. 
 escaped southern captive — Heav- 
 enly guidance, 1328. 
 Pole stirs mud — Aggressiveness arouses 
 
 evil, 754. 
 Police-court of to-day — Old Testament 
 
 laws, 1893. 
 Politician selfish endurance of — Not meek- 
 ness, 1752. 
 study of human nature by — By min- 
 ister, 2283. 
 Politics — Trials of strenuous life, 845. 
 Pomology and destruction — Non-fulfillment 
 
 not violation of law, 1636. 
 Poor man and rich helper — Faith without 
 knowledge, 2009. 
 man's garret, fields, or church — Rest of 
 Sabbath worship, 2044. 
 Poorhouse — Vicarious penalty, 915. 
 Populace and Jesus — Shallow discipleship, 
 
 1654. 
 Popular elevation ; class-privilege — Value 
 
 and peril of priesthood, 2 171. 
 Porcelain decoration — Beautifying of char- 
 acter, 73. 
 in biscuit — Childhood time for im- 
 pressions, 30. 
 
 Portrait almost like original — Morality in- 
 complete, 1025. 
 of angel— Self-recognition, 433. 
 painting — Human imperfection, 1637. 
 without head— Morality without spirit- 
 uality, 1025. 
 Portraits, partial — Fragmentary reading 
 
 of Gospels, 1225. 
 Post-office, sorting letters in — Law in 
 
 world's tumult, 2535. 
 Potato vines in cellar — Longing for God, 
 
 1088. 
 Potatoes, first use of — Ignorance of Bible 
 
 promises, 1854. 
 Pots here, freely in other life — Human 
 
 growth, 2492. 
 Potsherds behind pottery — Public life ruin- 
 ing young men, 991. 
 Potter and clay — God interrogated by 
 
 intelligence, 11 26. 
 Poultice on bruise — Sympathy of heart, 
 
 880. 
 Powder — Jewish fanatical patriotism, 2512. 
 — Latent sin, 1399. 
 — The tongue, 783. 
 — Wealth, 594. 
 Prairie and seeds — Indolent man ready for 
 temptation, 1377. 
 lost and found on the — God's rejoic- 
 ing over rescued souls, 1158. 
 Prairie-fire — Irregular habits and im- 
 morality, 59. 
 
 — Resist beginnings, 58. 
 Preacher — Baby teaching lessons, 3. 
 
 — Condition of faculties for work, 
 388. 
 Precious stones, beauty of — The Beati- 
 tudes, 1931. 
 Precipice— Yes, 1376. 
 Premium on character — Commercial credit, 
 
 900. 
 Presbytery and responsibility — Church 
 
 councils and authorities, 2157. 
 Priestess, a natural — Woman to pray in 
 
 prayer-meeting, 2122. 
 Printer's unimportant error on chart — 
 
 Biblical inaccuracies, 1888. 
 Prison, man in — Unbeliever in immor- 
 tality, 320. 
 release from — Bad habits broken, 
 
 1432- 
 Problem requires all its figures — Faculties 
 
 all needed, 450. 
 Prodigal, return of — Recognized fatherly 
 
 love, 149. 
 son — Prayer of the wicked, 1824. 
 Prodigality in abundance — Wealth in 
 
 poverty, 642. 
 Profanity before minister — Confessed 
 
 Christianity a safeguard, 2089. 
 
626 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Profession, a, gained by cilucatiou — l.ifc, 
 927. 
 cnterinf; a — Conversion a study of 
 Cliiistian living, 157S. 
 
 Promontories and tide — Temptation to be 
 lied before it comes, 1364. 
 
 Property not vital — A " ruined " man, 702. 
 
 Proverbs and f^hilosophy — Compliments 
 and praise, 947. 
 ubiquity of — The power of good phras- 
 ing. 2443- 
 
 Pruaiag, awaiting result of — Patience in 
 obedience, 1621. 
 knife — Sorrow, 237. 
 
 methods of — Disagreement without 
 quarrel, 926. 
 
 Psalms — Praise lightens trouble, 242. 
 
 Public assemblies — Humor friend of con- 
 science, 1336. 
 
 Puddle and flowing stream — Duty of 
 activity, 536. 
 
 Puff-ball and prince — Character test of 
 success, 622. 
 
 Pump from bad well — Society to control 
 private conduct, 921. 
 or spring — Giving stingily or freely, 
 2385. 
 
 Puppet made perfect — Man to grow per- 
 fect, 76. 
 
 Puritan Protestantism — Principles of, 
 2156. 
 
 Purple or drab — Quality interior not ex- 
 terior, 603. 
 
 Pyramid — Effect of Lincoln's death on 
 government, 982, 
 
 — Spiritual nature of the unspiritual, 
 1016. 
 
 Quagmire warning — Trouble as a guide, 
 
 663. 
 Quaker and fiery abolitionist — Speaking 
 
 truth in love, 925. 
 Quakers — Meek possessing the earth, 
 
 1507. 
 Quarreling children — Conversion not to be 
 
 reluctant, 1572. 
 Quarrying budding material from self — 
 
 Narrow conceit, 2267. 
 Quartz-crushers — Energetic natures, 452. 
 Quicksilver-ore in smelting-furnace — Prof- 
 itable losses, 707. 
 Quinine, discove:-y of — Nature's wealth to 
 
 be found out, 2562. 
 
 Rabbis and Jesus — Scholastic prejudice 
 
 rejecting truth, 2433. 
 Rags and nakedness — Morality better than 
 
 nothing, 1028. 
 Railway car the vehicle, not the person — 
 
 Death is of the body, 309. 
 
 Railway oi)eration — Necessary labors on 
 Sunday, 2047. 
 
 switch — ("ritical decisions, 1469. 
 
 wreck — Orthodoxy and Unitarian Sun- 
 day-schools, 2147. 
 Raiment growing shabby — Moral deterio- 
 ration, 722. 
 
 no moral distinction — Goodness and 
 badness interior, 15 12. 
 Rain and rainbow — Discomfort glorified, 
 666. 
 
 clouds to make crops — The preacher a 
 talker, 2289. 
 
 cold, late, checking vegetation — Sorrow 
 paralyzing the soul, 248. 
 
 early, stimulates vegetation — Wedded 
 love changes emotion to action, 127. 
 
 efficiency of — Power of the weak, 520. 
 
 turned to ice — Tearless grief, 224. 
 
 vegetation — Unforeseen effects, 
 
 1327- 
 
 versus storm — Simple pleasure best, 498. 
 Rainbow and storm-cloud — Love and 
 
 hatred, 1780. 
 Ramparts around city — Public law, 1203. 
 Raphael, a, demonstrable only to art lover 
 
 — Agnosticism natural, 11 12. 
 children of — Youth ashamed of saintly 
 
 parents, 63. 
 
 — Indirect influence, 2439. 
 school of — School of Christ, 1722. 
 Transfiguration of, copying — True self- 
 examination, 1665. 
 Rash upon the skin — Sacred heats of 
 
 Pharisees, 758. 
 Rasps that wear off the skin — Harm of 
 
 profanity, 946. 
 Rat-hole stopped — Perseverance in self- 
 cleansing, 1 54 1. 
 Raw material unmanufactured — Untrained 
 
 church members, 2105. 
 Razor without a handle — Brain-power 
 
 without health, 195. 
 Realm, invisible, of joy — Persecuted for 
 
 righteousness, 659. 
 Reaping and sowing — Reputation and 
 
 character, 897. 
 Reason, historical development of human 
 
 — Ages to come, 345. 
 Rebekah and Isaac — Counterparts in mar- 
 riage, 116. 
 Reckless son asking money for debt — 
 
 Prayer under pressure, 1819. 
 Recruit in army — Enduring hardness, 692. 
 Reeling in by the line of love — Tenacity of 
 
 home-influence, 692. 
 Religious phraseology — Strong talk for 
 
 strong feeling, 1498. 
 Remedy and patient — Discrimination in 
 
 preaching, 2329. 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 627 
 
 Remorse in morals— Illness punishment 
 for violated physical law, 216. 
 
 Reports, reckless— Heedless judgments, 
 779- 
 
 Reservoir become frog-pond — Money un- 
 used, 595. 
 for Erie canal — Conscience as sense 
 of duty, 1343. 
 
 Rest — American public amusements, 999. 
 
 Revivals of relij^ion — 1-ife inspires life, 
 S91. 
 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua — Eternity the back- 
 {jround of life, 314. 
 
 Rhododendrons— Growth solidified, 1702. 
 
 Richest man in New York — Writer of 
 great hymns, 2069. 
 
 Rifle and game — Institutions valued for 
 their effect, 2170. 
 
 Ripples — Feeling in shallow natures, 415. 
 
 River and canal — High and low civi- 
 lization, 987. 
 boom — P'orce of example, 866. 
 broadening of a — Teachings of Jesus, 
 
 1239. 
 drops of — Multiplicity of thoughts, 391. 
 rill, and — Beginnings of character, 
 
 899. 
 
 floods, houses wrecked in — Life on too 
 low a plane, 685. 
 
 increasing to sea — Christian life, 1713. 
 
 industrial, full to ocean — Work in age, 
 278. 
 
 of death bridged by successive bereave- 
 ments — Engineers, 306. 
 life — Wedded love, 109. 
 
 wears boulders smooth — Social polish, 
 
 831. 
 
 Rivet inseparable — Love God AND neigh- 
 bor, 1468. 
 
 Road easiest, to heavenly gate — Liturgical 
 or extempore prayer, 181 2. 
 worn hard — Phrases of consolation, 
 247. 
 
 Robber baron — Manufacturing deceit, 
 
 lOII. 
 
 Robin on eggs — Revivals of religion 
 
 awaken life, 1551. 
 Rock and crystal — Body and soul, 652. 
 
 wax ; sun and frost — Prosperity and 
 adversity, 627. 
 gushing water in wilderness — Spon- 
 taneity of prophets, 1907. 
 Rocks, written on the — Divine law of 
 
 betterment, 2532. 
 Rockets — Brilliant sermons, 2292. 
 Rocky Mountains, crossing westward — 
 Democracy raises average of man- 
 kind, 2526. 
 Roll of niimortals — Lincoln's name on, 
 
 9^Z- 
 
 Roman Catholic Sisters of Mercy — Chris- 
 tianity judged by its fruits, 1734. 
 Roman idea of the State — Danger of labor- 
 unions, 930. 
 Rome gone but war remains — Slow growth 
 
 of Christ's peace, 2463. 
 Roof, glass or slate — Soul open to divine 
 
 influence, 1301. 
 Rooster — Orator's voice, 2298. 
 Root of David in true soil — Jesus in rock 
 sepulcher, 1253. 
 
 the tree — Spiritual truth always the 
 pulpit theme, 2340. 
 stem, blossoms, without fruit — Morality 
 partial, 1026. 
 
 and maturation — Three stages of 
 world-growth, 254. 
 Roots and branches — Man's strength and 
 woman's, 92. 
 
 grow deeper — Carelessness danger- 
 ous, 728, 
 growing, power of — Holy Spirit in man, 
 
 I3I4- 
 of literature — High results of com- 
 merce, 588. 
 seeking moisture — Women at the 
 sepulcher, 91. 
 Rose — Beauty of holiness, 1505. 
 
 cultivation — Spiritual culture, 1667. 
 fragrance — Method of Biblical inspira- 
 tion unimportant, 1867. 
 one, demands another — Goodness multi- 
 plies, 1671. 
 withered, for friend — Postponing the 
 new life, 1446. 
 Roses developed by culture — Responsive- 
 ness of children to care, 32. 
 feeble and healthy —Moral measure- 
 ments individual, 455. 
 Rottenness destroying cohesion — Greek 
 
 genius without morality, 2513. 
 Route, circuitous, Greece to New York — 
 
 Perils of future probation, 318. 
 Rowing up-stream — Obstacles to higher 
 
 life, 1692. 
 Rudder — The human will, 1458. 
 Rugs to wipe feet on — Children treated 
 
 without respect, 19. 
 Rust — Cares of life, 482. 
 Ruth, the book of — Sympathetic moods for 
 
 reading, 2450. 
 Rye — Virtues of slow growth, 48. 
 
 Sabbath difference between Hebrew and 
 Puritan — Joy sanctified, 499. 
 
 Sacrifice for friend — Learning God's na- 
 ture, 1790. 
 self, of mothers, ministers, etc. — Religion 
 jierennial, 1453. 
 
 Safe-lock — Self-consciousness, 763. 
 
(uS 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Safety-valves —I'.inupcan public amuse- 
 
 lucnts, 999. 
 Sahara — Indifterence, 1970. 
 
 ill soul — Relincmcnt not to be ex- 
 clusive, loSi. 
 Sails not all, but hull and freight also — 
 Society moves by average mass, 2493. 
 anchors — Good works, 1626. 
 spread to help current — Man moving 
 with the ages, 2542. 
 Saint in golden niche — Wealth with good- 
 ness, 597. 
 St. Peter's dome — Close of Romans VIII, 
 1942. 
 ascent of — Perseverance to the end, 
 1761. 
 Salt air east of Alleghanies — Tonic in- 
 fluence of woman, 90. 
 Same name, meal-hours, etc., in a town — 
 
 Church unity valueless, 2081. 
 Sand, house on, good in fair weather — 
 Trials test strength, 624. 
 Sahara of gold — Unsuccessful success, 
 612. 
 Sap rising in Spring — Popular intelligence, 
 
 2502. 
 Savonarola — Power of weakness allied 
 
 with God, 2356. 
 Scales of chemist — Christ's divinity meas- 
 ured by love not texts, 1281. 
 turning of — Critical decisions, 1469. 
 Scars, maiming, etc. — Physical retribution, 
 
 188. 
 Scavenger and sewer — Tongue and ear, 
 
 792. 
 School among colliers — Christian life be- 
 gins slowly, 1597. 
 going home from — Death, vacation 
 
 time, 310. 
 house not dwelling — The world not our 
 
 home, 336. 
 of life — Marriage permanent, according 
 
 to Jesus, 123. 
 to university — Death a grade, 288. 
 saloon disallowed near — Sunday saloon- 
 closing 2046. 
 Schoolmaster — Churchly forms valuable 
 according to effect, 2169. 
 
 — The Divine patience, 1195. 
 Science and husbandman — Holy Spirit and 
 the Church, 13 12. 
 modern, in Temple at Jerusalem — 
 
 A]50stolic arguments now, 2279. 
 the opener — Primitive revelation, 2229. 
 Scion from desirable tree — Starting aright 
 
 in Christian life, 1591. 
 Scorner at conversions — The soul in 
 
 danger, 2125. 
 Scott's " Lady of the Lake " — The peace- 
 ful spirit, 813. 
 
 Scribes and Pharisees -Religion without 
 
 sympathy is sin, 2095. 
 Scrubbing for neatness — Disturbances of 
 
 rclorm, 2372. 
 Sculpin — Empty greed, 575. 
 Sculptor, chisel of — Self-portraiture by 
 motive, 432. 
 clay of — The future, 1568. 
 
 work of — Divine fashioning of 
 man's glory, 1723. 
 great, for making image of man — Sur- 
 passed by man himself, 72. 
 with marble — God's dealing with men, 
 1643. 
 Sculpture — Suffering, God's shaping of 
 
 manhood, 647. 
 Sea, bathing in shore-waters of — Thoughts 
 of death, 290. 
 breezes over the, of death — Blessedness 
 
 of age, 273. 
 captain, a fiddling, and wreck — 
 
 Merrymaker and soul, 1406. 
 embarkation on stormy — Youth be- 
 ginning manhood, 45. 
 motion of, intermittent — Sorrow's vary- 
 ing moods, 240. 
 murmurs of — Desires of worldly heart, 
 
 1 106. 
 of sleep drowns a third of life — Use 
 
 through waste, 205. 
 ripples of, on undiscovered shore — 
 
 Motherhood forecastings, 129. 
 sand, handful of— Prayer-meeting dis- 
 closures not all, 21 18. 
 shore, names written on — Fame brief, 
 
 535- 
 sickness, and beauty of foreign lands — 
 Earth and heaven, 351. 
 
 avoiding— Equanimity to be learned, 
 1611. 
 voyage, discomforts of — Earthly sorrow 
 
 suggests heavenly joy, 238. 
 with mud at bottom — Imperfect He- 
 brews to be thanked for Bible, 
 1879. 
 Seasoning dish while cooking — Child- 
 training continuous not spasmodic, 
 10. 
 Seasons, development of — Growth of love 
 
 with years, 108. 
 Seat in street-car — Courtesy better than 
 catechism, 889. 
 walking-stick unopened — The unedu- 
 cated, 2426. 
 Secret tn^salUavce — Christ unconfessed, 
 
 1546. 
 Secretiveness — Sin, wrong use of right 
 
 faculties, 1386. 
 Seducer — Home ruined by evil temper, 
 171. 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 629 
 
 Seed — Seminal character of Bible, 1966. 
 dies to live — Truth crushed to earth, 661. 
 growing — Goodness needs Divine nour- 
 
 islnnent. 1690. 
 growth almost invariable — Man-growth 
 
 variable, 74. 
 in prepared ground — Temptation finds 
 
 welcome, 793. 
 of manhood — Childhood of Jesus, 1226. 
 planted — Vital force of liberty, 965. 
 sowing in mid-ocean — Seemingly un- 
 fruitful work, 526. 
 thorn-bush — Ugly words, 786. 
 Seeds, autumn-sown, spring-blossomed — 
 
 Death and resurrection, 265. 
 in different soils — Christian life in 
 
 various conditions, 1634. 
 of God — Tears, 159. 
 planted seek light — Sorrow bears germs 
 
 of joy, 222. 
 sown by wind — Vice easily propagated, 
 
 I377-. 
 sprout in darkness — Temptation works 
 
 in secret, 1378. 
 tropical, in temperate zone — Human 
 
 life to be developed hereafter, 327. 
 wind-sown — Heart-associations of life, 
 
 843- 
 watered with tears — Patient labor under 
 
 discouragement, 528. 
 See-saw of children — Overcome evil with 
 
 good, 950. 
 Self'Sacrifice and selfish lust — Christian 
 
 and pagan conception of deity, 1 256. 
 Sentinel awake to evil — Habits of hearing, 
 
 794. 
 Sepulcher as a sieve — Body to remain on 
 
 earth, 210. 
 Seraph — Love winged by faith and hope, 
 
 1800. 
 Serpent : lion — Repudiation more danger- 
 ous than war, 1006. 
 in soul — Man-hater no God-lover, 1796. 
 Serpents — Insidious sins, 1359. 
 Serving for gratitude and for pay — Love 
 
 and justice, 2252. 
 Severe parents — Self-government not from 
 
 over-government, 2427. 
 Sewer and scavenger — Ear and tongue, 
 
 792. 
 
 living in — Rejoicing in iniquity, 791. 
 Sex dyed in the wool — Woman's nature, 93. 
 Shadow — Reputation, 939. 
 
 of a people — Civil government, 956. 
 
 hawk — Mysterious powers of evil, 
 
 1351- 
 
 on the canvas — Saint Jose])h, 870. 
 throwing — Half truths, whole lies, 719. 
 worshiping one's — Own good deeds to 
 be forgotten, 1785. 
 
 Shadowy realm of feeling, murder in — 
 
 Purpose is crime, 1392. 
 Shakespeare and cobbler alike — Divine 
 measurements, 1 181. 
 
 living in other poets — Great minds stim- 
 ulating, 2438. 
 
 not the exhaustion of — Poetic in- 
 spiration, 2546. 
 
 supernaturalism of — Bible symbolism 
 not reducible to art-forms, 1902. 
 
 treatment of supersensuous — Lessons 
 from miracles, 1917. 
 
 Webster on — Most delightful parts of 
 Bible, 1968. 
 
 with history — Jesus with Solomon's 
 philosophy, 1925. 
 Sharp=shooter, hidden — Death certain and 
 
 uncertain, 289. 
 Shearing and weaving — Value measured 
 
 by quality of labor, 2496. 
 Sheaves garnered by angels — Sainthood in 
 
 poverty, 693. 
 Sheep, lost — Lost souls, 1562. 
 
 stealing from pastures — Mutual respect 
 of sects, 2162. 
 Shell and color of a dead thing — Super- 
 ficial manners, 848. 
 
 burst by the germ — Genius not to be 
 suppressed, 373. 
 Shepherd for wool — Self-seeking friend- 
 ship, 768. 
 Shield— No, 1376. 
 
 dimmed by needle pricks — Little faults 
 hide God, 714. 
 Ship, a beached-Man with health gone, 196. 
 
 anchor-chain of — Religion for time of 
 trouble, 1447. 
 
 anchored — Secret sins, 1396. 
 
 and steering-line — Variations from pur- 
 pose, 451. 
 
 captain — Faith is trust, 2008. 
 
 chronometer — Bible, man's regulator, 
 1868. 
 
 glorying in voyage of — Church partisan- 
 ship, 2155. 
 
 leaking seam of — Generosity in a 
 money-getter, 576. 
 
 magazine of — Moral danger unheeded, 
 1409. 
 
 master, the — Responsibility of neglect, 
 729. 
 
 in wreck — Fidelity, 820. 
 
 narrow, wide-spread sails — Sentiment 
 without ethics, 1450. 
 
 phosphorescent wake of — Happiness- 
 making, 502. 
 
 place for navigation — World place for 
 Christianity, 1721. 
 
 unanchored — Soul bestead by doubt, 
 1981. 
 
630 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Ship uiidci headway — Ulcsscdncssuf work, 
 
 552- 
 voyage in half-built — Life under difli- 
 
 cullies, -474- 
 well built — Durability of character, 469. 
 Shooting to learn to shoot — Voting to 
 
 learn to vote, 2424. 
 Shot missing its aim — Failures in ser- 
 mons, 2323. 
 Showers of rain — Transientness of ser- 
 mons, 2333. 
 Shuttles weaving future garments — 
 
 Events, 2481. 
 Sibboleth and Shibboleth — Doctrinal in- 
 tolerance, 2 1 89. 
 Slclc child refuses medicine — Resisting an- 
 swers to prayer, 1828. 
 men not yet cured — Church members 
 sinful not yet sanctified, 2097. 
 Slllc or tow — Quality interior not exterior, 
 603. 
 spinning to embroider own life — Selfish 
 
 superiority, 1736. 
 worm cocoon — Christian activity to con- 
 tinue, 1728. 
 worms — Fidelity in labor, 1737. 
 Silver-ore — Biblical allusions explained 
 
 by facts, 1S43. 
 Sinai and Calvary — Tunitive and healing 
 love, 140. 
 crags of — Early hardship, good fortune, 
 
 655- 
 Skating — Skimming, not reading the 
 
 Bible, 1856. 
 Skeleton and body — Doctrine and life, 
 
 2181. 
 Sketch, outline — Regeneration, 1540. 
 Skies tranquil, not brooding storms — 
 
 God's delicacy towards the repentant, 
 1202. 
 Skin connects with heart — Low things il- 
 lustrate loftiest, 2300. 
 Sky on morning after storm — Goblet with 
 
 wine of life, 1253. 
 Slavery, Hebrew and American — Social 
 
 relationshijjs changed, 853. 
 mutual — True friendship, 909. 
 Sleep, coming on of — Public life dulls 
 
 moral sense, 992. 
 Sleepy in church — People like priest, 
 
 22S5. 
 Sluggard wants riches not industry — Re- 
 sisting answers to prayer, 1828. 
 Small change of treason — Grumbling, 756. 
 Smallpox, spreading of — Theory of God's 
 
 creation of unsalvable men, 2213. 
 Smart-weed and flower — Gifts measured 
 
 by motives, 887. 
 Smiling dead on battlefield — Beautiful 
 
 surrender, 687. 
 
 Smoke ami sermons — Tliii\king in a murk, 
 
 395- 
 tamily in — Sulkiness a sin, 742. 
 from fireplace — Evil temper at home, 
 
 168. 
 of expiring wick — Querulous Christians, 
 1502. 
 passions, etc., aired out — Putting 
 house in order for death, 29. 
 Snake, horned — Meanness repulsive, 942. 
 Snowflakes and avalanche — Cumulative 
 
 transgressions, 1404. 
 Snowstorm — Public opinion, 873. 
 Snow with message of life — God's word 
 
 effective, 2561. 
 Sociable crowd at end of meeting — Prayer 
 
 gathering to sit close, 21 14. 
 Socrates and Hercules — Moral and phy- 
 sical courage, 473. 
 in Plato — Indirect influence more po- 
 tent than direct, 2439. 
 Sodom and Gomorrah — Corruption dis- 
 likes to be meddled with, 2364. 
 Soil, a fat, has weeds — Freedom more 
 fertile than restraint, 2346. 
 virgin — Disciples of Jesus, 1233, 
 Sojourner Truth and Fred'k Douglass — 
 
 Man's strength in God, 2028. 
 Soldier recounting petty camp-troubles — 
 
 Care not to be emphasized, 738. 
 Soldier's duty — Heroism in trouble, 674. 
 Solferino, after battle of — Men ready to be 
 
 helped, 2480, 
 Solomon's opinion — Conceit, 397. 
 
 temple, building of — High destiny of 
 humble work, 521. 
 Song sparrow and eagle — Preacher to be 
 
 himself, not imitation, 2275. 
 Son's communion with father — Prayer 
 
 spontaneous, 1816. 
 Soot in flues — Sin not hereditary, 139 1. 
 Sordidness judging sentiment — Disciples 
 
 and Mary Magdalene, 406. 
 Sore muscle — Tender places in hard na- 
 tures, 2320. 
 Soul's judgment-hall — Uncharitable judg- 
 ments, 938. 
 Soup and meat — Fiction and fact, 2446. 
 Southern gentlemen after Civil War — No- 
 bility in adversity, 676. 
 Sowing and gathering — No premiums to 
 laziness, 504. 
 
 reaping — Cause and effect, 1401. 
 Spark, blaze, fire — Enlargement of Chris- 
 tian life, 1645. 
 extinguished — Act of dying, 297. 
 from a flint — " Love at first sight," 114. 
 kindling prairie-fire — Power of a true 
 
 preacher, 2287. 
 of eternal life — Divine view of man, 2527. 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 631 
 
 spark on powder — Power of leiiiptatioii 
 in the soul, 1 350. 
 or oil — Habits of speaking, 804. 
 Sparta — Moral sense, taught and intuitive, 
 
 459- 
 Spears in battle — I's used by Paul's 
 
 egoism, 1946. 
 Spice and condiments — Works of fiction, 
 
 2447. 
 Spider in morning-glory — Evil always 
 
 evil, 1369. 
 Spiders in Parthenon cornices — Petty 
 
 errors in Bible, 1965. 
 Spider-web — Gambling saloon, 55. 
 
 and cordage — Dangers of smartness, 
 
 570- 
 
 snake — Power of repeated acts, 
 1405. 
 in window — Repeated faults dim moral 
 
 sight, 713. 
 revealed by dew — Unnoticed influence, 
 
 855- 
 Spinal marrow and brain — God's love root 
 
 of " advanced " theology, 2246. 
 Spirit, not old clothes — Apostolic quality, 
 2172. 
 of this world — Temptation of Jesus, 
 
 1231. 
 world, unhindered social power of — A 
 thought of the future, 341. 
 Sponge squeezed dry — Business and re- 
 ligious feeling, 584. 
 Sponges and oysters — Seclusion not re- 
 ligion, 547. 
 Spring changeableness — Sensitive chil- 
 dren, 33. 
 coming of, and summer — Triumph of 
 
 meekness, 1779. 
 in the forest — Young manhood, 46. 
 of water — Loving kindness, 1793. 
 — Sense of humor, 485. 
 — Soul's self-renewing power, 1078. 
 on frozen ground — Love of enemies, 
 
 1772. 
 or leaky pump — Giving freely or 
 
 stingily, 2385. 
 rock — Delicacy, 409, 
 stopping a — Spirit of freedom irre- 
 sistible, 966. 
 water, cupful of — Prayer-meeting dis- 
 closures not all, 21 18. 
 Springfield Armory, weapons in — Soul's 
 
 powers of evil, 734. 
 Springless and spring-wagon — Doctrines 
 
 old and new, 2227. 
 Spur — Fear, 1989. 
 
 for the mule — Preaching must be apt for 
 hearer, 2328. 
 Staclcing arms for soldier's dinner — Cast- 
 ing care on God too temporary, 1830. 
 
 Stairs — Kiunvlcil^e, transient, 1631. 
 
 gcjin^:; up — Elevation means eftbrt, 2489. 
 Stalactites and stalagmites — Spiritism and 
 
 spiritual longing, 1084. 
 Stalk, leaf, blossom — God's love to man 
 
 prophesies grandeur, 2487. 
 Stamp on wax — Christians not made in- 
 stantly, 1608. 
 Star ; firefly — Man of few talents, 358. 
 in firmament — Cheerful traits in religion, 
 
 500. 
 making — Origination of noble thought, 
 
 396. 
 morning — Silence of great events, 2502. 
 obversation by — Hours of vision, 1054. 
 of Bethlehem — New light from single 
 men, 2355. 
 
 goodness — A mother's memory, 
 
 Starlight — Human side of the atonement, 
 
 1290. 
 Stars — God's promises, 2031. 
 
 independent of astronomy — Immuta- 
 bility of Bible, 1913. 
 State boundaries in Europe and America 
 
 — Consciousness and realization, 1576. 
 Statue and packing-case — Man's spirit, 
 
 God's image, 362. 
 marred except chin — Human knowledge 
 
 fragmentary, 2194. 
 of man and lion — Sects misjudging each 
 
 other, 2149, 
 Statues in overwhelmed cities — Wealth 
 
 burying aspiration, 616. 
 Stature instantly increased — ^Conversion 
 
 not perfection, 1588. 
 Stays at home — Benevolence not enter- 
 prising, 2384. 
 Stealing an apple — Small transgressions 
 
 damage the soul, 735. 
 Steam and engine — Liberty needs means 
 
 of activity, 963. 
 Steamers, wet and dry — Surmounting 
 
 trouble, 484. 
 Steed, a — Reason, 1990. 
 
 reining in a — Patience in self-control, 
 
 421. 
 Steeds, awaiting bit and training — Human 
 
 faculties to be regulated, 430. 
 Steel making — Hardship makes strong 
 
 men, 656. 
 plate prepared for engraving — Trouble 
 
 softens the heart, 245. 
 Steeples without bells — " Great " sermons, 
 
 2286. 
 Stellar observation — Short prayers, 1S13. 
 Step of heaven light ; tread of earth heavy 
 
 — Happiness of immortality, 329. 
 Sticks, many for a fire — Men need men, 
 
 876. 
 
632 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Stilts, w.ilkiiij^ on^Tliis world aiul llic 
 olhor. 1555. 
 
 Stimulating drinks — Preaching to please, 
 2291. 
 
 Stock cxcliange — Trained perceptions, 
 366. 
 gambling — Coveting undue gains, 749. 
 
 Stoic anil Christian ideal manhood — 
 Tested by sutlering, S7. 
 
 Stomach as related to head — Furnace to 
 machine, 187. 
 restored by repentance and diet — Na- 
 ture's forgiveness limited, 189. 
 
 Stone, the white — Love-tokens, 353. 
 
 Storehouse — A book, 2436. 
 
 Storm cloud a portent not revelation — Ill- 
 ness of friend no time for resignation, 
 
 221. 
 
 ground made of future — Painful fore- 
 thought, 2005. 
 in summer cleanses — Just anger purities, 
 
 424. 
 pelting — Meekness positive patience 
 
 under provocation, 816. 
 sweeping the continent — Sorrow for 
 I-incoln's death, 246. 
 Storms — The passions, 1358. 
 Story to explode on striking — Percussion 
 
 bomb, 483. 
 Streams from joined drops — Unity to be 
 of spirit not thought, 2140. 
 obstructed — Reformation manifests evil, 
 
 1427. 
 obstruction in — Reforms arouse dis- 
 turbance, 2367. 
 self-cleansing — Duty of activity, 536. 
 to river — Discouragements in early 
 Christian life, 1621. 
 Street lamp in wind — Disfellowship of 
 
 real Cliristians impossible, 2159. 
 Strength increased — Divine lightening of 
 
 burdens, 17 11. 
 Struggles of bad men against vice — 
 
 I'rayer universal, 1823. 
 Stubble and mud in log-cabin — Humblest 
 
 church members useful, 20S3. 
 Studying sixteen hours a day — Infirmity 
 
 not sin, 1384. 
 Subsoil plow — Doctrinal preaching to be 
 
 practical, 2182. 
 Summer abundance — Soul enriched by 
 love, 1524. 
 as well as winter — Sacred dignity of re- 
 ligion, 1500. 
 brook run dry — Disappointment in wed- 
 lock, 119. 
 day, close of a stormy — A lovely old 
 
 age, 287. 
 forces — Formative influences of charac- 
 ter inconspicuous, 430. 
 
 Summer fmiii winter — Maiih of humanity 
 to selfgovernment, 2.(83. 
 
 in each growing thing — Divine spirit in 
 every soul, 1317. 
 
 insects — Uible infested by controversial- 
 ists, 1954. 
 
 memories in winter — Evanescence of 
 experience, 414. 
 
 storm rages and disappears — Dissolu- 
 tion of American armies, 984. 
 
 sun — ^Love in God productive, 1199. 
 
 thunder-shower — Spirit of beneficence, 
 I171. 
 
 thunderstorm — Great trouble has 
 cleansing power, 267. 
 
 warmth — God known by love, 1 107. 
 Sun and ail flowers — Preaching Christ in- 
 dividually, 1292. 
 
 blossoms — God's gracious bounty, 
 
 1 190. 
 frost — Prosperity and adversity, 627. 
 plant — Divine and human coopera- 
 tion, 1305. 
 
 bursting through clouds — Rejoicing 
 amid sorrow, 266. 
 
 chronometer set by the — Christ the only 
 guide, 1 26 1. 
 
 coloring objects — Love spontaneous, 
 1794. 
 
 despises nothing — All humanity to re- 
 ceive the Gospel, 2485. 
 
 doctor — Outdoor life, 197. 
 
 drawing forth vegetation — Divine love 
 for man, 2571. 
 
 evaporating sea — Attraction of God's 
 spirit, III. 
 
 father of energies — Symbol of Deity, 
 2560. 
 
 flower and its color — Native qualities 
 permanent, 450. 
 
 liglit and heat of — Love the atmosphere 
 of growth, 1604. 
 
 never weary of giving — God's prom- 
 ises, 2031. 
 
 of June or of October — Energy or mild- 
 ness of goodness, 434. 
 
 on Sahara and prairie — Revelation re- 
 quires receptivity, 1707. 
 
 strawberries — Power of Christ, 
 1265. 
 
 rising — Christ our hope, 1218. 
 
 set — The Apocalypse, 1951. 
 
 is sunrise elsewhere — Death be- 
 ginning of life, 309. 
 
 setting not rising — Hebrew view of 
 death, 302. 
 
 shines on all alike — Variety in preach- 
 ing, 2316. 
 
 shining in darkness — Business of church, 
 not selfpreservation, 2141. 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 633 
 
 Sun, talk of, to flowers— Christ's promise of 
 life, 1676. 
 to flowers — Holy Spirit to human hearts, 
 
 1297. 
 unclouded — Luminous natures, 1049. 
 water evaporated by — Attraction of 
 God, 2027. 
 Sunday (see also Sabbath) in author's boy- 
 hood — Should be a day of joy, 25. 
 Sunlight and window or cave — .Holy Spirit 
 universal but specialized, 1315. 
 generosity of — Free grace, 11 89. 
 in window — Friend in household, 1274. 
 on a plant — God's influence on man's 
 development, 1125. 
 
 individual blossom — Holy Spirit 
 and man, 1297. 
 Sunning one's spirit — Prayer, communion 
 
 with God, 1801. 
 Sunrise — The soul finding God, 1533. 
 Suns, planets, and satellites — God central 
 
 in human affairs, 1 164. 
 Sunshine — Dispositions vary, 807. 
 
 after cloud-shadow — Joy of the new life, 
 
 1600. 
 diff^erent effects of — Making use of God, 
 
 1 169. 
 in winter and summer — Prayer for 
 steady Divine influence, 1759. 
 Surf, beat of, on shores of eternity — 
 Thoughts about death, 290. 
 distant moan of — Sorrow sounds from 
 humanity, 209. 
 Surgeon amputating leg — Benevolence 
 requires force, 2397. 
 emotion of, in action — Practical sym- 
 pathy, 888. 
 not instrument-maker — Minister must 
 
 know human nature, 2282. 
 setting broken limb — Kindness of pain, 
 
 653- 
 
 Surgery — Love chastening for cure, 144. 
 
 Swallows and eagles — French and Greeks, 
 2514. 
 
 Swearing, habitual, reform of — Credit for 
 effort, 466. 
 
 Swim, learning to — The divine training, 
 675. 
 
 Swimming Charles River — Forward not 
 backward, 686. 
 for shore — ^Critical moments for reforma- 
 tion, 1414. 
 instead of sailing — Spiritual life without 
 God, 1460. 
 
 Swiss cottage in Alps— Unwise character- 
 building, 631. 
 
 Switch with the leaves on — Involved sen- 
 tences in oratory, 2298. 
 
 Sword — No, 1376. 
 and wreath — Power of love, 1 146. 
 
 Sword drawn — Wrong use of conscience, 
 1333. 
 of the Lord, using not forging — Preach- 
 ing not theology, 2354. 
 of warrior — Money not the man, 621. 
 red-hot — Theory of human ruin in 
 
 Adam's fall, 2214. 
 short, of every day — Lay preaching, 
 864. 
 Swords and pruning-hooks — War energies 
 used for peace, 25 11. 
 of God — The Puritans, 656. 
 Sympathy of moods — Spiritual contagion, 
 
 890. 
 Symphony, close of a — Old age, 285. 
 
 Tableau, not statement nor history — The 
 Apocalypse, 195 1. 
 
 Tan'barit — Time the best seasoner, 1639. 
 
 Tape-measure — Self-consciousness, 763. 
 
 Taper going out — Act of dying, 297, 
 
 Taste, ciuestions of, not debatable — Spirit- 
 ual discernment, 1063. 
 
 Tea, first use of — Ignorance of promises in 
 Bible, 1854. 
 
 Teacher cares for the dull — Love seeks the 
 low, 1770. 
 may be wrong, doctrine right — Preach- 
 ing and practice, 2308. 
 
 Telescope — The Bible, 1834. 
 
 — Tears, lenses that reveal God, 
 
 235- 
 — Tomb to reveal the infinite be- 
 yond, 244. 
 dimmed by breath — Little faults hide 
 
 God, 714. 
 lens, the correct — Seeing God through 
 
 purity, 1 1 24. 
 using — Conversion a change of method, 
 1561. 
 Telescopic power increasing — Growing 
 
 views of God, 2014. 
 Temper, hot, irritable — Training changes 
 
 use, not nature, 429. 
 Temperate Zone — Golden mean in prop- 
 erty, 591. 
 Tempering of steel — Affliction works qual- 
 ity of character, 657. 
 Temple of God cleared from sand-drift — 
 Theology restored by evolution, 2242. 
 defaced — Illness from abuse of 
 body, 217. 
 or hut for children — Sound body a pa- 
 rental obligation, 137. 
 Temptation described — Frugality, self- 
 government, 698. 
 Tenants in lodging-house — Inharmonious 
 
 faculties, 383. 
 Tendency in taste, education of — Prayer 
 without ceasing, 1815. 
 
^34 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Tenderloin, eating the — Reading with dis 
 crimination, 2449. 
 
 Tenement abandoned — Emptiness of unbe- 
 lief, 19S0. 
 
 Tennyson and micioscopy — Belief with 
 the heart, 403. 
 
 Teredo ; conllagration — Sins, little and 
 great, 1396. 
 
 Thanatopsls — Death disrobing, not for 
 sleep but glory, 330. 
 
 Theater — Emotion pernicious if not prac- 
 tical, 1497. 
 
 Thermometer — Moral judgment important, 
 1412. 
 — Vacillation of Christian desires, 
 
 — Susceptibility of man, 834. 
 Thievery a hard master — Dishonesty un- 
 profitable, 750. 
 Thieves, drunkards, godly men : starting 
 
 of children — Heredity, 41. 
 Thin-skinned and thick-skinned — Sen- 
 sitiveness, 777. 
 Thistle, smiting the — Persecution spread- 
 ing truth, 644. 
 down, chewing — Pantheistic God un- 
 satisfactory, 1 1 18. 
 Thorn-hedge — Violation of social law 
 
 punished, 852. 
 Thread, black in white web — Teasing, 
 784. 
 in needle — Friend in household, 1274. 
 rotten, in fabric — Social duty of health, 
 918. 
 Threshing out wheat — Right effect of 
 
 trouble, 628. 
 Throne, cold marble, or blazing with love 
 — God's unselfishness, 1139. 
 of iron; crystal; mystery; grace — In- 
 terpretation of God, 1219. 
 Thunder of summer shower — Love's anger, 
 
 145. 
 Thunderstorm, night, morning — Cruci- 
 fixion, tomb, resurrection, 1253. 
 Thunderstorms needed — Fanatical re- 
 formers bring up average unfaithful- 
 ness, 2380. 
 Ticket to heaven — Religion not mechanical, 
 
 1462. 
 Tide ebbing — Act of dying, 297. 
 favorable or opposite — Moods, 422. 
 filling bay — Divine love in the soul, 
 
 1748. 
 floats shoaled ship — Religious depth re- 
 lieves trouble, 1599. 
 in bay — Vacillation of Christian de- 
 sires, 1543. 
 scientists and moon on — Earthly and 
 heavenly power in reform, 1325. 
 Tides — Emotional extremes, 411. 
 
 Tides — Interchange of force, mental and 
 physical, 1073. 
 — The passions, 1358. 
 rising of the — Upward progress of 
 humanity, 2504. 
 Tied up with nots — Popular conception of 
 
 religion, 1483. 
 Timber not growing tree — Church mem- 
 bers with single creed, 21 10. 
 straightening crooked — Correcting 
 
 faults, 1650. 
 tests of different — Temptableness vari- 
 able, 1370. 
 under strain — Men provedby trials, 671. 
 Time-worn institutions not for to-day — 
 
 Mummies not men, 2223. 
 Tinder in certain faculties — Sensitiveness 
 
 to injury, 816. 
 Titian's pictures and pigments — Heaven in 
 
 earthly conceptions, 324. 
 Toadstool, not child, brought up on a 
 rock — Wholesomeness of society, 833. 
 Tonic, a moral — Fear, 1988. 
 Tools, chest of, unpacked — Ignorance and 
 education, 2427. 
 discussion of — Theologizing, 2178. 
 dull — Man's need of adversity, 629. 
 fine, badly used — Heedlessness, poor 
 
 thinking, 727. 
 to be sharpened — Recreation after work, 
 
 199. 
 
 work mahogany — Bible study needs 
 better instruments, 1952. 
 unused — Child's faculties, 8. 
 Tooth-drawing — Getting gifts from the 
 grudging, 2390. 
 
 — Imaginary troubles the worst, 
 682. 
 Torch, a guiding — Wit, 482. 
 
 flame in open air — Variable Christian 
 
 feeling, 213 1. 
 lighted, in wind — Living aright, diflfi- 
 cult, 839. 
 Torpedo-mines in war — Danger-signals in 
 crooked business, 569. 
 unexploded — Combative disposition 
 
 75»- 
 Touchstone — God's child hears God's 
 
 words, 1067. 
 Tow and rope — Torpid nerves, small en- 
 joyment, 444. 
 Townsfolk all one name, meal-hour, etc. 
 
 — Church unity valueless, 2081. 
 Trade to be learned — Life, 927. 
 Train laid by prayer, fired by life — Prayer 
 
 interpreting God, 1809. 
 Training not goading animals — Preaching 
 
 through love not fear, 2251. 
 Tramp l>eggar, the — Help better than 
 
 almsgiving, 2408. 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 ^35 
 
 Traveler changing direction — Conversion 
 turning aright, 1587. 
 
 in storm — Love beareth all things, 829. 
 
 interrupted views of — Spiritual moods, 
 1056. 
 
 over bad roads — Church members, 2071. 
 Treachery in the fort — Inconspicuous 
 
 temptations, 137 1. 
 Treason in the fortress — Infidelity in mar- 
 riage, 122. 
 Treasure misspent — Youthful excesses, 60. 
 
 not diamond — Faith universal not single, 
 2010. 
 Tree bark-bound — Soul torpidity fosters 
 disease, 1663. 
 
 culture — Education changes size but not 
 sort, 2412. 
 
 disbranched — Losses of old age, 279. 
 
 easily trained in youth — Childhood con- 
 versions, 37. 
 
 expansion of — The world's growth, 2469. 
 
 fall of huge, in forest — Generous dread 
 of bankruptcy, 560. 
 
 grown crooked — Bad habits hard to 
 change, 62. 
 
 healing its wound — Restorative power 
 of good, 2567. 
 
 in forest — Limitations of society, 836. 
 and in clearing — Social solidarity, 
 875. 
 
 overgrowing injury — God's forgiveness 
 remedial, 1206. 
 
 quick wrecking and slow decay — Sud- 
 den death a blessing, 313. 
 
 rooted in uncleanness — Hypocrisy, 769. 
 
 sudden fall of old decayed — Violation of 
 law punished, 190. 
 
 tough-growing — Sources of people's 
 strength, 962. 
 
 transplanted in spring — Misfits in life, 
 
 579- 
 trunk needed for fruit — Worth of the 
 
 church, 2175. 
 varied aspects, to lumberman, poet, 
 
 botanist, etc. — Man, 77. 
 with buds, blossoms, and ripened fruit 
 
 — Perseverance in well doing, 1603. 
 one root — Rich man without gen- 
 eral sympathy, 604. 
 worn-out fruit — Degenerated ideals in 
 
 age, 281. 
 Trees — Description, 2584. 
 
 along Hudson River — Righteousness 
 
 thrives, 15 14. 
 dropping ripe apples — Fruitful lives, 
 
 1530. 
 girdled — Sin destroys great natures, 
 
 1417. 
 old — Life of man associated with nature, 
 
 2578. 
 
 Trees put forth their own nature — Men, 
 2274. 
 resurrection of, eveiy spring — Born 
 
 again, and again, 1595. 
 roughness of — Literary carelessness of 
 
 the Bible, 1847. 
 varied in height — Democracy starts all 
 on same level, 971. 
 Trellis for grape-vine — Ritual not vital, 
 
 2053- 
 
 Triangle for wheel — Sincerity and wrong 
 belief, 1977. 
 
 Tribune or Times — Gospel-life of Christ 
 to be read entire, 1919. 
 
 Trip-hammer — Unsocial temper, 755. 
 
 Triumph of ancient victor — " Abundant 
 entrance " into heaven, 325. 
 
 Tropical fruits and climate — Virtue de- 
 pendent on love, 1757. 
 
 Trough of sea, wave-crest — Adversity tests 
 friendship, 672. 
 
 Truce with enemy — Lenten intermission 
 of sin, 1410. 
 
 Trust in the pilot — Faith in God, 2023, 
 
 Trumpet-calls to sleeping warriors — 
 Hymns, 2063. 
 
 Trumpeter and soldier — Pulpit and pew, 
 2280. 
 
 Trumpets, 400,000 angelic, no good — Or- 
 dination by nature, 2277. 
 
 Trunk lock picked, things unpacked — 
 Science discovering truth, 2538. 
 
 Truth-telling and lying — Laws of life gen- 
 erally obeyed, 1037. 
 
 Trying on garments — Testing sinfulness by 
 Christ, 1569. 
 
 Tulip-tree with blossoms — Popular refine- 
 ment, 2494. 
 
 Tumbler, cracked — Broken friendship, 
 910. 
 
 Tuning-fork — Heaven, standard for earth, 
 
 1754. 
 room of orchestra — This world a prepa- 
 ration, 1677. 
 
 Turf plowed up for seed — Reforms pre- 
 ceded by agitation, 2369. 
 
 Turkey-buzzards — Faultfinders, 778. 
 
 Turkey walking and flying — Reason and 
 faith, 2029. 
 
 Turkeys trapped — Small faults baits for 
 larger ones, 772. 
 
 Twilight and sunrise — Fear and hope, 
 1997. 
 of dawn — Angelic ministration to Jesus, 
 1921. 
 
 Twins — Doubt and faith, 19S5. 
 
 Tyndale, Scripture translation by — New 
 truth by single men, 2358. 
 
 Tyodall, experiment on light-spectrum — 
 God passes comprehension, 1 109. 
 
f.36 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Typesetter — Automatic virtue, 1681. 
 Typesetting exemplified — Doctrines 
 
 proved by trial, 2221. 
 
 Ulysses — Moral sense, taught and intuitive, 
 
 459. 
 Under-shot and over-shot wheel — Degrees 
 
 of health, 183. 
 tow of waves — God's promises sincere, 
 
 1 2 10. 
 on seashore — Almost saved from 
 temptation, 14 1 5. 
 Unfenced jwtalo-patch — Christian life out- 
 side ciuircli, 2076. 
 United States citizenship — Interchange of 
 
 churcli membersliip, 2165. 
 University — Life an education, 1466. 
 Unsounded cave-depths — Future of wicked 
 
 unknown, 2219. 
 Up'tiill is down-hill — Approach to God 
 
 easy, 1203. 
 Upward fall — The fall of man, 221 1. 
 
 Valetudinarian — Half-hearted religion, 
 
 492. 
 Valley, a lovely, after battle — Bible of 
 
 conflict, 1959. 
 Valleys among mountains — Beauties of 
 
 Old Testament, 1877. 
 without, no mountains — Poor sermons, 
 
 2276. 
 Vapor, clouds, rain — Interplay of human 
 
 forces, 2467. 
 Varied methods enrich the church — Public 
 
 prayer to be natural, 21 18. 
 Vase from artist-potter — Fasliioned by 
 
 Christ, 1270. 
 with water for flowers — Church a sus- 
 
 tainer of Cliristian life, 2135. 
 Vassar College — Wise giving, 2401. 
 Vaudois — (jlory out of obscurity, 657. 
 Vegetable and animal nature — Social 
 
 interdependence, 832. 
 kingdom needs all vegetal growtli — All 
 
 churches form the Churcli, 2144. 
 nature reproduces its kind — xMoods in 
 
 home-training, 138. 
 Veil for shelter — Secretiveness, 1386. 
 Vermin in dark places — Dangers of ig- 
 norance, 990. 
 View from Mt. Washington — Times of the 
 
 Patriarchs, 1892. 
 Village, run-down — Preaching and public 
 
 spirit, 969. 
 Vine and trellis — Reputation and social 
 
 connections, 903. 
 clinging and climbing — Aspiration, 
 
 1057. 
 formed on tree — Experience fashions 
 
 ideals of Christ, 1263. 
 
 Vine in Labrador and in South — Heavenly 
 growth completes earthly, 1057. 
 throws out tendrils — Negro dependent, 
 2518. 
 Vines and grapes— Test of instrumentalities, 
 
 2153- 
 girdling tree — Perils of prosperity, 611. 
 on the home — Church lineage interest- 
 ing, not vital, 2136. 
 twining about each other — Early mar- 
 riages, III. 
 Viol string, no discord from slack — Meek- 
 ness not unprovokableness, 1751. 
 Violation of trust — Carelessness criminal, 
 
 728. 
 Violence and strength — Beneficence of ad- 
 versity, 638. 
 Violet's perfume for others — Divine im- 
 pulse of love, 1 172. 
 Violin a true, makes others discordant — 
 Reformers, 2368. 
 decorated — Happiness interior not ex- 
 ternal, 488. 
 kept at concert pitch — Recreation neg- 
 lected, 585. 
 learning the — Spiritual skill gained by 
 
 self-denial, 16 14. 
 playing — Christian training, 1633. 
 untuned — Concordant faculties for Chris- 
 tian life, 171 1. 
 with bow hung up — Transient religious 
 feeling, 1487. 
 Violinist's knowledge of strings — Jesus' 
 
 knowledge of man, 1242. 
 Vision, dazzling made definite — Hope and 
 experience, 2001. 
 times of, giving landmarks — Doubt il- 
 luminated, 1986. 
 Vital force in body — Christianity a divine 
 incitement, 1308. 
 functions specified — All agreeable, 
 185. 
 Voice of millions of men — Silence of bal- 
 lot, 975. 
 Volcanic conditions — Social unrest in 
 Europe, 998. 
 fires — Lustful passion, 425. 
 Volcano crater — Knowledge of evil life, 
 
 1366. 
 Voltaire — Removing obstructions to truth, 
 
 1974. 
 Volume printed — Man's endless talking, 
 
 781. 
 Voyage for sake of coming joy — Bearing 
 present troubles, 690. 
 
 Walking and flying — Science and senti- 
 ment, 2038. 
 instinct in — Spontaneity of conscience, 
 ^339- 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 637 
 
 Walking stool for children — Miracles for 
 early education, 2142. 
 to California — Christian life easiest in 
 church, 2087. 
 Wall — Refinement not to be exclusive, 
 1081. 
 for defence — Secretiveness, 1386. 
 high, of garden — Doctrine of total de- 
 pravity hiding God, 2249. 
 woman built in — Gold-gatherers self- 
 immured, 615. 
 Walls — Customs restrain conduct, 1440. 
 Wall Street and Trinity — Market and 
 
 Church, 539. 
 War-horse, old — Lyman Beecher, 505. 
 wounds and scars of — Biblical contro- 
 versy hurtful, 1955. 
 Warm house one blanket, cold house three 
 
 — Sabbath needed by poor, 2042. 
 Warmth and coolness of spirit — Fervency 
 
 effective, 435. 
 Warts on tongue — Slang, 790. 
 Washing of body and of soul — Baptism 
 declaratory not active, 2137. 
 of feet — Lowly service, 1768. 
 off filth — Repentance and reformation, 
 1421. 
 Washington and Burr — Superiority of 
 moral element, 463. 
 as president — American soldiers in civil 
 
 office, 988. 
 face of — Character and countenance, 
 
 895. 
 
 farewell letter of — Deuteronomy, 1897. 
 Watch and watch-making machinery — 
 Greater evidence of design, 11 28. 
 destroying a — Varieties of evil-doing, 
 
 1395- 
 maker — Admiration not love, 1224. 
 making — The world a place of prepara- 
 tion, 2476. 
 spring — The inward life, 1066. 
 stopped to see if it goes — Microscopic 
 
 conscience, 1337. 
 to tell time by — World good for its pur- 
 pose, 546. 
 ungathered parts of — Life in this world 
 unfinished, 2477. 
 Watches unregulated — False ideals, 538. 
 Watchmaker seeking right tool — Finding 
 
 sermon-subject, 2318. 
 Watchman not asleep — Heavenly wel- 
 come, 326. 
 Water; artificial drinks — Common-sense 
 better than uncommon, 360. 
 bearing boats — Church organ music and 
 
 congregation, 2060. 
 drops and ocean — Individuals and com- 
 munity, 874. 
 
 in river levee — Petty cheating, 747. 
 
 Water fowl, swimming, walking, flying — 
 Grades of motive in conduct, 458. 
 
 from mist to ocean — Power of weak 
 things in combination, 2501. 
 
 in well-plumbed house — Spontaneous 
 virtue, i486. 
 
 logged timbers — Anxiety may paralyze, 
 
 739. 
 power and mill — God the mover, man 
 
 the actor, 436. 
 purified by activity — Health, 179. 
 Watering-pot not Niagara — Equality of 
 poor and good workman impossible, 
 2497. 
 Wave changes shore — Life affects soul, 
 
 357- 
 crest, trough of sea — Adversity tests 
 friendship, 672. 
 Wayside blossoms — Environment not all, 
 
 662. 
 Wax and rock ; sun and frost — Prosperity 
 and adversity, 627. 
 softened by fire — Hearts under afflic- 
 tion, 227. 
 Weak of the army — Falling by the way in 
 
 humanity's march, 2533. 
 Weather, clear or cloudy — Condition for 
 
 work, 388. 
 Weathercocks and their upright rods — 
 
 Human and divine guidance, 2015. 
 Weaving, flaw in the — Duty and destiny, 
 446, 
 permanent patterns of — Mother's influ- 
 ence, 139. 
 Web of insincerity, thread of truth — Flat- 
 tery, 772. 
 
 spider and of silk-worm — Uses of 
 refinement, 849. 
 woven — Nature of character, 892, 
 Wedges single — Single instances, 1725. 
 Weed poisonous self-sowing — Propagation 
 
 of evil, 1424, 
 Weeds amid crops — Religious fervor to be 
 regulated, 1 501. 
 in rich soils — Faults in full natures, 404. 
 kept down — Avoidance of evil, nega- 
 tive, 1029. 
 Webster on Shakespeare — Most delightful 
 
 parts of Bible, 1968. 
 Weeping willows — Seekers of suffering, 
 
 1994. 
 Weighing sugar and coffee — Equivalent 
 
 theory of heaven, 1467. 
 Weights on scale — Christian choice im- 
 mediate, 1574. 
 Well bought goods half-sold — Heredity to 
 be more studied, 2464. 
 digging — God's severe dealings, 677. 
 never dry — Mother's heart, 147. 
 Wellesley College — Wise giving, 2401. 
 
638 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Wells in desert; cup of water — Heavenly 
 reward, 340. 
 quickly dug — Sudden intimacies shallow, 
 908. 
 Wesley, John and Charles — Humble be- 
 ginnings of greatness, 643. 
 
 — Sleep not gauged by other's 
 needs, 205. 
 and the English Church — Primitive 
 
 Christianity and Judaism, 2133. 
 revolt against bishop — New truth from 
 single men, 2355. 
 Whatsoever things are true — Scientific 
 
 truth is Christian, 2456. 
 Wheat and chaff — Equality of all wages 
 absurd, 2498. 
 from old straw — Sermon on the Mount, 
 
 2228. 
 growing on straw — Biblical truths of 
 
 inspiration, 1876. 
 in the grass — Morality a beginning, 
 
 1024. 
 thrown away, chaff eaten — Rejecting 
 New Testament miracles, 19 16. 
 Wheelbarrow, wagon — Material improve- 
 ments Christian, 2466. 
 Whetstones, God's — Dangers of wealth, 
 
 601. 
 Whip of scorpions — Creed used for dis- 
 cipline, 2185. 
 syllabub of life — Novels, 2445. 
 Whipped child kissing mother — Prayer of 
 
 duty, 1817. 
 Whipping boy with clothes on — Tempered 
 
 affliction, 667. 
 Whirlpool — Dissipation increasingly dan- 
 gerous, 61. 
 Whirlwind — Selfishness and love in con- 
 flict, 1786. 
 under law — Orderly disorder in world, 
 
 2534- 
 
 White Mountains, summit of — Silences of 
 New Testament, 1918. 
 
 Whittling pine and lignum vitse — Sym- 
 pathy seeks the needy, 1770. 
 
 Wick just kindled — Spiritual life begins 
 uncertainly, 1598. 
 
 Widow's mites — Genuine benevolence in- 
 fluential, 2406. 
 
 — Gifts of love lasting, 2407. 
 
 Wife faithful, husband faithless — Per- 
 sistence of love, 1788. 
 newly married — Geniality in Christian 
 life, 1579. 
 
 Wild beasts in dark recesses — Paseions to 
 be avoided, 1361. 
 boar desolating garden — Conflicts over 
 Bible, 1957. 
 
 Wilderness— Unbelief, 1970. 
 
 Wildfire — Speaking evil, 787, 
 
 Wilding pear set in garden — Good man 
 
 bettered in church, 2077. 
 Will and won't — Elect and non-elect, 2204. 
 Willow brancli rooting in own soil — Child 
 
 well brought up, 154. 
 Wilson, Henry, shoemaker and senator — 
 
 Greatmindedncss in humble callings, 
 
 50. 
 Winchester Cathedral — The Bible's asso- 
 ciations, 1844. 
 orders of architecture in — Biblical unity 
 
 in diversity, 1961. 
 Wind for cockle-boat and ship — Needless 
 
 talk, 780. 
 in malarial regions — Freedom of speech, 
 
 2374- 
 less, more sails — Impulses towards 
 
 Christian life, 1548. 
 northeast — Dispositions vary, 807. 
 sowing seeds on prairie — Temptation 
 seeks the lazy, 1377. 
 Window darkened by spider-webs — Truth 
 obscured by dull preaching, 2304. 
 finer than furniture — Spiritual views 
 
 from New Testament, 19 14. 
 light shut out — Preaching without imag- 
 ination, 2314. 
 vision through — Holy Spirit works 
 through man, 1313. 
 Windows —Books, 2335. 
 
 painted — Symbolism of worship in repe- 
 tition, 2052. 
 towards heaven — Troubles, 639. 
 Wine forcing cork from bottle — Prayer 
 from emotion, 1808. 
 of being — Power of personality, 868. 
 strong, diluted for drinking — Jesus' 
 teaching humanized by apostles, 
 1240. 
 turned to vinegar — Character soured in 
 age, 275. 
 Wings — Emotional effect of hymns, 1496. 
 — Church singing, 2068. 
 of angels — Man's access to God, 1142. 
 Winnowing machine and wind — Spiritual 
 
 life subject to natural law, 1672. 
 
 Winter and spring on fertile land — Life 
 
 without and with religion, 1442. 
 
 defied by New England boy — Braving 
 
 trouble, 648. 
 
 Wistaria — Aspiration undeveloped, 1085. 
 
 Wit recognized by mirthfulness — Feeling 
 
 before reason, 407. 
 Wood for shelter or pleasure — Classes for 
 use not mastery, 933. 
 thrush in grove — Solitude, 841. 
 Wool growing, spinning, and weaving — 
 Providence and natural law, 1166. 
 sheep's, in royal robe — Suffering means 
 elevation, 259. 
 
WITH THOUGHTS 
 
 639 
 
 Woolsey, Miss — Woman's servitude in 
 love, a glory, 97. 
 
 Word associations vary — Unity of worship 
 impossible, 2054. 
 
 Work measured by wages — Love measured 
 by love, 115. 
 
 Workman, the happy — Power of cheerful- 
 ness, 486. 
 
 World forces — External helpful pulpit in- 
 fluences, 2338. 
 
 Worldly pursuits — External harmful pulpit 
 influences, 2339. 
 
 Worm-eaten ship — Corruption in public 
 affairs, 1007. 
 
 Worms at wine-cask — Small meannesses 
 empty the heart, 716. 
 
 Worry — Rust on the blade, 1992. 
 about bread — Baker, 625. 
 needless — Hills ahead, but slight as- 
 cents, 743. 
 
 Wrecked manner — Christian help at crit- 
 ical time, 2086. 
 
 Wrecker's boat saving few — Christianity 
 
 aims to save humanity, 2543. 
 Write, boy learning to — Transgression as 
 education, 2432. 
 learning to — iSclf-righteousness sign of 
 low attainment, 1628. 
 
 — Training in righteousness, 1624. 
 
 Yachts and war-ships — City missions and 
 
 churches, 2093. 
 Yard not measure of prayer — Quality not 
 
 quantity, 1813. 
 Year, the, a cyclopedia of beauty — The 
 
 beauty-revealing God, 2570. 
 Yeast — Temptation works in secrecy, 
 
 1378. 
 
 Zero — Extremes and means in morals, 445. 
 man born at, in everything — No original 
 sin or righteousness, 2215. 
 
INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 Abandoning Beliefs, Danger in, 1979. 
 " Abhor That Which is Evil," 1379. 
 Abiding Influence of Christ, 1259. 
 
 Joy, 1746. 
 Abstract Doctrine, Concrete Truth Bet- 
 ter than, 2305. 
 Abundant Entrance Into Heaven, 325. 
 Achievement Demands Further Achieve- 
 ment, 478. 
 
 Happiness in, 552. 
 Measure of, 455. 
 Act of Dying, the, 297. 
 Action a Health-Giver, 179. 
 Emotion in, 442. 
 Feeling in, 127. 
 Active and Passive Evil, 922. 
 Activity, Duty of, 536. 
 
 of Christian Faith, 2026. 
 Outruns Trouble, 555. 
 Quality in, 548. 
 the Condition of Vitality, 1606. 
 Adam as a Type, 70. 
 
 Responsibility for, 2212. 
 Scriptural Treatment of, 2210. 
 Adaptation to the Times, 2279. 
 Admiration, Nobleness Compels, 867. 
 
 not Love, 1224. 
 Adoption, Grounds of, 1571. 
 Advance of Truth by Science, 2538. 
 Advantage in Organized Charity, 2403. 
 Adversity, 633. 
 
 and Prosperity, 627, 
 Beneficence of, 638. 
 Heroes of, 640. 
 Man's Need of, 629. 
 Nobility in, 676. 
 Recuperation under, 669. 
 Sweetness after, 635. 
 in, 691. 
 Affinity and Benevolence, 2391. 
 Affliction and Its Comfort, 239. 
 Fire of, 651. 
 Joy in, 224. 
 Age, Approach of, 283. 
 Blessedness of, 273. 
 Ages to Come, the, 2507. 
 
 Upward Movement of the, 2542. 
 Agreement as to Vital Elements, 1889. 
 Aggressiveness, 754. 
 Agnosticism, 1112. 
 Alcoholic Drinking, Danger of, 1374. 
 
 All Churches Needed for the Church, 
 2144. 
 
 Elements Needed, 2085. 
 
 Graces, the Mother of, 1687. 
 
 Important Element, the, 1478. 
 
 Men, the Preacher All Things to, 
 2284. 
 
 Religion Acceptable to, 1455. 
 
 One in Christ Jesus, 2082. 
 
 Scripture Profitable, 1968. 
 Almost a Christian, 1557. 
 
 Saved, 14 15. 
 Alms and Benevolence, 2405. 
 Almsgiving, 2393. 
 
 Better Than, 2408. 
 America, Converting the Chinese in, 
 
 lOOI. 
 
 the Chinese in, 2523. 
 
 the Common Language of, 2522. 
 American Armies, Disbanding of, 984. 
 
 Confidence in the Future, 1014. 
 
 Negro, the, 2519. 
 
 Political Elasticity, 989. 
 America's Prosperity and Peril, 990. 
 Am I a Christian, 1742. 
 Amusement Discriminated, 54. 
 Amusements, Immigration and Freedom 
 
 of, 1000. 
 Anarchism and Communism, 996. 
 Ancient Names, 1898. 
 
 Revelations Commonplace, 1885. 
 Anger of Love, the, 145. 
 
 Truth in, 951. 
 Angelic Ministrations, the, 1921. 
 Animals First and Then Men, 9, 
 Annihilation, Unnatural Idea, 338. 
 Annoyance by Commentators, 1954. 
 Another Life, Man's Need of, 350. 
 Antiquated Thought-Forms, 2197. 
 Antiquity of New Truths, 1841. 
 Anxiety, 739. 
 
 and Trust, 2022. 
 Apocalypse, the, 1949. 
 Apocalyptic Figures, 2262. 
 Apostolic Heresy, 2190. 
 Quality, the, 2172. 
 Succession, 2278. 
 Appearing Before God, 292. 
 Appetites and Passions, 193. 
 
 Right use of, 47. 
 Appreciative Gratitude, 1096. 
 
 641 
 
642 
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 ArPROACii of Age, 283. 
 Death, 2S6. 
 the Civil War, 981. 
 Aptness of Jesus' Parables, 1926. 
 Ardent Preacher, the, 2271. 
 Arminianism and Calvinism, 2201. 
 Artificial Religious Symbols, 2549. 
 
 Style in Speaking, 2298. 
 Artistic Goodness, 461. 
 As a Hen Gathereth Her Chickens, 1272. 
 
 Little Child, 1235. 
 
 Little Children, 1784. 
 Ashamed of Christian Parentage, 63. 
 AsPEN-Tree, the, 2582. 
 Aspiration, 1057. 
 
 Exacting, 1662. 
 
 Men Without, 1085. 
 
 of Prayer, 1805. 
 Assassination of Lincoln, 246. 
 Associating with those in Error, 15 12. 
 Association, Power of, 842. 
 Associations, the Bible Dear from, 1872. 
 
 with Nature, 2578. 
 At Home and Abroad, 847. 
 Atmosphere of Growth, the, 1604. 
 Atmospheric Christianity, 15 15. 
 Atonement, Human Side of, 1290. 
 
 the, 1289. 
 Atoning Love, 11 57. 
 Attraction, 1329. 
 
 Attractive Presentation of Truth, 231 1. 
 Audience Not to be !?cattered, 2121. 
 Automatic Virtues, 1681. 
 Authority and Church Councils, 2157. 
 
 Influence Higher Than, 972. 
 
 in Thinking, 2107. 
 Average Congregation, the, 2334. 
 Avoidance of Evil, 1029. 
 
 Baby, the, i. 
 
 Possibilities, 2416. 
 Background of Life, the, 314. 
 Bad, Neither Good nor, 445. 
 
 Habits, 62. 
 
 Pertinacity of, 725. 
 
 Temper, Sin of, 169. 
 Ballot, the, 974. 
 Balm of Nature, the, 2585. 
 
 Sympathy, the, 880. 
 Bankruptcy, Generous Dread of, 560. 
 
 Manliness in, 561. 
 Baptism, 2137, 
 
 Forms of, 1923. 
 
 of Suffering, the, 271. 
 Basilar Elements, Importance of, 475. 
 Bearing AfBictions, 227. 
 
 but not Overborne, 1248. 
 
 of Trouble, 258. 
 
 Present Troubles, 690. 
 
 the Cross, 1726. 
 
 Bearing the Reproach of Christ, 639. 
 Beatitudes, the, 1932. 
 Beautiful Age, 284. 
 
 Surrender, 687. 
 
 the Kingdom of the, 2570. 
 Beautifying of Character, 73. 
 Beauty Inherently Divine, 2572. 
 
 of Death, 298. 
 Habit, 835. 
 Holiness, 1505. 
 Man, Manhood the, 79. 
 Moral Character, 1735. 
 Woman, the, 95. 
 Begin Humbly, Willingness to, 157. 
 Beginning Life Aright, 64. 
 
 of Spiritual Life, 1573. 
 Beginnings of Character, 899. 
 
 the New Life, 1597. 
 Being Praised, Dangers of, 2306. 
 Belief and Imagination, 1976. 
 
 Sincerity and Correctness of, 1977. 
 
 with the Heart, 403. 
 Benefactions of Inventors, 2531. 
 Beneficence of Adversity, 638. 
 God, 1 131. 
 Wealth, 601. 
 
 Spirit of, 1 171. 
 Benefits, Memory of, 1093. 
 Benevolence and Affinity, 2391. 
 Alms, 2405. 
 Generosity, 2386. 
 Personal Love, 2392. 
 
 Generosity not, 2388. 
 
 Limited, 2387. 
 
 Needs Force, 2397. 
 Benumbing Effect of Suffering, 253, 
 Bereavement Expansive of Life, 270. 
 Best Church, the, 2168. 
 
 Give God the, 1535. 
 
 Ministers, the, 2315. 
 Better Life, Decision for the, 1545. 
 
 than Almsgiving, 2408. 
 Betterment, IJivine Law of, 2532. 
 Between Sorrow and Gladness, 255. 
 Bible a Growth, the, 1837. 
 Map, the, i860. 
 
 Infant Humanity in the, 2470. 
 
 an Everyday Book, the, 1846. 
 
 as Furniture, the, 1859. 
 
 Blind Reading of the, 1857. 
 
 Buried under Rubbish, the, 1953. 
 
 Coeval with Man's Need, the, 1S83. 
 
 Combative Reading of the, 1958. 
 
 Conflict Over the, 1957. 
 
 Dear from Associations, the, 1872. 
 
 Essential Quality of the, 1836. 
 
 Guidance, Breadth of, 1873. 
 
 How to read the, 1852. 
 
 Immutability of the, 1913. 
 
 Indispensable, the, 1863. 
 
INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 643 
 
 lilBLE, Inspiiation of llic, 1S67. 
 Many-Sitiedncss of llic, 1S45. 
 Not a Book of War, the, 1955. 
 
 Dependent on any One of its 
 
 Books, the, i960. 
 Exhausted, the, 1879. 
 of Conflict, the, 1959. 
 Outside Light on the, 1843. 
 Per]K-tuity of the, 1912. 
 Reading, 1S48. 
 Right use of the, 1834. 
 Seminal Character of the, 1966. 
 Skimming the, 1856. 
 Study Needs Better Instruments, 1952. 
 Symbolism of the, 1902. 
 the : Reading for Cure, 1853. 
 Unity in Diversity, 1961. 
 World Interprets the, 1838. 
 Theological Transformation of the, 
 
 1956. 
 to be Practiced, the, 161 2. 
 True Significance of the, 1847. 
 Unfound Treasures in the, 1861. 
 Unknown Beauties in the, 1866. 
 Unused Parts of the, 1875. 
 " What Readers Find in the, 1849. 
 Biblical Criticism, 1964. 
 
 Exactitude a Fatal Claim, 1888. 
 Statements, Incompleteness of, 1881. 
 Bird Nature, 2579. 
 Bird's Lesson, a, 2580. 
 Blessed are the Meek, 1 100. 
 Merciful, iioi. 
 Peacemakers, 1102. 
 They that mourn, 241. 
 Who Hunger and Thirst After 
 Righteousness, 1 103. 
 Blessedness of Age, 273. 
 
 Work, 553. 
 Blessing in Trouble, 634. 
 Blind Reading of the Bible, 1857. 
 Bodily Exercise, 206. 
 
 Health for Mental Vigor, 194. 
 Body and Brain, Rest for, 2040. 
 Soul, 652. 
 Care of the, 184. 
 for Earth, the, 210. 
 Marvels of the, 181. 
 Nourishing the Soul, the 1018. 
 of Christ, the, 879. 
 the, a Living Sacrifice, 192. 
 Book of Revelations, the, 195 1. 
 Ruth, the, 1900. 
 the, 1844. 
 
 Heart Makes Known the, 1840. 
 Books, 2435. 
 
 Ministry of, 2436. 
 
 Bible not Dependent on any One of 
 its, i960. 
 Border Line, a, 2577. 
 
 BoKN Again, 15S6. 
 
 — and Again, 1595. 
 BoRRowiNr. Trouble, 681. 
 Boys, i8. 
 Brain Power, Value Measured by, 2496. 
 
 the : Money : the Heart, 559. 
 Brains and Climate, 440. 
 Brave Bearing of Trouble, 674. 
 Braving Trouble, 648. 
 Breadth of Bible-Guidance, 1873. 
 Brief Attachments, 107. 
 Brilliant Ministers, 2292. 
 Broad Views of Truth, 105 1. 
 Broken Friendships, 910. 
 Brotherhood and Equality, 2495. 
 
 Growing, 2530. 
 Building of the Soul, 1659. 
 Business and Religious Feeling, 584. 
 
 Crafty devices in, 565. 
 
 Christianity in, 566. 
 
 Danger-Signals, 569. 
 
 Depression Demoralizing, 700. 
 
 Men, Virtues of, 588. 
 
 of the Church, the, 2141. 
 
 Retiring from, 586. 
 
 Unfavorable to Meditation, 556. 
 By their Fruits, 1734. 
 
 Call to Church Membership, a, 2071. 
 Calvinism and Arminianism, 2201. 
 Democracy, 2202. 
 
 Power of, 2200. 
 Calvinistic Shadows, 2205. 
 Captain of Our Salvation, the, 1276. 
 Care, 736. 
 
 Live Above, 740. 
 
 of the Body, 184. 
 Careless Bible Reading, 1858. 
 Carelessness a Crime, 728. 
 Cares not to be Emphasized, 738. 
 Casting Care on God, 1830. 
 Causality, Sureness of, 190. 
 Cause and EfTect, 1401. 
 Caution in Religion, 1470. 
 
 with New Ideas, 2343. 
 Certainty of Trouble, 630. 
 Change of Social Relationships, 853. 
 
 Realization of, 1576. 
 Changes, Time for, 2232. 
 Changing Moods and Powers, 422. 
 
 Value of Creeds, 2198. 
 Character and Countenance, 895. 
 Reputation, 897. 
 
 Beautifying of, 73. 
 
 Beginnings of, 899. 
 
 Building, 480. 
 
 Commercial Credit and, 900. 
 
 Compensation in, 390, 
 
 De})th of, 907. 
 
 Future Disclosure of, 349. 
 
644 
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 CllAKACTi'.K, Innucncc of, S65. 
 
 Maturing of, 1705. 
 
 Nature of, 892. 
 
 Single Traits No Test of, 470. 
 
 Slow Growtli of, 1638. 
 
 Substance in, 1644. 
 
 the Finishing of, 1714. 
 Test of Success, 622. 
 
 Three Tests of, 479. 
 
 to be Perfected, 1593. 
 
 Training of, 428. 
 Charity Begins at Home, 2384. 
 Chastening — Now and Afterwards, 263. 
 
 Love, 144. 
 Cheer of Hope, 2003. 
 Cheerfulness, 806. 
 
 in Religion, 500. 
 
 Mercy with, 823. 
 
 Power of, 486. 
 Cheerless Soul-Culture, 491. 
 Cheerlessness of Doubt, 1971. 
 Chicago Fire, the : a Lesson of Heroism, 
 
 2540. 
 Child and Mother, 139. 
 
 Christ in the Child- Heart, a, 38. 
 
 Training and Christian Training, 673. 
 Continuous, not Spasmodic, 10. 
 Childhood Disciples, 29. 
 
 of Jesus, the, 1227. 
 Childish Lack of Faith, 2032. 
 Children, 13. 
 
 and God's Handiwork, 40. 
 the Old Testament, 27. 
 
 Conversion of, 37. 
 
 Courtesy Due to, 19. 
 
 Forgiveness of, 16. 
 
 God's Love for His, 1140. 
 Mothering of His, 1201. 
 
 Lessons Taught by, 36. 
 
 Lies to, 20. 
 
 Long Words to, 34. 
 
 Loss of, 223. 
 
 Present Duties for, 31. 
 
 Sensitiveness of, 33. 
 
 Sunday and the, 26. 
 
 the Invisible Ministry of, 42. 
 
 Undue Anxiety foi', 39. 
 Chinese in America, Converting the, looi. 
 
 the, 2523. 
 Choice, Conviction Without, 1544. 
 Choosing a Life-Partner, 112. 
 
 and Desiring, 51. 
 Christ, Abiding Influence of, 1259. 
 
 and Hebraism, 1243. 
 
 Bearing the Reproach of, 639. 
 
 Coming to, 1287. 
 
 Conceptions of, 1295. 
 
 Controversies about, 1938. 
 
 Experience Fashions Our Ideal of, 
 1263. 
 
 Christ, Fashioned by, 1270. 
 
 for Man, not Institutions, 1798. 
 
 God in, II 5 1. 
 
 (iratitudc to, 1269. 
 
 Heart in the Christian Ministry, the, 
 
 2353- 
 How to Find, 1556. 
 How to read the Life of, 19 19. 
 in You, 1285, 
 
 a Growth, 1646. 
 Jesus, All One in, 2082. 
 Knowledge of, 1271. 
 Life, Convincing Beauty of the, 1279. 
 Limitations of God in, 1255. 
 Love tokens to, 1277. 
 New Ideals Given by, 1048. 
 Our Hope, 1218. 
 Power of, 1265. 
 Practical Use of, 1262. 
 Radicalism of, 1242. 
 Salvation Through, 1275. 
 Spirit, Unconscious Beauty of the, 
 
 1792. 
 the Body of, 879. 
 
 Divinity of, 1281. 
 
 Door, 1284. 
 
 Higher View of, 1223. 
 
 Humiliation of, 1226. 
 
 Nature of, 1 222. 
 
 Only Standard, 1261. 
 
 Power of, 1258. 
 
 School of, 1722. 
 
 Soul's Image of, 1266. 
 to be Confessed, 1547. 
 
 Learned, 1648. 
 Unconfessed, 1546. 
 Variously Preached, 22 1 7. 
 Visions of, 1296. 
 Working with, 1294. 
 Youthful Eclipse of, 1229. 
 Christian Activity, 1728. 
 Almost a, 1557. 
 and Worldly Living, 1713. 
 Change of Nature, 1651. 
 Choice, the, 1574. 
 Conception of Deity, the, 1256. 
 Courtesy, 889. 
 
 Democracy, Elevation of, 2526. 
 Esprit de Corps, 2150. 
 Faith, Activity of, 2026. 
 
 Comfort in, 2034. 
 Fragrance, the, 165. 
 Hope, Self-Deception in, 1601. 
 Household, Potency of a, 161. 
 Joy, Worldly and, 503. 
 Kindness, Spontaneity of, 1781. 
 Life a Study, 1578. 
 Courtesy in, 1495. 
 Enlargement of, 1645. 
 Geniality in, 1579. 
 
INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 645 
 
 Christian Life, Impulses towards, 154S. 
 Objections to the, 145 1. 
 Requires Training, 1622. 
 the, a Lifc-Woik, 1484. 
 
 Church a Sustainerof, 2135. 
 Course of, 1629. 
 Living, Early Hindrances in, 1627. 
 
 Church Helpfulness in, 2076. 
 Love, Phases of, 1683. 
 Men Cannot be Disfellowshiped, 2159. 
 Ministry, the Christ-Heart in the, 
 
 2353' 
 
 Parentage, Ashamed of, 63. 
 
 Self-Exainination, 1665. 
 
 the, in the World, 15 16. 
 
 Training, 1633. 
 
 and Child Training, 673. 
 
 Truth for All, 1660. 
 
 Unity, 2361. 
 Christianity and Commerce, 2094. 
 Orthodoxy, 1725. 
 
 for All of Life, 1522. 
 
 Fruits of the Spirit Make, 1457. 
 
 in Business, 566. 
 
 Judged by Its Professors, 1502. 
 
 Medicinal Power of, 2381. 
 
 not Stoicism, 236. 
 
 Original, and Improved, 2193. 
 
 Scope of, 1480. 
 
 Sorrow Not Typical of, 252. 
 
 the World the Place for, 1721. 
 
 Unconscious Preparation for, 1575. 
 
 W^hat is, 1308. 
 
 Without Love, 1776. 
 Christians, Different Kinds of, 2096. 
 
 Not Made Instantly, 1608. 
 
 Outside of the Church, 2088. 
 Christ's Interpretation of God, 1175. 
 
 Judgments, Interior, not Exterior, 
 1245. 
 
 Mediatorship, 1268. 
 
 Methods of Illustration, 2300. 
 
 Motive, Our Need, 1280. 
 
 Peace, Slow Growth of, 2463. 
 
 Preaching, 2341. 
 
 Representation of Jehovah, 11 50. 
 
 Valuation of Humanity, 5. 
 
 Works of Mercy, 1232. 
 Church a Hospital, the, 2078. 
 
 Natural Development, the, 2134. 
 Sustainer of Christian Life, the, 
 
 2135- 
 All Churches Needed for the, 2144. 
 and Religion, the, 2167. 
 
 the Man, the, 2101. 
 
 the World, the, 2358. 
 Councils and Authority, 2157. 
 Discipline, 21 1 1. 
 Christians Outside of the, 2088. 
 Exclusiveness, 2174. 
 
 Church, Faith in the, 68. 
 
 for Sinners, the, 20go. 
 
 Good Men Bettered in the, 2077. 
 
 Helpfulness in Christian Living, 2076. 
 
 Interchange Wholesome, 2165. 
 
 Joining the, 2074. 
 
 Life, Partisanship in, 2155. 
 
 Lineage Interesting — Not Vital, 2136. 
 
 Making, Self-Help in, 2113. 
 
 Man's Servant, the 2102. 
 
 Members to be Trained, 2105. 
 
 Membership, a Call to, 2071. 
 Duty of, 2075. 
 Variety in, 2079. 
 
 Militant, the, 2151. 
 
 of the P'uture, the, 2160. 
 
 Organ Music, 2060. 
 
 Religion and the, 1489. 
 
 Singing, 2068. 
 
 the Business of the, 2141. 
 Market and the, 539. 
 Worth of the, 2175. 
 
 Unity, 208 1. 
 
 Weakness of the, 2097. 
 
 Work, Past and Future, 2109. 
 Churchks, Class-feeling in, 2099. 
 
 Lack of Christian Sympathy in, 2098. 
 
 Mixed Elements in, 2100. 
 
 Need Excitement, 2124. 
 Churchly Forms, the Value of, 2169. 
 Circumstances, Influence Independent 
 
 of, 374. 
 Cities, National Importance of, 1012. 
 City and Country Sabbaths, 2045. 
 
 Evils of the, 838. 
 
 Missions, 2092. 
 Civic Preaching, 2363. 
 Civil Governments, 956. 
 
 Institutions, Human Defences, 961. 
 
 Office, Military Americans in, 988. 
 
 War, Approacli of the, 981. 
 Civilization, Health the Mainspring of, 
 
 178. 
 Class- Feeling in Churches, 2099. 
 Classes, the, 932. 
 Clay and the Potter, the, 1126. 
 Clean Athletics, 209. 
 Cleansing Power of Great Troubles, 267. 
 Clear and Cloudy Mental Weather, 388. 
 Climate and Brains, 440. 
 Clothed Upon, Not Unclothed, but, 330. 
 Cloud of Witnesses, the, 533. 
 
 Sympathetic Witnesses, the, 1092. 
 Clouded Vision, 1055. 
 Cold-hearted Preachers, 2273. 
 Colonial Liberty, Growth of, 963. 
 Combative Disposition, 751. 
 
 Reading of the Bible, 1958. 
 Comhination, Weak Units Mighty in, 
 2501. 
 
646 
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 CoMl'OKT in C!iiisti;m Faith, 2034. 
 Trouble, 256. 
 of Merc Symiiixlliy, 885. 
 
 OlMKORTING Goil, the, M35. 
 
 CoMiNc; Day, the, 2506. 
 
 to Christ, 1287. 
 
 Triumph of Meekness, 1779. 
 CoMMKNTATORS, Annoyance by, 1954. 
 Commerce and Cliristianity, 2094. 
 
 Moral Intelligence of, 589. 
 Commercial Credit and Character, 900. 
 
 Death and Resurrection, 680. 
 Common Language of America, the, 2522. 
 
 Schools, the, 2420. 
 
 Sense Better than Uncommon, 360. 
 Commune of 187 1, the, 935. 
 Communion Day, 2057. 
 
 Invitation to the, 2056. 
 Communism and Anarchism, 996. 
 Communities and Individuals, 874. 
 
 not Institutions, 2170. 
 Community of Feeling, 872. 
 Compensation in Character, 390. 
 Complaint, Unmanliness of, 580. 
 Complementary Natures, 2084. 
 Complete Life, 285. 
 Complexity of Life, 382. 
 
 Man's Nature, 381. 
 Compliments, 947. 
 
 Comradeship in the Public Schools, 2421. 
 Conceit, 761. 
 
 in Moralities, 1543. 
 
 Narrowness of, 2267. 
 
 of Strength, 664. 
 
 Wise in His Own, 397. 
 Conceptions of Christ, 1295. 
 God, 1121. 
 Heaven, 324. 
 Concord, not Unison, 2164. 
 Concordant Faculties, 17 10. 
 Concrete Truth Better than Abstract 
 
 Doctrine, 2305. 
 Condemnation and Hope Reconciled, 
 1 3 10. 
 
 not Reformation, 2375. 
 Condiment, Fiction a, 2447. 
 Condition, Inequalities of, 699. 
 Conditions of Salvation, 2257. 
 Conduct, Self-knowledge as to, 800. 
 
 Society's Right to Control, 921. 
 Conference- Meeting, the, 2120. 
 Confessed Christianity a Safeguard, 2089. 
 Confession Lessens Temptation, 1378. 
 Conflict Leading to Peace, 2373. 
 
 Over the Bible, 1957. 
 
 Selfishness and Love in, 1786. 
 
 the Bible of, 1959. 
 Confusion, Peace Begins in, 2382. 
 Conor KOATioNAL Singing, 2067. 
 Congregationalism, 2158. 
 
 Conscience and Love, 1799. 
 Reason, 1342. 
 
 Deterioration in Public, loi I. 
 
 Dimming of, 1349. 
 
 for Others, 1347. 
 
 Humor the Friend of, 1336. 
 
 Sins Under, 1346. 
 
 Spontaneity in, 1339. 
 
 Sullying of, 1348. 
 
 Sundays and Week-Days, 1 34 1. 
 
 the Department, 1338. 
 Guide, 1345. 
 
 Works Evil and (Jood, 1335. 
 
 Wrong Use of, 1332. 
 Consecration of Natural Gifts, 94. 
 Conscious Sonship, 1538. 
 Conservativeness in Religion, 1500. 
 Consider the Sensitive, 827. 
 Constancy of God's Goodness, 12 16. 
 Constitution of United States, 964. 
 Contentment with Mortality Unnatural, 
 
 337. 
 Continuance, Hunger for, 342. 
 Continuing Instant in Prayer, 1S14. 
 
 Regeneration, the, 1724. 
 Control of the Tongue, 782. 
 Controversies about Christ, 1938. 
 Conversion a Change of Method, 1561. 
 Good Start, 1587. 
 
 and Sanctification, 1594. 
 
 but the start, 1583. 
 
 Not Mode, but Fact, of, 1582. 
 Perfection, 1588. 
 
 of Children, 37. 
 Conversions Like the Dawn of Morning, 
 
 ^539- 
 Converting the Chinese in America, 
 
 lOOI. 
 
 Conviction of Sin, 1570. 
 
 Without Choice, 1544. 
 Cooperation, Divine and Human, 1305. 
 Cooperative Capital, Dangers of, 2505. 
 Corinthians, ist, XIII, 1945. 
 Corporate Wealth in Politics, loio. 
 Corrigible Faults, 1650. 
 Creation, Perfected Manhood the Idea 
 
 of, 76. 
 Creative Process, Waste in the, 2558. 
 Corrupter, Indolence a, 530. 
 Corrupters of the Young, 1402. 
 Corruption in Public Affairs, 1007. 
 
 with Propriety, 1034. 
 Cosmic Center of Peace, 1 148. 
 Cost of Good, the. 658. 
 Countenance and Character, 895. 
 Counterparts in Married Life, 116. 
 Country Rest, 2554. 
 Courage, the Lower and the Higher, 
 
 1249. 
 Under Failure, 679. 
 
INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 647 
 
 CcMiRSK of Cluislian Life, tlie, 1629. 
 Courtesy Due to Children, 19. 
 
 in Christian Life, 1495. 
 Coveting, 749. 
 Cradle, Lessons from the, 3. 
 Crafty Devices in Business, 565. 
 Creation, Divine Inspiration not, 1306. 
 Creative Design by Evolution, 2237. 
 Credit for Eftbrt Rather than Result, 456. 
 
 Effort the Measure of, 1389. 
 Creed, Oneness of, 21 10, 
 Creeds and Confessions, Danger of, 2186. 
 Religion, 1508. 
 
 Changing Value of, 2198. 
 Crime, Carelessness a, 728. 
 
 Preparation for, 1400. 
 Criminality — Casual and Habitual, 1403. 
 Critical Decisions, 1469. 
 
 Moments for Reformation, 1414. 
 
 Season, the, 43. 
 
 Time, Help at the, 2086. 
 Criticism, the Habit of, 776. 
 Croakers, 757. 
 
 Crooked Business, Self-Deceptionin,568. 
 Crucifixion, the Tomb, the Resurrection, 
 
 the, 1253. 
 Cruel Views of God, 2216. 
 Cruelty of Man, 82. 
 Cumbering Prosperity, 620. 
 Cry of the Penitent, the, 1826. 
 Cryptic Parables of Jesus, 2448. 
 Cultivated, Spiritual Grace to be, 1695. 
 Cultivation and Humanity, 75. 
 Culture, Effects of, 1673. 
 
 Possibilities in, 32. 
 
 Selfishness of, 376. 
 Cumulative Violations of Law, 1404. 
 Curative Life-Power, 2176. 
 
 Mountains, the, 2563. 
 Cure of Ignorance, the, 2429. 
 
 Malign Feelings, to, 949. 
 
 Reading the Bible, for, 1853. 
 
 Damages of Money-Getting, 576. 
 Danger in Abandoning Beliefs, 1979. 
 
 Dalliance, 1363. 
 
 Organized Charity, 2404. 
 Line in Morals, the, 1355. 
 of Alcoholic Drinking, 1374. 
 
 Creeds and Confessions, 2 1 86. 
 
 Labor Unions, 930. 
 the Soul in, 2125. 
 Dangerous Lies, 718. 
 Dangers of Being Praised, 2306. 
 
 Codperative Capital, 2505. 
 
 Refinement, 377. 
 
 Ritual, 2053. 
 
 Smartness, 570. 
 
 Unseen Indulgence, 1360. 
 Daring, Varieties of, 472. 
 
 Darkness, Love-Light in, 218. 
 
 Luminous Hours after, 1763. 
 Darwinian Hypothesis, the, 2238. 
 David, the Warrior, 1910. 
 Dear Ones Gone, 265. 
 Death, a Grade, 288. 
 
 Approach of, 286. 
 
 Beauty of, 298. 
 
 Forethinkings About, 293. 
 
 Glory of, 303. 
 
 Going Home, 310. 
 
 Hour, a Hope for the, 305. 
 
 is Life, 309. 
 
 Jewish View of, 302. 
 
 Mourning for, 257. 
 
 Near to, 291. 
 
 Not an Exile, 308. 
 
 of Jesus Foreknown by Him, 1247. 
 Sleep, the, 202. 
 
 Preparation for, 307. 
 
 Repose of, 300. 
 
 Solitariness of, 304. 
 
 the Hope in, 295. 
 River of, 306. 
 
 Transplanting of, 312. 
 
 Uncertainty and Certainty of, 289. 
 Deceitfulness of Temptation, 1375. 
 Decision for the Better Life, 1545. 
 Decoration, Nobility Before, 477. 
 Deeds Done, Persistence of, 1420. 
 
 Expression by, 1080. 
 Deep Emotion not Common, 418. 
 Degrees of Health, 183. 
 Deity, the Christian Conception of, 1256. 
 Sun as a Symbol of, 2560. 
 
 Varying Conceptions of, 11 23. 
 Delayed Answer to Prayer, 1820. 
 Delicacy, 409. 
 
 of God, the, 1202. 
 Delight of Peace after War, 2520. 
 Democracy and Calvinism, 2202. 
 
 of the Public School, 2422. 
 Democratic Self-Government, 933. 
 Denominationalism, 2145. 
 Departed Children, 231. 
 Department Conscience, the, 1338. 
 Depth of Character, 907. 
 Design, Larger Evidence of, 11 28. 
 Desiring and Choosing, 51. 
 Despised Blessings, 1197. 
 Despotism in Russia, 2517. 
 Destiny and Duty, 446. 
 Destruction in Evil Courses, 1416. 
 
 Regulation not, 450. 
 Desultory Action, 732. 
 Deterioration in Public Conscience, 
 
 lOII. 
 
 Deuteronomy, 1897. 
 Developing Woman, the, 93. 
 Development, 1620. 
 
648 
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 DiVKi.orMK.N'T, E.\|)ression Gives, 16S8. 
 Ciod's Metliod of, ^24;^. 
 
 Idea, the, 1125. 
 
 ill Material Life, 2466. 
 Devotion and Tioty, 1464. 
 Devhtional Impulses, 1685. 
 Differences of Approach to Men, 2321 
 Different Kinds of Christians, 2096. 
 
 Roads to the Same End, 2261. 
 Differentiation, Perfection in, 2259. 
 Differing Beliefs, Necessity of, 1973. 
 Difficulty of Cioodness Amid Evil, 814. 
 Living, 1689. 
 Living Aright, 540. 
 Right Living, 839. 
 
 Proportioned to Fineness, 1479. 
 Dilutinc: Truth, Necessity of, 1240. 
 Dimming of Conscience, 1349. 
 Direct and Indirect Influence, 2439. 
 Disa(;reement Without Quarrel, 926. 
 Disappointments in Wedded Life, 119. 
 Disaster, Social Liability to, 919. 
 Disbanding of American Armies, 984. 
 Disciples of Jesus, the, 1233. 
 Discipline of Trouble, 636. 
 
 Unpleasant, 1563. 
 Disciplinary Treatment, 649. 
 Disclosures of the Future, 335. 
 Discomfort Glorified, 666. 
 Discouraging Young Christians, 66. 
 Discoursing at the Last Supper, 1935. 
 Discrimination in Preaching, 2329. 
 
 of Qualities, 940. 
 
 Reading With, 2449. 
 Disease, Torpidity Prolific of, 1663. 
 Disfellowshiped, Christian Men Cannot 
 
 be, 2159. 
 Dishonest Success Transient, 571. 
 Dishonesty a Hard Master, 750. 
 
 Atmospheric, 746. 
 
 Burdens Society, 914. 
 
 Folly of, 572. 
 Disorder, Order in, 2534. 
 Disposition and Volition, 1739. 
 Disproportionate Natures, 471. 
 
 Soul-Qualities, 1684. 
 Disputation, 745. 
 Dissensions of Humanity, 2473. 
 Dissipation, 61. 
 Distorted Views of God, 11 19, 
 Distress, Trust in Time of, 2017. 
 Disturbance the Price of Progress, 2371. 
 Disturbances of Reform, 2372. 
 Diversity, Power in, 2260. 
 
 of Social Life, 923. 
 Divine and Human Cooperation, 1305. 
 Nature, 1188. 
 Sympathy, 1193. 
 
 Benevolence, 1 145. 
 
 Comforter, the, 1194. 
 
 Divine Conceptions from Earthly Experi- 
 ences, 1 155. 
 
 Democracy, 11 22. 
 
 Faith in the, 2023. 
 
 Fatherhood, the, 148. 
 
 Guidance, Privilege of Taking, 1324. 
 
 Impulse of Love, 11 7 2. 
 
 Influence on Human Soul, 131 1. 
 
 Ripening Power of, 1320. 
 Inspiration not Creation, 1 306. 
 Intention, Pain by, 213. 
 Intercourse, Tokens of, 1510. 
 Judgment, 1634. 
 Justice, I182. 
 Law and Divine Mercy, 2255. 
 
 of Betterment, 2532. 
 Love, Eternity of the, 1183. 
 
 for Man, 2571. 
 
 in the Soul, 1748. 
 Measurement, the, 1181. 
 Mercy and Divine Law, 2255. 
 Parent, the. Sin Against, 1430. 
 Paternity, the, 1177. 
 Power Through Human Mediums, 
 
 1313- 
 
 Sensibility to the, 1984. 
 
 Slavery, 133. 
 
 Spirit in Every Soul, 1317. 
 Utilizing the, 1319. 
 
 Truth : Human Statements, 2184. 
 
 Willingness to Help, 1832. 
 
 Wisdom, Search for, 1 1 10. 
 Divinity of Christ, the, 1281. 
 Meekness, 1752, 
 Do the Near Duty, 17 16. 
 Doctrinal Differences, 2214. 
 
 Intolerance, 2189. 
 
 Preaching, 2182. 
 Doctrine and Destiny, 1476. 
 
 of Election, 2204. 
 
 Total Depravity, 2249. 
 Doctrines and Life, 2 181. 
 
 of Inspiration, 1962. 
 
 Puzzles of, 2183, 
 
 the Proving of, 2221. 
 Doing Good, Pleasure of, 2394. 
 
 the Habit of, 1520. 
 Double Life, a, 13S8. 
 Doubt and Faith, 1985. 
 
 Cheerlessness of, 1971. 
 
 Eras of, 1972. 
 
 the Power of, 1978. 
 Downward Way, the, 14 13. 
 Drawn of God, 2027. 
 Dry Preaching, 2314. 
 Dull, the Patience of the, 421. 
 Durable Character, the, 469. 
 Duty and Destiny, 446. 
 
 Fidelity to, 525. 
 
 of Activity, 536. 
 
INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 649 
 
 Duty of Church-Mcmbcrship, 2075. 
 Health, 182. 
 Sweet Influence, 857. 
 the Strong, 598. 
 Shirking the Call of, 550. 
 the Habit of, 1343. 
 Prayer of, 1817. 
 Dying and Living, 311. 
 the Act of, 297. 
 Ease of, 299. 
 Peace of, 301. 
 
 Ear and Tongue Leagued for Evil, 792. 
 Early Christianity, 2192. 
 
 Development Slow, 2471. 
 
 Hardships, Good Fortune in, 655. 
 
 Hindrances in Christian Living, 1627. 
 
 Human Records, 1882. 
 
 Marriages, in. 
 
 Needs Outgrown, 1647. 
 
 Surroundings, 844. 
 Earth and Heaven, 351. 
 Growth in, 328. 
 
 Body for the, 210. 
 
 Connection with Heaven, 1434. 
 
 Heaven above the, 1754. 
 
 Judgments in Heaven, 317. 
 
 the Meek Possessing the, 1507. 
 
 View of Moral Truth, the, 464. 
 Earthly Abundance ; Heavenly Pov- 
 erty, 616. 
 
 and Heavenly Power, 1325. 
 the Heavenly, the, 339. 
 
 Conditions Forgotten in Heaven, 348. 
 
 Dangers, Heavenly View of, 1996. 
 
 Experiences, Divine Conceptions 
 from, 1 155. 
 
 Immortal, an, 983. 
 
 Immortality, 1750. 
 
 Losses Insignificant, 708. 
 
 Loves, Heavenly Associations with, 
 
 175- 
 Preparation for Heaven, 323. 
 
 Sadness, Heavenly Joy, 238. 
 
 Work, Eternity to Show, 333. 
 Easier Way, the, 2087. 
 Easter Sunday, 1252. 
 Eating is Engine-Running, 180. 
 
 on Principle, 186. 
 Ecclesiasticism, Religion Hindered by 
 
 2154. 
 Eden, the Garden of, 2209. 
 Edification, 1617. 
 Educated Virtues, 797. 
 Education and Training, 12. 
 
 Labor Unions and, 928. 
 
 of Jesus, the, 1228. 
 
 Transgression as, 2432. 
 Educational Taxation Wise, 2419. 
 Educator, Holy Spirit an, 1302. 
 
 Eki'ECT and Cause, 140 1. 
 
 of Lincoln's Death, 982. 
 Sorrow, 248. 
 Effects of Culture, 1673. 
 
 Life on the Soul, 357, 
 Efficiency of Miracles, 1904. 
 
 Sects, 2146. 
 Effluence of Goodness, 1072. 
 Effort, Power From, 593. 
 
 the Measure of Credit, 1389. 
 Elaborate Conversions, 1572. 
 Election, Doctrine of, 2204. 
 Elevation Means Effort, 2489. 
 
 of Christian Democracy, 2526. 
 Elijah's Dramatic Career, 1906. 
 Elms of New England, the, 2583. 
 Emergency, Prayer in, 1818. 
 
 Religion, 1526. 
 Emmaus, Jesus at, 1254. 
 Emotion and Intellect, 361. 
 Motion, 410. 
 
 in Action, 442. 
 
 not Religion, 1496. 
 Emotional Nature of Religion, 1488. 
 
 Natures, Extremes of, 411. 
 Empire of Thought, the, 1440. 
 Emptiness and Greediness, 575. 
 
 of Money-Getters, 577. 
 Pantheism, 1118, 
 Unbelief, 1980. 
 Empty Meditation, 386. 
 End Crowns the Work, the, 1762. 
 
 of Life, Work to the, 278. 
 the Year, the, 1664. 
 Endeavor, a World of, 1649. 
 Endless Talking, 781. 
 Endowed Benefactions, Longevity of, 
 
 2402. 
 Endurance of a Righteous Republic, 
 
 1015. 
 Energizing Power of Excitement, 439. 
 Energy of Goodness, 434. 
 ENGINE-Running, Eating is, 180. 
 Enjoyment, the Power of, 613. 
 Enlargement of Christian Life, 1645. 
 
 Recreations, 55. 
 Enlarging Ideal of God, 1727. 
 Enrichment by Trouble, 229. 
 Enthusiasm, Motive Power of, 869. 
 
 of Love, 1789. 
 Entreated, God Easy to be, 1203. 
 Environment, 837. 
 
 Superior to, 662. 
 Epistle to the Romans, 1942. 
 Equality and Brotherhood, 2495. 
 Equalizing Wages, Folly of, 2498. 
 Equanimity, 161 i. 
 Equivalent Theory of Heaven, the, 
 
 1467. 
 Equivalents in Temperament, 378. 
 
650 
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 Eradicating Had Habits, 724. 
 
 Era for Glad Life, an, 2539. 
 
 Eras of Doubt, 1972. 
 
 Erkction of God's Kingdom, 2475. 
 
 Error, Associating with Those in, 1512. 
 
 Escape from Soul-Bondage, 1590. 
 
 Trouble, 684. 
 Essence of Sin, the, 1386. 
 Essential Criminality, 1392. 
 
 Quality of the Bible, 1836. 
 Essentials of Theology and Preaching, 
 
 2351- 
 Esthetic Religion, Weakness of, 1449. 
 
 Element, Help of the, 2573. 
 Eternal Life, Promise of, 1676. 
 Eternity of the Divine Love, 1183. 
 
 to Show Earthly Work, 333. 
 Ethics and Sentiment, 1450. 
 Europe, Social Unrest in, 998. 
 Evanescence of Experiences, 414. 
 Evanescent Fancies, 1438. 
 Events and Parables, 1927. 
 EvER-I'rescnt Christ, the, 1278. 
 Everyday Book, the Bible an, 1846. 
 
 Goodness, 1504. 
 
 Gratitude, 1097. 
 
 Life, Reputation from, 904. 
 
 Preaching, 864. 
 Every Man, Good in, 447. 
 
 Preacher a Partialist, 2275. 
 
 Soul, Divine Spirit in, 1317. 
 Evidence of Things Not Seen, the, 201 1. 
 Evil, Active and Passive, 922. 
 
 Always Evil, 1368. 
 
 and Good, Conscience Works, 1335. 
 
 Avoidance of, 1029. 
 
 Bondage, Release From, 1432. 
 
 Courses, Destruction in, 14 16. 
 Legibility of, 57. 
 
 Deeds, 1395. 
 
 Difficulty of Goodness amid, 814. 
 
 Disguised, 770, 
 
 Ear and Tongue Leagued for, 792. 
 
 for the Sake of Good, 562. 
 
 Getting Accustomed to, 14 19. 
 
 Insensibility to, 1418. 
 
 Life, the, 83. 
 
 Ministers, and Reform of, 2364. 
 
 Mysterious Powers of, 1 35 1. 
 
 Native Evil Finds, 793. 
 
 of Evil Thought, the, 1387. 
 
 One Man's Power for, 920, 
 
 Origin of, 1127. 
 
 Overcome with Good, 950. 
 
 Problem of, 2199. 
 
 Proneness to, 1394. 
 
 Propagation of, 1424. 
 
 Returning Good for, 1797. 
 
 Speaking, 787. 
 
 Tampering With, 1422, 
 
 Evil Temper, 171. 
 
 the Hearing of, 795. 
 Strength of, 1426. 
 
 Thought, the Evil of, 1387. 
 
 Traits, Reclamation of, 723. 
 
 When to Escape from, 1364. 
 
 Wit, 771. 
 Evils of Poverty, 701. 
 the City, 838. 
 Evolution Among Scientists, 2236. 
 
 and Theology, 2242. 
 
 Creative Design by, 2237. 
 Evolutionary View of Sin, 1383. 
 Example, Force of, 866. 
 Excessive Activity, 582. 
 Excitement and Incitement, 1487. 
 
 Energizing Power of, 439. 
 
 Universal Desire of, 438. 
 Exclusive Preaching, 2324. 
 
 Refinement Not to be, 1081. 
 Exercised by Sorrow, 264. 
 Exhausted, the Bible Not, 1879. 
 Experience and Hope, 2001. 
 
 Fashions Our Ideal of Christ, 1263. 
 
 Learning by, 8. 
 Experiences, Evanescence of, 414, 
 Expression by Deeds, 1080. 
 
 Increases Emotion, 1577. 
 
 Gives Development, 1688. 
 
 of Pleasure, 802. 
 
 Safety in, 2123, 
 External Pulpit Influences: Helpful, 
 2338. 
 
 Harmful, 2339. 
 Extremes of Emotional Natures, 411. 
 
 Fact and Fame, 893. 
 
 Fiction, 2446. 
 Faculties Brighten by Use, 389. 
 Obscuration of, 280. 
 Sin the Dislocation of, 1390, 
 Failure, Courage Under, 679. 
 
 of the Law, 1244. 
 Failures in Sermons, 2323, 
 Faint Beginnings, Hope in, 1584. 
 Faith and Doubt, 1985. 
 Reason, 2029. 
 Childish Lack of, 2032. 
 in Practice, 2025. 
 the Church, 68. 
 Divine, 2023. 
 Womanhood, 88. 
 is Trust, 2008. 
 Living by, 2036. 
 Steadfastness of, 2018. 
 Test of, 2020. 
 the Man Without, 2007. 
 
 Order of, 2021. 
 Universal Application of, 2010. 
 Falling by the Way, 2533. 
 
INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 65. 
 
 Fall of Man, the, 221 1. 
 False Ideals, 53S. 
 
 Witness, 788. 
 Fame and Fact, 893. 
 Family Make the Home, the, 158. 
 
 Prayer, 174. 
 Fanatical Patriolism of the Jews, 977. 
 
 Reformers, 2380. 
 Fanaticism of the Jews, 2512. 
 Fashioned by Christ, 1270. 
 Fate, the Religion of, 2206. 
 Father and Judge, 141. 
 
 View of God, the, 2254. 
 Father's Presence, the, 23. 
 FAULT-Finding, 778. 
 Faults in Others, 881. 
 
 of Full Natures, 404. 
 Faulty Idea of Unity in Worship, 2054. 
 
 Instruments of Providence, 994. 
 Fear, 1987. 
 
 a Noxious Element, 1993. 
 Pain, 1989. 
 
 and Hope, 1997. 
 Love, 2251. 
 
 but a Restraining Agency, 1991. 
 
 Corroding, 1992. 
 
 Foil V of, 1995. 
 
 Value of, 1988. 
 Feebleness of Wills, 1458. 
 Feeling and Thought, 402. 
 
 before Reason in Higher Trutli, 407. 
 
 Community of, 872. 
 
 in Action, 127. 
 
 Intellection Inimical to, 1090. 
 
 Reaction of, 443. 
 
 Social Effect of, 1459. 
 
 the Growth of, 16 13. 
 Law of, 441. 
 Power of, 408. 
 Fertile Mind, the, 394. 
 Fertility in Freedom, 2346. 
 Fervent in Spirit, 554. 
 Fiber, Toughness of, 476. 
 Fiction a Condiment, 2447. 
 
 and Fact, 2446. 
 
 Teaching Truth by, 35. 
 Fidelity, 820. 
 
 in Labor, 1737. 
 
 the Radiance of, 2366. 
 
 to Duty, 525. 
 Figure of God, Friendship a, 9 1 2. 
 Filial Liberties, 22. 
 
 Love, 2565. 
 Poinding the Sermon-Subject, 2318. 
 Fine Character, Modern Increase of, 
 
 2529. 
 Fineness, Difficulty Proportioned to, 1479. 
 Finishing of Character, the, 1714. 
 Fire of Affliction, 651. 
 Firm Hope, a, 688. 
 
 First Soul-Work of Religion, the, I596. 
 Fishers of Men, 2312. 
 Flatierer, the, 773. 
 Flattery, 772. 
 Flesh and Spirit, 1065. 
 
 Cannot Discern Spirit, 1062. 
 Flimsy Excuses, 1408. 
 Flowers, Love of, 2545. 
 
 the Meanings of, 2576. 
 F'OLLY of Dishonesty, 572. 
 
 Equalizing Wages, 2498. 
 
 Fear, 1995. 
 
 Fretting, 744. 
 Force of Example, 866. 
 Foreign Missions, 2093. 
 
 FORELOOKING, 2487. 
 
 Forethinkings About Death, 293. 
 Forethought, 2005. 
 Forget Your Own Good Deeds, 1785. 
 Forgetting, Forgiving Without, 767. 
 
 Sleep a, 204. 
 Forgiveness, 815. 
 
 Spirit of, 816. 
 
 of Children, 16. 
 
 the Ground of, 1205. 
 Forgiving and Punishing, 1282. 
 
 Without Forgetting, 767. 
 Forgotten, Repented Sins to be, 1567. 
 Formative Influences, 431. 
 Forms of Baptism, 1923. 
 
 Prayer, 181 2. 
 Forward ; not Backward, 686. 
 Found and Lost, 1490. 
 FouNDATioN-Work, 523. 
 Fraud in Manufactures, 774. 
 Free Communities, Good Customers, 959. 
 
 Government Requires Self- Restraint, 
 968. 
 Freedom, Fertility in, 2346. 
 
 Germanic Spirit of, 2516. 
 
 of Speech, 2374. 
 the Will, 2203. 
 French Estheticism, 2514. 
 Fretting, Folly of, 744. 
 
 Shows Weakness, 741. 
 Friendship, a Figure of God, 912. 
 
 Trouble a Test of, 672. 
 Friendships, 909. 
 
 Rarity of, 911. 
 Frivolous Zeal, 758. 
 Frugality. 828. 
 
 Moral Worth of, 698. 
 Fruitful Lives, 1530. 
 Fruitfulness, 1534. 
 Fruits of the Spirit, 1321. 
 
 Make Christianity, 
 
 1457- 
 Full Natures, Faults of, 404. 
 Fullness of God, the, 1200. 
 F'undamental Elements, three, 2265. 
 
652 
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 Furniture, the Bible as, 1859. 
 Future, American Confidence in the, 
 1014. 
 
 and Present, 1682. 
 
 Disclosure of Character, 349. 
 
 Disclosures of the, 335. 
 
 for Mope, the, 2004. 
 
 Joy a Tresent Help, 334. 
 
 Life, a Prophecy of, 327. 
 Thought of, 341. 
 
 of the Wicked, 2219. 
 
 Perils of the, 318. 
 
 Retribution, 2250. 
 
 Splendor of the, 356. 
 
 the Church of the, 2160. 
 Past and the, 1568. 
 
 Gamhung, 56. 
 
 Garden of Eden, the, 2209. 
 
 General Aim, Judgment by, 1033. 
 
 Confession, the, 1435. 
 Generic Unity; Specific Variation, 2161. 
 Generosity and Benevolence, 2386. 
 
 not Benevolence, 2388. 
 Generous Dread of Bankruptcy, 560. 
 Genesis, 1891. 
 
 Geniality in Christian Life, 1579. 
 Gentleness, 812. 
 Genuine Religion Enjoyable, 1493. 
 Genius Needs Industry, 507. 
 
 not to be suppressed, 372. 
 
 Obligations of, 373. 
 
 the Labors of, 508. 
 Gentleman, the, 848. 
 Germanic Spirit of Freedom, 2516. 
 Getting Accustomed to Evil, 1419. 
 
 and Giving, 2359. 
 
 Knowledge Brings Wisdom, 2431. 
 
 Religion, 1585. 
 Gift of Love, the, 21. 
 Gifted Natures to Live Superiorly, 15 18. 
 Gifts of Love Lasting, 2407 
 the Heart, 801. 
 
 to God, 1 217. 
 Give God the Best, 1535. 
 
 How to, 2409. 
 
 God's Willingness to, 1 174. 
 Giving, 2385. 
 
 and Getting, 2359. 
 Receiving, 1463. 
 Glad Life, an Era for, 2539. 
 Glory of Death, 303. 
 
 God, the, 1 176. 
 Love's Servitude, 97. 
 the Spirit: Struggles of the 
 Flesh, 1943. 
 
 Out of Obscurity, 657. 
 God and Man, 2352. 
 
 Prayer, 1802. 
 
 as Disciplinarian, 1192. 
 
 God, Beneficence of, 1131. 
 Called, in Trouble, 2019, 
 Casting Care on, 1830. 
 Central in Human Affairs, 1164. 
 Christ's Interpretation of, 1 175. 
 Conceived Through Man's Best Qual- 
 ities, 1154. 
 Conceptions of, 1121. 
 Cruel Views of, 2216. 
 Distorted Views of, 1 1 19. 
 Drawn of, 2027. 
 Easy to be Entreated, 1203. 
 Enlarging Ideal of, 1727. 
 Found Through the Heart, 1477. 
 Gifts to, 1 2 17. 
 
 Governmental View of, 1 144. 
 Growing Views of, 2014. 
 Growth in Knowledge of, 11 37. 
 Human Judgments of, 11 20. 
 Hunger and Thirst for, 1117. 
 Ideals of, 1113. 
 in Christ, 1151. 
 the Soul, 109 1. 
 Nature, 2568. 
 Independent Workers for, 2108. 
 Interpretation of, 1219. 
 in the Image of, 1 1 14. 
 is I,ove, 1 107. 
 Longing for, 1088. 
 Lover, Man-Hater Cannot be, 1796. 
 Making Use of, 11 69. 
 Man's Access to, 1 142. 
 
 Indifference to, 1087. 
 Praises Acceptable to, 2051. 
 Serenity in, 1537. 
 Strength in, 2028. 
 of Law, a, 1 143. 
 Partnership with, 557. 
 Power of Weakness Allied with, 
 
 2356. 
 Realization of, 1138. 
 Revelation of, 1707. 
 Sin Against, 1429. 
 Symbolized in Human Love, I185. 
 the Delicacy of, 1202. 
 
 Father, not Avenger, 1178. 
 God the Ruler, 2248. 
 View of, 2254. 
 
 Glory of, 11 76. 
 
 Grace of, 11 5 2. 
 
 Great Heart of, 1198. 
 
 Historic Christ of, 1257. 
 
 Image of, 362. 
 
 Mover ; Man the Actor, 436. 
 
 Peace of, 1765. 
 
 Rest of, 2038. 
 
 Ruler ; God the Father, 2248. 
 
 Soul's Response to, 1675. 
 
 Sympathy of, 1173. 
 
 Universal Medicament, II80. 
 
INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 653 
 
 God, the Word of, 2561. 
 Thoughts of, 1 147. 
 to be Spiritually Apprehended, 1 153. 
 Transcends Knowledge, 2012. 
 Trust in, 2024. 
 Working in Us, 13 16, 
 
 through Men, 1 3 14. 
 Yielding to, 1618. 
 Godless Love, 106. 
 Goo's Abundance, 1191. 
 Brooding Love, 1089. 
 Care of His Children, 675. 
 Children, 1108. 
 Dealings, 677. 
 Emotion, 121 3. 
 Forgiving Love, 1204. 
 Forgiveness Absolute, 1207. 
 Remedial, 1206. 
 Free Grace, 1189. 
 Generosity, 12 14. 
 Goodness, Constancy of, 12 16. 
 
 Waits for Men, 1184. 
 Government, 1133. 
 Gracious Bounty, 11 90. 
 Heirs not Poor, 709. 
 House, the Zeal of, 505. 
 Incarnation in Christ not Strange, 
 
 1288. 
 Jewel-Case, 1523. 
 Kingdom a Long Result of Time, 2509. 
 
 Erection of, 2475. 
 Kingship, 1179. 
 Love, 1 199. 
 
 and His World, 4. 
 
 Man's Need, 1212. 
 for His Children, 1 140. 
 Mercies, 1196. 
 
 Method of Development, 2243. 
 Mint, 623. 
 
 Modeling of Man's Clay, 1723. 
 Mothering of His Children, 1201. 
 Nature not Self-Centered, 1139. 
 Outflaming Life, 1 149. 
 Patience, 1195. 
 Promises Earnest, 1211. 
 
 Ignorance as to, 1 854. 
 Laws of Nature, 2031. 
 Neglect of, 1 209. 
 Sincere, 1210. 
 Providence : Man's Ignorance, 2033. 
 Sculpture, 647. 
 Spirit, Power of, iiir. 
 Stewards, Unfaithfulness of, 605. 
 Tenderness for the Weak, 1186. 
 Tlioughts in Nature, 2569. 
 Ways of Influence, 1303. 
 Willmgness to Give, 1174. 
 Words, Permanence of, 1963. 
 Work Continuous, 24S2. 
 Golden Mean, the, 591. 
 
 Good Deeds, 15 17. 
 
 Forget Your Own, 1785. 
 
 Evil for the Sake of, 562. 
 Overcome with, 950. 
 
 Fortune in Early Hardships, 655. 
 
 Growth, Slow Growth, i6i6. 
 
 in Every Man, 447. 
 
 Invisible Growths of, 2479. 
 
 Life, a, 276. 
 
 Men Bettered in the Church, 2077. 
 
 Name, a, 901. 
 
 Value of a, 902. 
 
 Nature, 860. 
 
 Natured People, 809. 
 
 Rudeness, 753. 
 
 Passing Impressions of, 1 105. 
 
 Phrasing, Power of, 2443. 
 
 Recuperative Power of, 2567. 
 
 Report, Things of, 1481. 
 
 Start, Conversion a, 1587. 
 
 that Lives, 2400. 
 
 the Cost of, 658. 
 
 Things, Sharing the, 417. 
 
 Thoughts Not Applied, 2331. 
 
 Time Coming, the, 2468. 
 
 Work in Unseen Places, 524. 
 
 Works, 1626. 
 Goodly Parentage, a, 131. 
 Goodness a Growth, 1607. 
 
 Effluence of, 1072. 
 
 Energy of, 434. 
 
 Finds Goodness, 2395. 
 
 Multiplies, 167 1. 
 
 Nobility of Wealth with, 597. 
 
 the Measure of Man, 71. 
 
 to be Active, 544. 
 
 Made Apparent, 1521. 
 Gospel and Law, 1941. 
 
 Public Affairs, the, 2345. 
 
 Leveling Tendency of the, 970. 
 
 of John, the, 1937. 
 
 Stories, Irregularity of the, 1920. 
 
 the Law and the, 2245. 
 Governmental View of God, 1144. 
 Governments Fit Peoples, 957. 
 Grace of God, the, 1 152. 
 
 Physical Means of, 208. 
 Grades of Motive, 458. 
 
 Religious Revivals, 2129. 
 Grandeur of Man, 72. 
 Grateful Natures, 1094. 
 Gratitude, 819. 
 
 as a Motive Power, 1095. 
 
 to Christ, 1269. 
 Jesus, 1 29 1. 
 Gravitation and Resolutions, 846. 
 Great Artist, the, 2575. 
 
 Events, Silent Coming of, 2503. 
 
 Experiences, Minor Events and, 1756. 
 
 Feelings for Great Occasions, 416. 
 
654 
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 Great, Heart of CJod, tlie, 1198. 
 
 Lives, Inspiration of, 1098. 
 
 Meaning in Small Texts, 1911. 
 
 Men, Imperfection of, 375. 
 
 Miniledness in Humble Callings, 511, 
 
 Minds, Greatness of, 2438. 
 
 Natures Destroyed, 1417. 
 
 Occasions, Great Feelings for, 416. 
 
 Religious Geniuses, 1939. 
 
 Sermons, 2286. 
 
 Sins, and Little Ones, 1396. 
 
 Thoughts Destroy Small Troubles, 
 665. 
 
 Troubles, Cleansing Power of, 267. 
 Greater Strength, Lighter Burden, 171 1. 
 Greatkst is Love, the, 1766. 
 Greatness, Humble Beginnings of, 643. 
 
 of Great Minds, 2438. 
 the True Orator, 2290. 
 
 Power of, 2437. 
 Greediness and Emptiness, 575. 
 Greeks, Moral Inferiority of, 2513. 
 Grief, Joy in, 222. 
 
 Revelations of, 235. 
 Gross Measurements, 2564. 
 Ground of Forgiveness, the, 1205. 
 Grounds of Adoption, 157 1. 
 Growing Views of God, 2014. 
 Growth, Goodness a, 1607. 
 
 Ideal and Real, 134. 
 
 in Earth and Heaven, 328. 
 Faith Gradual, 2030. 
 Knowledge of God, 1 137. 
 
 of a Lifetime, the, 1694. 
 Colonial Liberty, 963. 
 Feeling, the, 1613. 
 Ideals, 1058. 
 Love, 108. 
 
 the Atmosphere of, 1604. 
 Grudge, Holding a, 765. 
 Grumblers, 756. 
 Guide, Trouble as a, 663. 
 
 Habit, Beauty of, 835. 
 of Criticism, the, 776. 
 Doing Good, the, 1520. 
 Duty, the, 1343. 
 Sulkiness, the, 742. 
 Habits of Hearing, 794. 
 
 Revealed, 710. 
 Habitual Generosity, 2410. 
 HALF-Hearted Religion, 1492. 
 
 Truths, 719. 
 HAND-Book, New Testament, the, 1915. 
 Happiness a Means of Grace, 14. 
 and Nerves, 444. 
 from Health, 493. 
 Within, 490. 
 in Achievement, 552. 
 Made Manifest, 497. 
 
 Happiness, Making, 502. 
 
 Not Having but Being, 496. 
 
 of the Immortal, 329. 
 Hard Master, Dishonesty a, 750. 
 
 Natures, Tender Places in, 2320. 
 Hardnp:ss in Life, 692. 
 
 to Endure, 656. 
 Harm of Profanity, the, 946. 
 Harmony and Unity, 2263. 
 
 Essential in Marriage, 104. 
 Haste to be Rich, 609. 
 Hate Evil Deeds, not Evil-Doers, 942. 
 Hatred and Love, 1780. 
 " He Knew What Was in Man," 1241. 
 Head and Heart, 1743. 
 
 Importance of Stomach to, 187. 
 
 the Heart Uses the, 405. 
 Healer of Souls, God the, 1220. 
 Health, Degrees of, 183. 
 
 Duty of, 182. 
 
 Giver, Action a, 179. 
 
 Happiness from, 493. 
 
 the Mainspring of Civilization, 178. 
 Healthful Living, Social Duty of, 918. 
 
 Man, the, 177. 
 Hearers, Truth to be Adapted to, 2344. 
 Hearing, Habits of, 794, 
 
 of Evil, the, 795. 
 Heart and Head, 1743. 
 
 Associations, 843. 
 
 Belief with the, 403. 
 
 Eloquence, 2270. 
 
 Enthusiasm, 1642. 
 
 Gifts of the, 801. 
 
 God Found Through the, 1477. 
 
 Heaven in the, 332. 
 
 Intents of the, 1076. 
 
 Makes Known the Book, the, 1840. 
 
 the: the Brain : Money, 559. 
 
 Uses the Head, the, 405. 
 Hearts, Homes Built by, 126. 
 Heaven Above the Earth, 1754. 
 
 Abundant Entrance into, 325. 
 
 and Earth, 351. 
 
 Conceptions of, 324. 
 
 Earth-Connection with, 1434. 
 Judgments in, 317. 
 
 Earthly Conditions Forgotten in, 348. 
 Preparation for, 323. 
 
 Hymns in, 2070. 
 
 in the Heart, 332. 
 
 Our Father, Which Art in, 1804. 
 
 Quarreling as Preparation for, 170. 
 
 Sickness, 319. 
 
 the Equivalent Theory of, 1467. 
 Heavenly and Earthly Power, 1325. 
 
 Associations with Earthly Loves, 175. 
 
 Guidance, 1328. 
 
 Father, the, 1 161. 
 
 Joys, Intimations of, 322. 
 
INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 (>5S 
 
 Heavenly, the Earthly and the, 339. 
 
 View of Earthly Dangers, 1996. 
 
 Vision, the, 1764. 
 
 Welcome, the, 326. 
 Hebraism and Christ, 1243. 
 Hebrew Prophets, the, 1907. 
 Hebrews, Labor Among the, 514. 
 Heedless Judgments, 779. 
 Heedlessness, 727. 
 Help at the Critical Time, 2086. 
 
 Divine Willingness to, 1832. 
 
 of the Esthetic Element, 2573. 
 
 the Time for, 1559. 
 
 when Needed, 220. 
 Helpful Work, Joy in, 340. 
 Helplf^sness of the Uneducated, 2426. 
 Hereafter, the, 347. 
 
 We Shall Know, 230. 
 Heredity, 41. 
 Hero Worship, 1047. 
 Heroes of Adversity, 640. 
 HEROisNf in Sickness, 219. 
 
 Moral Quality of, 462. 
 
 of Silence, 96. 
 
 the Chicago Fire a Lesson in, 2540. 
 Hidden Beauty Revealed, 646. 
 
 Life, the, 1069. 
 
 Man, the, 1073. 
 
 Thoughts, 384. 
 High Civilization, Liabilities of, 987. 
 
 Destiny of Humble Work, 521. 
 
 Feelings Transitory, 413. 
 
 Spirituality a Late Development, 1706, 
 Higher Developments, Slow, 1615. 
 
 Excitements, the, 1553. 
 
 Life in Human Love, the, 103. 
 Lower Powers in, 368. 
 Obstacles to the, 1692. 
 
 Moods, Power of, 1701. 
 
 Truth, Feeling Before Reason in, 407. 
 
 View of Christ, the, 1223. 
 Highest Joys of Life, 1745. 
 
 Liberty, 954. 
 Historic and the Personal Christ, the, 
 1221. 
 
 Christ of God, the, 1257. 
 Historical Need of the Old Testament, 
 
 1877. 
 Hoarded Wealth, 594. 
 Holding a Grudge, 765. 
 Holy Ghost, the Sin Against the, 81. 
 
 Living, Self-Effect of, 1531. 
 
 Spirit an Educator, 1302. 
 and Man, the, 1298. 
 Need of the, 1297. 
 Holiness, Beauty of, 1505. 
 Home Blessings Radiated, 163. 
 
 Character Tells, 164. 
 
 Charity Begins at, 2384. 
 
 Influence, 156. 
 
 Home Life the Test of Character, 162. 
 Lover, the, 173. 
 Selfishness, 167. 
 the Family Make the, 158. 
 World not Our, 336. 
 Homely Toil, Pleasure in, 529. 
 Homes Built by Hearts, 126. 
 Honesty in Work, 826. 
 Honor or Shame in Wealth, 592. 
 Hope and Condemnation Reconciled, 1310. 
 Experience, 2001. 
 Fear, 1997. 
 Patience, 1998. 
 for Organized Labor, 929, 
 Cures Weariness, 1999. 
 Cheer of, 2003. 
 for Humanity, the, 2458. 
 
 the Death-hour, a, 305. 
 in Death, the, 295. 
 
 Faint Beginnings, 1584. 
 of Heaven in Old Age, 282. 
 Reason for, 2002. 
 the Future for, 2004. 
 Splendor of, 2544. 
 Hopeful View, the, 2000. 
 Horizons, Immortality Enlarges, 320. 
 Hospital, the Church a, 2078. 
 Hours of Vision, 1054. 
 Household, the, 155. 
 How Conscience Acts, 1340. 
 to End Quarrels, 764. 
 Find Christ, 1556. 
 Give, 2409. 
 
 Look at Scenery, 2551. 
 Read the Bible, 1852. 
 
 Life of Christ, 1919. 
 Repay Injury, 817. 
 Take Trouble, 637. 
 Use Illustrations, 2302. 
 Human Affairs, God Central in, 1 164. 
 Development, 2460. 
 and Divine Nature, I188. 
 
 Sympathy, 1193. 
 View of Man, 2527. 
 Development, 1300. 
 Experience Transitory, 380. 
 Goodness Needs Nourishment, 1690. 
 Imperfection, 1637. 
 Judgments of God, 1120. 
 Knowledge Fragmentary, 2194. 
 Love, God Symbolized in, 1185. 
 
 the Higher Life in, 103. 
 Mediums, Divine Power through, 
 
 I3'3- ^ „ 
 
 Nature, Knowledge of, 2282. 
 
 Organized Variety of, 2188. 
 
 Without Religion, 1441. 
 Opinion an Uncertain Gauge, 906. 
 Side of Atonement, 1290. 
 Soul, Divine Influence on, 131 1. 
 
656 
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 Human Spirit Unequally Developed, 363. 
 
 Unity and Variety, 2488. 
 
 Variability, 74. 
 Humanity and Cultivation, 75. 
 the Gospel, 2485. 
 
 Christ's Valuation of, 5. 
 
 Dissensions of, 2473. 
 
 in Trouble, 878. 
 
 Interplay of, 2467. 
 
 March of, 2483. 
 
 Temples of God in, 2490. 
 
 the Hope for, 2458. 
 Rise of, 2524. 
 Sorrowr of, 269. 
 
 Upward Progress of, 2504. 
 HuMANlZATiON of Literature, 2456. 
 Humble Beginnings of Greatness, 643. 
 
 Callings, Great-Mindedness in, 511. 
 
 Helpers, 522. 
 
 Work, High Destiny of, 521. 
 Humiliation of Christ, the, 1226. 
 Humility, Honorable, 2083. 
 Humor and Wit, 482. 
 
 the Friend of Conscience, 1336. 
 Sense of, 485. 
 Hunger and Thirst for God, 1 117. 
 
 for Continuance, 342. 
 Hunting Happiness, 489. 
 Husbands and Wives, 121. 
 Hymnody to be Cultivated, 2066. 
 Hymns in Heaven, 2070. 
 
 Inspiration of, 2063. 
 Hypocrisy, 769. 
 
 Iconoclasm of the Paris Communists, 
 
 997- 
 Ideal and Real Growth, 134. 
 
 Beyond the Real, the, 1043. 
 
 Man, the, 80. 
 
 of Love, the, 1 10. 
 
 Manhood, the, 1042. 
 
 Self-Government the, 2427. 
 Ideals, Growth of, 1058. 
 
 Must be High, 1046. 
 
 of God, 1 1 13. 
 
 Under Trial, 120. 
 Idealization, 1045. 
 Ideas, Wealth in, 2069. 
 Idolatry of Money, 608. 
 Ignorance as to God's Promises, 1854. 
 
 Invites Tyranny, 958. 
 
 of Science, the, 2255. 
 
 the Cure of, 2429. 
 
 Worthlessness of, 2425. 
 ILL-Gotten Gains, 543. 
 Illness, 212. 
 
 Illustration, Christ's Methods of, 2300. 
 Illustrations from Nature, 2547. 
 
 How to Use, 2302. 
 Image of God, the, 362. 
 
 Imaginary' TiouIjIc, 682. 
 Imagination, 379. 
 
 and Belief, 1976. 
 
 Stronger than Reason, 2326. 
 Imaginative Truth-Seekers, 2325. 
 Immanent God, the, 11 29. 
 Immature, yet Genuine, 1619. 
 Immigration, 995. 
 
 and Freedom of Amusements, 1000. 
 Immorality and Irregular Habits, 59. 
 Immortal, Happiness of the, 329. 
 Immortality and Youth, 69. 
 
 Enlarges Horizons, 320. 
 
 Life without, 343. 
 
 Love Teaches, 315. 
 
 of Spiritual Labor, 535. 
 
 Things Hoped for in, 354. 
 Immutability of the Bible, 1913. 
 Impatience in Personal Career, 731. 
 Imperfect Men, 2413. 
 
 Truths, 2241. 
 Imperfection, 457. 
 
 of Great Men, 375. 
 Impersonality of Jesus, the, 1237. 
 Importance of Basilar Elements, 475. 
 Stomach to Head, 187. 
 Importunate Prayer, 1S22. 
 Improvement Honestly Misjudged, 1494. 
 Impulses to be Guarded, 365. 
 
 towards Christian Life, 1548. 
 " In Adam's Fall," 2213. 
 " In Him W^e Live," 1330. 
 " In the Image of God," 11 14. 
 Inactive Life, Low Grade of the, 551. 
 Incitement and Excitement, 1487. 
 Incomplete Character, 1025. 
 Incompleteness of Biblical Statements, 
 1881. 
 
 Patience with, 1678. 
 Inconspicuous Evil Influences, 1371. 
 Increased Moral Sensibility, 1652. 
 Independent Character, Training to, 154. 
 
 Workers for God, 2108. 
 Indian and Negro, 2518. 
 Indifference and Unbelief, 1970. 
 Indirect Guilt, 730. 
 
 Temptations, 1373. 
 Individual Message, the, 2276. 
 
 Preaching, 2335. 
 Individuality, 2412. 
 Individuals and Communities, 874. 
 Indolence, 512. 
 
 a Corrupter, 530. 
 
 Poisonous, 726. 
 Indolent, the. Temptation Finds, 1377. 
 Indulgence, Shortsightedness of, 1398. 
 Industry, 504. 
 Ineffective Thinking, 385. 
 Inequalities of Condition, 699. 
 Infant Humanity in the Bible, 2470. 
 
INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 ^57 
 
 I.NKiUEi-iTY as to Primitive Revelation, 
 2229. 
 
 Lack of Sympathy is, 945. 
 Iniinity, Incomprehensible, 1 130. 
 Infirmity and Sin, 1384. 
 Influence, 854. 
 
 God's Ways of, 1303. 
 
 Higher than Authority, 972. 
 
 Independent of Circumstances, 374. 
 
 of Character, 865. 
 Christ, 1258. 
 Noble Deeds, 1948. 
 Self-Consciousness, 859. 
 Society, 833. 
 Soul on Soul, 437. 
 Visible Goodness, 1503. 
 
 the Measure of Value, 858. 
 Inharmonious Faculties, 383. 
 Iniouity, Rejoicing in, 791. 
 Injury, How to Repay, 817. 
 Insensibility to Evil, 1418. 
 Insidious Sins, 1359. 
 Insignificant, Significance of the, 2500. 
 Insincerity, 2117. 
 Inspiration, 1835. 
 
 Doctrines of, 1962. 
 
 of Great Lives, 1098. 
 Hymns, 2063. 
 the Bible, 1867. 
 
 Power of, 2016. 
 
 Progressive, 2191. 
 
 Truths of, 1876. 
 Inspired Use of Uninspired Material, 1886. 
 Instant Action on Noble Impulses, 1554. 
 Institutions of Religion, 2166. 
 Insubordinate Mind-Servants, 466. 
 Intangible Property, 2553. 
 Intellect and Emotion, 361. 
 Intellection Inimical to Feeling, 1090. 
 Intelligence and Knowledge, 2428. 
 
 Liberty and Religion, 962. 
 Intelligent Inhumanity, 883. 
 
 Sinning, Meanness of, 1428. 
 Intensity, Power of, 435. 
 Intents of the Heart, 1076. 
 Interchange of Theologies, 2220. 
 Interplay of Humanity, 2467. 
 Interpretation of God, 1219. 
 
 Prophetic Visions, 1950. 
 Interpreting God's Will, 1777. 
 Interior not Exterior Quality, 603. 
 
 Obligation Superior to Law, 1686. 
 Intimacy, 908. 
 
 Intimations of HeavenVy Joys, 322. 
 Intolerant Toleration, 1511. 
 Inventors, Benefactions of, 2531. 
 Invisible, the, 1697. 
 
 Growths of Good, 2479. 
 
 Ministry of Children, the, 42. 
 
 Visions of the, 321. 
 
 Invitation to the Communion, 2056. 
 Inward and Outward Riches, 695. 
 
 Conflicts, 1610. 
 
 Life, the, 1066. 
 
 Light, the, 17 12. 
 
 Ornaments, 1074. 
 
 Quality, Outward Show not, 488. 
 Irish, the, 2515. 
 
 Irregular Habits and Immorality, 59. 
 Irregularity of the Gospel Stories, 1920. 
 Is Religious Excitement Indecorous, 1499. 
 Issue of Tribulation, 650. 
 It is the Lord, 1643. 
 
 Jacob's Ladder, 1599. 
 Jehovah, Christ's Representation of, 11 50. 
 Jesus and John the Baptist, 1230. 
 Solomon, 1925. 
 at Emmaus, 1254. 
 Cryptic Parables of, 2448. 
 Gratitude to, 1 291. 
 in the Tomb, 1250. 
 Leaves Galilee, 1106. 
 Love of Retirement, 1236. 
 Parables, Aptness of, 1926. 
 Persons Associated with, 1934. 
 Resurrection of, 1251. 
 the Childhood of, 1227. 
 Education of, 1228. 
 Disciples of, 1233. 
 Impersonality of, 1237. 
 Life of, 1225. 
 Look of, 1234. 
 Peaceful Presence of, 1274. 
 Polar Star, 1267. 
 Teaching of, 1239, 
 Temptation of, 1924. 
 Jewels, Spiritual Emblems, 2566. 
 Jewish View of Death, 302, 
 Jews, Fanatical Patriotism of the, 977. 
 Fanaticism of the, 2512. 
 Separateness of the, 976. 
 John the Baptist, 1922. 
 
 and Jesus, 1 230, 
 Forerunner, 2369. 
 Gospel of, 1937. 
 Joining the Church, 2074. 
 Joy after Sorrow, 232. 
 and Sorrow, 1729. 
 in Affliction, 224. 
 Grief, 222. 
 Helpful Work, 340. 
 Trouble, 254. 
 Mosaic Provision for, 487. 
 of Sacrifice, the, 7. 
 
 the New Life, 1600. 
 Over the Lost One Found, 1158. 
 the Soul's Longing for, 495. 
 to the Lord, 499. 
 Joyless Religion, 492. 
 
658 
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 Joys Awaiting Us, 501. 
 JunoE and Father, 141. 
 JUDGMENT by General Aim, 1033. 
 Judgments of Law and of Love, 24. 
 Just Anger, 424. 
 Justice, 821. 
 
 and Love, 2252. 
 
 Love in, 1208. 
 
 Kindling of the Spirit-Life, 1598. 
 Kindness of Pain, 653. 
 Kingdom of the Beautiful, the, 2570. 
 Knowledge and Intelligence, 2428. 
 
 of Christ, 1 27 1. 
 
 God Must Grow, 1060. 
 Human Nature, 2282. 
 
 Passeth Away, 2258. 
 
 Present and Future, 2179. 
 
 Too Dearly Bought, 1366. 
 
 Trust Without, 2009. 
 
 Labor, among the Hebrews, 514. 
 Fidelity in, 1737. 
 Organizations, 931. 
 Unions and Education, 928. 
 Danger of, 930. 
 Laborer and the Machine, the, 532. 
 Laboring for a Revival, 2127. 
 Labors of Genius, the, 508. 
 Lack of Christian Sympathy in Churches, 
 2098. 
 
 Moral Purpose, 1020, 
 Sympathy is Lifidelity, 945. 
 for Men, 2095. 
 Language, Simplicity of, 2299. 
 Large Families, 160. 
 Larger Evidence of Design, 11 28. 
 
 View, the, 2491. 
 Last Day of the Year, 1757. 
 
 Supper, Discoursing at the, I935. 
 Late Maturity in Life, 277. 
 Laughter, 483. 
 Law, a God of, 1 143. 
 and Gospel, 1941. 
 Love, 146. 
 
 Judgments of, 24. 
 Providence, 2556. 
 the Gospel, the, 2245. 
 Breakers, Worse than, 573. 
 Cumulative Violations of, 1404. 
 Failure of the, 1244. 
 in the World's Tumult, 2535. 
 Interior Obligation Superior to, 1686. 
 Liberty the Aim of, 955. 
 not Religion, 2256. 
 of Feeling, the, 441. 
 Success, the, 515. 
 Value, the, 542. 
 Laws of Life Generally Obeyed, 1037. 
 Interpreted, 1862. 
 the Two Vital, 1468. 
 
 Learning by Experience, 8. 
 
 God's Nature, 1 790. 
 
 Liberty, 2424. 
 
 to Live, 1623. 
 
 Speak the Truth, 15. 
 Legally Debased Currency, a, 1004. 
 Legibility of E:vil Courses, 57. 
 Legislative Thievery, 1008. 
 Lenten Truce with Sin, 14 10. 
 Lesson Must Suit the Scholar, 2328. 
 Lessons from the Cradle, 3. 
 
 of Virtue, Results of Vice, 1990. 
 
 Taught by Children, 36. 
 Leveling Tendency of the Gospel, 
 
 970. 
 Liabilities of High Civilization, 987. 
 Liberal, Temptation of the, 2226. 
 Liberty in Religious Thinking, 2225. 
 the Pulpit, 2347. 
 
 Intelligence and Religion, 962. 
 
 is Safe, 960. 
 
 Obedience to Law, 78. 
 
 the Aim of Law, 955. 
 
 Vital Force of, 965. 
 Lies to Children, 20. 
 Life, a Good, 276. 
 March, 549. 
 
 an Expounder of Moral Truth, 
 
 1839. 
 
 and Doctrines, 2181. 
 
 Aroused by Revivals, 155 1. 
 
 Bereavement Expansive of, 270, 
 
 Christianity for All of, 1522. 
 
 Complexity of, 382. 
 
 Hardness in, 692. 
 
 Highest Joys of, 1745. 
 
 Indeed, the, 2327. 
 
 Inspires Life, 891. 
 
 Interpreting God Through Prayer, 
 1809. 
 
 Interprets Language, 2441. 
 
 Late Maturity in, 277. 
 
 Misfits in, 579. 
 
 Needs Love, 1769. 
 
 of Jesus, the, 1225. 
 
 Outward and Inward, 1286. 
 
 Partner, Choosing a, 112. 
 
 Remnants of, 678. 
 
 Test the Bible by, 1864. 
 
 the Background of, 314. 
 Standard for, 1170. 
 Voyage of, 2474. 
 
 Varying Standards in, 937. 
 
 Without Immortality, 343. 
 Life's Storms, to Escape, 1755. 
 Lifetime, the Growth of a, 1694. 
 Life- Work, the Christian Life a, 1484. 
 Light, a Soul Open to the, 1301. 
 
 Striving Against the, 2218. 
 
 to be Received, 1315. 
 
INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 659 
 
 Like Begets Like, 818. 
 
 in Mental Action, 138. 
 
 Priest, Like I'cople, 2285. 
 Limitations of Comprehension, 1 109. 
 God in Christ, 1255. 
 Society, 836. 
 Limited Forgiveness in Nature, 189. 
 
 Value of Sorrow, 250. 
 Lincoln, Assassination of, 246. 
 Lincoln's Death, Effect of, 982. 
 Literal Human Equality Impossible, 
 
 2497. 
 Literature, Humanization of, 2456. 
 
 of the Old Testament, 1878. 
 Little Faults, 714. 
 
 Lies, 717. 
 
 Questioner, a, 11. 
 
 Sins, and Great Ones, 1396. 
 
 Things in Scripture, 1S74. 
 
 Virtues, 79S. 
 Live Above Care, 740. 
 
 Learning to, 1623. 
 Living and Dying, 311. 
 
 Aright, Difficulty of, 540. 
 
 Beyond Malice, 660. 
 
 by Faith, 2036. 
 
 Difficulty of, 1689. 
 
 Epistles, 1509. 
 
 God, the : Personality, 1141. 
 
 Gospels, 17 15. 
 
 Needs Learning, 927. 
 
 Sacrifice, a — the Body, 192. 
 Loftiness : Sermon on the Mount, 1928. 
 Look of Jesus, the, 1234. 
 Loom of Time, the, 2481. 
 Long and Short Prayers, 18 13. 
 
 Suffering, 694. 
 
 Words to Children, 34. 
 Longevity of Endowed Benefactions, 
 
 2402. 
 Longing for God, 1088. 
 Lord, Joy to the, 499. 
 Lord's Prayer, the, 1933. 
 Loss of Children, 223. 
 Losses, no Choosing of, 243. 
 Lost and Found, 1490. 
 
 Baby Kept, the, 262. 
 
 Cares Precious, 260. 
 
 One Found, Joy Over the, I158 
 
 Shall be Found, the, 352. 
 
 Souls, 1562. 
 
 Wealth Appreciated, 6x9. 
 Lovable God, a, 11 34. 
 Love, a Token of, 353. 
 
 above Passion, 105. 
 
 and Conscience, 1799. 
 Fear, 2251. 
 Hatred, 1780. 
 Justice, 2252. 
 Law, 146. 
 
 Love as Judge, 2247. 
 
 Beareth All Things, 829. 
 
 Believeth All Things, 177 1. 
 
 Christianity Without, 1776. 
 
 Cushioning Conscience, 882. 
 
 Divine Impulse of, 1172. 
 
 Element in St. Paul, 1774. 
 
 Enthusiasm of, 1789. 
 
 from Within, 1794. 
 
 God is, 1107. 
 
 Growth of, 108. 
 
 in Justice, 1208. 
 Service, 128. 
 
 Light in Darkness, 218. 
 
 Lightens Labor, 135. 
 
 Measure of, 1 15. 
 
 Needs Nourishment, 114. 
 
 Not Occasional, 1775. 
 
 Obedience to Law and to, 2253. 
 
 of Flowers, 2545. 
 
 Man for Woman, 102. 
 Money, the, 607. 
 Praise, 898. 
 
 Persistence of, 1788. 
 
 Pride Softened by, 17 19. 
 
 Seeks the Lowest, 1770. 
 
 Speaking the Truth in, 925, 
 
 Suffering the Test of, 233. 
 
 Supreme, 1800. 
 
 Teaches Immortality, 315. 
 
 the Anger of, 145. 
 Gift of, 21. 
 Ideal of, 1 10. 
 Primal Source of, 136. 
 Theology of, 2246. 
 
 to be Manifested, 805. 
 
 God Means Love to Man, 172. 
 
 Tokens to Christ, 1277. 
 
 Transforming Selfishness, 1602. 
 
 Virtues Dependent on, 1767, 
 Lovely Old Age, a, 2S7. 
 L»3Ve's Beginning, 99. 
 
 Power, 1 146. 
 
 Servitude, Glory of, 97. 
 Loving Atmosphere, the, 1485. 
 
 Kindness, 1793. 
 
 Necessity of, 1787. 
 
 Our Enemies, 1772. 
 Low Christian Attainment, 1657. 
 
 Grade of the Inactive Life, 551. 
 
 Ideals, 1670. 
 
 Standards in Public Affairs, 993. 
 Lower and the Higher Courage, the, 1 249. 
 Upper Life, 16S0. 
 
 Law a Step Towards Higher Law, 
 2465. 
 
 Life Unsatisfying, the, 1699. 
 
 Planes do not Include Higher, 852. 
 
 Pleasures Destroy Higher, 1393. 
 
 Powers in Higher Life, 368. 
 
660 
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 LowKR Oideis, the, 936. 
 
 Lowi.Y Service, 1768. 
 
 Luminous Hours after Darkness, 1763. 
 
 Natures, 1049. 
 Lustful Fires, 426. 
 
 Machine, the Laborer and the, 532. 
 Madonna a Typical Mother, a, 151. 
 MAKE-Shilt, Religion not a, 1445. 
 Making Others Happy, 803. 
 
 Use of God, 1 169. 
 Malice, Living Beyond, 660. 
 Malicious Gossips, 785. 
 Malign Feelings, to Cure, 949. 
 Man and God, 1969. 
 
 Controlling Nature, 2557. 
 
 Cruelly of, 82. 
 
 Divine Love for, 2571. 
 
 Grandeur of, 72. 
 
 Hater Cannot be God-Lover, 1796. 
 
 Human and Divine View of, 2527. 
 
 in the Making, 2477. 
 
 Making Takes Time, 2478. 
 
 Money not the, 621. 
 
 Needs God, 1017. 
 
 Position Does Not Make the, 49. 
 
 of Few Talents, the, 358. 
 
 the Actor ; God, the Mover, 436. 
 
 Responsible, 13 18. 
 
 the Church and the, 2101. 
 Fall of, 221 1. 
 Holy Spirit and, 1298. 
 
 Without Faith, the, 2007. 
 
 Work the Measure of, 506. 
 Manhood and Religion, 1462. 
 
 Property not, 641. 
 
 the Beauty of Man, 79. 
 
 Ideal of, 1042. 
 
 Mankind, Wealth Used for, 618. 
 
 Manliness in Bankruptcy, 561. 
 
 of Repentance, 1565. 
 Man's Access to God, 1142. 
 
 Best Qualities, God Conceived 
 Through, 1154. 
 
 Brotherhood, 877. 
 
 Capacity for Growth, 2492. 
 
 Chaotic Incompleteness, 2486. 
 
 Faculties to be Regulated, 430. 
 
 Higher Nature, Poverty of, 1656. 
 
 Ignorance : God's Providence, 2033. 
 of Himself, 1059. 
 
 Indifference to God, 1087. 
 
 Ineptness, 541. 
 
 Low Estate, 1700. 
 
 Nature, Complexity of, 381. 
 
 Need and God's Love, 121 2. 
 of Adversity, 629. 
 Another Life, 350. 
 Restraint, 423. 
 the Bible Coeval with, 1883. 
 
 Man's Possibilities, 2430. 
 
 Praises Acceptable to God, 2051. 
 
 Regulator, 1868. 
 
 Serenity in (iod, 1537. 
 
 Spirit Needs God's Spirit, 1309. 
 
 Strength in God, 2028. 
 
 Susceptibility, 834. 
 
 Temptableness, 1370. 
 
 Varied Aspects, 77. 
 
 Weakness, 2484. 
 Manufactures, Fraud in, 774. 
 Many Called: Few Chosen, 1720. 
 
 Sided Temptations, 1691. 
 
 Sidedness of the Bible, 1845. 
 Map, the Bible a, 1S60. 
 March, Life a, 549. 
 
 of Humanity, 2483. 
 Market and the Church, the, 539. 
 Marriage, Harmony Essential in, 104. 
 
 Permanency of, 123. 
 Married Life, Counterparts in, 116. 
 Marvels of the Body, 181. 
 Material Life, Development in, 2466. 
 Matter and Spirit, 1696. 
 Maturing of Character, 1705. 
 
 Under Sorrow, 268. 
 Meaning in Petty Mosaic Details, 1894. 
 
 of Sorrow, 259. 
 
 the Sepulcher, 244. 
 Meanings of Flowers, the, 2576. 
 Meanness of Intelligent Sinning, 1428. 
 Means of Grace, Happiness a, 14. 
 Measure of Achievements, 455. 
 Love, 115. 
 
 Man, Goodness the, 71. 
 Morality, 1024. 
 Measurements of Things Worldly, 1733. 
 Medicinal Power of Christianity, 2381. 
 Meek, Blessed are the, 1 100. 
 
 Shall Inherit the Earth, the, 1773. 
 
 the, Possessing the Earth, 1507. 
 Meekness, Coming Triumph of, 1779. 
 
 Divinity of, 1752. 
 
 Quiet Power of, 1753. 
 Meeting, Men Who Should Speak in, 
 21 16. 
 
 Speaking in, 21 15. 
 Memory of a Mother, the, 152. 
 
 Benefits, 1093. 
 Men, Differences of Approach to, 2321. 
 
 Fishers of, 2312. 
 
 God Working through, 13 14. 
 
 God's Goodness Waits for, 1184. 
 
 Heedless of Moral Danger, 1409. 
 
 Judged by Their Own Standards, 474. 
 
 Must be Born Better, 2464. 
 
 Need Other Men, 876. 
 
 Ready to be Helped, 2480. 
 
 the Study of, 2283. 
 Wasting of, 2472. 
 
INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 661 
 
 Men Who Should Speak in Meeting, 21 16. 
 
 Without Aspiration, 1085. 
 Men's Perplexities to be Worked Out, 
 
 1967. 
 Mental Action, Like Begets Like in, 138. 
 
 Vigor, Bodily Health for, 194. 
 
 Weather, Clear and Cloudy, 388. 
 Merciful, Blessed Are the, iioi. 
 Mercy, Christ's Works of, 1232. 
 
 with Cheerfulness, 823. 
 Mere Doctrinal Discussion, 2180. 
 
 Feeling to be Avoided, 113. 
 
 Morality, 1030. 
 MERRY-Maker and his Soul, 1406. 
 Method, Conversion a Change of, 1561. 
 Microscopic Conscience, 1337. 
 Military Americans in Civil Office, 9S8. 
 MiND-Force and Muscle-Force, 370. 
 
 Hunger, 369. 
 
 Ownership, 2552. 
 
 Should Dominate, 364. 
 
 Work at Night, 392. 
 Ministerial Instinct, the, 2281. 
 Ministers, an Obstacle for, 2309. 
 
 and Reform of Evils, 2364. 
 
 Place Hunting for, 2307. 
 Ministry of Books, 2436. 
 Minor Events and Great Experiences, 
 
 1756. 
 Miracles, Efficiency of, 1904. 
 
 of To-day, 1905. 
 
 Supplemental, 1903. 
 Miraculous Elements, 1917. 
 Mirth, 481. 
 
 Mirthful Illustrations, 2303. 
 Misconception of Repentance, 1566. 
 Misfits in Life, 579. 
 Misjudgment of the Young, 44. 
 Mistakes, 399. 
 Misunderstood, 2104. 
 Misuse of This World, 546. 
 Mixed Elements in Churches, 2100. 
 Moderate Morality, 1036. 
 Moderation in Work and in Play, 201. 
 Modern American Perils, 1002. 
 
 Increase of Fine Character, 2529. 
 
 Miracles, 2142. 
 
 Religious Influence, 2177. 
 Modest Merit, 2581. 
 MoNEY-Getters, Emptiness of, 577. 
 
 Getting, Damages of, 576. 
 
 Idolatry of, 608. 
 
 Makers, 606. 
 
 Not the Man, 621. 
 
 the Heart : the Brain, 559. 
 
 the Love of, 607. 
 
 to be Used, 595. 
 Moads, Sympathy of, 25. 
 Moral Character, Beauty of, 1735. 
 
 Courage, Physical and Mental or, 473. 
 
 Moral Danger, Men Heedless of, 1409. 
 Depravity and Physical Beauty, 460. 
 Deterioration, 722. 
 Disability, 1825. 
 
 Element, Superiority of the, 463. 
 Inferiority of the Greeks, 2513. 
 Intelligence of Commerce, 589. 
 Intuition, 454. 
 Judgment Important, 1412. 
 Judgments, the " Personal Equation " 
 
 i". 453- 
 
 Principle in Affairs, 563. 
 
 Purpose, Lack of, 1020. 
 
 Quality of Heroism, 462. 
 
 Sense, Public Life Dulls tlie, 992. 
 Taught, not Intuitive, 459. 
 
 Teaching from Physical Pain, 191. 
 
 Training, 449. 
 
 Truth, Life an ExjMunder of, 1839. 
 the Earth-view of, 464. 
 
 Worth of Frugality, 698. 
 Morality and Piety, 1474. 
 
 Spirituality, 1021. 
 
 Better than Nothing, 1028. 
 
 but Partial, 1026. 
 
 Human and Divine, 1 1 56. 
 
 Indispensable, 1019. 
 
 Measure of, 1024. 
 
 not Enough, 1022. 
 
 the Root, 1035. 
 Moralities, Conceit in, 1543. 
 Morals, the Danger-Line in, 1355. 
 Morbid Seeking of Trouble, 1994. 
 Morning, Conversions Like the Dawn of, 
 
 1539- 
 Mortal and Immortal Vision, 344. 
 Mortality, Contentment with Unnatural, 
 
 337- 
 Mosaic Provision for Joy, 487. 
 
 Training, 1895. 
 Mother and Child, 139. 
 
 the New Birth, the, 150. 
 
 Creed, the, 2264. 
 
 Nature, 2548. 
 
 of all Graces, the, 1687. 
 
 the Memory of a, 152. 
 Motherhood, 129. 
 
 Ideal, the, 1783. 
 
 Nobility of, 130. 
 
 Transformation by, 1 32. 
 Mother's Eye, The, 2. 
 
 Forgiveness, a, 147. 
 Motion and Emotion, 410. 
 Motive, Grades of, 458. 
 
 Power, Gratitude as a, 1095. 
 of Enthusiasm, 869. 
 Motives, not Acts, 887. 
 Mount of Vision, the, 2013. 
 Mourning for Death, 257. 
 MoVEMENT.Progress Conditioned on, 2234. 
 
662 
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 Mui.Tiii.icn V of Tliouglits, 391. 
 Municipal Prosperity, 1013. 
 Murk, Thinking in a, 395. 
 Musci.K-Force and Mind-Force, 370. 
 Mutual Ht.lpfulnebi.s, 884. 
 
 Judgnitnts, 452. 
 
 Recognition of Sects, 2162. 
 Mysterious Powers of Evil, 1351. 
 Mystery of Life Cleared, 2037. 
 Mystic Interpretation Unhelpful, 1842. 
 Mystical, the Simple and the, 1238. 
 
 Nagging, 783. 
 
 Name Above Every Name, the, 1260. 
 
 Associations, 1936. 
 Narrowness of Conceit, 2267. 
 Nation and the States, the, 980. 
 National Ailments, 986. 
 
 Excitements, 979. 
 
 Honesty, 1006. 
 
 Importance of Cities, IOI2. 
 
 Life, Wealth in, 599. 
 Native Benevolence, 241 1. 
 
 Evil Finds Evil, 793. 
 
 Gifts no Standard for Measure, 1738. 
 
 Ordination, 2277. 
 Natural and Spiritual Life, 1672. 
 
 the Religious Life, the, 1442. 
 
 Bent to he Meeded, 50. 
 
 Death, the, 296. 
 
 Development, the Church a, 2134. 
 
 Gifts, Consecration of, 94. 
 
 Law, 2555. 
 
 anil Providence, 1 166. 
 in Spiritual Things, 1614. 
 Righteousness a, 1473. 
 
 Religion, 1460. 
 Naturally Good Children, 2418. 
 Naturalness in Prayer, 2119. 
 
 of Religious Revivals, 871. 
 Nature, Associations with, 2578. 
 
 Christian Charge of, 1651. 
 
 God in, 2568. 
 
 God's Thoughts in, 2569. 
 
 Illustrations from, 2547. 
 
 Limited F'orgiveness in, 189. 
 
 of Character, 892. 
 Christ, the, 1222. 
 Prayer, the, 1 801. 
 Sin, 1381. 
 
 Overpowering Grace, 15 19. 
 
 Providence in, 1 163. 
 
 the Balm of, 2585. 
 Nature's Retribution, 1357. 
 
 Wealth to be Found Out, 2562. 
 Near to Death, 291. 
 
 Necessary Labors on the Sabbath, 2047. 
 Necessity of Differing Beliefs, 1973. 
 Diluting Truth, 1240. 
 Loving, 1787. 
 
 Need of the Holy Spirit, 1297. 
 Needless Doubt, 1870. 
 Talk, 780. 
 Worry, 743. 
 Ne(;ativk Goodness, 870. 
 
 Morality, 1482. 
 Neglect, 729. 
 
 of God's Promises, 1209. 
 Negro and Indian, 2518. 
 Neither Good nor Bad, 445. 
 Nerves and Happiness, 444. 
 New Aspects of Truth not to be Hastily 
 Preached, 2349. 
 Birth, the, 1299. 
 
 Mother and the, 150. 
 England, the Elms of, 2583. 
 Era, Spiritual Enrichment of the, 
 
 2240. 
 Ideals, 1050. 
 
 Given by Christ, 1048. 
 Ideas, Caution with, 2343. 
 Life, Beginnings of the, 1597. 
 foy of the, 1600. 
 Postponing the, 1446. 
 Light, 2231. 
 
 Spirit, the. Old Letter, 1884. 
 Testament Miracles, 1916. 
 
 Silences of the, 1918. 
 Supreme Elements of the, 
 
 1914. 
 the Hand-Book, 1915. 
 the Old and the, 2224. 
 Truth from Single Men, 2355. 
 
 to be Separated from Error, 
 2350. 
 Truths, 2222. 
 
 Antiquity of, 1841. 
 View of Sin, the, 2239. 
 Newspaper, the, 2454. 
 Night, Mind-Work at, 392. 
 
 of Sorrow, the, 272. 
 NiMBLENESs of Piovcrbs, 2444. 
 No and Yes, 1376. 
 
 Choosing of Losses, 243. 
 Conscience, 1331. 
 Marriage in the Resurrection, 125. 
 Original Righteousness, 2215. 
 Safety in Solitude, 840. 
 Nobility before Decoration, 477. 
 in Adversity, 676. 
 of Motherhood, 130. 
 
 Wealth with Goodness, 497. 
 Noble Burden-Bearing, 1732. 
 Deeds, Influence of, 1948. 
 Impulses, Instant Action on, 1554. 
 Poesy Immortal, 2451. 
 Thought, a, 396. 
 Nobleness Compels Admiration, 867. 
 Nomadic Americans, 2521. 
 NoN-Fulfillinent not Law Breaking, 1636. 
 
INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 663 
 
 Not Chosen, Because Not Choosing, 1560. 
 
 Joyous, but Grievous, 234. 
 
 Mode, but Fact, of Conversion, 1582. 
 
 the Church, but the Christian, 863. 
 
 Unclothed, but Clothed Upon, 330. 
 NoTHiNc for Nothing, 516. 
 NovEL-Reading, 2445. 
 Noxious Element, Fear a, 1993. 
 
 Obedience, Patience in, 1621. 
 Power from, 1444. 
 to Law and to Love, 2253. 
 Object of Prayer, 1803. 
 Objections to the Christian Life, 145 1. 
 Obligations of Genius, 373. 
 Obscure Work, 527, 
 Obscuration of Faculties, 280. 
 Obscurity, Glory Out of, 657. 
 Obstacle for Ministers, an, 2309. 
 Obstacles to the Higher Life, 1692. 
 Obstructions to Truth, 1974. 
 Of the Earth, Earthy, 1016. 
 Offences, the Owning of, 824. 
 Old Age, a Lonely, 287. 
 
 Hope of Heaven in, 282. 
 Weakness of, 279. 
 
 and Joy of, 274. 
 and the New, the, 2224. 
 Letter, the; the New Spirit, 1884. 
 Testament, Children and the, 27. 
 
 Historical Need of the, 
 
 1877. 
 Judged by the New, 1896. 
 Laws, 1893. 
 Literature of the, 1878. 
 Rejection of the, 1890. 
 Truthfulness of the, 1880. 
 One Man's Power for Evil, 920. 
 
 Thing Needful, the, 1791. 
 Oneness of Creed, 21 10. 
 One's Self, Taking Account of, 465. 
 Opening of Young Manhood, 46. 
 Orator's Voice, the, 2294. 
 Oratory, 2288. 
 Order in Disorder, 2534. 
 
 of Faith, the, 2021. 
 Organized Charity, Advantage in, 2403. 
 Danger in, 2404. 
 Labor, Hope for, 929. 
 Variety of Human Nature, 2188. 
 Origin of Evil, 1127. 
 Original Christianity, 1307. 
 Other Denominations, Preachers from, 
 2163. 
 
 Men's Consciences, 1344. 
 Crookedness, 567. 
 Prosperity, 705. 
 World, Worth in the, 316. 
 Orthodoxy and Christianity, 1725. 
 Our Father, Which Art in Heaven, 1804. 
 
 Our Hope, Christ, 121 8. 
 
 Infirmities, 1385. 
 
 Need, Christ's Motive, 1280. 
 Outbreaking Corruption a Symptom, 
 
 1009. 
 OuT-Door Life, 197. 
 Outgrown Sins, Repenting of, 1411. 
 Outside Light on the Bible, 1843. 
 Outward and Inward Life, 1286. 
 Riches, 695. 
 
 Show not Inward Quality, 4S8. 
 Owning of Offences, the, 824. 
 
 Pain by Divine Intention, 213. 
 
 Kindness of, 653. 
 Pantheism, Emptiness of, 11 18. 
 Paper Money, 1005. 
 Parable and Fable as Teachers, 28. 
 Parables and Events, 1927. 
 Parentage, Perplexities of, 143. 
 
 Revelations of, 153. 
 Parental Obligation, Sound Bodies a, 
 
 137- 
 Parents' Task, the. 142. 
 Paris Communists, Iconoclasm of the, 997. 
 Partial Christianity, 1472. 
 
 Views, II 32. 
 Partisanship in Church Life, 2155. 
 Partnership with God, 557. 
 Passing Impressions of Good, 1105. 
 Passions and Appetites, 193. 
 
 Power of the, 1358. 
 
 Reformation of the, 1564. 
 
 the, 425. 
 
 to Guard Against, 1361. 
 Past and Future Church Work, 2109. 
 tlie Future, the, 1568. 
 
 not to Rule the Present, the, 2528. 
 
 Still Exists, the, 65. 
 
 Victory Over the, 1605. 
 Patience and Hope, 1998. 
 
 in Reform, 2362. 
 Obedience, 162 1. 
 
 is Self-Control, 420. 
 
 of the Dull, the, 421. 
 
 the Time for, 558. 
 
 with Incompleteness, 1678. 
 Patient Labor, 528. 
 
 Waiting. 1821. 
 Patriarchs, Time of the, 1892. 
 Patriotism : Concentrated and Diffused, 
 
 978. 
 Pattern of Perfection, the, 1782. 
 Paul a Darwinian, 2235. 
 Paul's " Christ Crucified," 2342. 
 
 Egoism, 1947. 
 
 Last Letter, 1946. 
 Peace and Righteousness, 1747. 
 
 Begins in Confusion, 2382. 
 
 Conflict leading to, 2373. 
 
664 
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 Peace, Cosmic Center of, 1148. 
 
 of dying, the, 301. 
 God, the, 1765. 
 
 the Price of, 159. 
 
 Wailike Energies Used for, 251 1. 
 Peacki'UL Presence of Jesus, the, 1274. 
 
 Spirit, the, 813. 
 Peacemakers, Blessed Are the, 1 102. 
 Penalty Guards Safety, 654. 
 Penitent, the Cry of the, 1826. 
 People, Rise of the, 2525. 
 Perfected, Character to be, 1593. 
 
 Manhood the Idea of Creation, 76. 
 Pereectibility, 275. 
 Perfection, Conversion not, 1588. 
 
 in Differentiation, 2259. 
 
 tlie Pattern of, 1782. 
 Peril, America's Prosperity and, 990. 
 
 in Temptation, 1356. 
 Perils of Prosperity, 611. 
 
 Temptation, 1367. 
 the Future, 318. 
 Permanence of God's Words, 1963. 
 
 Spiritual Gains, 169S. 
 Permanency of Marriage, 123. 
 Perpetual Spiritual Effort, 1760. 
 Perpetuity of the Bible, 19 12. 
 Perplexities of Parentage, 143. 
 Persecuted for Righteousness' Sake, 659. 
 Persecution Should Sweeten Men, 670. 
 
 Truth Spread by, 644. 
 Perseverance, 1761. 
 
 in Self-Cleansing, 1541. 
 Well-Doing, 1603. 
 Persistence in Sorrow, 249. 
 
 of Deeds Done, 1420. 
 Love, 1788. 
 Persistent Troubles, 683. 
 Personal Career, Impatience in, 731. 
 
 Criticism, 775. 
 
 Equation in Moral Judgments, the, 
 
 453- 
 
 Evidences of Sonship, 1709. 
 
 God Fundamental, a, II 16. 
 
 Love, and Benevolence, 2392. 
 
 Power, 862. 
 
 Right to God, a, 1136. 
 
 Rights, 924. 
 
 Saviour, the, 1264. 
 Personality, 494. 
 
 in the Preacher, 2272. 
 
 Power of, 868. 
 Persons Associated with Jesus, 1934. 
 Pertinacity of Bad Habits, 725. 
 Petty Cheating, 747. 
 
 Criticisms, 1965. 
 
 Mosaic Details, Meaning in, 1894. 
 
 Sins, 715. 
 Pew and Pulpit, 2280. 
 Phases of Christian Love, 1683. 
 
 PiiII.OSoPHEk'S God not Adorable, the, 
 
 1115. 
 Physical and Mental or Moral Courage, 
 
 473- 
 
 Beauty and Moral Depravity, 460. 
 
 Means of Grace, 208. 
 
 Pain, Moral Teaching from, 191. 
 Teaching of, 215. 
 
 Retribution, 188. 
 Piety and Devotion, 1464. 
 Morality, 1475. 
 
 from Unlikely Conditions, 2143. 
 Pl.ACE-Hunting, for Ministers, 2307. 
 Place, Worth of Each in His, 2499. 
 Platform and Pulpit, 2296. 
 
 Not Pulpit, 2297. 
 Please, Preaching to, 2291. 
 Pleasure, 498. 
 
 Expression of, 802. 
 
 in Homely Toil, 529. 
 
 of Doing Good, 2394. 
 
 Wrong Use of, 200. 
 Poet and Prophet, 1053. 
 Poet's Inspiration, the, 2546. 
 Polar Star, Jesus the, 1267. 
 Politics, Corporate Wealth in, loio. 
 Poor Church Members no Excuse for 
 Other Men, 1452. 
 
 Contentment, 419. 
 
 God's Heirs not, 709. 
 
 Relief to Stimulate, not Enervate, 
 
 2399- 
 Remedy for Scepticism, 1975. 
 the Sabbath for the, 2042. 
 Popular Intelligence, 2502. 
 Refinement, 2494. 
 Unrest, Regulation of, 2536. 
 Position Does not Make the Man, 49. 
 Positiveness of Religion, 1483. 
 PossiiiiLiTiES in Culture, 32. 
 
 of Wickedness, 1399. 
 Postponing the New Life, 1446. 
 Potency of a Christian Household, l6l. 
 Potter, the Clay and the, 11 26. 
 Poverty, a Primary Cause of, 704. 
 Evils of, 701. 
 of Man's Higher Nature, 1656. 
 
 Spiritual Qualities, 1674. 
 Sainthood in, 693. 
 Wealth in, 642. 
 
 Without Love is, 124, 
 Power from Eftbrt, 593. 
 
 Obedience, 1444. 
 in Diversity, 2260. 
 of Association, 842. 
 Calvinism, 2200. 
 Cheerfulness, 486. 
 Christ, 1265. 
 Doubt, tlie, 1978. 
 Enjoyment, the, 613. 
 
INDEX OF TITLP:S 
 
 665 
 
 Power of Feelinjj, the, 40S. 
 God's Spirit, 1 11 1. 
 Good Phrasiiif^, 2443. 
 Greatness, 2437. 
 Higher Moods, 1701. 
 Inspiration, 2016. 
 Intensity, 435. 
 Personality, 868. 
 Repeated Acts, 1405. 
 the Passions, 1358. 
 Tongue, 943. 
 True Preacher, 2287. 
 Weak, 520. 
 Weakness Allied with God, 2356. 
 Practical Sympathy, 888. 
 
 Use of Christ, 1262. 
 Practice and Preaching, 3308. 
 Theory, 1536. 
 Faith in, 2025. 
 
 Must Supplement Study, 1865. 
 Praise Lightens Trouble, 242. 
 Love of, 898. 
 Songs, 2058. 
 
 to God, a Human, not a Divine, 
 Need, 2059. 
 Pray and Watch, 1829. 
 Prayer a Relief, 1808. 
 
 Universal Recourse, 1823. 
 and Self-help, 1S27. 
 Aspiration of, 1805. 
 Continuing Instant in, 1814. 
 Delayed Answer to, 1820. 
 for an Uplifting, 2006. 
 
 Others, 1831. 
 Forms of, 181 2. 
 in Emergency, 18 18. 
 Life Interpreting God Through, 1809. 
 Naturalness in, 21 19. 
 Object of, 1803. 
 of Duty, the, 1817. 
 
 the Wicked, the, 1824. 
 Spiritual, not Material, 1810. 
 the Nature of, 1801. 
 to be Spontaneous, 18 16. 
 Under Pressure, 1819. 
 Varied Elements of, 1806. 
 PKAYER-Meeting, the, 181 1. 
 
 Woman in the, 2122. 
 Prayers, Resisting Answers to, 1828. 
 Praying and Thinking, 393. 
 Preacher a Man-Builder, the, 2336. 
 All Things to All Men, the, 2284. 
 Personality in the, 2272. 
 the Range of the, 2310. 
 Preachers and Teachers, 2414. 
 Born, Not Made, 2274. 
 from Other Denominations, 2163. 
 Preacher's Opportunities, the, 2332. 
 Preaching and Practice, 2308. 
 
 Public Spirit, 569. 
 
 Preaching and Theologizing, 2313. 
 Theology, 2354. 
 
 Christ Imperfectly, 1283. 
 
 Discrimination in, 2329. 
 
 Dullness and Levity, 2304. 
 
 God's Desire to Save All, 2322. 
 
 Individual Conceptions of, 1292. 
 
 Must Suit Its Era, 2268. 
 
 on Secular Affairs, 1003. 
 
 Politics and Commerce in, 2348. 
 
 Subjects for, 2317. 
 
 Substantial Thought in, 2330. 
 
 the Test of, 15 13. 
 
 to Please, 2291. 
 
 Varied Material in, 2337. 
 
 Variety in, 2316. 
 Prejudices, Respect for, 2376. 
 Preparation for Crime, 1400. 
 Death, 307. 
 
 This World a, 1677. 
 Present and Future, 1682. 
 
 Knowledge, 2179. 
 
 Day Scepticism, 564. 
 
 Duties for Children, 31. 
 
 Grief, Future Glory, 225. 
 
 Help, Future Joy a, 334. 
 
 the Past not to Rule the, 2528. 
 Pressure, Prayer under, 1819. 
 Price of Peace, the, 159. 
 Pride, 759. 
 
 Softened by Love, 17 19. 
 Priesthood, Value and Peril of, 217 1. 
 Primal Source of Love, the, 136. 
 Primary Cause of Poverty, a, 704. 
 
 Civic Virtue, Wealth-Making, a, 600. 
 Primitive Church, the, 2133. 
 
 Revelation, Infidelity as to, 2229. 
 Principle, Eating on, 1S6. 
 Principles Follow Rules, 1630. 
 
 of Protestantism, the, 2156. 
 Private Interj^rctation, 1S50. 
 Privilege of Taking Divine Guidance, 
 
 1324- 
 Problem of Evil, 2199. 
 Problems of Providence, 1160. 
 Process and Product, 1641. 
 
 of Spiritual Betterment, 1625. 
 Prodigal's Return, the, 149. 
 Profanity, the Harm of, 946. 
 Professional Piety, 1527. 
 Professors, Christianity Judged by Its, 
 
 1502. 
 Profitable I>osses, 707. 
 Profitless Explanations, 894. 
 Progress, 2462. 
 
 Conditioned on Movement, 2234. 
 Disturbance the Price of, 2371. 
 Promise of Eternal Life, 1676. 
 Prompt Escape from Temptation, 1365. 
 Proneness to Evil, 1394. 
 
666 
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 pROrAOATION of F^vil, I424. 
 
 Proi'ERTY not Manhood, 641. 
 Prophecy of Future Life, a, 327. 
 Prophet and Poet, 1053. 
 Prophetic Love, 6. 
 
 Visions, Interpretation of, 1950. 
 Priiphets, the, 1901. 
 Propriety, Corruption with, 1034. 
 Proselytini;, 2173. 
 Prosperity and Adversity, 627. 
 
 Perils of, 61 1. 
 
 to Circulate, 596. 
 Protestantism, the Principles of, 
 
 2156. 
 Proverbs, Nimbleness of, 2444. 
 Providence and Law, 2556. 
 
 Natural Law, 1166. 
 
 Faulty Instruments of, 994. 
 
 in Nature, 1163. 
 
 Natural and Supernatural, 1 167. 
 
 of Work, the, 517, 51S. 
 
 Problems of, 1 160. 
 
 Rough Handling by, 645. 
 Proving of Doctrines, the, 2221. 
 Public Affairs and the Gospel, 2345. 
 Corruption in, 1007. 
 Low Standards in, 993. 
 
 Amusements, 999. 
 
 Conscience, Deterioration in, loii. 
 
 Education and Sabbath-Keeping, 
 2048. 
 
 Life Dulls the Moral Sense, 992. 
 Young Men in, 991. 
 
 Opinion, 873. 
 
 School, Democracy of the, 2422. 
 
 Spirit and Preaching, 969. 
 Pulpit and Pew, 2280. 
 
 Platform, 2296. 
 Reforms, the, 2357. 
 
 Liberty in the, 2347. 
 Punishing an Forgiving, 1282. 
 Punitive Love, 140. 
 Puritanism, 2227. 
 
 the Sabbath of, 2043. 
 Purpose, Sin Lies in, 1391. 
 Puzzles of Doctrines, 2183. 
 
 Qualities, Discrimination of, 940. 
 Quality in Activity, 548. 
 
 Virtues, 830. 
 Quarrel, Disagreement Without, 926. 
 Quarreling as Preparation for Fleaven, 
 
 170. 
 Quarrels, How to End, 764. 
 Quick Learning, 2434. 
 
 Maturity, Quick Decay, 1639. 
 Quid Pro Quo, 513. 
 Quiet Conversions, 1581. 
 
 Power of Meekness, 1753. 
 " Quit Ye Like Men ! " 1528. 
 
 Race, Salvation of the, 2543. 
 
 Radiance of Fidelity, the, 2366. 
 
 Radicalism of Christ, 1242. 
 
 Raillery, 948. 
 
 Range of the Preacher, the, 2310. 
 
 Rare Virtues Remembered, 2126. 
 
 Rarity of Friendships, 911. 
 
 Rationalism, 1741. 
 
 Reaction of Feeling, 443. 
 
 Reactions and Revivals, 2130. '' 
 
 Reading Nature Aright, 2550. 
 
 Sympathetic Moods for, 2450. 
 
 with Discrimination, 2449. 
 Real Man, the, 696. 
 
 Meeting, the, 2114. 
 
 Penitence a Sure Possession, 1640. 
 
 the Ideal Beyond the, 1043. 
 Realization of Change, 1576. 
 
 God, II 38. 
 Reaping and Sowing, 1609. 
 Reason and Conscience, 1342. 
 Faith, 2029. 
 
 for Hope, 2002. 
 
 Imagination stronger than, 2326. 
 Recalling Griefs, 251. 
 Receiving and Giving, 2389. 
 
 One Another, 2073. 
 Reclamation of Evil Traits, 723. 
 Recreation and Work, 199. 
 
 Necessary, 207. 
 
 Neglected, 585. 
 Recreations, Enlargement of, 55. 
 Recuperation Under Adversity, 669. 
 Recuperative Power of Good, 2567. 
 Refinement, Dangers of, 377. 
 
 not to be Exclusive, 1081. 
 
 Uses of, 849. 
 Reform Arouses Complaint, 2367. 
 
 Disturbances of, 2372. 
 
 Patience in, 2362. 
 Reformation and Repentance, 1421. 
 
 Condemnation not, 2375. 
 
 Critical Moments for, 1414. 
 
 Manifests Evil, 1427. 
 
 of the Passions, 1564. 
 Reformers and Reforms, 2379. 
 Reformer's Truth, the, 2368. 
 Reforms and Reformers, 2379. 
 
 the Pulpit and, 2357. 
 Refreshment in Thought of Eternity, 
 
 294. 
 Regeneration, 1540. 
 Regenerated Man, the, 1661. 
 Regulated, Religious Fervor to be, 1501. 
 Regulation, not Destruction, 450. 
 
 of Popular Unrest, 2536. 
 Rejection of the Old Testament, 1890. 
 Rejoicing Amid Sorrow, 266. 
 
 in Iniquity, 791. 
 Release From Evil Bondage, 1432. 
 
INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 667 
 
 Relief, Prayer a, 1808. 
 
 of Tears in Sorrow, 228. 
 Religion Acceptable to All Men, the, 
 
 '455- 
 and Creeds, 1508. 
 
 Manhood, 1462. 
 
 the Church, 1489. 
 
 the Church, and, 2167. 
 
 Caution in, 1470. 
 
 Cheerfulness in, 500. 
 
 Conservativeness in, 1500. 
 
 Emotion not, 1496. 
 
 Emotional Nature of, 1488. 
 
 Ever-Living, 1453. 
 
 Harmony of Soul, 1525. 
 
 Hindered by Ecclesiasticism, 2154. 
 
 Human Nature without, 1441. 
 
 in Time of Trouble, 1447. 
 
 Institutions of, 2166. 
 
 is Right Life, 1433. 
 
 Liberty and Intelligence, 962. 
 
 Misunderstood, 1466. 
 
 not a Make-Shift, 1445. 
 Mysterious, 1456. 
 
 of Fate, the, 2206. 
 
 Positiveness of, 1483. 
 
 Seclusion not, 547. 
 
 the First Soul-Work of, 1596. 
 Soul's Health, 1465. 
 
 Theology not, 1461. 
 
 Two Theories of, 1443. 
 Religious Depth, 1529. 
 
 Despair, 149 1. 
 
 Emotion Pernicious if not Practical, 
 1497. 
 
 Excitement, 2128. 
 
 Feeling and Business, 584. 
 
 Fervor to be Regulated, 1501. 
 
 Helpfulness of Science, 1312. 
 
 Inquirers Need Sympathy, 1558. 
 
 Inspiration and Singing, 2062. 
 
 Inspirations Evanescent, 1104. 
 
 Intolerance, 214S. 
 
 Life, the Natural and the, 1442. 
 
 Masks, 2103. 
 
 Pride, 762. 
 
 Revivals, Grades of, 2129. 
 
 Naturalness of, 871. 
 
 Rites, 2139. 
 
 Symbolism, 2052. 
 
 Thinking, Liberty in, 2225. 
 Remembrance, Wealth no Title to, 617. 
 Remnants of Life, 678. 
 Repeated Acts, Power of, 1405. 
 
 Faults Dim Moral Sight, 713. 
 Repentance and Reformation, 1421. 
 
 Manliness of, 1565. 
 
 Misconception of, 1566. 
 Repented Sins to be Forgotten, 1567. 
 Repenting of Outgrown Sins, 141 1. 
 
 Repose of Death, 300. 
 Reprobation, 1423. 
 Republic demands Virtue, the, 973. 
 Reputation, 896. 
 
 and Character, 897. 
 
 from Everyday Life, 904. 
 Resignation, Time for, 221. 
 Resist Beginnings, 58. 
 Resistance to Temptation, 1372. 
 Resisting Answers to Prayers, 1828. 
 Resolutions and Gravitation, 846. 
 Respect for Prejudices, 2376. 
 Responsibility for Adam, 2212. 
 Rest for Body and Brain, 2040. 
 the Workingmen, 2041. 
 
 of God, the, 2038. 
 
 Sabbath Worship, the, 2044. 
 Restraining Agency, Fear but a, 1991. 
 Restraint, Man's Need of, 423. 
 Result, Credit for Effort Rather than, 456. 
 Results of Vice, Lessons of Virtue, 1990. 
 Resurrection, Commercial Death and, 
 680. 
 
 of Jesus, 1 25 1, 
 a Soul, the, 1542. 
 
 Type, a, 331. 
 Retirement, Jesus' Love of, 1236. 
 Retiring from Business, 586. 
 Retrospection, 1758. 
 Returning Good for Evil, 1797. 
 Revealer, Sorrow a, 247. 
 Revelation an Unveiling, 1887. 
 
 of God, 1707. 
 
 the Rocks, the, 2230. 
 Revelations Cannot be Hidden, 2244. 
 
 of Grief, 235. 
 Parentage, 153. 
 
 the Book of, 195 1. 
 Reverence for Women, 89. 
 Revenge, the Torment of, 427. 
 Revival, Laboring for a, 2127. 
 Revivals, 2132. 
 
 and Reactions, 2130. 
 
 Life Aroused by, 155 1. 
 Rhetorical Illustrations, 2301. 
 Rich, Haste to be, 609. 
 Rise of Humanity, 2524. 
 the People, 2525. 
 Ritual, Dangers of, 2053, 
 
 Variation of, 2138. 
 River of Death, the, 306. 
 Right and Wrong, 10^9. 
 
 EflFect of Trouble, 628. 
 
 Life, Religion is, 1433. 
 
 Living, DifiFiculty of, 839. 
 
 the Science of, 1869. 
 
 Standards, 281. 
 
 l^nconscious Rebuke of Wrong, 825. 
 
 Use of Appetites and Passions, 47. 
 the Bible, 1834. 
 
668 
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 I<i(;iiri.'>us Man, the, 1514. 
 
 Republic, Endurance of a, 1015. 
 Rkuitkousnkss a Natural Law, 1473. 
 
 and Peace, 1747- 
 
 Blessed Are They Who Hunger and 
 Thirst after, 1 103. 
 
 Sake, Persecuted for, 659. 
 
 Superstition Dispelled by, 2559. 
 
 Training in, 1624. 
 RlPENER, Suffering a, 261. 
 Rii'KNiNO Power of Divine Inllucnce, 
 
 1320. 
 Rocks, the Revelation of the, 2230. 
 Romans, Epistle to the, 1942. 
 
 Seventh and Eighth of, 1940. 
 Rough Handling by Providence, 645. 
 
 Outside, Sweet Inside, 448. 
 Rubhish, the Bible Buried under, 1953. 
 Ruined Man, a, 702. 
 Rule, the Use of a, 952. 
 Rules Teach Principles, 953. 
 Russia, Despotism in, 2517. 
 Ruth, the Book of, 1900. 
 Story of, 1899. 
 
 Sabkath and the Saloons, 2046. 
 
 for the Poor, the, 2042. 
 
 Keeping and Public Education, 2048. 
 
 Means Rest, 2039. 
 
 Necessary Labors on the, 2047. 
 
 of Puritanism, the, 2043. 
 
 Vitality of the, 2049. 
 
 Worship, the Rest of, 2044. 
 Sacrifice of the Wicked, the, 2055. 
 
 the Joy of, 7. 
 Safeguard, Confessed Christianity a, 
 
 2089. 
 Safety in Expression, 2123. 
 Sainth(jod in Poverty, 693. 
 Saloon, the, 2365. 
 Saloons, Sabbaths and the, 2046. 
 Sanctification and Conversion, 1594. 
 Salvableness and Salvation, 1454. 
 Salvation, Conditions of, 2257. 
 
 of the Race, 2543. 
 
 Simplicity of, 1549. 
 
 the Captain of Our, 1276. 
 
 through Christ, 1275. 
 
 to be Wrought Out, 1589. 
 Saving Spiritual Elements, the, 2459. 
 Scandal, 796. 
 
 Scenery, How to Look at, 2551. 
 Sceptic, the, 1983. 
 Scepticism, Minus and Plus, 1982. 
 
 Poor Remedy for, 1975. 
 Scholar, the Lesson Must Suit the, 2328. 
 Scholastic Prejudice, 2433. 
 School of Christ, the, 1722. 
 Science, Advance of Truth by, 2538. 
 
 of Right- Living, the, 1869. 
 
 Science, Religious Helpfulness of, 1312. 
 
 the Ignorance of, 2455. 
 Scientists, Evolution Among, 2236. 
 Scope of Christianity, 1480. 
 Scriptural Treatment of Adam, 2210. 
 Scripture, Little Things in, 1874. 
 
 Uses of, 1 87 1. 
 Scriptures, Searching the, 1855. 
 Search for Divine Wisdom, mo. 
 Seclusion not Religion, 547. 
 Second Incarnation, the, 1293. 
 Secret Sins, 1397. 
 Sectarian Misjudgment, 2149. 
 Sects, Efficiency of, 2146. 
 
 Mutual Recognition of, 2162. 
 
 Variety of, 2152. 
 Secular Affairs, Preaching on, 1003. 
 Secularities, Spiritual Value of, 545. 
 Seeing God, 11 24. 
 
 as He is, 1 159. 
 Seek Higher Things, 685. 
 Seeking Good, not Evil, 941. 
 Seemingly Unfruitful Work, 526. 
 SELF-Absorption, 398. 
 
 Building of the Soul, 1635. 
 
 Centered, God's Nature not, 1139. 
 
 Cleansing, Perseverance in, 1541. 
 
 Consciousness, 763. 
 
 Influence of, 859. 
 
 Control, Patience is, 420. 
 
 Deception in Christian Hope, 1601. 
 Crooked Business, 568. 
 
 Description, 789. 
 
 Education, 2423. 
 
 Effect of Holy Living, 1531. 
 
 Examination, 400. 
 
 Advisable, 147 1. 
 
 Government the Ideal, 2427. 
 
 Help and Prayer, 1827. 
 
 in Church-Making, 2113. 
 
 Immured, 615. 
 
 Judgment, 359. 
 
 through Others, 905. 
 
 Knowledge, 1436. 
 
 as to Conduct, 800. 
 Speech, 804. 
 Tendency, 1666. 
 
 Measurement Upwards, 2440. 
 
 Portraiture, 432. 
 
 Recognition, 433. 
 
 Revelation, 401. 
 
 Righteousness, 1628. 
 
 Seeking Friendship, 768. 
 Selfish Aspiration, 851. 
 
 Churches, 2360. 
 
 Men, Solitary, 2383. 
 
 Morality, 1032. 
 
 Service, 574. 
 Selfishness and Love in Conflict, 1786. 
 
 of Culture, 376. 
 
INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 669 
 
 Selling One's Self, 614. 
 
 Seminal Character of the Bible, 1966. 
 
 Senses, Spiritual Life not Gauged by, 
 
 1064. 
 Sensibility to the Divine, 1984. 
 Sensitive Conscience, a, 1333. 
 
 Consider the, 827. 
 Sensitiveness, 777. 
 
 of Children, 33. 
 Sentiment and Ethics, 1450. 
 
 Sordid Sense, Judging, 406. 
 
 the value of, 1068. 
 Separateness of the Jews, 976. 
 Sepulcher, Meaning of the, 244. 
 
 the Women at the, 91. 
 Sermon on the Mount: Loftiness, 1928. 
 not Original, 1929. 
 Opening, 1930. 
 Past and Future, 
 2228. 
 
 Subject, Finding the, 2318. 
 Sermons, Failures in, 2323. 
 
 Transientness of, 2333. 
 Service, Love in, ia8. 
 Seventh and Eighth of Romans, 1940. 
 Shallow Discipleship, 1654. 
 
 Natures, 415. 
 Sharing Home-Happiness Outside, 176. 
 
 the Good Things, 417. 
 Shining Days, 1759. 
 Shirking the Call of Duty, 550. 
 Short and Long Prayers, 181 3. 
 Shortsightedness of Indulgence, 1398. 
 Sickness, Heroism in, 219. 
 
 Remorse of Body, 216. 
 
 Teaching of, 214. 
 Significance of the Insignificant, 2500. 
 Silence, Heroism of, 96. 
 Silences of the New Testament, 1918. 
 Silent Coming of Great Events, 2503. 
 
 Corrupting Forces, 1369. 
 
 Prayer, 1&57. 
 Simple and the Mystical, the, 1238. 
 
 Laws for Simple Lives, 850. 
 
 Truths, 2269. 
 Simplicity of Language, 2299. 
 Salvation, 1549. 
 
 the Truth in, 2417. 
 SlN Against the Divine Parent, 1430. 
 Holy Ghost, the, 81. 
 God, 1429. 
 
 and Infirmity, 1384. 
 
 Conviction of, 1570. 
 
 Evolutionary View of, 1383. 
 
 Fundamental in Theology, 1382, 
 
 Lies in Purpose, 1391. 
 
 Mental Truce with, 14 10. 
 
 Nature of, 1381. 
 
 of Bad Temper, 169. 
 
 Revived, and I Died, 1632. 
 
 SiN-sick Soul, the, 1083. 
 
 the Dislocation of Faculties, 1390. 
 Essence of, 1386. 
 New View of, 2239. 
 Sincerity, 822. 
 
 and Correctness of Belief, 1977. 
 Sinfulness, a Test of, 1569. 
 Singing a Defence Against Temptation, 
 2065. 
 
 and Religious Inspiration, 2062. 
 
 Church, a, 2061. 
 
 Uplifting Power of, 2064. 
 Single Men, New Truth from, 2355. 
 
 Responsibility, 1425. 
 
 Traits no Test of Character, 470. 
 
 Virtues, and Virtuous Character, 1655. 
 Sinner Needs God, the, 1431. 
 Sinners, the Church for, 2090. 
 Sins Under Conscience, 1346. 
 Skimming the Bible, 1856. 
 Slander, 944. 
 Slang, 790. 
 Sleep, a Forgetting, 204. 
 
 the Death of, 202. 
 Sleeping, 205. 
 Slow Growth of Character, 1638. 
 
 Christ's Peace, 2463. 
 Virtue of, 48. 
 Small Beginnings, 711. 
 
 Encouraging, 1023. 
 
 Excellences, 799. 
 
 Faults Baits to Larger Ones, 712. 
 
 Meannesses, 716. 
 
 Texts, Great Meaning in, 191 1. 
 
 Transgressions, 735. 
 
 Vexations, 737. 
 Smartness, Dangers of, 570. 
 Smooth Natures Admirable but not At- 
 tractive, 84. 
 Social and Spiritual Life, 1027, 
 
 Averages, 2493. 
 
 Connections, 903. 
 
 Contagion of Spirituality, 890, 
 
 Duty of Healthful Living, 918. 
 
 Effect of Feeling, 1459. 
 
 Gain Through Suffering, 917. 
 
 Interdependence, 832. 
 
 Judgments, 939. 
 
 Liability to Disaster, 919. 
 
 Life, Diversity of, 923. 
 Value of, 1077. 
 
 Polish, 831, 
 
 Proprieties Disregarded, 2370, 
 
 Relationships, Change of, 853. 
 
 Solidarity, 875. 
 
 Suffering, 913. 
 
 Unrest in Europe, 998. 
 Society, Influence of, 833. 
 
 Limitations of, 836. 
 
 the Top and the Bottom of, 934. 
 
670 
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 SOCIKTV, tllC Wastes of, 916. 
 
 Truth the Hond of, 811. 
 Society's Ri^lit to Control Conduct, 921. 
 SoFTKNiNC. the heart by Trouble, 245. 
 Soiled by Worklliness, 1070. 
 Soi.lDiKViNG One's Growth, 1702. 
 Solitariness of Death, 304. 
 Solitude, No Safety in, 840. 
 
 Uses in, 841. 
 Solomon and Jesus, 1925. 
 Some Discouragement Wholesome, 1730. 
 SoNSHiP, Personal Evidences of, 1709. 
 Sordid Sense, Judging Sentiment, 406. 
 Sorrow a Revealer, 247. 
 
 and Joy, 1729. 
 
 Effect of, 248. 
 
 Exercised by, 264. 
 
 Joy after, 232. 
 
 Limited Value of, 250. 
 
 Maturing under, 268. 
 
 Meaning of, 259. 
 
 not Typical of Christianity, 253. 
 
 of Humanity, the, 269. 
 
 Persistence in, 249. 
 
 Rejoicing Amid, 266. 
 
 the Night of, 272. 
 Sorrows Intermittent, 240. 
 Soul and Body, 652. 
 
 Bankruptcy, 703. 
 
 Bondage, Escape from, 1590. 
 
 Building of the, 1659. 
 
 Creation, 106 1. 
 
 Destroying Greed, 581. 
 
 Divine Love in the, 1748. 
 
 Effects of Life on the, 357. 
 
 Exhaustion, 1407. 
 
 Health, 17 18. 
 
 in Danger, the, 2125. 
 
 Made Manifest, the, 1079. 
 
 on Soul, Influence of, 437. 
 
 Open to the Light, a, 1301. 
 
 Purity, 1075. 
 
 Regimen, 17 17. 
 
 Religion, Harmony of, 1525. 
 
 Self-Building of the, 1635. 
 
 Sickness, 1439. 
 
 Summer in the, 1524. 
 
 Sympathy Unappreciated, 886. 
 
 that Finds God, the, 1533. 
 
 the Body and the, 1018. 
 Resurrection of a, 1542. 
 
 to be Protected, the, 387. 
 
 Treasures, 107 1, 
 
 Unknown Powers of the, 1086. 
 Soul's Anchor, the, 346. 
 
 Evil Engines, the, 734. 
 
 Health, Religion the, 1465. 
 
 Image of Christ, the, 1266. 
 
 longing for Joy, the, 495. 
 
 Response to God, the, 1675. 
 
 Soul's Riches, the, 1078. 
 Sound Bodies a Parental Obligation, 137. 
 Sowing and Reaping, 1609. 
 Speakinc, and Thinking, 2442, 
 
 Artificial Style in, 2298. 
 
 in Meeting, 2115. 
 
 the Truth in Love, 925. 
 Speech, Freedom of, 2374. 
 
 Self-Knovvledge as to, 804. 
 Spirit and Flesh, 1065. 
 Matter, 1696. 
 
 Fervent in, 554. 
 
 Fruits of tlie, 132 1. 
 
 Life, Kindling of the, 1598. 
 
 of Beneficence, 1171, 
 Forgiveness, 816. 
 Freedom Irresistible, 966. 
 
 Races, beyond Man, 86. 
 Spiritism and Spiritual I/^nging, 1084. 
 Spiritual Ancestry, 1099. 
 
 and Natural Life, 1672. 
 
 Betterment, Process of, 1625. 
 
 Culture, 1667. 
 
 Death, 1326. 
 
 Development Takes Time, 1708. 
 
 Discernment, 1063. 
 
 Enrichment of the New Era, 2240. 
 
 Expert, The, 1857. 
 
 Gains, Permanence of, 1698. 
 
 Grace to be Cultivated, 1695. 
 
 Guidance, 1323. 
 
 Hindrances, 1693. 
 
 Indolence, 587. 
 
 Kindred, 1731. 
 
 Labor, Immortality of, 535. 
 
 Life, Beginning of, 1573. 
 
 not Gauged by Senses, 1064. 
 Social and, 1027. 
 
 Longing and Spiritism, 1084. 
 
 Moods, 1056. 
 
 Oppression, 1052. 
 
 Poverty, 211. 
 
 Prescription, 2319. 
 
 Qualities, Poverty of, 1674. 
 
 Refreshment, 1679. 
 
 Things, Natural Law in, 1614. 
 
 Truth the Pulpit Theme, 2340. 
 
 Union, 1082. 
 
 Unity of, 166. 
 
 Value of Secularities, 545. 
 Spirituality and Morality, 102 1. 
 
 Misunderstood, 1067. 
 
 Morality and, 1041. 
 
 Social Contagion of, 890. 
 Spiritually Apprehended, God to be, 
 
 "53- 
 
 Splendor of Hope, the, 2544. 
 the Future, 356. 
 Spontaneity in Conscience, 1339. 
 of Christian Kindness, 1781. 
 
INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 671 
 
 Spontaneous Virtue, 14S6. 
 
 St. Paul, Love-Element in, 1774. 
 
 Standard, Christ the Only, 1261. 
 
 for Life, the, 1 170. 
 Standards, Men Judged by Their Own, 
 
 474. 
 Stars and Stripes, the, 985. 
 Starting Right, 1591. 
 States, the Nation and the, 980. 
 Steadfast Ideals, 1668. 
 
 Purpose and Variations, 45 1. 
 Steadfastness, 468. 
 
 of Faith, 2018. 
 Steadiness Under Temptation, 1354. 
 Steering Godward, 1704. 
 Stimulants, 195. 
 Stoicism not Christianity, 236. 
 Story of Ruth, the, 1899. 
 Strength, Conceit of, 664. 
 
 of Evil, the, 1426. 
 
 Men and Women, 92. 
 Strenuous Life, Trials of the, 845. 
 Striving against the Light, 2218. 
 Strong, Duty of the, 598. 
 
 Phrases for Strong Feelings, 1498. 
 Struggles of the Flesh : Glory of the 
 
 Spirit, 1943. 
 Study, Christian Life a, 1578. 
 
 of Men, the, 2283. 
 Subjects for Preaching, 2317. 
 Substance in Character, 1644. 
 Substantial Thought in Christ's Preach- 
 ing. 2330. 
 Success, Character the Test of, 622. 
 
 Exacts Effort, 510. 
 
 the Law of, 515. 
 Sudden Death, 313. 
 Suffering, a Ripener, 261. 
 
 Benumbing Effect of, 253. 
 
 the Baptism of, 271. 
 Test of Love, 233. 
 Suffrage, 975. 
 Sulkiness, the Habit of, 742. 
 Sullying of Conscience, 1348. 
 Summer in the Soul. 1524. 
 Sun as a Symbol of Deity, the, 2560. 
 Sunday and the Children, 26. 
 
 Christians, 1740. 
 Sunny Dispositions, 807. 
 Superficial Betterment, 1038. 
 
 Judgments, 1 162. 
 Superior to Environment, 662. 
 Superiority of the Moral Element, 463. 
 
 the Use of, 1736. 
 Superstition Dispelled by Righteous- 
 ness, 2550. 
 Supreme Elements of the New Testament, 
 
 1914. 
 Sureness of Causality, 190. 
 Surly Forgiveness, 766. 
 
 Sweet Influence, Duty of, 857. 
 
 Inside, Rough Outside, 448. 
 Sweetness After Adversity, 635. 
 
 in Adversity, 691. 
 Symbolism of the Bible, 1902. 
 Sympathetic Moods for Reading, 2450. 
 
 Witnesses, the Cloud of, 1092. 
 Sympathy, Comfort of Mere, 885. 
 
 for Men, Lack of, 2095. 
 
 of God, the, 1 173. 
 Moods, 25. 
 
 Religious Inquirers Need, 1558. 
 
 the Balm of, 880. 
 
 Variations in, 2396. 
 Systematic Theology, 2196. 
 
 Taking Account of One's Self, 465. 
 Talents, the Man of Few, 358. 
 Talker, the, 2289. 
 Tampering With Evil, 1422. 
 Tasks and Time, 537. 
 Teacher's Noble Work, the, 2415. 
 Teachers and Preachers, 2414. 
 
 Parable and Fable as, 28. 
 Teaching of Jesus, the, 1239. 
 
 Physical Pain, 215. 
 Sickness, 214. 
 
 Truth by Fiction, 35. 
 Tears, 226. 
 
 in Sorrow, Relief of, 228. 
 Teasing, 784. 
 Temper, 752. 
 
 Provoking Temper, 2377. 
 Temperament, Equivalents in, 378. 
 Tempered Affliction, 667. 
 Temple of God, the, 217. 
 Temples of God in Humanity, 2490. 
 Temptation, Confession Lessens, 1378. 
 
 Deceitfulness of, 1375. 
 
 Finds the Indolent, 1377. 
 
 of Jesus, the, 1924. 
 the Liberal, 2226. 
 
 Peril in, 1356. 
 
 Perils of, 1367. 
 
 Prompt Escape from, 1 365. 
 
 Resistance to, 1372. 
 
 Singing a Defence Against, 2065. 
 
 Steadiness Under, 1354. 
 
 Suggestive, not Compulsory, 1353. 
 Temptations and the Lower Life, 1380. 
 Temptation's Power, 1350. 
 Tempter and Tempted, 1352. 
 
 the, 1 23 1. 
 Tender Places in Hard Natures, 2320. 
 Tentative Religion, 1550. 
 Test of Character, Home-Life the, 162. 
 Faith, 2020. 
 
 Instrumentalities, the, 2153. 
 Preaching, the, 1513. 
 Sinfulness, a, 1569. 
 
672 
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 Test the Bible by Life, 1864. 
 Tksts of Character, three, 479. 
 The Lord Be with Thee, 808. 
 Theological Transformation of the 
 Bible, 1956. 
 
 Transitions, 2233. 
 Theologies, Interchange of, 2220. 
 Theologizing, 2195. 
 
 and Preaching, 2313. 
 Theology and Evolution, 2242. 
 Preaching, 2354. 
 
 Essentials of, 
 
 235'- 
 
 not Religion, 1461. 
 
 of Love, the, 2246. 
 
 Sin Fundamental in, 1382. 
 Theory and Practice, 1536. 
 
 not Practice, 2178. 
 Things and Thoughts, 519. 
 
 Hoped for in Immortality, 354. 
 
 not Seen, the Evidence of, 201 1. 
 
 of Good Report, 1481. 
 
 Which God Hath Prepared, 355. 
 
 Worldly, Measurements of, 1733. 
 Thinking and Praying, 393. 
 
 Speaking, 2442. 
 
 Authority in, 2107. 
 
 in a Murk, 395. 
 Thou Shalt not Covet, 748. 
 
 Go Over, 534. 
 Thought and Feeling, 402. 
 
 of Eternity, Refreshment in, 294. 
 Future Life, a, 341. 
 
 the Empire of, 1440. 
 Thoughts and Feelings are Prayers, 1833. 
 Things, 519. 
 
 Multiplicity of, 391. 
 
 of God, 1 147. 
 Through Jesus Christ, Our Lord, 1273. 
 Thy Will be Done, 1187. 
 Time and Tasks, 537. 
 
 for Changes, 2232. 
 Help, the, 1559. 
 Patience, the, 558. 
 Resignation, 221. 
 
 God's Kingdom a Long Result of, 
 2509. 
 
 of the Patriarchs, 1892. 
 
 the Loom of, 2481. 
 Times, Adaptation to the, 2279. 
 
 of Vision, 1986. 
 To-day, Miracles of, 1905. 
 
 Needs To-day's Thought, 2223. 
 Token of Love, a, 353. 
 Tokens of Divine Intercourse, 1510. 
 Tomb, Jesus in the, 1250. 
 Top and the Bottom of Society, the, 934. 
 Tongue, at Home, the, 168. 
 
 Power of the, 943. 
 Torment of Revenge, the, 427. 
 
 Torpidity Prolific of Disease, 1663. 
 Total Depravity, Doctrine of, 2249. 
 Toughness of Fiber, 476. 
 Trained Calmness, 367. 
 
 Church Members to be, 2105. 
 
 Perceptions, 366. 
 Training and Education, 12. 
 
 by Trouble, 668. 
 
 in Righteousness, 1624. 
 
 of Character, 428. 
 
 the Value of, 509. 
 
 to Independent Character, 154, 
 
 Untractable Natures, 429. 
 Transfiguration, the, 1246. 
 Transformation by Motherhood, 132. 
 Transgression as Education, 2432. 
 Transient Aspirations, 1437. 
 
 Knowledge, 1631. 
 
 Troubles, 689. 
 Transientness of Sermons, 2333. 
 Transition Periods, 2461. 
 Transparent Character, the, 590. 
 Transplanting of Death, 312. 
 Trees, 2584. 
 Trial Tests Men, 671. 
 Trials of the Strenuous Life, 845. 
 
 Test Strength, 624. 
 Tribulation, Issue of, 650. 
 Trouble a Test of Friendship, 672. 
 
 as a Guide, 663. 
 
 Bearing of, 258. 
 
 Blessing in, 634. 
 
 Brave Bearing of, 674. 
 
 Certainty of, 630. 
 
 Comfort in, 256. 
 
 Discipline of, 636. 
 
 Enrichment by, 229. 
 
 Escape from, 684. 
 
 God Called in, 2019. 
 
 How to Take, 637. 
 
 Humanity in, 878. 
 
 is Discord, 632. 
 
 Joy in, 254. 
 
 Morbid Seeking of, 1994. 
 
 Religion in Time of, 1447. 
 
 Right Effect of, 628. 
 
 Shows Character, 697. 
 
 Softening the Heart by, 245. 
 
 to Surmount, 484. 
 
 Training by, 668. 
 Trust and Anxiety, 2022. 
 
 Faith is, 2008. 
 
 in God, 2024. 
 
 Time of Distress, 2017. 
 
 Without Knowledge, 2009. 
 True Art, 2574. 
 
 Christianity, 1448. 
 
 Church, the, 2091. 
 
 Welcomes All, the, 2080. 
 
 Conversion, 1592. 
 
INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 673 
 
 True Democracy, 971. 
 
 Lovers, 10 1. 
 
 Manhood, 87. 
 
 Meekness, 1751. 
 
 Orator, Greatness of the, 2290. 
 
 Preacher, Power of tlie, 2287. 
 
 Riches, 604. 
 
 Signiticance of the Bible, 1847. 
 
 Worship, 2050. 
 Trusting God, 2035. 
 Truth, Attractive Presentation of, 231 1. 
 
 Broad Views of, 105 1. 
 
 Immortal, 1322. 
 
 in Anger, 951. 
 
 Simplicity, the, 2417. 
 
 Learning to Speak the, 15. 
 
 Obstructions to, 1974. 
 
 Spread by Persecution, 644. 
 
 Telling, 720. 
 
 the Bond of Society, 811. 
 
 to be Adapted to Hearers, 2344. 
 
 Variableness of, 810. 
 
 Varying V^iews of, 2187. 
 
 Vitality of, 661. 
 Truthfulness, 467. 
 
 of the Old Testament, 1880. 
 Truths of Inspiration, 1876. 
 
 Varied Ripening-time of, 2208. 
 Twenty-Third Psalm, the, 1908, 1909. 
 Type, a Resurrection, 331. 
 
 Adam as a, 70. 
 Typical Mother, the Madonna a, 151. 
 Tyranny, Ignorance Invites, 958. 
 
 Ugly Words, 786. 
 Unanchored Soul, an, 1981. 
 Unattainable, Value of the, 1044. 
 Unbelief and Indifference, 1970. 
 
 Emptiness of, 1980. 
 Uncertain Gauge, Human Opinion an, 
 906. 
 
 Guides, 2015. 
 Uncertaintif^ in Wedlock, Il8. 
 Uncertainty and Certainty of Death, 289, 
 Uncharitable Verdicts, 938. 
 Unchristian Fellowship, 21 12. 
 
 Givers, 2390. 
 
 Orthodoxy, 2147. 
 Uncommon Sense, Common Sense Better 
 
 than, 360. 
 Uncompleted Providences, 1165. 
 Unconscious Beauty of the Christ-Spirit, 
 1792. 
 
 Goodness, 1744. 
 
 Influences, 856. 
 
 Preparation for Christianity, 1575. 
 Undesired Gems, 1931. 
 Undisclosed Histories, 21 18. 
 Undue Anxiety for Children, 39. 
 Uneducated, Helplessness of the, 2426. 
 
 Unkaithkulness of God's Stewards, 605. 
 
 Unforeseen Effects, 1327. 
 
 Unfound Treasures in the Bible, 1861. 
 
 Unheeded Warnings, 53. 
 
 Unheroic Heroes, 85. 
 
 Uninspired Material, Inspired Use of, 
 
 1886. 
 United States, Constitution of, 964. 
 Unity and Harmony, 2263. 
 
 in Worship, Faulty Idea of, 2054. 
 
 of Spirit, 166. 
 
 Rather than of Thought, 2140. 
 Universal Application of Faith, 2010. 
 
 Desire of Excitement, 438. 
 Unjust, the Wealth of the, 610. 
 Unknown Beauties in the Bible, 1866. 
 
 Powers of the Soul, 1086. 
 Unloving Conscience, the, 1334. 
 Unmanliness of Complaint, 5&3. 
 Unnoted Tragedies, 706. 
 Unnoticed Influence, 855. 
 Unpopular Laws, 967. 
 Unprofitable Energy, 733, 
 Unseen Faults, 721. 
 
 Places, Good Work in, 524. 
 Unselfish Heroism, 1778. 
 Unsocial Temper, 755. 
 Unsuccessful Success, 612. 
 Unthinking Ministers, 2293. 
 Unused Parts of the Bible, 1875. 
 Unveiling, Revelation an, 1887. 
 Unwise Character Building, 631. 
 
 Charity, 2398. 
 
 Reformers, 2378. 
 Unwritten Realities, 412. 
 Uplifting Power of Singing, 2064. 
 
 Prayer for an, 2006. 
 Upper and Lower Life, 1680. 
 Upward Movement of the Ages, 2542. 
 
 Progress of Humanity, 2504. 
 Use, Faculties Brighten by, 389. 
 
 of a Rule, the, 952. 
 
 Superiority, the, 1736. 
 
 Through Waste, 203. 
 Useless Religion, 1532, 
 Uses of Refinement, 849. 
 Scripture, 1871. 
 Solitude, 841. 
 Utilizing the Divine Spirit, 1319. 
 
 Vacations of the Workers, 583. 
 Value and Peril of Priesthood, 217 1. 
 Influence the Measure of, 859. 
 Measured by Brain-Power, 2496. 
 of a Good Name, 902. 
 
 Churchly Forms, the, 2169. 
 
 Fear, 1988. 
 
 Sentiment, the, 1068. 
 
 Social Life, 1077. 
 
 the Unattainable, 1044. 
 
674 
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 Value of Training, the, 509. 
 
 the Law of, 542. 
 Vanity, 760. 
 Variable Moods, 2131. 
 Variableness of Truth, 810. 
 Variation of Ritual, 2138. 
 Variations, and Steadfast Purpose, 451. 
 
 in Sympathy, 2396. 
 Varied Elements of Prayer, 1806. 
 
 Material in Preaching, 2337. 
 
 Ripeninor-time of Truths, 2208, 
 Varieties of Daring, 472. 
 Variety and Human Unity, 2488. 
 
 in Church-Membership, 2079. 
 Preaching, 2316. 
 Varying Conceptions of Deity, 1123. 
 
 Standards in Life, 937. 
 
 Views of Truth, 2187. 
 Ventilation, 198. 
 Vicarious Penalty, 915. 
 Vice, Youthful Exposure to, 52. 
 Victorious Goodness to be Strong, 1749- 
 Victory Over the Past, 1605. 
 Violent Conversions, 1580. 
 Virtue not Negative, 1031. 
 
 of Slow Growth, 48. 
 Virtues Dependent on Love, 1767. 
 
 of Business Men, 588. 
 
 Quality in, 830. 
 Virtuous Character and Single Virtues, 
 
 1655- 
 
 Visible Goodness, Influence of, 1503 
 
 Vision, Mortal and Immortal, 344. 
 
 Hours of, 1054. 
 
 the Mount of, 2013, 
 
 Times of, 1986. 
 Visions of Christ, 1296. 
 
 the Invisible, 321. 
 Vital Elements, Agreement as to, 1889. 
 
 Force of Liberty, 965. 
 
 Functions Agreeable, 185. 
 Vitality, Activity the Condition of, 1606. 
 
 of the Sabbath, 2049. 
 Truth, 661, 
 Vocal Power to be Trained for, 2295. 
 Volition and Disposition, 1739. 
 Voyage of Life, the, 2674. 
 
 Wages, Folly of Equalizing, 2498. 
 Want of Strength not Wickedness, 17. 
 War, Delight of Peace after, 2520. 
 
 the Bible not a Book of, 1955. 
 Warlike Energies Used for Peace, 251 1. 
 Warnings Unheeded, 53. 
 Warrior, David, the, 1910. 
 Waste, in the Creative Process, 2558. 
 
 Use Through, 203. 
 Wastes of Society, the, 916. 
 Wasting of Men, the, 2472. 
 Watch and Pray, 1S29. 
 
 Watch, When to, 1362. 
 Way, Falling by the, 2533. 
 We Find What We Bring, 861. 
 
 Know in Part, 371. 
 
 Shall Know Hereafter, 230. 
 Weak, God's Tenderness for the, 1186. 
 
 Morality Worthless, 1040. 
 
 Power of the, 520. 
 
 Units Mighty in Combination, 2501. 
 Weakness and Joy of Old Age, 274. 
 
 of Esthetic Religion, I449. 
 Old Age, 279. 
 the Church, 2097. 
 Wealth, Beneficence of, 601. 
 
 Honor or Shame in, 592. 
 
 in Ideas, 2069. 
 
 National Life, 599. 
 Poverty, 642. 
 
 Making, a Primary Civic Virtue, 
 600. 
 
 no Title to Remembrance, 617. 
 
 of the Unjust, the, 610. 
 
 to be Diffused, 602. 
 
 Used for Mankind, 618. 
 
 without Love is Poverty, 124. 
 Wedded Infidelity, 122. 
 
 Life, Disappointments in, 119. 
 
 Love, 109. 
 Wedlock, Uncertainties in, 118. 
 Welcome, the Heavenly, 326. 
 WELL-Wishers, 2072. 
 What a Creed is — and is Not, 2185. 
 
 is Christianity, 1308. 
 Preaching, 2266. 
 
 Readers Find in the Bible, 1849. 
 
 Sorrow Does for Us, 237. 
 
 This World is For, 626. 
 
 Was in Man he Knew, 1 241. 
 
 We Shall be, 345. 
 Whatsoever Things Are Pure, 2452. 
 When God is Near, 1552. 
 
 to Escape from Evil, 1364. 
 Watch, 1362. 
 Wholesome Thinking About Death, 290. 
 Why God Loves Men, 1215. 
 
 Promises Fail, 1703. 
 Wicked, Future of the, 2219. 
 
 the Prayer of the, 1824. 
 Sacrifice of the, 2055. 
 Wickedness of Selfish Culture, 2457. 
 
 Possibilities of, 1399. 
 Widening Horizons, 1669. 
 Widow's Mite, the, 2406. 
 Wife's Influence, the, 117. 
 Will, Freedom of the, 2203. 
 Willing and Wishing, 1653. 
 Willingness to Begin Humbly, 157. 
 Wills, Feebleness of, 1458. 
 Wise Giving, 2401. 
 
 in His (3wn Conceit, 397. 
 
INDEX OF TITLES 
 
 675 
 
 Wishing and Willing, 1653. 
 Wit and Humor, 482. 
 Without Ceasing, 18 15. 
 
 Me, Nothing, I168. 
 
 Love, 1795. 
 Witnesses, the Cloud of, 533. 
 
 Sympathetic, 1092. 
 Wives and Husbands, 121. 
 Woman in the Prayer-Meeting, 2122. 
 
 Love of Man for, 102. 
 
 the Beauty of, 95. 
 Womanhood, Faith in, 88. 
 Womanly Strength, 98. 
 Woman's Influence, 90. 
 Women at the Sepulcher, the, 91. 
 
 Reverence for, 89. 
 Word of God, the, 2561. 
 Work and Play, Moderation in, 201. 
 Recreation, 199. 
 
 Blessedness of, 553. 
 
 Honesty in, 826. 
 
 Makes Possible Better Work, 531. 
 
 the Measure of Man, 506. 
 Providence of, 517, 518. 
 
 to the End of Life, 278. 
 Workers, Vacations of the, 583. 
 Working Piety, 1506. 
 
 with Christ, 1294. 
 God, 1304. 
 WoRKlNGMEN, Rest for the, 2041. 
 WoRLD-Growth, Three Stages of, 2541. 
 
 a Preparation, 1677. 
 
 Interprets the Bible, the, 1838. 
 
 Life Helps Soul-Life, 1658. 
 
 Misuse of This, 546. 
 
 Neighborhood, 2510. 
 
 not Our Home, the, 336. 
 
 of Endeavor, a, 1649. 
 
 Restlessness, 2537. 
 
 the Christian in the, 1516. 
 Church and the, 2358. 
 Place for Christianity, the, 1721. 
 
 WoRLO-Growth.This and the Other, 1555. 
 WoRLDLlNESS, Soiled by, 1070. 
 Worldly and Christian Joy, 503. 
 
 Living, 1713. 
 World's Bulletin, the, 2453. 
 
 Growth, the, 2469. 
 
 Long Growth, the, 2508. 
 
 Tumult, Law in the, 2535. 
 
 Work, This, 2476. 
 WoRN-out Creed, a, 2207. 
 Worry, 625. 
 
 Worse than Law-Breakers, 573. 
 Worst Heresy, the, 2106. 
 Worth in the Other World, 316. 
 
 of Each in His Place, 2499. 
 the Church, the, 2175. 
 Worthlessness of Ignorance, 2425. 
 Wrecked Health, 196. 
 Wrong and Right, 1039. 
 
 Earthly Training, 578. 
 
 Right Unconscious Rebuke of, 825. 
 
 Use of Conscience, 1332. 
 Pleasure, 200. 
 
 Year, Last Day of the, 1757. 
 
 the End of the, 1664. 
 Yes, and No, 1376. 
 Yielding to God, i6i8. 
 Young Christians to be Joyful, 67. 
 
 Corruptors of the, 1402. 
 
 Love, 100. 
 
 Manhood, Opening of, 46. 
 
 Men in Public Life, 991. 
 
 Misjudgment of the, 44. 
 
 Souls, 30. 
 Youth and Immorality, 69. 
 Youthful Eclipse of Christ, 1229. 
 
 Excesses, 60. 
 
 Exposure to Vice, 52. 
 Youth's Voyage Beginning, 45. 
 
 Zeal of God's House, the, 505. 
 
y.vii'i