irb OF LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. <%p. - v . Qnpgrig^t ^u Shelf ^.S.#„ _J I;". 7 c i _ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. MOTIVES OF LIFE. BY THE SAME AUTHOR: Truths for To-day ; First Series, Fifteen Selected Sermons. 12mo, Black and Gilt. Price, $1.50. Truths for To-day J Second Series, Fifteen Selected Sermons. 12mo, Black and Gilt. Price, SI .50. Jansen, McChtrg 6° Co., Publishers, Chicago, Motives of Life. BY DAVID SWING. - «# CHICAGO: Jakskn, Mcclueg & Company. 1873. It COPYRIGHT. JANSEK, MCCLURG & CO. A. D. 1879. STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY THE CHICAGO LEGAL NEWS CO. PREFACE. By the title " Motives of Life," not all motives are implied. The things which move men, and should move them, are not so easily counted. The speech over them cannot be condensed into a small volume. Visiting a large forest in June, you can- not bear home with you all its great old trees; you may carry back only a few boughs from elm and oak. Unable to recall for young and old all the things that should create and bless labor, I bring here from the inner and outer worlds a few remind- ers of great duties and great rewards. D. S. CONTENTS. PAGE. I. INTELLECTUAL PEOGEESS, (7) 11 II. HOME, 37 III. A GOOD NAME, 6 Q IV. THE PUESUIT OF HAPPINESS, f . 87 V. BENEVOLENCE, 115 VI. EELIGION, 139 INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS. MOTIVES OF LIFE. L INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS. It has been inquired by metaphysical phi- losophers whether man is the powerless creature of external motives, or whether he possesses a will-power which may bid defiance to all things outside of self. Upon the replies to these questions depend other replies regarding human responsibility for conduct, and then upon these second replies depend certain third deductions touching punishment. Let us all be happy to commit such forms of thought to the Edwardses and Hamiltons and all the stu- dents of fate and free-will, and let it be our pleasure in-all our days to confess that the mind (ii) 12 MOTIVES OF LIFE. is swayed by motives, just as the branches of a tree are bent by a wind. The most useful lessons of life are not those conclusions which by long and doubtful processes are reached by the intellects called "deep" — the Kants and Comptes and Lockes and Hamiltons — -but rather those lessons which lie on the surface of society in the garb of e very-day facts. We all know that there are external things which pull our minds this way and that ; and we also feel that there is a personality within us which can resist or obey this outward entreaty. There are two sets of ideas all through nature — the phenomenal and the absolute. The sun- rise, which we all so much love, is an apparent fact; the absolute fact is that the earth turns over. Philosophers tell us that the absolute color of the rose lies in its power to dissolve the rays of light and to reflect into our mind only one of many beams ; but the phenomenal fact is that the rose is red, and further we think INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS. 13 not and care not. There being thus two forms of fact, it is the phenomenal or apparent fact which we most love. We love the common, popular sunrise, and must leave to others the final philosophy of the event; and we all love the red rose, and must consign to the deep philosophers the last possible argument about that crimson blush. With similar principles let us come to speak of motives of human life ; not as philoso- phers who seek a definition, but as friends who are anxious to talk together about making the best use of our allotted time. We do not desire an analysis of sunrise — we only wish to have the sun put in a daily and blessed appearance. We are all swayed by motives. As winds carry the thistle-down all the way over the Atlantic and plant in Canada the weed of Britain, so great winds take us up when we are children, and also when we are men and women, and transplant us to far-away gardens 14 MOTIVES OF LIFE. of happiness or deserts of sorrow. Even great nations and great epochs have been driven along by some dominant impulse : the Persians and Arabians by pleasure, the Jews by religion, the Greeks by beauty, the Romans by conquest, the old Germans by war and wanderings. What is true of large groups of men is true of each heart ; and here we are to-day, each one being drawn along over the hills and dales, by not the steeds which drew the sun, nor by the lions which drew the car of the haughty conquer- ors, but by never-abating motives many and powerful. These motives are many and change- able. There are changes for each hour. But from amid this endless variety there rise up a few large ones which for the most part rule the whole of life. As there are some mountains which overtop all others and some rivers which make other rivers seem but brooks, so there are motives whose excellence leaves them without any significant rival. INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS. 15 If you will look either outward upon society or inward upon self, you will find that the human soul is drawn along by six angels of good, or its boat is impelled by six w T inds— trade-winds — sweeping a large sea. Man is impelled by the desire of intellectual culture, by the motive called home, by considerations of fame, by the hope of pleasure, by love of mankind, and by religion. Education, home, fame, happiness, benevolence and religion, are six great motives of action and thought. Into each heart all these impulses should enter and abide. They should come to man in his youth and remain with him to the end. But such a group of motives is too large to be thought of in one hour. Let each one then claim an hour for itself. It seemed at first to me that these would be themes for the young, but instead of being thus limited they are themes for us all, for no one of us can live so long as to be beyond the charms of education, home, fame, happi- 16 MOTIVES OF LIFE. ness, benevolence and religion. There is no logical or chronological order for these motives. Each one of them is as long as life, and my order of treating them will simply be an order of convenience. The first thought of shall be intellectual progress. To possess a cultivated mind, and to have some general knowledge of the world around us, both in its material and living kingdoms, is such a hunger of the soul that it may be called an instinct. There are tribes of savages so low in mental action that they have no desire to add to their stock of informa- tion. Their brains have never been sufficiently aroused to enable them to think. They have not the mental power that can frame a regret. Sir John Lubbock found tribes so stupid, so sleepy, that any remark he might make to them about Europe or America, about steam- ship, or telegraph, or railway, seemed to annoy them by disturbing their intellectual repose. INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS. 17 The distance between the uncivilized races and the civilized ones is almost like that between a walrus-oil lamp and the sun. The moment you pass into a civilized land, ancient or mod- ern, the mind is seen to be awake, and to be hungry for ideas. " Give me knowledge or I shall die/' has been the plaintive prayer of almost countless millions. No doubt the human race has sought gold too ardently, and does so still, but we must not suffer that passion to conceal from us the fact that in all the many civilized centuries, this same race has with equal zeal asked the uni- verse to tell man its secrets. We have been not only a money-seeking race, but we have been rather good children, and have studied hard the lessons on the page of science and art and history. If, when you look out and see millions rushing to and fro for money, you feel that man is an idolater, you can partly dispel the painful thought if you attempt to 18 MOTIVES OF LIFE. count the multitude who in that very hour are pouring over books, or who in meditation are seeking the laws of the God of nature. Millions upon millions of the young and the old are in these days seeking at school or at home, in life's morn or noon or evening, the facts of history and science and art and reli- gion. In order to be ourselves properly impelled or enticed along life's path, we must make no wrong estimate of the influences which are impelling mankind, for if we come to think that all are worshiping gold, we, too, despairing of all else, will soon degrade our- selves by bowing at the same altar. It is nec- essary for us always to be just. We must be fully conscious of the fact that there are many feet hurrying along through the places of barter, intent on more gold, but so must we be conscious that there is a vast army of young and old who are asking the great w r orld to come and tell them its great experience, and to INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS, 19 lead them through its literature and arts, and down the grand avenues of history. You saw the fortune, you read the will of the last mil- lionaire when he died, but did you with equal zeal mark how our scholars hurried to the far West to study the last eclipse of the sun, and how a score of new sciences met on that moun- tain summit to ask the shadow to tell them something more about the star depths and the throne of the Almighty ? When the Chal- dean men of science attempted to learn the truths of the heavens, they were compelled to look up with the eye only. All they had was the eye and a loving heart. They filled sev- enty volumes with their imperfect studies. A comet they were compelled to designate as a star that carried a train behind and a crown in front. When the time of our late eclipse drew near, what a procession of arts and of instruments moved far out to where the shad- ow would fall! And others had marked just 20 MOTIVES OF LIFE. where the darkness would come and the second of its coming. As man can measure the width of a river, and find through what spaces it flows, so modern learning marked out that river of shade and built up its banks, and along came the brief night and flowed in them most carefully. But the astronomer went not alone ; the science which can catch a picture in an instant ; the science which can analyze a flame millions of miles distant, and tell what is being consumed ; the science which can an- nounce in a second a fall of heat ; the science which can convey the true time two thousand miles while the excited heart beats once — these, and that grandest science which can see the rings of Saturn and the valleys of the Moon, assembled on that height in the very summer when we are lamenting most that mankind knows no pursuit except that of gold. That Rocky Mountain scene only faintly illustrates the intellectual activity of our era. If the pas- INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS. 21 sion for money is great in our day, it is also true that the intellectual power of the same period is equally colossal. No reader, be he ever so industrious, can keep pace with the issue of good books, and money itself is alarmed lest the new thoughts and invention of to-morrow may overthrow its investment of yesterday. Stocks tremble at the advance of intellect. A glory of this intellectual passion may be found in the fact that it is not confined to a group of scholars, as old inquiry and education were confined, but like liberty and property, it has passed over to the many. Not all the mul- titude of the world are gold-seekers, but on the opposite there are tens of thousands of men, and women too, who are lovers of truth more than of money, and are standing by the foun- tains of knowledge with no thought or expec- tation of ever being rich. Education and knowledge, the power to think and to enjoy 22 MOTIVES OF LIFE. the thought of others, have long since trans- formed a cottage into a palace. Thus, although society seeks too fondly the money-prize, yet he will do great injustice to our land who fails to see what an immense motive of life this pursuit of knowledge has always been and remains. If then we would go through our years aright, we must not believe that the air around us is all poisonous with the incense burned to Mammon, but that there is also a svfeetness in the wind coming from the altars where the millions of truth-lovers kneel. The young are taught in our day that the gates of society open only when Money knocks, but from what part of society has passed before my observation I conclude the utter falseness of such teaching, for when money opens her house and sends out her invitations, one always sees in the drawing-room the equal of all : the lawyer and doctor and clergyman and actor and singer and inventor and artist, who have INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS. 23 no hope of fortune and who have barely money enough to procure neat apparel ; and many of the invited and honored guests are so entirely free from fortune that they cannot even ride to the rich man's house in a carriage. You will find in all these assemblies given by the money-kings, welcome guests who have no vir- tues except education and good manners. And further, there is no large number of extremely rich persons in our land; but there is a large multitude of those who have the means of a comfortable life, and with these all mental pos- sessions rank as high as possessions of stocks and lands. We thus must note that in the pursuit and possession of culture and information we see a life-motive, old and grand, and available to all. None are shut out and none are unblessed. In the earliest history of man this impulse began to make noble all who bowed to it. It took a blind singer of Greece and made him 24: MOTIVES OF LIFE. outlive kings; it made deathless iEsop wlio was only a slave, and the man who was a tinker and the boy who held horses at the door of the theater. It has ornamented whatever it has touched in all the long history of man. What it has always done it will always do, and no youth can look into good books for even only a few moments each day, and can take that habit with him into all his or her subsequent life without becoming transformed into a new likeness. For these six motives of which I am to treat are six laws of the Almighty for human growth and happiness, and as he who breaks them is cursed, so the one who regards them is rewarded. When a man pursues money only, his features become narrowed ; his eyes shrink and converge; his smile, when he has any, hardens; his language fails of poetry and ornament; his letters to a friend dwindle down to a telegraphic dispatch ; he seems to have no time for anything, because his heart INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS. 25 has only one thing for which it wishes time. What he calls the pressure of business is often only the want of any other pressure about the heart; but when the soul carries along with its gold-seeking a love of learning and all study, then the very face adds each year to its expressiveness, and the eyes and mouth and the marks on the face are taxed to the utter- most to express the noble soul dwelling with- in. As trees grow heaviest on the side where the light falls, so the face shapes itself to the light of the soul. God made man in His image — so the Bible assures us. But we learn the deep meaning of that text by looking at the universe of the same God. We find that He made man capa- ble of becoming an image of God. God did not make Adam a learned man, nor a poet, nor a painter, nor an orator, nor a statesman; but He made man capable of resembling the divine, and having done this He gave laws for this 2 26 MOTIVES OF LIFE. human ascent. And this scene of old Eden is repeated — the option is repeated to all who come into this garden of existence. To you in your cradle of twenty or thirty years ago, God came, and to you He still comes, with the whisper, " You may put on the image of deity/' He did not place you in that state, but He placed your cradle on its confines. Is this motive of life really available to all? Is it not a bauble, except to persons of leisure or to members of the learned professions? Not at all ; but on the opposite, it is one of the divine laws of all human being. All who assemble in these auditoriums, all who compose the modern public, not only may, but they must, make information and mental and spiritual development a ruling impulse and work of all these years. There are two forms of inform- ation. There is a technical study which belongs to those in a peculiar pursuit. You need not know as much about language as that INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS. 27 German knew who published a volume on two Greek particles ; nor need we know as much about medicine and law and electricity as is known by the adepts in those sciences. But there is a large world — one of principles — a universe full of history and poetry and art and morals, in which not to walk at least a few steps daily is a form of sin against ourself and our Maker. The mind is not best developed by the details of the world's truth. The Ger- man who devoted his life to a study of the "dative case" made a sacrifice of himself for the benefit of all scholars and students. He beggared himself that others might be rich — that others could avoid such a waste of time. You and I need not work out a table of loga- rithms from 1 to 10,000, nor need we calculate interest-tables for all sums at all per cents, and for all numbers of days. A few men or a few machines can do this work for the entire human race for all future time. The study which per- 28 MOTIVES OF LIFE. tains to us all and will bless all, is the study of those general and ever-changing facts which none can study for us, and which, if others should study them for us, would leave us miser- able. The great truths of history, the outlines of all science, the riches of language, the inspi- ration of poetry, the thrilling careers of the heroes of liberty, of science and religion, the propositions of religion itself, the history of art; all these shapes of learning just as truly invite you and me as the sea asks as to look upon its face, or the spring invites us to see its green leaves and feel its southern wind. As you would not appoint a committee of naturalists to go forth each day in May and see if spring was coming ; as you do not ask the gardener to tell you how the rose looks and how the violet smells, so you dare not ask any professional man, lawyer or physician or clergyman, to read for you the tablets where the historian and the poet and the prophet have sat down and en- INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS. 29 graved all the deeds and the emotions of the mightiest. No one can hear music for you; no one can love a child or a country or a June day for you; and thus no one can take your place in this gallery where hang the pictures of the living and dead nations, and where all the old eloquence still speaks. The education of our common schools, even of our highest colleges, only prepares us for the study and meditation of the subsequent fifty years. There we all studied words — their roots, their grammar; there learned how to make words with a pen, and there the hundred details of reading, writing and arithmetic. The college simply adds Greek and Latin and Ger- man words and higher arithmetic, but the real information of the mind begins when after years have brought you to words as put together by Shakspeare and Dante and Carlyle and Macau- ley, and by all the multitude of thinkers in science and morals. In school you learned 30 MOTIVES OF LIFE. how to write a thought, how to make the let- ters, how to spell the words ; but then comes the real trial and pleasure of life, namely : to have a thought to be spelled and to be written. Thus the intellectual pursuit widens out after you leave the college, and grows larger as the years multiply the white hairs. In intellectual pursuits, therefore, I find one of the lofty motives that are to impel us all along this seventy-year journey. It must be- long to all, because all possess a mind and a soul. It asks only a half hour a day of time, and those half hours it exalts and expands, until at last their colors decorate the whole days and years in which they come. These half hours become like a drop of the attar of roses, which will soon lend to all the laces and rib- bons of a Queen its enchanted air. These hours will lift even poverty from its complaint and foreboding, and will help the young and the old to resist the allurements of vice. INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS. 31 It is particularly essential in our times that all. even the men and women of middle life, continue or resume the daily communion with the best new wisdom of the age; for the world moves and changes so rapidly that the lessons we learned when young must be unlearned or revised, that they may be once more true and fresh and inspiring. If the church-going mul- titude will not read and will not place in the hands of their younir men the best conclusions of the greatest Christian scholars as to the foun- dations of our faith and the essential Christian creed, they need not wonder if an eloquent pub- lic orator shall come along, and with his "Mis- takes of Moses" make infidels of thousands who only a few years ago were full of the com- mon Christian belief. The new studies of the non-believing must be met by the new studies of Christians. Each era must perform its own task. God has no more made arrangements for an indolent church than for an indolent 32 MOTIVES OF LIFE. science ; and hence as rapidly as the so-called infidel opens and criticises our books, we, the so-called faithful, must also open them to see if anything we said or our fathers said was partly true and partly false. There are hun- dreds of Christian scholars from Tholuck and Christlieb and Dean Stanley and Colenso to Dr. Ort and Dr. Knappert and the Presbyte- rian Professor Smith, whose most careful and devout studies will help place any thinking young man upon the rock of Christian faith. But the same youth, if supported only by the Christian theories of the past generation, can- not but fall at the first assault of the enemy. Neither we old men nor our young men can enjoy our faith or defend it by the conclusions and arguments of the past. It was the glory of Protestantism in the outset of its career that it espoused information and inquiry. It parted company with Rome because in Rome the Word was bound. All the modern churches INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS. 33 came forth led by new studies and new conclu- sions ; and now three hundred years have passed and the same Protestantism can win a new triumph by opening once more the study of the history and the doctrines of its divine religion. It can withdraw from its own errors as it once withdrew from the errors of Rome. Among the motives of life that must urge us all onward, let us place the constant develop- ment of the mind and the daily accumulation of knowledge. This motive will blend per- fectly with the motives of business and all pleasure. It displaces nothing of life's good, but many of its evils. It destroys idleness, it plucks the .charm from vice, it quenches the thirst for riches, it brings us nearer to all times and nations, and binds by tender ties to all the noble living and to all the noble dead. As for- eign and wide travel breaks up the local preju- dices of the mind, and makes all the world seem to be the home of man and all the dwellers upon S-i MOTIVES OF LIFE. it to be brothers, so the long and wide reading of the world's truths beats down the w T alls of parti- tion and transforms the reading, thinking one into a better friend and citizen and Christian. The late years, deserted of passion and beauty, are not lived by such a mind in superstition or darkness, but amid great pencils of light which are forerunners of a sunrise beyond the grave. HOME. II. HOME. Among the objects which have pulled long and hard at the heart-strings, one must hasten to class Home. It will be difficult to bring such a theme under a treatment of prose, and into any philosophic analysis, for it is a topic of so much sentiment and of such rich colors, that it has been by common consent assigned to the genius of poets, as being unthinkable except in the rhythm and drapery of. verse. As the highly colored birds do not fly around in the dull, leaden plains of a sandy desert, but amid all the settings of nature's leaves and blossoms, and lights and shades- — nature's framework of their picture — so there are truths which do not appear well in arid fields of philosophic inquiry, but w^hich demand the (37) 38 MOTIVES OF LIFE. colored air and the bowers of poetry to be the settings of their charms. As there is a condi- tion of the heart which makes it scorn the tones of conversation, and urges it to break forth in song, so there are shapes of life which would gladly escape from the touch of prosaic styles, and ask justice from painter and poet. Home is one of these high-born ideas. It has always w T arned away Pulpit and Bar, and Bench and Tripod, and Desk and Platform, and has begged for the permission to be treated by a higher inspiration than these forms of speech can bring. And yet w T e must at times disregard this eternal fitness of things, and seek those facts about home which have made it so worthy of poetry and song. It might be that we are all being deceived by the singers of song and the w r eavers of poetry. Home is a complex notion. It branches out like the springs of a river, and with its large and small tributaries covers a whole continent; HOME. 39 or rather, it is a sun which lights up other worlds than itself. It throws its life-giving beams down upon the political planet and upon common industry and upon character and hap- piness. As a group of planets circle around our sun, and are all blessed by it and carried along through the Mays and Decembers of a million years, so around that star which mor- tals call " House," there move silently quite a group of such bodies as State and industry and happiness and character. This fireside warmth, this light upon the hearth, shines upon industry and stimulates its growth and shapes its meaning. Almost all that w r ar of trade which we hear in street; all this running of car and sailing of ship, arises from the breast of man while he is in pursuit of his home. The young men and the old men who shall pour forth into the street to- morrow to resume the daily task, will do so at the command of that idol of the heart called 40 MOTIVES OF LIFE. home. The captain who shall sail his ship, or who is now watching the compass in the high seas, will sail or watch at the bidding of that house or spot somewhere which he hopes to bless by his coming. Much of the world's hard toil goes into the taxes which sustain governments, and much of its earnings is trifled away and lost, but by far the greatest quantity of the money all toil after goes into the com- fort and decoration of the home where the loved ones dwell. "When the old buried cities were exhumed, what a light the uncovered walls shed upon that institution which is our theme to-day ! The most of earth's ruins had been the ruins of temples and theatres and aqueducts and pyramids, because it was only those vast structures which contained the ma- terials which could resist the action of time. The homes of the people, built of lighter sub- stances, soon mingled with the dust, and left the great Past to whisper to us only of palaces HOME. 41 for kings and temples of the gods; but when the volcano buried suddenly two cities, it em- balmed in soft ashes the homes of the multi- tude, and bade them sleep two thousands years, and then rise up and tell us what a beautiful and powerful thing the home of man has been in all his civilized career. The marble floors, the painted walls, the playthings for the chil- dren, the lamps, the polished mirrors, the or- namented glass, tell us how busy were the fathers and husbands and brothers and wives and daughters, in that far-off time, all toiling to make and decorate and preserve the do- mestic roof. The temples, and viaducts, and pyramids are at last the most conspicuous ruins, but could the old homes all speak they w r ould tell a dearer, more touching story than could be thundered forth by pyramid or Parthenon. Letters are extant from lawyers who toiled at their profession in the Roman Empiro two thousand years ago; and one of these strong 42 MOTIVES OF LIFE. men confessed, when in exile for a time, that he could scarcely read a letter from home or write one to his home because of his tears. And to a friend in Greece the same toiler wrote: "If you see in Greece any piece of statuary that will ornament my library, buy it for me, even should it be expensive. 55 Thus at a glance we perceive that the vast industry of man does not gravitate about the word commerce, nor around the word money, nor around the word king or president, but around the word " home. 55 Of all the multi- tude you will see to-morrow on the streets in the discharge of business duties, it is safe to affirm that the vast majority will be impelled by the love of a home that is or that is to be. Industry being the absolute salvation of man, how great is the influence of that circle which sends us forth each day to our work, and which renders the work pleasant because it is per- formed for the sake of the blessed fireside. The no me. * 43 work of a slave must be emptied of pleasure because it is a toil which builds up the house of another and leaves the worker in poverty and despair ; but on the opposite, how sweet the toil of a freeman since all the hours of such industry go towards the home of to-day or to-morrow. The cottage with its half acre around it, with its few fruit trees, with its gar- den and its vines, is the poor man's savings bank, where his extra shillings take the form of a tree or a shrub or a new half-acre which no American or Scotch director can steal. Thus the idea of home branches out and in- cludes the idea of industry within itself. Its light touches that star and makes it bright. It not only creates industry, but it gives it a noble purpose. And it does not demand enor- mous labors nor the accumulation of riches. Man can take any good and enlarge it into a curse. Man can take prayer or all religion and exaggerate it, until it becomes a deformity. 41 MOTIVES OF LIFE. Man can go crazy after music. He can buy dogs until lie is a half maniac, and he can travel the land over for fine horses, until in his mind the earth is only a pasture field — a turf for his steeds. And thus the love of a home may become degraded into only a mania for a house — a house that shall surpass all houses— a house born, not out of the home feeling, but out of rivalry and ambition. That home which makes up a God-ordained motive of life, and which has led the human heart captive in all ages, and which will lead the world cap- tive until all shall go to Heaven, is one of the most accommodating ideas known to the heart. Home costs just what you may be able to pay easily. It adapts itself to your income. Un- less it does this it will not be a home ; it will be a perpetual care. If the income be large, then its walls may become marble and the grounds large, but if the means of the candidate for a home be small, then the grounds must dimin- HOME, 45 ish or else they must locate themselves outside of the city's limits, and the walls must become wood, and the decorations must all decline in cost, but not much in beauty. The home must be loaded, not with mortgages, but with vines; and inside must be human beings; not full of vanity, but who know what man is, and who know that rich and poor are all one in the absolute reality, and will soon be all one in the dust of the grave. Oar home idea having thus reached out to touch industry and property, it now reaches out and involves the idea of marriage. But nature does not deal in absolute universals. There are and have been persons who have found or are finding life's best mission in being homeless. There are persons who must go from place to place or almost dwell upon the sea. The home is not a universal necessity; and so marriage is not the destiny of all. It is a common or general goal, but not designed 46 MOTIVES OF LIFE. to be a universal shape of earthly pilgrimage. Hence the word " home " does not imply the marriage of all and everybody, for God's world has few laws that have no exceptions. All must die; all must breathe and eat; but soon the word "must" withdraws its despotism and the milder reign of "may " assumes the throne. Beautiful often are those homes where the son or the daughter, or the sons and daughters, live on in the parental house, helping the loved parents gently along the last years of this world, and wdiere the orange blossoms never at last come. One dare not object to this, for nature is so full of exceptions that we cannot but feel that God meant that all forms of being should per- vade our world and make it more beautiful by variations. As home is a general idea, so mar- riage can claim only to be a general custom. Toward this general custom the thoughts of home reach forth. Into the home, be it of thatch or of marble, this large friendship HOME. 47 enters. The pictures and books and furniture, modern or antique, play but small part in the composition of the home compared with that companionship which exists between the souls within. Home depends wholly upon the one- ness of all its inmates. If, when the father comes into the parlor the children gently slip out to be in some room where the father is not; or if, when the husband is present the wife is half afraid and is silent for fear speech may not be welcome to the greatness of the lord and master, home is there in only a modified and half-painful form. Fear of anybody is a good thing in jails and for criminals, but it is a poor element in a home. Oneness of heart from roof to cellar — a oneness which reaches even to the domestics — is the constitutional principle of the ideal home. I am inclined to think that such terms as " love at first sight" must be stricken from our modern philosophy, and that we must substitute for them "love for good 48 MOTIVES OF LIFE. reasons," and thus found homes, not upon a small hand or the grace of an attitude, or upon the genius of a Worth, but upon a most won- derful amount of good sense on each side of the interesting case. When marriages are formed upon a sudden fancy, divorce courts will always be busy, or else there will always be unhappy homes ; for the suddenness of a romantic fancy is fully equalled by the sud- denness with which it fades. Common sense alone will tell when a companionship has come which will bind two hearts together for life's good-or ill. In presence of this common inter- est and inseparable attachment, the meaning of money and the meaning of brick and mar- ble and frame, and plain and grand, are all one; these terms being rendered insignificant by the overshadowing worth of the friendship. It is alleged that the modern girl candidate for marriage has her ideas of house and con- tents pitched to such a height that the young HOME. 49 man of ordinary income and ordinary prospects cannot undertake to carry forward the same high tone of this life-music ; but all we older persons have observed that the daughters who possess most education and most intellect are perfectly willing to start their enterprise in a plain way. They not only are willing, but they glory in it. They only ask that their com- panion be a man of industry and refinement and good sense. As for those who are called the " butterflies of fashion/' and there are male individuals of this species, no provision need be made for even bringing them to a marriage altar. They should be omitted from all in- quiries as to the great motives of life. It is said that John Bunyan's wife brought him not so much as a fork or a knife or a spoon, but only herself and two good books ; but it after- wards appeared that she was herself a complete w r orld without the silver spoon accompaniment. But we must move away from this uncertain 3 50 MOTIVES OF LIFE. ground to repeat that man's home rises up be- fore the human race as one of the powerful winds that fills the sails and wafts along the ships. How the heart almost breaks when it must leave home ! Not only the little children but all we older children are compelled to shed secretly a few tears when we must leave for a time the indescribable charm. Strong-hearted and strong-minded men feel that to fly over to the old continent and ramble there a half year will be a supreme delight, but when the wheels of the steamship make their first revolution and the friends on the shore wave adieu, how the heart sinks and how the whole physical frame protests against the great separation! And amid all the wonders of the foreign w r orld, the home left behind pulls at the heart of the exile, and at times comes the feeling of regret that even for all this pageantry of ruins and art, one should have left that fireside more divine than pictured wall or sculptured rock. HOME. 51 In the night a song comes over the deep — Come home ; Come to the hearth- stone of thy earlier days ; Come to the ark, like the o'er- wearied dove ; Come to the sunlight of the hearts' warm rays Come to the fireside circle of thy love. Brother, come home. Come home ; It is not home without thee ; the lone seat Is still unclaimed where thou was wont to be ; In every echo of returning feet, In vain we list for what should herald thee. Brother, come home. And thus has the whole world thought and wept and cried in all its touching history. This house, cottage or palace, with its attached inmates, reaches out and sustains powerful rela- tions to the State. It is one of the marvels of history that such a genius as was that clas- sic who defined an ideal republic should have declared that all the citizens should belong not to any family but to the State, and that all the children should be reared by the State in public buildings. Thus the term, father and 52 MOTIVES OF LIFE. mother, son and daughter, husband and wife, were all to be swallowed up in the word citizen. In a nation that must live by war, only such a theory might claim to be not wholly insane, but all the latter ages have made the notion one of the wildest ever entertained, for it is now seen that each great nation comes from the number and intelligence of its home-groups of men and women. It has always been the homeless rabble that has opposed the law and order of the world. And it has always been the men who had homes to defend and bless who have toiled to check tyranny and establish liberty. That cot in the valley, that log house in the woods, that modest house in the village, those costlier residences in the city which so pull at the heart when the inmate leaves them ; these all pull at the soul, too, in days of political conflict, and have turned out for battle long lines of heroic troops. Home surpasses West Point in training for the battle-field; for HOME. 53 if the latter can supply an art, the former can supply an inspiration more effective than tac- tics. According to Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, and indeed according to plain history, a most despotic monster was swept from power in a few days by a people who saw him lay his armed hand upon the home of a most humble citizen. That whole poem of Virginia may well stand forever as an expression of the rela- tion between the Throne and the Home. And in our day this relationship has become still more intimate, for the Throne has abdicated many old rights, and the Home has put on in- creased education, and has been granted new prerogatives. The old despot has faded away into a citizen-king or queen or president, and the power thus cast aside has been assumed by the fireside. Against the madness of a mob our land can always oppose the interest and power of its domestic hearth. In olden times the homeless, 54 MOTIVES OF LIFE. made such by despotism and by ignorance and by superstition and idleness, were a multitude so numerous that upon almost any day they could overthrow or disturb the government; but for a hundred years our land has been removing the chains of ignorance, and super- stition and idleness, and has been gathering into homes millions who in other ages would have been either a turbulent mob or the armed troops of a despot. Thus that home which figures first in romance as a place which love builds, and then figures in poetry as the dear- est spot on earth — from which going we weep tears of sorrow — to which returning we weep tears of joy, passes up out of this sentimental vaie and re-a]3pears in politics more inspiring than many drums, more powerful than a tyrant's sword. But I can only allude to the qualities of this potential motive. It is seen to branch out and touch industry, and awake and direct it; to HOME. 55 touch marriage and invite it, and lay plans for its life-long happiness; and then to touch the great affairs of State and become an ally of a good king or a good president. So it reaches out once more and touches intellect and heart with its almost angelic wings. In the peace and security and happiness of this abode, and under its impulse toward industry the intellect is awakened and the heart is led out of itself. Some great minds may have been reared in a closet, and from a garret addressed a world, but such events are exceptional. Almost all those minds which have stood forth in beauty, and which still stand in history never to fade, arose not from the dens of any isolation, but from the fireside of a home. It took all the cares of domestic life, it took the w 7 ife and all the children, to weave the immortal chaplets of the central figure. The group kept the soul and mind bound down to the dailv task, and made the task most pleasurable. Read over the 56 MOTIVES OF LIFE. names of the mighty ones, and what a vast majority of them were kept fully awake to the outside world by the restless life under the parental roof. In isolation the heart grows narrow, and the mind declines toward repose, and its sun sets soon, after a bad day. It is evidently the law of God that in early life along shall come the cottage or the mansion to pour a new inspiration into that soul from which the first visions of youth have faded. A public man now in the latter years of a long life wrote recently in a private letter : " I love the world more and my heart grows tenderer toward it the longer I live. I love the young deeply and feel that I am myself still down among their laughter, and pleasures and hopes." Now this letter comes from a home where the light of affection has joined with the sun in lighting up door-step and window, and where a modest library and a generous fire in the broad fire-place have combined with kin- HOME. 57 dred spirits to make the place a source of a pure thought and a pure religion and an unfad- ing youth. What else could so influence the better thought and sentiments ? It was my intention to ask you to mark the relation of the home idea to morals, but the subject has proven too large for my hand. We will always, all of us, fail to grasp these great motives which envelop us. As we can- not conceive of God, so must we fail to meas- ure fully these majestic expressions of His will. His ways are above our ways. We can only each day take a few steps along His infinite shore. As one of the greatest of modern na- tions, unable to behold all the magnificence of the old empire of the Nile — unable to collect as;ain the immense libraries of the Pharoahs ; unable to restore the massive architecture which reached from Thebes to Memphis; una- ble to remove to London a pyramid — could only box up a single monolith and drag that 5S MOTIVES OF LIFE. little emblem across the seas — so must we all at last confess weakness in presence of the motives which God has been building up in the thousand-year periods, and along the stream of human being. Unable to show you the length and breadth and sublimity of all or even one influence, we bring you only a single stone — a monolith from an empire that demands your widest and deepest study. I add no extended advice, but only the hope that the young men of to-day will not under- take to pass these earthly years without asking the ideal home with its impulses to come and lead and impel them by its many-shaped attrac- tiveness. Towards that future home direct the industry and economy of the present. The mind in its thought, the hand in its skill, the heart in its morals and warmth, the spirit in its religion, ask you to be busy to-day laying the foundations of this human temple, rival- ing in beauty the halls of art and even the HOME. 59 shrines of God ; and your coming middle life and old age ask you to prepare for them its happiness and peace. Do not fear to picture it as rising up in years not far away, for the heart will decorate the morrow with something, and no other sketch will more honor the can- vas or be more easy of final fulfillment; but paint it in simplicity. Let it begin softly, like a strain of music, that there may be room for higher notes further along in the great rhapsody. God will go with you, for He loves not more the altars of Himself than the fire- sides of His children. A GOOD NAME. III. A GOOD NAME. Among the motives which most influence mankind I included the winning of a name. From the fact that each heart loves itself fol- lows the fact that each heart seeks also the esteem of others. The longing for a good name is one of those laws of nature that were passed for the soul and written down within to urge toward a life of action, and away from small or wicked action. So large is this passion that it is set forth in poetic thought, as having a tem- ple grand as that of Jupiter or Minerva, and up whose marble steps all noble minds strug- gle — the temple of Fame. The Creator of man, in an infinite wisdom and kindness, has placed in the breast a group of incentives to large and constant action, that (63) 64: MOTIVES OF LIFE. by these infancy may be rapidly changed into manhood, and manhood be continually resolved into a yet nobler form ; and that by the aggre- gate of these individual movements barbarism may be lifted up into civilization, and civiliza- tion be perpetually raised to a higher degree. Civilization is only the aggregate of individual careers, and hence those impulses which lead the mind to seek education and a home and a name and happiness and a God, do at the same time form a civilization which mav retain for t/ centuries those results which lingered only a few years with the individual. Civilization is the ocean of which the millions of individuals are the rivers and torrents. These rivers and torrents swell with those rains of money and home and fame and happiness, and then fall and run almost dry, but the ocean of civiliza- tion has gathered up all these waters, and holds them in sparkling beauty for all subsequent use. Therefore all those great billowy seas A GOOD NAME. 65 which we call Greece or France or England or America, are places where the pursuit of prop- erty and fame and learning and happiness by the millions, has emptied their floods for a score of generations. Civilization is a fertile delta made by the drifting souls of men. The word " fame " never signifies simply notoriety. It implies only an honorable noto- riety. The meaning of the direct term may be seen from its negation or opposite, for only the meanest of men are called infamous. They are utterly without fame, utterly nameless; but if fame implied only notoriety then infamous would possess no marked significance. Com- ing from the Greek phami and the Latin fama the word signifies that the public is speaking about your merits. Men meeting in the streets are asking each other if they have seen your elegant statue or painting, or have read your poems, or have seen your kindness to the poor, or have marked your patriotism or honesty or 3* 66 MOTIVES OF LIFE. piety. . The term thus implies that the public is confessing some honorable act of your life or skill of your hand or Quality of your heart. It is amazing that so many great men have spoken so sneeringly of this innate impulse. Colton says : " Fame is an undertaker that pays but little attention to the living, but who bedi- zens the dead, furnishes out their funerals and follows them to the grave." Johnson and Young and Byron and Pope and a large group of such authors shot their pointed arrows at this divinity and broke down the doors and altars of her temple; but it must be that all these were looking only at the extreme long- ing for notoriety which has marked some careers, and burned up and ruined many minds. It is known that Byron and Young so courted public applause that they helped associate in men's minds ambition and madness. When we look at Alexander and Herod and Csesar and perhaps Napoleon, and mark how A GOOD NAME. 67 in their histories fame became associated with innocent blood, the motive seems to fall from our touch and we desire to say nothing more in its defense. But the great motives of life cannot be measured in a few exceptional hearts. We cannot learn from a miser nor from a Croesus the worth of the human pursuit of property ; nor can we learn from a fanatic the worth of a religion; but from these exceptions we must escape, and go to the human race and there find the value of the human love of money and the worth of the general tenets of religion. So in studying that life-motive which is called a "good name," we must turn away from the life of Alexander or Herod or Xerxes, and ask the large human race to tell us the high merit of this spiritual longing. We need not seek to know the value of that blare of bugles which may have greeted an Africanus who had ruined a Carthage ; or the market value of the 68 MOTIVES OF LIFE. popular breath which cried out before a robed king — " He is a god ! " — but we wish rather to read the gentle words of the sage, who said long centuries ago that " a good name was rather to be chosen than great riches.' 3 Other sages have said as much. Solon said that "He that will sell his good name will sell the State." Socrates said, " Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds." Our Shakspeare said, "He lives in fame who died in virtue's cause." Such words as these may well expel from our memory the contempt expressed by Byron and Young, and bring us to the conclusion that in the pursuit of an honorable name lies one of the God- ordained incentives of human conduct. Our theme is most practical. Our age is deeply influenced by the motives called prop- erty and home and pleasure, but it is a ques- tion whether the generation in action to-day and the generation on the threshold of this intense life are conscious fully of the worth of A GOOD NAME. 69 an honorable name. It is impossible, as I have always confessed, to compare together to-day and yesterday, and say that yesterday had more virtue or more vice ; and the same con- fession must be made over the influence of a good reputation upon the men of yesterday and the men of to-day. I do not know whether with us all a good name is less sweet than it was with our fathers, but this is painfully evi- dent, that our times do not yet sufficiently behold the beauty of character — their sense does not detect quickly enough, or love deeply enough this aroma of heroic deeds. It is amazing what multitudes there are who are willing to sell out their reputation, and amaz- ing at what a low price they will make the painful exchange. Some king remarked that he would not tell a lie for any reward less than an empire. It is not uncommon in our world for a man to sell out all his honor and hopes for a score or a half score of dollars. Within 70 MOTIVES OF LIFE. a week two young men in the glory of twenty- one years, have become murderers for a few dollars. In one case it was simply hoped, not known, that the victim had a hundred dollars; and for this little sum the young man of fair fame turned friendship into an accomplice, asked pleasant conversation and a walk through the fields on a beautiful moonlit night, to help him kill a trusting companion. Our prisons are all full to overflowing of those who took no thought of honor. They have not waited for an empire to be offered them before they would violate the sacred rights of man, but many of them have even murdered for a cause that would not have justified even an exchange of words. There lies in our jail now a young physician who for a few cents killed the loved father of a family, and thus in one moment brought infinite sorrow to the two homes — the hearth of the slayer and the hearth of the victim, and measureless infamy to himself. Of this our A GOOD NAME. 71 age is too full. Whether some new influence has come to cloud the value of personal char- acter, or whether the human race has always thus failed to read the laws of happiness, one may not tell; but this we must perceive: that our land is not vet conscious of the height and depth of that happiness that comes from a spotless reputation, and the depth of that misery which comes from this honor lost. One of the most striking instances of this awful folly — the flinging away of honor — comes to our mind now when we recall a per- son who for a handful of money terminated all his many friendships, and his friends were many, and kind were they and true. His wife was the most beautiful being the great West could send up to a bridal altar, and as amiable as beautiful. Her life, her premature death, the sacredness of her grave and her child — all friends and all these memories weighed noth- ing, and nothing was the weight he placed 72 MOTIVES OF LIFE. upon bis own good name. All these sacred things he threw away to be a rich thief under a false name in a foreign land. So fearful is the price he has paid for his gold that it does not now seem that any arrest and trial and an imprisonment, even for life, could add anything to the bitterness of his cup. His hell began with his flight. If these painful events came only one to a generation we should say they were the result of insanity ; but they come in such startling rapidity that they must be confessed to spring up out of an age that does not study enough the worth of reputation — which expects of money alone a happiness it can never bring. There are some departments of human activity where the influence of a good name seems to be acquiring new power. In no age have literary genius and character appeared in closer alliance. A large majority of the Eng- lish and American thinkers wear whiter rai- A GOOD NAME. 73 merit than clothed the souls of literary men in former times. The difference here is so large as to be visible. You may mention these noble names by the hour without coming to many which are tarnished. Macaulay and Carlyle and Wordsworth and Tennyson and Disraeli and Gladstone and Mrs. Browning and Buskin and a hundred compeers ; and on this side the sea, Bryant and Longfellow and Whittier and Emerson and the Carvs and their compeers, join in showing that there is one class of living workmen who feel the necessity and glory of uniting in one soul genius and honor. Almost a hundred and fifty gifted poetic writers have become famous in England in the last forty years ; and no former era ever bound together so much talent and so much honor. It mav be that there is something in literature which invites the heart towards a self-control and a moral develop- ment, and that by their calling its votaries 4 74 MOTIVES OF LIFE, hold an advantage over the men who open banks or buy wheat or mingle in polities. If so we can bless God that earth has some green islands in its Saharas, and that our youth can escape the poison of too many commercial col- umns by turning to a literature composed of a higher order of thought. The Bench of the current times seems as pure as the closet of literature. It has been the happiness of the Bar and of the Press to congratulate the times over the fact that the judges in the higher courts, East and West, seem to draw their decisions from the law and the evidence ; and that whereas one age w 7 as happy in the possession of one honest judge — Matthew Hale — our country is happy in the possession of many such administrators of justice. More and more for a generation or two have educated men in literature and in the professions sought to combine with their men- tal gifts and their position the fame of integrity. A GOOD NAME. 15 It will be perhaps the quality of the future that what the present now demands of the Bench and of its historians and poets and essayists, it will demand of its business men — that their names shall be like those of the Whittiers and Emersons, ennobled by integ- rity. Fame is a gold-field which has not been fully uncovered. "Were we to make a complete study of the career of honor, we should find some strange facts scattered here and there in its history. We should find little spaces of time when hon- or w^as more popular than fine houses or fine furniture. We should find a brief Roman period when the citizen gloried in his good name more than in his genius or physical powers. We should find a period when 'slaves were emancipated when they had reached a certain established excellence of character. (Lecky is the authority.) And then we should come to spots of place and time where each 76 MOTIVES OF LIFE. man became a hypocrite, and when a Seneca dared in a fearful manner to combine crime and religious philosophy. These would always be the dying hours — the death-chambers of the unhappy periods. In such a study we find that rewards must be offered for a good name just as they are offered for eloquence or genius or riches. If integrity were made the pride of the govern- ment, the love of it would soon spring up among the people. If all fraudulent men should go straight to jail, pitilessly, and if all the most rigid characters were sought out for all political and commercial offices, there would soon come a popular honesty just as there has come a love of reading or of art. It is with character as with any new article — the diffi- culty lies in its first introduction. Our steam- boat, our gaslight, began in much tribulation. It was difficult for any good music to get into a Scotch church. It took a hundred years to A GOOD NAME. 77 get the organ into the Presbyterian churches of Pennsylvania. Many elders and deacons withdrew rather than imperil their souls by hearing such music. It will prove more dif- ficult to get the music of a good name intro- duced into our streets, and schools and homes ; but once there we shall perhaps be slow in going back to the horrid discord of the for- mer period. That this new virtue may come into favor, all our high rewards, those from the ballot-box, those from employers of tens and of hundreds, the rewards of society, the rewards of the press, should be offered only to the worthy. A few years of rewarding the worthy would result in a wonderful zeal in the young to build up, not physical property, but mental and spiritual worth. An actor having been asked a few weeks ago if there was not at present an unusual number of actors and actresses who were seen to pos- sess real moral excellence, replied that there MOTIVES OF LIFE. was, and gave this as a reason : "That in for- mer times the church gave them no hope of having any goodness acknowledged ; the con- demnation was perfectly sweeping ; but that of late years the community had become so much more just, that now an actor or actress enjoys the full hope and knowledge that the world will give them credit for every excellence of character." They see before them the same moral possibilities that lie before a scholar or a statesman or a lawyer. Thus, as rapidly as the world becomes just enough, and itself holy enough to appreciate and reward the good name, lo! out of this demand and this justice comes a new supply — the various avo- cations saying, " If you really appreciate good men and good women, then here we are! Your love has encouraged us to come." But let us pass from the value of a good name to the bearer, to mark for a moment its value to all who surround it. Fame in all its A GOOD NAME. 79 shapes — fame for invention or for poetry, or for eloquence, or for honesty, or for kindness, blesses not only its possessor but all the sur- rounding throng. It does not shut itself up in the little closet of one heart, but like the perfume of a violet, it hastens to get out of the little cup and scent the great air. No young man or young woman can by industry and care reach an eminence in study or art or character without blessing the entire family group. "We have all seen that the father and mother feel that all life's care and labor were at last perfectly rewarded in the success of their child. But had the child been reckless or in- dolent, all this domestic joy — the joy of a large group — would have been blighted for- ever. Some of the touching episodes in history are accounts of those hours when a Christine Nilsson went back to her humble home, carry- ing to a cottage the triumphs of her song ; and when a Macaulay's work began to quicken the 80 MOTIVES OF LIFE. heart-beats of those looking to him, not simply for support, but for happiness. There have been triumphs at old Rome, where victors marched along with many a chariot, many an elephant, and many spoils of the East ; and in all times money has been lavished in the efforts of States to tell their pleasure in the name of some general ; but more numerous and wide- spread and beyond expression, by chariot or cannon or drum, have been those triumphal hours when some son or daughter has returned to the parental hearth beautiful in the wreaths of some confessed excellence. Even if fame emptied all its good in only one heart — in its possessor's heart — it would be a most sacred impulse, for spiritual peace and joy are not so plentiful in this world that you and I can afford to throw them away or neglect the sources from which they come ; but when to this con- sideration we add the fact that all personal goodness immediately passes out of self and A GOOD NAME. 81 settles down like a sunshine upon whole fields of human life, the obligations of an industrious and ambitious and moral career become solemn and yet sweet. When certain mockers have made sport of fame, they must have forgotten what treasures the world has drawn out of this mighty im- pulse. I am aware of the quarrels that have grown out of ambition. The papers tell us that the singers quarrel ; and that the painters differ, and often pettishly break friendship; but we remember that men and women are only children ; and when we remember that Paul and Barnabas were jealous of each other and separated, and that out of their ambition there grew up a powerful religion ; when we remem- ber that Angelo and Raphael and Bramante quarreled long and hotly, and that yet out of their ambition grew the inostmagnificentperiod of art, we prefer to endure the quarrels if we can have the final blessings of their ambition. 82 MOTIVES OF LIFE. A quarrel is the childish thing of an hour, but the ambition of a Paul or an Angelo or an Isaac Newton, is the blessing of all subsequent times. Castelar said of Bramante and Angelo " that their names driven apart in the small days of strife were now reconciled in immortal- ity." Mankind will forgive 3^011 all many child- ish words and deeds if only they can see that your ambition is bringing to science some new truth, to discovery some new machine, to char- acter some new charm, and thus to humanity some new happiness Let us sum up now r the study of the hour. Do we not reach these conclusions : that a name for honor and wisdom, or for honor and art, or for honor and invention, or for honor and genius, is more to be desired than all out- ward possessions ? We looked at the utter wretchedness of the men who threw away rep- utation, and would rather be rich criminals in exile than be loved friends and persons at A GOOD NAME. 83 home. We have noted how proud mankind is becoming of honorable scholars and judges and honorable business men. "We found that our age must build up reputation by hasten- ing to reward it. We then saw that fame passes out of self and blesses first the father's heart and the mother's heart, and then it flies out upon the broad world to be like a Christ, who moved away from a manger to dwell near all thrones and homes. I conclude that you, ye young and ye old, cannot afford to bear the burden of an empty or an evil name. A good name is a motive of life. It is a reason for that great encampment we call existence. While you are building the home of to-mor- row, build up also that kind of soul that can sleep sweetly on home's pillow, and can feel that God is not near as an avenger of wrong, but as the Father not only of the verdure and the seasons, but of you. THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. IV. THE PUESUIT OF HAPPINESS. All pursuits are pursuits of happiness. The young men who are standing in presence of a group of professions, try to select one which will yield them not only a support but also the most of happiness. No man will of his own accord select an avocation against which his heart recoils. So universally does man seek personal happiness, and so wddely does society in its organized forms seek this desti- nation, that many philosophers have declared happiness to be the final motive of all conduct — that all other motives are but shapes of this one all-prevailing influence. It is indeed true that no act of life can be found in which this reward of being may not be seen as a possible motive, or at least as an expectation, but that (87) 88 MOTIVES OF LIFE. all acts are done from considerations of the final welfare of the doer may well be denied, for without very clear proof we should not make man a creature of only self-interest. It is evident that all good conduct and all good character are inevitably joined with that result called happiness, and this is perhaps as far as the common mind can see in this direction in the spiritual world. While philosophers are ardently and almost vainly attempting to learn whether all actions and all virtue are to be explained by the influ- ence of this one pursuit, this truth remains for the common public, namely : that the pursuit of happiness, enjoyment, pleasure, is one of the most immense chases in which the human mul- titude ever joins. There are some who do not seek riches — perhaps because they were born into an old wealth which in generations has not increased nor diminished, or perhaps be- cause they were born so poor that the thought THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. 89 of riches is a hopeless dream — and there are persons who do not seek a home, or a name or culture ; but persons who do not seek pleasure one can with difficulty discover. This crusade is one in which all join and march to this music in front of the mighty procession. Not every single individual of the human family has marched to this music, but no one shape of motive has come so near making a unit in one particular of the races and epochs of man. The history of the exceptions, could we find them and read them, w'ould reveal to us only more clearly the fact that the Creator designed that all his creatures should seek, to a greater or less degree, personal pleasure. At least those who have attempted to shun the smiles and laughter and joys of earth, have found their method to be, not a form of devel- opment but a blight. In almost all histories of old lands we find a band of asceticism or stoicism drawn across the great page — a black 4* 90 MOTIVES OF LIFE. line in this wide spectrum. Some disappointed priest of some god, or some baffled politician, or some baffled lover, or some unbalanced brain, has gone out from almost every state of the past, and in some desert has founded an order and a philosophy, whose cardinal idea has been that man should mortify all his feelings and look ujdoii all pleasure as a weakness. Before our era came with its Christian hermits, old India and Arabia, and the Nile Valley, poured forth these streams of monasticism. The Eremite was a man who fled from civilization and took to the desert (eremos, a desert), that he might escape pleasure. But even these the inborn love of happiness followed, for w r hen one of these had made his cell or lods;e.in the bleak sand or rocks, he soon managed to have com- pany, and thus soon a hundred or a thousand hermits assembled in one valley or mountain or plain, that they who scorned all pleasure might have the pleasure of companionship. Although THE PUBSUIT OF HAPPINESS. 91 they ate in perfect silence and with faces unre- lieved for years by a smile, and ate only little bread and oil and salt, and sat on a little bunch of straw by day, which bundle became a pillow at night, yet they wished the pleasure of society and always located in such a manner that each could see some companions of the common misery. In India, where the most miserable self-torturers exist, these seekers of suffering go in groups that they may have the pleasure of the company of each other. Thus these sets of men who have set forth with the cardinal doctrine of denying self, have hastened to gratify self by demanding the presence of companions. Thus has asceticism failed to root out from the heart the motive of happiness, because where it has vowed to be miserable it has asked the pleasure of companions in the distress, it asked the happiness of being seen. When this eccentricity of human nature passed over from the Pagan to the Christian 92 MOTIVES OF LIFE. world, it could not by any effort become a per- fect self-denial, for the recluses, the hermits and the monks, all betrayed points at which they wanted happiness to come in, and so rapid- ly did these points multiply and enlarge, that at last a monastery became a place where there was plenty of good food and good wine and good hearty laughter. To be fat and jolly as a monk became the quality at last of those orders whose founders had left the world that the body and soul might escape its sensual pleasures. Thus so stubborn is the natural law of pleasure that men who have set forth to oppose it have been found at last fatter and redder of face and jollier than those who remained away from this contest with the flesh and the devil. Again: in so far as individuals have succeed- ed in overcoming the smile and joy of earth, to that distance have they also blighted the other natural powers of the soul. In the effort THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. 93 to overthrow pleasure, these men have dragged down all else. The mind hastens to pass into a stupor when it has become convinced that there is nothing around it worth living for. The more the ascetic — be he Pagan or Christian, be he Stoic or a Fakir or a Monk — limits the horizon of pleasure in the best sense of that word, the more he limits the out-reachings of the mind and heart, and contracts the powers and works of his life. A suicide is a man whose heart has become perfectly emptied of joy and the hope of it ; and next to the suicide stands the ascetic, who holds the theory of the suicide but in a less real form ; he has the faith or creed of the suicide, but has not yet risen to his practice. A classic orator once spoke so powerfully about the worthlessness of human existence that his addresses were always followed by a sudden increase of suicides. We who from our happier era look back, cannot but feel that 91 MOTIVES OF LIFE. the hatred some of our ancestors cherished for pleasure, made the world seem so small and ill- deserving that they did not care to extend toward it their esteem or their charity. From the years which they had sown broadcast with their hatred of laughter, they reaped a har- vest of indifference and coldness of soul. It mattered little to them how much their neigh- bor or their enemy suffered, for suffering was a dignified condition of body and mind, and was not half so weak a thing as loud enjoy- ment. If this stoicism enabled some men to be martyrs and to sing songs at the stake, it also made them willing to make martyrs of others and to sing cheerfully at the burning of other bodies than their own. If asceticism had but one side to it — the ability to endure ills — it might pass for a virtue ; but it has always another side: the power to inflict ills —a vice for which a willingness to have one's thumb twisted or right hand burned is an THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. 95 inadequate compensation. Thus the heroism of Cranmer and More and Knox, had its dark side, for the severity of philosophy which enabled them to ' endure well, made them equally powerful to inflict. The power to repel happiness has been too often joined to the inability to care for the happiness of others. It is no doubt true that some of the iron- hearted men in the past did great good in their day, but one may well be glad that their day has passed by, and that with the passing away of the men who could hold their hand in a blaze until it were consumed have passed away ; also the men who could without flinch- ing hold in the same blaze the hands of other people. Let us have, instead of iron-men, souls sensitive to joy and pain, for these only can measure fully the joy and pain of another. A sensibility to one's own happiness is pre-re- quisite to a conception of the happiness of oth- ers. How can man be anxious to bestow upon 98 MOTIVES OF LIFE. another that of which he himself knows but little? No doubt the poet Milton possessed immense learning and immense powers and heroism; but if story be true, his daughters, who are pictured as reading so affectionately to their blind father and the nephews about the Miltonian home, must have had often convinc- ing proof that their Paradise at least had been long lost. Much of the prose of Milton is marked by a ferocity of which our times can furnish no parallel. Having but one life to live, and having the choice of all times, one w r ould be justified in locating his span of exis- tence in a happiness-seeking age, for only such an age would care for your tears and make any effort to dry them. Iron-men are noble to bear, but hard to be borne. When Christianity has in any way been made into a severe state or philosophy or char- acter, this bad result has been achieved by a wandering away from Christ and by a linking THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. 97 together of Mosaic law and Christian gospel. When our ancestors condemned and executed witches, they quoted Exodus 22 : 18, " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." When the Christian Church began to put to death all those who rejected its line of belief, it studied and imitated the example of Moses and Joshua in their extermination of the Canaanites. The early Christian Church studied, not its Foun- der, Christ, but its imaginary predecessor, the Mosaic Church, and put to death millions of non-believers because the Mosaic model had cut down the Pagans root and branch. Many of these olden-time writers explain persecution by quoting from Deuteronomy. One of them, Simancas, says that persecution to Death is right, because in the 17th chapter of Deuter- onomy we are told that stubborn unbelievers must be burned in sight of all the people, and that idolators must be led outside the gates and there be stoned to death. Our own ancestors, 98 MOTIVES OF LIFE. when they made the penal code of Connecti- cut, founded it as far as possible upon the Pen- tateuch. As;ain and a°;ain at the end of a law they cite the holy precedent for such an act of legislation. For example, we find on the Code this Blue Law : " If any child or children about sixteen years old and of sufficient under- standing, shall curse or smite their natural father or mother, he or they shall be put to death. See Exodus 21 : 17 ; Lev. 20 : 9 ; Ex. 21 : 15." Again, " If a man have a stubborn son who will not obey the voice of his father or mother, and that when they shall have chas- tized him he will not hearken unto them, then shall they bring him before the magistrate and testify that their son is stubborn and rebellious, and will not obey their voice and chastisement, but lives in sundry and notorious crimes, such a son shall be put to death. See Deut. 21 : 20." You may study all you will and can the alleged cruelty of Christianity, and you THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. 99 will find it all to have come from the assump- tion that Moses brought the perpetual will of God to earth, and that Christ and Moses were linked in an equal and everlasting partnership. Out of this assumption has come an endless amount of cruelty and blood and tears and sorrow. But the moment you dissolve this terrible companionship between the thunder of Sinai and the Sermon on the Mount, you perceive that Christianity comes bringing hap- piness and asking you to carry happiness to all within your part of society. Christ in his own true isolation was not an ascetic, but an advocate of human cheerfulness. There were no tears of sympathy falling down through the Mosaic times, such as rained down through the Bethlehem skies when Christ went from home to home and from village to village, cheering all, and healing all, and blessing all. The time for burning the skeptical and stoning to death the idolator rolled away like a black cloud 100 MOTIVES OF LIFE. after the Advent, and the new dispensation was seen blessing all, comforting the mourner, holding in its arms little children. The aus- terity of the Mosaic era Christ would not per- mit to envelope even the Sabbath, much less all the days of the week, for passing through the wheat-fields on Sunday, he commanded his companions to eat cheerfully of the sweet wheat, since the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for a Sabbath. At the wedding feast Christ harmonized with the festival and helped fill the wine-cup of the happy hours. Those lilies which Christ saw were not seen by the bloody men that put to death so willingly the Amoriteand the Perrizite, but they were tram- pled down by the rush of the horsemen and the iron chariots. In Christ you will perceive just that sensibility of soul which loves at once the happiness of self and the joy of all mankind. This must be said over all history, not only THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. 101 of Mosaic times but of Gospel times, and all early periods: that it omits to picture to us the laugh and smile and delight of man, and ex- hausts its time upon those wars and events and characters which overthrew thrones or set up thrones or changed the maps of nations. History is a filing in and out of soldiery. It is a march of kings and queens. In all its long period no happy children are seen ; no feast is spread, unless like Belshazzer's it is to be followed by some calamity, and some poet is about to say: " Hour of the empire's overthrow — The princes to the feast are gone; " no marriage bell rings ; no mirth-making stories are told; no young people dance in the large halls. As kings were the large things of the by-gone centuries, around them moved all the chronicles of events from Ezra to Gib- bon, each writer composing his book as on a shield, and dipping his pen in an inkstand 102 MOTIVES OF LIFE. made of a skull or of a helmet. Looking into such a record our fathers shaped our religion to fit this funereal gloom, and gave us a worship in whose sombre presence pleasure partook of the quality of a sin or of a weak- ness. This being true, it is the privilege and duty of our time to note the injustice of his- tory and to affirm that Christianity is in full sympathy with that vast love of pleasure that fills up the mortal soul. Gloomy religion- ists inquire whether Christ ever laughed, and whether St. Paul ever joined in a dance! — as though there were a most withering rebuke to the inquiry. This we know: that history has never given us the picture of man in his home and joys and laughter and all delights, but only of man as swaying a scepter or as making a speech or writing a poem or found- ing a religion ; and hence you who love pleas- ure need not ask Josephus or Tacitus or Livy or Hume or Gibbon to show you a precedent; THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. 103 you may cast your case upon the wisdom of a different Court — that of reason — or you may re-write history and omit the battle-field and the monarch, and fill your pages with common men, women and children, from all lands and all generations. Thus studying man you will find that the pursuit of happiness has quick- ened his genius and the beating of his heart all along his great highway, from the old Eden to the fresh and new America, Happiness thus revealing itself as a lawful and noble and universal pursuit, it must now be asked what happiness is it that is so lawful and noble? It must be a happiness that does not con- flict with morality. Pleasure sought by a vio- lation of any law of health or of conscience or of society, is only a pain delayed. The so-called "daughters of joy " are the daughters of in- finite grief. And the appeal to the drunkard's glass for happiness is only placing a heavy mortgage upon the soul in good times to be 101 MOTIVES OF LIFE. paid with heavy interest when times are bad. The pleasure of the gambler, the betting man, and generally the fashionable man, is only an inflation of to-day at the expense of to-morrow. Happiness is much like money — money must represent an actuality. It must stand for some stored-up labor of individual or nation. If a man has earned a farm or a house or has digged a pot of gold ; he may issue bills of paper almost to the amount of value in his farm or house or pot of gold, but should he issue checks or drafts to ten times the value of his reality, his bills must decline to ten* cents on the dollar so as to harmonize with his posses- sions. No man and no State, however power- ful, can create a value. No State can make land or make a wheat-crop. Their bills of exchange must represent what is. God alone can create. He might appeal to what might be. It is much thus with pleasure. Man can- not wander much beyond his absolute posses- TEE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. 105 sion of power and right. An over-drinking, an over-eating, an over-tax of mind or body is an over-issue of drafts ; and lo, on the mor- row, an awful depreciation of body and mind and soul is reported on street and change and in the church circles, and in that most tender and tearful place — the home. You see on the streets daily persons, male and female, who years ago discounted too heavily their future, and now the time is out. The health of the body and of the mind, the welfare of self and of society, the eternal laws of God — these are realities upon which all may issue their pleas- ure-notes, but the instant you go beyond these actualities you become a defaulter — you are no longer in the vale of pleasure, but of pain. It must therefore be true that what we call amusements are things to be regulated rather than sweepingiy condemned. The pleasure of the theatre, of games, of the hunt, of the dance, of the dinner, of the party, of the club, 106 MOTIVES OF LIFE. must be one that shall not overtax health or morals or money, or militate against one's avocation. The bounding line between virtue and vice is not always made vividly on life's great plain. Our world was not made for the accommodation of stupid people nor for the growth and increase of stupidity, but to de- velop the intellect and the judgment. All college students are wont to ask, " Why study this Greek, with its endless details and rules and exceptions? Why not study easier things?" And the grave teachers will say in triumph, there is a vast amount of discipline in Greek. After mastering that all else will be easy. These Greek professors have nature on their side; for nature draws dim lines between vir- tue and vice, pleasure and pain, and then says: "Find these lines, oh, my children, and you will become as mighty men ! " The old church declined the task. It asked for easy studies. It condemned the whole region THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. 107 of faint boundaries. It condemned the drama and the dance and the games, and even laugh- ter and a neat toilet, and fell back on its formulas as being about the only place where reason's trumpet could utter no uncertain soiind. A religious Conference being unable to distinguish between croquet and billiards, did not admit billiards but they abolished croquet. And now let us come to one more general law about the pursuit of happiness. You per- ceive tens of thousands setting out from home at times in the pursuit of this winged butterfly. They go to what are called " resorts." They ride and they sail ; they eat and they drink, and they make merry. Often this is all well enough, and much of what they seek is found. But it would be a strange law of Nature if man must travel from home in order to find any important form of blessedness. Such a law would give pleasure to only those having some 103 MOTIVES OF LIFE. money, and would give it to them only in July and August. Nature does not fill the soul with an immense and universal longing and then bring to this longing such a small outcome. It has made no such failure as this, but on the opposite God has made happiness grow up around the very avocations which consume all our days, and around the cities or towns or homes which cherish us when the toil of the day is done. Each profession, each business should be also a pursuit of happiness. Men should so regulate their work, if possible, in its quantity and quality, that they will go to it each morning with pleasure. In all the ten thousand honorable pursuits the toiler in each industry goes cheerfully to his task, for his feelings have fitted themselves to it like a soft glove to the hand. There are men now in the learned professions who came up from a farm; and now in looking back over the long stretch of years they cannot tell when they THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. 109 were happiest — whether it was last year in a public life or in their years of student life, or in those former years when they were up at dawn in summer to get ready for plowing or harvesting while the grass was still glittering with dew. One may find pleasure by travel and by any form of diversion, but God has so made the world that the great bulk of its joy- fulness is to spring up around home and its pursuits. The heart is born into it. And all ye young hearts who are just enter- ing upon this great debate about pleasure, where it is to be found, clo not fall into the error that when you become rich then you will try to be happy. Happiness is the most accom- modating of all things. It will come to a cottage as soon as to a palace. You need never wait for any outward pomp to come. As the sunshine of the Almighty will shine through a simple vine as richly as upon the velvet of a king or upon the gilded dome of 110 MOTIVES OF LIFE. a temple, so happiness falls with equal sweet- ness upon all whose minds are at peace and in whose hearts flow the good thoughts and good sentiments of life. Never for a moment admit that any millionaire or king can surpass you in the possession of that peace of mind and smile of existence which we call happiness. Here you are equal to the highest. Upon duties well done to self and mankind, upon health of soul and body, this depend- ent vine bears its weight. Pleasure is not a self-sustaining oak, but it is a dependent vine. The great vine of Santa Barbara, which bears tons of grapes each year, and which demands almost a field for its arbor, and which has a trunk sixteen inches in diameter, does not stand alone, but wanders to and fro over strong posts, clasping them all in its many arms. Happiness is thus only a dependent, climbing product of the soul's floral world. The many pursuits of man, his industry, his studies, his THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. Ill honor, his home, his philosophy, his shape of religion, are a long series of columns upon which this flowering plant hangs and relies, and from which it shows its blossoms and sus- pends its fruit. God has made man not only for toil but for this joy fulness. Let no yearn- ings for riches or for office or for any form of vain display, destroy or impede the stream of contentment and peace which the Creator designed should all the year flow through your soul. The fact that religion paints Heaven as being a happy land, is enough to point out the lawfulness and attractiveness of happiness; for what is so desirable on the shores of eternity must be a boon to seek and to find on the shores of time. BENEVOLENCE. 5* V. BENEVOLENCE. One of the most wonderful attributes of hu- manity is that quality in the civilized man that makes him desire the happiness of others. We call man a selfish creature. The most, common form of fault-finding consists in accus- ing the human family of acting in the name of only self-interest. No doubt we all come far short of any ideal disinterestedness, but after all man is the only creature on earth in which may be found traces of any desire to secure the happiness of others. In those noblest of animals — the elephant, the horse, the dog — there is no mitigation of the doctrine of self-esteem. These creatures will always attempt to take possession of the entire quan- tity of food to eat or water to drink that may (115) 118 MOTIVES OF LIFE. be placed before them. Instinct has always seen to it that the brute world shall love their young and care for them tenderly. The com- mon song-bird will begin to gather food for its brood by half-past three in summer mornings, and the curious have kept count and have found that the thrush will take something to her young ones five or six hundred times dur- ing the day. The moment, however, the young of all birds and animals have reached maturity, all this kindness suddenly ceases, and the bird which so tenderly cared for her brood last July, would now in December, if possible, steal from them the last grain of millet or wild rice, or the last drop of water. Even w r ere it possible for the advocates of the development theory to show us how the form of the mollusk might be developed into the form of an ape, and afterward into a human outline, they would find an insurmount- able barrier to pass when they should attempt BENEVOLENCE. Ill to explain to us how the perfect selfishness of brute life ever became transformed into the charity of manhood. There may be a resem- blance between the ear and eye of an animal and the ear and eye of a man, but all resem- blance passes away the moment you look into the mental structure of animal and man. And to-day we have come upon one of those attri- butes which declare man to be of divine quality. Benevolence signifies the love of others, and perhaps more than any other human attribute betrays the excellence of man at large, or of an age, or of an individual. Much of the complaint over the selfishness of the age, or this or that person, comes from the fact that there is in each mind always an ideal by which each one is constantly measur- ing the men and times around. It is essential to possess this ideal, for it is the pattern up toward which all are to work. It is the stand- ard of weight and measure which is to rule 118 MOTIVES OF LIFE. the human race in all its long career ; a strange standard, which makes itself to be higher and higher as men approach. Essential as this standard is, it has its inconvenience, for it makes painfully evident all the world's short- comings. With this ideal in our bosoms, we all go about measuring the selfishness of others, and find that there is not very much self- denial for the advantage of the race. To esti- mate the world fairly we must now and then fling away this crucial test — the ideal — and must see things in the common light of to-day or in the bad light of antiquity. Should a man come up to you with a most powerful magnifying glass and make a survey and de- clare that your skin w r ere rough as the shell of an oyster, and that your hands were as large as spades, and that your eye were like that of a Cyclops, you would be justified in telling him that you were not made to be viewed through a microscope, but to be seen at a BENEVOLENCE. 119 respectful distance in nature's common light. When a fastidious gentleman once declared that not more than one lady in a hundred was good-looking, he was most perfectly answered by the remark that not more than one man in five hundred possessed good sense ; — properly answered, because he had no natural right to subject to the fastidious ideal microscope the features of woman. There is a common light, not very strong, in which we must all walk — woman with her imperfect beauty and man with his inadequate common sense. We must love ideals and struggle toward them ourselves, but we must not use them excessively in the meas- urement of others. Viewing the human race in this moderate manner, we see benevolence painting its rich colors upon its length and breadth. Enough of this quality exists to show us what a divine virtue it is and will remain. When the phi- losophers began to seek a definition of the word 120 MOTIVES OF LIFE, " civilization/' they looked into the possession of wealth and found that civilization did not lie in that form of acquisition, for lo! the Turks and the Spaniards of Mexico had great riches. They looked again and surveyed the fine arts, and there again they failed to find the home of the favorite idea, for Thebes and Babylon and Nine vah enjoyed the beautiful, but these people were semi-barbarous; the philosophers looked again and inquired whether this finish of manhood lay not in intellectual develop- ment, but that the Greeks and Romans pos- sessed, and yet they were partly savage, for they held slaves and put to death captives or infants. Driven from one position to another, our wise men have at last reached the conclu- sion that the highest culture is that which most wisely and tenderly seeks the happiness of all mankind. That is to say, that the man who combines the most wisdom and the most benevolence is the most divine man. The wis- BENEVOLENCE. 121 dora delivers from all the enemies of self, and the benevolence makes that same wisdom the good fortune of others. Lord Bacon possessed vast learning and worldly wisdom, but was wanting in his relations toward mankind — and such was his age; and hence, it can never compare with that subsequent England which has more and more shaped the legislation for the bene- fit of the multitude. The true greatness of nation or individual begins when self, be it a Throne or a Man, begins to confess the pres- ence and need of those outside of self. It will probably be found true that the very poetry and literature of our later generations have become more imbued with benevolence than all past literature was colored with such a sentiment. The fading away of the epic poem which celebrated the military and roman- tic exploits of some hero, was probably caused by the fact that better sentiments than those of the warrior came along quietly but surely to 6 122 MOTIVES OF LIFE. displace Lis figure in verse. Burns, Words- worth, Thompson, Cowper, and all recent writers of sentiment, have had more to say about the rights and happiness of man than about the glory of war. When Cowper sang his familiar lines over the emancipation of England's slaves, he was setting to music the new benevolence of society. Burns was in the same atmosphere when he wrote most of his songs. So was Hood when he sang about the " One More Unfortunate" or the sorrows of the poor sewing women ; and in this path of sympathy with the world, most of the high novelists have walked in a noble group together. If you will look into literature you will per- ceive that a great change has come over it since it was shaped by either Homer or Dante or Milton. No one of these mighty masters gave to human feeling such a benevolent coloring as has been given it by all the recent years. All old poems abound in sublimity and fancy, BENEVOLENCE. 123 but all modern poetry abounds in pathos. I speak of poetry because it has always been such a mirror of its age. As by looking upon the wall where a camera obscura is placed you can in your little room or tent mark who and what are passing along all the streets outside, so by looking into the verses of an epoch you may mark whether outside were battlefields and heroes, as around Homer ; or whether the church w r as immense, as around Dante and Milton ; or whether the throne and palace were large, as around Shakspeare. For this reason I call up poetry as a mirror, and look- ing into that of to-day I perceive that sym- pathy for mankind is playing a large part in the pageant of our country. Selfishness in- deed remains in the human heart, but love is beginning to flow over the banks of self and to give its Nile-like blessings to all the valley on either shore. This week upon which we now enter is 124 MOTIVES OF LIFE. almost wholly given up to the worship of benevolence. If benevolence is the love of others, Christmas is the day set apart for the worship of others. It is called a day, but that day consumes the half-score of days that lie before it. As Eastern Kings were wont to come to a town heralded by advance messen- gers, and as the messengers grew more and more rich in -livery the nearer they were to the King, so this royal Christmas sends many days on in advance of himself; and thus, being indeed only one personage, he lengthens him- self out into a procession and impresses hun- dreds of hours into his happy service. All the last few days have worn the bright livery of her- alds of a King. This day, so loved, draws almost all its moral charm from the fact that no one thinks of self, but by the law of the occasion dreams only of the happiness of others. What to buy for another, what to make with one's own hand for another — this is the whole signifi- BENEVOLENCE. 125 cance of December. In the many religions of the past almost all the days of the year were sacred to some saint or god, but it is not evident that any one of these days was dedicated to that strange shape of religion — the love of man for others. But at last man has added to the altars where he was wont to think of war or money or pleasure — an altar on which he places offerings to others. Year by year the love which shall come to this altar will enlarge its horizon. At first it will see only the relatives and friends of itself. And that is indeed a beautiful sight ; but after a few years or generations of this form of serv- ice, the heart in richness will see other chil- dren and persons that do not belong to its own fireside, and the service which began in a tent will swell outward until the w T orld shall have become its cathedral, full of rapturous hymns and carols. There is a mysterious quality in this relation 126 MOTIVES OF LIFE. of each man to all men. Almost all learning and discovery partakes somewhat of the nature of benevolence. In these latter days the in- ventor hastens indeed to protect himself with patents from Government, but this is not simply that he may reap all the money-reward, but also that no other may steal from him the honor of having helped the people. No thinker, from Galileo to our Fulton and Morse, has dis- covered some new law or application of Na- ture's forces without being moved partly by the happiness the people would gain from the steamboat or the telegraph. Before such minds as Newton and Galileo no motive of pecuniary gain arose, and perhaps none before Watt or Fulton. They seem to have desired that the world should have the happiness of enjoying new truths and new powers. It must have been a moment of supreme joy when Morse found the daily papers for the first time publishing in the morning what had been said or done at BENEVOLENCE. 12 cities so remote that no flying train or flying dove could have brought the messages. The reward of money must have been insignificant compared with that happiness which came from seeing the people of the great world happy over this winged speech. It shows that benevolence is the impulse of much of the world's science and learning — the fact that a long line of scholars and inventors march aiong before us in poverty. They spent their years in hovels or garrets, and at last w r e see them in the gray hair of age filing along, not with crowns on their foreheads and with robes trailing gracefully, but in the plain- est attire and perhaps marching in rags to that solemn retreat — the grave. But this large and talented host have not been without their reward, for as a mother finds her joy in the esteem shown her by her children, so lit- erature and invention have drawn their rewards from the joy they have foreseen in the eyes of 128 MOTIVES OF LIFE. the human race. Benevolence — the love of man — joins with the love of personal fame, and calls into being alike the astronomy of a Galileo and the telegraph of a Morse. I re- member once that a country school-master set me this copy: "If you and Tullia are well, then I also am well." It seemed the embodi- ment of nonsense. It seemed that the teacher was thinking about how to teach writing, and not how to make sense. It must have been ten years afterward that the deep meaning came that no heart can be well when its dear ones are sick, and that if the absent dear ones are all well, then are all three well indeed. Benevolence makes one well in the welfare of others. Thus it appears that this copy which seemed so empty of logic, had come down a journey of 2,000 years, borne along, not by literalism, but by the wings of benevolence. The question must often arise, how can those monarchies of Europe possess such power over BENE VOLENCE. 129 the common people that they love them and will die for them ? We perceive the fearful taxation and wars and confiscations of a long past, and yet we mark that the common people love all these old monarchies with a deep attach- ment. This state of things may be explained partly by the fact that man loves his native land, however hard his lot in its confines ; but the explanation comes partly from the addition- al fact that all monarchy has been softened by the greatness of its arts and parks and gardens, and by its full and free amusements. Much of the gold in the coffers of kings and queens and emperors has taken the form of architec- ture which the poor could love, of golden altars where the poor could kneel, of immense parks where the poor could wander with their neatly dressed children, of immense galleries where the people could see more beauty than even a king could own. Thus has benevolence come to counteract barbarism and despotism, just 130 MOTIVES OF LIFE. as May and June come at last to dissolve the icy chains of winter. Were it not that the European nations are thus softened by some forms of tenderness towards the people, every- where would come insurrection and anarchy. Republics must do as much for .the poor by private generosity as -kings have done for them by power and pride. You may turn aside from these large specta- cles of literature and invention and govern- ment as affected by the regard for others, and pass to the smaller streets of life, and behold this sentiment runs before us. There is not a ragged school or a mission school or free school of design, or a public library in any town or city that does not spring up out of this princi- ple. Upon the basis of religion all temples stand, and from this sentiment of a God all worship arises. From the sentiment of the beautiful in the soul spring five great fine arts ; from the perception of justice comes law; and BENEVOLENCE. 131 then from a soil as rich — called benevolence — rise up a hundred blessed shapes of human welfare. In the mission schools of the church toil men and women who are to gather no money and no fame, but who discharge the difficult offices each Sunday from one motive alone — the love of something besides self. You may analyze their hearts to the bottom and yon will find only one motive — the happi- ness of others. Man in his best estate looks abroad and sees his fellow man. In that hour he ceases to be a brute to become a soul. What ailed and what ails some forms of Christianity may be found in the general absence of the love of other people. The Pro- testant did not throw his affection far enough. As soon as he came to a Romanist his heart congealed and he longed to capture and im- prison or burn the disciple of the Pope. And the Catholic more than equaled this limitation of sympathy. His love of man meant only 132 MOTIVES OF LIFE. Catholic men. Having found a human being called a Protestant, his heart became obdurate and the torture of the other sects became the chief joy of his own. The articles of faith drawn up in those periods were therefore characterized by the same absence of a broad good will, and the same presence of an ordeal of tests that took love away from the joy of enveloping many and made it expect the happi- ness of the few. Religion essayed to take God away from the wide world and give Him to a group. It tried to inclose Jehovah within the clasps of a Prayer Book. It made hell too large and heaven too small. It sat down like Canute by the sea- waves and bade them arrange their great flow to suit its chair on the beach. But, as the story runs, the waves came march- ing on. Each minute on the dial the great tides reaching a thousand miles outward and a thousand miles right and left, arose and laughed as it swelled upward and onward. They heard BENEVOLENCE. 133 no human voice — cared for none. So the actual Christianity has too long attempted to limit the Deity and the Lord and confine them by lines of thought and ceremony drawn upon the great shore. But the tide of Divine Love has for a long time swept steadily inward, and each hour the rushing waters shall rise and laugh until at last the kings of old forms of thought will be compelled to move back and confess that the benevolence of religion is an ocean whose wave they cannot impede. Benev- olence is crowding back the arrogance of old masters. Thus among the powers that have moved and that shall move the human soul, let us place this love of others outside of self. Geol- ogists find that when earth first cooled after its primal fire it w r as a mass of volcanic rock. Our world was barren and bald as the peaks of Sinai ; but out of the mysterious stores of nature there were to come rains and frosts and 134 MOTIVES OF LIFE. winds and decay, and those forces were to assail the adamant and gradually extract from it a soil which should grow the maize, the orange and the rose. In long ages after these Titans had been at work the Garden of Eden was ready for man. In the spiritual world the human heart lay once like the primeval rocks; but Titantic motives have beaten on that ada- mant and lo! at the end of each epoch of a thousand or ten thousand years the soil of the human garden has been, found deeper and richer, and over it have bent heavier grain and richer flowers. Among these smiters of the rock, whose wand has brought forth sweeter waters than those which flowed when Moses smote the mountain in Horeb, place that love for others as mighty among the mighty. If you would measure its beauty, mark what mor- tals and immortals were those who have won their name, not by riches, not by genius, not by invention, not by the sword, but by the BENEVOLENCE. 135 inspiration of benevolence. From the happi- ness of others many of the deepest thinkers drew their impulse and reward; hence came the heroism of the martyrs of a better relig- ion and a better liberty; — these all wished to plant trees from whose branches other genera- tions should gather the sweeter fruit ; into this domain of motive, as if to point out forever its dignity and worth, descended Jesus Christ, leaving a Heaven of Joy for a world of labor, because the toil should be for others, not for self; into this motive He came ready for crown of thorns and for death, if only out of his personal griefs there might come nations and homes, and even tombs full of happiness and hope. * RELIGION. 6' VI. KELIGIOtf. It is impossible to affix to any one of the considerations which influence the conduct oi man the title of greatest. The material world will submit to a measurement. Man may determine what mountain is highest, what river longest, what sea deepest, but in the spiritual world he must throw aside his exact measurements and be content with the feeling that all is great and mysterious. The dust of the universe is measurable, but not so its spirit- ual things. It is as though the world, intel- lectual and moral, were preparing us to accept of the infinity of a God. Were there any method by which w T e might compare together the leading ideas which have led the human family along its great journey, it would seem (139) HO MOTIVES OF LIFE. that the motive of religion has been most powerful. But there is no standard or method of comparison here, and therefore we must content ourselves by declaring great among the powers that have moved man, is the affir- mation of religion. At some time in history that gifted being, man, must have begun to feel that it was some more powerful being than he or than all his race that had placed the sun and stars in the sky and had made such a structure as the. earth. The Bible mentions a far-off time when men began to call upon the name of the Lord, and outside this old record, all through Egyptian antiquity, the mind is seen deducing from the encompassment of man, the fact and presence of a Diety. Job, one of the ancient books, presents in the most eloquent and logical and poetic of manners the argument that early drove society toward faith in the Creator. When this Chaldean Job asks: "Doth the RELIGION. Ill hawk fly by thy wisdom and stretch her wings toward the south ? Doth the eagle mount up at thy command and make her nest on high ? Who causeth it to rain on earth where no man is ?— on the wilderness wherein is no man ? " He shows the human reason in the act of draw- ing near to God. The hundred or more of these sharp questions in that old treasure of literature reveal a natural theology not sur- passed by that of Xenophon or Lactantius or Paley. In the four periods represented by these four personages, Job, Xenophon, Lac- tantius and Paley — the Chaldean, Greek, Ro- man and English periods — we perceive the best forms of reason following one line of thought toward the one conclusion- — the logical neces- sity of a Creator. Whether therefore man came to his reasoning powers at once by an in- stantaneous gift of his Creator, or came thither by along development from a kind of infancy of thought, he came to a full conviction at last that 142 MOTIVES OF LIFE. there was a Being outside of the human race who was King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It is unknown at what time in earth's history or in man's history this religious sentiment sprang into life, but however far back our students ot the past go with their excavations and their deciphering, they cast up out of buried ruins or read from engraved stones or tiles, at once the treasures of art and of religion. Thus we infer that the same intellectual power which gave birth to a fine art gave birth also to a religion — that the power of logic which led to an architecture or an implement or a science, led also to a Diety, for out of the same heap of ruins come always emblems not only of the beautiful but of the religious. In the excavations of Babylonia George Smith reads from the buried tiles this psalm : " Oh my Lord, my transgression is great, my sins many. The transgression I committed I know not. I know not the sin I committed" RELIGION. 143 — a psalm which shows us how the assumed holiness of a God drew tears of penitence from man thousands of years before David wrote his penitential psalm, or before the Church gathered these spiritual regrets into a miserere. But we need not delay over the question of the antiquity of the religious sen- timent. It appears as soon as the human mind appears. Wherever our scholars go to exhume some buried city, when they dig up a piece of writing or a fragment of the beau- tiful, there they dig up an image of a God and a verse of a psalm, as though to show us that where there has come the intelligence that can write a poem or frame a law, there has come the logical power to infer that man had a Creator. When one of our public men — -public speak- ers I mean — was found recently at an auction of antiques, bidding on all the images of childish religions, as though he were going to kill Christianity by the ridicule of a new and lii MOTIVES OF LIFE. laughable pantheon, he was only purchasing abundant evidence that the human soul has always been full of a tender religious senti- ment, that looked up for an explanation of these years so full of joy and death. As it would not bring music into ridicule should the same satirist purchase at auction all the ram's horns that once were blown around Jer- ico, or all the shrill pipes of Pan, or the three stringed harps of Greek idlers, or the turn turn drums of the Indians, so should he accu- mulate a large assortment of fetishes and divin- ities, he will have made no approach toward any ridicule of the religious feeling in society. As all the noble sentiments break away from a childish past and rise into greatness, so religion will not be embarrassed by auy small- ness of its childhood, but it will gaze steadily upon a dignified present and an unveiling future. Having seen the simple fact that there is in RELIGION. 145 the bosom of man a religious motive, let us pass now to consider some of the elements of its power. A first element of the power of this motive may be found in that quality of mind which feels conscious of the rightness and wrongness of actions. Whether the idea was innate or has been acquired need not be debated here, but b} r some means man has reached a full conviction that there are things which he should not do, and things which he should do, and which are most noble things to do — to be done — and out of this inmost consciousness there comes a feeling that there is some Creator of the universe who is looking after this badness and goodness of mankind, to punish the one and reward the other. Thus this universal and powerful feeling of rightness and wrongness has been all through history, stimulating the motive called religion. In that legend or fact where Adam or Cain attempts to hide from the 146 MOTIVES OF LIFE. results of a sin, we see in emblem the whole human race attempting to conceal its bad acts from the eye of infinite justice. There being in man a sense of sin and of virtue, what is next demanded is some tribunal before which the actors must be arraigned. In our earthly government a law of right and wrong on the statute book is of no value unless there be some tribunal before which the case may be brought. It therefore comes to pass that some criminals fly to foreign states, that they may find, not a place where vice becomes a virtue, but a place where there is no court having power to arraign and condemn. There being in man a sense of right and wrong, religion becomes a most potent influence, because it announces a judg- ment bar before which all must stand. It com- pletes the theory of virtue and vice by remind- ing the soul that it is daily approaching a final rendering of its accounts. If the world had only laws and a Law-giver, it would be as im- RELIGION. 147 perfect as would be a State, which should have only a statute book, and no courts, no execu- tive. Religion transforms the great Law- giver into a great judge, and lays thus the deep foundation of justice. Like all other forms of truth, this reverence for the Infinite Judge passed through its period of darkness and error. Men attempted to secure blessings and pardon, and even to secure vengeance upon enemies by offering gifts to the Judge, or by binding themselves with vows that should cover the future, but gradually the intelligence of man has found regular, uniform laws of God, in obedience to which is happi- ness, in transgression of which is sorrow; but both these periods show us the human race alike as living in presence of a Judge who will here and hereafter, or here alone, or hereafter alone, make just return to the evil and the good. The religious motive is thus clothed with the powers of a final justice. 148 MOTIVES OF LIFE. In the workings of this great motive the fear of punishment has perhaps been more influential than the simple hope of happiness, but the part which the hope of acceptance with God and of a blessed union with him here and hereafter has performed is, could we see it all, very impressive. Man not only dreads pain, but he loves happiness; and therefore it has come to pass that countless millions in all times have attemj)ted to live near to God, be- cause of the present and future blessedness of such a companionship. Regardless of any hell, they have loved the quality and the rewards of virtue. Not only the highest forms of Chris- tian character, but also some of the highest pagans have sought uprightness because of its moral beauty — a beauty of morals, of mind, of self-consciousness and peace. Borne along by their religion into this great discrimination and culture of the right, it has become to some a form of the beautiful. RELIGION. 149 Mr. Field, the editor, who has traveled almost all over our earth — and with his sense wide open and with not a narrow sense at that — said recently that he had found in pagan lands where our Christianity was un- known, some most charming souls who loved virtue and piety as much as child ever loved a flower. Having letters of introduc- tion to a local prince, the prince sent word to Mr. Field that on the morrow he would be at his service, but that day just passing, he was keeping in communion with his God. With the sun of the next morning the venerable pagan came along w T ith richly caparisoned elephants for his Christian guests. But the beauty of the story is yet to come, for Mr. Field soon found himself in the palace of a man against whom no poor man or poor woman could bring any charge of any form of dishonor out of his long past. The neighborhood looking to him for a 150 MOTIVES OF LIFE. half century could see only the beauty of goodness. It must have been out of this study of God as the emblem of virtue and of its happiness, that those pagan wise men of India framed their rebuke to the British sporting officers, expressed in these lines : " You Christians must have a strange religion; for in our divine, philosophy the death of a bird may be a neces- sity, but it can never be a pleasure." If now within the twilight of a pagan faith, the soul can extract such high views and such a spirit- ual joy from contemplating the piety and tenderness of the Diety, what may not this religious motive become when guided and in- flamed by the holier light issuing from the pages of our divine books? In our era the standard of goodness found in the New Testa- ment, unveiling as it does the true God, marks the uprising of a new power to sway the soul, a power which like a sea can carry upon its RELIGION. 151 wide bosom a vast army of soldiers of a higher life — not armadas of cruel troops, but of kind and enlightened men. Next to this element of right and wrong, as developed by the standard of a God, must be reckoned the influence of all that mystery which is grouped under the general name of religion. All have been deeply affected by these questions of final destiny, and as they are made the special study of religion, they must be considered as a part of its powerful motive. Science declines the inquiry about heaven and hell and immortal life. It confes- ses, j)erhaps humbly, perhaps sarcastically, that its study terminates with the dissolution of the body — that it has no crucible, nor balances, nor spectrum with which to examine a soul. Politics says nothing about any em- pire beyond the tomb. Even the divinely called Moses himself when he was writing down the laws of his society on a mountain, 152 MOTIVES OF LIFE. smoking and hot with justice, made no allusion to any land beyond Canaan, any life beyond this, and this severity of the State returns in our day to exclude from legislation the name of a God. More and more mankind commits to religion all this great argument and great conjecture over things beyond the coffin of our dust. Thus religion stands alone as a vase full of mysteries — those black and white flowers of the sepulchre. Of all the solemnities of which the mind can conceive, death is the greatest. Even when not the King of terrors it is at least the King of mysteries. Should we know that a man were to be put to death in our city at a certain hour to-morrow, almost all hearts would beat strangely out of measure in that moment. Business would pause in all the streets in the one minute of such a public and fixed death. As when a piano string is struck, all metals in the room that are in harmony vibrate in RELIGION. 153 companionship, so were a murderer doomed to die in a public square at a fixed moment, a half million hearts would beat in the agony, not from any unison of crime, but from a fellowship in death's awful mystery. Men walk softly when they walk among graves. Those of you who, in former years have walked through a country churchyard, where the house of prayer always stands amid the white stones of loving memory, can remember still with what guarded foot and guarded voice you went from willow to w T illow, or from slab to slab in the June grass. You needed no book of etiquette to remind you that you had found a place where the foot must not be in haste, nor be rude, and where there should be a more quiet tone of voice, and where speech should wish to give place to meditation. It is not to be w r ondered at that the sweetest of poems came to Gray when he was thus moved or rested among the Churchyard yewtrees. Now 15 J: MOTIVES OF LIFE. this sentiment which so possesses the heart in these peculiar moments spreads all over life, and there are perhaps few days when the music of being is not strangely intermingled with that more solemn strain rising up from the vale of death. There may be here and there an empty heart and a thoughtless brain across which no churchyard meditation passes for months or years together : but these are excep- tional and leave unaffected the truth that no one reflection comes to man with such unifor- mity and power as the thought that in a few years w r e shall all be far away. This is the thought that fills the churches on the holy days, and which makes those who differ in creed and those who hold no creed join willingly in one hymn, because all hearts are one in this religious mystery. A common grave Creates a common religion. Our deepest thinkers have shown us how climate and the formation of the ground affect BELIGION. 155 character. They find a certain culture coming out of Scotland's hills, and France's sunshine, and out of Egypt's mild sky and dreamy air ; they tell us that that dry climate of the desert invited Egypt to dream of no decay of art or soul ; they tell us that the Southern zones repress thought, and that the North redoubles it, that earthquakes develop cowards, that war makes heroes ; that the intellect was made dull in the "thick air of Boeotia," and they find the varying influence of food and pursuits and institutions ; they show us that home and democracy came issuing from the Feudal house where a lord began to detract from a king, and where the fireside became a school, a cottage and a church ; but after w^e had gathered up and have measured all these hands that have shaped the soul's clay, we shall find them all surpassed by tracings made upon our urns of life by the heavy and strange hand of death. It has toiled in all times and climates. Alike 156 MOTIVES OF LIFE. in South and North, among Scotland's moun- tains or in Egyptian plains, this form of thought has played by day and night. It intruded itself upon a Saint Paul or a Caesar ; it came to terrify a Herod, to inspire a St. John. No spring or autumn can equal eter- nity in touching the heart. Carrying in our bosoms such a motive as re- ligion, it remains to inquire what kind of a religion should we ask to come in and move us onward in this life-march. Will any shape of it answer as well as any other? There being many forms of this sentiment and philosophy, it would be an amazing state of affairs should they all be of equal value. Compare together the belief of the Red-man and the belief of the Quaker and what a difference of intrinsic worth ! The former is a cruel and childish superstition in part, the latter is a strange combination of piety and the highest utility. Thus the world's religions rise up before us in an infinite variety RELIGION. 157 of shapes, as varying as the wild animals that come in from the forest or the jungle or the desert. Having assumed that the soul must live and die in a religion, it becomes a most im- portant inquiry what shall be the form of my so-called piety? What quality must this motive assume? On what kind of a branch must this chameleon lie ? The world mentions "that this and that number got religion last winter," but tells us not what shape of it they thus secured. When the old Catholics "got religion" they hasted out and put to death a multitude of fellow-men; and when our Protestant ancestors " got religion" they too w r ent forth to exterm- inate all who tasted their Saviour in a wafer or who said their prayers before the beaming eyes of the Virgin. Looking into this past, it becomes evident that at the very moment of getting religion the mind should know what religion it has received or is about to accept. This rule will be a good one, that the broader 158 MOTIVES OF LIFE. and truer and grander the motive which fills and sways the soul the greater at last will be the soul ! For the soul, like Moore's vase, is perfumed by the roses it carries. We are educated by these motives that lie in the heart. All these I have mentioned — knowledge, home, honor, benevolence and happiness- — are educa- tors of the inmost man. And as home is better to the degree of its peace and comfort and knowledge, to the degree of its quality, so religion must be a choice and select religion, that it may bear the soul aloft on its blessed wings. The seeker of this piety may join himself to almost any one of the modern sects. While I fully believe that all Jews who are faithful to their Deism are children of the Christian's God, and that devout, faithful pagans will join with the saints of all ages in a great harmony beyond this world, yet I find in the Christian Church the ideal service of our heavenly RELIGION. 159 Father, It is the one among ten thousand, and in its leading head, Christ, it is spotless. The Church breaking up into many streams, like the river which flowed through Eden, offers sweet waters in any part of its divided wave. The seeker of this religion may enter any sanctuary, provided he can do so with the open-hearted confessions that the other gates will open for others to the same blessings here and hereafter. One may join a sect if he will not make that little confine the motive of his days and years. One may make of a sect a convenience, an aid, a staff of his long march, but all the while he must love more that vast Church of the Almighty of which temple the sects are separate stones, and toward whose por- tals the little creed is a staff to make firm the slow and uncertain footsteps. We may love our garden and home tenderly, but we must not trample down the field of another; but each morning when the dew hangs 160 MOTIVES OF LIFE. upon our vines we must confess that it glistens as well in the parks of our neighbors, and sparkled before we were born, and will be fall of sunbeams after we are dead. All denominations invite, and all are good, but you must never attempt to see the ocean in a cup, when its great self lies only a few steps away moving in all its magnificence. Fling aside the cup, for a few paces will bring you to that Christ where charitv and righteousness expand like the fields of the heavens. The religion which should in these clays come to move men should, besides being one of boundless good will, be one of inflexible integ- rity. The world is not vexed by voluminous creeds, except only so far as they have diverted the church from the study of character and action. The world has often found men dis- honest, and little and cruel, who yet could re- cite a hundred articles that make up a salvation. The impression has gained ground that in some BELIGION. 161 way this intellectual work has turned the church aside from a broad humanity and from a study of the actions of Christ. All things, the pressure of reason, the disappointment of society over the results of a complex faith, the demand for noble men and women, the natural tendency of intellect toward simplicity, require that he who " gets religion " in these years, should secure one that shall stand close by the simplicity and broadness and right ness of the central Christ. Such a religion in the end will be a motive of life and action which nothing can surpass. Instead of contracting the mind, as Christian- ity in the past has done again and again, it will enlarge the heart into its own large pro- portions. Before its benignant eyes the world will lie to be taught, to be aided, to be forgiven, but not to be hated. And the broader a faith is the more imperishable. It is the local that dies. This made Moses perish and his cere- 162 MOTIVES OF LIFE. mony. Popes and kings and thinkers and soldiers, have been destroyed because they loved the ideas of a day, but Christ is as pow- erful in the nineteenth century as he was in the first, because His principles were as broad as all centuries. The human family cannot outlive them nor migrate beyond them. May the religious ideas and impulses which shall influence you all, be those which shall possess an infinite charity and an imperishable truth. PUBLISHED BY JANSEX> McCLURG <& CO. Truths for To-Day. by pro*, david swing. First Series (Fifteen Selected Sermons), Price, $1.50. Second Series (Fifteen Selected Sermons), Price, 1.50. 11 Fresh and manly, full of generous Christian feeling, and without a taint of heresy. * * * Prof. Swing is not a logician, and he relies on heart and experience rather than on argument as means of conver- sion ; but he is wholly free from sentimentality ; his religion is healthy and vigorous, and a reader of his sermons can readily understand why he is an effective and persuasive preacher."— Advertiser, Boston. " The preacher makes no display of his rich resources, but you are convinced that you are listening to a man of earnest ihought, of rare culture, and of genuine humanity. His forte is evidently not that of doctrinal discussion. He deals in no nice distinctions of creed. He has no taste for hair splitting subtleties, but presents a bread and gen- erous view of human duty, appealing to the highest instincts and the purest motives of a lofty manhood."— New York Tribune. Sent by mail, post paid, on receipt of price by the Publishers, A Short History of France ; for young people. By Miss Kirkland, author of "Six Little Cooks," and "Dora's Housekeeping." 12mo. Price, §1.50. ,: The little history may be commended as the best of its kind,that has yet appeared." — Bulletin, Philadelphia. " It is not a dry compendium of dates and facts, but a charmingly written history." — Christian Union, New York. "Miss Kirkland has composed her 'Short History of France' in the way in wlr eh a history for young people ought to be written ; that is, she has aimed to present a consecutive and agreeable story, from which the reader can not only learn the names of kings, and the suc- cession of events, but can also receive a vivid and permanent impres- sion as to characters, modes of life, and the spirit of different periods. The author has that rare quality among writers of history, knowing what to omit ; and appreciates to the full that fundamental rule for a writer of children's histories—never to give a proper name or a date in the narrative which is not indispensable. The book is therefore admirably adapted to its purpose."— Nation, New York. Sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt o r price by live Publishers. . PUBLISHED BY JANSEN, McCLURG dk CO. Memories, bt max mullbe. Translated from the German of Max Muller, by G.P.Upton. Small quarto. Full gilt. Price, $1.50. " ■ Memories' is one of the prettiest and worthiest books of the year. The story is full of that indescribable half naturalness, that effortless vraisemblance, which is so commonly a charm of German writers, and so seldom paralleled in English. * * * Scarcely could there be drawn a more lovely figure than that of the invalid Princess, though it is so ne rly pure spirit that earthly touch seems almost to profane her."— Springfield (Mass. ) Repub lean. " It can hardly be ranked with works of fiction; it does not even come under the category of novellettes, for it is only a pathetic little story ; but it is more ihan this — it is a prose poem. * * It is seldom that a powerful intellect produces any work, however small, that does not bear some marks of its special bent, and the traces of reseaich and philosophy in this little story are apparent, while its beauty and pathos show us a fresh phase of a many-sided mind, to which we already owe large debts of gratitude." — 7he Academy, London. Sent by via I, post-paid, on receipt of price by the Pubishers. Marie. By Alex. Pushkin. Translated from the Eussian of Alex. Pushkin, by M. de Zielinska. Small quarto. Full gilt. Price, $1.50. " It is one of the purest, sweetest little narratives that we have read for a long time. It is a little classic, and a Russian classic, too. We catch the very breezes of the Steppes, and meet, face to face, the high- souled, simple-minded Russian."— Gazette, Cincinnati. " Pushkin, the most eminent of Russian poets and novelists, is a writer little known in translations. He is delightfully introduced to the American public by his tale of 'Marie.' The whole spirit and atmosphere of the story is fresh and bracing, and we promise the readers of the book a new treat."— New York Independent. "An unadorned record, told in the most charming way, of the ad- ventures of a young Russian officer, who sees service agaimt some rebes. and whose betrothal to the heroine forms the romantic part of the story. There is plenty of incident, and the nai ration is so direct and simple that the reader becomes at once conscious of a master's hand."— The Nation, New York. Sent by mail, post-} aid, on receipt of price by (he Publishers. PUBLISHED BY JANSEN, McCLURQ & CO. Madeleine, by jules sandeau. (Crowned by the French Academy.) Translated from the French of Jules Sandeau, by Francis Chariot. Small quarto. Full gilt. Price, $1.50. "It is one of the most exquisite love tales that ever was written, abounding in gentle pathos and sparkling wit, and so pure in its senti- ment that it may be read by a child."— Eventing Mail, 2sew York, " Few of the numerous translations from the French which have recently been given to the public will suit the American taste as well as • Madeleine,' or be perused with the same unflagging interest." — Trav- eller, Boston. u More than thirty years ago it received the honor of a prize from the French Academy, and has since almost become a French classic. It abounds both in pathos and wit. Above all, it is a pure story, dealing with love of the most exalted kind. It is indeed a wonder that a tale so fresh, so weet, so pure as this, has not sooner been introduced to the English-speaking public " — Evening Telegram, New York. Sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt oj price by the Publishers. llFciZiellcL By A. de Lamartine. Translated from the French of A. de Lamartine, by J. B. Runnion. Small quarto. Fulloilt. Price, §1.50. "It is full of beautiful sentiment, unique and graceful in style, of course, as were all the writings that left the hands of this distinguished French author."— Post, Boston. "The beauty and purity of the story have made it a classic in the French language. In its English dress, it has lo>t nothing of the rare elegance and felicity of expression which mark Lamartine's style." — Publishers' Weekly, New York. "'Graziclla' is a poem in prose. The subject and the treatment are both eminently poetic. * . * * It glows with love of the beauti- ful in all nature. * * * It is pure literature, a perfect story, couched in perfect woids. The sentences have the rhythm and flow, the sweet- ness and tender fancy of the original. It is uniform with 4 Memories,' and it should stand side by side with that on the shelves of every lover of pure, strong thoughts, put in pure, strong words. 'Graziella' is a book to be loved." — Chicago Tribune. Sent by mail, p si-paid, on rece'pt of price by ihe Publishers. PUBLISHED BY JANS EN, McCLURG & CO. Tales of Ancient Greece. By the Rev. Sir, G. W. Cox, Bart., M. A., Trinity College, Oxford. 12mo. Price, $1.60. u It ought to be in the hands of every scholar and of every school- boy."— Saturday Review, Loudon. " It is only when we take np such a book as this that we realize how rich in interest is the mythology of Greece."— Inquirer, Philadelphia. " Admirable in style, and level With a child's comprehension. These versions might well find a place in every family."— The Nation. New York* " In Mr. Cox will be found yet another name to be enrolled among those English writers who have vindicated for this country an honora- abe rank in the investigation of Greek history." — Edinburgh Review. "It is doubtful if these tales, antedating history in their origin, and yet fresh with all the charms of youth to all who read them for the first time, were ever before presented in so chaste and popular form." — Golden Rule, Boston. Sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price by the Publishers. How She Came Into Her Kingdom. A Romance. By Mrs. Charlotte M. Clark. 12mo. Price, §1.50. "The book reveals a fertile imagination, superior dramatic power, keenness of thought in moralizing, and specimens of description such as bear the stamp of genius. It is not too much to say that there are pas- sages which would do credit to the pen of George Eliot or Charlotte Bronte." — Morning Star, Boston. " A novel of remarkable intensity and originality. For wierdness and mysticism it can be compared only with the works of Bulwer or Hawthorne, while its wonderful descriptions of nature's convulsions resemble those of Jules Verne. The story itself is deeply interesting, and the development of the incidents of the plot so full of unlooked- for variety, that no definite idea of the whole can be obtained except by full perusal. * * * It is a long time since we have read a story so absorbing and powerful." — American Bookseller, New York. Sent by ma I, post-paid, on receipt of price by the Publishers. PUBLISHED BY JANSEX, McCLUttG & CO. iblX Little (jOOkS 5 or, Aunt Jane's Cooking Class. By Miss E, S» Kirkland, author of " A Short History of France" etc., etc. 12mo. Price, $1.00. " While it is really an interesting narrative in itself, it delightfully teaches girls just how to follow practically its many recipes."— st* Nic to- las, New York. "This book is the result of a happy thought. * * A lucky stroke of genius, because it is a good thing well done. It has the charm of a bright story of real life, and is a useful essay on the art of cooking," Times, New York . "It is one of the nicest possible little books for young people. It is filled with capital recipes, strung together in the most charming way, and so simple that almost any child c )uld use them. * * To all ladies who have children, and to many who have none, we commend 'Six Little Cooks' with the greatest confidence."'— Living Church, Chi" cago. Sent by mail, post-paid on receipt of price by the Publishers. Dora's Housekeeping. By Miss E. S. Kirkland, author of "A Short His- tory of France," etc., etc. 12mo. Price, SI. 00. " It occupies a hitherto un tilled field in literature, and girls and their mothers will be equally delighted with it."— The Advance, Chicago. " We cordially recommend these two little books (' Dora's House- keeping' and 'Six Little Coots'), as containing the whole gospel of domestic economy."— The Nation, New York. " It is intended for girls in their early teens, and so appetising are the recipes, that they would almost turn an anchorite into a cook. In short, one can't look over the book without getting hungry."— Tribune, New York. "Wise mothers, of that excellent sort who mate the household a well ordered kingdom, will appreciate the worth of such a story, and its fitness for presentation to daughters who are in training, after the good old sensible plan, for the proper performance of the daily duties of life.'— Evening Post, New Y.rk. Lent b- mail, post-paid, on receipt of price by the Publishers. PUBLISHED BY J AN SEN, McCLUBG & CO. Cumnock's Choice Readings. For Public and Private Entertainment. Edited by Prof. Robert McLain Cumnock, Northwestern Uni- versity. Large 12mo, Price, §1.75. "It ought to become a special favorite among school and college students and public readers."— Evening Post, New Yo k. " Taking into account the almirable type, the excellent taste, the brevity of the rhetorical counsels, the unsurpassed variety, we prefer Prof. Cumnock's book to every manual of the kind."— Ch istian Register, Boston. "The volume consists in a great measure of fresh specimens that have recently found their way into current literature, and present the charm of novelty with the merit of good writing. The ancient stream is thus enriched with supplies from new fountains, and livirg produc- tions take the place of the veteran pieces which have grown old in the course of protracted service." — Tribune, Nw York. Sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price by the Publishers. The Primer of Political Economy. In sixteen Definitions and forty Propositions. By A. B. Mason and J. J. Lalor. 12mo. Cloth. * Price, 60 cents. " ' The Primer' contains what ought to be known in regard to polit- ical economy by every schoolboy and voter." — The Nation, New York. "It treats with cleirness wealth, capital, wages, strikes, demand and supply, money, credit, tariff and cognate subjects, giv ng only in the briefest form laws and proofs." — Harper s Weekly. " We ventu e to believe that not a quarter of the men in the Lower House of Congress know as much about political economy as can be learned from this compact and interesting little treatise." — Christian Eegisier, Boston. "We are not acquainted with any work extant that presents these principles with the brevity and the clearness of ' The Primer.' * * * The authors of this book re christen their subject the 'fascinating' science. Their method makes the name good."— Tribune, Chicago. Sent by mail, post paid, on receipt of price by the rublislters.