HoUinger pH8.5 Mill Run F3.1955 E 449 Copy 1 ,t,*-w. AND THE SPIRITUAL IN OUR NATIONAL LIFE, AND TUEIR PRESENT MUTUAL RELATIONS. A SERMON PREACIIED IN STATE STEEET CHURCH, PORTLAND, IsTOVJUMiBKR. S ]^9 )U PORTLAND: VRTTVTED BY EnOWJST THURSrOTST. 1S59. r PROPEP.TY OF THE IIBIUIIY OF COo'GIlilS Rev. Geo. L. Walker, — Dcm- Sir : — The uiidersignod, members of State Street Church and Society, havhig had the pleasure of hearhig your sermon on Thanksgivhig day, are desirous that those who did not hear it may have tlie privilege of reading it. We therefore respectfully request a copy of it for publication. Wm. Oxxard, R. Cram, Woodbury Davis, D. W. Clark, Tnos. R. Hayes, Geo. Warrex, H. J. LiBBY, Chas. E. Beckett, Warren Sparrow, Israel T. Dana, H. M. Payson, F, Oxnard. rortland, Dec. 1st, 1859. Messrs. W. Oxnard, Woodbury Davis, and Others, Gentlemen: — The sermon, of which you have requested a copy, was written with the design of enforcing certain principles which seem to me of general application, as well as of fundamental importance in our public con- cerns. Endeavoring to unfold these in the light of truth, the subject was treated in behalf of no special interest of whatever name. Its publication is now assented to, in the hope to subserve the welfare of a truthfulness more local and temporary. Desirous, with you, to honor both the lesser and the greater cause, I submit it without change of a syllable ; and am Respectfully yours, Geo. Leon Walker. SERMON. GENESIS ii: 7. And the Lord God formed man op the dust of the ground, and breathed into uis nostrils the breath of life ; and han BECAME A LIVING SOUL. We do not admire the spirit of tliat lialf-sighted scien- tific pretension which delights to say in the language of a recently deceased physiologist — that it can " reduce all it knows about man to a gas." Still, it does not trouble our fliith in the least, that un- der the manipulations of science this stately frame col- lapses upon itself, retreating ever into simpler elements, till at last the eloquent orator, the subtle philosopher, the impassioned poet, resolved to a few crystals, lies at the bottom of a crucible, and under the application of a little heat, visibly vanishes into invisible air. We can watch this process with the utmost composure, astonished only at the sciolism wdiich can pride itself upon such a proced- ure as at all an exhausted anal3^sis of man's nature ; and come back with new delight, to the vastly more accurate (simply because more comprehensive statement) of the elements of that nature given in inspiration : " And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground," — a truth which chemistry is abundantly able to prove — "and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul," — a flict evident in a thousand Avays, but not to be detected by any crucial tests or solv- ents of the laboratory. This simple statement of the ori- gin of man, contains in itself the very epitome of all wis- dom respecting the nature, the needs, the capabilities and aspu^ations of the being whose origin it records. It indi- cates at once the earthly and the divine in man. It shows him related on the one side to the inanimate clay, on the other to the all-conscious spuit. Not a rock or vapor but may claim brotherhood with him, not a reach of the Divine infinity but owns him kin. With the instinct of common lineage all his flesh and his bones yearn toward the maternal dust : with the spontaneous impulse of con- sanguinity, his spirit reaches upward unto God. He is that being whom a breath of air may destroy : he is he who will survive, unscathed, the smelting of worlds. Ilis days count not up even the youth time of an oak : his years cannot be numbered by the ocean's sands. The summer melts him as it does his kindred w\ax, the winter hardens him as his brother ice, — no material agencies can touch him, and he would pass unbreathed upon, through the chaos of creation. His wants go prone upon the earth, and lick up its dust like a serpent : he wants nothing which has only a begun existence, but can be con- tent only with uncreated and infinite being. His passions sliame the very beasts who through them might recognize in Mm a brother more debased : there is a region, and he knows the way thither, of abstract and passionless truth, and throned in tlwti, his spirit sometimes sits crowned like a god. Now in all wise words respecting man, tliis double na- ture must be taken into view. That is not wisdom which looks at him either as pure spirit, or as matter devoid of inspiration. Legislation must recognize both poles of his being — it must trammel him about as one who can be kept in the pinfold of physical constraint ; not forgetting, at the same time, that he is a being whom no human laws can fully control, and that he dwells in a region where no locks and bars avail. Philantlu-opy in its efforts for man must meet him in both departments of his being : Is it a starving man who solicits her Idndness ? then give bread, but remember man camiot live by bread alone. Is it freedom wliich is craved at her hand ? — strike off then the fetters from the limbs, but remember that it is only when the Son makes free that he is free indeed. Is it elevation, happi- ness, prosperity. Philanthropy would give a man? — well, endue him with health, give him riches, enlarge his thoughts, — but he may j^et be sick, and poor, and igno- rant, unless the gift be large enough for his whole being. This is plain enough to most men in looking at indi- viduals. The truth is trite that man is essentially two beings, and that liis nature leads him in opposite direc- 6 tions. He lias moral and immoral tendencies within him. He is at once intellectual and material. His happiness lies at once in sense and spirit. There is a good for him wliich is of the earth, earthy. There is a good equally necessary which is above earth or time. He seems almost a being rent in twain by this schism in his nature. The earth in liim cries out for earth, the spirit yearns toward spirit. Plato's white and black horses drawing against one another, well typify the antagonism between his passions and his nobler instincts. Now if the question be asked what is the good in which this being can rest ; what is the good winch will satisfy and content him ? — the reply is obvious (and it is as old as all speculations on the being of man), it must be something wliich will meet the wants of his entire na- ture. It lies not in the one or the other pole of liis l)cing only. His highest good can be attained only hy such a course as will satisfy both the higher and the lower na- ture that unite in him. But this answer has always been a temporary one. The old schism in the nature has asserted itself, and one part of that nature has craved one thing, and the other its opposite. What is to be done ? The wise reply in all ages has been, " The Highest must rule." The nobler part of man's being must give the law to the less noble. Not striving to extirpate its follow, it must sway and ab- solutely control it. The spirit must say to the body, not, " I have no need of thee ; " but " thou art my handmaid." Not a slave, destitute of rights, but a servant to be employed in ends involving the welfare both of servant and master. An instrument wielded with careful reference both to it, and to the hand that uses it. No capricious and tyrannical sovereignty is it wliich man's higher nature is to have over his lower, but a calm and fu'm control based upon a wise apprehension of what will make for the welfare of the en- tire being, under the still higher sway of a Law, be it mo- rality or faith, which is supreme over both. So that when we wish to know of any given individu- al whether he is complete in liis welfare, we do not (if we are wise enough to take more than a half-sighted view of him), we do not ask merely " Is he well? Has he riches and is he complete in the material elements of happiness ?' but we inquire further, "How does he employ these things? Has he the rule over them ? Does he use them under the control of noble motives to noble ends?" Not till we know tliis, can we tell how fully the man is accomphsliing the end of his being. Not tUl we see what proportion the spuitual in the man bears to the material, can we pronounce upon the dignity and happiness of the life he is living, the nobility or the ignominiousness of the character he is fasluoning to himself. I have drawn out these considerations (albeit somewhat obvious in their nature) at considerable length, because I tliink they will help us to meet the obligations laid upon us today. We are summoned to consider our occasions for Thankfulness as individuals and as a people. To understand clearly, however, our cause for rejoicing, we must know somewhat distinctly the position in wliich we stand, as to our fulfillment or non-fulfillment of those great conditions upon which our welfare, and of course our occasion for rejoicing, depends. And as in accord- ance with custom and the proprieties of the day, our con- sideration turns cliiefly toward our occasions for rejoicing as a People, as a component part of society and the Na- tion ; to know rightly what grounds we have for the sen- timent we are called upon to exercise, we must inquire how far, as a people, we are fulfilling the great ends with which our highest welfare is connected. And, in introducing the inquiry, it seemed expedient to begin by directing attention to the conditions with which the happiness and well being of the individual member of society, considered in his solitary capacity, are inseparably bound. And this for two reasons : — 1st, in accordance with that wise saying of Aristotle's, " That the nature of every thing is best seen in its smallest portions." Which implies that he who would consider the w^elfare of a nation must study it, partially in the lesser relations and smaller portions of individual welfare. But 2dly, and chiefly, because the materials and conditions of the individual well being, are set as a type of like conditions and materials in the wider existence of a nation. Under- standing the one, we have a key to the other. 9 The arrangement and tlie law which prevails in the one, will be likely to be that which bears sway in the other. Says the wise son of Sirach : — ''' All things are double one against another ; and one thing establisheth the good of another." This is after the usual mode of the Divine working. He does a thousand tilings by the working of one or two simple laws. For instance, the law by which an acorn falls is the same law which holds the moon to her changeless courses round the world : and the same pervasive gi'avitating force which holds the countless sys- tems of the stellar universe in their place, bends, and on- ly bends, the drooping hare-bell trembling by the brook. Just so the being of man becomes typical of the being of society. Just so if we find in him a radical and per- manent characteristic, we may look for its correlate in the nation. If there be any law indispensable to his welfare, the like law is an imperative condition of the public good. If any original and universal infirmity or schism exists in his nature, we may undoubtingly anticipate its equi^\alent in the nature of the corporate existence of a nationahty. I shall venture therefore a remark or two (made the more brief by what has already been said of the elements and laws of individual well being) upon Natio^?.al welfare in general, independently of any special reference to our own nation. We shaU then be prepared to apply any tests which we may have discovered, to our own condi- tion and the present time. (a) And I observe that a two-fold condition, perfectly an- 10 alogous to that condition of man which is imphed in our text, " And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," is characteristic also of National existence. It has its material and its spiritual side. It has its relations which are of the earth, which find their end in physical well be- ing ; which in their noblest development smell of the mold in which they originate : — and it has also its re- lations which take hold on spiritual truth, which draw their inspiration from realms of pure thought, and breathe the diviner air of nobility and justice and humanity. On the one side are all its resources of physical power ; on the other its principles of moral rectitude and intellectual cultivation. Of the earth, earthy are all its milhon acres of teeming soil and their countless produce Avliich swell the granaries and storehouses of an empire, and incline in her favor the balance of a world-wide commerce. Of the earth, earthy are the factories of a thousand water- courses and all the cunning enginery they contain, and the delicate fibrics the}^ send forth. From the earth and to the earth again, are the miles on miles of towering city walls ; the wharves that hem about an ocean ; the steamboats and sails that make the pathless deep a trodden highway. All that can l)e reck- oned in coins, bear they the stamp of Ciicsar or Victoria ; all that is shifted from zone to zone by commerce, all that science extorts fi-om the hidden vaults of nature, all that art fashions with dextrous fingers, outwitting nature for 11 gold, is, however beautiful, liowever necessary, of the earth only, and answers to that in man of Avliich it was said, " Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return." Almost all that goes into the account of political econ- omies, and is reckoned up in the tables of national pros- perity, bears this ineffacable mark of its relative worth, " The Lord God formed it of the dust of the ground. " (b) Do we look now for that which is the Divine in- breathing; that which vivifies all this else rank and corrupt- ing mass, and makes it to have a living soul ? We find it in the prmciples of the nation. Its Laws express it upon the side of justice : its Religion unfolds it upon the side of devotion : its Education manifests it in the direction of intellect : its Manners declare it in the type of its refine- ment. These are not matters wliich can be reckoned by fig- ures. They have not relation to space or time. They come from nobler spheres than regions visited by com- merce, or territories under alien skies. All that it has of these tilings, cometh down from the Father of lights. If now we inquire in which consists the good of a na- tion : what is its glory ? the answer comes as before when we asked what was the good for a man. Not merely the vastness of its physical resources ; the wealth of its ma- terial endowments or the imposing greatness of its corpo- real power. Nor on the other hand are these to be ig- nored, and the inquiry be directed oidy to the prevalence 12 in it of morality and justice, of nobility and freedom, of intelligence and honor. The investigation must take into account hoth poles of national being. Its Good can he nothing less than the good which satisfies both parts of its nature. Its value and the honor due to it must be estimated by a view of it both as "formed from the dust of the ground," and as breathed into a " living soul. " And the standard of judgment here, can be nowise dif- ferent in principle, from that which determines our esti- mate of the honor and well l)eing of a man. IIow does the nation employ its material and sensuous resources ? are they under the control of the higher motives of right- eousness, and equity, and intelligence, or are they made an end in themselves, and sought at the sacrifice of truth and honor and freedom ? Not till we know how a na- tion uses its powers : not till we see what are the mo- tive ideas wliich control and guide aU the ongoings of its strength, can we determine its rank in the scale of honor, its title to a place in hearts which rejoice over God's best gifts to men. It may have all the material endowments of the vast empire of Persia ; yet shall the moral courage and noble devotion of one Sparta, abide longer in the memories of men, and be more potent in molding the welf^ire of mankind. In the fulness of its physical appliances it may become (in the absence of justice and morality) like behemoth among the beasts, huge, dreaded, devouring ; strong only 13 ill the rudeness of physical strength, earthly, sensual, do\- ilisli. Or rightly subordinating its material capabilities to the service of that which is noblest and justest in na- tional life, it may become among the peoples of the earth even as a god : a strength for righteousness going out through all the earth, with words of promise to the end of the world. And ultimately it is by this standard that every nation is tried. Ultimately the question is not, what were its powers ? but how were they employed ? Not, what was the reach of its empire ? but what the reach of those principles, the depth of that patriotism, the purity of that morality which express a nation's living soul ? Because tried by this test — the early growth of Greece and Rome was, relatively to contemporary nations, a gro^\i;h in the ascendency of ideas over matter, of prin- ciples over forces, History gives them an immortal place in her memory : Because tried by this test, the mighty empu'e of the Egyptian Ptolemies was an empu-e of the earthly ; an empue in wliich the brute in the na- tion triumphed over the spiritual, History has wiped out of her tablets almost the record of its existence, as the desert winds have swept that people's very dust out of then- lying ancestral sepulchres. Turning now to the appHcation of these principles to the measurement of that national well-being for which we are summoned to be thankful to-day, we see that the pres- ent occasion will allow only a hasty use of them, in a very few particulars. The principles themselves I commend to your further and more leisurely reflection. 14 I. To employ, however, the brief time at our disposal : It requu-es but a cursory glance over our country, to discover that in that first element of its two-fold being — the greatness of its physical resources, it has been won- derfully endowed. Upon the favorite theme on which American eloquence is wont to plume its loftiest flight — the greatness of our national domain, I shall not enlarge. The fact is obvious (though indeed difficult to realize) to any one who will cast an eye over the map of a country, "which needs a new representation of the outline of its civ- ilization almost yearly. It is a wonderful domain in its territorial reach. Sparta had not the area of Delaware. Rome when it set out upon the conquest of the world had not the square miles of Maine. But not more distinguished is our land for the great- ness than for the character of its physical possessions. Here, too, I must avoid appropriating speech supposed to be sacred to our national anniversary. The fact, how- ever, I take to be capable of truthful expression in sober prose, that no great nationality of the world possesses within the outline of her natural, I had almost said her necessary boundary, so many of the resources of a self- sufficient and bountifully provided nation as our own. Within the easy reach of the enlarging wants of a singu- larly hungry and eager people, lie more of the applian- ces -suited to those necessities, than within the limits of any other civilized nation on earth. Nor can our people be charged with backwardness in the development of these 15 resources. It is indeed the miracle of modem ages, that a skill little less than creative, a science almost as weird as magic, have evoked from material nature within the past generation of human life more of her cherished se- crets, and wrought her to more dextrous uses, and extort- ed from her more bounteous gifts, and made her the ser- vant of a more manifold artistic and commercial activity, than any previous generation since the birth of time. It is perfectly proper to say, that it is not in the power of human faculties to hold up before the mind anything more than the vaguest idea of that multiform physical life which turns up annually the soil of more acres than the Empire of Great Britain contains : which gives em- ployment to a commerce which reckons a tonnage greater than the whole world of seventy years ago : which delves within our own l)orders, in mines of every metal : which whirls into spray the tides of a thousand rivers : wliich groans along the burdened lines of innumerable miles of railroad : which flashes its mandates, too eager for Time itself, from inland to seaboard : wliich sweats and toils in ten thousand shops and factories, and cheats the night of its hours and the minute of its seconds, in every craft to which the subtle hand can turn — toihng, toiling for- ever, to supply the ever enlargmg demands of the most restless, the most skillful, the most insatiate nation upon earth. As the Lord God in forming men from the dust of the ground gives to one a stronger, more subtle and well en- 16 dowed physical frame than to another ; so it is simple truth to say, has he given to us more of the endowments, present and prospective, which appertain to the material life of a nation, than to any other having a place in the charts of our planet. II. If we look now from this material side of our na- tional life, to that other phase of its being which answers to the Inspiration of God in the human frame, we shall find it still more difficult to express or accurately to re- alize the value of certain principles which are cognate with our existence. In reference to this side of our na- tional being have Americans fir more reason for pride than for the other. For, as the moral worth of a man is a higher thing than the perfection of his health or the abundance of his material possessions, — so the ideas which in our origin became consolidated into principles of Gov- ernment, are far nobler matters, than physical greatness, however superb. And in these things was our very in- fancy singTilarly endowed. The l3reath which quickened in our national frame a living soul, was more fresh from the Author of all, than that wliich infused the frames of most governments of men. For our nation (and this is no matter for pride, simply for thankfulness), for our na- tion started into being at an advanced stage of the devel- opment of spiritual and practical truth in this world. It had the benefit without undergoing the experience of all the ages past. It was free to take up into itself the rip- ened fruit of all previous effort of mankind, and to leave untouched the imperfect or hurtful results of then- pain- ful and costly trials. (a.) Certain of these spiritual legacies, of the past which became organic principles of our national life are of inestimable value. Among these may be mention- ed as one of the most potent, the principle of human Free- dom. And I mention tliis as a peculiar witness to the heaven-derived origin of that mspiration, wliich breathed into a li\ing soul the earthly frame of our national being. For tliis principle of equal rights is, the pure off- spring of Cluistianity. Let its pedigree be traced with the most rigid scrutiny. Politicians never conceived it. It had not a human origin.* It came by no path wliich jurisprudence had marked out : its liighway was not cast up by legislation. The oriental nations never attained the idea of human freedom. They knew only that one was free, the sovereign the tyrant. The Greeks went a little further. They knew that some were free — not man as such. Even Plato and Aristotle did not dream tlus. It was Clmstianity alone which gave birth to the mighty conception of universal equality among men. By recognizing the individual accountability of man to God ; ])y showing that in the pedigree of heaven an emperor reckons no higher than a slave ; by introducing a totally new standard of judgment of human worth, and above all by disclosing the equal redemption of all men by a love which was no respecter of persons, it gave expression, 3 18 and it alone, to tliis grandest doctrine of liberty ever pro- mulgated, the equal and inalienable rights of every man of our race. This principle it expressed in that grand formula of equal liberty, " God hath made of one blood all nations of men that dwell on all the face of the whole earth." And this prmciple (with one glaring exception — an ex- ception which withheld from their equal rights one consid- erable portion of our fellow-citizens) became the funda- mental principle of our national being. This was the legend luminous upon its brow above all others, " All men are created equal, endowed with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." I said, that with the exception of one class, this principle became the all eifibracing one of our na- tional existence. But it ought to be said, furtlier, that even this class were not supposed to be permanent, but only temporary exceptions to the rule. History has but one voice upon this matter. It was the confident and the prevalent ex- pectation of those most concerned in the establishment of our confederacy, that this class would not long remain under the bonds of that limitation wliich made their very existence an anomaly and a libel upon our free institu- tions. In this undoubting and undeniable expectation, the fathers labored to give the widest possible application to the principle of equal rights : and, in what they deem- ed clear vision of its speedy absolute prevalence, they fell 19 This, then, was one of the original endowments of the nobler side of our national life — freedom for man as man. (b.) Another of these original principles which the Lord God breathed into the body of our national being, is the principle of liberal and pure moral and intellectual cultivation. This, too, is one of the blessings wliich are the special boon of Christianity, It is the natural accompaniment of that conception of human responsibility and equal free- dom wliich she revealed to men. Education had been known before, but not as the inheritance of the multitude. It was the privilege of the few, not the right of all. Es- pecially was the moral element of education unknown as of utmost importance as also of indefeasable right to ev- ery man. The spectacle was new, therefore, of a nation putting into the forefront of her hopes and efforts, a /irtuous intelligence built upon liberal culture and the morality of the Bible. And perhaps, here as clearly as anywhere else, may American patriotism discern the trait which may best ex- cuse a national pride. In the prevalence of information through all orders of social life : in the general intelli- gence and mental activity of our people : in the dnec- tion of this activity, to a very considerable extent, by principles of morality, we may discover, perhaps the title to national superiority which would be most cordially ac- knowledged by other nations of the world, and which could be most successfully defended before the liigh court of History. 20 It were easy to point out several other principles which had, with more or less distinctness, an original place in that spiritual endowment which constitutes the superior side of our national life. But it is time to ask ourselves that further question, which I showed to be indispensable to a correct judgment of individual or national character, " What relative place do these principles actually occu- py ? Are the superior of them gaining in their rightful supremacy ? Are they employing the lower gifts of na- tional resource, with a continually \videning control, di- rectins; them ever to nobler ends ? or on the other hand is that physical side of our national being swelling up against and giving the law to the spiritual ? This is the question which determines our title to self- congratulation to-day. It is not, what was the relative position of these earthly and spiritual powers fifty years ago ; but what is it to-day ? As when you would know the character of a man, you do not ask, " what was he when a cliild, but how is he now ? Is his moral nature supreme over his lower appetites or is he their victim ?" so in estimating our present national character, we can dwell in no pleasing retrospect, but must invoke present realities. III. And when we thus ask ourselves, " What at the present time is the relation between our nation's higher and lower life ; what is the relative influence of her ma- terial and her spiritual endowments ; and what is the tendency of things now ?" The answer cannot be, I think. 21 altogether gratifying. To me, at least, it seems undeni- able that our day is one of a rapidly increasing suprem- acy of the merely physical part of our welfare. More and more are the material resources of our land becoming the objects of absorbing national attention. More and more is the development of these, coming to be the object and the test of every effort of national power. To the enhancement of this merely earthly and sensual welfare, are the energies of government devoted with constantly increasing zeal. That which the Lord God formed of the dust of the ground, is rising yearly to become the great end for wliich a people lives, the one good for which it seeks. The aims on which legislation is turning ever a more settled and greedy eye, are the interests of Com- merce, the interests of Agriculture, the interests of Man- ufactures. These things must be regarded, whatever else be forgotten. For these things must be thrown up a broad highway, whatever else must creep in a by-path. Whatever threatens these, must be visited with sudden retribution, whatever other wrong may go unwhipt of jus- tice. Touchmg these things one touches the apple of the nation's eye. Threatening them calls out all the nation's wrath. A fire goeth before them and behind them a flame burneth. Now it seems almost unnecessary to ask if such devo- tion to material prosperity be compatible with the due influence of higher principles leading to a nobler welfare. It cannot be. 22 As a man cannot live for the indulgence of his lower nature without injury to Ms higher sensibilities ; so it is impossible that a nation should make its material wel- fare a predominant end, Avithout deplorable damage to its higher principles of Equity, Truth, and Humanity. And precisely this damage have we sustained. And just tliis damage is growing more and more upon us. For this cause is it increasingly the case that " Judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the streets and equity cannot enter." Fast arc we advancing toward the time when our motto will be read, wide as was once the blazon of our " liberty and equal rights," Trade before religion : Wealth before morality : Cotton before humanity. , But I will not rest this matter in general statements only. I will adduce two undeniable and characteristic examples of the giving way of the nobler principles of national life before the insurgent upheaval of its lower and sensual appetites. (a) And one of these is the patent and glaring change which has taken place in the sentiment of the public and the conduct of the government, in reference to that class of our fellow-citizens to whom I made reference before, as being, by a singular solecism, exempted from the privi- leges of a freedom which affected to embrace all men. It cannot admit of question that this solecism was gen- erally supposed merely temporary. It admits of proof that m the view of some of the framers of the govern- 23 ment, the time of its continuance was supposed to be nearly ended even in its beginning. That was an era when the spiritual side of our na- tionality was in the ascendant. Then lived men who rightly understood wherein a nation's honor lay, and in what was the special glory of then- own mighty work. But they passed away, taken from the evil to come. They passed away before the inauguration of those changes which lent a new and feverish stimulus to the appliances of our nation's physical hfe. Changes that rapidly growing, gained a speedy ascendency over the no- bler principles of her earlier day. Art invented the cot- ton-gin, the spinning-jenny, and raised in European cit> ies and along New-England water-courses, the w^onders of a thousand factories. At once human souls doubled in value. Immortal spirits redeemed by the blood of Christ, became instantly (if encased in ebon or in tawny skins) the most profitable investment a CMstian could make. At the same time that the devil offered this great tempt- ation to our land, he threw open in every dnection the great avenues of material prosperity. Commerce unfurl- ed a thousand sails. Trade upraised, as by enchantment, innumerable storehouses. On every side a sudden ap- peal was made to the lower, the earthly side of our na- ture. A vivid heat was kindled in every sensual passion of the national life, and the nation rushed, as a man maddened hy drink, to the surfeit of its material appetite. What though, in its frenzied strides toward physical good, 24 it must belie the hopes and prayers and principles of its founders ? it must be done. What though the crimson tides of millions of those whom God made of one blood with us, must redden the way down which she rushes to the glut of appetite ? it matters little : honor and human- ity always go down in the upheaval of the brute. But will not Law, the incarnation of justice, interpose her aAvful sanctions on the side of right ? Will she not, bearing that glorious symbol of equity in the one hand, and that instrument of avenging righteousness in the oth- er, stand up for God and humanity ? Alas, no ! She will strain to the uttermost hair the strict letter of the bond. She will fawn and crouch at the beck of passion, and trail the ermine of justice beneath the hoofs of trade. When God had a question with the Jews about redemption through his Son, the Doctors of the law were debating how many anise seeds would expiate theft. When God has a question of Immaniiy at issue with us, our incar- nation of Justice is straining points of grammar in the in- terest of tyranny. But will not the Church interpose mth a power not less potent though uninvested with emblems of authority ? Will not she utter the words God giveth her to speak, and lay righteousness to the line and truth to the plum- met ? Nay, verily ! Rather will she deny the blood of her kindred ; withhold the truth from the dying soul, and prophesy falsehood in the congregation. Pvather will she invent new argnmeiits for oppression, and strain ancient 25 and incomprehensible prophecy to the ensnaring of souls ; then, wiping her lips, say like the woman in the Proverbs, " Surely I have done no iniquity." Under such leadership it is no wonder that the popular mind has gone eagerly in a course so consonant with that lower nature which so readily gains the ascendency in a man or people. No marvel that parties rise or fall as they subserve, with greater or less readiness, the behests of a people who have elected, to so great a degree, mate- rial before spnitual good, trade before truth, money be- fore humanity. Yet though the way be thronged by the devotees of that material greatness which is purchased at such a sacrifice, yet is it none the less true, that the rul- ing spirit of our age is one which belies that which gave all the nobility to our origin, and that our boasted civil- ization is one which battens on the blood and souls of men. (b.) Intimately associated with that change in the public sentiment upon the subject of human slavery, which I have adduced as one illustration of the giving way of the nobler principles of our national life, before the up- heaval of the lower appetites, is another, to which I can however only advert. And this is, the reckless and dis- honorable conduct of our people and government regard- ino- the matter of Territorial Extension. The greed of this extension arises from the same general cause, the preponderance of material appetite over those principles of honor and justice which are rightfully supreme. A lust of the earthly ; a passion for power ; a hankering for 4 26 widened commercial and agricultural resources, is the generic cause of this loss of moral sensibility, this enor- mous accretion of dishonor in our national affairs. And in this instance the shame is peculiarly rank. For the immediate motive is one wliich is wholly in the interest of that monstrous iniquity, wMch already heaps so high our public disgrace. Once, already, has it plunged us into an expensive and totally inexcusable war with a neighboring nation. A war in its principle not one iota abo"\^e the action by which one man robs another on the highway. A war whose expense was the very least of its e^dls. A war which did more to undermme the foundations of national moraHty, than any other single event which has ever happened. A war which brought over the ethical sentiment of our coun- try, I must believe, a far more destructive bhght than the French infidelity wdiich came in with our Paines, our Jef- fersons and our Aaron Burrs. A blight wliich fell upon the Church as well as upon society at large. Which be- numbed the moral sensibihties of all classes. So that now, we can look on with apathy of unconcern, if not with sinister exultation, at the outreachings of an ambition wliich can hardly keep violent hands from off the covet- ed Cuban prize ; and which are for a moment withheld by no considerations of justice or honor, but only by fear, lest the act should bring down upon us from across the seas, the 'sudden retribution we instinctively feel it de- serves. 27 IV. And now, having indicated a few of the eviden- ces that in onr national life the lower and material ele- ment has of late been gaining rapid and fearful ascend- ency, and finding in this a cause only for shame, have we nothing to oppose to them ? Amid this general hounding-on, by "press and pulpit, by church and party, the rush of passion and greed of power, are we to be defrauded of our title to thankful- ness in matters pertaining to Pubhc welfare to-day ? Thank God we are not quite come to that ! But where- in lies our cause for congratulations and rejoicing? Not, in my humble view, not in any broad and indis- criminate thoughts of national Power. Can we forget as christians, as moralists, as men, to what uses much of that power is prostituted ? Not in loose conceptions of our national Wealth ! Can we forget from how much of that wealth the blood of our brother crieth unto the heavens ? Nay, not in any sense, in material prosperities UTespective of those spiritual uses which can alone elevate and re- deem them. In themselves they are valueless. I do not know but the w^alls and arches of hell are built of gold. But if we have cause, and God be praised that we have cause ! for rejoicing to-day, it is in the traces that here and there are seen of an awakening of the public con- science to the enormity of the public sins. It is in the signs which begin to appear that the divine, ancestral principles of our government are agam to be remembered. It is in the tokens belisld in some parts of our land, that 28 we are not quite ready to sit down forever beneath the burden of a shame and a lie, which makes our boast of free institutions a stench in the nostrils of Christendom. It is in the attitude of a portion of the American church, re-asserting the first principles of the Gospel of Christ, and refusing to deny the brotherhood of all men by the blood of redemption. It is in the shame that is begin- ning to kindle our cheeks, at the decay of integrity in all departments of public trust. It is in the indignation which rises within us, at startling disclosures of cor- ruption in the loftiest station, and bribery and iniquity in high places. It is not in Parties by whatsoever name they may be called ; it is not in demagogues, Republican or Demo- cratic. It is in the growing sentiment of sturdy hate of Wrong, which, under the power of gathering knowledge and the Spirit of God, is beginning to make itself felt as a force for righteousness in our land. It is in every instance of fearless vindication of the right — assailed by wrong in whatever guise. It is in every spectacle of patient endurance of evil ; in every heroic sacrifice for human freedom and God's law. It is in the prophet voices which begin to herald the return of Righteousness to the throne, and Equity to the scepter. It is in that vivid, but all involuntary demonstration of the inherent weaJmess, as well as wickedness, of all sys- tems of oppression, which is afforded in that spectacle of panic terror, now trembling all over the soil of Virginia — 29 " Virginia once the mother of Presidents, now the breed- er of slaves," — and which offers a melancholy, were it not rather a ludicrous, commentary upon the scripture proverb, " The wicked fleeth when no man pursueth : the sound of a shaken leaf chaseth them." It is in the witness borne even by that misguided and fool-hardy man, who will shortly testify by a death (for wliich however no reproach can be cast upon the author- ities of law), how ineradicably and forever antagonistic to the human conscience, and to a soul nursed up under the grand old doctrines of sturdy Calvinism, is any system which deprives a man of the full rights of liis being, in meeting those terrible issues of life, death and eternity, which this faith recognizes as the dower of every soul. It will be, in that hasting day of Execution (which let no man pray that it be averted or delayed !) which will loosen from corporeal bands a mistaken but noble soul, that becoming thenceforth a spirit moving unconfined by space, a Power entering the imaginations and purposes of men, will sow our land with more of the seeds of liberty and humanity, than liis life could have scattered, had his days been a hundred years, and his tongue the tongue of Otis or of Henry. Above all, it is in that recent quickening of God's spir- it about the hearts of men, and the conscience of society, wherein we read the surest token that God has not de- serted us as a people ; or suffered his design of bringing to completest maturity a Nation Avhose influicy was 30 cradled by Freedom