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 Book 
 
 
THE ADVANTAGE OF TESTING OUR PRINCIPLES, COMPENSATORY OF 
 THE EVILS OF SERIOUS TIMES. 
 
 A DISCOURSE 
 
 On Sunday Morning, Feb. 17th, 1861, 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 SECOND UNITARIAN SOCIETY 
 
 OF PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 By HENRY W. BELLOWS, D.D., 
 
 FASTOR OF ALL SOULS' CHURCH, NEW YORK. 
 
 PRINTED 15 Y THE SOCIETY. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 C. SHERMAN & SON, PRINTERS. 
 
 1861. 
 
THE ADVANTAGE OF TESTING OUR PRINCIPLES, COMPENSATORY OF 
 THE EVILS OF SERIOUS TIMES. 
 
 A DISCOURSE 
 
 On Sunday Morning, Feb. 17th, 1861, 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 SECOND UNITARIAN SOCIETY 
 
 OF PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 / 
 
 Bt HENRY W. BELLOWS, D.D., 
 
 PASTOR OF ALL SOULS' CHURCH, NEW YORK. 
 
 PRINTED BY THE SOCIETY. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 C. SHERMAN & SON, PRINTERS. 
 1861. 
 
■5" 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 " Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try 
 you, as though some strange thing happened unto you ; but rejoice, inas- 
 much as ye are partakers of Christ's suffering, that when his glory shall be 
 revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy." — 1 Peter, 4 : 12, 13. 
 
 "His truth endureth to all generations." — Psalm 100: 5. 
 
 There is one very great advantage in having ques- 
 tions of deep and all-embracing magnitude before the 
 public mind ; it tests the reality of principles and in- 
 terests that ordinarily are carelessly assumed to be real, 
 but are yet treated as if of little practical importance ; 
 it banishes apathy and frivolity, crushes into silence 
 those who are usually allowed to talk merely for talk- 
 ing's sake, brings out the solid sense and hidden wisdom 
 of society, and makes the moral and spiritual principles 
 that underlie our external life throb with a fresh and 
 vigorous pulse. 
 
 Thus, in the usual tranquil and happy condition of 
 our affairs, engrossed in the occupations and eagerly 
 engaged in profiting by the opportunities of prosperous 
 times, Religion, with all its hopes and fears, its obliga- 
 tions and promises, its consolations and requirements, 
 secures our respectful and generous support, has our 
 easy and unexacting faith, but it occupies few of our 
 
earnest thoughts ; it interferes little with our proceed- 
 ings, it does not tax our judgment or try our con- 
 sciences, or thrust itself across our path, or assert a 
 prominent, practical, and authoritative place in our 
 business and daily life. It is left for Sunday. Then 
 we are ready to assent to what the proper functionaries 
 say about it without serious question. We have con- 
 venient theories about its being an interest by itself, 
 confined to special times and places and persons. In 
 short, we pay it a good deal the same kind of respect 
 which in times of ease we pay the laws of the country, 
 which make no serious demands upon us, and execute 
 their own provisions by a special class of officials, and 
 through indirect methods. But, when threatening and 
 anxious times come upon us, then all the great realities 
 begin to shine out. Citizenship and nationality again 
 mean something:. Obedience to law and order asserts 
 its original significance. Oaths of office, and solemn 
 compacts with man and God, that have been, perhaps, 
 lightly and only half-consciously taken, are found to be 
 accompanied with solemn practical obligations. The 
 loose and thoughtless tackle of things is quickly tight- 
 ened up ; the harness of duty makes its reins and traces 
 felt. We begin to feel that words mean what they 
 read • that things are as they seem ; that life is not the 
 holiday affair we ordinarily make it, liberty not the 
 careless concern of a shouting multitude, peace not a 
 matter of course, war not an item of foreign news ; 
 that ideas and principles cost something, are worth 
 
something, must be maintained, if at all, with some- 
 thing besides good wishes and the overflow of our 
 superfluity ; that counsel and advice are no longer 
 everybody's privilege ; that wisdom is wanted, and is 
 worth millions of money ; that talking has grave prac- 
 tical responsibilities, and that every idle word is now 
 likely to be brought to its account. 
 
 My brethren, it is most important, every now and 
 then, that the air should be cleared of that mist which, 
 in the sun of external prosperity, exhales from the low 
 places of our nature — a brilliant mist, in which things 
 do not appear as they are, when the fog obliterates 
 the rivers and the landmarks, hides all the foundations, 
 and leaves only the filmy tops of things visible. Affairs 
 may be too easy, comfortable, and peaceful for our own 
 real good. The social, moral, and political atmosphere 
 becomes debilitating in a protracted summer — the civic 
 tissues are softened, the spiritual muscles relax, the 
 vision grows dull, the senses inert, and the nobler appe- 
 tites decay. A wintry season tones up the common 
 moral constitution, braces the intellect to its discrimi- 
 nating powers, nerves the will, clears the conscience, 
 and starts the hunger and thirst of the soul for its ap- 
 propriate food. We live the largest part of our time 
 under erroneous impressions of the relative importance 
 of things. We derive our comfort or happiness, or 
 think we do, from secondary sources. All our care and 
 attention is expended upon transitory and private in- 
 terests. The grand old scriptural teachings on these 
 
6 
 
 matters : " What shall it profit a man to gain the 
 whole world and lose his own soul 1" " The things that 
 are seen, are temporal; the things that are unseen, are 
 eternal;" "Man does not live by bread alone, but by 
 every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God ;" 
 " For as the body is one, and hath many members, and 
 all the members of that one body, being many, are one 
 body: so also is Christ;" these great words seem to us 
 then to belong only to solemn times and great characters 
 long passed away. They are on a high, heroic vein, suited 
 to martyrs and confessors, but not to a plain, homespun, 
 work-a-day, nineteenth century ! But now and then, 
 and always somewhere in the world, circumstances 
 exist, amid which the antique and picturesque, the un- 
 real or romantic characters of these teachings is wholly 
 lost in a sense of their modern, immediate, and press- 
 ing truth ; when all their unearthly and ghostly aspect 
 is done away, and they step forth clothed in simple, 
 practical reality, to be the guidance, inspiration, and 
 consolation of our very contemporaries. " The times 
 that try men's souls" are the times that make men 
 know they have souls ; that God lives and reigns ; that 
 ideas, affections, and principles, duties and responsibili- 
 ties are the eternal realities, the true sources of our 
 happiness, the things on which to depend, for which 
 to strive, and with which to identify ourselves. 
 
 Righteousness, the fear of God, the sense of duty, 
 the guardianship of justice, the promotion of truth, the 
 vindication of humanity — these are not brave words 
 
wherewith to deck out the orator's harangue, and please 
 the sentimental feelings of those who never think of 
 putting them into actions ! They stand for sober, grave, 
 vast, ay, crushing realities. They are corners of the 
 rock, against which, if any man fall, it shall dash him 
 in pieces, and on whom, if it falls, it shall grind him 
 to powder. 
 
 This is not wholly a world of eating, and drinking, 
 and dressing — of houses, and farms, and stocks — of 
 peace and plenty, and laughter and tears. It is also a 
 world of ideas and principles, of obligations and duties. 
 God, as the moral governor of the universe, is here 
 present in the human conscience — an unchangeable 
 right and wrong have their eternal witnesses among us 
 — a mighty retributive system pervades affairs. It is 
 a world in which selfishness, sloth, self-indulgence, 
 frivolity, inhumanity, moral apathy, wickedness, reck- 
 lessness, although permitted a certain tether, are not 
 allowed to go beyond fixed bounds, any more than the 
 ocean is allowed to leave its stormy bed. Be sure it is 
 against some of these solemn realities we have run 
 whenever our system is shaken to its very centre as by 
 an earthquake. We have reached, at such times, the 
 point where God's providence yields no further — where 
 his truth will not give way another hair's-breadth. 
 The eternal things — the great solid framework which 
 partakes not of the mobility and elasticity of the merely 
 accidental and changing parts of our life, then refuses 
 to make way for anything, be the consequences what 
 
8 
 
 they may. Men stand aghast to find that they and their 
 immediate schemes and temporal interests are not the 
 sole occupants of this planet; that God has a problem of 
 his own here — a plan and purpose which runs through 
 the ages ; and that he has agents of his own — primeval 
 ideas, grand original impulses, moral convictions, eter- 
 nal verities, which are always moving forward and 
 carrying out his invincible decrees. Every now and 
 then the great general plan of God's providence con- 
 fronts and runs directly across our private plans, as the 
 Gulf Stream runs against the course of a vessel seeking 
 a-Southern harbor. We find that the world's common 
 interests, and our national, or state, or town, or private 
 interests, are not in harmony, nay, are antagonistic. 
 If, then, we proudly determine to put our smaller and 
 less important scheme foremost — to carry it by force 
 against the general scheme of Divine Providence — we 
 find out, after a short experience, how hard it is to kick 
 against the pricks — how frightful is the fate of those 
 who run upon the bosses of God's buckler ! Then it is 
 that war, and pestilence, and famine, and hatreds, and 
 the whole terrible brood of social evils, break forth as 
 from a den of wild beasts, to punish the obstinacy and 
 blasphemy of men. If we dare to call evil good • to 
 make His Holy Word an abettor and indorser of our 
 crimes ; to smother conscience, or quench the light to 
 hide our cupidity, we find that the substantial verities 
 on which our nature rests, and on which God's moral 
 world reposes, turn accusers and avengers, will not lend 
 
themselves to our plans nor be silent under our perver- 
 sions. 
 
 Nor is it only our wilful offences that meet resistance 
 from God's providence. Our great mistakes (mistakes 
 involving the happiness of millions now living or to 
 come) encounter, sooner or later, a formidable opposi- 
 tion from these divine realities. We do not make things 
 right or wrong by thinking them so. They are what 
 they are in themselves. Our motives decide our per- 
 sonal and our relative guilt, but do not settle the abso- 
 lute quality of our actions. We may be innocent in 
 our folly, but our folly does not cease on that account 
 to invoke its natural and providential consequences. 
 History pays a terrible price for its experience, and 
 national mistakes provoke, sooner or later, a correction 
 which is costly in exact proportion to their magnitude. 
 No age or generation need expect to escape God's 
 ceaseless though patient vindication of his own truth — 
 a truth which endureth to all generations. It is not 
 man's will that makes the worst revolutions in society. 
 They come of the moral nature of things, which though 
 having a certain vis inertias, possesses also an inevitable 
 motion when pressed beyond a given point. The rain 
 does not, at a certain pitch, more surely break from 
 the overcharged clouds, than the majesty of God's 
 violated laws and principles breaks out of the bondage 
 in which men's blindness and selfishness have sought to 
 shut them up. It is this potent element of self-vindi- 
 cation which gives so sublime a reality to truth and 
 
10 
 
 justice, and which every now and then appals a guilty 
 nation or government, or confronts a mistaken and 
 foolish policy to induce it to correct and to undo its 
 fatal errors. 
 
 The fiery trial through which we are now passing, 
 my brethren, is destined to purge us of much dross, to 
 consume the hay and stubble of our self-righteousness, 
 to devour much that is merely fictitious and unreal 
 in our opinions, pretensions and professions. It is 
 destined to test our solidity in every way — to show 
 what our patriotism, our principle, our policy as a 
 nation, our commercial wisdom, our real resources, our 
 present wisdom in the conduct of life, our average 
 morals and intelligence, to use the language of the 
 market, our par of character is. We are in the habit 
 of praising ourselves in all these particulars. We 
 claim a high standard. We think proudly of our reli- 
 gious, social and political intelligence and worth. If 
 we are not deceived in these respects, there can be 
 little to fear. If we are deceived, it is best to know it. 
 I do not doubt that the general level of our national 
 character is one to be proud of; but I am equally 
 convinced that we have run into many errors and ex- 
 travagances both of opinion, of conduct and of speech, 
 which are now to be brought under serious correction. 
 
 First, our life is too external — too much engrossed 
 with the mere accumulation of the materials of living. 
 We say m often enough, but it produces little effect. 
 By a universal habit of the nation — we dread any 
 
 
11 
 
 threatened deficiency in external comforts and appear- 
 ances beyond any people in the world. We struggle 
 harder for social position, luxury, and ostentation. It 
 has given an immense impulse to our industry and 
 rolled up our wealth most rapidly — nay, it is the 
 natural result of our peculiar political organization, and 
 in many respects one of its great blessings. I have no 
 careless, sweeping censure to bring on the thrift and 
 money-making dispositions of our people ; for I believe 
 in comfort and equality, and think social ambition and 
 pride of personal position among the most useful and 
 necessary traits of a people. But they involve serious 
 dangers, like all great general influences— not except- 
 ing the best — for even religious zeal tends to fanaticism, 
 and the dangers of this tendency have already been ex- 
 tensively felt and proved widely disastrous. I am not 
 certain that some very heavy drain on our property, 
 some very serious interruption to our business, some 
 powerful necessity for learning that our private interests 
 are subordinate to the public welfare, is not absolutely 
 necessary to restore a proper perspective to our view 
 of what is really important, useful, and felicitating in 
 this our mortal life. A life of ease, abundance, luxury ; 
 or a life of scheming, calculating, and money-getting, 
 are really not dignified, not ennobling, not desirable. 
 We overrate immensely the worth of luxury, and 
 we are not aware how much we lose in making so 
 much even of comfort. If you can substitute vital 
 thoughts, lively emotions, large and generous sympa- 
 
12 
 
 thies, pure and high tastes, for the more selfish and 
 calculating occupations of men, you increase their 
 happiness quite as much as you improve their charac- 
 ters. Now, if only some great shock to our national 
 prosperity can shake men out of the ruts and furrows, 
 where they lose sight of each other as living minds 
 and hearts — where the great and eternal interests of 
 truth, humanity, honor, and worth are hidden from 
 their view — then it is in mercy that God sends it, in 
 whatever form it may come. How much of the heart 
 and soul of this nation is sick with the torpor and sus- 
 pension of its nobler instincts and the decay of its 
 more generous attributes! The love and pursuit of 
 money, the trading spirit, has sadly impaired the moral 
 enthusiasm, darkened the conscience, and clouded over 
 the domestic affections of the land. See the terrible 
 judicial blindness it has brought upon the South — 
 perverting all its perceptions of policy, of political 
 economy, of morals and religion, and revealing at the 
 present moment a general state of things not less 
 melancholy than slavery itself. And see, too, and feel, 
 how much of degeneracy from our original dignity, 
 simplicity, and happiness, it has entailed upon the 
 North. 
 
 I overheard in the cars recently a story, the truth 
 of which I do not vouch for, although it was told 
 as a fact ; but, true or not, the principles it involves 
 are unquestionable and pertinent here. Two years 
 ago, a young man of a small but independent for- 
 
13 
 
 tune in his own right, an only son, the sole heir of 
 a rich father and grandfather, with whom he lived, 
 suddenly disappeared from a hotel in one of our cities, 
 where he had arrived from home only the night before ; 
 and, after diligent search, continued wholly untraced. 
 As his clothes and a considerable sum of money were 
 found in his trunk, and as he was a sober, discreet, and 
 virtuous young man, a graduate of a college, without 
 known sources of disquietude, no possible theory of 
 his disappearance could be raised, excepting that he 
 had been murdered by some one acquainted with his 
 possession of money, and thinking it to be upon his 
 person. A year passed away, and after sincere mourn- 
 ing, his estate was administered upon as on one certainly 
 dead. Another year passes by, and he is suddenly 
 heard from in Australia, keeping school for a bare 
 living in the wilds of that world, newer than our own ! 
 What could account for his extraordinary disappear- 
 ance ? The supposition of the reciter of the tale was, 
 that he had run away from his money and expectations j 
 that seeing that his father and grandfather had both 
 turned into mere money-getters, talked of little but 
 money, and loaded the atmosphere of home with its 
 dust ; seeing, too, that they were neither of them made 
 happy, or otherwise than lowered in his own respect 
 and esteem by their possessions, he had come to dread 
 the fatal consequences of wealth; and, afraid of his own 
 heart, had privately run away from his fortune and 
 expectations, to escape its threatening ruin to all 
 
14 
 
 his nobler aspirations and the real happiness of his 
 life. 
 
 Truth is stranger than fiction. But whether this 
 be true or no, I have known hundreds of persons who 
 would have been wise to have followed such an ex- 
 ample — hundreds cursed by their luxuries, their pos- 
 sessions, and their cupidity. And I am inclined to 
 think, that any calamity, which should in an unmis- 
 takable way test the question whether so much of 
 everything, so much time, thought, feeling, anxiety 
 exhausted in worldly cares, is really necessary to true 
 well being, would be a great benefit to the land — might 
 make us aware that we were neglecting great and 
 priceless blessings to cherish small and temporary 
 interests — might show us that our true riches lie 
 buried in neglect, while we run panting after false 
 wealth. Do not suppose that I am thinking only of those 
 technical riches which are ordinarily classed by them- 
 selves under the name of our religious hopes and ex- 
 pectations. I am thinking now of domestic affections, 
 intellectual cultivation, tastes for nature, enjoyment of 
 human society, interest in high and universal things — 
 the love of literature, of human progress, and of 
 humanity. Whatever makes real and significant, and 
 brings home to our honest experience, the eternal 
 truth, that " man does not live by bread alone, but by 
 every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God," 
 is of vital and priceless service. 
 
15 
 
 Again, I am afraid that the significance of duty is 
 also under a serious national cloud, which the present 
 crisis in our affairs is providentially designed to 
 remove. Who can deny that a certain laxity of con- 
 science, a careless sense of obligation, a feeble respect 
 for promises, a light view of oaths, has been growing 
 among us % I will not point to our municipal affairs, 
 to our defaulting officers in all departments, to the bri- 
 bery and corruption of officials — I am sick of that 
 theme. But it does seem to me, that the general 
 tendency of the national feeling, in almost all the 
 practical concerns of life, has been gradually becoming 
 averse to any very stringent sense of responsibility — 
 inclined to think that nothing is binding which is not 
 pleasant, to put loose constructions on obligations of 
 all sorts, and thus to impair reliance on the word 
 of mechanics, on the promises of politicians, on the 
 credibility of newspapers, on the oaths of office, on the 
 punctiliousness of private character ! Laxity of views 
 and feelings, self-indulgent tastes, wide and unscrupu- 
 lous interpretations of instruments, and a feeble sense 
 of general responsibility as citizens and tradesmen, as 
 husbands and fathers, alarmingly prevail. Oaths, 
 vows, promises, compacts — these are all sealed with 
 the conscience and witnessed by God, and if the sight 
 
 of them is dimmed, or the feeling of them is dulled 
 
 woe to the people, woe to the world. It does seem to 
 me that we may account it a necessary and a thank- 
 worthy interposition of Providence that our impending 
 
16 
 
 condition is testing the conscience of the highest and 
 the lowest functionary — trying, as with fire, the 
 worth of oaths — demanding under fearful penalties the 
 fulfilment of obligations — drawing everywhere on the 
 sense of the bonds we have verbally owned, and com- 
 pelling us to feel that a close, punctilious, thorough 
 fidelity to each and every promise is exacted by the 
 God of oaths and the Sovereign of duty. This is a 
 world of duty. Duty is not always pleasant, but it 
 is always dignified, noble, and sanative. If we live 
 the slipshod, lax, and unamenable life of the easy and 
 careless in conscience, we shall meet the storm with 
 unstayed rigging, with sails all fluttering in the wind, 
 with anchors foul, and rudder unshipped. And the 
 storm that vexes the state, or sweeps away our fortunes, 
 is nothing to that whirlwind that will finally tear and 
 make shipwrecks of our souls — if their purposes, 
 affections, and tendencies are not closely reefed at 
 every point in the cords of duty. 
 
 Another trial awaits us — intensely needed ! The 
 last twenty years has seen more reckless talking — 
 more looseness of tongue in respect of Religion, the 
 State, the Constitution, the personal character of lead- 
 ing men — more insulting, inflammatory, censorious 
 and unscrupulous eloquence on platforms, in pulpits, 
 in the Senate and on the floor of Congress — more 
 questioning of motives, defamation of good men's cha- 
 racters, reckless assertion and indiscriminate statements, 
 
17 
 
 than was ever before known since civilization began. 
 I sincerely think that irresponsible and careless speech 
 on great public questions is a terrible evil; and I 
 do not believe that it can go on for a whole generation 
 without debilitating the public patriotism, the comity, 
 the habits of self-control, the charity, and the con- 
 science of a people. Nor do I think that its perpetrators 
 can finally and forever escape the retribution due to 
 their thoughtlessness, injustice, and intemperance. 
 
 Public opinion is responsible for the license it has al- 
 lowed and flattered in this respect. We are now com- 
 pelled to endure the natural and appropriate penalties 
 of being confounded in our opinions with those whose 
 excesses have amused and charmed our love of spicy 
 exaggeration, and whom we have not reproved by any 
 courageous censure or any sturdy remonstrance. If 
 there be not now a wholesome reaction, which leaves 
 these reckless tramplers on our national compact and on 
 the characters and motives of all who disagree with 
 their absurdities to the condignest of all punishments 
 for such men, I mean neglect, then some worse thing 
 will happen to teach us that the tongue is a fire, and 
 that for every idle word that men shall speak, there is a 
 retribution, which will not wait for futurity. Free 
 speech, in God's name, let us vindicate ; but reckless 
 speech is the highest offence against free speech, as in- 
 fidelity is the greatest shame to free inquiry. The 
 freer we are, in all things, the more amenable must we 
 grow to every law of charity and truth and piety. 
 
18 
 
 Last of all, a test is now applying itself with fiery 
 severity to the religions opinions of this nation. The 
 questions at issue between the Literalists and Spiri- 
 tualists — between those that think the element of au- 
 thority and those who think essential and absolute truth 
 the most important element in a religion — between those 
 who make the Bible a rule of belief and those who make 
 it a fountain of faith — are now becoming of immense 
 and immediate practical importance. The Bible, on one 
 side of Mason and Dixon's line, is the great bulwark 
 of slaveholding ; on the other, the great arsenal of 
 liberty. Dr. Fuller proves, without difficulty, that slave- 
 holding is countenanced in the Old and even the New 
 Testament. Dr. Cheever has the ingenuity and adroit- 
 ness to show that this was not our particular kind of 
 slaveholding ; and thence, with great pungency and 
 power, shows that the Bible condemns the American in- 
 stitution. In my judgment, it is only a very dangerous 
 and untenable view of the nature of the Scriptures and 
 the quality of their authority which makes this question 
 important. Infidels are made by claiming a divine sup- 
 port for any opinions which contradict the most ad- 
 vanced moral sentiments of our nature. Dr. Van Dyke 
 is right when he says that anti-slavery opinions lead to 
 infidelity, he being the judge of faith. They are mak- 
 ing the faith which he conscientiously holds, and with 
 great propriety, from his own point of view, defends, 
 incredible. The South is right in charging the North 
 with infidelity, if its use of the Scriptures to uphold 
 
19 
 
 slavery as a divine institution is a proper use of them. 
 Because, if the Bible does teach this, and if it be 
 plenarily and verbally inspired, we must take our choice 
 between believing it or becoming infidels ; and the 
 North, as a rule, has made its choice. It would prefer 
 to be infidel in the eyes of all who think God orders or 
 approves slavery as a permanent institution in the nine- 
 teenth century. But it, of course, wholly repudiates 
 that understanding or theory of the Bible, which makes 
 no distinction between its divine spirit and its human 
 form, between its general animus and its particular and 
 exceptional parts. But there is such a gross inconsis- 
 tency here in the North yet existing between the 
 grounds on which Christian men act, and the grounds 
 on which they profess to stand, between their conscien- 
 tious practical opinions and their avowed religious and 
 scriptural theories, that, in my judgment, some serious 
 calamity, involving these radical questions, can alone 
 clear up this injurious inconsistency, and compel men 
 to discrimination, coherency, and consistency in their 
 theological, scriptural, and religious views. The pros- 
 pect of an honest and radical discussion of the gravest 
 moral and religious questions, conducted in the face of 
 practical interests, was never so good as now, nor was 
 it ever so important. 
 
 All these cloudy questions, so stormily and passion- 
 ately debated, without reference to fundamental prin- 
 ciples, and, therefore, hitherto vainly, touching the 
 connection between politics and religion, the relative 
 
20 
 
 value of philanthropy and piety, the relations of the 
 Church and the World, the connection of theology and 
 religion, the nature of inspiration, the difference between 
 essential and relative wrong, or evil and sin — these ques- 
 tions will be made pertinent, real, pressing, by the testing 
 strain of serious times. They will be discussed in the 
 light of events, and with the courage, keenness, and 
 earnestness, which already begins to mark the assertions 
 and the statements of both sides in the great controversy 
 of the clay ; and it is worth almost any price to bring 
 back earnestness, to get the mind and heart of the 
 nation where they will stick fast by convictions, and 
 cannot help feeling the force of truth. It is at a great 
 heat only that the chains of superstition and prestige 
 and custom, are melted. The world, by a heroic impulse, 
 moves every now and then one great stride forward, as 
 at the Reformation ; but all the nobler powers must be 
 roused by great events before this glorious earnestness, 
 this high manhood, this divine courage, can be deve- 
 loped. If such fine gold as this may come out of the 
 crucible which God is heating seven times hot, for this 
 nation, " Beloved, think it not strange concerning the 
 fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange 
 thing had happened to you: but rejoice, inasmuch as 
 ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings, that when his 
 glory shall be revealed ye may be glad also with ex- 
 ceeding joy."