.^■^ -^*. AV ^^ .^ %•- O. 'f ^' ^ , t '-^ ,0o ^^ ^^'^^ r -^ .^^' '^ .-\'' -*0 \ 1 R ^, .0 -J.^ ' A^ ■x^^^' '/'. v^^^'^ .T'- 'c. •<■ 5 -;. ^0- V ^^ O- -0" '->, ^■^^^--^^■^ ^^^. \' 0^ .^'^'"^ cP oN' 0^ ^ ' 4- "^/-_ ^ ^., , w -^ ,A ■'-S- A^ *^ ->. *^. A^ ^^^'^ •^r> I- x\^^ "'^.^ \.v- "^ :> -^ ^ \ OO. ^ '^rU ,) •\ o> o\' ci>. .t"^' ,* A^^' ^. ",." ■tf^,'*'- ,0"^ $r ■^ V . ^ '^. ' ' ' ' ^ V>'' s ^ '^ ' / ., '-^ ^ .. .0 C -^ x\ '\ ^ ^ .x^' ^ M V^'-^. ^M-'N ,x^^ -^^ V Oo -^••^ c^. -- ^ o^- ~^ ^ <5 CT, ■» ^J ^/ .^-^' .# ^^oo"^ .H X ^^ c^. -^^^ ^ ^ ■, ^ v'?-' ,0 o. vX^ \- .J '^c^. A ^ /-, : ^> .^ ^ .^ .... ^^ ^ -0' V I '/- O- ':-!-^ A^ oil ,0 H IT F O S T E If GEMS or BEAUTY. FROM THB WEITINGS OF JOHIf FOSTER: TOaBTHBB WITH BIB OXLKBBi.TBI} ESSAY ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. Miti) a f ortxa(t on %Utl NEW YORK: DERBY & JACKSON, 119 NASSAU ST, CINCINNATI : — H. W. DERBY it CO. 1851. D*^ Entbbbd according to Act of Congreea, m the year 1857, b/ DERBY & JACKSON, In tht Clerk't Office of the DUtrict Court of the United StAtes, for the SoDtheni Dwtrift ot New York. Mrs. Hennen Jennings April 26, 1933 W*. H. TiNsoN, Stereotyper. Georgb Rumm.l k Co., Printer*. PREFACE. Introducing Foster to the church at Frome, Robert Hall says: "His manner is not very popular, but his conceptions are most extraordinary and original ; his disposition very amia- ble, his piety unquestionable, and his sentiments moderately orthodox — about the level of Watts and Doddridge." In an- other communication to the same church, he pronounces him a " young man of the most extraordinary genius." At a later period he said of Foster's writings, "They are like a great lumber-wagon loaded with gold." The eminent American reviewer of his "Life anl Corre- spondence," ranking him with Hall, says: "Of the English minds that have departed from our world within a few years, none have excited a deeper interest, or wielded for a season a loftier power, than John Foster and Robert Hall." And Har- ris, the distinguished author of " Prize Essays," reviewing the same work, says : " He will retain the reputation of gifts that have rarely fallen to the lot of mortals." lii CONTENTS- CHAPTER I. Existence, Attributes, Works, and Providence of God, . 53 CHAPTER II. The Evidences of Religion— The Sources, Prejudices and Tendencies of Skepticism, etc., .... 67 CHAPTER III. The Law of God— Its Holiness, Comprehensiveness, Ap- plications and Evasions, 86 CHAPTER lY. Individual and Social Depravity of Man, .... 98 CHAPTER V. Christianity— Its Doctrines and Applications, . . . HO CHAPTER VI. The Obligations and Duties of Christianity, . . . 187 ▼1 ^ CONTENTS. PAan CHAPTER VII. Of Man — The Formation of Character — Its "^Sources and Diversitie^ — Popular Ignorance and the Diffusion of Knowledge, 1^6 CHAPTER VIII. Youth — its Advantages and Perils — Domestic Life and Virtues — Education of Children, .... 180 CHAPTER IX. Human Life — Its Frailty and Brevity — Future Life — Its Mysteries and Revelations — Persuasives to a Chris- tian Life, 199 CHAPTER X. Places, Nations, Men and Books, 224 CHAPTER XI. Passion, Affection, Sensibility and Sentiment, . . . 264 CHAPTER XII. Observations upon Nature, Natural Objects and Scenes, Analogies, etc., 267 CHAPTER XIII. Miscellanies, . • • • 284 FOSTER'S ESSAY ON DECISION OF CHAKACTEK. LETTER I. JUT DEAR FEIKND, We have several times talked of this bold quality and acknowledged its great importance. Without it, a human being, with powers at best but feeble and surrounded by innumerable things tending to perplex, to divert, and to frustrate their operations, is indeed a pitiable atom, the sport of divers and casual impulses. It is a poor and dis- graceful thing, not to be able to reply, with some degree of certa,infy, to the simple questions, What will you be? Wiiat will you do ? A little acquaintance with mankind will supply number- less illustrations of the importance of this qualification. You will often see a person anxiously hesitating a long time between diflferent, or opposite determinations, though im- patient of the pain of such a state, and ashamed of the debUity. A faint impulse of preference alternates toward the one, and toward the otl^er ; and the mind, while thug held in a trembling balance, is vexed that it cannot get some new thought, or feeling, or motive; that it has not more sense, more resolution, more of anything that would save it from envying even the decisive instinct of brutes. It wishes that any circumstance might happen, or any per- son might appear, that could deliver it from the miserable suspense. In many instances, when a determination is adopted, it is frustrated by this temperament. A man, for example, resolves on a journey to-morrow, which he is not under an absolute necessity to undertake, but the inducements ap- pear, this evening, so strong, that he does not think it 8 toster's essay on possible he can hesitate in the morning. In the morning, however, these inducements have unaccountably lost much of their force. Like the sun that is rising at the same time, they appear dim through a mist ; and the sky lowers, or he fancies that it does, and almost wishes to see darker clouds than there actually are; recollections of toils and fatigues, ill repaid in past expeditions, rise and pass into anticipation; and he lingers, uncertain, till an advanced hour determines the question for him, by the certainty that it is now too late to go. Perhaps a man has conclusive reasons for wishing to remove to another place of residence. But when he is going to take the first actual step towards executing his purpose, he is met by a new train of ideas, presenting the possible, and magnifying the unquestionable, disadvantages and uncertainties of a new situation ; awakening the natural reluctance to quit a place to which habit has accommodated his feelings, and which has grown warm to him (if I may so express it), by his having been in it so long ; giving a new impulse to his affection for the friends whom he must leave ; and so detaining him still lingering, long after his judgment may have dictated to him to be gone. A man may think of some desirable alteration in his plan of life ; perhaps in the arrangements of his family, or in the mode of his intercourse with society — Would it be a good thing? He thinks it would be a good thing. It certainly would be a very good thing. He wishes it were done. He will attempt it almost immediately. The following day, he doubts whether it would be quite prudent. Many things are to be considered. May there not be in the change some evil of which he is not aware? Is this a proper time? "What will people say ? And thus, though he does not for- mally renounce his purpose, he shrinks out of it, with an irksome wish that he could be fully satisfied of the propriety of renouncing it. Perhaps he wishes that the thought had never occurred to him, since it has diminished his self- complacency, without promoting his virtue. But next week, his conviction of the wisdom and advantage of such a reform comes again with great force. Then — Is it so practicable as I was at first willing to imagine ? Why not ? Other men have done much greater things ; a resolute mind may brave and accomplish every thing ; difficulty is a stim- ulus and a triumph to a strong spirit ; " the joys of conquest DECISION OF CHARACTER. 9 are the joys of man," What need I care for people's opi- nion ? It shall be done. He makes the first attempt. But some unexpected obstacle presents itself; he feels the awk- wardness of attempting an unaccustomed manner of acting; the questions or the ridicule of his friends disconcert him ; his ardor abates and expires. He again begins to question, whether it be wise, whether it be necessary, whether it be possible ; and at last surrenders his purpose, to be perhaps resunied when the same feelings return, and to be in the same manner again relinquished. While animated by some magnanimous sentiments which he has heard or read, or while musing on some great exam- ple, a man may conceive the design, and partly sketch the plan, of a generous enterprise ; and his imagijiation revels in the felicity, to others and himself, that would follow from its accomplishment. The splendid representation always centres in himself as the hero who is to realize it. In a moment of remitted excitement, a faint whisper from within may doubtfully ask. Is this more than a dream ; or am I really destined to achieve such an enter- prise? Destined! — and why are not this conviction of its excellence, this conscious duty of performing the noblest things that are possible, and this passionate ardor, enough to constitute a destiny? He feels indignant that there should be a failing part of his nature to defraud the nobler, and cast him below the ideal model and the actual exam- ples which he is admiring ; and this feeling assists him to resolve, that he will undertake this enterprise, that he certainly will, though the Alps or the Ocean lie between him and the object. Again his ardor slackens ; distrustful of himself, he wishes to know how the design would appear to other minds; and when he speaks of it to his associates, one of them wonders, another laughs, and another frowns. His pride, while wdth them, attempts a manful defence ; but his resolution gradually crumbles down toward their level ; he becomes in a little while ashamed to entertain a vision- ary project, which therefore, hke a rejected friend, desists from intruding on him, or following him, except at linger- ing distance ; and he subsides, at last, into what he labors to believe a man too rational for, the schemes of ill- calcu- lating enthusiasm. And it were strange if the effort to make out this favorable estimate of himself did not succeed, while it is so much more pleasant to attribute one's defect 10 Foster's essay on of enterprise to -wisdom, whicji on maturer thought disap- proves it, than to inabecility, which shrinks from it. A person of undecisive character wonders how all the embarrassments in the world happened to meet exactly in his way, to place him just in that one situation for which he is peculiarly unadapted, but in which he is also willing to think no other man could have acted with facility or confidence. Incapable of setting up a firm purpose on the basis of things as they are, he is often employed in vain speculations on some different supposable state of things, which would have saved him from all this perplexity and irresolution. He thinks what a determined course he could have pursued, i/his talents, his health, his age, had been different ; if he had been acquainted with some one person sooner; if his friends were, in this or the other point, different from what they are; or if fortune had showered her favors on him. And he gives himself as much license to complain, as if all these advantages had been among the rights of his nativity, but refused, by a malignant or capri- cious fate, to his life. Thus he is occupied — instead of marking with a vigilant eye, and seizing with a strong hand, all the possibilities of his actual situation. A man without decision can never be said to belong to himself; since, if he dared to assert that he did, the puny force of some cause, about as powerful, you would have supposed, as a spider, may make a seizure of the hapless boaster the very next moment, and contemptuously exhibit the futility of the determinations by which he was to have proved the independence of his understanding and his will. He belongs to whatever can make capture of him ; and one thing after another vindicates its right to him, by arresting him while he is trying to go on ; as twigs and chips, float- ing near the edge of a river, are intercepted by every weed, and whirled in every little eddy. Having concluded on a design, he may pledge himself to accomplish it — if the hun- dred diversities of feeling which may come within the week, will let him. His character precluding all foresight of his conduct, he may sit and wonder what form and di- rection his views and actions are destined to take to-mor- row ; as a farmer lias often to acknowledge that next day's proceedings are at the disposal of its winds and clouds. This man's notions and determinations always depend very much on other human beings ; and what chance for DECISION OF CHARACTER. IJ consistency and stability, while the persons with whom he may converse, or transact, are so various ? This very even- ing, he may talk with a man wJiose sentiments will melt away the present form and outline of his purposes, however firm and defined he may have fancied them to be. A suc- cession of persons whose faculties were stronger than his own, might, in spite of his irresolute re-action, take him and dispose of him as they pleased. Such infirmity of spirit practically confesses him made for subjection, and he passes, like a slave, from owner to owner. Sometimes in- deed it happens, that a person so constituted falls into the train, and under the permanent ascendency of some one stronger mind, which thus becomes through life the oracle and guide, and ^ves the inferior a steady will and plan. This, when the governing spirit is wise and virtuous, is a fortunate relief to the feeling, and an advantage gained to the utility of the subordinate, and as it were, appended mind. The regulation of every man's plan must greatly depend on the course of events, which come in an order not to be foreseen or prevented. But in accommodating the plans of conduct to the train of events, the difference between two men may be no less than that, in the one instance, the man is subservient to the events, and in the other, the events are made subservient to the man. Some men seem to have been taken along by a succession of events, and, as it were, handed forward in helpless passiveness from one to an- other ; having no determined principle in their own charac- ters, by which they could constrain those events to serve a design formed antecedently to them, or apparently in defiance of them. The events seized them as a neutral material, not they the events. Others, advancing through life with an internal invincible determination, have seemed to make the train of circumstances, whatever they were, conduce as much to their chief design as if they had, by some directing interposition, been brought about on pur- pose. It is wonderful how even the casualties of life seem to bow to a spirit that will not bow to them, and yield to subserve a design which they may, in- their first apparent tendency, threaten to frustrate. You may have known such examples, though they are comparatively not numerous. You may have seen a man of this vigorous character in a state of indecision concern- 12 • Foster's essay on ing some affair in which it was necessary for him to deter- mine* bepause it was necessary for him to act. But in this case, his manner would assure you that he would not remain long undecided ; you would wonder if you found him still balancing and hesitating the next day. If he explained his thoughts, you would perceive that their clear process, evidently at each effort gaining something toward the result, must certainly reach it ere long. The delibera- tion of such a mind is a very different thing from the fluc- tuation of one whose second thinking only upsets the first, and whose third confounds both. To Jcnow how to obtain a determination, is one of the first requisites and indications of a rationally decisive character. When the decision was arrived at, and a plan of action approved, you would feel an assurance that something would absolutely be done. It is characteristic of such a mind, to think for effect; and the pleasure of escaping from temporary doubt gives an additional impulse to tlie force with which it is carried into action. The man will not re-examine his conclusions with endless repetition, and he will not be delayed long by consulting other persons, after he -had ceased to consult himself. He cannot bear to sit still among unexecuted decisions and unattempted projects. We wait to hear of his achievements, and are confident we shall not wait long. The possibility or the means may not be obvious to us, but we know that every thing will be attempted, and that a spirit of such determined will is like a river, which, in whatever manner it is obstructed^ will make its way- somewhere. It must have cost Caesar many anxious hours of deliberation, before he decided to pass the Rubicon ; but it is probable he suffered but few to elapse between the decision and the execution. And any one of his friends who should have been apprised of his determi- nation, and understood his character, would have smiled contemptuously to hear it insinuated that though Caesar had resolved, Caesar would not dare ; or that though he might cross the Rubicon, whose opposite bank presented to him no hostile legions, he might come to other rivers, which he would not cross; or that either rivers, or any other obstacle, would deter him from prosecuting his deter- mination from this ominous commencement to its very last consequence. One signal advantage possessed by a mind of this char- DECISION OF CHARACTER. 13 acter is, that its passions are not wasted. The whole measure of passion of which any one, with important trans- actions before him, is capable, is not more than enough to supply interest and energy for the required practical exer- tions ; therefore as little as possible of this costly flame should be expended in a way that does not augment the force of action. But nothing can less contribute or be more destructive to vigor of action, than protracted anx- ious fluctuation, through resolutions adopted, rejected, resumed, suspended; while yet nothing causes a greater expense of feeling. The heart is fretted and exhausted by being subjected to an alternation of contrary excitements, with the ultimate mortifying consciousness of their contri- buting to no end. The long- wavering deliberation, whether to perform some bold action of difficult virtue, has often cost more to feeling than the action itself, or a series of such actions, would have cost ; with the great disad- vantage too of not being relieved by any of that invigora- tion which the man in action finds in tlie activity itself, that spirit created to renovate the energy which the action is expending. \Yhen the passions are not consumed among dubious musings and abortive resolutions, their utmost value and use can be secured by throwing all their ani- mating force into effective operation. Another advantage of this character is, that it exempts from a great deal of interference and obstructive annoy- ance, which an irresolute man may be almost sure to encounter. Weakness, in every form, tempts arrogance; and a man may be allowed to wish for a kind of character with which stupidity and impertinence may not make so free. . "When a firm, decisive spirit is recognized, it is curi- ous to see how the space clears around a man, and leaves him room and freedom. The disposition to interrogatdj dictate, or banter, preserves a respectful and politic dis- tance, judging it not unwise to keep the peace with a person of so much energy. A conviction that he under- stands, and that he wills with extraordinary force^ silences the conceit that intended to perplex or instruct him, and intimidates the malice that was disposed to attack him. There is a feeling, as in respect to Fate, that the decrees of so inflexible a spirit must be right, or that, at least, they will be accomplished. But not only will he secure the freedom of acting for 2 14 Foster's essay on himself, he will obtain also by degrees the coincidence of those in whose company he is to transact the business of life. If the manners of such a man be free from arrogance, •and he can qualify his firmness with a moderate degree of insinuation; and if his measures have partly lost the appearance of being the dictates of his will, under the wider and softer sanction of some experience that they are reasonable; both competition and fear will be laid to sleep, and his will may acquire an unresisted ascendency over many who will be pleased to fall into the mechanism of a system, which they find makes them more successful and happy than they could have been amidst the anxiety of adjusting plans and expedients of their own, and the consequences of often adjusting them ill. T have known several parents, both fathers and mothers, whose manage- ment of their families has answered this description ; and has displayed a striking example of the facile complacency with which a number of persons, of different ages and dis- positions, will yield to the decisions of a firm mind, acting on an equitable and enlightened system. The last resource of this character is hard, inflexible per- tinacity, on which it may be allowed to rest its strength after finding it can be effectual in none of its milder forms. I remember admiring an instance of this kind, in a firm, sagacious, and estimable old man, whom I well knew, and who has long been dead. Being on a jury, in a trial of life and death, he was satisfied of the innocence of the prisoner ; the other eleven were of the opposite opinion. But he was resolved the man should not be condemned ; and as the first effort for preventing it, very properly made appli- cation to the minds of his associates, spending severaljiours in laboring to convince them. But he found he made no impression, while he was exhausting the strength which it was necessary to reserve for another mode of operation. He then calmly told them that it should now be a trial who could endure confinement and fiimine the longest, and that they might be quite assured he would sooner die than release them, at the expense of the prisoner's life. In this situation they spent about twenty-four hours; when at length all acceded to his verdict of acquittal. It is not necessary to amplify on the indispensable ipi- portance of this quality, in order to the accomplishment of any thing eminently good. We instantly see, that every DECISION OF CHARACTER. 15 path to signal excellence is so obstructed and beset, that none but a spirj^t so qualified can pass. But it is time to examine what are the elements of that mental constitution which is displayed in the character in question. LETTER II. Perhaps the best mode would be, to bring into our thoughts, in succession, the most remarkable examples of this character that we have known in real life, or that we have read of in history, or even in fiction; and attentively to observe, in their conversations, manners, and actions, what principles appear to produce, or to constitute, this commanding distinction. You will easily pursue this in- vestigation yourself. I lately made a partial attempt, an.d shall oflfer you a number of suggestions. As a previous observation, it is beyond all doubt that very much depends on the constitution of the body. It would be for physiologists to explain, if it were explicable, the manner in which corporeal organization atfects the mind ; I only assume it as a fact, that there is in the mate- rial construction of some persons, much more than of others, some quality which augments, if it do not create, both the stability of their resolution, and the energy of their active tendencies. There is something that, like the ligatures which one class of the Olympic combatants bound on their hands and wrists, braces round, if I may so describe it, and compresses the powers of the mind, giving them a steady forcible spring and reaction, which they would presently lose if they could be transferred into a constitution of soft, yielding, treacherous debility. The action of strong cha- racter seems to demand something firm in its material basis, as massive engines require, for their weight and for their working, to be fixed on a solid foundation. Accord- ingly, I believe it would be found, that a majority of the persons most remarkable for decisive character, have pos- sessed great constitutional physical firmness. I do not mean an exemption from disease and pain, nor any certain measure of mechanical strength, but a tone of vigor the 16 Foster's essay on opposite to lassitude, and adapted to great exertion and endurance. This is clearly evinced in respect to many of them, by the prodipous labors and deprivations which they have borne in prosecuting their designs. The physical nature has seemed a proud ally of the moral one, and with a hardness that would never shrink, has sustained the energy that could never remit. A view of the disparities between the different races of animals inferior to man, will show the effect of organiza- tion on disposition. Compare, for instance, a lion with the common beasts of our fields, many of them larger in bulk of animated substance. What a vast superiority of courage, and impetuous and determined action; which difference we attribute to some great dissimilarity of modi- fication in the composition of the animated material. Now it is probable that a difference somewhat analogous sub- sists between some human beings and others in point of wliat we may call mere physical constitution; and that this is no small part of the cause of the striking inequalities in respect to decisive character. A man who excels in the power of decision has probably more of the physical quality of a lion in his composition than other men. It is observable that women in general have less inflexi- bility of character than men ; and though many moral influences contribute to this difference, the principal cause may probably be something less firm in the corporeal con- stitution, Now that physical quality, whatever it is, from the smaller measure of which in the constitution of the frame, women have less firmness than men, may be pos- sessed by one man more than by men in general in a greater degree of difference than that by which men in general exceed women. If there have been found some resolute spirits powerfully asserting themselves in feeble vehicles, it is so much the better; since this would authorize a hope, that if all the other grand requisites can be combined, they may form a strong character, in spite of an unadapted constitution. And on the other hand, no constitutional hardness will form a true character, without tliose superior pi'operties ; though it may produce that false and contemptible kind of decision which we term obstinacy ; a stubbornness of tem- per, which can assign no reasons but mere will, for a con- stancy which acts in the nature of dead weight rather than DECISION OT CHARACTER. l7 of strength ; resembling less the reaction of a powerful spring than the gravitation of a big stone. The first prominent mental characteristic of the person •whom I describe is, a complete confidence in his own judgment. It will perhaps be said, that this is not so uncommon a qualification. I however think it is uncom- mon. It is indeed obvious enough, that almqgt all men have a flattering estimate of their own understanding, and that as long as this understanding has no harder task than to form opinions which are not to be tried in action, they have a most self-complacent assurance of being right. This assurance extends to the judgments which they pass on the proceedings of others. But let them be brought into the necessity of adopting actual mea- sures in an untried situation, where, unassisted by any previous example or practice, they are reduced to depend on the bare resources of judgment alone, and you will see, in many cases, this confidence of opinion vanish away. The mind seems all at once placed in a misty vacuity, where it reaches round on all sides, but can find nothing to take hold of. Or if not lost in vacuity, it is overwhelmed in confusion ; and feels as if its faculties were annihilated in the attempt to think of schemes and calculations among the possibilities, chances, and hazards which overspread a wide untrodden field ; and this conscious imbecility be- comes severe distress, when it is believed that conse- quences, of serious or unknown good or evil, are depending on the decisions which are to be formed amidst so much uncertainty. The thought painfully recurs at each step and turn, I may by chance be right, but it is fully as pro- bable I am wrong. It is like the case of a rustic walking in London, who, having no certain direction through tlie vast confusion of streets to the place where he wishes to be, advances, and hesitates, and turns, and inquires, and becomes, at each corner, still more inextricably perplexed.* A man in tliis situation feels he shall be unfortunate if he cannot accomplish more than he can understand. Is not this frequently, when brought to the practical test, the * "Why does not the man call a hackney-coach?" a gay reader, I am aware, will say of the person so bemazed in the great town. So he might, certainly (that is, if he knew where to find one) ; and the gay reader and I have only to deplore that there is no parallel convenience for the assistance of perplexed understandings. 18 Foster's essay on state of a mind not disposed in general to underralne its own judgment ? In c:vn example of that simph obstinacy which 1 have mentioned before ; for he considered his measures, and did not want for reasons which seriously satisfied himself of their being most judicious. This confidence of opinion may be possessed by a person in whom it will be contemp- tible or mischievous ; but its proper place is in a very DECISION OF CHARACTER. 19 different character, and without it there can be no dignified actors in human affairs. If, after it is seen how foolish this confidence appears as a feature in a weak character, it i)e inquired what, in a rightfully decisive person's manner of thinking, it is that authorizes him in this firm assurance that his view of the concerns befi^re him is comprehensive and accurate ; he may, in answer, justify his confidence on such grounds as these: that he is conscious that objects are presented to his mind with an exceedingly distinct and perspicuous aspect, not like the shapes of moonlight, or like Ossian's ghosts, dim forms of uncircumscribed shade; that he sees the different parts of the subject in an arranged order, not in unconnected fragments ; that in each deliberation the main object keeps its clear pre-eminence, and he perceives the bearings which the subordinate and conducive ones have on it ; that perhaps several trains of thought, drawn from different points, lead him to the same conclusion ; and that he finds his judgment does not vary in servility to the moods of his feelings. It may be presumed that a high degree of this d^iaracter is not attained without a considerable laeasure of that kind of certainty, with respect to the relations of things, which can be acquired only from experience and observation. A very protracted course of time, however, may not be indispensable for this discipline. An extreme vigilance in the exercise of observation, and a strong and strongly ex- erted power of generalizing on experience, may have made a comparatively short time enougli to supply a large share of the wisdom derivable from these sources ; so that a man may, long before he is old, be rich in the benefits of expe- rience, and therefore may have all the decision of judgment legitimately founded on that accomplishment. This know- ledge from experience he will be able to apply in a direct and immediate manner, and without refining it into gene- ral principles, to some situations of afiairs, so as to antici- pate the consequences of certain actions in those situations by as plain a reason, and as confidently, as the kind of fruit to be produced by a given kind of tree. Thus far the facts of his experience will serve him as precedents ; cases of such near resemblance to those in which he is now to act as to afford him a rule by the most immediate inference. At the next step, he will be able to apply this knowledge. 20 Foster's essay on now converted into general principles, to a multitude of cases bearing but a partial resemblance to anything he has actually witnessed. And then, in looking forward to the possible occurrence of altogether new combinations of circumstances, he can trust to the resources which he is persuaded his intellect will open to him, or is humbly con- fident, if he be a devout man, that the Supreme Intelligence will not suffer to be wanting to him when the occasion arrives. In proportion as his views include, at all events, more certainties than those of other men, he is with good reason less fearful of contingencies. And if, in the course of executing his design, unexpected disastrous events should befall, but which are not owing to anything wrong in the plan and principles of that design, but to foreign causes ; it will be characteristic of a strong mind to attribute these events discriminatively to their own causes, and not to the plan which, therefore, instead of being disliked and relinquished, will be still as much approved as before, and the man will proceed calmly to the sequel of it without any change of arrangement ; unless, indeed, these sinister events should be of such consequence as to alter the whole state of things to which the plan was correctly adapted, and so create a necessity to form an entirely new one, adapted to that altered state. Though he do not absolutely despise the understandings of other men, he will perceive their dimensions as compared with his own, which will preserve its independence through every communication and encounter. It is, however, a part of this very independence, that he will hold himself free to alter his opinion, if the information which may be communicated to him shall bring sufficient reason. And as no one is so sensible of the importance of a complete acquaintance with a subject as the man who is always endeavoring to think conclusively, he will listen with the utmost attention to the information, which may sometimes be received from persons for whose judgment he has no great respect. The information which they may afford him is not at all the less valuable for the circumstance, that his practical inferences from it may be quite different from theirs. If they will only give him an accurate account of facts, he does not care how indifferently they may reason on them. Counsel will in general have only so much weight with him as it supplies knowledge which may assist DECISION OF CHARACTER. 21 his judgment; he will yield nothing to it implicitly as authority, except when it comes from p.ersons of approved and eminent wisdom ; but he may hear it with more can- dor and good temper, from being conscious of this inde- pendence of his judgment, than the man who is afraid lest the first person that begins to persuade him, should baffle his determination. He feels it entirely a work of his own to deliberate and to resolve, amidst all the advice which may be attempting to control him. If, with an assurance of his intellect being of the highest order, he also holds a commanding station, he will feel it gratuitous to consult with any one, excepting merely to receive statements of facts. This appears to be exemplified in the man, who has lately shown the nations of Europe how large a portion of the world may, when Heaven permits, be at the mercy of the solitary workings of an individual mind. The strongest trial of this determination of judgment is in those cases of urgency where something must immedi- ately be done, and the alternative of right or wrong is of important consequence ; as in the duty of a medical man, treating a patient whose situation at once requires a daring practice, and puts it in painful doubt what to dare. A still stronger illustration is the case of a general who is com- pelled, in the very instant, to make dispositions on which the event of a battle, the lives of thousands of his men, or perhaps almost the fate of a nation, may depend. He may even be placed in a dilemma "vniich appears equally dread- ful on both sides. Such a predicament is described in Denon's account of one of the sanguinary conflicts between the French and Mamelukes, as having for a while held in the most distressing hesitation General Desaix, though a prompt and intrepid commander. LETTER III. This indispensable basis, confidence of opinion, is how- ever not enough to constitute the character in question. For many persons who have been conscious and proud of a much stronger grasp of thought than ordinary men, and 22 Foster's essay on have held the most decided opinions on important things to be done, have yet exhibited, in the listlessness or incon- stancy of their actions, a contrast and a disgrace to the operations of their understandings. For want of some cogent feeling impelling them to carry every internal deci- sion into action, they have been still left where they were ; and a dignified judgment has been seen in the hapless plight of having no effective forces to execute its decrees. It is evident, then (and I perceive I have partly antici- pated this article in the first letter), that another essential principle of the character is, a total incapability of surren- dering to indifference or delay the serious determinations of the mind. A strenuous will must accompany the con- clusions of thought, and constantly incite the utmost efforts to give them a practical result. The intellect must be invested, if I may so describe it, with a glowing atmos- phere of passion, under the influence of which, the cold dictates of reason take fire, and spring into active powers. Revert once more in your thoughts to the persons most remarkably distinguished by this quality. You will per- ceive, that instead of allowing themselves to sit down delighted after the labor of successful tliinking, as if they had completed some great thing, they regard this labor but as a circumstance of preparation, and the conclusions resulting from it as of no more value (till going into effect) than the entombed lamps of the Rosicrucians. They are not disposed to be content in a region of mere ideas^, while they ought to be advancing into the field of corresponding realities ; they retire to that region sometimes, as ambitious adventurers anciently went to Delphi, to consult, but not to reside. You will therefore find them almost uniformly in determined pursuit of some object, on which they fix a keen and steady look, never losing sight of it while they follow it through the confused multitude of other things. A person actuated by such a spirit, seems by his manner to say. Do you think tliat I would not disdain to adopt a purpose which 1 would not devote my utmost force to effect; or that having thus devoted my exertions, I will intermit or withdraw them, through indolence, debility, or caprice; or that I will surrender my object to any inter- ference, except the uncontrollable dispensations of Provi- dence ? No, I am linked to ray determination with iron bands ; it clings to me as if a part of my destiny; and if DECISION OF CHARACTER. 23 its frustration be, on the contrary, doomed a part of that destiny, it is doomed so only through calamity or death. This display of systematic energy seems to Indicate a constitution of mind in which the passions are commensu- rate with the intellectual part, and at the same time hold an inseparable correspondence with it, like the faithful sympathy of the tides with the phases of the moon. There is such an equality and connection. The subjects of the decisions of judgment become proportionally and of course the objects of passion. When the judgment decides with a very strong preference, that same strength of preference, actuating also the passions, devotes them with energy to the object, as long as it is thus approved; and this will produce such a conduct as I have described. When, there- fore, a firm, self-confiding, and unaltering judgment fails to make a decisive character, it is evident either that the pas- sions in that mind are too languid to be capable of a strong and unremitting excitement, which defect makes an indo- lent or irresolute man ; or that they perversely sometimes coincide with judgment and sometimes clash with it, which makes an inconsistent or versatile man. There is no man so irresolute as not to act with determi- nation in many single cases, where the motive is powerful and simple, and where there is no need of plan and per- severance ; but this gives no claim to the term character^ which expresses the habitual tenor of a man's active being. The character may be displayed in the successive unconnected undertakings, which are each of limited extent, and end with the attainment of their particular objects. But it is seen in its most commanding aspect in those grand schemes of action, which have no necessary point of con- clusion, which continue on through successive years, and extend even to that dark period when the agent himself is withdrawn from human sight. I have repeatedly, in conversation, remarked to you tlie effect of what has been called a Ruling Passion. When its ohject is noble, and an enlightened understanding regulates its movements, it appears to me a great felicity ; but whe- ther its object be noble or not, it infallibly creates, where it exists in great force, that active ardent constancy, which I describe as a capital feature of the decisive , character. The Subject of such a commanding passion wonders, if indeed he were at leisure to wonder, at the persons who 24 Foster's essay on pretend to attach importance to an object which they make none but the most languid efforts to secure. The utmost powers of the man are constrained into the service of the favorite Cause by this passion, which sweeps away, as it advances, all the trivial objections and little opposing mo- tives, and seems almost to open a way through impossibi- lities. This spirit comes on him in the morning as soon as he recovers his consciousness, and commands and impels him through the day, with a power from which he could not emancipate himself if he would. When the force of habit is added, the determination becomes invincible, and seems to assume rank with the great laws of nature, mak- ing it nearly as certain that such a man will persist in his course as that in the morning the sun will rise. A persisting untamable eflBcacy of soul gives a sedac- tive and pernicious dignity even to a character which every moral principle forbids us to approve. Often in the nar- rations of history and fiction, an agent of the most dreadful designs compels a sentunent of deep respect for the uncon- querable mind displayed in their execution. While we shudder at his activity, we say with regret, mingled with an admiration which borders on partiality. What a noble being this would have been, if goodness had been his des- tiny ! The partiality is evinced in the very selection of terms, by which we show that we are tempted to refer his atrocity rather to his destiny than to his choice. I wonder whether an emotion like this has not been experienced by each reader of Paradise Lost, relative to the Leader of the infernal spirits; a proof, if such were the fact, of some insinuation of evil into the magnificent creation of the poet. In some of the high examples of ambition (the am- bition which is a vice), we almost revere the force of mind which impelled them forward through the longest series of action, superior to doubt and fluctuation, and disdainful of ease, of pleasures, of opposition, and of danger. We bend in homage before the ambitious spirit which reached the true sublime in the reply of Pompey to his friends, who dissuaded him from hazarding his life on a tempestuous sea in order to be at Rome on an important occasion: "It is necessary for me to go, it is not necessary for me to live." Revenge has produced wonderful examples of this unre- mitting constancy to a purpose. Zanga is a well-supported DECISION OF CHARACTER. 25 illustration. And you may have read of a real instance of a Spaniard, who, being injured by another inhabitant of the same town, resolved to destroy liiin; the otlier was apprised of this, and removed with the utmost secrecy, a he thought, to another town at a considerable distance where, however, he had not been more than a day or two before he found that his enemy also was there. He re moved in the same manner to several parts of the kingdom remote from each otlier; but in every place quickly per- ceived that his deadly pursuer was near him. At last he went to Sontli America, where lie had enjoyed his security but a very short time, before his relentless pursuer came up with him, and accomplished his purpose. You may recollect tlie mention in one of our conversa- tions, of a young man who wasted in two or three years a large patrimony, in profligate revels with a number of worthless associates calling themselves his friends, till his last means were exhausted, when they of course treated him with neglect or contempt. Reduced to absolute want, he one day went out of the house with an intention to put an end to his life; but wandering awhile almost uncon- sciously, he came to the brow of an eminence which over- looked what were lately his estates. Here he sat down and remained fixed in thought a number of hours, at the end of which he sprang from the ground with a vehement exulting emotion. He had formed his resolution, which was that all these estates should be his again ; he had formed his plan too, which he instantly began to execute. He walked hastily forward, determined to seize the very first opportunity, of however humble a kind, to gain any money, though it were ever so despicable a trifle, and re- solved absolutely not to spend, if he could help it, a farthing of whatever he might obtain. The first thing that drew his attention was a heap of coals, shot out of carts on the pave- ment before a house. He offered himself to shovel or wheel them into the place where they were to be laid, and was employed. He received a few pence for the labor; and then, in pursuance of the saying part of his plan, requested some small gratuity of meat and drink, which was given him. He then looked out for the next thing that might chance to offer; and went, with indefatigable industry, through a succession of servile employments, in different places, of longer and shorter duration, still scrupulously 3 26 Foster's essay on avoiding, as far as possible, the expense of a penny. He promptly seized ete.ry opportunity which could advance his design, without regarding tlie meanness of occupation or appearance. By this metliod he had gained, after a consi- derable time, money enough to ])urchase, in order to sell again, a few cattle, of which he had taken pains to under- stand the value. He speedily but cautiously turned his first gains into second advantages; retained Avithout a single deviation liis extreme parsimony ; and thus advanced by degrees into lai'ger transactions and incipient wealth. I did not hear, or have forgotten, the continued course of hiS life; but the final result was, tliat he more than recov- ered his lost possessions, and died an inveterate miser, worth 60,000^. I have always recollected this as a signal instance, though in an unfortunate and ignoble direction, of decisive character, and of the extraordinary effect which, according to general laws, belongs to the strongest form of such a character. But nor less decision has been displayed by men of virtue. In this distinction no man ever exceeded, or ever will ex- ceed, for instance, the late illustrious Howard. The energy of his determination was so great, that if, instead of being habitual, it liad been shown only for a short time on i)articular occasions, it would have appeared a vehement impetuosity; but by being unintermitted, it had an equability of manner which scarcely appeared to exceed the tone of a calm constancy, it was so totally the reverse of anything like turbulence or agitation. It was the calmness of an intensity kept uniform by the nature of the human mind forbidding it to be more, and by the cha- racter of the individual forbidding it to be less. The habitual passion of his mind was a pitch of excitement and impulsion almost equal to the temporary extremes and paroxysms of common minds; as a great river, in its cus- tomary state, is equal to a small or moderate one when swollen to a torrent. The moment of finishing his plans in deliberation, and commencing them in action, was the same. I wonder what must have been the amount of that bribe, in emolument or pleasure, that would have detained him a week inactive after their final adjustment. The law which carries water down a declivity was not more unconquerable and invari- able than the determination of his feelings toward the main DECISION OF CHARACTER. "^ object: The importance of this object held his faculties in a state of determination which was too rigid to be affected by lighter interests, and on which therefore the beauties of nature and of art had no power. He had no leisure feeliug which he could spare to be diverted among the innumerable varieties of the extensive scene which he tra- versed; his subordinate feelings nearly lost their separate existence and operation, by falling into the grand one. There have not been wanting trivial minds to mark this as a fault in his character. But the mere men of taste ought to be silent respecting such a man as Howard; he is above their sphere of judgment. The invisible spirits, who fulfill their commission of philanthropy among mortals, do nt)t care about pictures, statues, and sumptuous buildings ; and no more did he, when t])e time in which he must have inspected and admired them, would have been taken from the work to which he had consecrated his life. The curi- osity which he might feel, was reduced to wait till the hour should arrive, when its gratification should be presented by conscience (which kept a scrupulous charge of all his time), as the duty of that hour. If he v/as still at every hour, when it came, fated to feel the attractions of the fine arts but the second claim, they might be sure of their revenge; for no other man will ever visit Rome under such a despotic acknowledged rule of duty, as to refuse himself time for surveying the magnificence of its ruins. Such a sin against faste is very far beyond the reach of common saintship to commit. It implied an inconceivable severity of conviction, that he had one thing to do^ and that he who would do some great thing in this short life, must apply himself to the work with such a concentration of his forces, as, to idle sp ctators, who live only to amuse themselves, looks like insanity. His attention was so strongly and tenaciously fixed on his object, that even at the greatest distance, as the Egyp- tian pyramids to travellers, it appeared to him witii a lumintuis distinctness as if it had been nigh, and beguiled the toilsome length of labor and enterprise by which he was to reach it. So conspicuous was it before him, that not a step deviated from the direction, and every move- ment and every day was an approximation. As his me- thod referred everything he did and thought to the end, and as his exertion did not relax for a moment, he made the 28 Foster's essay on trial, so seldom made, what is the utmost effect which may be granted to the last possible efforts of a huinan ageDt: and therefore what he did not accomplish, he might conchide to be placed beyond the sphere of mortal acti- vity, and calmly lead to the immediate disposal of Provi- dence. Unless the eternal happiness of mankind be an insignifi- cant concern, and the passion to promote it an inglorious distinction, I may cite George Whitetield as a noble instance of this attribute of tiie decisive character, this intense necessity of action. The great cause which was so languid a thing in the hands of many of its advocates, assumed in his administrations an unmitigable urgency. Many of the Christian missionaries among the heatliens, such as Brainerd, Elliot, and Schwartz, have displayed memorable examples of this dedication of their whole being to their office, this abjuration of all the quiescent feelings. This would be the proper place for introducing (if I did not iiesitate to introduce in any connection with merely human instances) the example of him who said, " I must be about my Father's business. My meat and drink is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straight- ened till it be accomplished." LETTER lY. After the illustrations on the last article, it will seem but a very slight transition wiien 1 proceed to specify Courage as an ess»^ntial part of the decisive character. An intelligent man, adventurous only in thought, may sketch the most excellent scheme, and after duly admiring it, and himself as its author, may be reduced to say, What a noble spirit that would be which should dare to realize this ! A noble spirit! is it I? And his heart may answer in the negative, while he glances a mortified thought of inquiry round to recollect persons who would venture what he dares not, and almost hopes not to find them. Or if by DECISION or CHARACTER, 29 extreme effort he has brought himself to a resohition of braving the difficulty, he is compelled to execrate the timid liiigerings that still keep him back from the trial. A man endowed with the complete character, might say, with a sober consciousness, as remote from the spirit of bravado as it is from timidity, Thus, and thus, is my conviction and my determination; now for the phantoms of fear; let me look them in the face ; their menacing glare and omi- nous tones vN'ill be lost on me ; " I dare do all that may become a man." I trust I shall firmly confront everything that threatens me while prosecuting my purpose, and I am prepared to meet the consequences of it when it is accom- plished. I should despise a being, though it were myself, whose agency could be held enslaved by the gloomy shapes of imagination, by the haunting recollections of a dream, by the whistling or the howling of winds, by the shriek of owls, by the shades of midnight, or by the threats or frowns of man. I should be indignant to feel that, in the commencement of an adventure, I coukl think of nothing but the deep pit by the side of the way where I must walk, into wliich I may slide, tlie mad animal which it is not impossible that I may meet, or the assassin who may lurk in a thicket of yonder wood. And I disdain to compro- mise the interests that rouse me to action, for the privilege of an ignoble security. As the conduct of a man of decision is always individual, and often singular, he may expect some serious trials of cou- rage. For one thing, he may be encountered by the strongest disapprobation of many of his connexions, and the censure of the greater part of the society where he is known. In this case, it is not a man of common spirit that can show himself just as at other times, and meet their anger in the same undisturbed manner as he would meet some ordinary inclemency of the weather; that can, without harshness or violence, continue to effect every moment some part of his design, coolly replying to each ungracious look and indig- nant voice, Tain sorry to oppose you : I am not unfriendly to you, while thus persisting in wliut excites your displeasure; it would ])lease me to have your approbation and con- currence, and I think I should have them if you would seriously consider my reasons; but meanwl ile, I am superior to opinion, I am not to be intimidated by re- proaches, nor would your favor and applause be any reward 30 for the sacrifice of my object. As you can do without my approbation, I can certainly do without yours; it is enough that I can approve myself, it is enough that I appeal to the last authority in the creation. Amuse your- selves as you may, by continuing to censure or to rail; / must continue to act. The attack of contempt and ridicule is perhaps a still greater trial of courage. It is felt by all to be an admira- ble thing, when it can in no degree be ascribed to the hardness of either stupidity or confirmed depravity, to sustain for a considerable time, or in numerous instances, the looks of scorn, or an unrestrained shower of taunts and jeers, with perfect composure, and proceed immediately after, or at the time, on business that provokes all this ridicule. This invincibility of temper will often make even scoffers themselves tired of the sport: they begin to feel that against such a man it is a poor sort of hostility to joke and sneer; and there is nothing that people nre more mortified to spend in vain than their scorn. Till, how- ever, a man shall become a veteran, he must reckon on sometimes meeting this trial in the course of virtuous enterprise. And if, at the suggestion of some meritorious but unprecedented proceeding, 1 hear him ask, with a look and tone of shrinking alarm, But will they not laugh at me? — I know that he is not the person whom this essay attempts to describe. A man of the right kind would say, They will smile, they will laugh, will tiiey? Much good may it do them. I have something else to do than to trouble myself about their mirth. I do not care if the whole neighborhood were to laugh in a chorus. I should indeed be sorry to see or hear such a number of fools, but pleased enough to find that they considered me as an outlaw to their tribe. The good to result from my project will not be less, because vain and shallow minds that cannot understand it, are diverted at it and at me. What should I think of my pursuits, if every trivial, thoughtless being could comprehend or would applaud them ; and of myself, if my courage needed levity and ignorance for tiieir allies, or could be abashed at their sneers ? I remember, tliat on reading the account of the projpct for conquering Peru, formed by Ahnagro, Pizarro, and l)e Luques, while abhorring the actuating principle of the men, I could not help admiring the hardihood of mind which DECISION OF CHARACTER. 31 made them regardless of scorn. These three individuals, before they had obtained any associates, or arms, or sol- diers, or more than a very imperfect knowledge of the power of the kingdom tliey were to conquer, celebrated a solemn mass in one of the great churches, as a pledge and a commencement of the enterprise, amidst the astonish- ment and contempt expressed by a multitude of people for what was deemed a monstrous project. They, however, proceeded through the service, and afterwards to their respective departments of preparation, with an .opparently entire insensibility to all tliis triumphant contempt; and thus gave the first proof of possessing- that invincible firm- ness with which they afterwards prosecuted their design, till they a*^tained a success, the destructive ))rocess and many of the results of which humanity has ever de- plored. Milton's Abdiel is a noble illustration of the courage that rises invincible above the derision not only of the multi- tade, but of the proud and elevated. But there may be situations where decision of character will be brouglit to trial against evils of a darker aspect than disapprobation or contempt. There may be the threatening of serious sufferings ; and very often, to dare as far as conscience or a great cause required, has been to dare to die. In almost all plans of great enterprise, a man must systematically dismiss, at the entrance, every wish to stipulate with his destiny for safety. He voluntarily treads within the precincts of danger; and thougli it be possible he may escape, he ought to be prepared with tho fortitude of a self- devoted victim. This is the inevitable condition on which heroes, travellers or missionaries among savage nations, and reformers on a grand scale, must commence their career. Either they must allay their fire of enterprise, or abide the hability to be exploded by it from the world. ^ . The last decisive energy of a rational courage, which confides in the Supreme Power, is very sublime. It makes a man who intrepidly dares everything that can oppose or attack him witiiin the whole si)here of mortality ; who will still press toward his object while death is impending over him ; who would retain his purpose unshaken amidst the ruins of the world. It was in the true elevation of this character that Luther, 32 FOSTERS ESSAY ON when cited to appear at the Diet of Worms, under a very questionable assurance of safety from high authority, said to his friends, who conjured him not to go, and warned him by the example of John Huss, whom, in a similar situa- tion, the same pledge of protection had not saved from the fire, '^ I am called in the name of God to go. and I would go, though I were certain to meet as many devils in Worms as there are tiles on the houses." A reader of the Bible will not forget Daniel, braving in calm devotion the decree which virtually consigned him to the den of lions; or Shadrach, Meshacli, and Abed- nego, saying to the tyrant, " We are not careful to answer thee in this matter," when the "burning fiery" furnace was in sight. The combination of these several essential principles constitutes that state of mind which is a grand requisite to decision of character, and perhaps its most striking dis- tinction — the full agreement of mind with itself, the consenting co-operation of all its powers and all its dis- positions. What an unfortunate task it would be for a charioteer, who had harnessed a set of horses, however strong, if he could not make them draw together; if while one of the.n would go forward, another was restitf, another struggled backward, another started aside. If even one of the four were unmanageably perverse, while tlie three were tracta- ble, an aged beggar with his crutch might leave Phaeton behind. So in a human being, unless the chief forces act consentaneously, there can be no inflexible vigor, either of will or execution. One dissentient principle in the mind not only deducts so much from the strength and mass of its agency, but counteracts and embarrasses all the rest. If the judgment holds in low estimation tluxt which yet the passions incline to pursue, the pursuit will be irregular and inconstant, though it may have occasional fits of aniination, when those passions happen to be highly stimulated. If there is an opposition between judgment and habit, though the man will probably continue to act mainly under the sway of habit in spite of his opinions, yet sometimes the intrusion of those opinions will have for the moment an effect like that of Prospero's wand on the limbs of Ferdinand; and to be alternately impelled by habit, and checked by opinion. DECISION OF CHARACTER. 33 will be a state of vexations debility. Tf two principal passions are opposed to each other, they will utterly dis- tract any mind, whatever might be the force of its facul- ties if acting without embarrassment. The one passion may be somewhat stronger than the other, and therefore just prevail barely enough to give a feeble impulse to the conduct of the man ; a feebleness which will continue till there be a greater disparity between these rivals, in conse- quence of a reinforcement to the slightly ascendent one, by new impressions or the gradual strengthening of habit forming in its favor. The disparity must be no less than an absolute predominance of the one and subjection of the other, before the prevailing passion will have at liberty from the intestine conflict any large measure of its force to throw activity into the system of conduct. If, for instance, a man feels at once the love of fame, which is to be gained only by arduous exertions, and an equal degree of the love of ease or pleasure, which precludes those exertions ; if he is eager to show off in splendor, and yet anxious to save money; if he has the curiosity of adventure, and yet that solicitude for safety, which forbids him to climb a preci- pice, descend into a cavern, or explore a dangerous wild ; if he has the stern will of a tyrant, and yet the relentings of a rnifti ; if he has the ambition to domineer over his fellow-mortals, counteracted by a reluctance to inflict so much mischief as it might cost to subdue them ; we may anticipate the irresolute contradictory tenor of his actions. Especially if conscience, that great troubler of the human breast, loudly declares against a man's wishes or projects, it will be a fatal enemy to decision, till it either reclaim the delinquent passions, or be debauched or laid dead by them. Lady Macbeth may be cited as a harmonious character, though the epithet seem strangely applied. She had capa- city, ambition, and courage; and she willed the death of the king. Macbeth hud still more capacity, ambition, and courage; and he also willed the murder of the king. But he had besides humanity, generosity, conscience, and some measure of what forms the 'power of conscience, the fear of a Superior Being. Consequently, when the dreadful mo- ment approached, he felt an insiipportable conflict between these opposite principles, and when it was arrived his ut- most courage began to fail. The worst part of his nature 34 Foster's essay on fell prostrate under the power of the better ; the angel of goodness arrested the demon that grasped the dagger ; and would have taken that dagger away, if the pure demoniac firmness of hi.s wife, who had none of these counteracting principles, had not shamed and hardened him to the deed. The poet's delineation of Richard III. offers a dreadful specimen of this indivisibility of mental impulse. After his determination was fixed, the whole mind, with the compactest fidelity, supported him in prosecuting it. Se- curely privileged from all interference of doubt that could linger, or humanity that could soften, or timidity that could shrink, he advanced with a concentrated constancy through scene after scene of atrocity, still fulfilling his vow to '' cut his way through with a bloody axe." He did not waver while he pursued bis object, nor relent when he seized it. Cromwell (whom I mention as a parallel, of course not to Richard's wickedness, but to his inflexible vigor), lost his mental consistency in the latter end of a career which had displayed a sui)erlative example of decision. It appears that the wish to be a king, at last arose in a mind which had contemned royalty, and battled it from the land. As far as he really had any republican principles and partialities, this new desire must have been a very untoward "associate for them, and must have produced a schism in the breast where all the strong forces of thought and passion had acted till then in concord. The new form of ambition became just predominant enough to carry him, by slow degrees, through the embarrassment and the shame of this .incongruity, into an irresolute' determination to assume the crown ; so irresolute, that he was reduced again to a mor- tifying indecision by the remonstrances of some of his friends, which he could have slighted, and by an apprehen- sion of the public disapprobation, which he could have braved, if some of the principles of his own mind had not shrunk or revolted from the design. "When at last the motives for relinquishing this design prevailed, it was by so small a degree of preponderance, that his reluctant refusal of the offered crown was the voice of only half his soul. Not only two distinct counteracting passions, but one passion interested for two objects, both equally desirable, but of which the one must be sacrificed, may anniliilate in that instance the possibility of a resolute promptitude of DECISION OF CHARACTER. 85 conduct. I recollect reading in an old divine, a story from some historian, applicable to this remark. A father went to the agents of a t}-rant, to endeavor to redeem his two sons, militar\' men, who, with some other captives of war, vere condemned to die. He offered, as a ransom, a sum of money, and to surrender his own life. The tyrant's agents who had them in charge, informed him that this equivalent would be accepted for one of his sons, and for one only, because they should be accountable for the exe- cution of two persons ; he might therefore choose wliich he would redeem. Anxious to save even one of them thus at the expense of his own life, he yet was unable to decide which sliould die, by choosing the other to live, and re- mained in the agony of this dilemma so long that they were both irreversibly ordered for execution. LETTER Y. It were absurd to suppose that any human being can attain a state of mind capable of acting in all instances invariably with the full power of determination ; but it is obvious that many liave possessed a habitual and very commanding measure of it; and I think the preceding remarks have taken account of its chief characteristics and constituent principles. A number of additional observa- tions remains. The slightest view of human affjiirs shows what fatal and wide-spread mischief may be caused by men of this character, when misled or wicked. You have but to recol- lect the conquerors, despots, bigots, unjust conspirators, and signal villains of every class, who have blasted society by the relentless vigor which could act consistently and heroically wrong. Till, therefore, the virtue of mankind be greater, there is reason to be pleased that so few of them are endowed with extraordinary decision. Even when dignified by wisdom and principle, this quality requires great care in the possessors of it to prevent its becoming unamiable. As it involves much practical assertion of superiority over other human beings, it should 36 Foster's essay on he as temperate and conciliating as possible in manner; Jse pride will feel provoked, affection hurt, and weakness (ppressed. But this is not the manner which will be most latural to such a man; rather it will be high-toned, laconic, and careless of pleasing. He will have the appearance of keeping himself always at a distance from social equality; and his friends will feel as if their friendship were con- tinually sliding into subserviency; while his intimate con- nexions will think he does not attach the due importance either to their opinions or to their regard. His manner, when they differ- from him, or complain, will be too much like the expression of slight estimation, and sometimes of disdain. "When he can accomplish a design by his own personal means alone, he maybe disposed to separate himself to the work with the cold self-inclosed individuality on which no one has any hold, which seems to recognize no kindred being in the world, which takes little account of good wishes and kind concern, any more than it cares for oppo- sition; wliich seeks neither aid nor sympathy, and seems to say, I do not want any of you, and I am glad that I do not; leave me alone to succeed or die. This has a very repellent effect on the friends who wished to feel them- selves of some importance, in some way or other, to a person whom they are constrained to respect. "When assistance is indispensable to his undertakings, his mode of signifying it will seem to command, rather than invite, the co-operation. In consultation, his manner will indicate that when he ii^ equally with the rest in possession of the circumstances of the case, he does not at all expect to hear any opinions that shall correct his own; but is satisfied that either his present conception of the subject is a just one, or that his own mind must originate that which shall be so. This difference will be apparent between him and his associ- ates, that their manner of receiving his opinions is that of agreement or dissent; Ms manner of receiving theirs is judicial — that of sanction or rejection. He has the tone of autlioritatively deciding on what they say, but never of submitting to decision what himself says. Their coin- cidence with his views does not give him a firmer assur- ance of his being right, nor their dissent any other impres- sion than that of their incapacity to judge. If his feeling DECISION OF CHARACTER. 3lf took the distinct form of a reflection, it would be, Mine i? the business of comprehending and devising, and I am here to rule this company, and not to consult them ; I want their docility, and not their arguments; I am come, not to seek their assistance in tliinking, but to determine their concurrence in executing what is already thouglit for them. Of cour^e, many suggestions and reasons which appear important to those they come from, will be disposed of by him with a transient attention, or a light laciMty, that will seem very disre^ipectful to persons who possibly hesitate to admit that he is a demi-god, and that they are but idiots. Lord Chatham, in going out of the House of Commons, just as one of the speakers against him concluded his speech by emphatically urging what he perhaps rightly thouglit the unanswerable question, '•''Where can we find means to support such a war?" turned round a mo- ment, and gaily chanted, " Gentle shepherd, tell me where ?" Even the assenting convictions, and practical compli- ances, yielded by degrees to this decisive man, may be somewhat undervalued ; as they will appear to him no more than simply coming, and that very slowly, to a right apprehension; wliereas he understood and decided justly from the first, and has been right all this while. He will be in danger of rejecting the just claims of charity for a little tolerance to the prejudices, hesitation, and timidity of those with whom he has to act. He will say to himself, I wish there were anything like manhood among the beings called men ; and that they could have the sense and spirit not to let themselves be hampered by so many silly notions and childish fears! Why cannot they either determine with some promptitude, or let me, that can, do it for them? Am I to wait till debility be- come strong, and folly wise? If full scope be allowed to these tendencies, they may give too much of the character of a tyrant to even a man of elevated virtue, since, in the consciousness of the right intention, and the assurance of the wise ct)ntrivance, of his designs, he will hold himself justified in being regardless of everything but the accom- plisliment of them. He will forget all respect for the feelings and liberties of beings who are accounted but a subordinate machinery, to be actuated, or to be thrown 4 SB Foster's essay on aside when not actuated, by the spring of his commanding spirit. I have before asserted that this strong character may be exhibited with a mildness, or at least, temperance of man- ner; and that, generally, it will thus best secure its efficacy. But this mildness must often be at the cost of great effort; and how much considerate policy or benevolent forbear- ance it will require, for a man to exert his utmost vigor in the very task, as it will appear to him at the time, of cramping that vigor ! Lycurgus appears to have been a high example of conciliating patience in the resolute prosecution of designs to be effected among a perverse multitude. It is probable that the men most distinguished for de- cision have not in general possessed a large share of tender- ness ; and it is easy to imagine, that the laws of our nature will, with great difficulty, allow the combination of the refined sensibilities with a hard, never-shrinking, never- yielding firmness. Is it not almost of the essence of this temperament to be free from even the perception of such impressions as cause a mind, weak through susceptibility, to relax or waver; just as the skin of the elephant, or the armor of the rhinoceros, would be but indistinctly sensi- ble to the application of a force by which a small animal, with a skin of thin and delicate texture, would be pierced or lacerated to death? No doubt this firmness consists partly in a commanding and repressive power over feel- ings, but it may consist fully as much in not having them. To be exquisitely alive to gentle impressions, and yet to be able to preserve, when the prosecution of a design requires it, an immovable heart amidst the most imperious causes of subduing emotion, is perhaps not an impossible consti- tution of mind, but it must be the rarest endowment of humanity. If you take a view of the first rank of decisive men, you will observe that their faculties have been too much bent to arduous eft'ort, their souls have been kept in too mili- tary an attitude, they have been begirt with too much iron, for the melting movements of the heart. Their whole being appears too much arrogated and occupied by the spirit of severe design, urging them toward some defined end, to be sufficiently at ease for the indolent com- DECISION OF CHARACTER. 39 placency, the soft lassitude of gentle affections, which love to surrender themselves to the present felicities, forgetful of all ''enterprises of great pith and moment.'" The man seems rigorously intent still on his own affairs, as he walks, or regales, or mingles with domestic society; and appears to despise all the feelings that will not take rank with the grave lahors and decisions of intellect, or coalesce with the unremitting passion which is his spring of action ; he values not feelings which he cannot employ either as wea- pons or as engines. He loves to he actuated by a passion so strong as to compel into exercise the utmost force of his being, and fix him in a tone, compared with which, the gentle affections, if he had felt thein, would be accounted tameness, and their exciting causes insipidity. Yet we cannot willingly admit that those gentle affec- tions are totally incompatible with the most impregnable resolution and vigor; nor can we help believing that such men as Tiraoleon, Alfred, and Gustavus Adolphus, must have been very fascinating associates in private and do- mestic life, whenever the urgency of their affiiirs would allow them to withdraw from the interests of statesmen and warriors, to indulge the affections of men : most fasci- nating, for, with relations or friends who had any right perceptions, an effect of the strong character would be recognized in a peculiar charm imparted by it to the gentle moods and seasons. The firmness and energy of the man whom nothing could subdue, would exalt the quality of the tenderness which softened him to recline. But it were much easier to enumerate a long train of ancient and modern examples of the vigor unmitigated by the sensibility. Perhaps, indeed, these indomitable spirits have yielded sometimes to some species of love, as a mode of amusing their passions for an interval, till greater engagements have summoned them into their proper ele- ment; when they have shown how little the sentiment was an element of the heart, by the ease with which they could relinquish the temporary favorite. In other cases, where there have not been the selfish inducements, which this passion supplies, to the exhibition of something like softness, and where they have been left to the trial of what they might feel of the sympathies of humanity in their simplicity, no rock on earth could be harder. T le celebrated King of Prussia o curs to rae as a capital 40 Foster's essay on instance of the decisive character ; and there occurs to mc, at the same time, one of the anecdotes related of him.* Intending to make, in the night, an important movement in his camp, which was in sight of the enemy, he gave orders that hy eight o'clock all tlie lights in the camp should be put out, on pain of death. The moment that the time was passed, he walked out himself to see whether all were dark. He found a liglit in the tent of a Captain Zieturn, which he entered just as the o.ficer was folding up a letter. Zieturn knew him, and instantly fell on his knees to entreat his mercy. The king asked to whom he had been writing ; he said it was a letter to his wife, which he had retained the candle these few minutes beyond the time in order to finish. The king coolly ordered him to rise, and write one line more, which he should dictate. This line was to inform his wife, without any explanation, that by such an hour the next day he should be a dead man. The letter was then sealed, and dispatched as it had been intended ; and, the next day, the captain was executed. I say nothing of the justice of the punishment itself; but this cool barbarity to the affection both of the officer and his wife, proved how little the decisive hero and reputed philosopher was capable of the tender afiections, or of sympathizing with their pains. At tlie same time, it is proper to observe, that the case may easily occur, in which a man, sustaining a high respon- sibility, miist be resolute to act in a manner which may make him appear to want the finer feelings. He may be placed under the necessity of doing what he knows will cause pain to persons of a character to feel it severely. He may be obliged to resist afiectionate wishes, expostula- tions, entreaties, and tears. Take this same instance. Suppose the wife of Zietern had come to supplicate for him, not only the remission of the punishment of death, but an exemption from any other severe punishment. * The authenticity of this auecd'^te, which I read in some trifling fugitive publication many years since, has been questioned. Possibly enough it might be one of the many stories only half true, which could not fail to go abroad concerning a man who made, in his day, so great a figure. But as it does not at all misrepresent the general character of his mind, since there are many incontrovertible facts, proving against him as great a degree of cruelty as this anecdote would cliarge on him, the want of means to prove this one fact does not seem to impose any necessity for omitting the illus- tration. DECISION OF CHARACTER. 41 which was perhaps justly due to the violation of such an order, issued no doubt for important reasons; it had then probably been the duty and the virtue of the commander to deny tlie most interesting suppliant, and to resist the most pathetic appeals which could have been made to his feelmo;s. LETTER yi. Various circumstances might be specified as adapted to confirm such a character as I have attempted to describe. I shall notice two or three. And first, oj^position. The passions which inspirit men to resistance, and sustain them in it, such as anger, indig- nation, and resentment, are evidently far stronger than those which have reference to friendly objects; and if any of these strong passions are frequently excited by opposi- tion, they infuse a certain quality into the general tem- perament of the mind, which remains after the immediate excitement is passed. They continually strengthen the principle of re-action; they put the mind in the habitual array of defense and self-assertion, and often give it the aspect and the posture of a gladiator, when there appears no confronting combatant. When these passions are pro- voked' in such a person as I describe, it is probable that each excitement is followed by a greater increase of this principle of re-action than in other men, because this result is so congenial with his naturally resolute disposition. Let him be opposed then, throughout the prosecution of one of his designs, or in the general tenor of his actions, and tliis constant opposition would render him the service of an ally, by augmenting the resisting and defying power of his mind. Ah irresoinre spirit indeed might be quelled and subjugated by a formidable and ]iersisting opposition ; but the strong wind wliich blows out a tajjer, exasperates a powerful fire (if there be fuel enough) to an indefinite intensity. It would be found, in fact, on a recollection of instances, that many of the persons most conspicuous for decision, have been exercised and forced to this high tone of spirit in having to make their way through opposition 42 Foster's essay on and contest; a discipline under which they were wrought to both a prompt acuteness of foculty, and an inflexibility of temper, hardly attainable even by minds of great natural sti-eiigth, if brought forward into the affairs of life under iiidnliient auspices, and in habits of easy and friendly coin- cidence with those around them. Often, however, it is granted, the firnmess matured by such discipline is, in a man of virtue, accompanied with a Catonic severity, and in a mere man of the world is an inhuraanized repulsive hardness. Desertion may be another cause conducive to the conso- lidation of this character. A kind, mutually reclining dependence, is certainly for the happiness of human beings ; but this necessarily prevents the development of some great individual powers wliich would be forced into action by a state of abandonment. I lately happened to notice, with some surprise, an ivy, which finding nothing to cling to beyond a certain point, had shot off into a bold, elastic stem, with an air of as much indei)endence as any branch of oak in the vicinity. /rSo a human being thrown, whe- ther by cruelty, justice, or accident, from all social sup- port or kindness, if he have any vigor of spirit, and be not in the bodily debility of either childhood or age, will begin to act for himself with a resolution which will appear like a new faculty. * And the most absolute inflexibility is likely Mt> characterize the resolution of an individual who is obliged to deliberate without consultation, and execute without assistance. He will disdain to yield to beings who have rejected him, or to forego a particle of his designs or advantages in conce>;sion to the opinions or the will of all the world. Himself, his pursuits, and his in- terests, are emphatically his own. '' The world is not his Mend, nor the world's law ;" and therefore he becomes regardless of everything but its power, of which his policy carefully takes the measure, in order to ascertain his own means of action and impunity, as set against the world's menus of annoyance, prevention, and retaliation. Jf this person have but little humanity or principle, he will be(!ome a mis.-intiirope, or perhnps a villain, who will resemble a solitary wild beast of the night, which makes prfv of everything it can overpower, and cares for nothing but fire. If he be capable of grand conception and enter- prise, he may, like Spartacus, make a daring attempt DECISION OF CHARACTER. 43 against the whole social order of the state where he has been oppressed. If he be of great humanity and principle, he may become one of the noblest of mankind, and disphiy a generous virtue to which society had no claim, and which it is not worthy to reward, if it should at last become in- clined. No, lie will say, give your rewards to another; as it has been no part of my object to gain them, they are not necessary to my satisfaction. I have done good, without expecting your gratitude, and without caring for your approbation. If conscience and. my Creator had not been more auspicious than you, none of these virtues would ever have opened to the day. When I ought to have been an object of jour compassion, I might have perished; now, when you find I can serve your interests, you will affect to acknowledge me and reward me ; but I will abide by my destiny to verify the principle that virtue is its own reward. In either case, virtuous or wicked, the man who has been compelled to do without assistance, will spurn interference. , Common life would supply illustrations of the effect of desertion, in examples of some of the most resolute men having become such partly from being left friendless in early life. The case has also sometimes happened, that a wife and mother, remarkable perhaps for gentleness and acquiescence before, has been compelled, after the death of her husband on whom she depended, and when she has met with nothing but neglect or unkindness from rela- tions and those who had been accounted friends, to adopt a plan of her own, and has executed it with a resolution which has astonished even herself. One regrets that the signal examples, real or fictitious, that most readily present themselves, are still of the de- praved order. I fancy myself to see Marius sitting on the ruins of Carthage, where no arch or column, that remained unshaken amidst the desolation, could present a stronger image of a firmness beyond the power of disaster to subdue. The rigid constancy which had before distinguished his cha- racter, would be aggravated by its finding himself thus an outcast from all human society; and he would probably shake ort' every sentiment that had ever for an instant checked ids designs in the way of reminding him of social obligations. The lonely individual was placed in the alternative of becoming the victim or the antagonist of the power of the 44 Foster's essay on empire. "While, with a spirit capable of confronting that power, he resolved, amidst those ruins, on a great experi- ment, he would enjoy a kind of sullen luxury in surveying the dreary situation into which he was driven, and recol- lecting tlie circumstance of his expulsion; since they would seem to him to sanction an unHmited vengeance ; to pre- sent what had been his country as the pure legitimate prize for desperate achievement; and to give him a proud con- sequence in being reduced to maintain singly a mortal quarrel against the bulk of mankind. He would exult that the very desolation of his condition rendered but the more complete the proof of his possessing a mind which no mis- fortunes could repress or intimidate, and that it kindled an animosity intense enough to force that mind from firm endurance into impetuous action. He would feel that he became stronger for enterprise, in proportion as his exile and destitution rendered him more inexorable; and the sentiment with wiiich he quitted his solitude would be — Rome expelled her patriot, let her receive, her evil genius. The decision of Satan, in Paradise Lost, is represented as consolidated by his reflections on his hopeless banish- ment from heaven, which oppress liiin with sadness for some moments, but he soon resumes his in'vincible spirit, and utters the impious but sublime sentiment, " What matter where, if 1 be still the same f " You remember how this effect of desertion is represented in Charles de Moor.* His father's supposed cruel rejection consigned him irretrievably to the career of atrocious en- terprise, in Avhich, notwithstanding the most interesting emotions of humanity and tenderness, he persisted with heroic determination till he considered his destiny as accomplished. Success tends considerably to reinforce this commanding quality. It is true that a man possessing it in a hijj^h dejj:ree will not lose it by occasional failure; for if the failure was caused by something entirely beyond the reach of human knowledge and ability, he will remember that fortitude is the virtue required in meeting unfavorable * A wildly extravagant, certainly, but most imposing and gigantic cha- racter in Schiller's tragedy, The Hobhers. DECISION OF CHARACTER. 45 events which in no sense depended on him ; if by some- thii)g which might have been known and prevented, he will feel that even the experience of failure completes his competence, by admonishing his prudence, and enlarging his understanding. Bnt as schemes and measures of action, rightly adjusted to their proposed ends, will generally attain them, continual failure would show something essen- tially wrong in a man's system, and destroy his confidence, or else expose it as mere absurdity or obstinacy. On the contrary, when a man has ascertained by experiment the justness of his calculations and the extent of his powers, when he has measured his force with various persons, when he has braved and vanquished difficulty, and partly seized the prize, he will carry forward the re^^ult of all this in an intrepid self-sufficiency for whatever may yet await him. In some men, whose lives have been spent in constant perils, continued success has produced a confidence beyond its rational effect, by inspiring a presumption that the common laws of human affairs were, in their case, super- seded by the decrees of a peculiar destiny, securing them from almost the possibility of disaster; and this supersti- tious feeling, though it has displaced the unconquerable resolution from its rational basis, has often produced the most wonderful effects. This dictated Caesar's expression to the mariner who was terrified at the storm and billows, " What art thou afraid of? thy vessel carries Caesar." The brave men in the times of the English Commonwealth were, some of them, indebted in a degree for their magnanimity to this idea of a special destination, entertained as a reli- gious sentiment. The willfulness of an obstinate person is sometimes forti- fied by some single instance of remarkable success in his undertakings, which is promptly recalled in every case where his decisions are questioned or opposed, as a proof, or ground of just presumption, that he must in this instance too be right ; especially if that one success happened con- trary to your predictions. I shall only add, and without illustration, that the habit of associating with inferiors^ among whom a man can always, and therefore does always, take the preced^ce and give the law, is conducive to a subordinate, coarse kind of decision of character. You may see this exemplified any 46 Foster's essay on day in an ignorant country 'squire among his vassals; especially if he wear the lordly superaddition of Justice of the Peace. In viewing the characters and actions of the men who have possessed in imperial eminence tiie qnality which I have attempted to describe, one cannot but wish it were possible to know how much of this mighty superiority was created by the circumstances in which they were placed ; bnt it is inevitable to believe that there was some vast intrinsic ditference from ordinary men in the original con- stitutional structure of the mind. In observing lately a man who appeared too vacant almost to think of a purpose, too indifferent to resolve uptin it, and too sluggish to exe- cute it if he had resolved, I was distinctly struck with tlie idea of the distance betwe n hiui and Marius, of whom I hapi)ened to have been reading; and it was infinitely be- yond my power to believe that any circumstances on earth, though ever so perfectly combined aiul adapted, would have produced in this man, if placed under tiieir fullest intluence from his childhood, any resemblance (un- less, perhaps, the courage to enact a diminutive imitation in revenge and cruelty) of the formidable Roman. It is needless to discuss whether a person who is practi- cally evinced, at the age of maturity, to want the stainina of this ciiaracter, can, by any process, acquire it. Indeed, such a person cannot have sufficient force of will to make the complete experiment. If there were the unconquer- able will that would persist to seize all possible means, and a[)ply them in order to attain, if I may so express it, this stronger mode of active existence, it would prove the pos- session already of a high degree of the character sought; and if there is not this will^ how then is its supposed atrainment possible? Yet though it is improbable that a very irresolute man can ever become a habitual decisive one, it should be observed, that sinoe there are degrees of this powerful quality, and since the essential principles of it, vvlien par- tially existing in those degrees, cannot be supposed subject to definite and ultimate limitation, like the dimension of the bodily stature, it migiit be possible to apply a disci- pline which should advance a man from the lowest degree to the irest, from that to the third, and how much furtlier, it will be worth his trying if his first successful expire- DECISION OF CHARACTER. 4*7 ments have not cost more in the efforts for making the attainment than he judges likely to be repaid by any good he shall gain from its exercise. I have but a very imper- fect conception' of the discipline ; but will suggest a hint or two. In the first place, the indispensable necessity of a clear and comprehensive knowledge of the concerns before us, seems too obvious for remark ; and yet no man has been sufficiently sensible of it, till he has been placed in circum- stances Avhich forced him to act before he had time, or after he had made ineffectual efforts, to obtain the needful information and understanding. The oain of having brought things to an unfortunate issue, is hardly greater than ihat of proceeding in the conscious ignorance which continually threatens such an issue. While thus proceeding at hazard, under some compulsion wliich makes it impossible for him to remain in inaction, a man looks round for information as eagerly as a benighted wanderer would for the light of a human dwelling. He perhaps labors to recall what he thinks he once heard or read as relating to a similar situa- tion, without dreaming at that time that such instruction could ever come to be of importance to him; and is dis- tressed to find his best recollection so indistinct as to be useless. He would give a considerable sum, if some par- ticular book could be brought to him at the instant; or a certain document which he believes to be in existence; or the detail of a process, the terms of a prescription, or the model of an implement. He thinks how many people know, without its being of any present use to them, exactly what could be of such important service to him, if he could know it. In some cases, a line, a sentence, a monosyllable of affirming or denying, or a momentary sight of an object, would be inexpressibly valuable and welcome. And he resolves that if he can once happily escape from the present difficulty, he will apply himself day and night to obtain knowledge, not concerning one particular matter only, but divers others, in provision against possible emergencies, rather than be so involved and harassed again. It might really be of service to have been occasionally forced to act under the disadvantage of conscious ignorance (if the affdr was not so important as to allow the consequence to be very injurious) as an effec- tual lesson on the necessity of knowledge in order to deci- 48 Foster's essay on sion either of plan or execution. It must indeed be an extreme case that will compel a considerate man to act in the absence of knowledge ; yet he may sometimes be neces- sitated to proceed to action, when he is sensible his infor mation is far from extending to the whole of the concern in which he is g-'ing to commit himself. And in this case, he will feel no little uneasiness, while transacting that part of it in which his knowledge is competent, when he looks forward to the point where that knowledge terminates; unless he be conscious of possessing an exceedingly prompt faculty of catching information at the moment he wants it for use; as Indians set out on a long journey with but a trifling stock of provisions, because they are sure that their bows or guns will procure it by the -way. It is one of the nicest points of wisdom to decide how much less than com- plete knowledge, in any question of practical interest, will warrant a man to venture on an undertaking, in the pre- sumption that the deficiency will be supplied in time to prevent either perplexity or disaster. A thousand familiar instances sliow the effect of complete knowledge on determination. An artisan may be said to be decisive as to the mode of vrorking a piece of iron or wood, because he is certain of the proper process and the effect. A man perfectly acquainted with the intricate paths of a woodland district, takes the right one without a moment's hesitation; while a stranger, who has only some very vague information, is lost in perplexity. It is easy to imagine what a number of circumstances may occur in the course of a life, or even of a year,, in which a man cannot thus readily determine, and thus confidently proceed with- out a compass and an exactness of knowledge which few persons have application enough to acquire. And it would be frightful to know to what extent human interests are committed to the direction of ignorance. What a consola- tory doctrine is that of a particular Providence! In connexion with the necessity of knowledge, I would suggest the importance of cultivating, with the utmost industry, a conclusive manner of thinking. In the first place, let the general course of thinking partake of the nature of reasoning ; and let it be remembered that this name does not belong to a series of thoughts and fancies which follow one another without deduction or dependence, and which can therefore no more bring a subject to a pro- DECISION OF CHARACTER. 49 per issue, than a number of separate links will answer the mechanical purpose of a chain. The conclusion which terminates such a series, does not deserve the name of result or conclusion^ since it has little more than a casual connexion with what went before ; the conclusion might as properly have taken place at an earlier point of the train, or have been deferred till that train had been extended much further. Instead of having been busily employed in this kind of thinking, for perhaps many hoiirs, a man might possibly as well have been sleeping all the time ; since the single thought which is now to determine his conduct, might have happened to be the first thought that occurred to him on awaking. It only happens to occur to him now ; it does 'not follow from what he has been think- ing these hours; at least, he cannot prove that some other thought might not just as appropriately have come in its place at the end, and to make an end, of this long series. It is easy to see how feeble that determination is likely to be, which is formed on so narrow a ground as the last acci- dental idea that comes into the mind, or on so loose a ground as this crude uncombined assemblage of ideas. In- deed it is difficult to form a determination at all on such slight ground. A man delays, and waits for some more satisfactory thought to occur to him; and perhaps he has. not waited long, before an idea arises in his mind of a quite contrary tendency to the last. As this additional idea is not, more than that which preceded it, the result of any process of reasoning, nor brings with it any argu- ments, it may be expected to give place soon to another, and still another ; and they are all in succession of equal authority, that is properly of none. If at last an idea occurs to him which seems of considerable authority, he may here make a stand, and adopt his resolution, with firmness, as he thinks, and commence the execution. But still, if he cannot see whence the principle which has deter- mined him derives its authority — on what it holds for that authority — his resolution is likely to prove treacherous and evanescent in any serious trial. A principle so little verified by sound reasoning, is not terra firma for a man to trust himself upon ; it is only as a slight incrustation on a yielding element ; it is like the sand compacted into a thin surface on the lake Serbonis, which broke away under the unfortunate army which had begun to advance on it, mis- 5 so Foster's essay on taking it for solid ground. These remarks may seem to refer only to a single instance of deliberation ; but tliey are equally applicable to all the delfberatiitns and undertak- ings of a man's life; the same connected manner of think- ing, which is so necessary to give firmness of determination and of conduct in a particular instance, will, if habitual, greatly contribute to form a decisive character. Not only should thinking be thus reduced, by a strong and patient discipline, to a train or process, in which all the parts at once depend upon and support one another, but also this train should be followed on to a full conclu- sion. It should be held as a law generally in force, that the question must be disposed of before it is let alone. The mind may carry on this accurate process to some length, and then stop through indolence, or start away through levity; but it can never possess that rational confidence in its opinions which is requisite to the character in question, till it is conscious of acquiring them from an exercise of thought continued on to its result. Tlie habit of tliinking thus completely is indispensable to the general character of decision ; and in any particular instance, it is found that short pieces of courses of reasoning, thougli correct as far as they go, are inadequate to make a man master of the immediate concern. They are besides of little value for aid to future thinking; because from being left thus incomplete they are but slightly retained by the mind, and soon sink away ; in the same manner as the walls of a structure left unfinished speedily moulder. After these remarks, I should take occasion to observe, that a vigorous exercise of thought may sometimes for a while seem to increase the difficulty of decision, by dicover- ing a great number of unthought-of reasons for a measure and against it, so that the most discriminating mind may, during a short space, find itself in the state of the magnetic needle under the equator. But no case in the world can really have a perfect equality of opposite reasons ; nor will it long appear to have it, in the estimate of a clear and well-disciplined intellect, which after some time will ascer- tain, though the difference is small, which side of the que:«- tion has ten, and which has but nine. At any rate, this is the mind to come nearest in the approximation. Another thing that would powerfully assist toward complete decision, both in the particular instance, and in DECISION OF CHARACTER. 61 the general spirit of the character, is for a man to place himself in a situation analogous to that in which Caisar placed his soldiers, when he burnt the ships which brought thetn to land. If his judgment is really decided, let hiin commit himself irretrievably, by doing something which shull oblige him to do more, which shall lay on liim tiie necessity of doing all. If a man resolves as a general in- tention to be a philanthropist, I would say to him. Form some actual plan of philanthropy, and begin the execution of it to-morrow (if I may not say to-day) so explicitly that you cannot relinquish it without becoming degraded even in your own estimation. If a man would be a hero, let him, if it be possible to find a good cause in arms, go pre- sently to the camp. If a man is desirous of a travelling adventure through distant countries, and deliberately approves both his purpose and his scheme, let him actually prepare to set off. Let him not still dwell, in imagination, on mountains, rivers, and temples; but give directions about his remittances, his personal equipments, or the car- riage, or the vessel, in which he is to go. Ledyard sur- prised the official person who asked him how soon he could be ready to set off for the interior of Africa, by replying promptly and firmly, "To-morrow." Again, it is highly conducive to a manly firmness, that the interests in which it is exerted should be of a dignified order, so as to give the passions an ample scope, and a noble object. The degradation they suffer in being devoted to mean and trivial pursuits, often perceived to be such in spite of every fallacy of the imagination, would in general, I should think, also debilitate their energy, and therefore preclude strength of character, to which nothing can be more adverse, than to have the fire of the passions damped by the mortification of feeling contempt for the object, as often as its meanness is betrayed by failure of the delusion which invests it. And finally, I would repeat that one should think a man's own conscientious approbation of his conduct must be of vast importance to his decision in the outset, and his per- severing constancy; and I would attribute it to defect of memory that a greater proportion of the examples, intro- duced for illustration in this essay, do not exhibit goodness in union with the moral and intellectual power so conspi- cuous in the quality described. Certainly a bright con- 62 Foster's essay on stellation of such examples might be displayed ; yet it is the mortifying truth that much tlie greater number of men pre-eminent for decision, have been such as could not have their own serious approbation, except through an utter perversion of judgment or abolition of conscience. And it is melancholy to contemplate beings represented in our imagination as of adequate power (when they possessed great external means to give effect to the force of their minds), for the grandest utihty, for vindicating each good cause which has languished in a world adverse to all good- ness, and for intimidating the collective vices of a nation or an age — to contemplate such beings as becoming themselves the mighty exemplars, giants, and champions of those vices ; and it is fearful to follow them in thought, from this region, of which not all the powers and difficulties and inhabitants together could have subdued their ada- mantine resolution, to the Supreme Tribunal where that resolution must tremble and melt away. rOSTEE'S THOUGHTS. CHAPTER I. EXISTENCE, ATTRIBUTES, WORKS AND PROVIDENCE, OF GOD. 1. Any order of serious rejection leads to God. — The thought of virtue would suggest the thought of both a lawgiver and a rewarder ; the thought of crime, of an avenger ; the thought of sorrow, of a consoler ; the thought of an inscrutable mystery, of an intelli- gence that understands it ; the thought of that ever- moving activity which prevails in the system of the universe, of a supreme agent ; the thought of the hu- man family, of a great father ; the thought of all being not necessary and self-existent, of a creator ; the thought of life, of a preserver ; and the thought of death, of an uncontrollable disposer. By what dex- terity, therefore, of irreligious caution, did you avoid precisely every track where the idea of him would have met you, or elude that idea if it came ? And what must sound reason pronounce of a mind which, in the train of millions of thoughts, has wandered to all things under the sun, to all the permanent objects or vanishing appearances in the creation, but never fixed its thought on the Supreme Reality ; never ap- proached, like Moses, " to see this great sight ?" 2. Omnipresence mysteriously/ veiled. — Oh why is it so possible that this greatest inhabitant of every 5* 54 Foster's thoughts. place where men are living should be the last whose society they seek, or of whose beinc: constantly near tliein they feel the importance ? Why is it possible to be surrounded with the intelligent Reality, which exists wherever we are, with attributes that are infi- nite, and not feel, respecting all other things which may be attempting to press on our minds and affect their character, as if they retained with difficulty their shadows of existence, and were continually on the point of vanishing into nothing ? Why is this stupendous Intelligence so retired and silent, while present, i% all the scenes of the earth, and in all the paths and abodes of men ! Why does he k|ep his glory invisible behind the shades and visions of the material world ? Why does not this latest glory sometimes beam forth with such a manifestation as could never be forgotten, nor ever be remembered without an emotion of religious fear ? 3. Enlarged conception of the Deity. — How all lit- tle systematic forms of theology vanish from the soul in the sublime endeavor to recognize, amid his own amazing works, the Deity of tht universe! — that is, to form such an idea of him as shall be felt to be wor- thy to represent the Creator and preserving Governor of such a scene. 4. Overawing sense of God's omniscience. — How is it possible to forget the solicitude which should ac- company the consciousness that such a being is con- tinually darting upon us the beams of observant thought (if we may apply such a term to Omnisci- ence) ; that we are exposed to the piercing inspection compared to which the concentrated attention of all the beings in the universe besides would be but as the powerless gaze of an infant ? Why is faith, that faculty of spiritual apprehension, so absent, or so in- comparably more ^low and reluctant to receive a just perception of the grandest of its objects, than the senses are adapted to receive the impressions of BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 65 theirs ? While there is a Spirit pervading the nni- verse with an infinite energy of being, why have the few particles of dust which enclose ov>r spirits the power to intercept all sensible communication with it, and to place them as in a vacuity, where the sacred Essence had been precluded or extinguished ? 5. A contemplation of God as a Spirit — invisi- ble in his presence, adapted to awaken awe and ap- prehension. — Much is seeing, feeling man actuated by the objects around him. All his powers are roused, impelled, directed, by impressions made on his sen- sitive organs ; yet objects of sense have only a defi- nite force upon him. A hundred weight crushes a man's strength to a certain degree, and no more : he sustains and bears it away. On the edge of the ocean he may tremble at the vast expanse, but he tries the depth near the shore, and finds it but a few feet, and no longer fears to enter it. The waves can not over- top his head ; or, is it deep ? — he can swim, and no longer regards it with fear. Nay, he builds a ship, and makes this tremendous ocean his servant, wields its vastness for his own use, dives to its deep bottom to rob it of its treasures, or makes its surface convey him to distant shores. A much smaller object shall affect him more, when his senses are less distinctly acted upon, but his imagination is somewhat aroused. When he travels in the dark, he starts at a slight but indistinct noise ; he knows not but it may be a wild beast lurking, or a robber ready to seize on him. Could he have distinctly seen what alarmed him, he had undauntedly passed on ; it was only the moving of the leaves waved gently by the wind. He stops, be considers well, for he hears the sound of water falling ; a gleam from its foaming surface sparkles in his eye, but he can not tell how near to it, or how distant ; how exactly it might be in his path ; how tremendously deep the abyss into which he may fall at the next step. Had it been daylight, could he 56 Foster's thoughts. have examined it thoroughly, he had then passed it without notice ; it is only the rill of a small ditch in the roadside ; his own foot could have stopped the trickling current. This effect of indistinctoess rous- ing the imagination is finely depicted in Job iv. 14. Eliphaz describes it thus : " Fear came upon me and trembliug, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face ; the hair of my flesh stood up : it stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof." The senses in this description are but slightly affected : the eye could not discern any specific form, the touch could not examine the pre- cise nature of the object ; the imagination therefore had full scope, the mind was roused beyond the power of sensible objects to stimulate it, and the body felt an agitation greater than if its senses had been more fully acted upon. " He trembled, the hairs of his flesh stood up. He could not discern the form,'' it might therefore be terrific in its shape or tremen- dous in its size. " It stood still," as if to do some- thing to him ; to speak ; perhaps to smite or to de- stroy I And how could he guard against that which he could not see, could not tell whence or what it was ; that which, from what he could discover, and still more from what he could- not discover, seemed to be no mortal substance to which he was accus- tomed, and with which, with cares and courage, he might deal safely ; but a spirit utterly beyond his im- pression, having unknown power to impress even him, who can tell in what degree ? The certainty of an object so near him, joined to the uncertainty of what might be his powers, intentions, and natural opera- tions, impressed him deeply with awe, expectation, and anxiety. How absurd, then, how contrary to all their feelings in other cases, is the conduct of in- fidels who affect to despise God — to deny his exist- ence because they can not see him — or, without af- fecting this, do actually forget and do him despise, BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 51 by occasion of this circumstance I mecf who can be appalled at some distant danger, and grow courage- ous at what is near at hand — who trembled at a fel- low-man, or crawling reptile, and only show hardi- hood when their foe is Almighty, Without inquiring what Eiiphaz saw, let us apply these ideas to the Supreme Being ; let us meditate on an object of infinitely greater, nearer importance — " the invisible God," the most impressively important because invisible. Let us, for a moment, suppose the contrary to be the case : suppose the Deity to be the object of our senses — he then loses much of his ma- jesty ; he becomes fixed to one spot, that in which we can see him. He must be distant from many other places, and when revealing himself in other places, must be far distant from us, even at a time when we most need his presence. Nay, we should begin to compute him ; to philosophize upon and attempt ex- periments with him. Were he vast as the starry heavens, we could measure him : bright as yonder sun, we could contrive to gaze at him ; energetic as the vivid lightning, we could bring him down to play around us. In no form can we conceive of his being an object of sense, but we sink him to a creature ; give him some definable shape, reduce him to a man or mere idol, and we have need to provide him a tem- ple made with hands for his accommodation. If, in- deed, there were any doubt of his existence (but that man is incapable of reasoning who reasons thus), there are proofs enough that he is at our right hand, though we do not see him ; that he works at our left hand, though we can not behold him. Instead of asking, with a sneer of doubt, "Where is he?" or carelessly tliiuking thus, " Shall God see V a much more rational method is with awe ^nd reverence to say, " Whither shall I flee from thy presence ? thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thy hand upon me." C. uld any supposition take place even 58 FOSTER^S THOUGHTS. of his momentary absence — that he was far oflf, or ou a journey, or asleep, and must needs be awakened — it miy;Lit be alleged to sanction the careless, provided they were aware of his absence, or knew the time of his drowsiness or distance ; bul, an omnipresent Al- mighty ought to fill us with seriousness, and the un-. certuinty of his operations, when, how, and where he will work, should fill us with deep, lasting, and con- stant awe. He exists : the thought makes a temple in every place I may be in ; to realize it, is to begin actual worship ; whatever I may be about, to indulge it is to make all other existence fade away. Amid the roar of mirth I hear only his voice ; in the glitter of dissipation I see only his brightness ; in the midst of business I. can do nothing but pray. He is pres- ent I what may he not see ? The actions of my hands he beholds I the voice of my words he hears 1 the thoughts of my heart he discerns ! Could 1 see him, I might on this side guard against his penetrating eye, or on the other side act something in secret, sate from his inspection ; but present, without my being able to discern him, I ought to be watchful every way ; the slightest error may fill us with awful ap- prehensions. Even now, says conscience, he may be preparing his vengeance, whetting his glittering sword, or drawing to a head the arrows of destruc- tion. Could my eye see his movements, I might be upon my guard ; might flee to some shelter, or shrink away from the blow ; but, a foe so near, and yet so indiscernible, may well alarm me, lest the act of ini- quity meet with an immediate reward ; the blasphe- mous prayer for damnation receive too ready an an- swer from his hot thunderbolt ! He is-a Spirit: what can he not do ? Vast are his powers, quick his dis- cernments, invisible his operations 1 iS'o sword can reach him, no shield of brass can protect against him, no placid countenance deceive him, no hypocritical supplications impose upon him. He is in my inmost BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OP GOD. 69 thoughts — in every volition ; he supports the nego- tiatiog principle while it determines on its rebellions, or plans some mode by which to elude his all-pene- trating perception. Yain is every attempt at evasion or resistance. " God is a Spirit ;" is present every moment, surrounds every object, watches my steps and waits upon me, though I can not discern his form, his measure, his power, or direct his movements. I see him before my face in the bright walks of nature, but I can not discern his form. The rich landscape shows him good, wise, and bounteous : but how boun- teous, good, or wise, who, from the richest landscape, can be able to guess ? The brilliant sun gives a glimpse of his brightness ; the vast starry concave shows his immensity ; but how bright, how immense, it were impossible to say. Hark ! he speaks in that bursting thunder, or he moves in that crushing earth- quake, he shines in that blazing comet. So much I can easily discern, but God is still far beyond my comprehension. I see nothing but the hidings of his power ; himself is still unknown. He guides the affairs of providence. I see him before my face, but I can not behold his form. Who but he could have raised Pharaoh — the Nebuchadnez- zar of ancient or modern times ? Who but he could have rooted up a firmly-fixed throne, and poised a mighty nation upon the slender point of a stripling's energies ? I have seen him pass before me in my own concerns, leading me in a path I did not know, stopping me when on the verge of some destruction, filling my exhausted stores, and soothing my wearied mind to sweet serenity. I could not but say, " This is the Lord's doing, it is marvellous in my eyes ;" but I can not discern the form ; I know not what he will next do, nor dure I walk with presumptuous steps, or repose with self-complacent gratulation, and say, •' My mountain stands strong, 1 shall never be moved.'' 60 Foster's thoughts. He hides his face for a moment, and I am troubled ; he withdraws his hand, and I die. I see a spirit passing before me, I hear his voice in the secret recesses ; I find that there is a God, that he is near, that he stands full in view, with appalling in- distinctness, so that I tremble, and the hairs of my flesh stand up : yet I can not discern the form. I know not what afifrights, stops impresses, crushes me. Com- pany I hate, for it neither dispels my sensations, nor harmonizes with them. Solitude I dread ; for the in- visible presence is there seen, and the unknown God is there felt in all his terrifying influence. To deny that some one is acting upon me, must be to deny that I see, feel, am anxious. Could I tell what, or who, I might call the wisdom of man to my assist- ance ; but it is the unknowable, yet well known ; the indiscernible, yet surely seen ; the incomprehensible, intangible, yet fully understood and ever-present God, that supports my trembling frame, and meets the warmest wishes of my too-daring mind ; the resolute determinations, inefficacious exertions, and the stub- born submission of an unwilling soul. Ah ! let this present Invisible encircle me with his mercy, defend me with his power, fill me with his fear, and save me by his almighty grace. Then, though I discern not his form, I shall be conscious of his presence, and the delightful consciousness shall fill me with rever- ence indeed, but not make my flesh to tremble. He shall sooth my sorrows, inspire my hopes, give me confidence in danger, and supplies in every necessity. The consciousness of his nearness, approbation, and mercy, shall enable me to endure like Moses, as see- ing Him who is invisible. 6. Attempt to escape *the Divine presence vain and presumptuous. — When we withdraw from human in- tercourse into solitude, we are more peculiarly com- mitted in the presence of the Divinity ; yet some men retire into solitude to devise or perpetrate crimes BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OP GOD. 61 This is like a man going to meet and brave a lion in his own gloomy desert, in the very precincts of his dread abode. 7. Grandeur and glory of God reflected from his works. — What is it, we would ask, that comes upon us in those beams — in the beams of those luminaries which are beheld by the naked eye, next of those countless myriads beheld by the assisted eye, and then of those infinite legions which can never be re- vealed to the earth, but are seen by an elevated im- agination, and will perhaps burst with sudden and awful effulgence on the departed spirit? What is it, but the pure unmingled reflection of Him who can not be beheld in himself, who, present to all things, is yet in the darkness of infinite and eternal mystery, subsisting in an essence unparticipated, un- approached by gradation of other beings, impalpable to all speculation, refined beyond angeUc perception, foreign from all analogy — but who condescends to become visible in the effects of his nature, in the lus- tre of his works 1 8. The universe a type, — a symbol of the greatness and glory of the Supreme. — The universe, with all its splendors and magnitudes, ascertained, conjectur- ed, or possible, may be regarded — not as a vehicle, not as an inhabited form, or a comprehending sphere, of the Sovereign Spirit, but as a type, which signi- fies, though by a faint, inadequate correspondence after all, that as great as the universe is in the ma- terial attributes of extension and splendor, so great is the Divine Being in the infinitely transcendent na- ture of spiritual existence. 9. Attributes of God revealed through the diversity and immensity of his works. — We are placed amidst the amazing scenes of his works extending on all sides, from the point where we stand to far beyond anything we can distinctly conceive of infinity ; in a diversity which not eternal duration will suffice for 6 62 Foster's thoughts. any creature to take account of all ; having within one day, one hour, one instant, operations, changes, appearances, to which the greatest angel's calculating faculty would be nothing; combining design — order — beauty — sublimity — utility. Such is the scene to be contemplated. But now while our attention wanders over it, or fixes on parts of it, do we regard it but as if it were something existing by itself? Can we glance over the earth, and into the wilder- ness of worlds in infinite space without being im- pressed with the solemn thought, that all this is but the sign and proof of something infinitely more glori- ous than itsein Are we rtot reminded — this is a pro- duction of his Almighty power; — that is an adjust- ment of his all-comprehending intelligence and fore- sight; — there is a glimmer, a ray of his beauty, his glory; — there an* emanation of his benignity; — and there some fiery trace of his justice; — but for him all this never would have been ; — and if for a mo- ment his pervading energy were, by his will, restrain- ed or suspended, — what would it all be then ? That there should be men, who can survey the crea- tion with a scientific enlargement of intelligence, and then say " there is no God," is one of the most hideous phenomena in the world. 10. Particularity of Divine knowledge. — Think what a compass of vision, and how much more he sees than we do, in any one act or incident on which our utmost attention may be fixed. To us there is an unknown part in every action. Our attention leaves one acting mortal to fix on another. He con- tinues to observe every one and all. Think again while we are judging, He is judging! There is at this instant a perfected estimate in an unseen mind of this that 1 am thinking how to estimate ! — If that judgment could lighten on me and on its subject ! 11. God overrules all events. — Sometimes in par- ticular parts and instances we can see how human BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OP GOD. 63 actions in their confused mass or series, nave been comj)elled into a process which results in what hu- man wisdom never could have predicted, and what an immensity of them is God compelling at this very- hour ! In our conscious feebleness of intelligence, it is stiiking to look at actions, and wonder what pur- pose of his he can make those conduce to — and those. Look at the vast world of them ; see what kind they are ; and then think what He must be that can control them all to his supreme purpose ! Yet there are some parts of the view in which the proceeding of Divine Providence is conspicuous and intelligible. We see how sin is made its own plague, even in this life ; and how by what law — "holiness to the Lord" contains the living principle of happi- ness. And also, how some of the transactions and events in the world are tending to certain grand re- sults which God has avowed to be in his purpose. 12. A belief in the Divine existence and sovereignty the only reliable foundation of virtue. — That solemn reverence for the Deity, and expectation of a future judgment, without which it is a pure matter of fact that there is no such thing on earth as an invincible and universal virtue. 13. Deities of paganism and false religion, not above crimination themselves, can not, in their worship and moral systems, condemn sin in their votaries.— -\ixk\QYQ were ten thousand deities, there should not be one that should be authorized by perfect rectitude in it- self to punish Am; not one by which it should be possible for him to be rebuked without having a right to recriminate. 14. The atheist. — To the atheist there is nothing in place of that which is the supremacy of all exist- ence and glory. The Divine Spirit, and all spirits, being abolished, he is left amid masses and systems of matter, without a first cause, ruled by chance, or by a blind mechanical impulse of what he calls fate; 64 poster's thoughts. and as a little composition of atoms, he is himself to take his chance, for a few moments of conscious be- ing, and then to be no more for ever. And yet in this infinite prostration of all things, he feels an ela- tion of intellectual pride. 15. Peculiar illumination of the atheist questioned. — But give your own description of what you have met with in a world which has been deemed to pre- sent in every part the indications of a Deity. Tell of the mysterious voices which have spoken to you from the deeps of the creation, falsifying the expres- sions marked on its face. Tell of the new ideas, which, like meteors passing over the solitary wan- derer, gave him the first glimpse of truth while be- nighted in the common belief of the Divine exist- ence. Describe the whole train of causes that have operated to create and consolidate that state of mind which you carry forward to the great experiment of futurity, under a different kind of hazard from all other classes of men. 16. Ignorant and arrogant pretensians of the athe- ist. — The wonder then turas on the great process, by which a man could grow to the immense intelligence that can know that there is no God. What ages and ,what lights are requisite for this attainment ! This intelligence involves the very attributes of Divinity, while a God is denied. For unless this man is omni- present, unless he is at this moment in every place in the universe, he can not know but there may be in some place manifestations of a Deity by which even he would be overpowered. If he does not know absolutely every agent in the universe, the one that he does not know may be God. If he is not himself the chief agent in the universe, and does not know what is so, that which is so may be God. If he is not in absolute possession of all the propositions that constitute universal truth, the one which he wants may be, that there is a God. If he can not with cer- BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 65 tainty assign the cause of all that he perceives to ex- ist, that cause may be a God. If he does not know everything that has been done in the immeasurable ' ages that are past, some things 'may have been done by a God. Thus, unless he knows all things — that is, precludes another Deity by being one himself — he can not know that the Being whose ej^stence he rejects, does not exist. But he must know that he does not exist, else he desei'ves equal contempt and compassion for the temerity with which he firmly avows his rejection and acts accordingly. Surely the creature that thus lifts his voice, and defies all invisible power within the possibilities of infinity, challenging whatever unknown being may hear him, and may appropriate that title of Almighty which is pronounced in scorn, to evince his existence, if he will, by his vengeance, was not as yesterday a little child that would tremble and cry at the approach of a diminutive reptile. 17. Certain philosophers impatient of the ideas of a Divine Providence and his revelation to the world. — No builders of houses or cities were ever more atten-tive to guard against the access of inundation or fire. If He should but touch their prospec- tive theories of improvement, th^ would renounce them, as defiled and fit only for vulgar fanaticism. Their system of providence would be profaned by the intrusion of the Almighty. Man is to effect an apotheosis for himself, by the hopeful process of exhausting his corruptions. And should it take all but an endless series of ages, vices, and woes, to reach this glorious attainment, patience may sustain itself the while by the thought that, when it is real- ized, it will be burdened with no duty of religious gratitude. No time is too long to wait, no cost too deep to incur, for the triumph of proving that we have no need of that one attribute of a Divinity — which creates the grand interest in acknowledging 66 Foster's thoughts. such a Being — the benevolence that would make us happy. But even if this triumph should be found unattainable, the independence of spirit which has labored for it must not at last sink into piety. This afflicted world, '* this poor terrestrial citadel of man," is to lock its gates, and keep its miseries, rather than admit the degradation of receiving help from God. EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 67 CHAPTER II. THOUGHTS ON THE EVIDENCES OF RELIGION THE SOURCES, PREJUDICES, AND TENDENCIES, OP SKEP- TICISM, ETC. 1 . Unsettled faith as unreasonahle as presumptuous. — If they [undecided individuals] really do not care enough about this transcendent subject, to desire, above all things on earth, a just and final determina- tion of their judgments upon it, we can only deplore that anything so precious as a mind should have been committed to such cruelly thoughtless possessors. We can only repeat some useless expressions of amaze- ment to see a rational being holding itself in such con- tempt ; and predict a period when itself will be still much more amazed at the lemembrance how many thousand insignificant questions found their turn to be considered and decided, while the one involving infinite consequences was reserved to be determined by the event — too late, therefore, to have an auspi- cious influence on that event, which was the grand object, for the sake of whxh it ought to have been deteiTnined before all other questions. It is impos- sible to hear, with the slightest degree of respect of patience, the expressions of doubt or anxiety about the truth of Christianity, from any one who can delay a week to obtain this celebrated View of its Eviden- ces, or fail to read it through again and again. It is of no use to say what would be our opinion of the moral and intellectual state of his mind, if, after this, tie remgiined still undecided. We regard Dr. Paley's 68 poster's thoughts. writings on the "Evidences of Christianity" as of so signally decisive a character, that we would be con- tent to let them stand as the essence and the close of the great argument on the part of its believers ; and should feel no despondency or chagrin if we could be prophetically certified that such an efficient Chris- tian reasoner would never henceforward arise. We should consider the grand fortress of proof, as now raised and finished, the intellectual capitol of that em- pire which is destined to leave the widest boundaries attained by the Roman veryiar behind. 2. Christianity everything or nothing. — The book which avows itself, by a thousand solemn and explicit declarations, to be a communication from Heaven, is either what it thus declares itself to be, or a most monstrous imposture. If these philosophers hold it to be an imposture, and therefore an execrable de- ception put on the sense of mankind, how contempti- ble it is to see them practising their civil cringe, and uttering phrases of deference ! If they admit it to be what it avows itself, how detestable is their con- duct in advancing positions and theories, with a cool disregard of the highest authority, confronting and. conti'adicting them all the while ! And if the ques- tion is deemed to be yet in suspense, how ridiculous it is to be thus building up speculations and systems, pending a cause which may require their demolition the instant it is decided ! Who would not despise or pity a man eagerly raising a fine house on a piece of ground at the very time in r'oubtful litigation ] Who would not have laughed at a man who should have published a book of geography, with minute descrip- tions and costly maps, of distant regions and islands, at the very time that Magellan or Cook was absent on purpose to determine their position, or even verify their existence % 3. Christianity the supreme pursuit. — Assembling into one view all things in the world that are impor- EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 69 tant, and should be dedr to mankind, I distinguish the Christian cause as the celestial soul of the assemblage, evincing the same pre-eminence, and challenging the same emphatic passion, which in any other case mind does beyond the inferior elements ; and I have no wish of equal energy with that which aspires to the most intimate possible connexion with Him who is the life of this cause, and the life of the world. 4. Branches of the Christian argument. — A train of miracles, attested in the most authoritative manner that is within the competence of history ; the evidence afforded by prophecies fulfilled, that the author of Revelation is the being who sees into futurity ; the manifestation, in revealed religion, of a superhuman knowledge of the nature and condition of man ; the adaptation of the remedial system to that condition; the incomparable excellence of the Christian morali- ty ; the analogy between the works of God and what claims to be the Word of God ; and the interposi- tions with respect to the cause and the adherents of i-eligion in the course of the Divine government on the earth : this grand coincidence of verifications has not left the faith of the disciple of Christianity at the mercy of optics and geometry. He may calmly tell science to mind its own affairs, if it should presume, with pretensions to authority, to interfere with his religion. 5. Miracles not increSAhle. — We repel that philos- ophizing spirit, as it would be called, which insists on resolving all the extraordinary phenomena, recorded in the Old Testament, into the effect of merely natu- ral causes ; just as if the order of nature had been constituted by some other and greater Being, and intrusted to the Almighty to be administered, under an obligation never to suspend, for a moment, the fixed laws ! Just as if it could not consist with infi- nite Wisdom to order a system so that in particular cases a greater advantage should arise from a mo- 70 Foster's thouohts. mentaiy deviation than from an invariable proce- dure ! 6. Argument from miracles. — Surely it is fair to believe that those who received from Heaven super- human power, received likewise superhuman wisdom. Having rung the great hell of the universe, the sermon to follow must be extraordinary. 7. Analogy of religion to the course of Nature. — It is an evident and remarkable fact, that there is a certain principle of correspondence to religion throughout the economy of the world. Things bear- ing an apparent analogy to its truths, sometimes more prominently, sometimes more abstrusely, present themselves on all sides to a thoughtful mind. He that made all things for himself appears to have willed that they should be a great system of em- blems, reflecting or shadowing that system of prin- ciples which is the true theory concerning him, and our relations to him. So that religion, standing up in grand parallel to an infinity of things, receives their testimony and homage, and speaks with a voice which is echoed by the creation. 8. Proud assumption of infidelity . — Infidels assume, in subjects which from their magnitude necessarily stretch away into mystery, to pronounce whatever can or can not be. They seem to say, " We stand on an eminence sufficient to command a vision of all things : therefore whatever we can not see, does noUexist." 9. Partial knowledge of Divine economy should re- press reasoning pride. — We are, as to the grand sys- tem and series of God's government, like a man, who, confined in a dark room, should obsei-ve, through a chink of the wall, some large animal passing by : he sees but an extremely narrow strip of the object at once as it moves by, and is utterly unable to form an idea of the size, proportions, or shape of it. 10. Process of the physical creation. — Darkness brooding, dim dreary light, herbs, sun, &c. Analogy. EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 71 Consider the whole course of time as the world's moral creation. At what period and stage in the .analogy has it now ariived % — not more than the first 11. Christianity heset with no more difficulties than other subjects. — The whole hemisphere of contempla- tion appears inexpressibly strange and mysterious. It is cloud pursuing cloud, forest after forest, and Alps upon Alps ! It is in vain to declaim against skepticism. I feel with an emphasis of conviction, and wonder, and regret, that almost all things are enveloped in shade ; that many things are covered with thickest darkness; that the number of things to which certainty belongs is small. ... I hope to enjoy " the sunshine of the other world." One of the very few things that appear to me not doubtful,is the truth of Christianity in general. 12. Objections to Christianity from the discoveries of the telescope answered by those of the microscope. — Those who justify their infidelity by the discoveries of the telescope, seem to have chosen to forget that there is another instrument which has made hardly less wonderful discoveries in an opposite direction — discoveries authorizing an inference completely de- structive of that made from the astronomical magni- tudes. And it is very gratifying to see the lofty as- sumptions drawn, in a spirit as unphilosophical as irreligious, from remote systems and the immensity of the universe, and advanced against Christianity with an air of irresistible authority — to see them en- countered and. annihilated by evidences sent forth from tribes and races of beings, of which innumera- ble millions might pass under the intensest look of the human eye imperceptible as empty space. It is immediately obvious that an incomparably more glo- rious idea is entertained of the Divinity, by conceiv- ing of him as possessing a wisdom and a power com- petent, without an effort, to maintain an infinitely- 72 poster's thoughts. perfect inspection and regulation, distinctly, of all subsistences, even the minutest, comprehended in the universe, than by conceiving of him as only main- taining some kind of general superintendence of the system — only general, because a perfect attention to all existences individually would be too much, it ie deemed, for the capacity of even the Supreme Mind. And for the very reason that this would be the most glorious idea of him, it must be the true one. To say that we can, in the abstract, conceive of a mag- nitude of intelligence and power which would con- stitute the Deity, if he possessed it, a more glorious and adorable Being than he actually is, could be noth- ing less than flagrant impiety. 13. Hopeless attempt of the deist to solve the great problem of the human condition. — The inquirer must be curious to see in what manner he jdisposes of the stupendous depravity, which through all ages has covered the earth with crimes and miseries; and how he has illustrated the grand and happy effects result- ing from the general and permanent predominance of the selfish over the benevolent affections, from the imbecility of reason and conscience as opposed to appetite, from the infinitely greater facility of form- ing and retaining bad habits than good ones, from the incalculable number of false opinions embraced instead of the true, and from the depiivation which is always found to steal very soon into the best insti- tutions. He must surely be no less solicitous to see the dignity and certainty of the moral sense verified in the face of the well-known fact that there is no crime which has not, in the absence of revelation, been committed, in one part of the world or another, without the smallest consciousness of guilt. 14. Prejudices of unbelievers. — They might perhaps be severely mortified to find what vulgar motives, while they were despising vulgar men, have ruled their intellectual career. Pride, which idolizes self, EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 73 which revolts at everything that comes in the foim of dictates, and exults to find that there is a possibil- ity of controverting v^hether any dictates come from a greater than mortal source ; repugnance as well to the severe and sublime morality of the laws reputed of divine appointment, as to the feeling of accounta- bleness to an all-powerful Authority, that will not leave moral laws to be enforced solely by their own sanctions ; contempt of inferior men ; the attraction of a few brilliant examples ; the fashion of a class ; the ambition of showing what ability can do, and what boldness can dare: if such things as these, after all, have excited and directed the efforts of a philosophic spirit, the unbelieving philosopher must be content to acknowledge plenty of companions and rivals among little men, who are quite as capable of being actuated by these elevated principles as himself. 15, Seeking for secondary causes to escape the rec- ognition of the sovereign agency of Divine Provi- dence. — As if a man were prying about for this and the other cause of damage, to account for the aspect of a region which has recently been devastated by mundations or earthquakes. 16. Many betrayed into infidelity hy a Minded ad- miration of the genius of brilliant hut unprincipled au- thors. — There is scarcely any such thing in the world as simple conviction. It would be amusing to observe how reason had, in one instance, been overruled into acquiescence by the admiration of a celebrated name, or in another, into opposition by the envy of it; how most opportunely reason discovered the truth just at the time that interest could be essentially served by avowing it ; how easily the impartial examiner could be induced to adopt some part of another man's opin- ions, after that other had zealously approved some favorite, especially if unpopular, part of his ; as the Pharisees almost became partial even to Christ, at the moment that he defended one of their doctrines 7 74 poster's thoughts. against the Sadducees. It would be curious to see how a respectful estimate of a man's character and talents might be changed, in consequence of some personal inattention experienced from him, into de- preciating invective against him or his intellectual performances, and yet the railer, though actuated solely by petty revenge, account himself all the while the model of equity and sound judgment. Like the mariners in a story which I remember to have read, who followed the direction of their compass, infalli- bly right, as they could have no doubt, till they ar- rived at an enemy's port, where they were seized and made slaves. It happened that the wicked captain, in order to beti'ay the ship, had concealed a large loadstone at a little distance on one side of the nee- dle. 17. Writings of infidelitij. — You would examine those pages with the expectation probably of some- thing more powerful than subtlety attenuated into in- anity, and, in that invisible and impalpable state, mis- taken by the writer, and willingly admitted by the perverted reader, for profundity of reasoning; than attempts to destroy the certainty, or preclude the ap- plication, of some of those great familiar principles which must be taken as the basis of human reason- ing, or it can have no basis ; than suppositions which attribute the order of the universe to such causes as it would be felt ridiculous to pronounce adequate to produce the most trifling piece of mechanism ; than mystical jargon which, under the name of Nature, al- ternately exalts almost into the properties of a god, and reduces far below those of a man, some imagi- nary and undefinable agent or agency, which per- forms the most amazing works without power, and displays the most amazing wisdom without mtelli- gence; than a zealous preference of that part of every great dilemma which merely confounds and sinks the mind to that which elevates while it over- EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 75 whelms it ; than a constant endeavor to degrade as far as possible everything that is sublime in our spec- ulations and feelings, or than monstrous parallels be- tween religion and mythology. 18. False systems often apologized for, for the pur- pose of disparaging all religion. — There had not been in this country so free a display of every infidel propensity as to render it a matter of familiar obser-" vation, that men who hate the intrusion of a Divine juiisdiction are much inclined to regard with favor a mode of pretended religion, which they can make light of as devoid of all real authority. They are so inclined because, through its generic quality (of re- ligion), it somewhat assists them to make light also of a more formidable thing of that quality and name. It comes, probably, with a great show of claims — an- tiquity, pretended miracles, and an immense number of believers : it may nevertheless be disbelieved with most certain impunity. Under the encouragement of this disbelief with impunity, the mind ventures to look toward other religions, and at last toward the Christian. That also has its antiquity, its recorded miracles, and its multitude of believers. Though there may not, perhaps, be impious assurance enough to assume formally the equality of the pretensions in the two cases, there is a successful eagerness to es- cape from the evidence that the apparent similarity is superficial, and the real difference infinite ; and the irreligious spirit springs rapidly and gladly, in its dis- belief, from the one, as a stepping-place to the other. But that which affords such an important convenience for surmounting the awe of the true religion, will nat- urally be a great favorite, even at the very moment it is seen to be contemptible, and indeed in a sense in consequence of its being so, complacency mingles with the very contempt for that from which contempt may rebound on Christianity. 19. Origin of the elevated ideas in the pagan the- 76 Foster's thoughts. ology. — Adverting to what may be called the theolo- gy of the system [paganism], no one denies that a number of very abstracted and elevated ideas rela- ting to a Deity are found in the ancient books, wheth- er these ideas had descended traditionally from the primary communication of divine truth to our race, or had diversfed so far toward the east from the rev- elation imparted through Moses to the Jews. . . A fa- ded trace of primeval truth remains in their theology, in a certain inane notion of a Supreme Spirit, distin- guished from the infinity of personifications on which the religious sentiment is wasted, and from those few transcendent demon figures which proudly stand out from the insig-nificance of the swarm. But it is un- necessary to say that this notion, a thm remote ab- straction, as a mere nehuJa in the Hindoo heaven, is quite inefficient for shedding one salutary ray on the spirits infatuated with all that is trivial and gross in superstition. 20. Paganism distinguished from Divine revela- tion. — The system, if so it is to be called, appears, to a cursory inquirer at least, an utter chaos, without top, or bottom, or centre, or any dimension or pro- portion, belonging to either matter or mind, and con- sisting of materials which certainly deserve no better order. It gives one the idea of immensity filled with what is not of the value of an atom. It is the most remarkable exemplification of the possibility of ma- king the grandest ideas contemptible by conjunction ; for that of infinity is here combined with the very ab- stract of worthlessness. While it commands the faith of its subjects, completes its power over them by its accordance to their pride, malevolence, sensuality, and deceitfulness ; to that natui*al concomitant of pride, the baseness which is ready to prostrate itself in homage to anything that shall put itself in place of God ; and to that interest which criminals feel to transfer their own accountableness upon the powers EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 77 above them. But then think what a condition for human creatures ! they believe in a reUgion which invigorates, by coincidence and sanction, those prin- ciples in their nature wliich the true religion is in- tended to destroy; and in return, those principles thus strengthened contribute to confirm their faith in the religion. The mischief inflicted becomes the most effectual persuasion to confidence in the in- flicter. 21. Multiplicity of pagamviclcedness. — And so in- defatigable was its exercise, that almost all conceiv- able forms of immorality were brought to imagina- tion, most of them into experiment, and the greater number into prevailing practice, in those nations ; in- somuch that the sated monarch would have imposed as difficult a task on ingenuity in calling for the in- vention of a new vice as of a new pleasure. 22. Pride revolted into itijidelity by the impartial philanthropy of Christianity. — Let that pride speak out ; it would be curious to hear it say that your men- tal refinement perhaps might have permitted you to take your ground on that eminence of the Christian faith where Milton and Pascal stood, «/" so many hum- bler beings did not disgrace it by occupying the de- clivity and the vale. 23. Perverse blindness of those who see no vioral beauty and grandeur in Divine revelation. — Like an ignorant clown who, happening to look at the heav- ens, perceives nothing more awful in that wilderness of suns than in the row of lamps along the streets ! If you do read that book in the better state of feeling, I have no comprehension of the mechanism of your mind, if the first perception would not be that of a simple, venerable dignity, aud if the second would not be that of a certain abstract, undefinable magnifi- cence ; a perception of something which, behind this simphcity, expands into a greatness beyond the com- pass of your mind ; an impression like that with which 78 FOSTER S THOUGHTS. a thoughtful man would have looked on the counte- nance of Newton, after he had published his discov- eries, feeling a kind of mystical absorption in the attempt to comprehend the magnitude of the soul re- siding within that form. 24. The blighting inflvence of ivfidelity. — Reli- gion, believed and felt, is the amplitude of our moral nature. And how wretched an object therefore is a' mind, especially of thought, sensibility, and genius, condemned to that poverty and insulation which in- fidelity inflicts, by annihilating around it the medium of a sensible interest in the existence, the emotions, the activities, of a higher order of beings ! 25. The gospel jirovixles for those overlooked by phi- losophy and false religion. — It is the beneficent dis- tinction of the gospel, that notwithstanding it is of a magnitude to interest and to surpass angelic investi- gation (and therefore assuredly to pour contempt on the pride of human intelligence that rejects it for its meanness), it is yet most expressly sent to the class which philosophers have always despised. And a good man feels it a cause of grateful joy, that a communication has come from Heaven, adapted to effect the happiness of multitudes, in spite of natural debility or neglected education. 26. Christianity dissevered from its corruptions. — Such a man as I have supposed, understands what its tendency and dictates really are, so far at least that, in contemplating the bigotry, persecution, hy- pocrisy, and worldly ambition, which have stained, and continue to stain, the Christian history, his mind instantly dissevers, by a decisive glance of thought, all these evils, and the pretended Christians who are accountable for them, from the religion which is as distinct from them as the Spirit that pervades all things is pure from matter and from sin. In his view, these odious things and these wicked men' that have arrogated and defiled the Christian name, sink EVIDENCES OF liRISTIANITY. 79 out of sight through a chasm, like Koran, Dathan, and Abiram, and leave the camp and the cause holy, though they leave the numbers small. 27. Glory of religion ohscured hy imperfect mani- festation. — Contracted and obscured in its abode, the inhabitant will appear, as the sun through a misty sky, with but bttle of its magnificence, to a man who can be content to receive his impression of the intel- lectual character of the religion from the mode of its manifestation from the minds of its disciples ; and, in doing so, can indolently and perversely allow himself to regard the weakest mode of its displaying itself, as its truest image. In taking such a dwelling, the religion seems to imitate what was prophesied of its author, that, when he should be seen, there would be no beauty that he should be desired. This humilia- tion is inevitable; for unless miracles are wrought, to impart to the less intellectual disciples an enlarged power of thinking; the evangelic truth must accom- modate itself to the dimensions and unrefined habi* tudes of their minds. 28. Christianity 'prejudiced hy the ignorant repre- sentatives of its friends. — As the gospel comprises an ample assemblage of intellectual views, and as the gi'eater number of Christians are inevitably disqualifi- ed to do justice to them, even in any degree, by the same causes which disqualify them to do justice to other in- tellectual subjects, it is not improbable, that the great- er number of expressions which he has heard in his whole life, have been utterly below the subject. Obviously this is a very serious circumstance ; for if he had heard as much spoken on any other intellec- tual subject, as, for instance, poetry, or astronomy, for which perhaps he has a passion, and if a similar proportion of what he had heard had been as much below the subject, he would probably have acquired but little partiality for either of those studies. And it is a very melancholy disposition against the human 80 Foster's thoughts. heart, that the gospel needs fewer unfavorable asso- ciations to become repulsive in it, than any other im- portant subject. 20. ChristianitTj distinguish ed from its corrup- tions. — In the view of an intelHgent and honest mind the religion of Christ stands as clear of all connexion with the corruption of men, and churches, and ages, as when it was first revealed. It retains its purity like Moses in Egypt, or Daniel in Babylon, or the Savior of the world himself, while he mingled with scribes and Pharisees, or republicans and sinners. 30. The evangelical system appears without form or comeliness to ivorldlymen. — In admitting this por- tion of the system as a part of the truth, his feelings amount to the wish that a different theoiy had been true The dignity of religion, as a general and refined speculation, he may have long acknowledged ; but it appears to him as if it lost part of that dignity, in taking the specific form of the evangeUcal system ; just as if an ethereal being were reduced to combine his radiance and subtilty with an earthly nature. . . . . . The gospel appears to him like the image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, refulgent indeed with a head of gold ; the sublime truths which are inde- pendent of every peculiar dispensation are luminous- ly exhibited ; but the doctrines which are added as descriptive of the peculiar circumstances of the Christian economy, appear less splendid, and as if descending toward the qualities of iron and clay. 31. Inadequate and narrow vieios of some Chris- tians. — He may sometimes have heard the discourse of sincere Christians, whose religion involved no in- tellectual exercise, and, strictly speaking, no subject of intellect. Separately from their feelings, it had no definition, no topics, no distinct succession of views. And if he or some other p^i-son attempted to talk on some part of the religion itself as a thing definable and important, independently of the feelings of any EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 81 individual, and as consisting in a vast congeries of ideas, relating to the divine government of the world, to the general nature of the economy disclosed by the Messiah, to the distinct doctrines in the theory of that economy, to moral principles, and to the great- ness of the future prospects of man, — they seemed to have no concern in that religion, and impatiently interrupted the subject with the observation, — that is n.ot expeiience. 32. The gospel adapted, to all orders of mind. — By want of acuteness do you fail to distinguish be- tween the mode (a mere extrinsic and casual mode), and the substance 1 In the world of nature you see the same simple elements wrought into the plainest and most beautiful, into the most diminutive and the most majestic forms. So the same simple principles of Christian truth may constitute the basis of a very inferior, or a very noble, order of ideas. The prin- ciples themselves have an invariable quality ; but they were not imparted to man to be fixed in the mind as so many bare scientific propositions, each confined to one single mode of conception, without any collateral ideas, and to be always expressed in one unalterable form of words. They are placed there in order to spread out, if I might so express it, into a great multitude and diversity of ideas and feel- ings. These ideas and fe-elings, forming round the pure, simple principles, will correspond, and will make those principles seem to correspond, to the meaner or more dignified intellectual rank of mind. Why will you not perceive that the subject which takes so humble a style in its less intellectual believ- ers, unfolds greater proportions through a gradation of larger and still larger faculties, and with facility occupies the whole capacity of the amplest, in the same manner as the ocean fills a gulf as easily as a creek ] Through this series it retains an identity of its essential principles, and appears progressively 82 Foster's thoughts. a nobler thing only by gaining a position for more nobly displayi'ag itself. Why will you not follow it through this gradation, till it reach the point where it is presented in a greatness of character, to cor- respond with the improved state of your mind 1 Nev- er fear lest the gospel should prove not sublime enough for the elevation of your thoughts. If you could attain an intellectual eminence from which you would look witli pity on the rank which you at pres- ent hold, you would still find the dignity of this sub- ject occupying your level, and rising above it. Do you doubt this 1 What then do you think of such spirits, for instance, as those of Milton and Pascal ] And by how many degrees of the intellectual scale shall yours surpass them, to authorize your feeling that to be little which they felt to be great ] They were often conscious of the magnificence of Christian truth fillinor, distending, and exceeding, their faculties, an(^ sometimes wished for greater powers to do it justice. In their noblest contemplations, they did not feel their minds elevating the subject, but the subject elevating their minds. 33. Christianity the same amid the various and changing evils of the world. — It is most consolatory to reflect, that religion, like ah angel walking among the ranks of guilty men, still untainted and pure, re- tains, amid all these black and outrageous evils, the same benign and celestial spirit, and gives the same independent and perpetual pleasures. The happiness of the good seek« not the smile of guilty power, nor dreads its frown. Let a Christian philos- ophy, therefore, elevate all our speculations, calm our indignant feelings, and dignify all our conduct 34. Two ways to atheism. — There is a broad easy way to atheism through thoughtless ignorance, as well as a narrow and difficult one through subtle speculation. 35. Dreary eminence of injiddity. — I am describing EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 83 the progress of one of the humble order of aliens from all religion, and not that by which the great philo- sophic leaders have ascended the dreary eminence, where they look with so much complacency up to a vacant heaven, and down to the gulf of annihilation. 36. Consumviation of allowed skepticism. — The progress in guilt, which generally follows a rejection of revelation makes it still more and more desirable that no object should remain to be feared. It was not strange therefore if this man read with avidity or even strange if he read with something which his wishes completed into conviction, a few of the writers, who have attempted the last achievement of presump- tuous man. After inspecting ^hese pages awhile, he raised his eyes, and the great Spirit was gone. Mighty transformation of all things ! The luminaries of heaven no longer shone with his splendor; the adorned earth no longer looked fair with his beauty ; the darkness of night had ceased to be rendered solemn by his majesty ; life and thought were not an efTect of his all-pervading energy ; it was not his providence that supported an infinite charge of dependent be- ings ; his empire of justice no longer spread over the universe ; nor had even that universe sprung from his all-creating power. 37. The boasted triumph of infidelity in the death of Hume. — To be a conscious agent, exerting a rich combination of wonderful faculties to feel, an infinite variety of pleasurable sensations and emotions, to contemplate all nature, to extend an intellectual pres- ence to indefinite ages of the past and future, to pos- sess a perennial spring of ideas, to run infinite lengths of inquiry, with the delight of exercise and fleetness, even when not with the satisfaction of full attain- ment, and to be a lord over inanimate matter, com- pelling it to an action and a use altogether foreign to its nature, to be all this, is a state so stupendously different from that of being simply a piec^ of clay, 84 FOSTER S THOUGHTS. that to be quite easy, and complacent in the immedi- ate prospect of passing from the one to the other is a total inversion of all reasonable estimates of things ; it is a renunciation, we do not say of sound philoso- phy, but of common sense. The certainty that the loss will not be felt after it has taken place, will but little sooth a man of unperverted mind in consider- ing what it is that he is going to lose. The jocularity of the philosopher was contrary to good taste. Supposing that the expected loss were not, according to a grand law of nature, a cause for melancholy and desperation, but that the contentment were rational ; yet the approaching transformation was at all events to be regarded as a very grave and very strange event, and therefore jocularity was to- tally incongruous with the anticipation of such an event : a grave and solemn feeling was the only one that could be in unison with the contemplation of such a change. There was, in this instance, the same in- congruity which we should impute to a writer who should mingle buffoonery in a solemn crisis of the /» 1 • drama, or with the most momentous event of a his- tory. To be in harmony with his situation, in his own view of that situation, the expressions of the dy- ing philosopher were required to be dignified ; and if they were in any degree vivacious, the vivacity ought to have been rendered graceful by being ac- companied with the noblest effort of the intellect of which the efforts were going to cease for ever. The low vivacity of which we have been reading, seems but like the quickening corruption of a mind whose faculty of perception is putrefying and dissolving even before the body. It is true that good men, of a high order, have been known to utter pleasantries in their last hours. But these have been pleasantries of a fine ethereal quality, the scintillations of anima- ted hope, the high pulsations of mental health, the in- voluntary movements of. a spirit feeling itself free EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 85 even in the gi'asp of death, the natural springs and boundings of faculties on the point of obtaining a still much greater and a boundless liberty. These had no resemblance to the low and labored jokes of our philosopher ; jokes so labored as to give strong cause for suspicion, after all, that they were of the same nature, and for the same purpose, as the expedient of a boy on passing through some gloomy place in the night, who whistles to lessen his fear, or to per- suade his companion that he does not feel it. Such a manner of meeting death was inconsistent with the skepticism, to which Hume was always found to avow his adherence. For that skepticism neces- sarily acknowledged a possibility and a chance that the religion which he had scorned, might, notwith- standing, be found true, and might, in the moment after his death, glare upon him with all its terrors. But how dreadful to a reflecting mind would have been the smallest chance of meeting such a vision ! Yet the philosopher could be cracking his heavy jokes, and Dr. Smith could be much diverted at the sport. To a man who solemnly believes the truth of reve- lation, and therefore the threatenings of divine ven- geance against the despisers of it, this scene will present as mournful a spectacle as perh'aps the sun ever shone upon. 8 SiQ poster's thoughts. CHAPTER III. THOUGHTS ON THE LAW OF GOD ITS HOLINESS, COM- PREHENSIVENESS, APPLICATIONS, AND EVASIONS. 1. God a lawgiver. — The first view of the relation between God and all other beings, is that of his be- ing their Creator. The next view of the relation is that which manifests him as a Lawgiver. By the very nature of the case, this must be an essential part of the relation. No right so absolute, to give -lawsj can be conceived, as that of the Creator; for he is necessarily the Supreme Being. He has a perfect and exclusive property in what he has created. All created being is entirely dependent on him for being and well-being. He alone can have a perfect under- standing of what is the right state, and the right pro- cedure, of created beings ; they can not understand themselves, and therefore could not, if they would, devise competent laws. He alone has the power to enforce a system of laws over the whole creatior. The mention of the "whole creation" may suggest one application of the terms — the amazing extent of the scene of his legislation ! 2. Supj)osition of a divine law necessary. — We can not conceive of the sovereis^n Creator Tind Governor of the world as not appointing a law to his intelligent creatures ; that he should be what the epicureans ac- counted of their gods, perfectly careless about the world and what may be done in it. As the Maker of creatures who are to be wholly and for ever de- pendent upon him, he must necessarily have them LAW OF GOD. 87 under his sovereign autlionty. He must, also, ne- cessarily have a luill with respect to the state of the dispositions, and the order of actions, of his intelligent treatures, and he must perfectly know what is right ibr them. He would, therefore, as at once the su- preme authority and the infallible intelligence, pre- scribe to his creatures a law of injunction and prohi- bition — a grand rule of discrimination and obligation. He would do so, except on one supposition, namely, that he had willed to constitute his rational creatures such that they must necessarily always be disposed and always act rigid, by the infallible propensity of their nature — by their own unalterable and eternal choice ; so that there could be no possibility of their going wrong from either inclination or mistake. But the Almighty did not so constitute any natures that we know anything of. 3. Comprehensiveness of the divine law. — Perhaps, according to that divine standard, which is the ulti- mate abstraction of all relations, analogies, measures, and proportions, and in which the laws and princi- ples of the natural world, and those of the moral, are resolved in the same (are in their original undivided essence), the grandeur of a virtue may be as great or much greater than that of a volcano, the mischief of a vice as great as that of an earthquake. 4. The law necessarily holy. — As to the quality and extent of that law, proceeding from a perfectly holy Being, it could not do less than prescribe a per- fect holiness in all things. Think of the absurdity there is in the idea that its requirements should be less than perfect holiness. For that less — what should it be ? What would or could the remainder be after hoUness up. to a certain point and stopping there? It must be not holiness just so far. Not holiness % and what must it be, then % What could it be, but something unholy, wrong, . sinful ? Thus a law not i-equiring perfect rectitude, would so far give an al 88 poster's thoughts. lowance, a sanction^ to what is evil — sin. And from HiTn who is perfectly and infinitely holy ! An utter absurdity to conceive ! A law from such an author will not and can not reduce and accommodate itself to an imperfect, fallen, and incapable state of those on whom it is imposed . . . exacting no more than just what an imperfect, fallen creature can perform — [and] alio win or and sanctionino- all the vast amount of un- holiness beyond : [else] a strong indisposition to the right and disposition to the wrong would become a clear acquittance, the greatest depravity confer the amplest piivilege of exemption, and an intense and perfect aversion to all holiness, as constituting the greatest inability to confonn to the divine law, woulcj constitute very nearly a perfect innocence. 5. Law unalterable. — How little is this recognised among the multitude amenable to it ! It is as if the tables written on Sinai had been subjected to be passed through the camp for the people to revise, intei'polate, erase, or wholly substitute, at their pleas* ure. Never Jesuit's commentary on the Bible falsi- fied it more than the world's system of principles perverts or supplants that of the Almighty. This operation began even in Eden, through " the wis- dom that is from beneath," and has continued ever since. 6. CompreJiensive application of the law. — Doubt- less not the wide compass of the scene and subjects is meant, but the quality of the law as imperative on man, its authority and requirements applied to so many points, the comprehensiveness, the universality of its jurisdiction. It reaches and comprehends the whole extent of all things in which there is the dis- tinction of right and wrong, good and evil. Now, then, think of the almost infinite multiplicity of things in which this distinction has a place ; the grand total of what is passing in men's minds, converse, and ac- tion — is passing at this hour — has been in the course LAW OF GOD. 89 of the day — during the whole cou;se of life of each and all. Think how much, how little, of all this can be justly considered as withdrawn from the jurisdic- tion of the Divine authority and law. A wide rain, or the beams of the sun, hardly fall on a greater mul- titude and diversity of things. 7. Complaisancy of holy beings in the law. — Now an intelligent creature, in a right state — that is, a holy state, in harmony with God — would be deeply pleased that all things should be thus marked with a signification of his will. For how happy, to be in all things at the direction of the Supreme Wisdom ! in all things made clearly aware what is confonnity to the Divine Excellence ; insomuch that, if the case could be supposed of anything of material interest being left without this mark of the Divine Will, un- der an ecHpse of the light from God, that would to such a spirit appear as something distressing, and fearful, and port-entous — would be felt as threaten- ing some undefinable hazard. To a being possessed and filled with the reverential love of God, it would be a most acceptable and welcome thing, that thus it should be made manifest in all things what is his pleasure ; that the whole field of existence and ac- tion should bear all over it the decided and precise delineations, as on a map, of the ways which his creatures are to take. Should it not be so ? Must it not be so to an uncorrupted and holy creature of God 1 But is it so to the general spirit of mankind ? is it so naturally to any of them ] 8. Distinctions of the law effaced. — It is deplorable to consider how large a proportion of all the vices and crimes of which mankind were ever guilty, have actually constituted, in some or other of their tribes and ag'-s, a part of the approved moral and religious system. It is questionable whether we could select from the worst forms of tui-pitude any one which has not been at least admitted among the authorized cus- 8* 90 poster's thoughts. toms, if not even appointed among the institutes of the rehgion, of some portion of the human race. 9. Dominion of the law sovght to be restricted. — It is not a welcome thmg that the law of God is so "ex- ceeding broad." Accordingly, its breadth is, in ev- ery imaginable way, endeavored to be narrowed. It is true that even the very apprehension of it is very limited and faint. If the dullness and contractedness of apprehension could be set aside for an interval, and a palpable, luminous manifestation made of the vast compass and the whole order of distinctions of this Divine law, it would strike as ten times — a hun- dred times — beyond all that had been suspected. Yet still, in multitudes of minds, there is apprehen- sion enough of such a widely-extended law to cause disquietude, to excite reaction and a recourse to any- thing that will seem to naiTow that law .... If the Divine jurisdiction would yield to contract its com- prehension, and retire from all the ground over which a practical infidelity heedlessly disregards or deliber- ately rejects it, how large a province it would leave free. 10. The great sanction of morals arises from the recognition of the Divine law, and not from ciinl gov- ernment. — With all its gravity, and phrases of wis- dom, and show of homage to virtue, it was, and was plainly descried to be, that very same noli me tangere, in a disguised form ; a less provoking and hostile manner only of keeping up the state of preparation for defensive war. Every one knew right well that the pure approbation and love of goodness were not the source of law ; but that it was an arrangement originating and deriving all its force from self-inter- est — a contrivance by which each man was glad to make the. collective strength of society his guaranty against his neighbor's interest and wish to do him wrong .... A preceptive system thus estimated could not, even had the principles to which it gave expres- LAW OF GOD. 91 sion in the mandates of law, been no other tlian those of the soundest morahty, have impressed them with the weight of sanctity on the conscience. And all this but tends to show the necessity that the rules and sanctions of morality to come with simplicity and power on the human mind, should primarily emanate, and be acknowledf]red as emanatinsr, from a Beinof exalted above all implication and competition of in- terest with man. 11. Good principles efficacious only as abetted by the sanctions of a Divine laic. — Supposing them intrin- sically light, what will that — merely that — avail, amid llie commotion of the passions, the beguilements of immediate interest, the endless beselment of tempta- tions ? Man is not a being to be governed by prin- ciples, detached from an overawing power. Set them in the best array that you can in his mind, to fight the evil powders within and from without, but refuse fhem weapons from the armory of heaven — let no lightning of the Divine eye, no thunder of the Di- vine voice, come in testimony and in aid of their op- eration — and how soon they will be overwhelmed and trampled down ! like the Israelites when de- serted of God in their battles, "the very ark of God surrendered to the pagans ! 12. Second great commandment. — This can not be intended in the absolutely and rigorously literal sense ; but it must be dictated in a meaning which presses severely, all round, on the sphere of exclusive self-love — so severely as to compress and crush that aifection into a grievous narrowness of space, unless it can escape into liberty and action some other way, in some modified quality. There is a way in which it can expand and indulge itself, without violating the solemn law imposed, namely, that self-love or self- interest should be exalted to such a temper that its gratification, its gratification o? itself, should actually very much consist in promoting the ivelfare of others. 92 Foster's thoughts. 13. The law to he applied in judging the character and, actions of men. — It is a fatal error to take from the world itself our principles for judging of the world. These must be taken absolutely from the Divine authority, and always kept true to the dic- tates of that ; for nothing can be more absurd (not to say pernicious) than to have a set of rules different from them. Therefore it is as in the temple, and at the oracles of God, that the principles are to be re- ceived and fixed, to go out with forjudging of what we behold. And a frequent recourse must he had thither, to confirm and keep them pure. The prin ciples are thus to be something independent, and as it were sovereign, above that which they are to be applied to. But instead of this, a great part of man- kind let their principles for judging be formed by that world itself which they are to obsei-ve and judge. They have forjudging by, a whole set of apprehen- sions, notions, maxims, moral and religious, not at all identical with the Divine dictates. Therefore, not through any virtue of candor or charity, but through false principles, they perceive but little evil [sin, folly] in many of the " works done," which the high and pure authority condemns. They do not see the beam of " fiery indignation," which, from Heaven, strikes here and there ; they do not see shiivelled into insignificance many things which the world ac- counts most important. It does not come full out in their sight how far the actions of men agree, or not agree, with their awful future prospects. 14. Conscience the monitor of the Divine law. — Con- science is to communicate with something mysteri- ously great, which is without the soul, and abjve it, and everywhere. It is the sense, moi-e explicit or obscure, of standing in judgment before the Al- mighty. That which makes a man feel so, is a part of himself; so that the struggle against God becomes a struggle with man's own soul. There- LAW OF GOD. 93 fore conscience has often been denominated " the God in man." 1 5 . Th e facilities of conscience for applying tJi e Di- vine law. — Now conscience, by having its dwelling deep within, has a great advantage as a judge in comparison of outward observers. It is seated with its lamp down in the hidden world among the vital sentiments and movements at the radical depth of the dispositions, at the very springs of action, among the thoughts, motives, intentions, and wishes. 16. Conscience restrains from violating the law. — The infinite multitude of criminals would have been still more criminal but for this. It has often struck an irresolution, a timidity, into the sinner, by which his intention has been frustrated. Its bitter and vin- dictive reproaches after sin, have prevented so speedy or frequent repetitions of the sin. It has prevented the whole man from being gratified by sin; it has been one dissentient power among his faculties, as if, among a company of gay revellers, there should appear one dark and frowning intruder, whom they could neither conciliate nor expel. 17. Conscience loill minister in executing the pen- alty of the laio. — We foresee that it will awake ! and with an intensity of life and power proportioned to this long sleep, as if it had been growing gigantic during its slumber. It will rise up with all that su- periority of vigor with which the body will rise at the resurrection. It will awake ! — probably in the last hours of life. But if not — it will nevertheless awake ! In the other world there is something which will certainly awake it at the last day. 18. Conscience perverted obscures the distinctions of the law. — One most disastrous circumstance is instant- ly presented to our thoughts, namely, that with by far the greatest number of men that have lived, conscience has been separated from all true knowledge of God A.11 heathens, of all ages and countries ; with but lit- 94 poster's thoughts. tie limitation the same may be said of the Mohamme- dans ; and to a very great extent it is true of the pa- pists. The superior and eternal order of principles is nearly out of sight, as in some countiies they rarely see the sun or the stars. 19. Conscience made unfaithful to the law. — Sup- posing the whole of what the Divine law condemns, and therefore conscience ought, to be measured by a scale of one hundred degrees of aggravation — then the censure beginning at one, will become extremely severe by the time of rising to fifty. But let this first fifty be struck off, as harmless, in accommodation to the general notions and customs — what then'? Why then, conscience will but begin, and in slight terms, its censures at the fifty-first degree, and so, at the very top of the scale, will pronounce with but just that emphasis which was due at the point where it began. 20. Modes of evading the law. — (1.) The bold, di- rect, decisive one, is — infidelity : to deny the exist- ence of the Supreme Lawgiver himself. Then the Sovereign Voice is silent. Then the destruction of the Divine law takes, as it were, from the centre in- stead of by a contraction of its wide extension. Then all tlungs are right which men wish, and can, and dare do ; right, as to any concern of conscience — the practical regulations which atheists would feel the necessity for, would be only a matter of policy and mutual self-defence. (2.) To reject a revelation is an expedient little less summary and effectual for the purpose. A God believed or supposed, but making no declaration of his will and the retribution, would give very little dis- turbance to sinners. For as to what has bee^n termed natural religion, though a fine systematic theory may be framed, it is, for anything like practical effect, no more than a dream. It was so among the bulk of the cultivated heathens ; and now the rejecters of LAW OF GOD. 95 revelation would be sure not to allow themselves to be defrauded of their advantage by admitting any- thing more than they liked of the rules and authority of natural religion. (3.) By the indulgence of sin, not only in action or thought, but also in the heart. It is by the under- standing- and the conscience that the Divine law is to be apprehended in its .amplitude. Now nothing is more notorious than the baneful effect which in- dulged and practised sin has on both these. It in- flicts a grossness on the understanding, which ren- ders it totally unadapted to take cognizance of any- thing which is to be spiritually discerned — as una- dapted as our bodily senses are to perceive spirits. It throws a thick obscurity over the whole vision of the Divine law, so that nothing of it is distinctly per- ceived, except where sometimes some part of it breaks out in thunder. The conscience partakes the stupefaction — is insensible to a thousand accusations and menaces of the Divine law, every one of which ought to have been pungent and painful. (4.) The general operation of self-love. The be- ing has a certain sense of not being in a state of peace and harmony with God, but of alienation, opposition, and in a degree hostility, but still devotedly loves it- self. It has therefore a set of self^defensive feelings against him. But since it could not defend itself against his power, it endeavors to defend itself against his law. It ventures to question the necessity or pro- priety of one point of his law ; refuses to admit the plain intei-pretation of another, or to admit the cleai inferences from undeniable rules. It makes lar^re o portions of the Divine law refer to other men and times ; to special and transient occasions and circum- stances ; is ingenious in inventing exemptions for it- self; weakens the force of both the meaningr and the authority of the Divine dictates which it can not avert from their application to itself Thus it "renders 98 Foster's thoughts. void" much of both the spirit and the letter ; and thus places itself amid a dwindled and falsified system of the Divine legislation. (5.) The influence of the customs and maxims of the world. For a moment, suppose these admitted to constitute the supreme law and standard. Let all that these adjudge superfluous, be left out and re- jected ; all that these aecount indifferent, be set down so ; all that these warrant by practice, be formally sanctioned ; all that these pronounce honorable and admirable, be inscribed in golden letters ; all that these have, settled as true wisdom, be adopted as principles and oracles. Especially, let what the cus- tom and notions of the world have mainly satisfied themselves with in respect to religion be admitted, as the true scheme of our relations and duties to God. This system now ! — Let it be placed opposite to the Divine law ! Would it not be like Baal's prophets confronting Elijah 1 like Satan propounding doctrine to our Lord 1 like a holy angel and the devil looking in each other's face ? But, think ! — this is actually the system on which the notions and habits of the multitude are formed ! Thus the Divine law, in its exceeding breadth, is n:ade, as it is said of the heav- ens, to " depart as a scroll that is rolled together." (6.) A notion and a feeling as if, man being so very imperfect a creature, it can not be that there is an absolutely perfect law in authority over him. It is impossible for him to meet such a law in full con- formity, and therefore it is a moderate and more in- dulgent one that he is responsible to. But where is there any declaration of such a law? What can the idea really mean, but a tolerance and approval of something that is evil ? Something different from that which is perfect — less than — what can this be but evil 1 Shall there be a law from the holy God to sanction evil, because man is evil ] (7.) The plea of grace, which pretends to absolve LAW OF GOD. 97 Christians from the claims of the sovereign rule, he- cause their justification is on an entirely dijfferent ground. So that they stand as independent of the law as he is who appointed it. There are different degrees in which this odious heresy is made a prac- tical principle. A spirit truly renewed through di- vine grace, becomes an emphatic approver of the law. It is a reflection of the chai^acter of Him whom he adores, and wishes to resemble. 9 9S poster's thoughts. CHAPTER IV. VIEWS AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL DEPRAVITY OF MAN. 1. Sinful nature of man disclosed hy his acts. — Look at the general qualities of actions over this wide world, and think what they collectively testify oiman ! And in noticing men's actions in the detail, it will be a useful exercise and habit to ti-ace them back to what they proceed from in the nature of man, and what they therefore show to be in that nature. Hu- man nature discloses itself freely, fully, and fear- lessly, in some men; with caution, art, and partial concealment, in others. But a multitude of unequiv- ocal manifestations of all its attributes will present themselves to the attentive observer. It is of course that he ought to maintain candor or rather say equi- ty; but he is not to let go the plain maxim that the fruits show the tree For whence does all the fro "^ ^ ^^ ^^ heart becoming evil in action ^^ . so much evil having come drained into P^^'^J' / is a perennial fountain, unless from it 1 Alasltbeie P a Divine band close 1. ^j ^^^ selfish.— The m'Mu 2. Ruh7ig pcLssi^^^^^ j.^^g consists in the love of strength of nnnian distinction, of power, and of sensual gratification, 03 money. . of wickedness, repressed hy 3. TU vast ^.^^"^^'^jg chargedfo the account of hv menaced retribuUon^^^^^^^-^^^^^^ ^^ perpetmte an ini- fnan nature.- ^ wrong to his fellow-moi'tals, equity, of the nature of a DEPRAVIiy OF MAN. 99 is apprized that he shall provoke a reaction, to resist or punish him ; that he shall incur as gi-eat an evil as that he is disposed to do, or greater; that either a revenue regardless of all formalities of iustice will strike him, or a process mstituted m organized soci- ety w^ill vindictively reach his property, liberty, or life. This defensive array, of all men against all men, com- pels to remain shut up within the mind an immensity of wickedness which is there burning to come out into action It is not very uncommon to hear credit given to human nature, apparently in sober simplicity, for the whole amount of the negation of bad actions thus prevented, as just so much genuine virtue, by some dealers in moral and theological spec- ulation. 4. Civil laio a7id j)7iilosophy can not avail fully to repress depravity. — There was nothing to insinuate or to force its way into the recesses of the soul, to apply there a repressive power to the depraved ar- dor which glowed in the passions. That was left, inaccessible and inextinguishable, as the subterra- nean fires in a volcanic region Reflect on the extent of human genius, in its powers of invention, combination, and adaptation ; and then think of all this faculty — in an immense number of minds, through many ages, and in every imaginable variety of situa- tion, exerted with unremitting activity in aid of the wrong propensities. 5. 'Philosophers overlooking the moral perversion of human nature blind guides. — Here in a moral sense are wheels that will not turn — springs without elas- ticity — levers that break in the application of their force ; and you tell me there is no radical fault in the machinery ! One thing is clear, that I can never learn from instructors like you, how to have the miserable disorder rectified. You know too little of mankind — about yourselves — about the great standard. 6. Reproductive power of moral evil — It is per 100 Foster's thoughts. petually invigorated by the very destruction which it works ; as if it fed upon the slain to strengthen itself for new slaughter, and absorbed into its own, every life which it takes away. For it is in the na- ture of moral evil, as acting on human beings, to create to itself new facilities, means, and force, for prolonging that action. And to what a dreadful per- fection of evil might such a race attain but for death, that cuts the term of individuals so short, and but for the Spirit of God, that converts some, and puts a degree of restraint on the rest. 7. Depravity hrvpressed upon th e chief works ofm an, — False religion that havS raised so many superb tem- ples, of which the smallest remaining ruins bear an impressive character of grandeur ; that has prompted the creation, from shapeless masses of substance, of so many beautiful or monstrous fonns, representing fabulous super-human and divine beings ; and that has produced some of the most stupendous works in- tended as abodes, or monuments, of the dead. It is the evil next in eminence, war, that has caused the earth to be embossed with so many thousands of mas- sy structures in the form of towers and defensive walls — so many remains of ancient cam.ps — so many traces of the labors by which armies overcame the obstacles opposed to them by rivers, rocks, or mount- ains — and so many triumphal edifices raised to per- petuate the glory of conquerors. It is the oppressive self-importance of imperial tyrants, and of their infe- rior commanders of human toils, that has erected those magnificent residences which make a far greater figure in our imagination, than the collective dwellings of the humbler population of a whole continent, and that has in some spots thrown the surfaceof the earth into new foiTTis. 8. Character of the mass not to he inferred, from individual examples of virtue. — There was perhaps a learned and vigorous monai'ch, and there were DEPRAVITY OF MAN. 101 Cecils, and Walsinghams, and Shaksperes, and Sid- neys, and Spencers, with many other powerful think- ers and actors, to render it the proudest age of our national glory. And we thoughtlessly admit on our imagination this splendid exhibition as in some man- ner involving or implying the collective state of the people in that age ! The ethereal summits of a tract of the moral world are conspicuous and fair in the lustre of heaven, and we take no thought of the im- mensely greater proportion of it which is sunk in gloom and covered with the shadows of ignorance and vice. 9. Wickedness amid scenes of beauty. — That there is a luxuriant verdure — that there are flowers — rich fields — fruitful trees — pleasing sounds, and tastes, and odors — streams — soft gales — picturesque land- scapes — what is all this as set against the other fact, that there are — in almost infinite mass, and number, and variety — bad dispositions and passions — bad principles — wicked thoughts — vile language — im- pieties and crimes of all possible kinds ? 10. Appalling aspect of marC s depravity . — Consid- ering man in this view, the sacred oracles have repre- sented him as a more melancholy object than Nineveh or Babylon in ruins ; and an infinite aggregate of ob- vious facts confirms the doctrine. 11. Popular moral ignorance. The masses in a condition analogous to what their physical existence would have been under a total and permanent eclipse of the sun. Tt was perpetual night in their souls, with all the phenomena incident to night, except the sublimity. 12. A figure of the moral state of the world — The right state of the sun is to be one full orb of radiance ; that though there be some small spots and dimmer points, it should be in effect a complete and glorious luminary ! Imagine then if you can this effulgence extinguished, and turned to blackness over all its glo- 9* 102 poster's thoughts. rious face, excepting here and there a mos^ diminu- tive point, emitting one bright ray like a small star. What a ghastly phenomena! and if it continued so the utter ruin of the system. But such we behold the condition of the human race In the incal- culable human mass of a whole idolatrous world, we are shpwn here and there an individual, or a diminu- tive combination of individuals, little shining particles, specimens of what the right state of the world would have been. 13. Aggregate view of the history of the world appalling. — I have sometimes thought, if the sun were an intelligence, he would be horribly incensed at the world he is appointed to enlighten ; such a tale of ages, exhibiting a tiresome repetition of stu- pidity, follies, and crimes. 14. Common persuasion of human depravity. — We have such an habitual persuasion of the general depravity of human nature, that in falling among strangers we always reckon on their being irreligious, till we discover some specific indication of the con- trary. 15. Popular ignorance intercej^ts the rays of moral illumination. — Utter io^norance is a most eff'ectual fortification to a bad state of the mind. Prejudice may perhaps be removed ; unbelief may be reasoned with ; even demoniacs have been compelled to bear witness to the truth ; but the stupidity of confirmed ignorance not only defeats the ultimate efficacy of the means for making men wiser and better, but stands in preliminary defiance to the very act of their ap- plication. It reminds us of an account, in one of the relations of the French Egyptian campaigns, of the attempt to reduce a gariison posted in a bulky fort of mud. Had the defences been of timber, the be- siegers might have set fire to and burnt them ; had they been of stone, they might have shaken and ul- timately breached them by the batteiy of theii can- DEPRAVITY OP MAN. 103 non; or they might have underaiined and blown them up. But the huge mound of mud had nothing sus- ceptible of fire or any other force ; the missiles from the artillery were discharged but to be buried in the dull mass ; and all the means of demolition w^ere baffled He finds, as he might expect to -find, that a conscience without knowledge has never taken but a very small portion of the man's habits of life, under its jurisdiction ; and that it is a most hopeless thing to attempt to send it back reinforced, to reclaim and conquer, through all the past, the whole extent of its rightful but never assumed dominion. 16. Stupidity of ignorant wickedness at the ap- proach of death. — They had actually never thought enough of death to have any solemn associations with the idea. And their faculties were become so rigid- ly shrunk up, that they could not now admit them ; no, not while the portentous spectre was unveiling his visage to them, in near and still nearer approach ; not when the element of another world was begin- ning to penetrate through the rents of their mortal tabernacle. It appeared that literally their thoughts could not go out from what they had been through life immersed in, to contemplate, with any realizing feeling, a gi'and change of being, expected so soon to come on them. They could not go to the fearful brink to look off. It was a stupor of the soul not to be awakened but by the actual plunge into the reali- ties of eternity. " I hope it will please God soon to release me,'' was the expression to his religious med- ical attendant of such an ignorant and insensible mor- tal within an hour of his death which was evidendy and directly brought on by his vices. 17. Portentous aspect of 7?iasses of huvian beings perishing for lack of knowledge. — We have often mused, and felt a gloom and dreariness spreading over the mind while musing, on descriptions of the aspect of a country after a pestilence has left it in 104 poster's THCUGflTS. desolation, or of a region where the people are per- ishing by famine. It has seemed a mournful thing to behold, in contemplation, the multitude of hfeless forms, occupying in silence the same abodes in which they had lived, or scattered upon the gardens, fields, and roads ; and then to see the countenances of the beings yet languishing in life, looking despair, and impressed with the signs of approaching death. We have even sometimes had the vivid and horrid picture offered to our imagination, of a number of human creatures shut up by their fellow-mortals in some stronghold, under an entire privation of sustenance ; and presenting each day their imploring, or infuriated, or grimly sullen, or more calmly woful countenances, at the iron and impregnable grates ; each succeeding day more haggard, and miserable, more perfect in the image of despair ; and after a while appearing each day one fewer, till at last all have sunk. Now shall we feel it as a relief to turn in thought, as to a sight of less portentous evil, from the inhabitants of a country, or from those of such an accursed prison- house, thus pining away, to behold the different spec- tacle of national tribes, or any more limited portion of mankind, on whose minds are displayed the full effects of knowledge denied ; who are under the pro- cess of whatever destruction it is, that spirits can suf- fer from want of the vital aliment to the intelligent nature, especially from "a famine of the words of the Lord ?".... Since that period when ancient history, strictly so named, left off describing the state of man- kind, more than a myriad of millions of our race have been on earth, and quitted it without one ray of the knowledge the most important to spirits sojourning here, and going hence. 18. Retrospect of the lieatlien world. — We can not look that way but we see the whole field covered with inflicters and sufferers, not seldom interchanging those characters. If that field widens to our view, it DEPRAVITY OF MAN. 105 is still, to the utmost line to which the shade clears away, a scene of cmelty, oppression, and slavery ; of the strong trampling on the weak, and the weak of- ten attempting to bite at the feet of the sti-ong ; of rancorous animosities and murderous competitions of persons raised above the mass of the community ; of treacheries and massacres ; and of war, between hordes, and cities, and nations, and empires — war neve?-, in spirit, intermitted, and suspended sometimes in act only to acquire renewed force for destruction, or to find another assemblage of hated creatures to cut in pieces. 19. State of the pagan world. — While the immense aggregate is displayed to the mental view, as per- vaded, agitated, and stimulated, by the restless forces- of appetites and passions, and those forces operating with an impulse no less perverted than strong, let it be asked what kinds and measure of restraint there could be upon such a world of creatures so actuated, to keep them from rushing in all ways into evil. 20. Thick darkness of Romanism intimtated by the sombre shadows still resting on nations and the church. — Indeed, the thickness of the preceding darkness' was strikingly manifested by the deep shade which still continued stretched over the nation, in spite of the newly-iisen luminary, whose beams lost their brightness in pervading it to reach the popular mind, and came with the faintness of an obscured and te- dious dawn. 21. Savage state. — But he would become sober enough, if compelled to travel a thousand miles through the desert, or over the snow, with some of these subjects of his lectures ard legislation; to ac- company them in a hunting excursion ; to choose in a stormy night between exposure in the open air and in the smoke and grossness of their cabins ; to ob- serve the intellectual faculty narrowed almost to a point, limited to a scanty number of the meanest 106 Foster's thoughts. class of ideas ; to find by repeated expeiiments that his kind of ideas could neither reach their under- standing nor excite their curiosity ; to see the raven- ous appetite of wolves succeeded for a season by a stupidity insensible even to the few interests which kindle the utmost ardor of a savage ; to witness loath- some habits occasionally diversified by abominable ceremonies; or to be for once the spectator of some of the circumstances which accompany the wars of savages. 22. Depravity a harrier to the henejicent operation of government. — No form of government will be prac- tically good, as long as the nations to be governed are in a controversy, by their vices and irreligion, with the Supreme Governor. 23. Depravity assimilates civil institutions to its own standard. — It will pervert even the very schemes and operations by which the world would be im- proved, thoijgh their first principles were pure as Heaven ; and r g , ^lution s. great di scov eri es. ause have they fixed or forwarded] What one thin,ij that was wrong has been corrected ] or even more clearly seen how to be coiTected ] Is it, can it be the :^ct, that all that succession passed me but as the lights and shadows of an April day ? or as the insects that have flown past me in the air ] While ten thousand or a hundred thousand ideas have pass- ed my mind, might I really as well have had none ? .... Any grains of gold-dust deposited by the stream that has carried down so many millions of particles of mud ] 34. Religion the noblest pursuit. — How could you estimate so meanly your mind with all its capacities, as to feel no regret that an endless series of trifles should seize, and occupy as their right, all your thoughts, and deny them both the liberty and the ambition of going on to the greatest object ] How, while called to the contemplations which absorb the spirits of Heaven, could you be so patient of the task of counting the flies of a summer's day ] 35. Vices jiourishing in old age. — An old stump of an oak, with a few young shoots on its almost bare top. Analogy : youthful follies growing on old age. 36. Splendid talents without virtuous jjhilanthropy. — A still pool amid a most barren heath, shining resplendently in the morning sunshine. Analogy : talents accompanied with moral barrenness, that is, indolence or depravity. 37. Limited acquirements from unlimited means of improvement. — What an astonishing massof^a^wZww* 15* 174 poster's thoughts. is consumed to sustain an individual human being ! How much nourishment I have consumed by eating and drinking; how much air by breathing; how much of the element of affection my heart has claim- ed, and has sometimes lived in luxury, and sometimes starved ! Above all ! what an infinite sum of those instructions which are to feed the moral and intel- lectual man, have I consumed, and how poor the consequence ! What a despicable, dwarfish growth I exhibit to myself and to God at this hour ! Yes, how much it takes in this last respect, to grow how little ! Millions of valuable thoughts I suppose have passed through my mind. How often my con- science has admonished me! How many thousands of pious resolutions ! How all nature has preached to me ! How day and night, and solitude and the social scenes, and books and the bible, the gravity of sermons and the flippancy of fools, life and death, the ancient world and the modern, sea and land, and the omnipresent God ! have all concurred to instruct me ! and behold the miserable result of all ! ! I wonder if the measure of effect be a ten thousandth part of the bulk, to call it so, of this vast combination of causes. How far is this strange proportion between moral effects and their causes necessary in simple nature (analogically with the proportion between cause and consequence \\\ jyliysical 'pabuluui), and how far is it the indication and the consequence of nature being depraved ? However this may be, the enor- mous fact of the inefhcacy of truth shades with mel- ancholy darkness to my view, all the hopes for my- self and for others, of any grand improvements in this woild ! 38. Valuahle acquirements personal. — The man into whose house I step a quarter of an hour, or whom I meet on the road, or whose hand 1 take, and con- verse with him, looking in his face the while — he so near me, that walks with me, that traverses a field or FORMATION OF CHARACTEK. 175 Bits in an arbor with me — ^he may have a soul fraught with celestial fire, stores of science, brilliant ideas, magnanimous principles, while I — I that observe his countenance and hear him talk — may have nothing of all this. He may for the last ten years have been assiduous in studies day and night, while I have con- sumed the morning in sleep, and the day in indolent vacancy of every sentiment, except wishing, *' which of all employments is the worst." What right have I to wish he should leave part of his animated and powerful character with me 1 But he can not, if he would. He takes his resplendent soul away, and leaves me to feel, that as he is individual, so, too, un- fortunately, am I. The mind must operate within its own self, and by its own will; else, though sur- rounded by a legion of angels, it would be dark and stationary still. 39. Approving the good but pursuing the had. — There is the great affair — moral and religious improve- ment. What is the true business of life ? To gi'ow wiser, more pious, more benevolent, more ardent, more elevated in every noble pui-pose and action, to resemble the Divinity ! It is acknowledged ; who denies or doubts \t% What then] Why, care noth- ing at all about it ! Sacrifice to trifles the energies of the heart, and the short and fleeting time allotted for divine attainments ! Such is the actual course of the world. What a thing is mankind ! 40. Value of conversational power. — Struck, in two instances, with the immense importance, to a man of sense, of obtaining a conversational predominance, in order to be of any use in any company exceeding the smallest number.— r-Example, W. Frend. 41. Assimilating influence of intercourse with men of genius. — A person who can be habitually in the company of a communicative man of original genius for a considerable time, without being greatly modi- fied, is either a very great, or a contemptibly little 176 poster's thoughts. being ; he has either the vigorous firmness of ihe oak, or the heavy firmness of the stone. 42. Proper end of reading. — Readers in general who have an object beyond amusement, yet are not apprized of the most important use of reading, the acquisition of poiver. Their knowledge is not pow- er; and, too, the memory retains but the small part of the knowledge of which a book should be full ; the grand object, then, should be to improve the strength and tone of the mind by a thinking, analyzing, discriminating, manner of reading. 43. Gentleness tempered hy firmness. — A character should retain always the upright vigor of manliness; not let itself be bent and fixed in any specific form. It should be like an upright elastic tree, which bends, accommodating a little to each win^ on every side, but never loses its spring and self-dependent vigor. 44. Long familiarity with the fashionable world destroys the relish for the more substantial enjoyments of life. — After looking a good while on the glaring side of the view, my eye does not nicely distinguish these modest beauties in the shade. Analogy : a man whose feelings and habits are formed in splendid and fashionable life, has no relish for the charms of re- tirement, or of secluded, affectionate society. 45. Character of courtiers. — Characters formed in the routine of a court, like pebbles in a brook, are rounded into a smooth unifoi-mity, in which the points and angles of virtuous singularity are lost. 46. Great natural amiableness of character, seems not compatible xoith the sublimest virtue. — I doubt if S. is not too innocent to become sublimely excel- lent ; her heart is purity and kindness ; her recollec- tions are complacent ; her wishes and intentions are all good. In such a mind conscience becomes ef- feminate for want of hard exercise. She is exempt- ed from those revulsions of the heart, that remorse, those self-indignant regrets, those impetuous convic- FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 177 tions, which sometimes assist to scourge tl/e mind away from its stationary habits into such a region of daring and arduous virtue, as it would never have reached, nor even thought of, but for this mighty im- pulse of pain. Witness Albany in Cecilia. Vehe- ment emotion, mortifying contrast, shuddering alarm, sting the mind into an exertion of power 'it was un- conscious of before, and urge it on with restless velocity toward the attainment of that moral em- inence, short of which it would equally scorn and dread to repose. We fly from pain or terror more eagerly than we pursue good ; but if both these causes aid our advance ! A young eagle perhaps would never have quitted the warm luxury of its nest, and towered into the sky, if the parent had not pushed it or the tempest flung it off", and thus compelled it to fly by the dan- ger of perishing. Is it not too possible that S. may repose complacently in the innocent softness of her nest, and die without ever having^ unfolded thewingf of sublime adventure. At sight of such a death one would weep with tenderness, not glow with admira- tion ; it is a charming woman that falls, not a radiant angel that rises. 47. Exquisite susceptihility. — (Remark on the character of Green.) There is such a predominant habit of deep feeling in his mind, that the smallest touch, a single sentence, will instantly bring his mind and his very voice into that tone. Comparing him to a musical stringed instrument I should say, that he never needeH tuning ; the strings are perfectly ready at any moment; you have only to touch them and they will sound harmoniously the genuine music of sentiment. 48. Individuality of manners. — Stroke of descrip- tion of 's manners, whem in the most advan- tageous form. " He is neither vulgar nor genteel, nor any compound of these two kinds of vulgarity. 178 poster's thoughts. He has the manners of no class, but something of a quite different order. His manners are a part of his soul, like the style of a writer of genius. His man- ners belong to the individual. He makes you think neither of clown nor gentleman — hnt of man. 49. Discrimination of character. — (Character of one of my acquaintance, whom a friend was descri- bing as melancholy.) " No ; her feelings are rather fretted than melancholy." 50. Description of character. — (Feature of the character of one of my friends.) " Cautious without suspicion, and discriminating without fastidiousness." 51. Description of character. — (Touch of descrip- tion of a young woman in the lower ranks, not cul- tivated into a girl of sense, yet not so thoughtlessly vacant as the common vulgar.) " She has notions^ 52. Description of character. — lElgo. There is a want of continuity in your social character. You seem broken into fragments. H. Well, I sparkle in frao-ments. Eso. But how much better to shine whole, like a mirror ". 53. Effect of amusements. — Against amusements, defended on- the plea of necessary relaxation. I maintain that excitement is excitability too. An an- imated, affecting interest, supplies to the mind more than it consumes. The further a man advances in the ardor that belongs to a noble employment and object, the more mightily he lives. Other men will per- haps advance with him to a certain point, and there they stop — he goes on ; now the ratio of his progress and his animation is comparatively greater on that far-advanced ground beyond where they left him, than within an equal space in the earlier part of the course. The mind inspired with this enthusiasm as- serts its grandeur. It expands toward eternity, an- ticipative of its destiny. It lives, as Alonzo says, not by the vulgar calculation of months and years, but along the progression of sublime attainment, and FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 179 amid the flames of an ardor which whirls it like a comet toward the sun. Would you be a stranger to this energy of soul — or, feeling it, would you prostitute it to seek a poor factitious interest in systematic trifling ? 54. Power of bad habit. — I know from experience that habit can, in direct opposition to every convic- tion of the mind, and but little aided by the elements of temptation (such as present pleasure, &c.), induce a repetition of the most unworthy actions. The mind is weak where it has once given way. It is long be- fore -a principle restored can become as firm as one that has never been moved. It is as in the case of a mound of a reservoir : if this mound has in one place been broken, whatever care has been taken to make the repaired part as strong as possible, the probabil- ity is, that if it give away again, it will be in that place. 55. The importance and necessity of a ruling pas- sion — that is, some grand object, the view of which kindles all the ardor the soul is capable of, to attain or accomplish it — possibility of cre«^m^ a ruling pas- sion asserted. 56. Danger of an exclusive pursuit. — I have the highest opinion of the value of a ruling passion ; but if this passion monopolizes all the man, it requires that the object be a very comprehensive or a very dignified one, to save him from being ridiculous. The devoted antiquary, for instance, who is passion- ately fond of an old coin, an old button, or an old nail, is ridiculous. The man who is nothing but a musician, and recoo^nises nothinor jn the whole crea- tion but crotchets and quavers, is ridiculous, oo is the nothing but verbal critic, to whom the adjustment of a few insignificant particles in some ancient author appears a more important study than the grandest arrangement of politics oi" morals. Even the total devotee to the grand science, astronomy ^ incurs the 180 poster's thoughts. same misfortune. Religion and morals have a noble pre-eminence here ; no man can become ridiculous by his passionate devotion to them ; even a specific direction of this passion will make a man sublime- witness iJoz^'a?*^/ ■s^^ecZ/zc, I say, and correctly, though, at the same time, ^7^3/ large plan of benevolence must be compreheusive, so to speak, of a large quantity of morals. 57. Important points ascertained. — (1.) In my pres- ent circumstances, taken as they are, setting all the past aside, some one thing is absolutely the best thing I can design or do. (2.) My present sphere and course of action is most certainly not the best that can be. In proof of this assertion several conclusive reasons can be alleged. (3.) It strictly follows that, to change this sphere and this course, is decisively a part of my duty. (4.) And inasmuch as life is valu- able, and utility is its value, it is clear that the case is urgent, and that I am required to attempt this change with zeal and with speed. (5.) The greatest good \s to be my sovereign principle and object of action. (6.) Incidental principle : to make the plans I adopt for the improvement of my own mind, contribute equally, if possible, to the improvement of others (by writing letters, and otherwise). (7.) Is not this world a proper scene for a benevolent and ardent mind ? There are bodies to heal, minds to enlighten and re- form, social institutions to change, children to edu- cate. In all this is there nothing that I can dol ! ! (8.) One of these two things, viz., congenial society, and a sphere of urgency and action, seem absolutely necessary to save my energies from torpor or extinc- tion. If I could gain both ! (9.) Oh, how I repro- bate this indecision as to what character I will as- sume, and what designs I will att*;mpt ! (10.) I deem myself a man of capacity beyond the common; my plan of action ought therefore to include as little as possible of that which common capacity can perform FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 181 as well as mine ; and as much as possible of what requires, and will educe, this superiority of ability which I attribute to myself. (11.) I want to extend, as it were, and augment my being and its interests; there is one mean of doing this, which, &c. 58. Progressive formation of character overlooked. — I have observed that most ladies who have had what is considered as an education, have no idea of an education progressive through life. Having at- tained a certain measure of accomplishment, knowl- edge, manners, &c., they consider themselves as made up, and so take their station ; they are pictures which, being quite finished, are put in a frame — a gilded one, if possible — and hung up in permanence of beauty ! in permanence, that is to say, till Old Time, with his rude and dirty fingers, soil the charming colors. 59. Power of popular intelligence and virtue. — A people advanced to such a state would make its moral power felt in a thousand ways, and every moment. This general augmentation of sense and right princi- ple would send forth, against all arrangements and in- veterate or more modern usages, of the nature of in- vidious exclusion, arbitrary repression, and the de- basement of gi'eat public interests into a detestable private traffic, an energy which could no more be resisted than the power of the sun when he advances in the spring to annihilate the relics and vestiges of the winter There is, indeed, a hemisphere of ** gross darkness over the people ;" it may be possi- ble to withhold from it long the illumination of the Bun ; but in the meantime it has been rent by porten- tous lights and flashes, which have excited a thought and agitation not to be stilled by the continuance of the gloom. There have come in on the popular mind some ideas, which the wisest of those who dread or hate their effect there, look around in vain for the means of expelling. And these glimpses of partial 16 182 Foster's thoughts. intelligence, these lights of dubious and possibly de- structive direction amid the night, will continue to prompt and lead that mind, with a hazard which can cease only with the opening upon it of the true day- light of knowledge. 60. Moral illumination intercepted hy popular ig- norance. — How should a man in the rudeness of an intellect left completely ignorant of truth in general, have a luminous apprehension of its most important division ? There could not be in men's minds a phe- nomenon similar to what we image to ourselves of Goshen in the preternatural night of Egypt, a space of perfect light, defined out by a precise limit amid the general darkness. . . . These latter, so environed, would be in a condition too like that of a candle in the mephitic air of a vault. 61. A soul conJi7ied by impervious pri&on-walls of ignorance. — We can imagine this ill-fated spirit, es- pecially if by nature of the somewhat finer tempera- ment, thus detached from all vital connexion, secluded from the whole universe, and enclosed as by a prison- wall — we can imagine it sometimes moved with an indistinct longing for its appropriate interests ; and going round and round by this dark, dead, wall, to seek for any spot where there might be a chance of escape, or any crevice where a living element for the soul transpires ; and then, as feeling it all in vain, de- jectedly resigning its-elf again to its doom. ^2. Affecting retrospective view of the ignorance of ike world. — We of the present time are convicted of exceeding stupidity, if we think it not worth while to go a number of ages back to contemplate the mass of mankind, the wide world of beings such as our- selves, sunk in darkness and wretchedness, and to consider what it is that is taught by so melancholy an exhibition. What is to give fullness of evidence to an instruction, if a world be too narrow ? what is to give weight, if a W(jrld be too light ? FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 183 63. Freedom a%d spontaneous emanation of knowl- edge. — Knowledge, which was formerly a thing to be searched and dug for "as for hid treasures," has seemed at last beginning to effloresce through the surface of the ground on all sides of us, 64. Mind extinguislied by the hody. — By the very constitution of the human nature, the mind seems half to belong to the senses, it is so shut within them, af- fected by them, dependent on them for pleasure, as well as for activity, and impotent but through their medium. 65. Knowledge lihe the sun. — To say that under long absence of the sun any tract of terrestrial nature 7nust infallihly be reduced to desolation, is not to say or imply that under the benignant influence of that luminary the same region must, as necessarily and unconditionally, be a scene of beauty ; but the only hope, for the only possibility, is for the field visited by much of that sweet influence. 66. Secular knowledge associated with religious.— They will talk of giving the people an education spe- cifically religious ; a training to conduct them on through a close avenue, looking straight before them to descry distant spiritual objects, while shut out from all the scene right and left, by fences that tell them there is nothing that concerns them there. There may be rich and beautiful fields of knowledge, but they are not to be trampled by vulgar feet. 67. Esti7nate of the influence of education. — Like trying to specify, in brief terms, what a highly-im- proved portion of the ground, in a tract rude and sterile if left to itself, has received from cultivation; an attempt which would carry back the imagination through a progression of states and aj^pearances, in which the now fertile spots, and picture-like scenes, and commodious passes, and pleasant habitations, may or must have existed in the advance from the original rudeness. . . If, while these benefits are com- 184 poster's thoughts. ing so numerously in his sight, like an irregular crowd of loaded fruit-trees, one partially seen behind the offered luxury of another, and others still descried, through intervals, in the distances, he can imagine them all devastated and swept away from him, leav- ino- him in a scene of mental desolation — and if he shall then consider that nearly such is the state of the great multitude — he will surely feel that a deep com- passion is due to so depressed a condition of exist- ence. ... A few false notions, such as could hardly fail to take the place of absent truth in the ignorant mind, however crude they might be, and however deficient for constituting a full system of error, would be sure to dilate themselves so as to have an opera- tion at all the points where truth is wanting. . . . The dark void of ignorance, instead of remaining a mere negation, becomes filled with agents of perversion and destruction ; as sometimes the gloomy apartments of a deserted mansion have become a den of robbers and murderers The conjunction of truths is of the utmost importance for preserving the genuine tendency, and securing the appropriate efficacy, of each. It is an unhappy "lack of knowledge" when there is not enough to preserve, to what there -is of it, the honest, beneficial quality of knowledge. How many of the follies, excesses, and crimes, in the course of the world, have taken their pretended warrant from some fragment of truth, dissevered from the connex- ion of truths indispensable to its right operation, and in that detached state easily perverted into coales- cence with the most pernicious principles, which con- cealed and gave effect to their malignity under the falsified authority of a truth. 68. Prevailing perversion of conscience. — Every serious observer has been struck and almost shocked to observe, in what a very small degree conscience is a necessary attribute of the human creature ; and how nearly a nonentity the whole system of moral FORMATION OP CHARACTER. 185 principles may be, as to any recognition of it by an unadapted spirit. While that system is of a sub- stance veritable and eternal, and stands forth in its exceeding^ breadth, marked with the strono-est char- acters and prominences, it has to these persons hardly the reality or definiteness of a shadow, except in a few matters, if we may so express it, of the grossest bulk. There must be glaring evidence of somethincr bad in what is done, or questioned whether to be done, before conscience will come to its duty, or give proof of its existence. There must be a violent alarm of mischief or danger before this drowsy and igno- rant magistrate will interfere. 1G» 186 Foster's thoughts. CHAPTER VIII. YOUTH ITS ADVANTAGES AND PERILS DOMESTIC LIFE AND VIRTUES EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 1. Active powers of youth. — How precious a thing is youthful energy ; if only it could be preserved en- tirely englohed, as it w^ere, wdthin the bosom of the young adventurer, till he can come and offer it forth a sacred emanation in yonder temple of truth and virtue ; but, alas ! all along as he goes toward it, he advances through an avenue, formed by a long line of tempters and demons on each side, all prompt to touch him with their conductors, and draw this divine electric element, with which he is charged, away ! 2. Temptations of youth. — It would be a fine posi- tion, doubtless, for a man to stand on a spot where there was a powerful action of all the elements al- most close around him ; the earth he stood on bloom- ing with flowers ; water thrown in impetuous falls and torrents on the one side — some superb fire near at hand on the other — and the winds whirling, as if to exasperate them both ; but he would need look carefully to his movements, especially if informed that others carelessly standing there had been whirled into destruction; or if he saw the fact. Let young persons ubserve what is actually becoming of those who surrender themselves to their passions and wild propensities. What numbers ! Then in themselves observe seriously whither these inward traitors and tempters really tend j and then think whether sober- YOUTH. 187 ness of mind be not a pearl of great price, and wheth- er there can be any such thing without a systematic self-government. 3. Successive periods of life soon passed. — Let it not be forgotten that youth will soon be passed away. Nay, there is even the wish in its possessors for the larger portion of it to haste away ! A most striking illustration of the vanity of our state on earth. It rapidly runs on to the longed-for age of twenty. But there it retains its impetus of motion, and runs be- yond that point as fast as it ran ihither. With what magical fleetness it passes away till it loses its quality, and life is youth no more ! 4. Disregard of the exj^erience of oth ers an ill omen. It is a bad sign in youth to be utterly heedless of the dictates of the experience of persons more advanced in life. It is, indeed, impossible for youth to enter fully into the spirit of such experience. But to de- spise it, to fancy it proceeds entirely from disappoint- ment, mortified feeling, moroseness, or the mere coldness of age, augurs ill — and so these young per- sons themselves will think, when they, in their turn, come to inculcate the lessons of their more aged ex- perience. 5. The harvest of later life must correspond with the seeding of youth. — If there be a vain, giddy, thought- less, ill-improved youth, the effects of it will infalli- bly come in after-life. If there be a neglected un- derstanding, a conscience feebly and rudely constitu- ted, good principles but slightly fixed or even appre- hended, an habitual levity of spirit, a chase of frivolities, a surrender to the passions — the natural consequences of these will follow. 6. Time is the greatest of tyrants. — As we go on toward age, he taxes oui health, our limbs, our facul- ties, our strength, and our features. 7. Youth is not like a new garment, which we can keep fresh and fair by wearing sparingly. Youths 188 poster's thoughts. while we have it, we must wear daily, and it will fast wear away. 8. The retrospect on youtli is too often like looknig back en what was a fair and promising country, but is now desolated by an overwhelming torrent, from which we have just escaped. 9. Or it is like visiting the grave of a friend whom we had injured, and are precluded by his death from the possibility of making him an atonement. 10. The whole systern of life goes on this principle of selling oneself: then the question of estimates should for ever recur — " My time for this V — " and this r 11. Price of pleasure. — All pleasure must be bought at the price of pain. The difference between false pleasure and true is just this : for the true, the price is paid before you enjoy it; for the false, after you enjoy it. . . tt 12. Deplored neglect of culture of youth. — How much 1 regret to see so generally abandoned to the weeds of vanity that fertile and vigorous space of life, in which might be planted the oaks and fruit-trees of enlightened principle and virtuous habit, which, grow- ing up, would yield to old age an enjoyment, a glory, and a shade ! 13. Insensibility to the approach of old age. — It is a most amazing thing that young people never con- sider they shall grow old. I would, to young women^ especially, renew the monition of this anticipation ev- ery hour of every day. I wish we could make all the criers, watchmen, ballad-singers, and even par- rots, repeat to them continually, " You will be an old woman — you will — and you." Then,if they have left themselves to depend, almost entirely, as most of them do, on exterior and casual accommodations, they will be wretchedly neglected. No beaux will then draw a chair close to them, and sweetly simper, YOUTH. 189 and whisper that the bowers of paradise did not afford so delightful a place. 14. True value of youth. — (Conclusion of a moral, monitory letter to a youjig acquaintance.) — I scarce- ly need to remark on the value of youth, with all its liv- ing energy ; but I may express my regret at seeing all around me, a possession so sweet and fair, so miser- ably poisoned and stained. I have only a question or two for you. Why do you think it happy to he young 1 why 1 When you shall be advanced tow- ard the conclusion of life, why will you think it happy to have heen young % Is there the least possibility or danger that then you may not think so at all ? Why do you lo^ with pleasure on the scene of coming life ] Does the pleasure spring from a sentiment less noble than the hope of securing, as you go on, those inestimable attainments, which will not decay with declining hfe, and may consequently set age, and time, and dissolution, at defiance ? You gladly now see life before you, but there is a moment which you are destined to meet when you will have passed across it, and will find yourself at the farther edge. Are you perfectly certain that at that moment you will be in possession of something that will enable you not to care that life is gone % If you should not, what then ] 15. Youth improved makes old age happy. — How often you see in the old persons who spent so gay a youth, an extinction of all the fire ! Sometimes they try to brighten up for a moment, but they be- tray an exhaustion and desertion. They are sensible that life is nearly gone by. But its close they can not bear to think of, no more than when they were young; but have no longer the youthful means of driving away the thought. They are sometimes pen- sively gloomy ; often peevishly and morosely so. Oh ! had they but in early life consecrated the animation of their spirits, by giving a larger share of it to God, 190 Foster's thoughts. to reserve it for tliem ! Had they often tempered and repressed the vivacity of their hearts, by solemn thoughts of hereafter, by a vigorous appHcation to wdsdom ! they might have been fired with spirit and animation now, which not the approach of death could chill or quench ! nay, would have burnt the brighter in that formidable atmosphere. 1 6 . Philosophy of tlie happiness of domestic and all Jiujnan alliances. — 1 have often contended that at- tachments between friends and lovers can not be se- cured strong, and perpetually augmenting, except by the intervention of some interest which is, not person- al, but which is common to them both, and toward which their attentions and passions are directed with still more animation than even toward each other. If the whole attention is to be directed, and the whole sentimentalism of the heart concentrated on each other ; if it is to be an unvaried, " I toward you, and "you toward me,'" as if each were to the other, not an ally or companion joined to pursue happiness, but the very end and object — happiness itself ; if it is the circumstance of reciprocation itself, and not what is reciprocated, that is to supply perennial interest to affection; if it is to be mind still reflecting back the gaze of mind, and reflecting it again, cherub toward cherub, as on the ark, and no luminary or glory be- tween them to supply beams and warmth to both- — I foresee that the hope will disappoint, the plan will fail. Affection, on these terms, v/ill be reduced to the condition of a famishing animal's stomach, the opposite sides of which, for want of pabulum intro- duced, meet and digest, and consume each other. Attachment must burn in oxygen, or it will go out; and, by oxygen, I mean a mutual admiration and pursuit of virtue, improvement, utility, the pleasures of taste, or some other interesting concern, which shall be the elemen: of their commerce, and make DOMESTIC LIFE. . 191 tliem love each other not orilyfor each other, but as devotees to some third object w^hich they both adore The affections of the soul will feel a dissatisfaction and a recoil if, as they go forth, they are entirely in- tercepted and stopped by any object that is not ideal; they wish rather to be like rays of light glancing on the side of an object, and then sloping and passing away ; they wish the power of elongation, through a series of interesting points, on toward infinity. Human society is avast circle of beings on a plain, in the midst of which stands the shrine of goodness and happiness, inviting all to approach ; now the attached pairs in this circle should not be continually looking on each other, but should turn their faces very often toward this central object, and as they advance, they will, like radii from the circumference to the centre, continually become closer to each oth- er, as they approximate to their mutual and ultimate object. ' 17. Growing strength of mutual affections. — One should think that a tender friendship might become more intimate and entire the older the parties grew; as two trees planted near each other, the higher they grow and the more widely they spread- — intermingle more completely their branches and their foliage. 18. Necessities of man's social nature. — We called on an affable, worthy, pious woman rather beginning to be aged (never married), who lives quite alone. Asked her whether she had not sometimes painful cra- vings for society. She said she had not; and that her habit was so settled to solitude, that she often felt the occasional hour spent with some other human beings tedious and teasing. We could not explain this fact. Long conversation, in walking en, respecting the so- cial nature of man. Why is this being, that looks at me and talks, whose bosom is waiTU, and whose na- ture and wants resemble my own — necessary to me? This kindred beiner whom I love, is more to me than .^ 192 POSTER*S THOUGHTS. all yonder stars of heaven, and than all the inanimate objects on earth. Delightful necessity of my nature ! But to what a world of disappointments and vexations is this social feeling liable, and how few are made happy by it, in any such degree as I picture to my- self and long for ! 19. Disturbances of mutual confidence and affection not necessary to confirm them. — When expressing a conjecture that, as in the previous course of love, so after marriage, it may be that reconciliations after disagreements are accompanied by a peculiar fas- cinating tenderness — I was told by a very sensible experimentaHst that the possibility of this feeling continues but for a while', and that it will be ex- tremely perceptible when the period is come, that no such felicitous charm will compensate for domestic misunderstandings. /, however, can not but think that when this period is come, the sentimental en- thusiasm is greatly subsided — that its most enchant- ing interest is, indeed, quite gone off. 20. Incipient domestic disputes greatly to he dread- ed. — A very respectable widow, remarking on mat- rimonial quarrels, said that the first quarrel that goes the length of any harsh or contemptuous language, is an unfortunate epoch in married life, for that the delicate respectfulness being thus once broken down, the same kind of language much more easily comes afterward; there is a feeling of having less to love than before. 21. How far should mutual confidence he extended 1 — Whether two much-attached friends, suppose a married pair, might adopt a system of confidence so entire, as to be total confessors to each other; dis- closing, for instance, at the end of each day, all the most unworthy or ungracious ideas and feelings that had passed through their minds during the course of it, both with respect to eacV other, and any other question or thing ' DOMESTIC LIFE. 193 22. Delicate concealment of ignorance or error of a companion. — One has been amused sometimes, when one of the domestic associates has advanced an opinion, or recited a supposed fact, which the other has thought extremely absurd, to see that other in haste to express his or her contempt of such folly of opinion, or credulity of belief, instead of silently sliding the circumstance or the subject out of con- versation, or mildly expressing that he or she can not entirely concur in opinion or belief, and endeavoring to make as good a retreat as possible for the associ- ate's ignorance or weakness. I say, one has been amused; but in some instances one has felt a painful sympathy with the person so treated with scorn by an intimate relative, and before a number of witnesses, each of whom would have politely let pass the un- fortunate remark or narration. Striking instances in Mr. and Mrs. , and Dr. and Mrs. . 23. In domestic disputes, a want of sentiment in the parties, greatly diminishes suffering. — Among mar- ried persons of the common size and texture of minds, the grievances they occasion one another are rather feelings of irritated temper than of hurt sentiment ; an important distinction. Of the latter perhaps they were never capable, or perhaps have long since worn out the capability. Their pain, therefore, is far less deep and acute than a sentimental observer would suppose or would in the same circumstances, with their own feelings, suffer. 24. In congenial domestic alliances a hopeless pre- dicament. — A man or woman with a stupid or per- verse partner, but still hoping to see this partner be- come all that is desired, is like a man with a wooden leg wishing it might become a vital one, and some- times for a moment fancying this almost possible. 25. Inconsiderate domestic alliances. — Their court- ship was carried on in poetry. Alas ! many an en- 17 194 Foster's thc ughts. iamored pair have courted in poetry, and after mar- riage, lived in prose. 26. Early education greatly defective. — Education always appears to me as the one thing which, taken generally, is the most vilely managed on earth. 27. Undue restraint of children to he deprecated.-— A very important principle in education, never to confine children long to any one occupation or place. It is totally against their nature, as indicated in all their voluntary exercises. Was very much struck with this consideration to-day. I was incommoded a while by three or four children in front of the house, who made an obsteperous noise, from the glee of some amusement that seemed to please them ex- ceedingly. But I kiiew that they would not be pleased very long ; accordingly in about half an hour they were tired of sport, and went off in quest of some- thing else. I inferred the impossibility, in the disci- pline of education, of totally restraining the innate propensity, and the folly of attempting it. 28. Education of children in simple Jiahits import- ant. — Interesting conversation with Mr. S. on edu- cation. Astonishment and grief at the folly, espe- cially in times like the present, of those parents who totally forget, in the formation of their children's habits, to inspire that vigorous independence which acknowledges the smallest possible number of wants, and so avoids or triumphs over the negation of a thousand indulgences, by always having been taught and accustomed to do without them. " How many things," says Socrates, " I do not want." 29. Children's hall-^-o. detestable vanity. Mamma solicitously busy for several weeks previously, with all the assistance too of milliners ^nd. tasteful friends, with lengthened dissertations, for the sole purpose of equipping two or three children to appear in one of these miserable exhibitions. The whole business EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 195 seems a contnvance, expressly intended to concen- trate to a focus of preternatural heat and stimulus every vanity and frivolity of the time, in order to blast for ever the simplicity of their little souls, and kindle their vain propensities into a thousand times the force that mere nature could ever have supplied. 30. Proper companionsJiip of children important. — Observed with regret one or two children of a respectable family mingling in this group with sev- eral little dirty, profane blackguards. Qu. As to the best method of preventing all communication of chil- dren meant to be educated in the best manner, with all other children, whether of the vulgar class, or the genteel, which will do as much mischief as the vulgar. 31. True scope and ai7?i of ediccation. — Judicious education anxiously displays to its pupils its own in- sufficiency and confined scope, and tells them that this whole earth can be but a place of tuition, till it become either a depopulated ruin, or an Elysium of perfect and happy beings. Its object is to qualify them for entering with advantage into the greater school where the whole of life is to be spent, and its last emphatic lesson is to enforce the necessity of an ever-watchful discipline, which must be imposed by each individual self, when exempted from all external authority. The privileges, the hazards, and the ac- countableness of this maturity of life, and the con- siornment to one's self, make it an interestinsf situa- tion. It is to be intrusted with the care of a being infinitely dear, whose destiny is yet unknown, v/hose faculties are not fully expanded, whose interests we but dimly ascertain, whose happiness we may throw away, and whose animation we had rather indulge to revel than train to labor. 32. Fearful responsibility of parents. — Will en- deavor not to forget the impressive lessons on educa- tion, both as to the importance and the mode of it, supplied by Mr, 's family, the best school for in- 196 poster's thoughts. struction on this subject I ever saw. In tliat family the whole system and all the paits of it are so correct- ly and transcendently had, that it is only necessary to adopt a directly opposite plan in every point to be exactly right. I suppose it never occurs to parents that to throw vilely-qducated young people on the world is, in- dependently of the injury to the young people them- selves, a positive crime, and of very great magnitude ; as great for instance, as burning their neighbor's house, or poisoning the water in his well. In point- ing out to them what is wrong, even if they acknowl- edge the justness of the statement, one can not make them feel a sense o^ guilt, as in other proved charges. That Xhcylove their children extenuates to their con- sciences every parental folly that may at last produce in the children every desperate vice. 33. Rules for early religious education. — Perhaps one of the most prudential rules respecting the en- forcement on the minds of children of the conviction that they are accountable to an all-seeing though un- seen Governor, and liable to the punishment of ob- stinate guilt in a future state, is, to take opportuni- ties of impressing this idea the most cogently, at seasons when the children are not lying under any blame or displeasure, at moments of serious kindness on the part of the parents, and serious inquisitiveness on the part of the children, leaving in some degree the conviction to have its own effect, greater or less, in each particular instance of guilt, according to the greater or less degree of aggravation which the child's own conscience can be made secretly to acknowledge in that guilt. And another obvious rule will be, that when he is to be solemnly reminded of these religious sanctions and dangers in immediate connexion with an e^ctual instance of criminality in his conduct, the instance should be one of the most serious of his faults^ that will bear the utmost seriousness of such an ad- EDUCATION OF CHII-DREN. 197 monition. As to how early in life this doctrine may be communicated, there needs no more precise rule than this ; that it may be as early as well-instructed children are found to show any signs of prolonged or returning inquisitiveness concerning the supreme cause of all that they behold, and concerning what becomes of persons known to them in their neighbor- hood, whom they find passing, one after another, through the change called death, about which their Quriosity will not be at all satisfied by merely learn- ing its name There is an absolute necessity of presenting these ideas in a correct though inadequate form as early as possible to the mind, to prevent their being fixed there in a fonn that shall be absurd and injurious. .... They may be taught to apprehend it as an awful reality, that they are peipetually under his inspection ; and as a certainty, that they must at length appear before him in judgment, and find, in another life, the consequences of what they are in spirit and conduct here. It is to be impressed on them, that his -will is the supreme law; that his dec- larations are the most momentous truth known on earth ; and his favor and condemnation the greatest good and evil. 34. Said of a lady who infamously spoilt her son — a most perverse child. — She will have her reward ; she cultivates a night-shade, and is destined to eat its poisoned berries. 35. Apprehensions of parents for the welfare of their children. — I constantly and systematically re- gard this world with such horror, as a place for the risingr human beinsfs to come into, that it is an em-- phatical satisfaction, I may say pleasure, to me (ex- cept in a few cases of rare promise), to hear of their prematurely leaving it. I have innumerable times been amazed that parents should not, in this view, be greatly consoled in their loss. Let them look at this world ! with sin, temptations, snares of the devil, bad 17* 19S poster's thoughts. examples, seducing companions, disasters, vexations, dishonors, and afflictions, all over it; and their chil- dren to enter the scene with a radically corrupt na- ture, adapted to receive the mischief of all its worst influences and impressions ; let them look at all this, and then say, deliberately, whether it he not well that their children are saved these dreadful dangers! Let them behold what the vast majority of children do actually become — have actually become, in ma- ture life ; many of them, millions of them ! decided- ly bad and wretched, and causes of what is bad and wretched around them; and, short of this worst event, an immense majority of them careless of religion, sal- vation, eternity ! T repeat, let them look at all this, and then ask themselves, whether it be' not a vain presumption that exactly tJieir childien, nay, every parent in his turn, my children, are sure to be ex- ceptions. PRArLTY OP LIFE. 199 CHAPTER IX. HUMAN LIFE : ITS FRAILTY AND BREVITY FUTURE LIFE : ITS MYSTERIES AND REVELATIONS—PERSUA- SIVES TO A CHRISTIAN LIFE. 1. Reason of the undue influence of tilings seen. — The power of objects to interest the affections, de- pends on their being objects of sight. The affections often seem reluctant to admit objects to their inter- nal communion except through the avenues of the senses. The objects must be, as it w^ere, authenti- cated by the senses, must first occupy and please them — or they are regarded by the inner faculties as some- thing strange, foreign, out of our sympathies, or un- real. . . . The objects which we can see, give a more positive and direct impression of reality ; there can be no dubious surmise whether they exist or not ; the sense of their presence is more absolute. When an object is seen before me, or beside me, I am instantly in all the relations of being present ; I can not feel and act as if no such object were there ; I can not by an act of my mind put it away from me Visi- ble objects, when they have been seen, can be clearly kept in mind in absence — during long periods — at the greatest distance. We can revert to the time when they were seen. We can have a lively image j seem to be looking at it still. But the great objects of faith having never been seen, the mind has no ex- press type to revert to. The idea of them is to be still again and again formed anew ; fluctuates and varies ; is brighter and dimmer ; alternates as bt»- tween substance and shadow. 200 Foster's thoughts. 2. Intimations of the transitoriness of life. — If tlio soul would expand itself, and with a lively sensibility to receive upon it the significance, the glancing inti- mation, the whispered monition of all things that are adapted to remind it of the fact — what a host of ideas would strike it ! Then we should hardly see a shadow pass, or a vapor rise, or a flower fade, or a leaf fall, still less a human visage withered in age, but we should have a thought of the transient continuance of our life. 3. Wan fades as a leaf — The infinite masses of foliage, which unfolded so beautifully in vegetable life, in the spring, and have adorned our landscape during the summer, have faded, fallen, and perished. We have beheld the " grace of the fashion" of them disclosed, continuing awhile bright in the sunshine, and gone for ever. Now we are admonished not to see the very leaves fade, without oeing reminded that something else IB, also fading Can any of us say they have had, during the recent season, as distinct and prolonged a reflection on the fact that our own mortal existence is fading, as we have had a percep- tion of the fading and extinction of vegetable life ] It would seem as if the continued pressure of ill health, or the habitual spectacle of sickness and decline in our friends, were necessary in order to keep us re- minded of the truth which is expressed in the text. 4. Man fades while Nature blooms. — Amid this glowing life of the vernal season, there are languor, and sickness, and infirm old age, and death ! While Nature smiles, there are many pale countenances that do not. Sometimes you have met, slowly pacing the green meadow or the garden, a figure emaciated by illness, or feeble with age ; and were the more forcibly struck by the spectacle as seen amid a luxu- riance of life. For a moment, you have felt as if all the living beauty faded or receded from around, in the shock of the contrast. You may have gone into FRAILTY OF LIFE. 201 a house besefwith roses and all the pride of spring, to see a person lingering and sinking in the last fee- bleness of mortality. You may have seen a funeral train passing through a flowery avenue. The ground which is the depository of the dead, bears, not the less for that, its share of the beauty of spring. The great course of Nature pays no regard to the partic- ular circumstances of man — no suspension, no sym- 5. Winter, though denying other gifts, yields a grave. — Look at the earth, speaking generally ! look at the trees ! an obdurate negation — an appearance of having ceased to be for us — under a mighty inter- dict of Heaven ! We might nearly as well go to the graves of the dead to ask for sympathy and aid. The ground seems not willing to yield us anything but a grave ; and that it is yielding every day to numbers to whom it would have yielded nothing else ! Stri- king consideration, that for this service the earth is always ready ! How many graves for the dying it will afford during these months, in which it will af- ford no sustenance to the living ! Would it not be a most solemn manifestation, if, in the living crowd, we could discern those to whom the earth, the ground, has but one thing more to supply 1 6. Much of human decay not visible, — The most, decayed and faded portion of the living world is much less in sight than the fresh and vigorous. Think how many infirm, sick, debilitated, languishing, and almost dying persons there are, that are rarely or never out in public view — not met in our streets, roads, or places of resort — not in our religious as- semblies 1 And then ** out of sight, out of mind," in a great degree ! Thus we look at the living world so as not to read the destiny written on every fore- head, and in this thoughtlessness are the more apt to forget our own. 7. TJnperceived succession of human generations,—' 202 Foster's thoughts. Human beings are continually going and coming, so that, though all die, man in his vast assemblage is al- ways here The order of the world is that men be withdrawn one by one, one here and one there, leaving the mighty mass, to general appearance, still entire — except in the case of vast and desolating ca- lamities. Thus we see nothing parallel to the gen- eral autumnal fading of the leaf. More like the ever- greens, which lose their leaves by individuals, and still maintain their living foliage — to the thoughtless spectator, the human race is presented under such a fallacious appearance as if it always lived. 8. Uncertain continuance of life. — Life is expendi- ture : we have it but as continually losing it ; we have no use of it, but as continually wasting it. Suppose a man confined in some fortress, under the doom to stay there till his death; and suppose there is there for his use a dark reservoir of water, to which it is certain none can ever be added. He knows, sup- pose, that the quantity is not very great ; he can not penetrate to ascertain how much, but it may be very little. He has drawn from it by means of a fountain a good tvhile already, and draws from it every day ; but how would he feel each time of drawing, and each time of thinking of it ] not as if he had a peren- nial spring to go to ; not, " I have a reservoir — I may beat ease." No! but, " I had water yesterday; I have water to-day ; but my having had it, and my having it to-day, is the very cause that I shall not have it on some day that is approaching. At the same time I am compelled to this fatal expenditure !" So of our mortal, transient life ! 9. The records of time are emphatically the history of death. — A whole review of the world, from this hour to the as^e of Adam, is but the vision of an infi- nite multitude of dying men. During the more quiet intervals, we perceive individuals falling into the dust, through all classes and all lands. Then come floods FRAILTY OP LIFE. 803 and con^agi'ations, famines, and pestilence, and earth- quakes, 'ind battles, which leave the most crowded and social scenes silent. The human race resemble the withered foliage of a wide forest ; while the air is calm, we perceive single leaves scattering here and there from the oranches ; but sometimes a tempest or a whirlwind precipitates thousands in a moment. It is a moderate computation which supposes a hun- dred thousand millions to have died since the exit of righteous Abel. Oh, it is true that ruin hath entered the creation of God ! that sin has made a breach in that innocence which fenced man round with immor- tality ! and even now the great spoiler is ravaging the world. As mankind have still sunk into the dark gulf of the past, history has given buoyancy to the most wonderful of their achievements and characters, and caused them to float down the stream of time to our own age. , . . What an affecting scene is a dying world ! Who is that destroying angel whom the Eter- nal has employed to sacrifice all our devoted race ] Advancing onward over the whole field of time, he hath smitten the successive crowds of our hosts with death ; and to us he now approaches nigh. Some of our friends have trembled, and sickened, and expired, at the signals of his coming ; already we hear the thunder of his wings: soon his eye of fire will throw mortal fainting on all our companies ; his prodigious form will to us blot out the sun, and his sword sweep us all from the earth ; " for the living know that they shall die." 10. Memorials of advancing life, — It is not the be- ing aware of any physical or mental decline, but a remoteness in my retrospects ; the disappearance by death of so many of my elders, and even coevals; the dispersion and changed condition of my early companions ; the alteration of a great part of the economy of my feelings ; the five feet ten inches alli- tudc of persons whom I recollect as infants when /" J^Ol poster's thoughts. first readied that altitude ; and the very sound and appearance of the wovd. forty (to the number meant in which word I shall soon have a very particular re- lation) — these, and I suppose many more things, con- cur to make me feel how far I have gone already past the meridian hour of the short day of life. 11. The aged — presages of old age. — Like the last few faded leaves, lingering and fluttering on a tree. Let them think what they feel to be gone — freshness of life ; vernal prime ; overflowing spirits ; elastic, bounding vigor; insuppressible activity; quick, ever- varying emotion ; delightful unfolding of the fac- ulties; the sense of more and more power of both body and spirit; the prospect as if life were entire before them ; and all overspread with brightness and fair colors ! . . . . There are circumstances that will not let them forget whereabouts they are in life ; feel- ings of positive infirmity; diminished power of exer- tion ; gray hairs ; failure of sight ; besetting pains ; apprehensive caution against harm and inconveni- ence ; often what are called nervous affections ; slight injuries to the body far less easily repaired. 12. Old age the safer period of Ufe. — And, consid- ering our age, and now established principles, views, and habits, it is no slight satisfaction to hope that we are now passed safe beyond the most unsteady, haz- ardous, and tempting periods, feelings, and scenes of life. Not that we can ever be safe but by Divine preservation ; but still it is no trifling advantage that some of the most pern: : vzz innuences of a bad world have necessarily, as to us, lost very much of their power. 13. Insensibility to mortal destiny. — How comes it to be possible that men can see the partakers of their own nature and d-i5*.*'r*y v ithering and falling from the tree of life, and caiiily look at them in their fall in the dust with hardly one pointed reflection turned on themselves ! As if the careless spectator FRAILTY OF LIFE. 205 eliould say, ''Well, they must go ! there is no help for them ! unfortunate lot ! but it is nothing to me ex- cept to pity them for a moment, and be glad that I am under no such disastrous decree !" So little is there of ominous sympathy felt, while men see neigh- bors, acquaintances, friends, relatives, one by one fading, falling, and vanishing. 14. Retrospect of the year. — We have been con- suming our years ; we have very nearly expended another ; think how nearly it is gone from us ! Yon- der as it were behind is the long lapse of it. As if we stood by a stream bearing various things upon it away. We can look back to its successive times and incidents, as what we were present to. But Omnipo- tence can not take us back to meet again its com- mencement, or any portion or circumstance of it. We are present now to one of its latest diminutive portions, which Omnipotence can not withhold from following the departed. We are occupying it, breath- ing in it, thinking in it, for nearly the last time; little more of it is remaining than time enough for bidding it a solemn and reflective farewell ! A few hours more, and the year can never be of the smallest fur- ther use to us, except in the way of reflection It is like a seed-time gone, and the tract of ground sunk under the sea. It is as a treasure-house burnt; but of which, nevertheless, we may find some little of the- gold melted into a different form in the ashes. Let us then, in parting with the year, try to gain from it the last and only thing it can give us — some profit by means of our thoughts reaching back to what is gone. - 15. Misimprovement of time. — Our year has been parallel to that of those persons who have made the noblest use of it. We can represent to ourselves the course of the most devoted servant of God through this past year, in various states, and modes of em- ployment. Now we had just the same hours, days, 18 206 poster's thoughts. and months, as tJiey. Let the comparison be made. Why was the day, the week, the month, of less vahie in our hands than in theirs ] Do we stand for ever dissociated from them upon this year ? How desira- ble that we may be associated with them during the next, if God prolong our life ! . . . . And, at the very times when we were heedlessly letting it pass by, throwing it away — there were, here and there, men passionately imploring a day — an hour — a few mo- ments — more. And at those same seasons some men, here and there, were most diligently and earn- estly redeeming and improving the very moments we lost ! the identical moments — for we had the same, and of the same length and value. Some of them are, in heaven itself, now enjoying the consequences. Where do we promise ourselves the consequences of those portions of time lost] 16. Precursors of approaching death unwelcome. — How unwelcome are these shortening days ! The precursory intimations of winter even before the sum- mer itself is gone, and how almost frightfully rapid the vicissitudes of the seasons, telling us of time, the consumption of life, the approximation to its end. That end ; that end ! And there is an hour decreed for the final one. It loill be here — it will be past. And then — that other life ! that other world ! Let us pray more earnestly than ever, that the first hour after the last may open upon us in celestial light. 17. Death the termination of a journey. — The idea of his moving rapidly on, in vigorous life to a certain spot, to one precise point, and on coming exactly thither, being, as in a moment, in another world, renders the mystery of death still more intense. And there being nothing to excite the slightest anticipa- tion, when he set out on the journey, when he came within a mile — within a few steps of the fatal point ! How true the saying, that "in the midst of life we are in death !" FUTURE LIFE. 207 18. Mystery of the change of death. — In looking on the deserted countenance, through which mind and thought had so recently, but, as it were, a few minutes before, emanated, I felt what profound mys- tery there was in the change. What is it that is gone 1 What is it now? 19. What the activity of the future state. — Very many human .beings have within our knowledge left this scene of action. We can recall them to thought individually ; we observed their actions. How have they been employed since 1 The triflers how 1 The active enemies of God how ] The servants of Christ how 1 We can not very formally represent to our- selves how ; but it is interesting to look into that solemn obscurity — to think of it. Think of all that have done all the works under the sun "ever since that luminary began to shine on this world — now in action in some other regions ! Think of all those whose actions we have beheld and judged — those recently departed — our own personal friends ! Have they not a scene of amazing novelty and change j while yet there is a relation, a connecting quality between their actions before and now The dif- ference and comparison would dilate our faculties to the intensest wonder. 20. Revelations of eternity. — There is eternity; you have lived perhaps thirty years ; you are by no means entitled to expect so much more life ; you at the utmost will very soon, very soon die ! What fol- lows ? Eternity ! a boundless region ; inextinguish- able life; myriads of mighty and strange spirits; vision of God ; glories, horrors. 21. The future partially revealed or wisely veiled. — We here " know but in part." So " in part," that just the part, the portion which we wish to attain, is divided off from our reach. It seems as if a dissever- ing principle, or a dark veil, fell down exactly at the point where we think we are near upon the knowl- 208 poster's thoughts. edge we are pursuing. We reach the essential ques- tion of the inquiry; let that be surpassed and we should arrive at the truth — exult in the knowledge. But just there we are stopped by something insuper- able ; and there we stand, like prisoners looking at their impregnable wall In this life men are placed in this world's relations, a system of relations corresponding to our inhabiting a gross, frail, mortal body, with all its wants and circumstances — and that we have to perform all the various business of this world. That there are innumerable thoughts, cares, employments, belonging inseparably to this our state ; and that therefore there must not be such a mani- festation of the future state as would confound, stop, and break up, this system. 22, Future world veiled. — " How gloomy that range of lamps looks (at some distance along the border of a common), how dark it is all around them." Yes, like the lights that are disclosed to us from the other world, which simply tell us, that there, in the solemn distance, where they burn encircled with darkness, that world is, but shed no light on the region. 23. Mystery of man* s relations to the future — his uncertain progression. — Many of these questions are such as, being pursued, soon lead the thinking spirit to the brink, as it were, of a vast unfathomable gulf. It is aiTested, and becomes powerless at the limit ; there it stands, looking on a dark immensity ; the little light of intellect and knowledge which it brings or kindles, can dart no ray into the mysterious ob- scurity. Sometimes there seems to be seen, at some unmeasured distance, a glimmering spot of light, but it makes nothing around it visible, and itself vanishes. But often it is one unbounded, unvaried, starless, midnight darkness — without one luminous point through infinite space. To this obscurity we are brought in pursuing any one of very many questions of mere speculation and curiosity. But there is one FUTURE LIFE. 209 question which combines with the interest of specu- lation and curiosity an interest incomparably greater, neai-er, more affecting, more solemn. It is the sim- ple question — " What shall we be V How soon it is spoken ! but who shall reply 1 Think, how pro- foundly this question, this mystery, concerns us — and in comparison with this, what are to us all ques- tions of all sciences 1 What to us all researches into the constitution and laws of material nature ? What — all investigations into the history of past ages 1 What to us — the future career of events in the prog- ress of states and empires 1 What to us — what shall become of this globe itself, or all the mundane sys- tem ? What WE shall be, we ourselves, is the matter of surpassing and infinite interest I that am now, that am here, that am thus ; what shall I be, and where, and how, when this vast system of na- ture shall have passed away? What — after ages more than there are leaves or blades of grass on the whole surface of the globe or atoms in its enormous mass ohall have expired ? What — after another such stupendous lapse of duration shall be gone ] Those terms of amazing remoteness will ariive ; yes those* periods the very thought of which engulfs our facul- ties will be come SiTid will he past / .... To ascertain, for instance, the yet unknown course of a great river, has excited the invincible ardor of some of the most enterprising of mortals — who, in long succession, have dared all perils, and sacrificed, their lives. To force a passage among unknown seas and coasts, in the most frowning and dreadful regions and climates ; to penetrate to the discovery of the hidden laws, and powers, and relations of nature ; to ascertain the laws, the courses, the magnitudes, the distances, of the heavenly bodies ; something — is the truth, in all these subjects of ambitious and intent inquisition. But what if all this could be known ? If we could have the entire structure of this globe disclosed, to 18* 210 poster's thoughts. its very centre, to our sight or intelligence ; if through some miraculous intervention of Divine power, we could have a vision of the whole economy of one of the remotest stars ; or if our intelligence could pass down, under a prophetic illumination, to the ends of time in this world, beholding, in continued series, the grand course of the world's affairs and events ; what would any or all of these things be, in comparison with the mighty prospect of our own eternal exist- ence ? with what is to be revealed upon us, and to be realized in our very being, and experience, through everlasting duration ? 24, Irrepressihle longing to know the future. — But oh ! my dear friend, whither is it that you are going] Where is it that you will be a few short weeks or days hence. I have affecting cause to think and to wonder concerning that unseen world ; to desire, were it permitted to mortals, one glimpse of that mysterious economy, to ask innumerable questions to which there is no answer — what is the manner of existence — of employment — of society — of remem- brance^-of anticipation of all the surrounding reve- lations to our departed friends ? How striking to think, that slie, so long and so recently with me here, so beloved, but now so totally withdrawn and absent, that she experimentally knows all that I am in vain inquiring ! 2^. Prohlems of this life solved in the next. — One object of life should be to accumulate a great numbei of grand questions to be asked and resolved in eter nity. We now ask the sage, the genius, the philoso- pher, the divine — none can tell; but we will open our series to other respondents — we will ask angels — God. 26. Pagan vieivs of a future state dim and inef fcacious. — The shadowy notion of a future state which hovered about the minds of the pagans, a vague apparition which alternately came and vanished, was at once too fantastic and too little of a serious belief FUTURE LIFE. 211 t3 be of any avail to preserve the rectitude, or to maintain the authonty, of the distinction betw^een right and wrong. It was not defined enough, or no- ble enough, or convincing enough, or of judicial ap- plication enough, either to assist the efficacy of such moral principles as might be supposed to be innate in a rational creature, and competent for prescribing to it some virtues useful and necessary to it even if its present brief existence were all ; or to enjoin ef- fectually those higher virtues to which there can be no adequate inducement but in the expectation of a future life. Imagine, if you can, the withdrawment of this doc- trine from the faith of those who have a solemn per- suasion of it as a part of revealed truth. Suppose the grand idea either wholly obliterated, or faded into a dubious trace of what it had been, or trans- muted into a poetic dream of classic or barbarian mythology — and how many moral principles would be found to have vanished with it, would necessarily break up the government over his conscience. 27. The offences of some elegant writers, in con- founding the Christianas with the pagan's triumph over death. — What is the Christian belief of that poet worth, who would not, on reflection, feel self-re- proach for the affecting scene, which has, for a while, made each of his readers rather wish to die with Socrates, or with Cato, than with St. John ? What w^ould have been thought of the pupil of an apostle, who, after hearing his master describe the spirit of a Chi'istian's departure from the world, in language which he believed to be of conclusive authority, and which asserted or clearly implied that this alone was greatness in death, should have taken the first occa- sion to expatiate with enthusiasm on the closing scene of a philosopher, or on the exit of a stern hero, that, acknowledging in the visible world no object for either confidence or fear, ds-oarted with the aspect 212 Foster's thoughts. of a being who was going to summon his gods to judgment for the misfortunes of his hfe ] And how will these careless men of genius give their account to the Judge of the world, for having virtually taught many aspiring minds tliat, notwithstanding his first coming was to conquer for man the king of terrors, there needs no recollection of him, in order to look toward death with noble defiance or sublime desire ? 28. Vague notions of heaven. — The martial va- grants of Scandinavia glowed with the vivid anticipa- tions of Valhalla; the savages of the western conti- nent had their animating visions of the " land of souls;" the modern Christian barbarians of England, who also expect to live after death, do not know what they mean by their phrase of " going to heaven." 29. Grand deliverance of death. — How obvious is it, too, that there must be a change, like that accom- plished through death, in order to the enlargement of our faculties, to the extension of the sphere of their never-remitting, never-tiring exertion, to their enjoy- ing a vivid perception of truth, in a continually ex- panding manifestation of it, and to their entering, sensibly and intimately, into happier and more ex- alted society than any that can exist on earth. Some- times, while you are thinking of that world unsee# which is now an object of your faith, but may soon be disclosed to you in its wondrous reality, it will occur to you, how many most interesting inquiries to which there is here no reply, will, to you, be changed into knowledge ! how many things will be displayed to your clear and delighted apprehension, which the most powerful intellect, while yet confined in the body, conjectures and inquiries after in vain. What a mighty scene of knowledge and felicity there is, which it is necessary to die in order to enter into ! Yes, to be fully, sublimely, unchangeably happy, it is necessary to die. For the soul to be redeemed to liberty and purity — to rise from darkness to the great Future life. 213 vision of trath — to be resumed into the presence of its Divine Oriofinal— to enter into the communion of the Mediator of the new testament and of the spirits of the just, it is necessary to die ! 30. Death the sovereign remedy for all injlrmities . — It often occurs to meditative thought, what an in- stant cure it will be for all the disorders at once, when the frame itself is laid down, and the immortal inhab- tant, abandoning it, will care no more about it; will seem to say, " Take all thy diseases with thee now into the dust; they and thou concern me no* more." 31.* State of the righteous in heaven to he desired. — The consequence would be that all things affecting the soul, in the way of attracting it, would affect it right. Nothing would attract it which ought not; it would be in repulsion to all evil ; and those things which did attract, and justly might, would do so in the right degrees and proportion so far, and no fur- ther; with so much force, and no more; and with an unlimited force that alone which is the supreme good. What a glorious condition this ! And this must be the state of good men in a future world, else there would be temptation, trial, hazard, and the possibility of falling How marvellous and how lamenta- ble, that the soul can consent to stay in the dust, when invited above the stars ; having in its own experience the demonstration that this is not its world ; knowing that even if it were, the possession will soon cease; and having a glorious. revelation and a continual loud call from above ! . . . . Happy ! considering that to those higher things we are in a constant, permanent relation ; whereas our relation to the terrestrial is varying and transient. Reflect, how many things on the earth we have been in relation to, but are no longer, and shall be no more. Happy ! because a right state of the affections toward the superior ob- jects, is the sole security for our having the greatest benefit of those on earth. For that which is the best 214 Foster's thoughts. in the inferior, is exactly that which may contribute to the higher; and that will never be found but by him who is intent on the higher. Happy ! because every step of the progress which we must make in leaving the one, is an advance toward a blessed and eternal conjunction with the other. Then, that cir- cumstance of transcendent happiness, that in the su- perior state of good men there will be no contrary attractions, no divei^se and opposed relations to put their choice and their souls in difficulty or peril ! 32. Future greatness of man. — Futurity is tlie greatness of /nan, and that hereafter is the grand scene for the attainment of the fullness of his existence. When depressed and mortified by a conscious little- ness of beinsT, vet feelinfj emotions and intimations which seem to signify that he should not be little, he may look to futurity and exclaim, "I shall be great vonder!" "\Mien feelinof how little belonsfs to him, how diminutive and poor his spiiere of possession here, he may say, ** The immense futurity is mine !" Looking at man, we seem to see a vast collection of little beginnings — attempts — failures — like a plan- tation on a bleak and blasted heath. And the progress in whatever is valuable and noble, whether in individuals or communities, is so miserably diffi- cult and slow. So that " the perfectibility of man," in the sense in which that phrase has been employed, stands justly ridiculed as one of the follies of philo- sophic romance. Then how delightful it is to see revelation itself, pronouncing as possible, and pre- dicting as to come, something " perfect" in the con- dition of man ! 33. 'Lofty aspirations for the future life. — I have been readincf some of Milton's amazing desciiptions of spirits, of their manner of life, their powers, their boundless liberty, and the scenes which they inhabit or traverse ; and my wonted enthusiasm kindled high. I almost wished for death ; and wondered with great FUTURE LIFE. 215 admiration what that life and what tnose strange re- gions really are, into which death will turn the spirit free ! I can not wonder, and I can easily pardon, that this intense and sublime curiosity has sometimes demolished the coi-poreal prison, by flinging it from a precipice, or into the sea. Milton's description of Uiiel and the Sun revived the idea which I have be- fore indulged as an imagination of sublime luxury, of committing myself to the liquid element (suppo- sing some part of the sun a liquid fire), of lisirjg on its swells, flashing amid its surges, darting upward a thousand leagues on the spiry point of a flame, and then falling again fearless into the fervent ocean. Oh, what is it to be dead ; what is it to shoot into the expansion, and kindle into the ardors of eternity; what is it to associate with resplendent angels ! 34. Sorrows of this compensated by the joys of the future Ife. — Remember, my friend, what a sublime compensation He is able to make you for all these troubles, and often read and muse on those promises in which he has engaged to make you eternally hap- pier for the present pains. Think how completely all the griefs of this mortal life will be compensated by one age, for instance, of the felicities beyond the grave, and then think that one age multiplied ten thousand times, is not so much to eteraity as one grain of sand is to the whole material universe. Think what a state it will be to be growing happier and happier still as ages pass away, and yet leave something still happier to come ! 35. Contemplation of the departed righteous. — You can thus regard her as having passed beyond the very last of the pains and son-ows appointed to her exist- ence by her Creator, as looking back on them all^ and having entered on an eternity of unmingled joy ; as having completed a short education for a higher sphere and a nobler society ; as having attained since she was your companion, and by the act of ceasing 216 Foster's rnoUGHTS. to he so, tliat in comparison with which the whole sublunary world is a trifle ; as having left your abode because her presence was required among the blessed and exalted servants of the supreme Lord inheaven. 36. Death the exchange of the earthly for the heav- enly treasure. — " Paid the debt of nature." No; it is not paying a debt — it is rather like bringing a note to a bank to obtain solid gold in exchange for it. In this case you bring this cumbrous body, which is noth- ing worth, and which you could not wish to retain long ; you lay it down, and receive for it from the eternal treasures — liberty, victory, knowledge, rap- tuie. 37. Premonitions of mortal dissolution welcomed. — Indeed, I would regard as something better than en- emies, the visitations that give a strong warning of the final and not remote beating down and demoli- tion of the whole frail tabernacle. A salutary im- pression made on the soul, even through a wound of the body, is a good greatly more than compensating the evil. In the last great account no doubt a vast number of happy spirits will have to ascribe that hap- piness to the evils inflicted on their bodies, as the im- mediate instrumental cause. 38. Joyous anticipation of the heavenly state. — Let us gratefully hail the gleams that come to us from a better world, through the gloom of declining age, which is beginning to darken before us, and give all diligence to the preparation for passing the shades of death, confident in the all-sufl5ciency of Him who died for us, to emerge into the bright economy and the happy society beyond. 39. The aged believer approaching a future life. — An aged Christian is soothed by the assurance that his Almighty Friend will not despise the enfeebled exertions, nor desert the oppressed and fainting weak- ness, of the last stage of his servant's life. When advancing into the shade of death itself, he is anima- PERSUASIVES TO A RELIGIOUS LIFE. 217 ted by the faith that the gi'eat sacrifice has taken the malignity of death away ; and that the Divine pres- ence will attend the dark steps of this last and lonely ^nterpnse, and show the dying traveller and combat- ant with evil that even this melancholy gloom is the very confine of paradise, the immediate access to the region of eternal life. 40. Regrets of converted old age. — When the sun thus breaks out toward the close of his gloomy day, and when, in the energy of his new life, he puts forth the best efforts of his untaught spirit for a little divine knowledge, to be a lamp to him in entering ere long the shades "^of death, with what bitter regret he looks back to the period when a number of human beings, some perhaps still with him, some now scattered from him, and here and there pursuing their separate courses in careless ignorance, were growing up un- der his roof, within his charge, but in utter estrange- ment from all discipline adapted *to insure a happier sequel ! His distressing reflection is often represent- ing to him what they might now have been if they had grown up under such discipline. And gladly would he lay down his life to redeem for them but some inferior share of what the season for imparting to them is gone for ever. 41. Death of the righteous and the wicked contrast- ed. — It is well ; but if, sweeping aside the pomp and deception of life, we could draw from the last hours and death-beds of our ancestors all the illuminations, convictions, and uncontrollable emotions, with which they have quitted it, what a far more affecting history of man should we possess ! Behold all the gloomy apartments opening, in which the wicked have died ; contemplate first the tiiumph of iniquity, and here behold their close ; witness the terrific faith, the too late repentance, the prayers suffocated by despair and the mortal agonies ! These once they would not believe ; they refused to consider them ; they could 19 218 Foster's thoughts. not allow that the career of crime and pleasure was to end. But now truth, like a blazing star, darts over the mind, and but shows the way to that " dark- ness visible" which no light can cheer. " Dying wretch !" we say in imagination to each of these, " is religion true ?" Do you believe in a God, and anoth- er life, and a retribution V — " Oh yes !" he answers, and expires. But " the righteous hath hope in his death." Contemplate through the unnumbered saints that have died, the soul, the true and inextinguisha- ble life of man, charmed away from this globe by ce- lestial music, and already respiring the gales of eter- nity ! If we could assemble in one view all the ado- ring addresses to the Deity, all the declarations of faith in Jesus, all the gratulations of conscience, all the admonitions and benedictions to weeping friends, and all the gleams of opening glory, our souls would burn with the sentiment which made the wicked Ba- laam devout, and exclaim, " Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his." These revelations of death would be the most emphatic com- mentary on the revelation of God. ' 42. WitJwut God in the ivorld. — " Without God in the world." Think what a description, and appHca- ble to individuals without number ! If it had been *' without friends — without food — without shelter" — that would have had a gloomy sound ; but, *^ without God .'" without him ! — that is, in no happy relation to him who is the very origin, support, and life, of all things ; without him who can make good flow to his creatures from an infinity of sources ; without him whose favor possessed is the best, the sublimest of all delights, all triumphs, all glories ; without him who can confer an eternal felicity ; without him, too, in a world where the human creature knows there is a mighty and continual conspiracy against his welfare. What do thosOj who are under so sad a destitution, value and seek instead 1 But what will anything or PERSUASIVES TO A RELIGIOUS LIFE. 219 all things be worth in his absence ? . . . . "We need rrot dwell on that condition of humanity in which there is no notion of Deity at all — the condition of some outcast savage tribes. The spirit with nothing to go out to, beyond its clay walls, but the immedi- ately surrounding elements, and other creatures of the same order. . . . That relation constitutes the law of good and evil, and fixes an awful sanction on the difference. In an endless series of things — that there is such a Being, und that I belong to him, is a reason for one thing, and against another. The thought of him is to be associated with all these things, and its influence to be predominant. " Thus — and thus — 7 think — and wish — and will — and act — hecause thert is a God." Now for me to forget or disregard all this, is to remove myself, as far as I can, from God ; to cause, as far as I am able, that to me there is no God To be insensible to the Divine character as lawgiver, rightful authority, and judge, is truly to be " without God in the world." For thus every ac- tion of the soul and the life assumes that he is absent, or not exists. . . . Without him as a friend, approver, and patron ; no devout, ennobling converse with him ; no conscious reception of delightful impressions, sa- cred influences, suggested sentiments ; no pouring out of the soul in fervent desires for his illuminations, his compassions, his forgiveness, his transforming op- erations ; no oaniest penitential, hopeful pleading in the name of the Great Intercessor; no solemn, affec- tionate dedication of the whole being Consider the loneliness of a human soul in this destitution. All other beings are necessaiily (shall we express it so X) extraneous to the soul ; they may communicate with it, but they are still separate and without it ; an in- termediate vacancy keeps them for ever asunder, so that the soul must be, in a sense, in an insupportable and eternal solitude — that is, as to all creatures. 43. Presumption of delay for Divine influences. — 220 poster's thoughts. When a mariner suffers a long, dead calm on the ocean, how oft he looks up at the sails, and says, " Oh, if the winds would but blow !" Now there may be persons who will aver that the thoughtful man can do"no more respecting his motives than the mariner respecting the winds. We must think dif- ferently. . . . Or shall he wait quietly to see whether the good motives will grow stronger of themselves ? — as we may look at a stream, and know that when the rain comes, it will be swollen to a toiTent ; as we may let trees alone, and see how they will enlarge. Alas ! have his good motives grown while he has thus waited \ 44. Approving the good, hut pursuing the wrong. — Astonishing fact, that all that mankind acknowledge the greatest, they care about the least — as first, on the summit of all gi'eatness the Deity ! 'Tis acknowl- edged he reigns over all, is present always here, pre- vails in each atom and each star, observes us as an awful Judge, claims infinite regard, is supremely good — what then ? why, think nothing at all about him ! 45. Indifference to offers of salvation. — Here, now, the inestimable gifts of religion are carried round to four hundred people (the congregation) : if it could be made visible, how many take them, and what part of them, and how much, and how many let them pass by, and why 1 46. Unprojited hy the gospel. — Hearing an excel- lent sermon — most monstrous truth, that this sermon, composed of perhaps two hundred just thoughts, will, by the evening hour, be forgotten by all the hearers except — how many? Yet every just thought of re- ligion requires its counterpart in feeling and action, or does it not 1 47. Indecision is decision. — Let us beware of the delusive feeling as if indifference, however prolonged, had still nothing in it of the nature of a decision; as if it were but remaining in a kind of suspension and PERSUASIVES TO A RELIGIOUS LIFE. 221 protracted equipoise. Are we insensible that an addi- tional weight IS falling all the while on the other side, by mere time itself which is going, particle by parti- cle, to the wrong ; by irreligious habit, which is grow- iug stronger and stronger ; and by negation, refusal, all the while, of what is claimed by the higher inter- est ! We decide against that which we refuse to adopt": so that prolonged indifference is decision so far ; and indifference to the end will but be decision completed ! 48. Without God. — Dreadful want, if, by some vast enlargement of thought, you could comprehend the whole measure and depth of disaster contained in this exclusion (an exclusion under which, to the view of a serious mind, the resources and magnifi- cence of the creation would sink into a mass of dust and ashes, and all the causes of joy and hope into disgust and despair), you would feel a distressing emotion at each recital of a life in which religion had no share ; and you would be tempted to wish that some spirit from the other world, possessed of elo- quence that might threaten to alarm the slumbers of the dead, would throw himself in the way of this one mortal, and this one more, to protest, in sentences of lightning and thunder, against the infatuation that can at once acknowledge there is a God, and be con- tent to forego every connexion with him, but that of danger. 49. Meet death alone. — And it is you, you yourself, that bear the oppressive weight. Friends sympa- thize; but are often reminded how far their sympa- thy is from an actual identity with tie feelings of the sufferer. She bears alone the languor, and pain, and agitation, of the falling tabernacle. I was most for- cibly and pensively struck with this thought in seeing you last Tuesday, and still more deeply in reflection afterward. I can not express how affectingly the idea dwelt on my mind, '* How solitary a thing is the 19* 222 Foster's thoughts. fatal process !" The friends who are habitually near her, or who see her at considerable intervals, are deeply interested in the suffering of their young friend, but they are not as she is — they can not place them- selves in perfect community, can not take a real share in that which presses on her — can not remove any part of it from her. It is her own individual self, still, that feels the sinking of natuie, that breathes with labor, that is forced to painful eiiuris, by day and night, to relieve the vital organs. And it is in. her own sole person that she is approaching to the last act of life. 50. Danger of procrastination. — How dangerous to defer those momentous reformations which con- science is solemnly preaching to the heart ! If they are neglected, the difficulty and indisposition are in- creasing every month. The mind is receding, degree after degree, from the warm and hopeful zone ; till, at last, it will enter the arctic circle, and become fixed in relentless and eternal ice ! 51. Persuasion to religious consideration. — Can the voice of the kindest human friend, or the voice from Heaven itself, express to you a kinder or wiser sen- tence, than that you should apply yourself with all earnestness to secure the true felicity — the only real and substantial felicity on earth, supposing your life should be prolonged — the supreme felicity of a bet- ter world, if the sovereign Disposer has appointed that your life shall be short? Do not allow your thoughts to recoil from the subject as too solemn, too gloomy a one. If it were the gloomiest in the world, if it were nothing hut gloomy, it is yet ahso- lutely necessary to be admitted, and dwelt upon in all its importance. What would be gainedy my dear John, and oh, what may be lost, by avoiding it, turn- ing the thoughts from it, and trying not to look at it ! Will the not thinking of it make it cease to be ur- gently and infinitely important 1 Will the declining PEESUASIVES TO A RELIGIOUS LIFE. 223 to think of it secure the safety of the momentous in- terests involved in it? 52. Presumption of expecting Trior e efficacious means of salvation. — But have no such visitations come to you ah'eady % What was their eifect ] Are you to be so much more sensible to the impressions of the next 1 or do you wish them to be tenfold more se- vere 1 If you can wish so, the interest for which you wish so must be most urgent. But if it he so urgent, why neglected now ? Consider, besides, that the next severe visitation may be the last of life — may be a fatal disaster — may be a mortal illness ! Or would you wait for old age ] What ! because it is confes- sedly a great moral miracle for a man careless till old age, to be awakened then ! Or will a man profane a Christian doctrine, and say, the Spirit of God alone Can be efficacious, and he must quietly wait for that ? This is saying, in effect, that he will make a trial with Omnipotence, and resist as long as he can ! How can he anticipate any other than a destructive energy from that Spirit upon him, while he is trifling with, and frustrating truth, conviction, warnings, and emo- tions of conscience ! while he is repelling all these minor operations of that Spirit, instead of earnestly praying for the grea^;er ! 22i Foster's thoughts. CHAPTER X. PLACES, NATIONS, MEN, AND BOOEB. 1. Bahylon. — There is no modern Babylon. It is secluded and alone in its desolation ; clear of all in- terference with its one character as monumental of ancient time and existence. If the contemplative spectator could sojourn there alone and with a sense of safety, his mind would be taken out of the actual world, and carried away to the period of Babylon's magnificence, its multitudes, its triumphs, and the Di- vine denunciations of its catastrophe. 2. Egypt. — Egypt has monuments of antiquity surpassing all others on the globe. History can not tell when the most stupendous of them were con- structed ; and it would be no improbable prophecy that they are destined to remain to the end of time. Those enormous constructions, assuming to rank with nature's ancient works on the planet, and raised, as if to defy the powers of man and the elements and time to demolish them, by a generation that retired into the impenetrable darkness of antiquity when their work was done, stand on the surface in solemn relation to the subterraneous mansions of death. All the vestiges bear an aspect intensely and unalterably grave. There is inscribed on them a language which tells the inquirer that its import is not for him or the men of his times. Persons that lived thousands of years since remain in substance and furm, death ever- lastingly embodied, as if to emblem to us the vast chasm, and the non-existence of relation, between their race and ours. A shade of mystery rests on NATIONS. 225 the whole economy to which all these objects be- longed, 3. Illustrious names. — Sesdstris, Semiramis, Ninus, &c. These mighty names remain now only as small points, emerging a little above that ocean under which all their actions are buried. We can just descry, by the dying glimmer of ancient history, that that ocean is of blood ! 4. French and English. — Met a number of men one after another. My urbanity was not up to the point of saying " Good morning," till I had passed the last of them, who had nothing to attract civility more than the others, except his being the last. If a Frenchman and an Englishman were shown a dozen persons, and under the necessity of choosing one of them to talk an hour with, the Frenchman would choose the first in the row, and the Englishman the last. 5. Irish. — It will be the utmost want of candor, we think, to deny that they are equal to any nation on the earth, in point of both physical and intellectual capability. A liberal system of government, and a high state of mental cultivation, would make them the Athenians of the British empire. By what mys- tery of iniquity, or infatuation of policy, has it come to pass, that they have been doomed to unalterable ignorance, poverty, and misery, and reminded one age after another of their dependence on a protestant power, sometimes by disdainful neglect, and some- times by the infliction of plagues. 6. State of Ireland. — There is that most appalling state of Ireland. I have no degree of confidence that the ministry have even the will to adopt the bold, and radical, and comprehensive measures which alone could avail there. How obvious is the necessity for some imperious enactment, to compel that base, de- testable landed interest, to take the burden of the poor, instead of driving them out to famish, beg, or 226 Foster's thoughts. rob, and murder, on the highway; or throwing them by tens of thousands on our coast, to devour the means of support to our own population. It would be a measure which would first astound, but speedily en- rage, the whole selfishly base proprietary of Ireland. I have no hope that the ministry have the resolution for so mighty a stroke : and then the Irish church. The plain sense of the thing is, that about two thirds, or rather four fifths of it, ought to be cut down at once, and that proportion of the property applied to national uses. But the very notion of such a thing would be enough to consign to one of the wards in St. Luke's. And what would say, if Lord Grey dared even to whisper such a thing to him? And yet, unless some such thing be done, it is as cleai' as noon-day, that Ireland will continue a horrid scene of distraction and misery ; growing, month by month, more ferociously barbarous, and to be kept down by nothing but the terror and occasional exploits of an immense standing army, at the cost, too, of this our own tax-consuming country, 7. Addison: deficiency of his writings in religious sentiment. — Addison's style is not suflBciently close and firm for the use of a philosopher, and as to the exquisite shades of his colors, they can perhaps never be successfully imitated The very ample scope of the spectator gave a fair opportunity for a serious writer to introduce, excepting pure science, a little of every subject connected with the condition and happiness of men. How did it happen that the stu- pendous circumstance of the redemption by the Mes- siah, of which the importance is commensurate with the whole interests of man, with the value of his im- mortal spirit, with the government of his Creator in thia world, and with the happiness of eternity, should not have been a few times, in the long course of that work, fully and solemnly exhibited ] Why should not a few of the most peculiar of the doctrines com- MEN AND BOOKS. 227 prehended in the subject have been clothed with the fascinating elegance of Addison, from whose pen many persons would have received an occasional evangelical lesson with incomparably more candor than from any professed divine 1 8. Baxter: idea of his lift. — But to say nothing of the length of time this would take, where can mor- tal patience be found to wprk out such an historical analysis ] And indeed, after all, what would be the benefit of it ? A boundless, endless maze, and wil- derness of debatings, projectings, schemings, and dreamings, about churches, and their constitution and their government ; about arrangements for union, and terms of communion ; the numberless polemical no- tices which he thought himself called upon to take of all the petty and spiteful cavillers of his time ; the hasty productions of an over-official zeal to set every- body right about every actual or possible thing; the attenuated, and infinitely multiplex argumentations, in the manner of the schoolmen, about trivial niceties in theological doctrine ; and above all, the ever-re- newed and fruitless toils to work out a tertium quid, from the impossible combination of two opposite sys- tems of theology ; what, I repeat, would be the use of attempting to find or make a biogi'aphical road through this vast chaos ? 9. Blair : his style. — The sentences appear often like a series of little independent propositions, each satisfied with its own distinct meaning, and capable of being placed in a different part of the train, without injury to any mutual connexion, or ultimate purpose, of the thoughts. The ideas relate to the subject generally, without specifically relating to one another. They all, if we may so speak, gravitate to one centre, but have no mutual attraction among themselves The consequence of this defect is, that the emphasis of the sentiment and the crisis or conclusion of the argument come nowhere ; since it can not be in any .r\ J28 poster's thoughts. single insulated thought, and there is not mutual de- pendence and co-operation enough to produce any combined result The volumes might be taken more properly than any other modern book that we know, as comprising the whole commonplaces of imagery He is seldom below a respectable mediocrity, but, we are forced to admit, that he very rarely rises above it. After reading five or six ser- mons, we become assured that we most perfectly see the whole compass and reach of his powers, and that, if there were twenty volumes, we might read on through the whole, without ever coming to a bold conception, or a profound investigation, or a burst of genuine enthusiasm. There is not in the train of thought a succession of eminences and depressions, rising toward sublimity, and descending into famil- iarity. 10. Burke, as compared with Johnson. — I asserted the strength of Burke's mind equal to that of John- son's ; Johnson's strength is more conspicuous be- cause it is barer. A very accomplished lady said, "Johnson's sense seems to me much clearer, much more entirely disclosed." — " Madam, it is the differ- ence of two walks in a pleasure-ground, both equally good, and broad, and extended; but the one lies be- fore you plain and distinct, because it is not beset with the flowers and lilacs which fringe and embower the other. T am inclined to prefer the latter." .... Burke's sentences are pointed at the end — instinct with pungent sense to the last syllable. They are like a charioteer's whip, which not only has a long and effective lash, but cracks, and inflicts a still smarter sensation at the end. They are like some serpents of which I have heard it vulgarly said, their life is the fiercest in the tail. 11. Liord Burleigh. — He held the important sta- tion during very nearly the whole reign of Elizabeth ; and we shall not allow it to constitute any impeach- MEN AND BOOKS. 229 ment of either our loyalty or gallantry, that we have wished, while reading the account of his life, that he had been the monarch instead of our famous queen. It is impossible to say what share of the better part of her fame was owing to him, but we are inclined to think, that if we could make out an estimate of that reign, wanting all the good which resulted from just so much wisdom and moderation as Cecil pos- sessed beyond any other statesman that could have been employed, and including all the evil which no other minister would have prevented, we should rifle that splendid period of more than half its honors. 12. Chahners: faults of style.— ^o reader can be more sensible to its glow and richness of color- ing, and its not unfrequent happy combinations of words ; but there is no denying that it is guilty of a rhetorical march, a sonorous pomp, a " showy same- ness ;" a want, therefore, of simplicity and flexibility; withal, a perverse and provoking grotesqueness, a frequent descent, strikingly incongruous with the prevailing elatedness of tone, to the lowest colloquial- ism, and altogether an unpardonable license of strange phraseology. The number of uncouth, and fantastic, and we may fairly say barbarous phrases, that might be transcribed, is most unconscionable. Such a style needs a strong hand of reform ; and the writer may be assured it contains life and soul enough to endure the most unrelenting process of correction, the most compulsory trials to change its form, without hazard of extinguishing its spirit. 13. Lord Chatham in his speeches did not reason; Ije struck, as by intuition, directly on the results of reasoning ; as a cannon-shot strikes the mark with- out your seeing its course through the air as it moves toward its object. 14. Coleridge: his original modes of thought, but obscure style. — In point of theological opinion, he is become, indeed has now a number of years been, it 20 230 Foster's thoughts. is said, highly orthodox. He wages victorious war with the Socinians, if they are not, which I believe they now generally are, very careful to keep tho peace in his company. His mind contains an aston- ishinsf mass of all sorts of knowledo^e, while in his power and manner of putting it to use, he displays more of what we mean by the term genius than any mortal I ever saw or ever expected to see The eloquent Coleridge sometimes retires into a sublime mysticism of thought ; he robes himself in moon- light, and moves among images of which we can not be assured for a while whether they are substantial forms of sense or fantastic visions The cast of his diction is so unusual, his trains of thought so habitually forsake the ordinary tracts, and therefore the whole composition is so liable to appear strange and obscure, that it was evident the most elaborate care, and a repeated revisal, would be indispensable in order to render so original a mode of writing suf- ficiently perspicuous to be in any degree popular. .... After setting before his readers the theme, the one theme apparently, undertaken to be elucidated, could not, or would not, proceed in a straight-for- ward course of explanation, argument, and appro- priate illustration from fancy ; keeping in sight be- fore him a certain ultimate object ; and placing marks, as it were, of the steps and stages of the progress. .... He always carries on his investigation at a depth, and sometimes a most profound depth, below the uppermost and most accessible stratum ; and is philosophically mining among its most recondite prin- ciples of the subject, while ordinary intellectual and literary workmen, many of them barely informed of the very existence of this Spirit of the Deep, are pleasing themselves and those they draw around them, with forming to pretty shapes or commodious uses, the materials of the surface. Tt may be added, with some little departure from the consistency cif the MEN AND BOOKS. 231 metaphor, that if he endeavors to make hisvoiceheard from this region beneath, it is apt to be listened to as a sound of dubious import, like that which fails to brino- articulate words from the remote recess of a cavern, or the bottom or the deep shaft of a mine. However familiar the truths and facts to which his mind, is directed, it constantly, and as if involuntarily, strikes, if we may so speak, into the invisible and the un- known of the subject: he is seeking the most retired and abstracted form in which any being can be ac- knowledged and realized as having an existence, or any truth can be put in a proposition. He turns all things into their ghosts, and summons us to walk with him in this region of shades — this strange world of disembodied truth and entities. 15. Curran. — We have long considered this dis- tinguished counsellor as possessed of a higher genius than any oiie in his profession within the British em- pire. The most obvious difference between these two great orators is, that Curran is more versatile, rising often to sublimity, and often descending to pleasantry, and even drollery ; whereas Grattan is always grave and austere. They both possess that order of intellectual powers, of which the limits can not be assigned. No conception could be so brilliant or original, that we should confidently pronounce that neither of these men could have uttered it. We regret to imagine how many admirable thoughts, which such men must have expressed in the lapse of many years, have been unrecorded, and are lost for ever. We think of these with the same feelings, with which we have often read of the beautiful or sublime occasional phenomena of nature, in past times, or remote regions, which amazed and delight- ed the beholders, but which we were destined never to see. 16. Miss Edgeworth : moral faults of her writings. — Whether our species were intended as an exhibi- 232 Foster's thoughts. tion for the amusement of some superior, invisible, and malignant intelligences ; or were sent here to ex- piate the crimes of some pre-existent state ; or were made for the purpose, as some philosophers will have it and phrase it, of developing the faculties of the earth, that is to say, managing its vegetable produce, extracting the wealth of its mines, and the like ; or were merely a contrivance for giving to a certain number of atoms the privilege of being, for a few years, the constituent particles of warm upright liv- ing figures ; whether they are appointed to any future state of sentiment or rational existence ; whether, if so, it is to be one fixed state, or a series of trans- migrations; a higher or lower state than the present; a state of retribution, or bearing no relation to moral qualities ; whether there be any Supreme Power, that presides over the succession and condition of the race, and will see to their ultimate destination — or, in short, whether there be any design, contrivance, or intelligent destination in the whole affair, or the fact be not rather, that the species, with all its present circumstances, and whatever is to become of it Tiere- after, is the production and sport of chance — all these questions are probably undecided in the mind of our ingenious moralist Our first censure is, then, that, setting up for a moral guide, our author does not pointedly state to her followers, that as it is but a very short stage she can pretend to conduct them, they had need — ifxhey suspect they shall be obliged to go further — to be looking out, even in the very beginning of this short stage in which she accom- panies them, for other guides to undertake for their safety in the remoter region. She presents herself with the air and tone of a person who would sneer or spurn at the apprehensive insinuated inquiry, whether any change or addition of guides might eventually become necessary. But, secondly, our author's moral system — on the MEN AND BOOKS. 233 hypothesis of the truth, or possible truth, of revelation — is not only infinitely deficient, as being calculated to subserve tbe interests of the human creatures only to so very short a distance, while yet it carefully keeps out of sight all that may be beyond; it is also — still on the same hypothesis — perniciously errone- ous as far as it goes. For it teaches virtue on prin- ciples on w^hich virtue itself will not be approved by the Supreme Governor; and it avowedly encourages some dispositions, and directly or by implication tol- ej'ates others, which in the judgment of that Govern- or are absolutely vicious. Pride, honor, generous impulse, calculation of temporal advantage and cus- tom of the country, are convened along with we know not how many other grave authorities, as the com- ponents of Miss Edgeworth's moral government — the Amphictyons of her legislative assembly. 17. Fox — Slavery. — For ourselves, we think we never heard any man who dismissed us from the ar- gument on a debated topic with such a feeling of satisfied and final conviction, or such a competence to tell why we were convinced. This last abomina- tion, which. had gradually lost, even on the basest part of the nation, that hold which it had for a while maintained by a delusive notion of policy, and was fast sinking under the hatred of all that could pretend to humanity or decency, was destined ultimately to fall by his hand, at a period so nearly contemporary with the end of his career, as to give the remembrance of his death somewhat of a similar advantage of as- sociation to that, by which the death of the Hebrew champion is always recollected in connexion with the fall of Dagon's temple. 18. Andrew Fuller. — It appears to us one of the most obvious characteristics of Mr. Fullei-'s mind, that he was but little sensible of the 77i?/5^erj/ of any subject, or of the difficulties arising in the view of its deep and remote relations — or if we may use the fashionable 20* 234 poster's thoughts. term, bearings. To a certain extent, and that un- questionably a respectable one, he apprehended and reasoned with admirable clearness and force ; and he could not, or would not, surmise that any thing of importance in the rationale of the subject extended beyond that compass : he made therefore his propo- sitions, his deductions, his conclusions, quite in the tone of a complacent self-assurance of being perfectly master of the subject : while in fact the subject might involve wider and remoter considerations, not indeed easily reducible to the plain tangible predica- ments of his rough, confined logic, but essential to a comprehensive speculation, and very possibly, of a nature to throw great dubiousness on the judgment which he had so decidedly formed, and positively pronounced, on a too contracted view of the subject. .... In closing this note, we do not think it requisite to use many words in avowal of our high estimate of the intellect and the general energy of mind of the distinguished and lamented divine : who, indeed, has any other estimate 1 19. Grattan. — These passages tend to confirm the general idea entertained of Mr. Grattan's eloquence, as distinguished by fire, sublimity, and an immense reach of thought. . . . His eloquence must, in its ear- liest stage of public display, have evinced itself as the flame and impetus of mighty genius. The man would infallibly be recognised as of the race of the intellec- tual Incas, the children of the sun. 20. Robert Hall. — I was two or three times in HalFs company, and heard him preach once ; I am any one's rival in admiring him. In some remark- able manner, everything about him, all he does or says, is instinct with power. Jupiter seems to em- anate in his attitude, gesture, look, and tone of voice. Even a common sentence, when he utters one, seems to tell how much more he can do. His intellect is peculiarly potential, and his imagination robes, with- MEN AND BOOKS. 235 out obscuring, the colossal form of his mind. His mind seems of an order fit with respect to its intel- lectual powers to go directly among a superior rank of intelligences in some other world, with very little requisite addition of force " That memory," he said, *' will never vanish from the minds of those who have heard his preaching, and frequently his conver- sation, during the five years that he has been resident here. As a preacher his like or equal will come no more." — " The chasm he has left can never be filled. The thing to be deplored is, that he did not fill a space which he was beyond all men qualified to oc- cupy in our religious literature. It is with deep re- gret one thinks what an inestimable possession for olir more cultivated, and our rising intelligent young people, would have been some six or ten volumes of his sermons. 21. Harris: his style. — If I might venture any hint on a lower key, it would perhaps be — a tenden- cy to difFuseness, or call it amplification, exuberance. The writer luxuriates in his opulence, sometimes di- luting a little the effect which a little more brevity and compression might have sooner and more sim- ply produced. Not 'that if I were asked to note any parts or passages better omitted, 1 should know where to point ; it is all to the purpose ; only I may fancy that a somewhat less multifarious assemblage of ideas would converge more pointedly to that purpose. 22. Howard: philanthropy his master passion. — The energy of his determination was so great, that if, instead of being habitual, it had been shown only for a short time on particular occasions, it would have appeared a vehement impetuosity ; but by being un- intermitted, it had an equabihty of manner which scarcely appeared to exceed the tone of a calm con- stancy, it was so totally the reverse of anything like turbulence or agitation. It was the calmness of an 236 poster's thoughts. intensity kept uniform by the nature of the human mind forbidding it to be more, and by the character of the individual forbidding it to be less. The habit- ual passion of his mind was a measure of feeling al- most equal to the temporary extremes and paroxysms of common minds : as a great river, in its customary state, is equal to a small or moderate one when swollen to a torrent. The moment of finishing his plans in deliberation, and commencing them in action, was the same. I wonder what must have been the amount of that bribe, in emolument, or pleasure, that would have detained him a week inactive after their final adjust- ment. The law which carries water down a decliv- ity, was not more unconquerable and invariable than the determination of his feelings toward the main ob- ject. The importance of this object — held his facul- ties in a state of excitement which was too rigid to be affected by lighter interests His attention was so strongly and tenaciously fixed on his object, that even at the greatest distance, as the Egyptian pyra- mids to travellers, it appeared to him with a lumin- ous distinctness as if it had been nigh, and beguiled the toilsome length of labor and enterprise by which he was to reach it. It was so conspicuous before him, that not a step deviated from the direction, and every movement and every day was an approxima- tion. 23. Home Tooke. — His courage, which was of the coolest and firmest kind, shrunk from no hazard ; his resources of argument and declamation were inex- haustible ; his personal applications had every diver- sity of address and persuasion. . . . Probably no man ever did, on the strena^tb of what he possessed in his mere person, and in the destitution of all advantages of birth, wealth, station, or connexions, maintain, with such perfect and easy uniformity, so challenging and peremptory a manner toward great and pretend- MEN AND BOOKS. 237 ing folks of all sorts He had a constitutional courage hardly ever surpassed, a perfect command of his temper, all the warlike furniture and efficiency of prompt and extreme acuteness, satiric wit in all its kinds and degrees, from gay banter to the most deadly mordacity — and all this sustained by inexhaustible knowledge, and indefinitely reinforced, as his life ad- vanced, by victorious exertion in many trying situa- tions Toward the conclusion of his life, he made calm and frequent refei'ences to his death, but not a word is here recorded expressive of anticipations be- yond it. The unavoidable inference from the whole of these melancholy memorials is, that he reckoned on the impunity of eternal sleep. ... A thoughtful, religious reader will accompany him with a senti- ment of deep melancholy, to behold so- keen, and strong, and perverted a spirit, triumphant in its own delusions, fearlessly passing into the unknown world. 24. Johnson : elevated moral tone of his writings. — Johnson is to be ranked among the greatest of moral philosophers, is less at variance with the prin- ciples which appear to be displayed in the New Tes- tament, than almost any other distinguished writer of either of these classes. Bnt few of his specula- tions, comparatively, tend to beguile the reader and admirer into that spirit which, on turning to the in- structions of Jesus Christ and his apostles, would feel estrangement or disgust; and he has more explicit and solemn references to the gi'and purpose of hu- man life, to a future judgment, and to eternity, than almost any other of our elegant moralists has had the piety or the courage to make No writer ever more completely exposed and blasted the folly and vanity of the greatest number of human pursuits. The visage of Medusa, could not have darted a more fatal glance against the tribe of gay triflers, the com- etitors of ambition, the proud possessors of wealth, 238 poster's thoughts. or the men wlio consume their life in useless specu- lations. 25. Thomas More : his distinguished and blameless character. — A statesman and courtier who was per- fectly free from all ambition, from the beginning of his career to the end ; who was brought into office and power by little less than compulsion ; who met general flattery and admiration with a calm indiffer- ence, and an invariable perception of their vanity ; who amid the caresses of a monarch, long-ed to be with his children ; who was the most brilliant and vi- vacious man in every society he entered into, and yet was more fond of retirement even than other states- men were anxious for public glare ; who displayed a real and cordial hilarity on descending from official eminence to privacy and comparative poverty ; who made all other concerns secondary to devotion ; and who, with the softest temper and mildest manners, had an inflexibility of principle which never at any moment knew how to hesitate between a sacrifice of conscience and of life. The mind rests on this char- acter with a fascination which most rarely seizes it in passing over the whole surface of history After enduring with unalterable patience and cheer- fulness the severities of a year's imprisonment in the Tower, he was brought to trial, condemned with the unhesitating haste which always distinguishes the creatures employed by a tyrant to effect his revenge by some mockery of law, and with the same haste consigned to execution. Imagination can not repre- sent a scene more affecting than the interview of More with his favorite daughter, nor a character of more elevation, or even more novelty, than that most singular vivacity with which, in the hour of death, he crowned the calm fortitude which he had maintained through the whole of the last melancholy year of his life. Thus one of the noblest beings in the whole world was made o, victim to the malice of a remorse- MEN AND BOOKS. 239 less crowned savage, whom it is the infamy of the age and nation to have suffered to reign or to live. 26. Pope : religious character of his writings. — No reader can admire more than I the discriminate thought, the finished execution, and the galaxy of poetical felicities, by which Pope's writings are dis- tinguished. But I can not refuse to perceive that almost every allusion in his lighter works to the names, the facts, and the topics, that peculiarly be- long to the religion of Ciirist, is in a style and spirit of profane banter; and that, in most of his graver ones, where he meant to be dignified, he took the ut- most care to divest his thoughts of all the mean vul- garity of Christian associations. *' Off, ye profane !" might seem to have been his address to all evangeli- cal ideas, when he began his " Essay on Man ;" and they were obedient, and fled ; for if you detach the detail and illustrations, so as to lay bare the outline and general principles of the work, it will stand con- fessed an elaborate attempt to redeem the whole the- ory of the condition and interests of men, both in life and death, from all the explanations imposed on it by an unphilosophical revelation from Heaven. And in the happy riddance of this despised though celestial light, it exhibits a sort of moonlight vision, of thin, impalpable abstractions, at which a speculatist may gaze, with a dubious wonder whether they are reali- ties or phantoms ; but which a practical man will in vain try to seize and turn to account, and which an evangelical man will disdain to accept in substitution for those applicable and affecting forms of truth with which his religion has made him conversant. 27. Shakspere had perceptions of every kind ; he could ihink every way. His mind might be com- pared to that monster the prophet saw in his vision, which had eyes all over. 28. Jeremy Taylor. — From the little I have yet read, I am strongly inclined to think this said Jeremy 240 Foster's thoughts. is the most completely eloquent writer in our lan- guage. There is a most manly and graceful ease and freedom in his composition, while a strongirjtellect is working logically through every paragraph, while all manner of beautiful images continually fall in as by felicitous accident. 29. Formidable extent of literature almost discour- ages enthusiastic pursuit. Men of ordinary literary hardihood look over the dusty and solemn ranks of learned works in a great public library as an invin- cible te7'ra incognita ; they gaze on the lettered lati- tude and altitude as they would on the inaccessible shore of some great island bounded on all sides with a rocky precipice. 30. Understanding the true basis of mental excel- lence and sound literature. — Every thinker, writer, and speaker, ought to be apprized that understanding is the basis of all mental excellence, and that none of the faculties projecting beyond'th'i^ basis can be either firm or graceful. A mind may have great dignity and power, whose basis of judgment, to carry on the fig- ure, is broader than the other faculties that form the superstructure : thus a man whose memory is less than his understanding, and his imagination less than his memory, and his wit none at all, may be an ex- tremely respectable, able man — as a pyramid is suffi- ciently graceful and infinitely strong; but not so a man whose memory or fancy is the widest faculty, and then his judgment more confined. Not but that a man may have a powerful understanding while he has a still more powerful imagination ; but he would be a much superior man to what he is now, if his under- standing could be extended to the dimensions of his fancy, and his fancy reduced to the dimensions of his present understanding — the faculties thus changing places. In eloquence, and even in poetry, which seems so much the lawful province of imagination, should imagination be ever so warm and redundant. LITERATURE, 241 yet unless a sound, discriminating judgment likewise appear, it is not true poetry; no more than it would be painting if a man took the colors and brush of a painter, and stained the paper or canvass with mere patches of color. I can thus exhibit colors as well as he, but I can not produce his forms, to which his col- ors are quite secondary. Images are to sense what colors are to design. The productions of intellect and fancy combined are to those of good intellect alone, what a picture is to a drawing : each must have correct form, proportions, light and shade, &c. ; with these alone the drawing may be pleasing and striking — at least it will do ; the picture having both these recommendations, and the richness of colors in addition, is much more beautiful and like reality — but the drawing is preferable to a square mile of mere colors. 31. Effect of reading a transcendent dramatic work. — I never was so fiercely carried off by Pegasus be- fore ; the fellow neighed as he ascended. 32. Commonplace thoughts can not arrest attention. — Many things may descend from th^ sky of truth without deeply striking and interesting men ; as from the sky of clouds, rain, snow, &c., may descend with- out'exciting ardent attention : it must be large hail- stones, the sound of thunder, torrent-rain, and the lightning-flash ; analogous to these must be the ideas and propositions which strike men's minds. 33. Importance of consistency in fictitious writing. —One important rule belongs to the composition of a fiction, which I suppose the writers of fiction sel- dom think of, viz., never to fabricate or introduce a character to whom greater talents or wisdom is at- tributed than the author himself possesses ; if he does, how shall this character be sustained ] By what means should my own fictitious personage think or talk bet- ter than myself 1 The author may indeed describe hia hero, and say that his Edward, or his Henry, or 21 242 Foster's thoughts. his Francis, is distinguished by genius, acuteness, profundity and comprehension of intellect, originality and pathos of sentiment, magical fancy, and every- thing else ; this is all very soon done. But if this Henry, or Edw^ard, or Clement, or whatever else it is, is to talk before us, then, unless the author him- self has all these high qualities of mind, he can not, like a ventriloquist, make them speak in the person of his hero. There w^ill thus be a miserable discrep- ancy between what his hero was at his introduction described to be, and what he proves himself to be when he opens his mouth. We may easily imagine, then, how qualified the greatest number of novel- writers are for devising thought, speech, and action, for heroes, sages, philosophers, geniuses, wits, &c. ! Yet this is what they all can do ! 34. Conversational disquisition on novels. — I have often maintained that fiction may be much more instructive than real history. I think so still ; but viewing the vast rout of novels as they are, I do think they do incalculable mischief. I wish we could collect them all together, and make one vast fire of them ; I should exult to see the smoke of them ascend like that of Sodom and Gomorrah : the judgment would be as just." 35. Great deficiency of what may he called conclu- sive writing and speaking. — How seldom we feel at the end of the paragraph or discourse that something is settled and done ! It lets our habit of thinking and feeling ^2^5^ he as it ivas. It rather carries on a paral- lel to the line of the mind, at a peaceful distance, than fires down a tangent to smite across it. We are not compelled to say with ourselves emphatically, " Yes, it is so ! it must be so ; that is decided to all eterni- ty !" The subject in question is still left afloat, and you find in your mind no new impulse to action, and no clearer view of the end at which your action should aim. I want the speaker or writer ever and anon, as LITERATURE. 243 he ends a series of paragraphs, to settle some point irrevocably with a vigorous knock of persuasive de- cision, like an auctioneer, who with a rap of his ham- mer says, " There ! that's yours; I've done with it; now for the next." 36. Commonplace preachers. — It is strange to ob- serve how some men, whose business is thought and truth, acquire no enlargement, accession, or novelty of ideas, from the course of many years, and a wide scope of experience. It might seem as if they had. slept the last twenty years, and now awaked with ex- actly the same intellectual stock which they had be- fore they began the nap. 37. A class of writings as void of merit as of liter- ary faults. — There is another large class of Christian books, which bear the marks of learning, correctness, and a disciplined understanding ; and by a general propriety leave but little to be censured ; but which display no invention, no prominence of thought, nor living vigor of expression : all is flat and dry as a plain of sand. It is perhaps the thousandth iteration of commonplaces, the listless attention to which is hardly an action of the mind : you seem to under- stand it all, and mechanically assent while you are thinking of something else. Though the author has a lich, immeasurable field of possible varieties of re- flection and illustration around him, he seems doomed to tread over again the narrow space of ground long since trodden to dust, and in all his movements ap- pears clothed in sheets of lead. . . . But unfortunate- ly, they forgot that eloquence resides essentially in the thought, and that no words can make that eloquent which will not be so in the plainest that could fully express the sense. 3S. Remark on heing requested, to translate Bu^ chanan's incomparable Latin Ode to May. — It would be like the attempt to paint a sun-setting cloud-scene. 39. Commonplace truth is of no use, as it makes 244 Foster's thoughts. no impression; it is no more instruction than wind is music. The truth must take a particular beaiing, as the wind must pass through tubes, to be anything worth. 40. The greatest excellence of writing. — Of all the kinds of writing and discourse, that appears to me in- comparably the best which is distinguished by grand masses and prominent bulks ; which stand out in mag- nitude from the tame groundwork, and impel the mind by a succession of separate, sti'ong impulses, rather than a continuity' of equable sentiment. One has read and heard very sensible discourses, which resembled a plain, handsome brick wall: all looks very well, 'tis regularly built, high, &c., but 'tis all alike; it is flat; you go on and on, and notice no one part more than another ; each individual brick is noth- ing, and you pass along, and soon forget utterly the wall itself. Give me, on the contrary, a style of wri- ting and discourse that shall resemble a wall that has the striking irregularity of pilasters, pictures, nicheg, and statues. 41. Inferior religious books. — It is true enough that on every other subject, on which a multitude of books have been wiitten, there must have been many which in a literary sense were bad. But I can not help thinking that the number coming under this de- scription bear a larger proportion to the excellent ones in the religious department than in any other. One chief cause of this has been, the mistake by which many good men professionally employed in religion have deemed their respectable mental com- petence to the office of public speaking the proof of an equal competence to a work, which is subjected to much severer literary and intellectual laws. 42. T/ie common of literature. — How large a por- tion of the material that books are made of, is desti- tute of any peculiar distinction ! " It has," as Pope said of women, just "no character at all," An ac- LITERATURE. 245 cumulation of sentences and pages of vulgar tru- isms and candle-light sense, which any one was com- petent to write, and which no one is interested in reading, or cares to remember, or could remember if he cared. This is the common of literature — of sj)ace wide enough, of indifferent production, and open to all. The pages of some authors, on the con- trary, give one the idea of enclosed gardens and orchards, and one says — " Ha ! that is the man's own." 43. The class of hooks tliat sJiouId he read. — A man of ability, for the chief of his reading, should select such works as he feels beyond his own power to have produced. What can other books do for him but waste his time and augment his vanity ? 44. Waste of time in reading inferior hooks. — Why should a man, except for some special reason, read a very inferior book, at the very time that he might be reading- one of the hio^hest order ? 45. Ancient rtietapliysics. — The only attraction of abstract speculations is in their truth ; and therefore when the persuasion of their truth is gone, all their influence is extinct. That which could please the imagination or interest the affections, might in a con- siderable degree continue to please and interest them, though convicted of fallacy. But that which is too subtle to please the imagination, loses all its power when it is rejected by the judgment. And this is the predicament to which time has reduced the meta- physics of the old philosophers. The captivation of their systems seems almost as far withdrawn from us as the songs of their sirens, or the enchantments of Medea. 46. The moral effect of the Iliad \q-)on the world. — After considering the eflect which has been produced by the Iliad of Homer, I am compelled to regard it with the same sentiment as I should a knife of beau- tiful workmanship, which had been the instrument 21* .5% 240 Foster's thoughts. used in murdering an innocent family. Recollect, as one instance, its influence on Alexander, and through him on the world. 47. PJiilosopJiy of the demoralizing influence of lit- erature, — No one, I suppose, will deny that both the characters and the sentiments, which are the favor- ites of the poet and the historian, become the favor- ites also of the admiring reader ; for this would be to deny the excellence of the poetry and eloquence. It is the high test and proof of genius that a writer can render his subject interesting to his readers, not merely in a general way, but in the very same man- ner that it interests himself. If the great works of antiquity had not this power, they would long since have ceased to charm. We could not long tolerate what revolted, while it was designed to please, our moral feelings. But if their characters and senti- ments really do thus fascinate the heart, how far will this influence be coincident with the spirit and with the design of Christianity ? .... Let this susceptible youth, after having mingled and burned in imagina- tion among heroes, whose valor and anger flame like Vesuvius, who wade in blood, trample on dying foes, and hurl defiance against earth and Heaven ;4et him be led into the company of Jesus Christ and his dis- ciples, as displayed by the evangelists, with whoso narrative, I will suppose, he is but slightly acquaint- ed before. What must he, what can he do with his feelings in this transition 1 He will find himself flung as far as "from the centre to the utmost pole ;" and one of these two opposite exhibitions of character will inevitably excite his aversion He will be incessantly called upon to worship revenge, the real divinity of the Iliad, in comparison with which the Thunderer of Olympus is but a despicable pretender to power. He will be taught that the most glorious and enviable life is that to which the gi-eatest num- b 35. Beaut ful ideas transient. — Regret that inter- esting ideas and feelings are the comets of the mind; PASSIONS, SUSCEPTIBILITIES, ETC. 263 tliey transit off. Qu. What mode of making them fixed stars, and thus the mind a firmament always resplendent 1 36. Reluctance to mental exertion. — My mind seems for ever to carry about with it five hundred weight of earth, or lead, or some other heavy and useless material, which denies it all power of continued ex- ertion. How much I could regret, that industry and all other virtues are not, by the constitution of na- ture, as necessary and inevitable as the descent of water down a hill, and of all heavy bodies to the earth. 37. An original preacher. has one power beyond all you preachers I have yet heard — a power of massy fragments'of originality, like pieces of rock tumbling suddenly down, and dashing into a gulf of water below. 38. Qualifications of an orator or poet. — In short, no orator or poet can possibly be a better orator or poet than he is a thinker. 39. Nothing new under the sun. — I compare life to a little wilderaess, surrounded by a high, dead wall. Within this space we muse and walk in quest of the new and the happy, forgetting the insuperable limit, till, with surprise, we find ourselves stopped by the dead wall ; we turn away, and muse and walk again, till, on another side, we find ourselves close against the dead wall. Whichever way we turn — still the same. 40. A fascinating companion amidst fascinating scenes. — Sat a little while with a fascinating woman, in a room which looked out on a beautiful rural and venial scene, while the rays of the setting sun shone in with a mellow softness that can not be described, after spreading a very peculiar light over the grass, and being partially intercepted by some blooming orchard- trees, so as to throw on the walls of this room a most magical picture ; every moment moving and changing, 264 poster's thoughts. and finally melting away. I compared this room in this state, contrasted with an ordinary room in an or- dinary state, to the interior of a common mind, con- trasted with the interior of a mind of genius. Con- versation on the feelings and value of genius. Shall never forget this hour. 41. No susceptibility to mental excitation. — How many of these minds are there to whom scarcely any good can be done 1 They have no excitability. You are attempting to kindle a fire of stones. You must leave them as you find them, in permanent medioc- rity. You waste your time if you do not employ it on materials which you can actually modify, while such can be found. I find that most people are made only for the common uses of life. 42. Intellect without sentiment. — They seem to have only the bare intellectual stamina of the human mind, without the addition of what is to give it life and sen- timent. They give one an impression similar to that made by the leafless trees which you remember our observing in winter, admirable for the distinct exhi- bition of their branches and minute ramifications so clearly defined on the sky, but destitute of all the green, soft luxury of foliage which is requisite to make a perfect tiee. And even the affections exist- ing in snch minds seem to have a bleak abode, some- what like those bare, deserted nests which you have often seen in such trees. 43. Diversity of talents. — Divine wisdom has allot- ted various kinds and divisions of ability to human minds, and each ought to be content with his own when he has ascertained what, and of what dimen- sions it really is. Let not a poet be vexed that he is not as much adapted to mathematics as to po- etry ; let not an ingenious mechanic regret that he has not the powers of eloquence, sentiment, and fan- cy. Let each cultivate to its utmost extent his proper talent ; but still remembering that one part of the PASSIONS, SUSCEPTIBILITIES, ETC. 265 mind depends very much on the whole, and that therefore every power should receive an attentive cultivation, and that various acquisitions are neces- sary in order to give full effect to the one in which we may excel. To reason well, is most essential to all kinds of mental superiority. The Bible forcibly displays this division of forces, under the illustration of the human body, 1 Cor. xii. 44. Perverted genius. — Beings, whom our imagi- nation represents as capable (when they possessed great external means in addition to the force of their minds) of the grandest utility, capable of vindicating each good cause which has languished in a world ad- verse to all goodness, and capable of intimidating the collective vices of a nation or an age — becoming themselves the very centres and volcanoes of those vices; and it is melancholy to follow them in serious thought, from this region, of which not all the pow- ers, and difficulties, and inhabitants together, could have subdued their adamantine resolution, to the Su- preme Tribunal where that resolution must tremble and melt away. 45. Moral sentiment not necessarily elevated hy in- vestigations of science. — P made some most in- teresting observations on the moral effect of the study of natural philosophy, including astronomy. He de- nied, as a general effect, the tendency of even this last grand science to expand, sublime, or moralize the mind. He had talked with the famous Dr. Her- schel. It was of course to suppose, a priori, that Herschel's studies would alternately intoxicate him with revery, almost to delirium, and carry him irre- sistibly away toward the throne of the Divine Maj- esty. P questioned him on the subject. Her- Bchel told him that these effects took place in his mind in but a very small degree ; much less, probably, than in the mind of a poet without any science at all. Neither a habit of pious feeling, nor any peculiar and 23 866 Foster's thoughts. transcendent emotions of piety, were at all the ne- cessary consequence. 46. Figure of perverted use of memory. 'a memory is nothing but a row of hooks to hang up grudges on. 47. Characteristic of genius. — One of the strongest characteristics of genius is, the power of lighting its own fire. 48. Importance of imagination. — Imagination, al- though a faculty of quite subordinate rank to intel- lect, is of infinite value for enlarging the field for the action of the intellect. It is a conducting and facili- tating medium for intellect to expand itself through, where it may feel itself in a genial, vital element, in- stead of a vacuuni. OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 267 CHAPTER XII. OBSERVATIONS UPON NATURE, NATURAL OBJECTS AND SCENES ANALOGIES, ETC. 1. Infinity of creation. — It is but little to say, that the material creation is probably of such an extent that the greatest of created beings not only have never yet been able to survey it at all, but never w^ill to all eternity. . . . If the stupendous extension of the works of God was intended and adapted to promote, in the contemplations of the highest intelligences, an indefi- nitely glorious though still incompetent conception of the Divine infinity, the ascertaining of the limit, the distinct perception of the finiteness, of that manifes- tation of power, would tend with a drea'dful force to repress and annihilate that conception : and it may well be imagined that if an exalted, adoring spirit could ever in eternity find himself at that limit, the perception would inflict inconceivable horror. 2. TJnperceived extent of the universe. — When we reflect what kind of creature it is to whose view thus much of the universe has been disclosed ; that the physical organ of this very perception is of such a nature that it might, in consequence of the extinction of life, be reduced to dust within a few short days after it had admitted rays from the stars ; while, as to his mental part, he is, besides his moral debasement, at the very bottom of the gradation of probably innu- merable millions of intellectual races (certainly at the bottom, since a being inferior to man in intellect could not be rational) when we think of this, it will appear 268 POSTER S THOUGHTS. Utterly improbable that the portion of the universe which such a creatuie can take knowledge of, should be more than a very diminutive tract in the vast ex- pansion of existence. 3. Invisible creation around us. — Let a reflective man, when he stands in a garden, or a meadow, or a forest, or on the margin of a pool, consider what there is within the circuit of a very few feet around him, and that, too, exposed to the light, and with no veil for concealment from his sight, but nevertheless invisible to him. It is certain that within that little space there are organized beings, each of marvellous construction, independent of the rest, and endowed with the mysterious principle of vitality, to the amount of a number which could not have been told by units if there could have been a man so employed from the time of Adam to this hour ! Let him indulge for a moment the idea of such a perfect transformation of his faculties as that all this population should become visible to him, each and any individual being pre- sented to his perception as a distinct object of which he could take the same full cognizance as he now can of the large living creatures around him. What a perfectly new world ! What a stupendous crowd of sentient agents ! What an utter solitude, in com- parison, that world of living beings of which alone his senses had been competent to take any clear ac- count before ! And then let him consider whether it be in his power, without plunging into gross ab- surdity, to form any other idea of the creation and separate subsistence of these beings, than that each of them is the distinct object of the attention and the power of that one Spirit in which all things subsist. Let him, lastly, extend the view to the width of the whole terrestrial field, of our mundane system, of the universe — with the added thought how long such a creation has existed, and is to exist. 4. Dependence on God for returning seasons,— ^^e^ OBSERVATION OP NATURE. 269 are in our places here on the surface of the earth, to wait in total dependence for Him to cause the sea- sons to visit our abode, as helpless and impotent as particles of dust. If the Power that brings them on were to hold them back, we could only submit, or re- pine — and perish ! His will could strike with an in- sta-nt paralysis the whole moving system of Nature. Let there be a suspension of his agency, and all would stop ; or a change of it, and things would take a new and fearful course ! Yet we are apt to think of the certainty of the return of the desired season in some other light than that of the certainty that God will cause it to come. With a sort of passive irreligion we allow a something, conceived as an established order of Nature, to take the place of the Author and Ruler of Nature, forgetful that all this is nothing but the continually acting power of God ; and that noth- ing can be more absurd than the notion of God's hav- ing constituted a system to be, one moment, inde- pendent of himself. 5. Change of spring grateful as surprising — its analogy. — Consider next this beautiful vernal sea- son; what a gloomy and unpromising scene and sea- son it arises out of! It is almost like creation from chaos ; like life from a state of death. If we might be allowed in a supposition so wide from probability as that a person should not know what season is to follow, while contemplating the scene, and feeling the rigors of winter, how difficult it would be for him to comprehend or believe that the darkness, dreari- ness, bleakness, and cold — the bare, desolate, and dead aspect of Nature could be so changed. If he could then in some kind of vision behold such a scene as that now spread over the worth — he would be dis- posed to say : " It can not be ; this is absolutely a new creation or another world !" Mi^ht we not take an instruction from this, to correct the judgments we are prone to form of the Divine government 1 We are 23* 270 Foster's thoughts, placed within one limited scene and period of the great succession of the Divine dispensations— a dark and gloomy one — a prevalence of evil. We do not see how it can be, that so much that is offensive and grievous, should be introductory to something de- lightful and glonous. " Look, how fixed ! how in- veterate ! how absolute ! how unchanging ! is not this a character of perpetuity !" If a better, nobler scene to follow is intimated by the spirit of prophecy, in fig- ures analogous to the beauties of spring, it is regarded with a kind of despondency, as if prophecy were but a kind of sacred poetry ; and is beheld as something to aggravate the gloom of the present, rather than to draw the mind forward in delightful hope. So we allow our judgments of the Divine goveniment — of the mighty field of it, and of its progressive periods ' — to be formed very much upon an exclusive view* of the limited, dark portion of his dispensations which is immediately present to us ! But such judgments should be corrected by the spring blooming around us, so soon after the gloomy desolation of winter. The man that we were supposing so ignorant and incredulous, what would he now think of what he had thought then 1 6. Bublimity of a mountain. — We behold a lofty mountain, which has been seen by so many eyes of shepherds, laborers, and fancy's musing children, that will see it no more. While we view the towering- majesty and unchangeable sedateness of its cliffs and sides, and the venerable gloom of forty centuries im- pressed on its brow, imparting a deeper solemnity to the sky, which sometimes darkens the summit with its clouds and thunders, the expression of our feelings is — how sublime ! 7. Suhlimity of a cataract. — We have taken our stand near a great cataract; the thundering dash, the impetuous rebound, the furious turbulence, and the murky vapor — oh, what a spectacle ! sometimes, while OBSERVATION OP NATURE. 271 we have gazed, the noise and mass of waters seemed to increase every moment, threatening to involve and annihilate us. We could fancy we heard preternat- ural sounds — the voice of death — through the roar. It seemed as if some hideous breach had taken place of the regular order of the system, and the element were rushing from its natural state into strange com- bustion, as the commencement of ruin. It gives a most striking representation of omnipotent vengeance pouring on enormous guilt. We wonder almost that the stream could change the calmness with which it flowed a little while before into such dreadful tumult, and that from such dreadful tumult it could subside into calmness again. 8. Sublimity of the sea. — Perhaps we have seen the sea reposing in calmness. Its ample extent and glassy smoothness seeming almost to rival the sky expanded above it ; its depth to us unknown ; the thought that we stand near a gulf, capable in one hour of extinguishing all human life — and the thought that this vast body, now so peaceful, can move, can act with a force quite equal to its magnitude — inspire a sublime sentiment. Perhaps we have seen it in tem- pest, moving with a host of mountains to assault the eternal barrier which confines its power. If there were in reality spirits of the deep, it might suit them well to ride on these ridges, or howl in this raging foam. We have often seen the fury of little beings; but how insignificant in comparison of what we now behold, the world in a rage ! Indeed, we could al- most imagine that the great world is informed with a soul, and that these commotions express the agita- tions of its passions. Undoubtedly to mariners, haz- arded far off in the midst of such a scene, the sub- limity is lost in the danger. Horror is the sentiment with which they survey the vast flood, rolling in hide- ous steeps, and gulfs, and surges ; while at a dis- tance, on the gloomy limit of the view, despair is 272 poster's thoughts. seen to stand, summoning forward still new billows without end. But, to a spectator on the land, the in- fluenice which breathes powerfully from the scene^ and which conscious danger would darken into hor- ror, is illuminated into awful sublimity, by the per- fect security of his situation. 9. Suhlimity of the sun. — But the sun far trans- cends all these objects, and yet mingles no terror with the emotion of sublimity. His grandeur is expressed in that vivid fluctuation, and that profuse effulgence, which, so superior to the faintness of a merely re- flective luminary, are the signs of an original, inex- haustible fire. He has the aspect of a potentate, am- bitious in universal empire of nothing but the power of universal beneficence; and a stranger to the char- acter of our part of the creation would think that must be a pure and happy world which is blest with so grand a radiance ! What a pleasure to see him I'ise — but partially at first, as with a modest delay, till the smile which his appearance kindles over the world invites him to come forward. A certain de- mure coldness which a little while before gave every object a coy and solitary air, shutting up even the beauties of every flower from our sight, is changed by his full appearance into a kind of social gayety, and all things, animate and inanimate, seem to re- joice with us and around us. We view him climb- ing the clouds that sometimes appear on the horizon in the form of mountains, which he seems to set on fire as he climbs. In his course through the sky, he is sometimes seen shaded with clouds, as if passing under the umbrage of a great forest, and sometimes in the clear expanse, like a vast fountain of the ele- ment of which minds are made. From morning till evening he has the dominion of all that is grand and beautiful over the face of nature, and seems at once to make it his own, and to make it ours. His glories are augmented in his decline, as he passes down the OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 273 sky amid a wilderness of beautiful clouds, the incense of the world, collected to honor him as he retires, till at last he seems to descend into a calm sea with amber shores — leaving, however, above the horizon a mellow lustre, soft and sweet, as the memory of a departed friend. How important and dignified should that course of action be, which is lighted by such a lamp ! How magnificent that system which required 80 great a luminary — and to what a stupendous ele- vation will that thought rise, which must vault over such an orb of glory, in its way to contemplate a Be- ing still infinitely greater ! 10. Suhlimity of the heavens. — When the night is come, we may look up to the sublime tranquillity of the heavens, where the stars are seen, like nightly fires of so many companies of spirits, pursuing their inquiries over the superior realms. We know not how far the reign of disorder extends, but the stars appear to be beyond its limits ; and, shining from their remote stations, give us information that the universe is wide enough for us to prosecute the ex- periment of existence, through thousands of stages, perhaps in far happier climes than this. Science is the rival of imagination here, and by teaching that these stars are suns, has given a new interest to the anticipation of eternity, which can supply such inex- haustible materials of intelligence and wonder. Yet these stars seem to confess that there must be still sublimer regions for the reception of spirits refined beyond the intercourse of all material lights; and even leave us to imagine that the whole material uni- verse itself is only a place where beings are appoint- ed to originate, and to be educated through succes- sive scenes, till passing over its utmost bounds into the immensity beyond, they there at length find them- selves in the immediate presence of the Divinity. 11. Rising of the moon : train of refection suggest- ed hyit. — Have just seen the moon rise, and wish the 274 FOSTER S THOUGHTS. image to be eternal. I never beheld her in so much character, nor with so much sentiment, all these thirty years that I have lived. Emerging from a dark mount- ain of clouds, she appeared in a dim sky, which gave a sombre tinge to her most majestic aspect. It seemed an aspect of solemn, retiring severity, which had long forgotten to smile ; the aspect of a being which had no sympathies with this world; of a being totally re- gardless of notice, and having long since with a gloomy dignity resigned the hope of doing any good, yet pro- ceeding with composed, unchangeable self-determina- tion to fulfil her destiny, and even now looking over the world at its accomplishment. (Happy part of the figure.) Felt it difficult to divest the moon of that personality and consciousness which my imagi- nation had recoo:nised from the first moment. With an effort, alternated the ideas of her being a mere lucid body, and of her being a conscious power, and felt the latter infinitely more interesting, and even more as if it were natural and real. Do not know how I found in the still shades, that dimmed in sol- emnness the lower part of her orb, the suggestion of immortality, and the wish to be a " disembodied pow- er." Question to the silent spirits of the night : " What is your manner of feeling as you contemplate all these scenes ] Are yours all ideas of absolute sci- ence, or do they swim in visionary fancy V The ap- prehension of soon losing my power of seeing a world so superabundant of sentiment and soul, is very mourn- ful. 12. The fartliest excursion of the imagination does not reach the limit of the universe. — In conversation at W 's, had a splendid revel of imagination among the stars, caused by the mention of Herschel's tele- scope, and some astronomical facts asserted by him. The images, like Lee's poetry, were, from a basis jf excellence, flung away into extravagance. But it is a striking reflection, that when the wild dream of OBSERVATION OF NATURE «75 imagination is past, the thing is still real: there is a sun ; there are stars and systems; innumerable worlds, on which the soberest depositions of science far tran- scend all the visions that fancy can open to enthu- siasm 13. Vast disparity between the grandeur of Nature and the sentiments with which it is contemplated. — I have once more been throwing an eager gaze over the heaven of stars, with the alternate feelings of shiinking into an atom and expanding into an angel — what I but am now ! what I may he hereafter ! I am amazed that so transcendently awful a spectacle should seize attention so seldom, and affect the habit of thought so little. What is the most magnificent page of a heroic poem, compared with such an ex- panse of glorious images ? It seems the grand por- tico into that infinity in which the incomprehensible Being resides. Oh, that this soul should have within itself so little of that amplitude and that divine splen- dor which deify the scene that for ever environs it ! Mortifying, that my scope of existence is so little, with the feeling as if it might be so vast. The hem- isphere of thought surely ought to have some analogy with the hemisphere of vision. Most mortifying, that this wondrous, boundless universe should be so little mine, either by knowledge or by assimilating influ- ence ! But this vision gives a delightful omen of what the never-dying mind may at length behold — may at last become ! Oh, may I never again diso- bey or forget a Power whose existence pervades all yonder stars, and is their grandeur ! It is indeed pos- sible to engage his attention, and enjoy his friend- ship for ever ! In this comparison, what becomes of the importance of our human fi-iendships ] Yet still I am man, and the social, tender sentiment at this very moment says in my heart, '* There are one or two dear persons whom I can not but wish to havo 276 poster's thoughts. for my affectionate, impassioned associates in explo- ring those divine regions. 14. Grand conceit of the sun and a comet as con- scious heings, encountering each other in the circuit of the heavens. — Very grand idea, presenting the sun and a comet as conscious beings, of hostile or dubious determination toward each other. The comet, though a less orb, yet fraught with inextinguishable ardor, passes near the sun in his course, and dares to look him in the face. The aspect of fearless calmness with which the greater orb regards him. I have the im- age, but can not express it. — Fingal and Cathmor, &c. 15. Description of an exquisitely soft an^ pensive evening. — It is as if the soul of Eloisa pervaded all the air. 16. Little hird in a tree. — Bird, 'tis pity such a de- licious note should be silenced by winter, death, and, above all, by annihilation. I do not and I can not be- lieve that all these little spirits of melody are but the snuff of the grand taper of life, the mere vapor of ex- istence, to vanish for ever. 17. On listening to the song of a hird. — Sweet bird ! it is a tender and entrancing note, as if breathed by the angel of love ; rather the infinite spirit of love in- spires thy bosom, and thou art right while thou sing- est to raise those innocent little eyes to heaven ! 18. On seeing a hutterfy. — Saw a most beautiful butterfly, which I was half inclined to chase. Qu. Which would be the stronger excitement to such pur- suit, the curiosity raised by seeing such an object for the first time, or the feeling which, as now, is a relic of the interests and amusements of early youth ? 19. Correspondences probable between remote parts of the universe. — One wonders in how many respects a real resemblance exists through the creation. One may doubt whether, if there be embodied inhabitants in the planets of other suns, or even in the other plan- ets of our own system, they have forms anything like OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 277 ours. They may be square, orbicular, or of any other form. One analogy (physical analogy), however, strikes me as prevailing through every part of the universe that sight or science can reach, and that is — -fire. The fixed stars are the remotest material ex- istences we know of, and they certainly must be fire, like that which exists in a nearer part of the creation. This striking circumstance of similarity warrants the supposition of many more in the physical phenomena of the distant parts of the universe — and may not this physical conformity warrant the supposition of a sim- ilarity in the moral phenomena of the different re- gions of the creation ] 20. Looking at dark and moving clouds. — Large masses of black cloud, following one another like a train of giants, in sullen silence, answering the azure smiles of Heaven that gleam between, with a Vulca- nian frown. 21. Observation during a visit in a rural district. — Visit to a farmer. Has a wife and ten children. A great deal of mutual complacency between this pair. The children very pleasing. Played with several of them, particularly a delightful little boy and girl. Observed the various animals in the farm- yard Most amusing gambols of the little boy with a young dog. How soon children perceive if they are noticed. In many of their playful actions one can not tell how much is from the excitement they feel from being looked at and talked of, and how much is from the simple promptings of their own inclination. Observed a long time, in the fields, the down of thistles. Pleased in looking at the little feathery stars softly sailing through the air, and ap- pealing bright in the beams of the setting sun. But next observed the little sportive flies, that show life and will in their movements. What a stupendous dif- ference ! Talked on education. The advantages of a large family. Importance of making a family 24 278l poster's thoughts. a society, so as to preclude the need of other com- panions, and adscititious animation and adventure. Absolute necessity .of preventing as far as possible any communication of the children with those of the neighborhood. 22. Development of truth from reflective ohserva- tion. — I have often noticed the process in my mind, when in the outset of a journey or day, I have set myself to observe whatever should fall within my sphere. For some time at first I can do no more than take an account of bare facts ; as, there is a house ; there a man ; there a tree ; such a speech uttered ; such an incident happens, &c., &c. After some time, however, a large enginery begins to work; I feel more than a simple perception of objects ; they become environed with an atmosphere, and shed forth an emanation. They come accompanied with trains of images, moral analogies, and a wide diffused, vital- ized, and indefinable kind of sentimentalism. Gen- erally, if one can compel the mind to the labor of the first part of the process, the interesting sequel will soon follow. After one has passed a few hours in this element of revelation, which presents this old. world like a new vision all around, one is ashamed of so many hundred walks and days which have been vacant of observation and reflection. 23. Varied knowledge greatly increases the inter- est, and instruction of daily observation. — Power of mind and refinement of feeling being supposed equal, the number of a person's interests and classes of knowl- edge will have a great effect to extend or confine his sphere of observation. Was struck lately in remark- ing Lunell's superiority over me in this respect. In a given scene or walk, I should make original obser- vations belonging to the general laws of taste, to fan- cy, sentiment, moral reflection, religion ; so would he, with great success ; but, in addition, he would make observations in reference t) the arts, to. geographical OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 279 comparison, to historical comparison, to commercial interest, to the artificial laws of elegance, to the ex- isting institutions of society. Every new class of knowledge, then, and every new subject of interest, becomes to an observer a new sense, to notice innu- merable facts and ideas, and consequently receive endless pleasurable and instructive hints, to which he had been else as insensible as a man asleep. This is like employing at once all the various modes of catching birds, instead of one only. It is another question, whether the mind's observing powers will act less advantageously in any one given direction from being diverted into so many directions. 24. Difference between seeing and observing. — I am not observing, I am only seeing : for the beam of my eye is not charged with thought. 25. On observing in a moonlight loalk the shadow of a great rock in apiece of water. — Astonishing num- ber of analogies with moral truth, strike one's ima- gination in wandering and musing through the scenes of nature. Or, is analogy a really existing fact, or merely an illusive creation of the mind within itself? Suggested in a moonlight walk, by observing a great rock reflected downward as far as its height upward, in a still piece of water at its foot, and by comparing this deception to that delusive magic of imagination which magnifies into double its proper dimensions of importance an object which is interesting. 26. Thoughts in traversing rural scenes. — Repeat- ed feeling, on traversing vanous rural scenes, of the multitudinous, overwhelming vastness of the creation. What a world of images, suggestions, mysteries ! 27. On observation. — The capabilities of any sphere of observation are in proportion to the force and num- ber of the observer's faculties, studies, interests. In one given extent of space, or in one walk, one per- son will be struck by five objects, another by ten, an- other by a hundred, some by none at all. 280 Foster's thoughts. 28. Vivifying injiuences of imagination. — Fancy makes vitality where it does not find it ; to it all things are alive. On this unfrequented vv^alk even the dry leaf that is stirred by a slight breath of air across the path, seems for a moment to have its little life and its tiny purpose. 29. Diversion from natural to artijlcial scenes. — How much a traveller's attention is commonly en- grossed by the works of art, houses, carriages, &c. ; and how little is it directed to the endless varieties of nature. 30. Lively fancy invests inanimate objects with life. — In the moment of uncontrolled fancy and feeling, one attributes perceptions like one's own to even in- animate objects ; for instance, that solitary tree ap- pears to me as if regretting its desolate, individual state. 31. Mankind acquire most of their knowledge by sensation, and very little by reflection. — How little of our knowledge of mankind is derived from intention- al accurate observation. Most of it has, unsought, found its way into the mind from the continual pre- sentations of the objects to our unthinking view. It is a knowledge of sensation more than of reflection. Such knowledge is vague and superficial. There is no science of human nature in it. It is rather a habit of feeling than an act of intellect. It perceives ob- vious, palpable peculiarities ; but nice distinctions, delicate shades, are invisible to it. A philosopher will study all men with as accurate observation as he would some individual on whose dispositions, opin- ions, or whims, he believed his fate to depend. 32. Advantage of the close study of character. — Very advantageous exercise to incite attentive obser- vation and sharpen the discriminating faculty, to com- pel one's self to sketch the character of each person one knows. 33. Womeii oh&orve manners more than characters. OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 281 — Some one said that women remarked characters more discriminately than men. I said, "They re- mark manners far more than characters." The men- tal force which might be compressed and pointed into a javelin, to pierce quite through a character, they splinter into little tiny darts to stick all over the features, complexion, attitude, drapery, &c. How often I have entered a room with the embarrassment of feeling that all my motions, gestures, postures, dress, &c., &c., &c., were critically appreciated, and self-complacently condemned ; but at the same time with the bold consciousness that the inquisition could reach no further. I have said with myself, ** My character, that is the man, laughs at you behind this veil ; I may be the devil for what you can tell ; and you would not perceive neither if I were an angel of light." 34. Unusual appreciation of the Beauties of nature. — A young lady, whose perceptions were often nat- ural and coirect without her being able to appreciate them, said to a friend of mine, "I like to walk in the country with you because you are pleased with re- marking objects and talking of them. The compan- ions I have been accustomed to would say, when I wished to do this, ' Caroline, take less notice of the fields and more of the company ! ! !' " This young woman, amid much puerility, would frequently ex- press, unconscious of their value, feelings so natural and just as to be quite interesting, and sometimes even striking to. a philosopher. I compared her to the African, James Albert, who, when come to Eng- land and in possession of money, would give to a beggar as it might happen, a penny or a half-guinea, unapprized of the respective value of each. 35, Philosophizing in observation. — "I know as well as you the folly of wandering for ever among the abstractions of philosophy, while truth's business and ours is with the real world. I am endeavoring to 24* 282 Foster's thoiTghts. learn tiTitli from observations on facts. I am trying to take off the hide of the actual world, but it must be curried by philosophy, you will grant me, to be made fit for all the useful purposes." 36. Effect on one's ideas from musing so much suh dio. — A sort of vacant outline of greatness; a wide- ness of compass without solidity and exactness. 37. Observing is reading the hook of nature. — " Looking at these objects is reading !" said I to my- self, while beholding sheep, meads, &c. " Is not this more than reading descriptions of these things'?" I had been regretting how little I had read respecting some things that can be seen. 38. In appreciation of the wonderful laws of nature displayed in familiar things. — Mr. H. and I looked a considerable time with much curiosity and gratifi- cation in one of the inegularly cut pendent glasses of a lustre in which we saw the same beautiful dis- play of colored tints and brilliancies as in the prism, only more irregular and vaiiegated. It was not the glass toy we for a moment thought about, but the strange and beautiful vision, and those laws of nature that could produce it. A young lady present, of polished and expensive education, large fortune, and fond of personal and furniture ornaments, expressed sincerely her wonder at our childish fancy in finding anything to please us in such an object; and said she would reserve the first thing of this kind she should meet with, if no other children claimed it, for one of us. I did not fail to observe the circumstance, as supplying another instance, in addition to the ten thousand one has met with before, of persons who never saw the world around them, who are strangers to all its witcheries of beauty, and who, at the same time, indulge a ridiculous passion for the petty pro- ductions of art subserving vanity. 39. Improvement of observation more important than its extension. — Important reflection in opposition OBSERVATION OP NATURE. 283 to the regret of not having seen more of the world in each of its departments. " But I have seen far more of the world, that is, of event, character, and natural scenes, than I have tunied into knowledge — and thfs alone could be the value of seeing still more." 40. A man of ideality diffuses his life through all things around him. — Made in conversation, but can not recollect sufficiently to write, a vivid and happy- display of what may be called physiopathy, a faculty of pervading all nature with one's own being, so as to have a perception, a life, and an agency, in all things. A person of such a mind stands and gazes at a tree, for instance, till the object becomes all wonderful, and is transfigured into something visionary and ideal. He is amazed what a tree is, how it could, from a little stem which a worm might crop, rise up into that majestic size, and how it could ramify into such mul- titudinous extent of boughs, twigs, and leaves. Fan- cy climbs up from its root like ivy, and twines round and round it, and extends to its remotest shoots and tremblino- folia2:e. But this is not all : the tree soon becomes to your imagination a coiiscious being, and looks at you, and communes with you; ideas cluster on each branch, meanings emanate from eveiy twig. Its tallness and size look conscious majesty; roaring in the wind its movements express tremendous emo- tion. In sunshine or soft showers it carries a gay, a tender, or a pensive character ; it frowns in winter on a gloomy day. If you observe a man of this or- der, though his body be a small thing, invested com- pletely with a little cloth, he expands his being in a grand circle all around him. He feels as if" he grew in the grass and flowers, and groves ; as if he stood on yonder distant mountain-top, conversing with clouds, or sublimely sporting among their imaged precipices, caverns, and ruins. He flows in that river, chafes in its cascades, smiles in the aqueous flowers, frisks in the fishes, and is sympathetic with evei*y bird. 284 poster's thoughts. CHAPTER XIII. MISCELLANIES. 1. Visit to Tliornhury cliurcli : reflections. — Went to Thornbuiy church, in order to ascend the tower, which is very high. Walked (Hughes and I) about awhile in the church. Saw one or two ancient mon- umental inscriptions, and looked with intense disgust, as I always do, at the stupid exhibitions of coarsely- executed heraldry. Ascended the tower. Observed both in the staircase of the tower, and on the leaden roof of the church, the initials of the names of visi- tants, some of whom must now have been dead a century. Reflections on the forbearance of Time, in not obliterating these memorials ; on the persons who cut or drew these rude remarks, their motives for doing it, their present state in some other world ; the succession of events and lives since these marks were made, &c. Waited a good, while before we could open the small door which opens from the top of the staircase to the platform of the tower. Amusing play with my own mind on the momentary expectation of beholding the wide, beautiful view, though just now confined in a narrow, darkish position. Difference as to the state of the mind, as to its perceptions, be- tween having, or not having, a little stone and mor- tar close around one. Came on the top. The rooks, jackdaws, or whatever they are that frequent this kind of buildings, flew away. So ere long we hope everything that belongs to the established church, at the approach of dissenters, will be off. MISCELLANIES. 285 Admired the extensive view; looked down on the ruins of an ancient castle in the vicinity; frightful effect of looking directly down much lessened by the structure all around the top, of turrets, high parapet, and a slight projection just below the edge. Yet felt a sensation ; thought of this as a mode of execution for a criminal or a martyr. Endeavored to realize the state of being impelled to the edge and lifted over' it. Endeavored to imagine the state of a per- son whose dearest friend should perhaps, in conse- quence of some unfortunate movement of his, fall off; degree and nature of the feeling that would ef- fectually prompt him to throw himself after ; morality of the act. Qu. Whether either of us have a friend for whom one should have thus much feeling % Prob- ability, from sti-iking instances, that many mothers would do this for a child. Examined the decaying stone-work ; thought again of the lapse of ages ; appearance of sedate indiffer- ence to all things which these ancient structures wear to my imagination, which can not see them long with- out personifying them. Thickets of moss on the stone. Noticed with surprise a species of vegetation on the surface of several plates of iron. Observed with an emotion of pleasure the scar of thunder on one of the tun-ets. Sublime and enviable office, if such the voice of the angels who wield the thunder and light- ning. Descended from the tower, to which we shall probably ascend no more ; this partly a serious, pen- sive idea ; yet do not care ; what is the place, or any place, to us % We shall live when this is reduced to dust. 2. Precipice reflected in a deep pit: analogy. — A picture of a precipice reflected in a deep pit, tran scendently beautiful ! A small cascade from the top falling and fi-etting on point after point of the rocky precipice. Most beautiful aquatic gi'een, in many recesses of the precipice nourished by this water. I 286 poster's thoughts; wandered and gazed here five years since. Dismal, sombre look of the farthest point of the shelving rock, visible down through the dark water of the pit. Pret- ty innocent dimples on the surface of this pit, caused by a gentle breath of air. Analogy — Deep villain smiles. 3. Ke flections from a surf ace of water : analogy. — Most magical succession, for several miles, of reflec- tions on the glassy surface of a canal, of the adjacent hill and wood scenery. One stripe of reflection of a distant scene, and a grand one, in a small, narrow piece of water in a field, so that this foreign piece seemed joined into the verdant field. Analogy — transient view of heaven in this common life. 4. On seeing a halcyon. — Felt more respect for it on account of its classic celebrity, than a common bird. But how arbitrary are these distinctions ; the bird has no dignified consciousness of superiority, and, except for its beauty, possesses none. 5. Observed with interest the tumults occasioned in a canal, by the sluice of the lock being opened ; but recollected what vast commotion must be caused by the rebound of Niagara, and instantly turned away. 6. Effect of natural scenes on character. — Hope to derive considerable influence toward simplicity and refinement from my pathetic conversations with so many charming natural scenes. 7. Objects of affection invested 2vith additional charms hy interesting associations. — Stood in a solitary grove, just opposite to a large cascade, on which I looked with long and fixed attention. Most interesting to observe the movements of my own mind, particularly as to the ideas which come from distant (unseen) ob- jects and scenes. The images of several favorite persons, but particularly one, came around me with an aspect inconceivably delicious. Tried to ascer- tain how much of this charm was added to these im- MISCELLANIES. 287 ages by the influence of the beautiful scene where they appeared to me. 8. Field of oaks : figure. — Most remarkable ap- pearance of a field full of oaks cut down, disbarked and embrowned by time. Gave me forcibly the idea of an assemblage of giant monsters; or of the skele- tons of a giants' field of battle. 9. Moonbeams on the surface of a rive?'. — Exquis- itely curious appearance of the moonshine on the rip- pled surface of a broad river (Thames) like an infi- nite multitude of little fiery gems moving and spark- ling through endless confusion ; or like brilliant insects sporting, all intermingled and never tired or reposing, the most vivid frisks. At a great distance the ap- pearance is lost in an indistinct, difiiised light; but they are there as busy as they are here. How busy activity can go on in the other regions of the earth, or another part of the town, without knowing or car- ing whether it is so here or not ! 10. On throwing large stones down a deep pity with apparently a great depth of water at the bottom, a dark, sullen glimmer of whicli the eye occasionally caught. I felt almost a shuddering sensation at the gloomy and furious sound of the watei,in the impet- uous commotion caused by these stones. Strongly imagined how it would be for myself to Pall down. 11. Lantern in a dark night. — Interesting appear- ance of the tenebrious glimmer it throws on the near- est shrubs and trees ; and of the thick darkness that seems to lurk and frown close behind. 12. Entered a large cavern, slophig down very steep, where a great number of human bones have been found. Saw a considerable quantity of them myself. This cavern was itself but lately found. It was broken into by digging away the rock. No con- jecture how or when these bones came there. 13. Drops of rain falling on a sheet of water. — They have but the most transient effect on the water ; 288 Foster's thoughts. they make a very slight impression of the moment, and then can be discerned no more. But observe these drops of rain falling on a meadow or garden : here they have an effect to heighten every color, and feed every growth. Is not this the difference be- tween the mind which the infinitude of sentiments and objects in this great world can never interest or alter, and that mind which feels the impression, and enriches itself with the value of them all 1 14. Power of association. — A lady said she remem- bered a remarkable and romantic hill much more dis- tinctly now at the distance of a considerable number of years, from the impression made by a thunder- storm which happened when she was on the summit of this hill. I observed how advantageous it is to connect, if we could, some striking ?,ssociation with every idea or scene we wish to remember with per- manent interest. This is like framing and glazing the mental picture, and will preserve it an indefinite length of time. 15. An observant man, in all his intercourse with society and the world, carries a pencil constantly in his hand, and, unperceived, marks on every person and thing the figure expressive of its value, and there- fore instantly on meeting that person or thing again, knows what kind and degree of attention to give it. This is to make something of experience. 16. Selfish alliances easier and stronger than heneva- lent ones. — It is infinitely easier for any set of human beings to maintain a community of feeling in hostility to something else, than in benevolence toward one another ; for here no sacrifice is required of any one's self-interest. And it is certain that the subordinate portions of society have come to regard the occu- pants of the tracts of fertility and sunshine, the pos- sessors of opulence, splendor, and luxury, with a deep, settled, systematic aversion ; with a disposition to con- template in any other light tham that of a calamity an MISCELLANIES. 289 extensive downfall of the favorites of fortune, when a brooding imagination figures such a thing as possi- ble ; and with but very slight monitions from con- science of the iniquity of the most tumultuary ac- complishment of such a catastrophe. 17. ExJiibition of overstrained politeness. — We have been obliged again and again to endeavor to drive out of our imagination the idea of a meeting of friends in China, where the first mandarin bows to the floor, and then the second mandarin bows to the floor, and then the first mandarin bows again to the floor, and thus they go on till friendship is satisfied or patience tired. 18. Worthy patrons important. — Either Home or Junius, we really forget which, somewhere says that if the very devil himself could be supposed to put himself in the place of advocate and vindicator of some point of justice, he ought to be, so far, support- ed. We can not agree to this, for the simple reason that the just cause would ultimately suffer greater injury by the dishonor it would contract, in the gen- eral estimation of mankind, from the character of its vindicator, than probably it would suffer from the wrong against which it would be vindicated. 1^. Peculiarities of the age. — There is little dan- ger now of men's becoming recluses, ascetics, devo- tees ; systematically secluded from all attention to, )a,nd communication with, the active scenes of the world. For in this age men's own concerns — really and strictly their own — are becoming more implicated with the transactions of the wide, busy world. In the case of perhaps thousands of men in this country, their immediate interests — their proceedings — even their duty — are sensibly aifected by what may be doing on the other side of the globe — in South Amer- ica, or in Spain, Italy, Constantinople. The move- ments in such remote scenes send an effect like the far-extending iremulations of an earthquake, which 2^ 290 FOSTERS THOUGHTS. comes under the house, the business, the property, of men even here The pervading, connecting principle of community, throughout mankind, as one immense body, has become much more alive. It is becoming much more verified to ht one body, how- ever extended, by the quicker, stronger sensation which pervades the rest of it, from what affects any part. There is indeed much of diseased and irrita- ble sensibility ; it is as if the parts were a grievance to one another, and would quarrel ; as if, like the hyena at Paris, the great animal would devour one of its own limbs. But still the great body is much more sensibly made to feel that it has its existence in all its parts. . .-•. . Christian benevolence is now pros- ecuting its operations, not only with far greater ac- tivity and multiplicity of efforts, but on a far wider plan. Thus the religious interests, thoughts and dis- course of private individuals, are drawn out into some connexion, almost whether they will or not, with nu- merous proceedings and occurrences both at home and far off. 20. Inequalities of the race. — Whatever you may say or fancy about the equality of the race, it needs only a little civilization to make one of them look down from a tower, and the other to look up through a grate. 21. A malignant observation of the world. — At- tention may be exercised on the actions, characters, and events, among mankind, in the direct service of the evil passions ; in the disposition of a savage beast, or an evil spirit, in a keen watchfulness to descry weakness, in order to make it a prey ; in an attentive observation of mistake, ignorance, carelessness, or untoward accidents — in order to seize with remorse- less selfishness, unjust advantages ; in a penetrating inquisition into men's conduct and character, in order to blast them ; or in lighter mood to turn them in- discriminately to ridicule. Or there may be such an MISCELLANIES. 291 exercise in the temper of envy, jealousy, or revenge ; (or somewhat more excusably, but still mischievous- ly), for the purpose of exalting the observer in his ovv^n estimation. 22. Dormant elements of evil in society. — There is a large proportion of human strength and feeling not in vital combination w^ith the social system, but aloof from it, looking at it with "gloomy and malign regard ;*' in a state progressive toward a fitness to be impelled against it with a dreadful shock, in the event of any great convulsion, that should set loose the legion of daring, desperate, and powerful spirits, to fire and lead the masses to its demolition. There have not been wanting examples to show with what fearful effect this hostility may come into action, in the crisis of the fate of the nation's ancient system; where this alienated portion of its own people, rush- ing in, have revenged upon it the neglect of their tuition ; that neglect which had abandoned them to so utter a "lack of knowledge," that they really un- derstood no better than to expect their own solid ad- vantage in general havoc and disorder. 23. An oppressed nation. — A nation tormented, plundered, exhausted, crushed down to extreme mis- ery under the hoofs of the whole troop of centaurs in authority. 24. Contrasted conditions of society. — I am sorry not to have gained the knowledge which thirty or forty shillings would have purchased in London. At the expense of so much spent in charity, a person might have visited just once eight or ten of those sad re- tirements in darkness in dark alleys, where, in gar- rets and cellars, thousands of wretched families are dying of famine and disease. It would be most pain- ful, however, to see these miseries without the pow- er to supply any effectual relief. At the very same time you may see a succession which seems to have no end, of splendid mansions, equipages, liveries ; you 292 Foster's thoughts. may scent the effluvia of preparing feasts; you may hear of fortunes, levees, preferments, pensions, cor- poration dinners, royal hunts, &c., &c., numerous beyond the devil's own arithmetic to calculate. This whole view of society might be called the devil's pi ay -h ill ; for surely this world might be deemed a vast theatre, in which he, as manager, conducts the endless, horrible drama of laughing and suffering, while the diabolical satyrs of power, wealth and pride, are dancing round their dying victims ; a spectacle and an amusement for which the infernals will pay him liberal thanks. 25. Imagined disclosure of the machinations and motives of rulers and courts. — If statesmen, including ministers, popular leaders, ambassadors, &c., would pubHsh, before they go in the triumph of virtue to the "last audit," or leave to be published after they are gone, each a frank exposition of motives, cabals, and manoeuvres, it would give dignity to that blind adoration of power and rank in which mankind have always superstitiously lived, by supplying just reasons for that adoration. It would also give a new aspect to history ; and perhaps might tend to a happy ex- orcism of that evil spirit which has never allowed nations to remain at peace. 26. Responsibility of states, — Assuredly there will be persons found to *be summoned forth as account- able for that conduct of states which we are contem- plating. Such a moral agency could not throw off its responsibility into the air, to be dissipated and lost like the black smoke of forges or volcanoes. 27. Unworthy objects of war. — There may occur to his view some inconsiderable island, the haunt of fatal diseases, and rendered productive by means in- volving the most flagrant iniquity; an iniquity which it avenges by opening a premature grave for many of his countrymen, and by being a moral corrupter of the rest. Such an infested spot, nevertheless, may MISCELLANIES. 293 have been one of the most material objects of a wide- ly destructive war,.which has in effect sunk incalcu- lable treasure in the sea, and in the sands, ditches, and fields of plague-infested shores ; with a dreadful sacnfice of blood, life, and all the best moral feelings and habits. Its possession, perhaps, was the chief piize and triumph of all the grand exertion, the equiv- alent for all the cost, misery, and crime. 28. War : its horrors ; slight grounds. — A certain brook or swamp in the wilderness, or a stripe of waste, or the settlement of boundaiies in respect to some insignificant traffic, was difficult of adjustment between jealous, irritated, and mutually incursive neighbors ; and therefore national honor and interest equally required that war should be lighted up by land and sea, through several quarters of the globe. Or a dissension may have arisen upon the matter of some petty tax on an article of commerce ; an abso- lute will had been rashly signified on the claim ; pride had committed itself, and was peremptory for persist- ing ; and the resolution was to be prosecuted through a wide tempest of destruction protracted perhaps many years ; and only ending in the forced abandon- ment, by the leading power concerned, of infinitely more than war had been made in the determination not to forego ; and after an absolutely fathomless amount of every kind of cost, financial and moral, in this progress to final frustration. But there would be no end of recounting facts of this order. However whimsical it may appear to recollect that the great bu'siness of war is slaughter ; however de- plorably low-minded it may appear to regard all the splendor of fame with which war has been blazoned much in the same light as the gilding of that hideous idol to which the Mexicans sacrificed their human hecatombs ; however foolish it may be thought to make a difficulty of consenting to merge the eternal laws of morality in the policy of states ; and however 25* 294 poster's thoughts. presumptuous it may seem to condemn so many privi- leged, and eloquent, and learned, and reverend person- ages, as any and every war is sure to find its advo- cates — it remains an obstinate fact, that there are some men of such perverted perceptions as to appre- hend that revenge, rage, and cruelty, blood and fire, w^ounds, shrieks, groans, and death, with an infinite accompaniment of collateral crimes and miseries, are the elements of what so many besotted mortals have worshipped in every age under the title of " glorious war." To be told that this isjustthe commonplace with which dull and envious moralists have always railed against martial glory, will not in the slightest degree modify their apprehension of a plain matter of fact. What signifies it whether moralists are dull, envious, and dealers in commonplace, or not ? No matter who says it, nor from what motive ; the fact is, that war consists of the components here enumerated, and is therefore an infernal abomination, when maintained for any object, and according to any measures, not honestly within the absolute necessities of defence. In these justifying necessities, we include the peril to which another nation with perfect innocence on its part may be exposed, from the injustice of a third power ; as in the instance of the Dutch people, saved by Elizabeth from being destroyed by Spain. Now it needs not be said that wars, justifiable, on either side, on the pure principles of lawful defence, are the rarest things in history. Whole centuries all over darkened with the horrors of war may be explored from beginning to end, without perhaps finding two instances in which any one belligerent power can be pronounced to have adopted every precaution, and made every effort, concession, and sacrifice, required by Christian morality, in order to avoid war. The laws of this institution are fundamental and absolute, forming the primary obligation on all its believers, and reducing all other rules of action to MISCELLANIES. 295 find their place as they can, in due subordination — or to find no place at all Let an ambitious des- pot, or a profligate ministry, only give out the word that we must be at war with this or the other nation and then a man who has no personal complaint against any living thing of that nation, who may not be certain it has committed any real injury against his own nation or government, nay, who possibly may be convinced by facts against which he can not shut his eyes, that his own nation or government is sub- stantially in the wrong — then this man, under the sanction of the word war, may, with a conscience en- tirely unconcerned, immediately go and cut down human beings as he would cut down a copse ! 29. Scojye and dignity of metaphysical inquiries. — Metaphysical speculation tiies to resolve all consti- tuted things into their general elements, and those elements into the ultimate mysterious element of substance, thus leaving behind the various orders and modes of being, to contemplate being itself in its es- sence. It 'retires a while from the consideration of truth, as predicated of particular subjects, to explore those unalterable and universal relations of ideas which must be the primary principles of all truth. . . . In short, metaphysical inquiry attempts to trace things to the very first stage in which they can, even to the most penetrating intelligences, be the subjects of a thought, a doubt, or a proposition ; that profoundest abstraction, where they stand on the first step of dis- tinction and remove from nonentity, and where that one question might be put concerning them, the an- swer to which would leave no further question pos- sible. And having thus abstracted and penetrated to the state of pure entity, the speculation wrould come back, tracing it into all its modes and relations ; till at last metaphysical truth, approaching nearer and nearer to the sphere of our immediate knowledge, terminates en the confines of distinct sciences and ob- 296 poster's thoughts. vious realities. Now it would seem evident that this inquiry into primary truth must surpass, in point of dignity, all other speculations. If any man could carry his discoveries as far, and make his proofs as strong, in the metaphysical world, as Newton did in the physical, he would be an incomparably greater man than even Newton. 30. All subjects resolvahle into first principles. — All subjects have first principles, toward which an acute mind feels its investigation inevitably tending, and all first principles are, if investigated to their ex- treme refinement, metaphysical. The tendency of thought toward the ascertaining of these first princi- ples in every inquiry, as contrasted with a disposition to pass (though perhaps very elegantly or rhetorically) over the surface of a subject, is one of the strongest points of distinction between a vigorous intellect and a feeble one. 31. Limits to metapliysical inquiries. — It is also true that an acute man who will absolutely prose- cute the metaphysic of every subject to the last pos- sible extreme, with a kind of rebellion against the very laws and limits of Nature, in contempt of his senses, of experience, of the universal perceptions of mankind, and of Divine revelation, may reason him- self into a vacuity where he will feel as if he were sinking out of the creation. Hume was such an ex- ample ; but we might cite Locke and Reid, and some other illustrious men, who have terminated their long sweep of abstract thinking as much in the spirit of sound sense and rational belief as they began. 32. Metaphysics a means of intellectual discipline. — It is so evident from the nature of things, and the whole history of philosophy, that they must in a great measure fail, when extended beyond certain contract- ed limits, that it is less for the portion of direct met- aphysical science which they can ascertain, than for their general effect on the thinking powers, that MISCELLANIES. 297 we deem them a valuable part of intellectual disci- pline. 33. Practical truths not recondite. — The truths con- nected with piety and the social duties, with the means of personal happiness, and the method of securing an ulterior condition of progressive perfection and feli- city, lie at the very surface of moral inquiries ; like the fruits and precious stores of the vegetable kingdom, they are necessary to supply inevitable wants, and are placed, by Divine Benevolence, within the reach of the meanest individual. 34. Mohammedanism. — When he saw its pretend- ed sacred book supplanting the revelation of God by a fan-ago of ridiculous trifles, vile legends, and viler precepts, mixed wdth some magnificent ideas, stolen for the base purpose from that revelation, like the holy vessels of the temple brought in to assist the de- bauch of Belshazzar and his lords ; when he saw a detestable impostor acknowledged and almost adored in the office of supreme prophet and intercessor ; this imposture enjoined in the name of God to be enforced as far as the power of its believers can reach with fire and sword ; the happiness of another world promised to every sanguinary fanatic that dies in this cause, or even in any war that a Mohammedan tyrant may choose to wage ; the representation of that other world accommodated to the notions and tastes of a horde of barbarians ; and, as a natural and just con- sequence of all, the whole social economy, after the energy and zeal of conquest had evaporated, living in a vast sink of ignorance, depravity, and wretch- edness. 35 Remarkahle manifestation of mind in a child. —What a divine enchantment there is mmind in ev- ery age and form ! I have felt it this morning with little Sarah Gibbs, a child of three or four years old, who can not yet articulate plainly, but of very ex- traordinary character for observation, though tfulness, 298 poster's thoughts. and grave, deep passions. I took her on my knee, played with her hands, stroked her cheek, and never felt so much interested by any child of her age. Not that she said anything scarcely ; for though delighted as I knew with the attention of a person to whom she had been led to attach an idea of importance, she was serious, confused, and, as it were, self-inclosed ; but I was certain that I held on my knee a being sig- nally marked from her coevals by an ample and deep- toned nature, of which perhaps the country could not furnish a parallel. She has a strange accuracy and discrimination in her remarks, and a sort of dignity of character which is not mingled with vanity, but which puts one on terms of care with her, and makes one afraid to treat her as a child, or do or say any- thing which may offend her sense of character. She is affectionate to enthusiasm, but without any childish playfulness. When angry, she is not petulant, but incensed. She is loquacious often with her compan- ions and her schoolmistress, but still it is all thought and no frisk. She is a favorite with them all. The expression of her countenance is so serious, that one might think it impossible for her to smile; Indeed, I have never seen her smile. Her parents are uncul- tivated people of the lower class, who have no per- ception of the value of such a jewel, and will proba- bly throw it away. (Should not one be very much inclined to cite such an instance as something very like a proof that children are born with very different proportions of the capability of mind V) 36. Influence of music. — Mr. R , who has travel- led over many parts of England, Scotland, and Wales, told me he had, at one time, a wish and a project to travel over France and the rest of the continent. While musing on this favorite design, he one day en- tered the cathedral, at Worcester, in the time of ser- vice. Walking in the aisles, and listening to the or- gan which affected him very sensibly, his wish to MISCELLANIES. 299 travel began to glow and swell in his mind into an almost overwxielming passion, which bore him irre- sistibly to a determination. He could not have felt more if he had seen an apparition, or heard a voice from the sky. Every idea on the subject seemed to present itself to his mind with a surprising vivid clear- ness and force ; and he believes that from that mo- ment nothing could have prevented his undertaking the enterprise but the commencement of the war. This seemed to me a happy illustration and proof of what I had maintained a few days before, in a con- versation on music, that it powerfully reinforces any passion which the mind is at the time indulging, or to which it is predisposed. This was maintained in opposition to several amateurs of music, who asserted that sacred music has a powerful tendency to pro- duce, by its own influence, devotional feeling. They had mentioned, with strong approbation, a pair of reverend divines, who commonly make a small con- cert on the Sunday evening, and choose sacred mu- sic, as adapted to the day. The devotional effect of any music, except on devotional minds, was utterly denied and disproved j and it was asserted that a young man, very susceptible to the impressions of music, if inclined to vicious pleasures, would proba- bly feel the sacred music inflame to intensity, and, at the same time, invest with a kind of vicious, seduc- tive refinement, the propensities which would lead him from the concert to the brothel. By the same rule, a devout man, who should be strongly aff'ected by music, would probably, if other circumstances in the situation did not counteract, feel his devotion augmented by pathetic or solemn music. 37. Teter in prison. — Follow him thither with com- passion. Imagine him looking (if there was a suffi- cient glimmer of light) round on the walls of his new abode, of impregnable thickness, with strong bars, a dreary dismal shade — ominous sounds ; and chains 300 Foster's thoughts. on his limbs. *' This it is," he might say, " to be an avowed and faithful servant of Him that died for me." But what if he said further, " Well I would rather be here, and be thus, for such a cause, than be the lord of Herod's or of Caesar's palace. While the body- is in a palace, the soul may be in prison; and while the body is in prison, the soul may be in a palace." ** He felt no restless agitation ; cast no desponding looks at the bars, the fetters, the walls, the guards ; indulged in no desperate imaginations or vain im- plorings. He slept between two soldiers, and in his chains, and under the doom of an inexorable tyrant," " The angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison." His entrance to Peter was with no tumult, and ostentation of power. It was so calm and silent that he did not awake. The angrel "smote him on the side," and summoned him to rise. But it was a gentle violence. Not so he, or some of his celestial associates, had smitten the assailants of Lot Not so the army of Senacheiib — not so he smote Herod, A gentle violence ! Methinks an emblem of the death of a Christian ; a soft blow to emancipate him from the p.rison of mortality — to sum- mon and raise him to eternal liberty, to the amplitude of heaven. There was to be another time when Pe- ter would want the visit of such a messenger. And there will be a time when we also shall want it; when we shall have to go out from the prison-house of mor- tality — and from the world itself; and shall need such a messenger to be with us, and not to leave us — to accompany us in an immense and amazing journey ; that whereas Peter came to be delightedly and col- lectedly sensible of the grand intervention, when he found himself alone in the street, we may become sensible of the wondrous reality of.it, by finding ourselves in the presence of saints and angels, and their Supreme Lord, '* Peter's deliverance," 38. Powers of language. — Qy. Are the powers — MISCELLANIES. . 301 the capacity of human language limited by any other bounds than those which limit the mind's powers of conception ] Is there within the possibility of hu- man conception a certain order of ideas which no combinations of language could express] Would the English language, for example, in its strongest possible stinicture absolutely sink and fail under such conceptions as we may imagine a mighty spirit of the superior or nether regions to utter — so frail as not to make these ideas distinctly apparent to the human mind, supposing all the while that the mind could fully admit and comprehend these ideas,if there were any adequate vehicle to convey them 1 Could divine inspiration itself, without changing the structure of the mind, impart to it such ideas as no language could express ] If a poet were to come into the world en- dowed with a genius, suppose ten times more sub- lime than Milton's, must he not abandon the attempt at composition in despair, from finding that language, like a feeble tool, breaks in his hand — from finding that when he attempts to pour any of his mental fluid into the vessel of language, that vessel in a moment melts or bursts ; from finding, that though he is Her- cules every inch, he is armed but with a distaff, and can not give his mighty strength its proportional ef- fect without his club ] 39. " Omnis in hoc,^ is the description of the only character that I can give myself to entirely. Green was veiy much this ; a mind not only of deep tone, but always so. " Omnis in hoc ;^' yes, I want in my associate something like continuous emotion. I hate a neutral reposing state of the passions, that kind of tranquillity which is merely the absence of all pregnant sentiment. I pass some time with a friend in the high excitement of interesting, perhaps impassioned conversation ; next day I revisit this friend for the sequel of this energetic season, myself glowing vnth the same feelings still. Well, with my friend the 26 302 enthusiasm is all gone by ; his feelings are tame and easy ; yesterday he was grave, ardent, every particle imbued with sentiment ; we became interested to the pitch of intensity; I thought, "Let this become our habit and we s'hall become sublime." To-day he is in an easy, careless mood ; the heroic episode is past and over ; he is perhaps sprightly and flippant; his voice has recovered from its tone of soul ; and he is perhaps complacently busy about some mere trifles. My heart shuts itself up and feels a painful chill ; I am glad to be gone to indulge alone my musings of regret and insulation. Women have more of this discontinuity than men. No one can be more than interested to-day, and degagee to-morrow. A man of melancholy feelings peculiarly feels this revulsion, with those who are pensive only as an oc- casional sentiment; not like himself, as a habit. His associates should all be of his own character. He emphatically wants unity of character in his friend. I have more of habitual character than you . A person would better know where in the mental world to find me. The ascendant interest of yester- day is the ascendant interest of to-day too. It is un- fortunate in character for its nobler aspects to be transient. You have not sufficiently a grand com- manding principle of seriousness to pervade and har- monize the total of your habits. A love of the sub- lime is with you a sentiment; with me it is a passion. In the gayety of innocence you sport at liberty, for- getful that a moral and immortal being should have all its faculties and feelings concentrated toward an important purpose. No one has given all the passion due to great objects till trivial ones have ceased to amuse him into even a temporary oblivion of them. Yes, after attention to the most solemn speculations, you can escape so completely from their fascination, so soon brighten oft' their interesting sombre, and enter into a mirthful party, and laugh with the utmost glee MISCELLANIES. 303 and gaiete du coeur. Not so I; not so Edwin, if he were a person of real life ; not so Howard ; not so any one who is seized irrecoverably with a spirit of ardor till death. Yes, my friend, you let youi'self be what may happen, rather than deliberately determine to be what you should, and all you can. 40, Defence of the utilitarian theory. — Behold, on that eminence, the temple of utility — let us approach and enter. '* I see no open, regular road thither.'* •* True, on this side there is no regular approach ; but we can not gain the other side, and there is a most uv^enX reasonioY us to come up to the holy edi- fice. What then ] let us open for ourselves a way ; let us cut through the tangled fence; let us sacrifice a beautiful shrub, or even a fruit-tree, to clear our- selves a path, rather than lose forever an inestimable advantage." — "But granting your principle to be ab- stractly just, there is this serious objection. The right application of it in cases of real life will depend on delicate conscience and enlightened calculation. It is needless to remark how few of mankind are thus qualified." — " It is very true, and it is as if you were pointing out to travellers the way to a town, lying be- yond a wide and wilderness tract of country ; it passes through the intricacies of a solitary forest, and by some very dangerous spots. Two persons inquire of you the way to the town. The first is a child. You instantly direct him to go the plain great road, without so much as intimating that there is any other or shorter way. The other person is a man; a man of sense, with * his eyes about him ;' you say to him, * I commonly direct travellers to keep the great road, as the most certain and safe, though tedious ; but I think such a man as you might venture a shorter path. Observe me carefully ; having walked such a distance along the side of the hill yonder, you must turn to the right, just by an immensely large oak; then wind through the thick shade, by a path you will perceive 304 FOSTER*S THOUGHTS. if you observe attentively, till you come suddenly to the edge of a great precipice ; pass carefully along the edge of it till you descend into a glen; there you will observe an old wooden bridge across a deep water, a little below a cataract, the sound of which will seem to make the bridge tremble as you pass ; but it trembles because it is crazy ; be careful, there- fore, to step softly. You must then pass by the ruins of an abbey, and advance forward over a tract of rough ground till you come, &c., &c., &c.' Thus in morals I mean to assert that in some rare instances the path of duty may lie in a more direct line to its grand object, than by the letter of specific laws; but that perhaps only the eminently conscientious and intelligent few are competent to judge when this ex- ception takes place, and how to dispose of it proper- ly. * This is a curious kind of prerogative in morals in favor of your illumines.' I can not help it. I know that my principle, like every other grand prin- ciple, may be perverted to a fatal consequence, yet I can not relinquish it; for if it should ever happen (and the case has happened) that the letter of a moral law, owing to some extraordinary concurrence of circumstances, should stand in evident opposition to that grand utility, for the promotion of which all moral rules were appointed by the supreme Governor, it can not be a question which ought to be sacrificed." 41. Supposition of angelic companionship^ — De- lightful conversational revery on the idea of an angel living, walking, conversing with one for a month. Month of ecstatic sentiment! What profound and incurable regrets for his going away ! 42. " Well, but this qualification might be attained, if a man would exert sufficient application." — " Ah, madam, the field of possibiHty is so beset round with a hedge of thorny ifs.^* 43. Logic efficient in persuasion. — There is an ar- gumentative way, not only of discussing to ascertain MISCELLANIES. 305 truth, but also of enforcing acknowledged and familiar truth. — Baxter — Law. 44. Intellectual pursuits aided hij the affections — The successes of intellectual effort are never so great as when aided by the affections that animate social converse. 45. All reasoning is retrospect ; it consists in the application of facts and principles previously known. This will show the very great importance of knowl- edge, especially that kind which is called experience. 46. Figure of an equable temper. — The equanimity which a few persons preserve through the diversities of prosperous and adverse life, reminds me of certain aquatic plants which spread their tops on the surface of the water, and with wonderful elasticity keep the surface still, if the water swells or if it falls. 47. Adversity ! thou thistle of life, thou too art crowned ; first with a flower, then with down. 48. A man of genius may sometimes suffer Xmis- erable sterility ; but at other times he will feel him- self the maofician of thougcht. Luminous ideas will dart from the intellectual firmament, just as if the stars were falling; around him ; sometimes he must think by mental moonlight, but sometimes his ideas reflect the solar splendors. 49. Casual thoughts are sometimes of great value. — One of these may prove the key to open for us a yet unknown apartment in the palace of truth, or a yet unexplored tract in the paradise of sentiment that environs it. 50. Self complaisant ignorance in judging distin- guished characters. — I heard lately an educated lady say she did not admire Shakspere at all. I admired her. It has often struck me as curious to observe the entire, unhesitating self-complacency with which characters assume to admire and detest, in opposition to the concurrent opinions of all the most enlighten- ed and thinking minds With all this self-satis- 26* 306 poster's thoughts. fied feeling, the most ignorant, or the most illiberal, hearers of sermons pronounce on the talents, &c., of the preachers. 51. Fragment of a letter, never sent^ to a friend. — In a lonely large apartment I write by a glimmer- ing taper, too feeble to dispel the spectres which im- agination descries, flitting or hovering in the twilight of the remote corners. The wind howls without, and at intervals I hear a distant bell, tolling amid antiquity and graves. The place and the hour might suit well for an appointed interview with a ghost, com- ing to reveal, though obscurely, " the secrets of the world unknown." I almost fancy 1 perceive his ap- proach ; a certain trembling consciousness seems to breathe through the air ; an indistinct sullen sound, like the tread of unseen footsteps, passes along the ground, and seems to come toward me ; I fearfully lool^p — and behold ! ! Thus abruptly last night I stuped, not without reason surely. 52. Most interesting idea, that of renovated being. — I am not the person I was, the past is nothing to me ; the past / is not the present // I have transited into another person ; I am my own phoenix. 53. Pleasure of recognition. — The feeling which accompanies the recognition of an object that is not in itself interesting, but where the interest is in the circumstance of recognition. I have a feeling of this kind in seeing what I believe to be the same butter- fly again at a considerable distance from where I saw it before. 54. Misapprehension of friends. — One limitation to the noble indifference to what people think and say of us. Every generous mind will regret those misapprehensions of its conduct, which occasion mor- tification to the person who misapprehends — as that a person you respect should, through some mistake, believe that you have ridiculed or injured him. 56. On the question of the equality of men and MISCELLANIES. 307 women. — A lady, in answer to my very serious rea- soning to prove that, if naturally equal, nothing can bring the woman to an actual equality, but the same course of vigorous mental exertion which profession- al men are obliged to go through, said, "Well, we shall be content to occupy a lower ground of intel- lectual character and attainment." 1 replied, " You may then be consoled ; we from that more elevated region shall sometimes, in the intervals of our grand interests and adventures, look down complacently and converse with you, till the emphasis of some momentous subject return, and call us to transact with our equals. It will be ours to inhabit the paradise on the high summit of that mount which you will never climb; we shall eat habitually the fruit of the trees of knowledge, but we will kindly sometimes throw you a few apples down the declivity." 56. Amusing idea, of flaying a concert of people ^ that is, drawing forth the various passions, prejudices, &c., of a small company of persons, and mixing them, soothing them, exciting them, and, in short, entirely playing all their characters at the will, and by the unnoticed influence of the player. 57. Observation during a walk of a few miles alone. — This glaring, steady sunshine gives an indistinct sameness to all objects, very like a frequent state of my mind, distended in a fixed, general, vacant stare, incapable of individualizing. Hughes described it very correctly once, after hearing me perform a men- tal exercise while my mind was in this state : " All luminous, but no light." It is possible to go on in this case, with a train of diction which may sound well enough, and even look fine, while it conveys no definite conceptions. 58. Revelation explained hy science. — Effect of the application of astronomical science, or rather of the immense ideas derived from astronomy, to modify 308 Foster's thoughts theological notions from the state in which divines exhibit them. 59. An active mind, like an ^Eolian harp, arrests even the vagrant winds, and makes them music. 60. Test of originality . — Have I so much original- ity as I suppose myself to have 1 The question rises from the reflection that very few original plans of ac- tion or enterprise ever occurred to my thoughts. 61. Standard characters. — A human being like Edwin (the minstrel) would be the proper touchstone to bring into the routine of fashionable life, talk, amusements, &c. : what his feeling would nauseate is nauseous. 62. Disparity hetween means and ends. — No scheme so mortifying as that which employs large means to accomplish little ends. Let your system be magni- tude of end with the utmost economy of means. 63. To the Deity. — Give me all that is necessary to make me, in the greatest practicable degree, hap- py and useful, I feel myself so remote from thee, thou grand centre, and so torpid ! It is as if those qualities were extinct in my soul which could make it susceptible of thy divine attraction. But oh ! thine energy can reach me even here. Attract me, thou great Being, within the sphere of thy glorious light; attract me within the view of thy throne ; attract me into the full emanation of thy mercies; attract me within the sphere of thy sacred Spirit's most potent influences. I thank thee for the promise and the prospect of an endless life ; I hope to enjoy it amid the " eternal splendors" of thy presence, O Jehovah ! I thank thee for this introductory stage, so remark- ably separated by that thick-shaded frontier of death, which I see yonder, from the amplitude of the future world. 64. Interesting reminiscences. — It would be inter- esting to look back on all the past of one's life, to Bee how many, and count how many, vivid little points MISCELLANIES. 309 of recollection still twinkle tlirough its shade. My mind just now caught sight of one of these stars of retrospect, at the distance of sixteen or seventeen years. It was my once (in a summer evening, the sun not set) lying on iny back on the grass, and hold- ing a small earthern vessel, out of which I had just sipped my evening milk, between my face and the sky, in such a way that a few of the soft rays glanced on my eyes, and seemed to form a little living circle of lustre, round an eyelet-hole, through which I fan- cied visions of entrancing beauty. 65. Deterioration of political institutions. — All po- litical institutions will probably, from whatever cause, tend to become worse by time. If a system w^ere now formed, that should meet all the philosopher's and the philanthropist's wishes, it would still have the same tendency ; only I do hope that hencefor- ward to the end of time, men's mind will be intense- ly awake to the nature and operation of their insti- tutions ; so that after a new era shall commence, gov- ernments shall not slide into depravity without being keenly watched, nor be watched without the sense and spirit to arrest their deterioration. 66. Mutual I'ecognition of inferior animals. — I ob- serve that all animals recognise each other in the face, as instinctively conscious that there the being is pe- culiarly present. What a mysterious sentiment there is in one's recognition of a conscious being in the eye that looks at one, and emphatically if it have some peculiar significance with respect to one's self. A very striking feeling is caused by the opening on one of the eyes of any considerable animal, if it instantly have the expression of meaning. While the eye is shut the being seems not so completely with us, as when it looks through the opened organ It is like holding in our hand a letter which we believe to con- tain most interesting meanings, but the seal secludes them from us. 310 Foster's thcughts. 67. The lost teacMngs of cur Lord. — It seems a tiling to be regretted that so much of our Lord's con- v^ersation, consisting of momentous and infallible truth, should have been irretrievably lost. How much larger, and, if one may say so, how much more valu- able, the New Testament would have been, if all the instructions he uttered had been recorded. By what principle of preference were the conversations which the evangelists record, preserved, rather than the oth- ers which are lost ? That he did many things that are not recorded is distinctly said by John, last chap- ter, last verse. 68. Disagreeable associations. — A very respectable widow, who lost her husband ten or twelve years since, told me that even now the last image of her husband as she saw him ill, delirious and near death, generally first presents itself when she recollects him. 1 always think I would not choose to see a dear friend dead, because probably the last image would be the most prompt remembrance, and I should be sorry to have the dead image presented to me rather than the living. 69. The rational soul of brutes. — Zealously asserted the rational soul and future existence of brutes. Their souls made of the worse end of the celestial •manufacture of mind, which was not quite fine enough to make into men. Various strong facts cited to prove that they, at least some of them, possess what we strictly mean by mind, reason, &c. 70. Mode of addressing the Deity. — Struck lately at observing in myself with how little change of feel- ing I passed from an address to the Deity, to an apos- trophe to an absent friend. It was indeed a very dear friend. 71. Due restraint in company. — The presence of a third person gives a more balanced feeling with re- spect to an individual that interests one too much. 72. Figure of the darkness of reason. — Polished MISCELLANIES. 311 Steel will not shine in the dark; no more can reason, however refined, shine efficaciously, but as it reflects the light of divine truth — shed from heaven. 73. Value of observation af trifling events. — I re- member buying some trifle of, I think, a fruit-woman, in Ireland, who held me back the piece of money, and requested me, as it was the first money she had taken that day, to "spit on it for luck." I here re- gret having made no memoranda of the vast number of curious anecdotes, incidents, and odd glimpses of human nature, which one has met with in the course of years, and forgotten. 74. An intrusive companion. — If a stranger on the road is anxious to have you for a companion, it is commonly a proof that his company is not worth hav- 75. TJnperceived origin of images of thought. — Many images are called up in the mind by moral analogies which were not recognised before, that is, were not noticed with a distinct thought. 76. Transmission of ignorant habits. — Conjecture after observing the habits and conversation of some rustics, that, superstition excepted, these are identi- cally the same as the habits, and commonplaces, and diction, of one or two centuries past. One thinks they could not have been at that time more ignorant, rude, and destitute of abstraction, than now, and cer- tainly the same causes that prevent acquisition will likewise prevent alteration.' The degree remaining nearly the same, the manner can not become much different. 77. Deception of the senses. — What endless decep- tions of the senses may happen ! This morning I mistook one object for a totally different one. in pas- sing it many times within a few feet, till I happened to examine it, when in a moment the deception was destroyed. What a number of reports and recorded fact3 may be of this kind ! 312 Foster's thoughts. 78. Excitation of mind. — I do not long for this powerful excitation as an instrument of vain-glory. It is not a thing which, ambition out of the way, would give me no disturbance. No ; it is essential to my enjoyment. It is the native impulse of my soul, and it must be gratified, or I shall be either ex- tremely degraded or extremely unhappy; for I am unhappy in as far as I do not feel myself advancing toward true greatness. I feel myself like a large and powerful engine which has not sufficient water or fire to put it completely in motion. 79. Thoughtless destruction of life. — I have seen a man, a religious man, press his foot down repeatedly on a small ant-hill, while a great number of the poor animals have been busy on it. I never did such a thing, never. O Providence! how many poor in- sects of thine are exposed to be trodden to death in each path : are not all beings within thy care ? 80. Little interest of human beings in each other. — At an association lately, observed how little human beings as individuals interest one another, beyond the very narrow limits of relationship, love, or uncom- monly devoted friendship. There were several per- sons with whom I had been acquainted complacently, but without any particular attachment, several years before, and had not seen them for a considerable in- terval. We met, shook hands — " How do you do V* — " I am glad to see you" — " What have you been doing all this while 1" — with a mutual slight smile of complaisance, or of transient kindness, and then in a minute or two we had passed each other, to perform the same ceremony in some other part of the room, without any further recollection or care respecting each other. And yet these insipid assemblages of people from a hundred miles' di- tance are said to be, in a great measure, for the sake of affection, friend- ship, &c. So in London lately, my acquaintance might hap- MISCELL\NIES. 313 pen, or might not happen, to make a slight inquiry about some subject deeply interesting to myself; and if they had happened, by the time that 1 had con- structed the first sentence of reply, the question was forgotten and something e-lse lidverted to. So does oneself in the same case; so every one doesj we are interested only about self, or about those who form a part of our self-interest. Beyond all other extravagances of folly is that of expecting or wishing to live in a great number of hearts. How very rea- sonahljj prohahle is the prevalence of Godwin's uni- versal philanthropy ! 8 1 . Imperfection of the Jewish dispensation. — Why was the Jewish dispensation so strange, so exterior, so inadequate? Why? Would that the end of the world were come, to explain the proceedings of Prov- idence during its continuance ! But I perceive mul- titades around me, who know nothing of these doubts and wonderinffs. 82. Scf -deception. — Perhaps you may think that vanity betrays me into a flattering estimate of my ca- pacity ; and perhaps it does ; but after having specu- lated on myself so long, I doubt whether speculation will now be able to detect the fallacy. It must be left to experiment. 83. Uncertainty of the future. — Here I am now, in health, in a field near C , musing on plans for fu- turity. What a question it is, " How — when — where —shall I die ?" 84. Fragment of a letter ., never sent. — INIy dear sir, J consider each of us as having nearly described a semicircle of life since I saw you last, and it is with great pleasure I anticipate the completing of the cir- cle in meeting you again in little more than a week. It would be amusmg for each to exhibit memoirs of the incidents and of the course. I was lately consid- ering what would be the effect of a law obliging each person to present, at appointed periods, a history of 27 J, c. derby"?? publications. JACK DOWNING'S NEW BOOK! •WAY DOWN EAST; OR, FORTRAITURES OF YANKEE LIFE. BT SEBA SMITH, ESQ. Illustrated, 12mo. Price $1. *" We greet the Major, after a long interval, with profound pleasure and re8p««t. Wei 4« we remember how, years ago, we used to pore over his lucubrations on the events of the time — how he enlightened us by his home-views of the Legislature's doings, of the Gineral's intentions, and of the plans of ambitious Uncle Joshua. Here was the ' spot of his origin,' and around us were the materials from which he drew his stores of instructive wit. Therefore we, of all the reading public, do the most heartily greet his reappearance. We find him a little more artistic than of old, more advanced in grammar and orthography but withal displaying the same intimate knowledge of Down Eastdom, and retaining the same knack of genuine Yankee humor. In fact, taking all things together, no other writer begins to equal him in the delineation of the live Yankee, in the points where that individual differs from all the * rest of mankind.* This is his great merit as an author, and one which the progress of manners will still further heighten — for it is only in some portions of our own State that the real Yankee can now be found. " The present book has sixteen chapters devoted to home-stories. They are racy and humorous to a high degree." — Portland Daily Ad/oerUser. " It is now generally conceded that Seba Smith is the ablest, and at the same time tb« most amusing delineator of Yankee life who has hitherto attempted that humorous style of writing — not excepting even Judge Haliburton himself. This is no rash expression, for there is not a passage in ' Sam Slick ' so graphic, funny and and comical, but we find equalled if not surpassed in the sensible and philosophic, although ludicrous epistles, of * Major Jack Downing ' — epistles of which we defy the most stupid to glance at a para- graph without reading the whole." — Philadelphia News. ♦• This is a book of real Yankee life, giving the particulars of character and in/ ridents in New England, from the Pilgrim fathers and their generations, Connecticut Biue Laws, and the civic and religious rules, customs, Ac, from the Nutmeg State away down East, aa far »8 Mr. Jones ever thought of going. It is a very laughable affair, and every family in aU Tankeedom wih enjoy its perusal." — Ringha/ni (Ma^s.) Jov/rnal. «' Thers are few readers who do not desire to keep up an acquaintance with the original Major Jack Downing, whose peculiar humor, while it is irresistible in its effects, is nevei made subservient to immorality. But these stories are an improvement on those originally given by the author, as they are illustrative of Yankee life and character in the good olt times of the Pilgrim Fathers." — Christian Advocate and Journal. " The stories are the most humorous in the whole range of Yankee literature, fiiU of genuine wit, rare appreciation of fun, and giving an insight into human motive which •hows the close observation and keen relish of life, of a good-humored philosopher."— Saturday Evening Mail. " A charmingly interesting book, this, for all who hail from Down East, or who like t« read Rood stories of home life among the Yankceg."— &ti«*» JSegiaief 13 J. C. DERBY S PUBLICATIONS. EZTSAORDINABY FUBLICATIOK! MY COURTSHIP AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. BY HENRY WIKOFF. A trae account of the Author's Adventures in England, Switzerland, and Italy, with Miss J. C. Gamble, of Portland Place, London. 1 elegant 12mo. Price, in cloth, $1 25. The extraordinary sensation produced in literary circles by Mr. Wikoff's charming romance of real life, is exhausting edition after edition of his wonderful boolc. From lengthy reviews, among several hundred received, we extract the following brief notices of the press : " We prefer commending the book as beyond question the most amusing of the season; and we commend it without hesitation, because the moral is an excellent one." — Albion, " With unparalleled candor he has here unfolded the particulars of the intrigue, taking the whole world into his confidence — ' bearing his heart on his sleeve for daws to pec^ at ' — and, in the dearth of public amusements, presenting a piquant nine days' wonde for the recreation of society."—^. Y. Tribune. " The work is very amusing, and it is written in such a vein that one cannot refrain from frequent bursts of laughter, even when the Chevalier is in positions which might claim one's sympathy." — Boston Evening Gazette. " A positive autobiography, by a man of acknowledged fashion, and an associate of nobles and princes, telling truly how he courted and was coquetted by an heiress in high life, is likely to be as popular a singularity in the way of literature as could well be thought of." — EoTne Journal. " The ladies are sure to devour It. It is better and more exciting than any modei'Q romance, as it is a detail of facts, and every page proves conclusively that the plain} unvarnished tale of truth is often stranger than fiction." — Baltimore Dispatch. " The book, therefore, has all the attractions of a tilt of knight-errants — with this addi- tion, that one of the combatants is a woman — a species t)f heart-endowed Amaion."— Newark Daily Mercury. *• If you read the first chapter of the volume, you are in for ' finis,' and can no mora stop without the consent of your will than the train of cars can stop without the content of the engine." — Worcester Palladium,. " Seriously, there is not so original, piquant and singular a book in American literature Its author is a sort of cross between Fielding, Chesterfield, and Rochefoucault." — BoeUm (Jhronicle. " With the exception of Rosseau's Confessions, we do not remember ever to hav* heard of any such self-anatomization of love and the lover." — N. Y. Express. ** The book has cost us a couple of night«' sleep; and we have no doubt it hai oaft Ita anthor and principal subject a good manytoore." — N. Y. Evening Mirror. " The work possesses all the charm and fascination of a continuous romance.**— Jf. Y. 4owmal of CoTmnerce. J. c. derby's publications. "IT IS A LOVE TALE OF THE MOST ENTRANCING KIND." Boston Daily Traveller, *WHO IS THE ATJTH0K1 WE GUESS A LADY/'-iV^. Y. Life lUu^trated. ISORA'S CHILD. 1 large 12ino. volume. Price $1 25. •* It is one of those few books of its class that we have read quite through — for we found «t to have the requisites of a good book, namely, the power of entertaining the reader to the end of the volume. The story is not complex, but is naturally told; the characters jire drawn with isliarp delineation and the dialogue is spirited. It is something to add, in the present deluge of bad books with pleasant names, both the morals and ' the moral ' of me worK are unexceptionable. It is understood to be the production of a lady whose name is not unknown to the reading public; and we congratulate her on the increase of reputation which * Isora's Child ' will bring her when her present incognito shall be removed." — BarUngton (Vt.) Sentinel, "This book starts o£f with its chapter first, and introduces the reader at once to the heroes and incidents of the really charming story. He will speedily find himself interested as well by the graceful style and the skill with which the dififerent scenes are arranged, as by the beauty of the two principal ciiaracters, and the lessons of loving faith, hope, and patience, which will meet him at the turning of almost every leaf. This is one of the best productions of its kind that, has been issued this season, and promises to meet With warm approval and abundant success." — Detroit Daily Democrat. " Anothei' anonymous novel, and a successful one. There is more boldness and origt' nality both in its conception and in its execution than in almost any work of fiction we iave lately read. Its characters are few, well delineated, and consistently managed, ."here is no crowding and consequent confusion among the dramatis personce. There ire two heroines, however. Flora and Cora, both bewitching creatures, and, what is jetter, noble, true-hearted women, especially the former, Isora's child — the dark-eyed and i>assionate, but sensitive, tender, and loving daughter of Italy. The work will make it» LBark. Who is the author? tVe guess a lady, and that this is her first book." — Weekly Life Illustrated. "Its incidents are novel and eflfectively managed; and its style possesses both earnest vigor and depth of pathos, relieved by occasional flashes of a pleasmg and genial humor. Among the crowd of trashy publications now issued from the press, a work as true to nature, and as elevated and just in its conceptions of the pu/poses of life, as this is, is all the nore welcome because it is so rare. We have no doubt it will be as popular as it is interesting." — Albany Evening Journal. " We have seldom perused a work of fiction that gave us more real pleasure than this. From first to last page, it enchains the attention, and carries your sympathies along with the fortunes of the heroine. The descriptive powers of the unknown authoress are of the loftiest order, and cannot fail of placing her in the first ranks of authorship.'i ^-Cincinnati Daily Sun. " A story which perpetually keeps curiosity on the alert, and as perpetually baffl<;s K till it reaches its d6noument. is certainly a good one."— Bt{jl/^alo Oommetvial AdveriM^r, J. C. DERBY'S FUBLlCAriONS. •'Bell's sketches are instinct with life, they sparkle with hrilliaata, are gei med with wit, and address themselves to almost every chord of the hnnu m heart." — Louisville {Ky.) Bulletin. BEl.L SMITH ABROAD. A Handsome 12mo. volume. Price $1 00. With Illustrations b}^ >jq.\j, "Walcutt, and Overarche "The readers of the Louisville Journal need no introduction from us to Beli Smith. Her own brilliant pen, and her own sparkling, witching and delightful style have so often graced the columns of this paper, and have made so many friends and admirers for her, that we need say but little toward creating a demand for this charming volume. But Bome tribute is nevertheless due to Bell Smith for the real pleasure she has imparted in every chapter of her book, and that tribute we cheerfully pay. Her admirable powers l>eem so much at home in every variety and phase of life, that she touches no subject "**bout making it sparkle with the lights of her genius." — Louisville Journal. She is ever piquant in her remarks, and keen from observation ; and the result \e iiat her ' Abroad' is one of the most interesting collections of incident and comment, fun jind pathos, seriousness and gossip, which has ever fallen under our notice." — Boston Evening Tro/veller. " It is dashing and vigorous without coarseness — animated with a genial humor- showing acute and delicate perceptions — and sustained by a bracing infusion of common^ ■ense." — -V. Y. Tribune "There are many delicate strokes, and not a little of that vivacity of desoription which entertains. The author shows her best side when matters of home-feeling and affection engage hei- pen." — N. Y. Evangelist. " History, art and personal narrative are alike imprinted in your memory by the asso- ciations of anecdote, merry and grave, and you feel that you are listening to the magical Toice of ' Bell Smith' at home Such volumes enrich and honor American literature."— PhU^ideliyhia Merchant. " This is a capital book ; full of life, spirit, vivacity and information — thoroughly lady- like, and telling precisely what everybody wants to hear, so far as the author knows." — Salem Gazette. ♦' Spirited and artistic! Bell Smith sparkles, and dashes on, amusing and interestingr A capital book for a leisure hour or railroad travel, or for those seasons when you wani to be pleased without eflfort " — Cleveland Leader. " We like Bell Smith and Bell Smith's book. A lively, free, dashing style, she talks an, and nothing is wanting but the merry laugh we know she is owner of to make us ihink we are listening to a very interesting woman ." — Chicago Journal. •'Lively, gpssiping, chatting, witty, sparkling Bell Smith, we must confess your book eas quite enchanted us." — N. Y. Day Book. "In freshness, piquancy, and delightful episodes, illustrative 6f foreign life »'»d ma*. oers, they nave rarely been e ;uaUed." — X^thoial Era. J c. derby's publications. THK aREEN MOUNTAIN TRAVELLERS' ENTERTAINMENT. BT JO 81 A E BARNES, SEK, 12mo. $1. " They will be read with earnest sympathy and heartfelt approval by all who enjoj quiet pictures of the homely, yet often charming scenes of daily life. The style well befits the thoughts expressed, and is equally simple and impressive. We have found in these pages better than a ' traveller's entertainment '— one whicTn will mingle with th* pleasant recollectiuns of a home fireside." — Providence Daily Post. *' If any of our friends wish to get hold of a book written in a style of pure and beau- tiful English, that reminds one of Irving continually ; a book rich with inventions of the marvellous, and yet abounding in sweet humanities and delicate philosophies — a book that will not tire and cannot oflfend, let them go to a bookstore and buy ' The Old Inn ; or, the Travellers' Entertainment,' by Josiah Barnes, Sen. It will pay the reader well.*' — Springfield (Mass.) Republican. "It should be praise enough to say that tne author reminds one occasionally ol Irving." — Philadelphia Bulletin. " Unless we err greatly, a volume so markedly original in its outline and features will attract a large share of attention." — Boston Evening Gazette. " This is a very pleasant book. The plan of it, if not new, is just as well carried out Five 'r six 'r half-a-dozen ' travellers meet at an indiflferent tavern in an indififerent part of Vermont, upon a seriously unpleasant day, and to pass away the dull hours, they fall to story-telling. The record of their performances in that behalf is made up into tha volume ' above entitled.' So itgreeable became the diversion that not only the evening of the first day, but as the following morning was conveniently stormy, the second day is consumed in similar diversions. Those who read the book will agree with us, that a •tormy f'ay and a country inn, with such alleviation, presents no very great hardship to ihe traveher, unless his business is particularly urgent. We commend the'book to those ^ ^^r^j. -$> o Aw <:*-. .0 V I C' ^- .0- "^ ^"^ \ ^<>. * ^ .0 \ " ' ■ V ^w»^'^-. <>. .:^^ '^. 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