:

PROFESSOR PALFREY'S
FAST SERMON.
A
A
DISCOURSE
DELIVERED IN THE
CHURCH IN BRATTLE SQUARE, BOSTON,
AUGUST 9, 1832,
THE DAY
APPOINTED FOR FASTING AND PRAYER
IN MASSACHUSETTS,
ON ACCOUNT OF THE
APPROACH OF CHOLERA.
BY JOHN G. PALFREY, A. M.
PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
PUBLISHED BY REQUEST.
BOSTON :
GRAY AND BOWEN... WASHINGTON STREET.
1832.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1832,
BY GRAY AND BOWEN,
In the Clerk's Office of the District of Massachusetts.
J. E. HINCKLEY AND CO., PRINTERS,
NO. 14 WATER-STREET.
DISCOURSE.
ISAIAH XXVI. 9.
WHEN THY JUDGMENTS ARE IN THE EARTH, THE INHABITANTS OF THE
WORLD WILL LEARN RIGHTEOUSNESS.
THE disease, whose late inroad upon our country
is the occasion of the people of this Commonwealth
being invited by their government to unite to-day in
a religious service, is of not precisely ascertained ori-
gin, but its history for the last fifteen years has been
carefully observed and recorded. In the month of
August, 1817, it broke out in the province of Bengal
in Hindostan, at a place called Jessore, about a hun-
dred miles northeast of Calcutta. Traversing the
intermediate villages, and occasioning a great mortal-
ity in its route, it reached Calcutta early in Septem-
ber. Extending thence in various directions,—north-
west, west, and south,-through this thickly peopled
peninsula, it reached simultaneously at the end of
about a year the city of Madras on its eastern, the
Coromandel coast, and that of Bombay on its west-
ern; and in three or four months after this latter pe-
riod appeared in the island of Ceylon near its south-
ern extremity. Not to speak of its progress in
4
other directions,-as to the south, where it raged in
the islands of Bourbon and Mauritius towards the
close of 1819, and to the east, where it spread in the
six following years into the Birman empire, Siam,
and China, the western course from Hindostan
brought it, in 1821, into the southeastern corner of
Arabia, whence it passed to the cities on the Persian
Gulf, and the rivers which empty themselves into
that great basin from the north. From Persia, de-
scending to the shore of the Mediterranean, but not
diverging into the countries on its borders, its course
lay through Armenia into the southern provinces of
Russia in Europe, which however it did not reach till
after a long interval of suspension, and slow advance,
two years ago. Since that period, its movement has
been comparatively very rapid, though also much more
limited in the breadth over which it has spread in the
line of its progress. Something more than a year
since, it passed the western Russian border into Po-
land, and appeared successively, in the autumn and
winter, in Prussia, England, and France. Its cross-
ing to our own shores, over the intervening ocean, in
the month of June last, and its subsequent ravages in
our most populous city, are matter of recent notoriety.
The destruction of life it has wrought has no doubt
been great. Of one calculation, from an accredited
source, and in wide circulation,* the result, which is
blazoned forth in capitals, for the greater effect, re-
presents the number of deaths to be ascribed to it in
fourteen years, to have been fifty millions. This, of
Quarterly Review, No. XCI. pp. 170, 207.
5
course, is altogether rude and unsatisfactory; for
bills of mortality, in many of the countries where it
has prevailed, are by no means to be come at. But
let us assume it for the moment, as exhibiting some
approximation to the truth, in order to observe what
strength of inference it may justify, as to an unprece-
dented malignity of the disease. I have known the
conclusion drawn, upon this basis, that the malady
has carried off one in twenty of the human race, be-
cause fifty millions are a twentieth part of a thousand
millions, at which number the population of the globe
is, in a rough reckoning, computed. But a moment's
consideration only is needed to show that this is a
most widely erroneous estimate. If the malady in
question has made fifty millions of victims in fourteen
years, it has made, on an average, somewhat more
than three millions and a half each year. Now reck-
oning the average human life at thirty years, the num-
ber of deaths during the same period, under the ac-
tion of the ordinary prevailing causes, has been at the
rate of not much less than thirty-five millions a year;
that is, this disease has been destroying about one
tenth part as many as are destroyed by the maladies
with which we have been all along familiar, or one
three hundredth part of the human race.
But again;
there is not the smallest reason to suppose that the
three and a half millions, who may have annually
been swept away by this disease, have been so
many added to the thirty-five millions who die year
by year in common times. For it is a well-known
property of unusual epidemic diseases, to take the
6
place of, to supersede and expel, in a degree and for
the time, such other disorders as are of common
prevalence in the region where they rage. That is,
either one or the other, or both, of two things, take
place. Other maladies become partially merged in
the new epidemic,-their symptoms subsiding or
deviating into the symptoms of this,—and then, in
proportion as its range is extended, theirs is abridged;
in other words, it destroys the same lives, which in
its absence, those other diseases would destroy;—or,
on the other hand, if it falls on different subjects from
what would be attacked by the maladies more com-
monly known, it does not necessarily cause the ag-
gregate mortality to be greater; for, that very state of
the atmosphere or other secret physical influence,
through which it occasions danger to some, may, to
the same or to some different extent greater or less,
be salubrious to others of different constitution, situ-
ation or habits, just as the drug which would be one
man's remedy, will be another's bane; or the noxious
principle, whatever it be, by which it does its work,
may be a concentration of unwholesome elements
existing always in a diffused and weakened state
around us, and which, when collected into a limited
region, to produce a remarkable devastation there,
leave the neighboring regions, from which they are
withdrawn, in a so much more healthy condition than
before. So that though it may, without doubt, be
true, that an uncommon epidemic may add, and add
essentially, to the exposures and the destruction of
human life, this is by no means to be safely assum-
7
ed as a necessary fact. The contrary may be true,
as well. Other mortal diseases may have been abat-
ing in the same proportion, or in something like the
proportion, that this has spread; and which of these
events has at any time in truth occurred, presents a
question to be determined, if at all, by inquiry and
good judgment, and not by conjecture or imagination.
I am not saying that the agent to which our attention
is now turned, is not to be charged with a considera-
ble destruction of human life, additional to what, un-
der the various forms incident to the wear and decay
of this mortal body, takes place in common times. I
only suggest, that he who should affirm the contrary,
-who should maintain, for instance, that in the last
fifteen years, or in any five, or any one of them,
many more, or more in proportion of the human race
have died, than in the same period immediately pre-
ceding, or in any like period of the last century,-
would be maintaining that which he cannot prove, or
so much as show any probable grounds for believing.
For anything that I have been able to learn, it cannot
be made to appear in the case of any country, scarcely*
even of any city in the civilized world, that is, in
those where the means of information are accessible
and worthy of trust,-it cannot, I say, be made to ap-
pear that the aggregate number of deaths in a course of
months has been materially increased by the presence
of this disease ;-still less, which is much the more
pertinent question, can it be made to appear, that,
*
* The statement is made broader in respect to cities, so as tɔ allow for the
cases of Paris, Quebec, and Montreal.
8
*
taking any short term of years collectively, any such
material increase has been witnessed from this cause
in any continent, kingdom, district, or town.
II. Am I urging then that this malady ought not
to be regarded as being what, in the language of our
honored chief magistrate's proclamation which has
brought us together, it is called, a divine "judg-
ment?" By no means. It is a new, and therefore a
striking, and in some respects it is without doubt a
peculiarly terrific form of admonition of the frailty of
our mortal nature. The ignorance, under which the
best science confesses itself to lie, of its causes and
its cure, and accordingly the helplessness which we
should feel in its grasp, and which we do feel in its
neighborhood,—the neglect of premonition with which
it assails,—and the greedy and determined speed with
which it does its work,-undeniably these circum-
stances go to mark it with a formidable character.
And as to its quality, attributed in the word judgment,
of being a divine visitation,-without going into the
metaphysics of the doctrine of providence, which in
other times I have discussed largely in this place, I
will only at present say, that, in my view, all credible
intimations of reason, as well as all just interpretation
of scripture, go to establish, in a plain, and important,
and unquestionable sense, the truth, that whatever
befals us men befals us under the divine direction, so
that nothing of this kind can forbear, or invade, or
stay, or depart, except by a providential agency.
But let us understand what we mean by a judg-
ment; for yet another idea, beyond what have been
9
referred to, is very commonly, though, I apprehend
erroneously, supposed to be essentially comprehended
in the term. Neither in the view of reason nor of
religion is a judgment necessarily,-though it may
be,—a judicial infliction, a retribution, a penalty im-
posed for transgression. That the laws of scripture
phraseology do not demand that sense, let the fol-
lowing among other passages which might be cited
show, where the Hebrew word used for sentence and
judgment, is the same with that in the original of our
text. "Let my sentence come forth from thy pres-
ence," said David in the seventeenth Psalm, when
the sentence or judgment, for wh ch he was suing,
so far from being penal, was one of acquittal and
approbation. And again, in the nineteenth Psalm,
"the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous
altogether." Nothing of a retributive character is
here to be supposed. The word, synonymous in the
quoted passage, as in various other places, with stat-
ute, denotes, in general, a declaration, however made,
of the divine will, or, to state the meaning yet
more largely, an intimation or exercise of the divine
pleasure.
And let any one, who speaks of this calamity as a
judgment in the sense of a retributive infliction, con-
sider in what manner he is prepared to explain him-
self. Upon whom or what is it such a retributive
infliction? Can we say, upon the continents which
it has traversed ?—since no less wide than this has
been its spread. Continent is merely a name which
we use for the purpose of conveniently designating
2
10
A
an expanse of adjacent territory, enclosed within
certain great natural boundaries. A continent is no
moral being, that it should be a subject of punish-
ment. It cannot offend as such; though the indi-
viduals dwelling in it may, a different case, which will
presently be noticed. A continent is not so much
as a body politic. It has no common cause, nor
duty, nor character, nor responsibleness, nor mind to
be affected by punishment so as to grieve or amend.
-Is the judgment in question then to be reckoned
a retributive infliction for the sins of the nations
which it has visited? A nation, acting as such
through its government, has unity, and it has morals
and interests of its own; and it is true that God does
punish national sins with temporal evils, because na-
tions,—not being, like their component parts, immor-
tal existences, having no being except in this world,
-to be rewarded or punished at all, must be re-
warded or punished with temporal prosperity or loss.
But, in order to administer this divine government
over nations so as to produce the intended good
effects, to cause the punishments applied to bring
about their due results of amendment in the party
punished, and reflection and caution in others, it
seems necessary,—unless, indeed, there be a revealed
explanation of the divine design, as there was in the
case of the Jews,-it seems necessary, I say, that
the punishment, under providential guidance, should
be made to appear to follow on the sin in the way
of effect upon cause, so as to point to the sin which
is the object of divine displeasure, as when a nation
11
is punished for its luxurious habits, by declining into
weakness and want. Nothing of this kind can be
detected in the case under our notice. We can point
to no sin, which being apparently and universally the
cause of the visitation in question, regarded in its
light of a calamity, is to be interpreted by a religious
man to be also its provocation, regarded in its light
of a judgment. Again; traversing the surface of the
earth in certain great lines, it appears to have visited,
indiscriminately, nations of the most various and
opposite principles and habits; thus utterly con-
founding us, if we will regard it as a rod of national
punishment, in our conjectures about what we need
first of all to know, in order for it to serve as pun-
ishment,—that is, what sins it is meant to punish.
Nay, on two separate occasions, at least, it attacked
in succession two bordering nations which were at
war,—a war which involved the leading principles of
their policy, not to say of their national character ;-
a case which would seem to justify a probable infer-
ence, that, if the one nation had a bad cause, and
deserved punishment, the other had a good one, and
deserved forbearance. And, once more; it appears
impossible to regard it in the light of retributive visi-
tation for national sin, from the circumstance that it
has not universally,-as, for instance, the privations
and burdens of war do,-nor even always exten-
sively, made itself felt throughout a country, but has
often had a limited diffusion, in districts apparently
in no leading respect distinguished in character from
those contiguous, while it has left these latter unaf-
12
So.
fected in any part of their essential prosperity.-Is it
to be called then, once more, a retributive judgment
upon individuals, upon those whom it has taken, or
those whom it has bereaved? This would be, my
hearers, to recognize a principle of divine govern-
ment unknown, as I think, to Christianity. Indi-
viduals are to be rewarded for their obedience, and
punished for their sins by positive exertion of divine
power, affecting their condition according to revealed
laws; but it is not in this world that they are to be
Providential visitations affecting our lot in this
world, are rig tly called judgments indeed, if we
carefully limit the word to the sense of divine in-
terpositions, affording occasions for reflection, and
means for the improvement of the character; and this
they may be to us, if others, as truly as if we our-
selves, are the persons whose lot they affect. But
retributive judgments they are not. Our retribution
is to come in the life beyond the grave. All here is
tentative, probationary, designed to improve and so
to bless; to improve and bless either the individual
by calling him to repentance and amendment; or to
improve and bless others by enforcing on them cau-
tion to avoid the like sins. What was our Saviour's
emphatic language used under like circumstances to
those considered? 66
Suppose ye," said he, "that
those Galileans, whose blood Pilate mingled with
their sacrifices, were sinners above all the Galileans
because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay;
but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
Or those eighteen, on whom the tower in Siloam
13
fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners
above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you,
Nay.”
,,
III. We have thus seen, at some length, on what
grounds and in what sense the wide-spread malady
under our notice is rightly ranked as one of those di-
vine judgments of which our text speaks. And I
have urged this latter point, my hearers, because I
apprehend that the idea of its being designed as a
specific retribution for specific sins, national or per-
sonal, would tend, as far as it should give direction
to our thoughts, to distract our thoughts from what
ought to be the chief subject of their consideration.
Should we entertain that sentiment, our obligation
would then appear to confine itself to the searching
out, and cleansing ourselves from, the particular sin
which had provoked the particular judgment, instead
of doing,―what is at once much more to the purpose
and more feasible,—giving way to all various reflec-
tions on God's relation to us, which it is fitted to ex-
cite, and especially extracting from it all lessons of
righteousness, which it is especially fitted to convey.
It is justly reckoned a judgment of God, not as being
a retributive visitation,—this, at all events, we have
no right to assume, and we have no way to prove,—
but as being an apparent and remarkable divine dis-
pensation, addressing us solemnly, and capable of
being turned to account for our improvement and
good. When the judgments of God are in the earth,
the inhabitants of the world ought to learn righteous-
ness. By way of making this principle practically
14
useful, let us proceed briefly to consider what are
some parts of that righteousness which this particular
judgment affords us special occasion or advantages
for learning.
1. And first, let me advert in a word to a most desir-
able improvement in the manners of society, to which
the attention of wise and good men has been of late
with much determination and publicity directed, and
which it seems that the prevailing malady may be
expected to promote. Certainly it is not disorderly
livers alone, who have hitherto been its victims; on
the contrary, numbers of men, of character the most
irreproachable, have swelled its melancholy lists.
Still, one of the prominent facts belonging to the case
is, that among the intemperate its greatest ravages
are uniformly witnessed ;-in other words, of the few
laws relating to its action, as yet ascertained, this is
one, that habits of excess create a distinctive and
strong predisposition to it. Here, then, is another
calamity added to the long
which the inebriate plunges himself; and if the rest,
from which he ought to shrink, have lost by familiari-
ty something of their power over his imagination and
his fears, it is to be hoped that this, with its novel
terrors, may still do something effective towards ex-
citing them anew. Indeed, the tendency to which I
have referred once settled,-as it may now be affirm-
ed to be altogether beyond dispute,-the result of
some further check to intemperate habits can scarcely
fail extensively to follow. The call to caution is loud
and alarming. The man who is compelled to see
catalogue of those into
15
that an irregularity in which hitherto he might in-
dulge himself with comparative safety, may now very
probably send him to his grave before the rising of
another sun, must, to persist, be maddened with
something more, if possible, than a drunkard's frenzy.
All may advantageously learn, under this added mo-
tive to vigilance, to practise a stricter control over
those appetites, every undue indulgence of which is
attended with various danger, now revealed in a new
shape; and the lesson may be found to be attended
with so many benefits, that there will be no disposi-
tion to unlearn it, when the present peculiar reason
for regarding it shall have passed away. And they
who have hitherto interested themselves in the meas-
ures in operation for banishing the manifold evils of
intemperate habits, may feel their hands strengthened
for the good work by a perception of the peculiar
mischiefs which now are threatened by the vice, and
of the increased sympathy which now, under an ex-
cited sense of common danger, the public will accord
to their endeavors; while others, who have heretofore
taken no part in the enterprise, may now be moved
to do so by considerations of personal safety; and the
sentiment of the public at large may find itself con-
strained, under existing circumstances, to authorize
vigorous measures to be taken for its furtherance,
which in common times it would hardly be persuaded
to adopt. In short, in addition to those which we
have long been hearing, here is another loud testi-
mony of providence against the danger to a commu-
nity of tolerating habits of vicious excess within it;
•
16
and the lessons of righteousness in this respect, which
hitherto, as individuals or as citizens, we may have
but imperfectly learned, are now commended again
with striking emphasis to every man's attention, in
every capacity that belongs to him.
2. Another part of righteousness, which the appre-
hended judgment calls on us to learn, is found in the
sentiment of a Christian courage. Not the courage
which shuts its eyes against an impending danger,
blindly counts upon exemption for itself, and neglects
to take steps betimes to avoid or mitigate the evil
threatened. No; the levity which, while yet the
apprehended scourge is somewhat remote, admi s of
such a state of mind, is the same which, on its near
approach, will be likely to be manifested in the dif
ferent form of a craven panic. But the
But the courage
which looks the evil tranquilly in the face, not over-
rating either its intrinsic magnitude, or the probabili-
ty of becoming exposed to it; which coolly investi-
gates the means of safety, possesses itself in a manly
composure of spirit, so as to be prepared wisely to
make trial of them, and then sustains itself in a calm
confidence that, having done its own part, the great
ultimate interest is secure, while the issue of the pre-
sent peril is in better hands. The courage, which
we shall desire to have learned and to practise when
the peril shall come, is to be founded in part on what
we shall have done beforehand, on what we shall
have been doing now. It is our duty, our religious
duty, at all times, to endeavor to make the most of,
and to retain the longest, the powers of usefulness
17
committed to our keeping and administration, by ap-
plying all means known to us for preserving a sound
mind in a sound body; and all those personal habits,
thus highly sanctioned, of prudence, moderation, and
method, in diet, regimen, exposure, and so on,-hab-
its which do not admit of being enumerated here, but
which are of perpetual and urgent obligation, are to
make part of the proper basis for that composed state
of mind in which we ought to desire to be, when the
apprehended evil shall come nigher. To this end, we
ought also to cherish in ourselves, and encourage in
others, that just confidence in the discretion and pa-
rental good intentions of those who have the charge
of us as a community, which will greatly animate,
facilitate, and aid their labors, afford the best security
for their proving efficacious, and tend in every way to
strengthen the foundations for our own and for the
common comfort and safety. Above all, we should
be diligently providing for our spirits, against the time
when they may be tempted to faint, the support of
the Christian faith and graces. We should be busy
in the religious self-discipline that will prepare us to
encourage ourselves, as we are told David did in the
gloomiest juncture of his fortunes, in the Lord our God.
3. And this brings me to say, that, from the
judgment of God in question, we ought, for another
part of righteousness, to learn te: dern s to others,
and be very careful not to learn inhumanity. Among
the dreaded aspects of new and malignant epi-
demic diseases, there is no other nearly so horrible
as the barbarous selfishness which they have been
3
18
known to engender in timid minds. To fall into
this, under the excitement of danger, is to ensure
immeasurably the greater evil for the chance of
escaping the less. God send us the cholera much
rather than hardness of heart! A country where one
in every ten should be falling before a pestilence,
would, doubtless, present a melancholy spectacle;
but how incalculably,-shall I not say how infi-
nitely,―less dismal to every rightly judging mind,
than one where, while such a visitation was endured,
appealing, in a tone to soften rocks, to human power
for relief, and to human feelings for sympathy, the
other nine tenths, or a large, or any portion of them,
were seen to stand aloof, and let their brethren die
unaided and uncheered, from dread of personal
exposure. I pretend, my hearers, to no medical
science. I cannot argue the question of contagion
or non-contagion. I do not disguise from myself
that whatever persuasion I may entertain on the
subject is based on very inadequate knowledge.
But I say even, hold for nothing the opinion of
many of the wisest men, formed from the most
diligent inquisition into facts; assume the con-
tagiousness for a probability, or even for a truth ;
and the dictates of Christian morality,—not at all
of a sublimated, but of a judicious and discriminating
morality,—are still the same. Nay, I care not, for
the moment, to go as far as this. I will stand
simply by the dictates of good sense, directing its
observations to nothing further than the means of
present safety. For, if the propagation of the
19
disease by contagion be a fact in the case, it is
certainly not the only, nor the only material fact.
If some directly exposed to the contagion of the
disease are infected by it in consequence, all certainly
are not, nor any thing like a major part. If some
afflicted with it suppose they can trace the influence
to contagion, all do not so suppose, even when
hindered by no prepossession against the doctrine,
nor is it supposed of them all by others, the best
acquainted with their individual circumstances and
the best qualified to judge. If there be danger,
again, in communication with the sick, time after
time it has been shown to be such a danger, that
there are no precautions so jealous that they can be
relied on to avert it. If there be a danger of this kind,
-which, I repeat, is a question belonging to others
to discuss, it is yet undoubtedly a danger to which
we may be the most immediately exposed, without the
smallest injury, for great multitudes have been so ex-
posed, and felt no harm; witness, in particular, the
unquestioned and remarkable, though not, of course,
absolute exemption of physicians and other attendants
upon the sick in hospitals and religious houses,-as
well as elsewhere, where the record is necessarily
less exact; and this too, notwithstanding the extra-
ordinary fatigues to which persons so circumstanced
are unavoidably subject. If there be a danger of
this kind, so there is again,-this has been repeatedly
seen, great danger in the fearful and agitated state
of feeling which would shun it. Wherefore, if we have
taken up the theory in question, let us still rest in the
20
maxim for our great security, that the best repellent
of contagion is a courageous mind. We do not know
how contagion, if it be a phenomenon of the case,
communicates disease, but we do know,-for to this
point the evidence of all experience is full,—that a
composed and confident spirit is the trustiest armour
of defence against it. Under circumstances which
allow no man to feel a security for his life, let every
one then obtain for himself this most available protec-
tion; and above all, let every man covet for himself
the higher security of being found,—should he be sum-
moned away,—at his post of duty to God and his
fellow-men. That is the very place to be taken from.
I repeat it, undue uneasiness on account of the theory
to which I have referred, is a very 1.kely way,
whether the theory be well founded or not, to realize
all the evil dreaded. If it be not well founded, of
course there is no danger in discharging all the
offices of humanity. If it be well founded, still,
with the influence in action all around us, whatever
precautions we could take would afford a miserable
reliance, compared with that collected and brave
spirit which has carried so many safely through,
whom it had sent on the blessed errand of mercy
into the thickest of the danger. And if, after all, the
fatal messenger were commissioned to seek us, where
else should we so willingly confront it, as where a self-
approving conscience would not tremble at the sound
of its step? Yes, my hearers; admonitions of our
common frailty are sent,-not to rend all relations of
amity, not to suspend all offices of good-will, not to
21
crush all impulses of love, not to make us dread, and
annoy, and forsake one another, God forbid !-but to
impress on us a sense of common interest, to quicken
us to a watchful mutual affection, to melt us to senti-
ments of brotherly compassion, to nerve us for deeds
of heroic beneficence. Human suffering is intended
to speak to human hearts, and indeed we do need
God's pity, if ever it should fail to speak to ours. The
dreaded pest can do nothing nearly so bad for us, let
it exhaust on us its store of loathsome tortures, as to
teach us an insensible, cruel, brutal indifference to
all but to ourselves. And if, in such seasons, the
most contemptible aspects of human character have
sometimes been displayed, so have often the most
fair and godlike. For us the time may be near at
hand, for some of the beautiful graces developed in
the relations between man and his brother man to
be conspicuously manifested, in domestic truth and
a more expanded benevolence, ministering, in the
loftiness of their self-devotion, by the couch of
helplessness and anguish; professional duty, shrinking
under its high sense of honor and responsibleness,
from no labour nor peril; public spirit and Christian
bounty stretching out their open hands. Should it
come, may it then be seen that we have all been pre-
paring, in our several spheres, to be true to the exi-
gencies of that time! So, when the judgment shall
have passed away, the righteousness it has matured
may prove ample compensation even for hard strug-
gles it may have cost us.
22
4. Once more; from the divine judgment in ques-
tion we may reasonably be expected to take a les-
son in so much of righteousness, as consists in a
profound sense that,-helpless ourselves, we are
absolutely in God's hands,-along with those other
reflecting, self-scrutinizing, self-renouncing, and at
the same time confiding and hopeful habits of mind,
which that sentiment, wrought into the mind, may be
expected to create. We are absolutely in God's
hands,-who can doubt it?—to be dealt with unre-
sisting according to the dictates of his will, whether
in methods of operation with which we have, or with
which we have not been before familiar.-We speak
of an order of nature, and sometimes we speak of it
in such a way, that we might seem to imagine all the
machinery, with which the divine power is ever to
shape our condition, to be discernible within the lim-
its of that order. We arrange the outlines and parcel
out the departments of our sciences, so as to find a
place somewhere for every thing which we have ob-
served; and then, by the way in which we speak of
our sciences, one might suppose we thought them
co-extensive with the limits of all knowable things.
But here is an operation of God's power as unheard
of, as if he had visibly stretched forth his "red right
arm to smite us from a cloud. Here is a demon-
stration of God's almightiness, the like of which, for
any thing we know, has never before occurred since
the globe we dwell upon was rolled forth on its great
cycle of revolutions. Here is a new element intro-
""
23
Here is a
To no or-
duced into the system of human things.
new action of divine providence on man.
der of nature, before recognized, does it belong.
Science knows nothing of it, or, at all events, nothing
but what it has very lately and very imperfectly
learned. The mysterious plague passes from nation
to nation, trampling down masses of men in its path,
and because we have as yet obtained little acquaint-
ance with those related circumstances, apparently de-
termining its course, which, did we know them well
enough to philosophize upon them, we should denom-
inate secondary causes,-because of this, we are fain
to refer it directly to the primary cause of a divine
agency, and to say that it should impress on us a
truth, which on the discerning mind,—but not on the
undiscerning, by reason of their familiarity,―is equal-
ly enforced by all the common methods of God's
government; the truth, namely, that we are entirely
and impotently at God's disposal, and that he has
power to dispose of us in ways altogether hitherto
unknown, as well as in those of which we have had
the most experience.—And this truth, when brought
to view, is commonly declared in a manner to show
that something peculiarly awful and startling is under-
stood to be announced. The truth is grand and mo-
mentous, and so far it is awful. And the manner of
admonition, by which it is brought home to the mind,
as in the present instance, may be startling. But
the doctrine itself, that we are absolutely in God's
hands,--is that a doctrine to shudder at? Where can
24
we better be? Where would we be, if not in the
hands of infinite wisdom and love? Alarmed, by
anything which makes us feel, more sensibly than
before, that we are completely at God's disposal,——
God's disposal, who regards our danger, knows our
needs, cares for our well-being, will listen to our
prayers! Why, it is precisely what above all things
else should compose, and satisfy, and encourage, and
rejoice us. Alarmed we might well be, if any thing
could lead us to doubt this. Affrighted into the ex-
tremest agony of terror we might reasonably be, if
any thing could show us the contrary of this. But,
to be brought to perceive more vividly the nearness
of God to us, to be made to understand more thor-
oughly that whatever befals us befals us under the
administration of his will, is not here precisely the
amplest cause for a perfect repose and contentment
of the mind?
I would repeat, then, in conclusion, the scriptural
expression* before used, for it is full of weighty
meaning;—as David did, when things were much
darker to him than they are now to us, let us encour-
age ourselves, my hearers, in the Lord our God. He
found, in the sequel, that he had not encouraged him-
self unreasonably; and the spirit of pious confidence,
and hope for the best issue, which he had maintained
in the worst of times, was, under the divine blessing,
made a means of the re-establishment of his fortunes.
Listening to the prayers which our people pour out
* 1 Samuel xxx. 6.
25
before him this day, and granting them an answer of
peace according to their terms, it may please God to
withhold the dreaded step of the destroyer from being
planted on our borders. Or, if it come, still, by his
smile on our endeavors made in humble trust in his
goodness, it may come in some form of mitigated
hardship, may be forbearing in its ravages, and not
linger in its stay. But, at all events, our main con-
cern is, that should the judgment be among them,-
walking in darkness, wasting at noon-day,-the peo-
ple-endeavoring to learn from it the lessons of right-
eousness it bears, should not, in remembering that they
are mortal, forget that they are also immortal beings,
and that any danger they may incur in this latter
character is unspeakably more serious than in the for-
mer. Let the people of our city,—a city set upon a
hill in respect to power of moral influence,—now en-
tertain a just sense of the amount of good which it is
in their power to do to others, who are looking to
them, and of their responsibleness for employing this
capacity of usefulness conscientiously and prudently,
and in all ways well. Let them be spirited to set an
example of orderly, diligent, sagacious, and liberal
preparation to await,-or, if it may be, ward off,-the
judgment; of erect and confiding courage to meet it,
should it come; of patience to bear it; of humane en-
deavor to relieve it; and of self-application to extract
from it all lessons of righteousness which it may have
to teach. When, my hearers, as a community, we
have joined our counsels, our best endeavors of pre-
4
26
caution, and our devotions together, and while as
individuals, we give diligent heed to the Christian
discipline of our spirits to meet the worst or the best,
at the same time" continuing instant in prayer," and
resolved that taking no risks in the way
of any kind
of self-indulgence, we will be the more free to take
them in the way of being serviceable to others, we
have then done and are doing all that belongs to our-
selves and the issue of events is where it is far hap-
piest for us that it should be,-with the wise and
good God.
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