THE
PILLARS OF TRUTH:
I ^Jtdm  of
SERMONS ON THE DECALOGUE.
BY E. O. HAVEN, D.D., LL.D.,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.
PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER,
SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, 200 MULBERRY-STREET.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866,
BY CARLTON & PORTER,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for
the Southern District of New-York.




PREFACE.
THE following Discourses were delivered before
the students of the University of Michigan, in
the College Chapel, on Sabbath afternoons, and
are now published without alteration. After
the close of the series the Young Men's Christian Association of the University adopted the
following resolution:
" Resolved, That we have listened with great
interest and profit to the series of discourses on
the Ten Commandments, delivered by Rev. Dr.
HAVEN, President of the University, on Sabbath afternoons, and would respectfully suggest
to him the propriety of having them published
in the form of a book."
The thought of printing them  had not
previously been entertained by the author;
and having concluded to assent to the sug
gestion, it has not been thought advisable to




4                 PREFACE.
give a more extended examination to the subject, though the Decalogue is practically inexhaustible, and a thorough treatise upon it
would be a complete moral philosophy.
It will be seen that the author has not aimed
at a florid style, but rather to express the most
valuable truth in a few simple and direct words.
In this way he has found that the careful
attention of listeners is secured, and he trusts
that those who have sufficient interest in the
subject to reand the discourses will find them
promotive of that thought and faith essential
to the best and highest life.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN,
ANN ARBOR, J.Tly, 1866.




CONTENTS.
THE FIRST COMMANDMENT.                                      PAGE
I. Worship only God..........................   I
II. Believe in God.......................  24
THE SECOND COMMANDMENT.
III. Idolatry....................................  48
THE THIRD COMMANDMENT.
IV. Honor to the Name of God....e............  71
THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT.
V. The Holy Sabbath........................             87
THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT.
VI. Duty toward Parents....................... 100
THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT.
VII. The Sacredness of Human Life............ 123
VIIL The Crime of Suicide......................... 141
THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT.
IX. Marriage and its Duties...................... 165
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT.
X. The Crime of Theft........................ 185
THE NINTH COMMANDMENT.
XI. The Value of Truth.......................... 202
THE TENTH COMMANDMENT.
XII. Coveting the Goods of Other Men.............. 224








THE
PILLARS OF TRUTH.
THE FIRST COMMANDMENT.
Worship only God.
THou SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE M. —Exodus xX, 8.
Is any man among us ever inclined to break
this commandment  Has not that part of the
world called Christian outgrown all disposition
to break it? If so, to explain it is only to
gratify curiosity, and practically superfluous.
It is not so. Not only is every one of the
Ten Commandments binding upon all men, every
one is also often broken by persons who have received Christian instruction. The Decalogue is
God's grand compendium of moral philosophy.
Whoever obeys it in letter and spirit is a perfect
man. A young man once said to Jesus, "All
these have I kept from my youth up!"  He
must have entertained a very high estimation
of his own character to have made such an
assertion honestly. I doubt not that he was a




8           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
man of excellent moral character, and yet he certainly could not have " known himself" to have
made so preposterous a claim. Probably careful
self-examination, aided by the illumination of
the Divine Spirit, would have shown him that
he had violated all of them. But it is not
necessary to break all the Ten Commandments
severally to be guilty of breaking them all; for
"he that keepeth the whole law, and offendeth
in one point," says an apostle, " is guilty of all."
How is that? Why, simply, if a man deliberately breaks any one of a code of laws hesets at
defiance the authority of them all as much as
though he should break them all severally. It
is the spirit, not the outward act, that God
looks at.
Let us now investigate this commandment
carefully: "Thou shalt have no other gods
before me."
1. This question immediately arises: What is
it to have a god?
Observe, the lawgiver does not assert, There
is no other god besides me. It may seem to
some that this would have been a better way of
expressing the true meaning of the commandment; but so it did not seem to the Giver of the
law.
He does not say, Thou shalt not believe that
there are any other gods before or besides me.
IIad he done so an atheist might have kept the




FIRST COMMANDMENT.            9
commandment easily; but I think we shall find
it is not so easy for an atheist to keep the commandment as it is written.
What then is meant by having a god? Is it
meant that we must not have any images or
idols, and worship them?  That is forbidden
in the second commandment. If the first and
second commandments mean the same thing,
one or the other is superfluous, which we cannot acknowledge.
Is it meant that a man must not believe that
there are spiritual beings, or gods, besides God,
superior to man, which he might worship if he
thought best? Certainly not, for the Bible teaches that doctrine, and Christians do believe it.
What then is meant, the question recurs, by
having gods?
Observe, that' having " is purely subjective;
it applies to the person that has, and does not
necessarily affect the person or thing had. I
may have a house to-day. I may sell it, and not
have it to-morrow; but the house remains the
same. It is I that change, not the property.
There must, then, be a certain condition of a
man when he has God, and another condition
when he has other gods before the true God;
and thege-are the only two conditions mentioned
or implied in this commandment, and perhaps
these are the only two possible conditions to an
active responsible human being.




10          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
Observe, again, that neither of these conditions of a man can possibly affect the existence
of the true God, or of the false gods. My having
God does not cause him to be. My not having
him does not cause him not to be; my having
false gods does not cause them to be, and my
not having them does not cause them not to be.
They either are or are not, and their existence is
a matter entirely independent of me; but this
having is a command, which I can break or
keep as I will. Of course I cannot, by my will,
affect the existence of God or gods; but I can
have or not have gods before the true God, as I
determine.
The question comes back then with force,
What is this voluntary act of a man, by which
he can have, or not have, either God or false
gods?
The conclusion is inevitable, that this commandment applies only to man, and is designed
to apply to every man, and has no reference or
direct application to God or to false gods. It
is a commandment to me from God: "Thou
shalt have no other gods before me."
Of course, then, there is immediately ruled out
of this commandment every sense of the word
which implies compulsion or necessity. There is
a sense in which every man must have God, and
must have him before every other being. God
is, and none but a fool says in his heart, "no




FIRST COMMANDMENT.           11
God."  The most stupid sensualist on earth,
who grovels only in brutish life, is created and
sustained by God. He has God in one sense of
the words, and must have him, and cannot possibly have any other being in his place, simply
because it is impossible that any other being
should be in his place.
But this sense of the word is excluded, because
in a concmandment the word cannot bear this
meaning. It is a thing not to be commanded'or denied because from the nature of things it
must be. All finite beings, including Satan,
have God in this sense; for God made them,
and none other can take the place of God to
them.
The question then is narrowed down to this:
What is it. to have God voluntarily?
The Hebrew language is not rich in words.
It is in this respect a kind of child language,
endeavoring to express all thoughts by a few
vocables; and a literal translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into English is therefore likely
to be misunderstood.
To have, in the Bible, often means not only to,possess, but to use and employ, just as an intelligent and upright person might be expected to
do. Thus to have God implies that we should
be affected toward God, and by our knowledge
of him, just precisely as we ought to be; andto
have other gods before him, implies that we




12           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
allow some other beings, or powers, or ideas, or
beliefs, to stand in our minds where God ought
to stand, and to affect us as God ought to
affect us.
Now it seems to me superfluous to argue that
we ought to entertain a reverential regard for
God's approval, so that in all matters a belief in
his approval would be paramount to all other
influences in affecting our decision. Thousands
of questions arise in every man's life, when, if
he is a true worshiper of God, this consideration
turns the balance and settles the decision. The
questions may be, Shall I choose this occupation or that   Shall I enlist in the army?
Shall I study a profession? Shall I abide at
home, or emigrate to another part of the world?
Shall I devote myself to making money?
Shall I cultivate my mind?  Even questions of
less magnitude, as, Shall I embark in this special
enterprise? Shall I make this particular decision? How can a man be said to have God, if
he does not allow his views of what God will
approve or disapprove to affect, yea, even where
there is a. suspense, to decide these questions?
To such a man, I suppose, God is; but just now,
so far as he is concerned, God might as well
not be. IHe is not allowed to exert the proper
authority of God. Man abuses his little day
of trial, his short season of independence and
discipline, to such an extent as actually to shut




FIRST COMMANDMENT.           13
out God from his narrow territory, and thus
he has no God.
But " nature abhors a vacuum," and if a man
will not allow his views of what God approves
or disapproves to decide such questions, then
some other power, either personal or ideal, will
step in and usurp God's place.
Suppose, for instance, a man decides all questions of conduct and character simply withregard
to making money. Why, then, how evident is it
that his god is mammon, and we all remember
the words of Christ: "Ye cannot serve God
and mammon." oNow it matters not that this
man is never profane perhaps; that he may be
correct and moral in outward deportment; that
he is even in the Church: if mammon decides
such questions for him instead of God, he has
mammon instead of God. His soul worships
mammon instead of God.
Substitute for mammon, pleasure; then pleasure becomes god.  Substitute any particular
gratification, it usurps the place of God. There
are even now in this country worshipers of
Bacchus, of Venus, of Mars, of Apollo, and of
the whole family of the divinities in the Pantheon of old. The Hindoos have many thousands of gods; no more, however, than the
rivals of the true God, even in Christian lands.
Now this element of the word " have " needs
careful attention not to be misunderstood. To




14          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
have God implies not merely a regard for him,
but even a supreme, absorbing regard for him.
If, therefore, anything but God is allowed to
control a man, that other thifig becomes a rival
to God-in the words of our text, another god.
That other thing may probably be allowed to
influence a man in a subordinate degree, but it
must not control the man.
There is a great difference between controlling a man, and exerting a proper subordinate
influence over a man. Many powers, agencies,
or thoughts are excellent servants, but bad
masters. We abominate the worship of the
sun, but we appreciate it as the great material
source of power and life. The old Egyptians
worshiped bulls; it does not follow that we
should not use them to plow our fields.
All those passions of which I have spokenthe love of wealth, ambition, the love of
knowledge-are  good: good as subordinate
motive powers; good as servants, not good. as
gods.
A  man needs and should desire to. be controlled-must be controlled, steadied, shaped,
and charactered-by some power from without;
that is, by a motive or feeling that he can separate from himself, and discard if he will, or
allow to act if he will. That motive or power
is to him a god.
God himself is voluntarily controlled by his




FIRST COMMANDMENT.           15
own  law.  He does not live capriciously.
"Every good gift, every perfect gift, cometh
down from the Father of lights, with whom is
no variableness, neither shadow  of turning."
He chooses not to change.
Now a man is either a weathercock or a
slave, or he is a voluntary servant; and voluntary service of a high principle, or of God, is
freedom.
The most essential element in the idea of God
is authority based on superior power, and therefore the good-will of that being is eminently
desirable. Almost all heathens, ancient and
modern, regard the beings that they call gods
as capricious and imperfect. Some are cruel,
and delight in pain; some are foolish, and must
be flattered; some are passionate, and must be
indulged; and so the poor victims of superstition are frightened into sacrifices, degrading
services and usages, and pagan slavery.
Now I have thought that any man who indulges a faith that leads to like results must
have other gods before God, even though he is
not generally regarded' as an idolater.
A man may violate the first commandment
and be in name a worshiper of the true God.
Suppose, for instance, that the priests of
Brahma should meet in convention to day, and
agree that hereafter the English word God
should be substituted in all places for the Hin



16           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
doo word Brahma, so that hereafter they, instead of being called worshipers of Brahma,
should be called worshipers of God. Would
the mere change of name change their character? Suppose, on the other hand, a missionary
to China, in translating the Bible into Chinese,
falls into a verbal error through ignorance, and
uses instead of the proper word for God a wrong
word, which really means an idol, and himself
offers up a prayer, as he thinks, to God, though
he really uses a name appropriated to an idol,
would that mistake vitiate the prayer?  Does
God care whether he is called
"Jehovah, Jove, or Lord,"
if he is only worshiped in spirit and truth?
Evidently not. Names are nothing except as
they are significant.
If this be so, the question whether a man
breaks the first commandment or not, whether
he really has other gods before God, is translated altogether from the sphere of words into
the realm of thoughts. It is not a matter of
signs and ceremonies, but a matter of ideas. It
is a subject which grows deeper and deeper in
significance as men's minds are disciplined and
informed. It is a matter that the infant cannot
comprehend at all, that is very dimly seen and
little understood by the child, and by all old
persons who in mind never rise out of the child



FIRST COMMANDMENT.           17
hood plane of development; but to those of extended and careful and thorough thought, how
rich it is!
Emancipated from  thraldom  to terms and
forms and creeds and customs, it becomes an
intellectual and moral question, to be considered
in the serene atmosphere of truth, What is it
to have God, the true God of the universe?
What is it to have some phantom, some hideous
caricature of God, or some actual inferior intelligence, on God's throne in the sbul?
HIow fitting, then, is it that this commandment
should be the first in place, as it seems to be the
first in comprehensiveness and power. A lawyer once asked Jesus, " Master, which is the first
and the greatest commandment? "  Jesus in
reply simply changed our first commandment
from a negative to a positive form, and then expressed in full language what is properly included in have when applying to God. Instead
of saying, "' Thou shalt not have other gods,"
he said, Thou shalt do thus and so. And instead
of using the obscure and too comprehensive
word "have," he employed a rich paraphrase:
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength."
This comprehends our entire duty to God.
This stands at the very threshold of piety, and
this is so rich in meaning as to embrace our
entire duty.
2




18          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
Now in the further consideration of this subject we may consider all men as divided into
three classes, as follows:
I. Those who do not seem to entertain any
definite or controlling ideas of God whatever.
II. Those who entertain radically unscriptural,
and therefore erroneous, ideas of God.
III. Those who cherish and obey radically
scriptural, and therefore correct, ideas of God.
I. The most of human beings are unfortunately very ignorant of God, and many are not
concerned to know anything about him. Our
country, probably, has less of this kind of population than any other in the world. We cannot
find many here, as among the peasantry and
manufacturing population of some European
countries, who would say on inquiry that they
never heard of Jesus Christ; but we have many
who have never read the Bible, never exercised
any continuous thought whatever about the serious problems of spiritual life and eternity. " God
is, not in all their thoughts." They eat, drink,
marry, and are given in marriage, and when
death approaches sometimes go through with a
little flurry of religious excitement, and sometimes not, and then pass away.
Were all the world like them there would be
no Sabbath, no temples of worship, no songs




FIRST COMMANDMENT.            19
of praise, no prayer, no profound philosophic
thought, for metaphysicians are always interested
in religious questions; and I am constrained to
think that other science would languish, institutions of learning would die out, the bonds of good
society would loosen, evil passions would riot
without restraint, and the earth would become
desolate and a ruin.
These men are generally regarded as practical
atheists; some of them are and some of them
are not idolaters. They all, however, worship
something else besides the true God. Those
who neglect God are often very superstitious.
They believe in witchcraft, or in the rappings of
spirits, or in lucky and unlucky days, or in fate,
or in some other phantom of a diseased and corrupt mind, instead of the infinitely wise, just, and
good moral Governor of the universe. Some
passion often becomes their god.
II. The second class of men are those who
entertain radically wrong notions of God.
This, of course, embraces all genuine idolaters,
men who break the second commandment as
well as the first. The earth is full of idolatry.
Men have not liked to retain God in their
knowledge and have degenerated into savages.
It embraces also those in Christian lands who
worship a false god in the name of the true one.
Those who believe the Divine One to be unjust




20           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
or partial; to be capricious, or changeable without reason; to be implacable, and fond of inflicting pain; to be void of justice, so as to allow a
sinner to escape punishment simply because it
is painful to witness suffering; to be destitute of
knowledge or interest in his own creatures, so as
not to regard prayer; to be enslaved, so as to be
a mere Fate or Necessity, or to be bound by
anything but by his own love and right and
wisdom; all these men really have another god
before God. They use the same name, it is true,
and entertain some right notions; but the grand
fact remains unchanged-they violate the first
of the Ten Commandments.
The consequences have been awful. Sin in
Churches, in professed Christendom, heresies,
variances, jealousies, ecclesiastical ambitions
and intolerance, persecutions and cruelties, have
all sprung from this prolific fountain.
Htow strong ought to be the impression on
every young mind: your entire religious character may be ruined by incorrect views of
God.
III. The third class are those who entertain
scriptural and therefore correct views of God.
No man is, I presume, absolutely faultless in
this regard. The subject is so incomprehensible, and educational influences are so diverse,
that active minds cannot pcrfectly agree upon




FIRST COMMANDMENT.            21
their conception of God. In fine, an active
mind is continually'changing its own views as
it learns new facts and receives new experiences,
and becomes more and more familiar with the
sacred writings.
Some have said that a man's idea of God
is simply a magnified conception of himself.
They seem to think that a David must think of
God as an infinite David; a Nero as an infinite Nero; a Franklin as an infinite Franklin;
and, in fact, every one as himself, with all his
deformities, infinitely magnified.
Now this is absurd. And yet there is some
truth in it; for an absurdity, you are aware, is
always a distorted truth. It is true that man
could not know God if he was not created in
God's image. We can understand God only
from  ourselves. Every attribute of God corresponds with a faculty in man, or he could not
conceive of it.
But it is possible for us, fromr ourselves as a
foundation, aided by supernatural instruction,
to obtain an idea of a perfect man, free from
our own deformities and inherent disposition to
evil, and through that, with the idea of infinity,
to rise to a conception of God.
No man, therefore, can see God as he is without having a correct idea of a good man; and
none but a pure man can rise to that idea.
Therefore Christ said in his great sermon,




22          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
" Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall
see God."  None but the pure in heart can see
God; and they see him in proportion to their
purity.
Man's own soul is the lens through which he
looks to God. But this spiritual lens, like the
lens of the eye, can be rectified and strengthened only by use. It is only by a persevering,
prayerful life of virtue, that the soul can be so
ennobled as to choose the true God for a
Ruler.
Whoever does this is a man; a full, complete,
well-rounded man. He is in sympathy with
the universe because he is at one with its
Maker. To him good is positive and eternal;
evil is exceptional, repulsive, and contemned.
If betrayed into sin he despises it, and finds no
peace till he is delivered from it and has reason
to hope that it is forgiven.
Such a man appreciates and trusts in Christ;
for Christ reveals God to man as the Saviour
of sinners, by granting them forgiveness when
they abandon sin.
How much more, then, does this commandment mean to us than it did to the Israelites
who first heard it! They understood simply
that they were to have no other god-no Isis,
or Moloch, or Dagon, or other idol-but only
to worship. Jehovah. We understand that any
ambition, hope, or purpose, if allowed to control




FIRST COMMANDMENT.           -23
us, is a rival to him; and that to have him really
is to be fully a righteous and a religious man.
This is a characteristic of the richest portions
of the Bible-to be inexhaustible in resources.
They are like the sun, whose rays served the
world for sight for ages, but afterward were
found by science to have a chemical power, and
a medical power, and a photographic power,
and may yet be found to have many other
powers. So the Bible has instruction in it not
yet discovered.
Have any of us other gods above God? If so,
the end of our false worship will be disappointment and disgrace. It matters not how common it is, how many examples of it there are,
or how pleasant for a season; that is the end.
Have any of us God on the throne of the
soul? We are safe. We cannot be permanently disappointed. We shall surely succeed.




24           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
II.
THE FIRST  COMMANDMENT.
Believe in Cod.
THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME.-ExodUS XX, 8.
THIS implies that we must have or believe in
God. The Bible nowhere adduces any arguments to prove the existence of God, or of man,
or of the earth, or stars, or the wind, or the sea,
or of spirits good and evil, or even of a soul in
man's body. Strange as it may appear to mere
logicians and theoretical theologians, the Bible
assumes the existence of all these, and proceeds
to talk about them, and reason upon them, as
though no man of good sense would call their
existence in question.
Now it is worthy of notice that no man ever
learned of the existence of God by argumentation, nor of the existence of any of the leading
beings or powers in the universe. We do not
induct children into a belief in their own existence by a syllogism, or by a combination of
premises ending with a therefore. How strange
and amusing a sight it would be to see a mother
endeavoring by a dialectical and scientific process to convince a child four years old of the




FIRST COMMANDMENT.             25
existence of the sun. She would first, I suppose, lay down the proposition or axiom that
"no effect takes place without a cause," and
illustrate it at some length. She would then
call the child's attention to the mists of the
morning, the clouds of the afternoon, the budding of the trees, the shadows cast by opaque
bodies, and a thousand other optical, and chemical, and perhaps vital phenomena; and finally
be prepared to arrive scientifically at the conclusion, " There is, there must be, therefore, a
great source of light and heat, that we may call
the sun." But probably by this time the child
would be asleep, or very much puzzled by his
mother's learned conversation; and, even though
he had his father's full understanding, his conviction of the existence of the sun would not be
half so strong and vivid from all this logic, as
he could obtain by just lifting his eyes up at once
at the great luminary as he rises in the morning,
and seeing it once for himself. As the people
well say, " Seeing is believing."  There is profound philosophy in that remark: "Seeing is
believing."
Nbw the existence of ourselves, of external
nature, and of some of the prime qualities of
both, we learn actually by " seeing." Perception
and consciousness are both of them processes of
seeing. By the one we see certain existences and
facts without us, by the other certain existences




26           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
and facts within us, as a part of us; and neither
of them can we doubt without insanity, and
neither of them can we prove or disprove by
what is commonly called a process of argumentation, or by the logical process of arriving
at truth and detecting error. If you undertake
to prove logically the existence of the earth, you
may possibly make a man doubt it; you certainly
cannot make him believe it any more strongly
than before. Precisely so with the existence of
himself, with the existence of the fact that there
is a connection described by the words cause
and effect, that there are such qualities as right
and wrong, virtue and vice, unity and diversity,
time and space, the finite and the infinite.
These thoughts and beliefs come to us, or grow
up in us, or are a part of us, so that, although
we may not think of them for years, or perhaps
may never think of them until some other person suggests them to us, when we do once learn
of them  we cannot seriously doubt of their
existence, and  we can  never forget them
again.
These are the ultimate facts, primary truths,
absolute existences, uncreated seeds of thought,
all that we know or can know about which is,
that they are, and must be, whether we think of
them or not.
Now I class our belief in the existence of God
among these primary truths believed by the




FIRST COMMANDMENT.            27
human mind, according to its own constitution,
without argument.
But there are objections to this statement.
1. It is often maintained, with a great show
of learning, that the religion of man has gradually developed and increased from a thin stratum
of fear, and a superstitious dread of the personified forces of nature, through fetichism, and
the worship of beasts, to a coarser idolatry, embracing human sacrifices, and thus on to a
refined mythology, like that of the Hindoos and
the Greeks, till finally monotheism became the
natural belief. In other words, there was a
time when no man believed in one God; but as
men advance and become sufficiently enlightened, all men will believe in one God; and perhaps the next step will be to deny his existence!
This is a very beautiful theory, that has often
been encased in the choicest style of very elegant writers, and it seems a pity to disturb it;
but there is one objection to it that honesty
compels me to present: it has no basis of fact
to rest upon. The most careful scrutinizer of
the past has never yet been able to find one
division of the human family, one race, one
nation, one little tribe, one family, who were
known once to have been idolaters, and afterward
to have arisen to a conception of the one true
God by their own mental growth, through the
process of argumentation.




28          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
Not only is there no fact to support the
theory, but unhappily for it there are many
very striking facts against it. For instance, the
oldest nations of the earth, according to all the
written and traditional records of the times,
beyond which exact history is silent, in their
earliest days seem already to have believed in
one God and worshiped him; and as their history comes down, it is found that idolatry commences and is developed as a product of later
times!
Now, in these days of the Baconian philosophy, it is exceedingly offensive to be called
upon to believe a theory because it is beautiful,
when it is not confirmed by facts, and all the
facts that do relate to it oppose it.
It is inexcusable for men to attempt to prove,
by d priori or deductive reasoning, what must
have been the origin of a practice or thing, when
we have the history to show what its origin
actually was. Men may with propriety invent
hypotheses to account for the pyramids of Egypt,
because we know nothing about their origin;
but they must not invent a theory to account
for the origin of St. Peter's Church in Rome,
or St. Paul's in London, for the origin of
these we know. They may dogmatize, if they
will, about the mounds in North America; but
they must not dogmatize about Bunker Hill
Monument or the Erie Canal, for their history




FIRST COMMANDMENT.            29
we know. Geologists may theorize about the
origin of the iNiagara Falls, but they must not
endeavor to throw a mist about the origin of the
Niagara Suspension Bridge.
We do not assume to have full daily or even
annual and unbroken records to trace the history
of a belief in one God, from this time backward
to Adam or Noah; but this we do assert: the'earliest historical records contain the doctrine;
they contain it more plainly and abundantly
than later records; and no facts exist to indicate
that the idea was a gradual indigenous growth
in any age or among any people.
A modern writer, who is far more noted for
his undigested learning than for his logic, Mr.
Buckle, gives us one phase of the hypothesis,
that religion is an effect of development and
civilization rather than a superior controlling
cause, as follows. Speaking of the Hebrews, he
says:
"Thus it was that the doctrine of one God,
taught to the Hebrews of old, remained for
many centuries altogether inoperative.  The
people to whom it was addressed had not yet
emerged from barbarism; they were, therefore,
unable to raise their minds to so elevated a conception. Like all other barbarians, they craved
after a religion which would feed their credulity
with incessant wonders; and which, instead of
abstracting the Deity to a single essence, would




30           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
multiply their gods till they covered every field
and swarmed in every forest. This is the idolatry which is the natural fruit of ignorance; and
this it is to which the Hebrews were perpetually
recurring.  Notwithstanding the most severe
and unremitting  punishments, they at every
opportunity abandoned that pure theism which
their minds were too backward to receive, and
relapsed into superstitions which they could
more easily understand, and into the worship
of the golden calf and the adoration of the
brazen serpent. Now and in this age of the
world they have long ceased to do these things.
And why?... To what possible circumstance
can this subsequent change be ascribed, except to
the simple fact that the Hebrews, like all other
people, as they advanced in civilization, began
to abstract and refine their religion, and, despising the old worship of many gods, thus, by slow
degress, elevated their minds to that steady
perception of One Great Cause, which at an
earlier period it had been vainly attempted to
impress upon them." *
Here an ingenious effort is made to produce
a conviction precisely opposite to the truth.
The idea of God among the Hebrews was not a
gradual growth. It was suddenly communi*History of Civilization in England. By Henry Thomas
Buckle. Volume I. Pp. 236, 237. London: John W. Parker
& Son, West Strand, 1857.




FIRST COMMANDMENT.           31
cated to them  through Abraham their father.
There'is no evidence that they lost it in Egypt,
though slaves and ignorant.  They relapsed
into idolatry occasionally for several generations;
but the idolatry into which they relapsed did
not imply the denial of the existence of one
supreme God. They became idolaters, not because they were ignorant, but because they were
surrounded by idolaters, and because by uniting
with them they could throw off the restraints of
the Ten Commandments, and indulge in immorality. Men are wicked now without being
atheists. The two tribes never yielded to this
temptation after their captivity, though they were
still what Buckle would term ignorant and undeveloped. How was it during the history of the
Maccabees? Were they superior in mental culture to the Macedonians  How in the time of
Christ? Was Josephus superior as a philosopher
to Tacitus? the Pharisees to the Stoics? He
must indeed be blind, or must manufacture his
own facts as well as theories, who does not see
that the very central idea of the old Hebrew
nation was ONE GOD; and that though they
were unfaithful to it for a time, afterward,
through trials and discipline, without any perceptible advance in mental culture, and while
still inferior in this to many heathen around them,
they finally became profound believers in God,
and performed their mission in that regard well.




32           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
Facts all seem to point to the conclusion that
the world has never, since history began, been
destitute of a belief in God-one uncreated,
independent Creator and Ruler. Occasionally
parts of nations have forgotten it; the worship
of demons, or of beings supposed to be superior
to man, but inferior, of course, to God, has sometimes so degraded the mind as to cause the
populace to forget God; but there have always
been some who have preserved the doctrine,
and few indeed have been the adult human
beings that have not in some form heard and
thought of it. This idea is one of the common
possessions of humanity. Every language has
its word. for it; every human being has some
idea of what that word means.
2. But still another practical objection may
be urged to the proposition that a belief in
God is one of those truths that the mind has
without argument, and from its own nature
believes.
It may be said that men who are not taught
the doctrine do not believe it. The deaf and
dumb are appealed to. Some of the most interesting questions relating to the mind may be
investigated by observing the mental operations
of those persons who are deprived of one or
more of the senses. They are obliged to act
more slowly than other men, and therefore we
can see the process; or we can learn how much




FIRST COMMANDMENT.           33
and how little we acquire through the senses
of which they are deprived. Now of all of the
deaf and dumb that have been taught to think
and communicate thought, from the days of the
Abbe Sicard until now-and they number thousands-not one has been found who says that
he was conscious of any idea of God, one or
many, till after he had received the idea from
his teacher. Hundreds have been directly asked
the question, and the reply is always in substance the same: "I did not think of God."
Some express their former fears and anxieties
and strange feelings when they went to church
and saw what they afterward learned was worship; and some were amazed at attending funerals to see a person lying motionless and buried;
but none of these things gave them an idea of
God. Many of them had an idea of immortality, or rather no definite idea of death; but none
had ever thought of God.
This fact seems at first to be equally opposed
both to the theory that we arrive at our knowledge of God from the observation of evidence of
power, design, and intelligence in the works of
nature, and also to the theory that we obtain
our idea of God from our own souls, or that it
is born in us. If we obtain it from argument,
why are not some of these deaf and dumb persons intelligent and acute enough to find out
God by argument before they are taught the




34           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
language of signs. If the idea is born within
us, why is it not born in them?
To this we can only say that the fact alone is
not conclusive proof of any position on the
question at issue. It does, however, indicate
that all of us are indebted for our first thoughts
about God to information received from  others.
This is undoubtedly as a matter of fact true.
Probably all who listen to me now received
their first ideas of God from their mother, or
from some one who took the mother's place. It
was while in your mother's lap, or just learning
to walk, when that feeble intellect was just putting forth the tender buds of promise; and your
limited vocabulary of words was almost constantly employed in asking questions, that you
first heard the awful word, GOD. How blessed
a thing it is that mothers frequently are pious,
at least in the presence of their little children,
for it evinces a fearful hardness of heart and insensibility to love, for a mother to fail to give
all possible good influence to the tender mind
of her child. And thus it comes to pass that
nearly all children, at least in a Christian land,
learn of God from their mothers. Often, too,
the father aids, and he can only aid in this
work. The holy instinct of a mother's love
leads her to reject with scorn the cold and
wicked philosophy of Rousseau, who would fain
have all children, like the deaf and dumb, kept




FIRST COMMANDMENT.             35
entirely ignorant of God and Christ, and heaven
and hell, and right and wrong, and everything
religious, till they were adults, in order that
they might not be prejudiced!  This is like
forbidding children to eat anything till they
are adults, for fear they might violate the laws
of health or injure their constitutions! It is
about as well to starve physically as spiritually;
the mind as well as body can be developed only
by use.
This communication of the idea of God from
parents to children corresponds exactly with the
practical directions of the Bible.  The Hebrews
were positively commanded and required to
teach their children about God. It is equally
the duty of parents under the Christian dispensation. The Christian mother or father who
does not see to it that his child has correct and
full ideas of God is guilty of great neglect and
sin.
But how does this fact bear on the proposition
that the idea of God is an intuition of the mind,
originated or sustained by the soul itself, and
not dependent for its reception or its force upon
argumentation    Simply thus far only. It is
found that the child, when the idea is once presented, naturally grasps and holds upon it, and
never forgets it. If it was the result of an argument, he might forget it; many would certainly
forget the logical process that leads to it, and




36              PILLARS OF TRUTH.
their belief in it would thus be weakened. But
this is not the fact.  Men never forget the idea
of God. No man naturally disbelieves it. Every
man, every child, naturally feels it to be true.
Reason may by and by confirm  it; knowledge
will modify it; his idea of the Divine One will
change very much, but his mind always tends to
embrace and cling to it.  We pronounce it thus
an original product of the mind itself, though it
needs the  suggestion  of some  other mind, at
least usually, to bring  it into  the  range  of
consciousness.*. Now this is true of other intuitions, such as
space, time, eternity.  There are many  adults,
doubtless, who  have  never thought of space,
boundless, empty space, in which all things that
are or can be can exist, and yet have just as
much  of it as though  there was not a single
thing created.  I say many have never thought
of this mysterious infinite space, but after they
* This principle is recognized by all good mental philosophers.
It is stated by nearly all.  Perhaps a better statement of it
cannot be found than that of Cicero in llis De Oratore, lib. iii,
cap. 3. "Nam neque tam est acris acies in naturis hominum,
et ingeniis, ut res tantas quisquam, nisi monstratus, passit
videre; neque tanta tamen in rebus obseuritas, ut eas non
penitus acri vir ingenio cernat, si mode adspexerit:"  For
there is not sufficient acuteness in the nature or intellect of
man to perceive these truths unless they are told to him;
nor yet is there such a kind of obscurity about these truths
that any man of good sense can fail at once to perceive them,
if once his attention is called to them.




FIRST COMMANDMENT.             37
have once thought of it they never can forget it;
they never can deny its existence. This, therefore, we call an intuition. It is a thought revealed, not by argumentation, but by simple
presentation.  It grows out of our own soul,
though few even think of it until it is suggested.
If there are two violins near each other, and a
string on one is made to vibrate and sound, the
corresponding string on the other also vibrates
in unison with it.  Now if that second violin
only had a consciousness and a will, it might
prolong and increase that sympathetic vibration
into a loud, joyous life. This is precisely the
way that souls act and react on each other in the
awakening of these intuitions.  They are silent
till aroused; but when aroused they act spontaneously. The older one, having been stimulated into action by a predecessor, in turn stimulates another, and each has a self-sustaining,
moving power of its own. Thus do we learn to
think of God. I believe that it would be of great
advantage to all well-educated men to understand
thoroughly the basis on which true religious convictions rest, and therefore I propose to examine
this subject a little more closely. If it was my
object only to amuse, or even interest, I might
choose a subject less abstruse and more rhetorical; but, young men, you will hereafter be
appealed to as liberally educated men; you
certainly ought to scrutinize carefully the foun



38           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
dations of faith; and if you have a faith.and
hope, be ready to give a reason for it; and
if you have not a faith and hope, be ready
to give a satisactory reason for that fact if
you can.
The doctrine that our idea of God is one of
the primary convictions or knowledges of the
human mind, needing only to be suggested to
be at once spontaneously comprehended and
felt, is confirmed by the fact that several other
ideas are of precisely the same character. The
idea of cause and effect, of right and wrong, of
unity and diversity, are of this kind.  Also there
is in man's mind a spontaneous power of entertaining such views of the external world, and of
himself, as requires the use of language. Language, therefore, is not a gradual growth any
more than religion. You are aware that precisely the same diverse theories on the origin of
language have been entertained as on the origin
of religion. Some have imagined that men once
were so ignorant and brutal that they uttered
only inarticulate cries, like the chatterings of
monkeys, the brumming of oxen, the neighing
of horses, and the barking of dogs. Finally
some genius among these human dogs first blundered upon articulation, and began to assign
names to things. Afterward another genius
invented verbs, and then another prefixes and
suffixes, another adjectives and adverbs, till




FIRST COMMANDMENT.          39
finally the euphonious and flexible speech of a
refined people was reached.
Now the objection to this beautiful theory is
that it has no known basis of fact, and what
facts we have bear against it. The earliest
known languages are rich in vocabulary, complicated in structure, philosophical and refined
in their laws of variation. Almost all savages
have a language too good for themselves to
understand, and which certainly could not have
been invented by more savage predecessors.
They indicate deterioration and not progress in
the people.
Herodotus, in his gossiping account of his
travels in Syria, relates an experiment which
was tried there by a curious philosopher at
least five hundred years before Christ. This
relation, by the way, proves that the theory of
inductive reasoning was understood not only
before Bacon, but even before Aristotle, Plato,
and Socrates. But though understood, it was
not extensively and properly practiced, the great
mistake of the ancients being a too great reliance upon the power of their own minds in
deductive reasoning, and not giving a sufficient
attention to known facts. The relation of
Herodotus is as follows:
Before the reign of their king Psammetichus
the Egyptians esteemed themselves the most
ancient of the human race; but that king in



40           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
vestigated the matter, and decided that the
Phrygians were older. His method was to select
two infants and have them nursed by a shepherd
without any opportunity of hearing a word
uttered, and it was found that both of them
when two years old first pronounced the word
bekos, which in the Phrygian language meant
bread.
The prince philosopher did not observe that
the word bekos might have been an imperfect
imitation of the bleating of a sheep, which the
little ones often had heard.
Rev. Dr. Horace Bushnell, in his chapter on
language, introductory to the argument of his
work entitled " God in Christ," gives us a description of a singular fact bearing on this subject that is said to have happened in Connecticut
a few years ago. He says:
"A very distinguished artisan, whose name is
familiar to the country at large, himself a scholar
and a keen philosophic observer, had a pair of
twin boys who were drawn to each other with
such a mysterious and truly congenital fondness
as to be totally occupied with each other, and
thus to make little or no progress in learning
the language of the family. Meantime they
were constantly talking with each other in a
language constructed between them, which no
one but themselves could understand. In this
*See Herodotus, book ii, chap. 2.




FIRST COMMANDMENT.             41
language they conversed at their plays as freely
as men at their business, and in a manner that
indicated the most perfect intelligence between
them.  At an early age one of them died; and
with him died, never to be spoken again, what,
beyond any reason for doubt, was the root of a
new original diversity of human speech, a new
tongue." *
This is very strongly stated, but it is not
sufficiently exact to be of any scientific value.
Dr. Bushnell did not himself see or hear the
two children speak their new language. The
father may have been deceived by his parental
fondness. Besides, it is strange that no other
members of the family are represented as having learned a word of the new speech. Had the
little ones spoken Chinese or Hebrew the other
members of the family would have learned it.
Though there may have been some foundation
for the narrative, it is too isolated and unsupported and unnatural to base any reasoning
upon it alone.
Dr. Bushnell adds:
" Indeed, tobelieve that any two human beings,
shut up wholly to each other, to live together
until they are of mature age, would not construct
* God in Christ. Three Discourses delivered at New
Haven, Cambridge, and Andover, with a Preliminary Dissertation on Language. By Horace Bushnell. Pp. 17, 18. Hartford:
Brown & Parsons. 1849.




42          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
a language, is equivalent, in my estimation, to a
denial of their proper humanity."
That also is a strong statement, but it is simply an opinion. So to suppose that a single
human being of good sense and intellect would
grow up to adult age without an idea of a
Creator, would seem  at first to impugn his
proper humanity, and yet many such human
beings have grown up. We are little aware
how much we owe to education, and especially
education by example. The most complicated
processes seem simple after they are once understood. How simple a process is writing, and yet
the world of men lived centuries without an alphabet. Men, perhaps, will by and by wonder
that the world could have stood six thousand
years without a magnetic telegraph!
In process of time, perhaps, many of these
questions may be tested by actual experiment,
on a sufficiently large scale to ascertain the
truth. In the mean time we should not too
confidently theorize upon them.
How many of these central ideas of the human
soul-ideas of the reason, as the transcendentalists call them-were actually reached by man
without any stimulus from a higher being or an
instructor, cannot now be ascertained. If man
was originally created by God by a direct fiat,
as both reason and the Bible teach, he cannot
have been thrust into this world as an adult




FIRST COMMANDMENTo           43
infant; but he must have had aroused in him
those primitive energies of the soul which give
him character, among which are an appreciation of cause and effect, a feeling of the difference between right and wrong, and an idea of
God.
All facts seem to indicate that man when
created was taught at once also to speak. The
outward world, to be understood, requires the
use of language. Subjectively in man there is
a nature that is fitted to the use of language.
This is no more true of the vocal apparatus than
of the intellect and whole soul. And though it
may be doubtful whether man, being wholly
destitute of language, would not live even for
centuries without originating one, yet it is
evident that, once given to him, he is fitted to
receive, appreciate, and use it, and that he can
never forget to use speech. Man can degenerate from civilization to barbarism. He can lose
the use of fire, the arts of metallurgy and of carpentry, the restraints of law and decency; but
should he sink so low as to forget the use of
language and the idea of God, he would not be
far from death, and the race would soon become
extinct. That some tribes have sunk into such
savagism cannot be denied; but that any have
unaided risen from it to monotheism and refinement, cannot be shown.
My belief is that it is as natural for man to




44           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
believe in God as it is to exercise speech, or to
make music, or to organize government. While
we can inagine man to live for ages without
either, we have no reason to believe that he
did, and if the practices or thoughts were once
reached they would never be forgotten.
This view should be guarded from  the extreme statement that an idea of God is an
instinct. By instinct is meant an impulse or
feeling in an animal which prompts him to act
in a wise and proper course, without understanding the reason of his action and without education from others. Thus birds that have never
seen any of their own kind will build their nests
without instruction, according to the habits of
their particular species. Insects hatched from
the egg, without the company of other insects,
will not only provide for themselves, but make
ample and exactly the required provision for
their posterity; all of which shows that they
act without instruction and without reason.
The honey-bee makes his hexagonal cells for
the honey, it being precisely of that form in
which a given amount of material, like wax,
could be made to hold the greatest possible
amount of substance, like honey.. That this was
the required form for such a purpose could be
approximately shown by experiment, but could
not be demonstrated mathematically without a
use of the differential calculus, a science which




FIRST COMMANDMENT.            45
we can  scarcely  allow  that. the honey-bee
comprehends.
Now we do not claim that man's conception
of God is an instinct.
Man has few instincts, and those few are
mostly brought into exercise when he is in
infancy and helpless. Man depends on education and reason. But education cannot work
without material, and reason requires her fundamental and acknowledged principles. So soon
as man can exercise the senses, and understand
what he feels, the mind, by its internal resources,
begins to suggest to him the great central principles of mathematical and mental and moral
science. As from time to time, mostly by the
aid of some teacher, he is taught to observe his
own mental actions, these principles become to
him  acknowledged, established, appreciated,
and believed. They cannot be doubted without trouble; they cannot be denied without
remorse; and if any persist in a verbal denial
of them, others are convinced that the denial is
only superficial and verbal, or that some abnormal influence has temporarily clouded the
reason of the unhappy skeptics.
Such is the common belief of man in God.
If my position is correct, we see the impropriety of those labored arguments often found
in theological works to prove the existence of
God. The very title and aim of the arguments




46           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
are offensive. When Bishop Watson presented
a copy of his work, entitled "' An Apology for
the Bible," to George III., the king remarked,
"I did not know that the Bible needed an
apology."  He was not aware that the bishop
had used the word in its Greek and not in its
English sense, meaning an argument for the
Bible; but his criticism was a good one. The
title of the book in English was unfortunate.
The office of observation and argument is to
confirm our belief in God, to show his attributes, his nature, his will, and not to prove his
existence, as though that was a thing to be
established by a process of ratiocination, or
reached by a long and laborious study, like a
formula in calculus.
God! the universe is full of him. His voice
is in the running brook, the whispering breeze,
the roaring ocean. His beauty is seen in the
stars, the firmament, the ocean, the dew-drop.
Nothing is too small to show his skill, too vast
to speak his power.
What is the practical use of this subject? Simply this: to make or deepen the impression that
not to think of God is both a folly and a crime.
It suppresses and benumbs and destroys our
highest faculties. It shuts us out from  the
largest and best enjoyments. It belittles us
and imbrutes lus. But to think of God as he is
-omnipotent, omnipresent, holy, indignant at




FIRST COMMANDMENT.            47
sin, loving goodness, personal, and interested in
s —is the substance of a right life. "The fear
of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."
Only through Christ and in him can we obtain a full and correct view of God, and only.by repentance and abandonment of sin are we
prepared to love God; and thus there is revealed
to us a richness of meaning in his holy word
that otherwise we cannot see.




48               PILLARS OF TRUTH.
III.
THE SECOND COMMANDIENT.
Idolatry.
THOU SHALT NOT MAKE UNTO THEE ANY GRAVEN IMAGE, OR ANY LIKENESS OF ANYTHING THAT IS IN HEAVEN ABOVE, OR THAT IS IN THE EARTH
BENEATH, OR THAT IS IN TIIE WATER UNDER THE EARTHI: THOU SHALT
NOT B1OW DOWN THYSELF TO THEM, NOR SERVE THEM; FOR I TIIE
LORD THY GOD AM A JEALOUS GOD, VISITING THE INIQUITY OF TIIE
FATHERS UPON THEIR CHILDREN UNTO THE THIRD AND FOURTH GENERATION OF THEM THAT HATE ME; AND SHOWING MERCY UNTO THOUSANDS
OF THEM THAT LOVE ME, AND KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS.-Exodus XX, 4-6.
ONE  half of the world  and  more are the worshipers of idols. If we estimate the population
of the  globe  to be one thousand  millions, at
least five hundred millions are provided with
images, to which they offer religious worship
with more or less earnestness. Indeed the Bible
seems to intimate, and other history seems to
corroborate the opinion, that once all the world
were idolaters.  In the cays of Abraham, who
besides  him   was  not accustomed  to  worship
idols?   And  for a  long  time who besides his
descendants were  not  idolaters?  And  when
Elijah  thought that he was alone, but it was
afterward  supernaturally revealed  to him  that
there were' seven thousand men  that had not
bowed their knees to Baal," how many more in all




SECOND COMMANDMENT.           49
the world besides this seven thousand were there
that did not bow the knee to some false god 
Indeed this is a statement in which all agree,
whatever their opinions on other matters, infidel
or Christian: once all the world was given to
idolatry. If, then, we should subscribe to a
favorite notion in America, that numerical
majorities may decide moral questions; if we
should adopt and approve the sophistical maxim
of Vincentius, Quod semper, quod ubique, quod
ab omnibus, " What is always, everywhere, and
by all received," idolatry would even now be
be voted the religion of this globe. It could today command riot only a plurality, but an absolute majority of the votes. But inasmuch as it
is wrong, we have reason to be encouraged, because now, for the first time, nearly half of the
world are redeemed from  the practice; and
soon, we may hope, all idols everywhere will be
flung to the moles and the bats, or be preserved
in museums as specimens of the superstition of
past ages.
I. I propose to inquire, first, What is idolatry? I mean idolatry proper, not figurative
or imaginary, but the real thing.
And here allow me to remark explicitly, that
I believe it to be the duty of a preacher on the
Sabbath, above all men, to be candid, and just
as entirely free from error as he can possibly be.
4




50          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
He should never consciously use a sophism, and
never discolor the truth, even to do good.
God's cause will always suffer in the end as the
result of any degree of unfairness.
I cannot, then, paint idolatry, as a sin of the
mind or heart, so black as some have drawn
it. I cannot pronounce it so absurd as most of
us from our childhood have been taught to consider it. I cannot regard some degrees and
kinds of it so intrinsically wrong as many have
pronounced it. If I had been brought up in
China or India, and was not a Jew or a Mohammedan, I should have been an idolater.
Many are idolaters innocently, and perhaps virtuously. Many who are real Christians, and are
esteemed as Christians, innocently, through ignorance, practice a kind of idolatry. Idolatry
is not a practice pronounced to be wrong by
the common untaught conscience of all men,
like murder or theft. If you hear of a tribe of
men, or of an individual man, that professes to
believe that murder is not wrong, you infer that
that man is insane, or that tribe has perverted
or lost their manhood, and are no more fair
specimens of the common conscience than the
aboriginal dirt-eaters of California are fair specimens of the taste of man for food. But when
you hear of a tribe that they are idolaters, you
do not deem it indicative of idiocy or insanity.
We should never know idolatry to be wrong




SECOND COMMANDMENT.           51
unless informed of the fact supernaturally, or
unless we had thought out the fact by the severest logic; and therefore, till we should thus
learn it, it would not be wrong for us, though
of course in itself always wrong.
Idolatry is not so puerile and illogical as many
now affect to consider it. It might be enough to
say on this point that Socrates was an idolater;
and if any man pronounces Socrates unwise or
immoral, it is simply because he knows nothing,
or very little about the subject. No man who
believes that Socrates uttered the sentiments
attributed to him, and lived the life related of
him by his disciples-Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon-can doubt that he was a wise and a good
man; but he was an idolater. His last utterance was a request that a sacrifice which he
had promised to the god Esculapius should be
offered. Plato was a profound man, and Plato
was an idolater. Aristotle was encyclopedical
in knowledge, and constructed his vast information into systems of thinking of wonderful
symmetry; and Aristotle was an idolater.
Nor must we be so arrogant as to suppose
that there is no wisdom, and that there are no
wise men, no skillful jurists, no profound legislators, no accomplished leaders, no strong and
well-disciplined minds in China or Hindostan.
Some of the Indian philosophy quite rivals the
Greek in acumen and breadth. Some of the




52           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
Indian poetry is rich in thought and passion.
And think you a population of two hundred
millions of human beings could be supported
and governed in the United States of America
without learned and able statesmen, without
scientific agriculture, without labor-saving machinery, without well-regulated industry, without high civilization? But if this would be the
fact in America what must be the fact in China?
It is preposterous pride and folly alone that
would lead us to suppose ourselves superior to
the Chinese in some of the most essential arts
of life.' Facts speak louder than words; and
certainly in some facts they surpass us. But
the Chinese are idolaters.
I. It becomes us, then, first to investigate the
question,
WHAT IS IDOLATRY 
Some have taught that idolatry is the worship
of an image, or images, with the belief that those
images are God, the very God that made heaven
and earth.
This is entirely an error. So stupid a human
being probably never lived. It would indicate
not only stupidity, but an entire perversion of
the human intellect, to entertain such a proposition. Any man could more easily believe that
he himself made the earth, sun, moon, and stars,
than that any wooden or brazen image of his




SECOND COMMIANDMENT.           53
construction made the earth, sun, moon, and
stars. No idolater ever conceived of so absurd
a thought.
This mistaken idea of the nature of idolatry is
easily accounted for. Idolaters were accustomed
to talk about gods. We are accustomed to talk
about God. Inasmuch as the word is the same,
we fancy that they meant by gods what we mean
by God. This is far from the truth.
By gods they usually meant mysterious powers
above or superior in some respects to men,
nevertheless interested in man; they conceived
of them as persons, each occupying a portion of
space; some larger, some smaller; some in society,
some in solitude; some in certain localities, and
interested particularly in certain peoples. Many
of these gods, indeed, were believed to have been,
and were originally, men, such as Hercules and
Esculapius.
The people in those times were not accustomed
to think closely on these subjects. They did
not inquire into evidences and probabilities on
questions of religion. These beings superior to
men were talked of before the children from
their infancy, and they could recollect no time
when they did not believe in them. In their
daily life they were constantly reminded of it.
Was there a destructive storm? Some god or
being a little or much superior to man brought
it on, and sacrifices were offered to him to induce




54           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
him to be favorable thereafter. Was there a
famine, a deluge, a drought, a plague? The
process was the same. All their domestic life
was intermingled with ceremonies of connection
with the gods.
But besides these intelligences the heathen
believed in GOD ALMIGHTY as we do, and never
attempted to make an image of him that fills
heaven and earth.
Poets and imaginative writers among them invented stories about their gods and goddessesthose fancied beings little or much higher than
men-their marriages and quarrels, their feasts
and contests. These  stories if uninteresting
were soon forgotten; if interesting, were remembered and repeated, and soon came to be
believed as facts by many of the people. Thus
a god acquired a fixed character, and all the new
stories about him were made to correspond with
his established personality. Thus arose heathen
mythology.
Ere long images were made to represent these
gods. At first rude pictures, and blocks of
wood and stone, uncouth and ugly; but in process of time, as sculpture advanced, through the
demand for these images, they became more and
more symmetrical and perfect, till in Greece,
particularly, the most splendid and various
statuary ever made represented their fancied
gods and goddesses.  The Egyptians and Hin



SECOND COMMANDMENT.           55
doos never rose above ugliness in their statues,
but both of them, in the architecture of their
temples dedicated to the worship of their gods,
surpassed all other nations in the magnitude
and expense of their structures. The great
temple of Diana at Ephesus, mentioned in the
Bible, was an Asiatic edifice, the product of
Asiatic mind and organized labor, though its
oriental magnitude was in later times adorned
with GIrecian refinement. Though the Greeks
called it one of the seven wonders of the world,
because they never saw anything like it, yet I
doubt whether in magnitude and expense it
was equal to the temple of Belos in ancient
Babylon, or to some temples now standing in
Hindostan and used for idolatrous worship.
Idolatry in some countries has been attended
by enormous expenditures of money, of labor,
and even of life. Its temples, statuary, sacrifices, priesthood, have absorbed more of the
energies of the people in some nations than
even the efforts to obtain the necessaries of life.
There is no accurate and comprehensive calculation upon this subject with which I am acquainted, but, undoubtedly, it will be investigated;. and when so, the result will probably
astonish the Christian world, and perhaps
make the Church ashamed of its comparatively
feeble efforts to honor the real God of the
universe.




56           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
Our definition of idolatry is the following:
Idolatry is the worship of any object, living or
dead, natural or artificial, supposed to have
power (or to represent some being that has
power) to reward the worshiper. This includes
the worship of men, such as the worship of the
Grand Lama, in Thibet; the worship of the
ghosts of dead men, such as, perhaps, the worship of Apollo, Esculapius, Hercules, and even
Jupiter; the worship of the sun, moon, and
stars, of rivers and mountains, and of all
idols or images made to represent any fancied
spiritual beings.
Almost everything in the heavens above and
in the earth beneath and in the waters under
the earth has been worshiped, from the sun to
a pebble; from the moving firmament to an insignificant annual plant; from  a man to the
entrails of a dead beast. To us, educated with
the open Bible, and enlightened by the severe
natural and mathematical and historical science
of modern times —cience, in which no genuine
idolaters of a low style of religion ever did
or could  excel without laying  aside  their
superstitions-to us, no phenomena of human
nature are so marvelous as some of the facts of
idolatry.
We can understand how men might worship
the sun, moon, and stars, before the revelations
of the telescope and of geography and of math



SECOND COMMANDMENT.            57
ematics, for they might fancy them alive or the
representatives of living powers; we can lunderstand how men might worship great men of past
generations, like Washington or Columbus, for
what is more natural than to suppose that
Washington now as a spirit should watch over
the United States, and Columbus over America?
And even now millions of Christians pray to
saints, which is idolatry. We can imagine that
a statue, or a mountain, or a river might be
worshiped, as representing an invisible demon
or angel; but that men should worship a brother
man, like the Lama, or a Roman emperor; that
human beings should worship a cow, or cat, or
a piece of broken glass, or a fragment of tin,
only shows to what depths of ignorance and
folly human beings can plunge. Still it maybe
better even to worship an insect or a stick than
to worship nothing, for this degraded practice
reveals the presence of an instinct which God
has created, and which ought to. be exercised;
and which, when directed to the great Author of
our being, exalts us into intimacy with Christ
and into a fitness for heaven.
Idolatry then, in itself, is not so absurd as
some have deemed it. If we were not divinely
informed that it is wrong, and leads to evil, we
might deem  it reasonable, as it certainly is
natural.  But for the Bible, all the world would
again become idolaters.




58          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
Having thus considered the nature of idolatry,
we pass on to inquire,
II. WHAT RENDERS IDOLATRY SINFUL?
Idolatry is explicitly, uniformly, and repeatedly forbidden in the Bible. It is condemned
alike by Judaism and Christianity. It is unequivocally and positively prohibited to all who
receive the Bible. To those who know not its
sinfulness it may be excused, for an inspired
apostle said, when exposing its folly and wickedness, " The times of this ignorance God winked
at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to
repent," to change their thoughts and their actions on this subject, "for he hath appointed a
day in which he will judge the world, by that
man "-his Son Jesus Christ-" whom he hath
ordained " to be the Judge of the world, " whereof he hath given us assurance in that he hath
raised him from the dead."
In portraying the evils of idolatry we must
not place the philosophy of man above the
declaration of God. God's reasons, we may be
sure, are the strongest reasons.
God's main reason, if I may be allowed the
expression, the prime and only reason which
God saw fit to write on the stony tablet of the
Decalogue, is this: "For I, the Lord thy God,
am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the
fathers upon the children unto the third and




SECOND COMMANDM[ENT.          59
fourth generation of them that hate me; and
showing mercy unto thousands of them  that
love me and keep my commandments."
Now, friends, let us look at this awful divine
assertion carefully, without prejudice, without
shrinking, in the daylight of truth.
There is a God. Jehovah, the maker of all
things, exists. He is not absent from any place.
All men know that he exists, or should know it
and feel it. How men came to know of the existence of God is stated in the Bible. In the
earliest ages of history God revealed this truth
to the first generation. And this truth is of
such a character, it is so consonant with the
human reason, it is so confirmed by the appearance of the result of wisdom and power in the
world of matter and mind, that once given to
man it cannot well be wholly lost. And, indeed,
God has himself guarded against having it lost.
The greatest purpose of the foundation and
preservation of the Israelitish nation was to insure the world against the loss of a belief in God.
All the great races of men have believed in God.
All the leading languages have a particular
term for the Divine One. The thinking men
among idolaters generally have believed in the
one God. The Egyptians, the Greeks, the
Romans, the primitive men of Europe, the
aborigines of America, all believed in God,
though they were idolaters.




60           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
But we are taught in the Scriptures not only
that there is one God, and only one, but that
he is a Person.  lie is a Being of character and
will, of pleasure and displeasure, of approval
and disapproval, of action, of reward, and
punishment.  I-e is not a silent, passionless
One, as some of the East Indian philosophers
have foolishly imagined. He is not a great
Fate, or blind Necessity, as some of the Greek
philosophers vainly  taught.  He  is  not a
mere Law, or infinite, unfeeling, unreasoning Power, as some modern naturalistic theists
seem  to suppose.  Ile has the three great
elements of a perfect mind-sensibilities, reason, will.
Now this must not be forgotten. Whoever
denies it is no Christian. Whoever denies it
dishonors God.
Observe, every faculty, every capability in
man's soul is a representative of what exists in
God. Man is finite, but finiteness is not a
passion or faculty, it is only a limitation; but
this finiteness subjects man to conditions that
cannot exist in God. Evil passions in man are
not intrinsically evil elements, but only good
passions wrongly exercised. There is love in
man and love in God; but man's love is often
wrong, God's love is always right.  There is
anger in man and in God; but man's anger is
often wrong in object and degree, God's anger




SECOND COMMANDMENT.            61
is always right. This is true of all passions
and of all modes of mental action.
Now God assures us in the text —which is a
part of the Decalogue, God's own handwriting
-that he is a JEALOUS GOD.
Jealousy is, therefore, sometimes right. The
word translated jealous here is used in this form
only to describe the displeasure and indignation
of the Divine One, if he should be neglected, by
his well-instructed people, for the worship of any
other being. But words from the same root are
used to exhibit displeasure at being neglected,
indignation at seeing what one may justly claim
conferred upon another.
God has created man with such faculties and
energies that, if man is not perverted, he will
love his Creator. God sees that it is wrong for
a man to lavish on an idol the emotion due to
himself. He therefore feels it to be a wrong.
Knowingly done, it is an insult; unwittingly
done, it is still an offense.
May we not illustrate this from  our own
nature   The father and mother have a claim
to the love and respect of their child. If a child
capriciously, or to obtain improper indulgence,
forsakes his parents, neglects them, dishonors
them, seeks a friend to honor and confide in,
in some inferior, unworthy person, have not
the parents a right to be jealous?  Does not
our purest, unsophisticated conscience approve




62          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
the grief and the resentment of the father
and the mother? But why?  Has God given
to a good human parent, created in his image,
a passion not found in his infinite heart?  " He
that formed the eye, shall he not see? He that
planted the ear, shall he not hear?  He that
teacheth knowledge, shall he not know?. He
that has made you to exercise a good and righteous feeling, shall he not feel? Be assured
there is not an emotion expressed by word, or
gesture, or action, by poetry, oratory, or the
imitative arts, the perfect prototype of which is
not in the Infinite Heart; there is not a thought,
a perception, a relation, a law, a truth, in the
compass of human science, the unlimited source
of which is not in the Infinite Mind. When,
therefore, God asserts that we must not worship
an image, because he is "a jealous God," he
must mean that he desires our love and worship;
he resents it as a wrong if we withhold it; he
looks upon it as an insult if we bestow it upon
any created thing.
How criminal, then, is idolatry! How ungrateful it is not to worship God!
Here I might naturally close this discourse, for
this completes the most obvious practical instruction of the text; nevertheless careful examination
shows that not only does the Divine One resent
idolatry,but that in his infinite justice punishment
follows. These words demand examination.




SECOND COMMANDMENT.            63
III. How does God " visit the iniquity of the
fathers upon the children unto the third and
fourth generation of them that hate him? "
Observe, this is spoken of idolaters; and also
only of those idolaters who once knew God, but
forsook his worship for idols.
This punishment may be what men would call
natural, for God is the author of nature. If a
man swallows poison he is punished by loss of
life. God is the author of the effect. Nature is
only growth; but this growth itself must have a
living, personal cause, and that is God.
Now the natural effects of idolatry-the effects which God has appointed and brings
about-are,
1. Pernicious to the mind.  It degrades
the intellect; it destroys the power of careful
investigation. What is truly called science cannot flourish with idolatry. No heathen people
have been noted for science. They have had
literature and art, but their science is elementary, generally contemptible. Greek and Roman
science was scarcely above contempt, wholly unworthy of the attainments of their great men
in other branches of mental activity. And
nearly all of their men who did investigate
science, even to their limited extent, practically
discarded idolatry during their active life. They
became theists, or sole believers in one God,
regarding idolatrous mythology as largely alle



64          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
gorical or uncertain, and of more profit to the
people than to them. Deism was a step upward
for idolaters.
2. Idolatry belittles the soul. The human soul
wants a perfect standard to aspire after. Deprived of this it is like an eagle with clipped
wings, compelled to lie on the ground and to
flounder in the mud. The tendency of an
idolatrous people is always downward, never
upward. There is no instance in the history of
the world of an idolatrous people's rising up
without missionary aid from abroad, throwing
off their idols and becoming men. Infidel philosophy is continually prating about the gradual
improvement of man; but when, on the Baconian
system, we ask for an instance of a whole tribe
rising from idolatry to theism, from savagism to
civilization, without missionary aid, it is silent.
No such instance was ever known. An idolatrous nation is like a man addicted to intemperance: there is little hope of either becoming
sober. We say of an habitual drunkard, who
always resolves after every fit of drunkenness
that he will drink no more, but, nevertheless,
returns again to his cups, Poor fellow, he is a
ruined man.  So God said of the Ten Tribes
of Israel, five sixths of the descendants of the
people who had first heard this Decalogue, after
they had become idolaters, " Ephraim is joined
to his idols: let him alone.'




SECOND COMMANDMENT.           65
This downward tendency of idol worshipers
is forcibly stated by the Apostle Paul in his
Epistle to the Romans, many of whom  had
lately been rescued from it. "Because that,"
says he, " when they knew God, they glorified
him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves
to be wise, they became fools, and changed the
glory of the incorruptible God into an image
made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and
four-footed beasts, and creeping things."
3. But another and severer punishment of idolatry is immorality. The heathen cannot maintain a high standard of morality. They have
no written word. Their gods and goddesses
are nothing but the conceptions of wicked men.
They are peevish, avaricious, cruel, thieving,
lustful, and if any of them have any goodness
or virtue it is incomplete and deceptive; and
those who worship them  tend to become like
them, only worse; for it is a well-known law of
human nature, that imitators generally surpass
their models in their faults and fall short of them
in their excellences.  Therefore in morality
idolaters constantly tend to degenerate. All history confirms this proposition. The exceptions
stand out glaringly as exceptions, and may easily
be accounted for, and thus illustrate the rule.
The Apostle Paul, in his same letter to the
5




66          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
Bomans, presented this subject with great fullness, from whose description we quote but a few
words more: " And even as they did not like
to retain God in their knowledge, God gave
them  over to a reprobate mind, to do those
things which are not convenient; being filled
with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy,
murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud,
boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient
to parents, without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable,
unmerciful: who, knowing the judgment of
God, that they which commit such things are
worthy of death, not only do the same, but have
pleasure in them that do them."
This terrible picture of the morals of heathenism is inspired. This picture we know to be
true. That all idolaters are not alike degraded
and polluted I acknowledge. This only shows
the recuperative energies of the human soul,
acted upon by God's Spirit, never absent from
man. That some bright specimens of virtue
occasionally present themselves is true, but
they are only oases in the wilderness of death,
only faint phosphorescent gleams in the ocean
of desolation. Whole nations have perished in
this maelstrom  of hell.  The long lost Ten
Tribes of Israel, that theorists and geographers




SECOND COMMANDMENT.             67
have sought so diligently on this little globe,
where are they? Gone down into the idolater's
grave, never to rise again till the judgment of
the great day!
"Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, where
are they? "  Echo answers, Where 
There are races now  on earth inoculated
with the virus of destruction beyond recovery.
There is but one medicine competent to save
them, and that they will not take, and some
will perish, I fear, before they have the offer.
This is the just judgment of Heaven upon
those who do "not like to retain God in their
knowledge."
But are there not some practical lessons in
this for us?  I answer, yes; and with one or
two I close.
1. First, we ought earnestly to guard against
idolatry ourselves.  The first step is a neglect
of the worship of God. It is easy to be irreligious; it is hard to be non-religious. It is
unnatural to be inactive. We cannot without
persistent violence smother a faculty of the soul.
The hand will move; the feet will walk; the
eyes will see; the ears will hear; the reason
will inquire; the affections will fasten upon some
object.  The religious nature will act.  In
affliction, in distress, in disappointment, in
extreme danger, the soul will pray. Let it be,
then, to God. Cultivate the habit of it in youth,




68           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
in health, even now. Lay in a stock of good
principles and of good habits. Thus )guard
against those "evil days in which you will have
no pleasure in " the senses, or in the things of the
earth.  The only true safeguard against some
insidious form of false worship is the worship
of God.
2. These idolaters have a claim upon you.
Some of you may yet be called to be missionaries to the heathen. Almost every college in
the land has missionaries raising the banner of
Christ before the gaze of those taught to worship idols. Already some of our alumni, of at
least two branches of our university, are there;
and some have fallen on the field where they
pointed sinners to Christ, or have come home to
die. Why may not others follow? Undoubtedly others will. It is the noblest field for
faithful, self-denying men.
Remember, many of these idolaters now are
not to blame. It was their fathers, not they,
who "did not like to retain God in their knowledge.'  God hath yet much people among them.
They are waiting to be instructed.  The Macedonian cry is rising from many a district,' Come
over and help us." Shall not the Church respond   Shall the nations perish, and their more
favored brethren not lift a hand to save them?
Shall half the world receive the Gospel, and
that largely, through missionary efforts, and




SECOND COMMANDMENT.           69
then shall the recreant sons and daughters of
the Church let its banners trail in the dust,
and the rising tides of darkness surge over the
world? No. Forbid it, Heaven! Forbid it,
men! In the name of the Bible societies, publishing annually millions of copies of the blessed
Word, forbid it! In the name of the missionary
societies of every vital part of the Christian
Church, forbid it!  In the  name  of the
fallen martyrs, such as Schwartz and Henry
Martyn and Fisk and Cox and Elliott and
Judson and Collins, and a host of others,
men and women of whom the world was not
worthy, who have died among the poor heathen they went to bless, and over whose graves
thousands converted from  heathenism  have
wept, forbid it! It must not, shall not be.
We will be interested in this work. The
Church shall have its laborers, and the Church
shall sustain them, till not a city, or village, or
hamlet, or wandering tribe, or hut, or wigwam,
or cave on the round earth, shall be found,
where God the Father, Christ the Son, and
the Holy Spirit, One Jehovah, shall not be
known.
This hope has inspired Christians from the
beginning. This faith makes Christianity not
a " religion of sorrow," but of hope. Ancient
literature looked backward to a fancied golden
age; we look forward to a paradise regained.




70               PILLARS OF TRUTH.
Yea, truth and justice, then,
Will down return to men,
Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,
Mercy will sit between,
Throned in celestial sheen,
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;
And heaven, as at some festival,
Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall."
Then the remaining temples of idolatry will
be consecrated to the worship of God, and the
world will wonder at the stories of past ignorance
and shame.




THIRD COMMANDMENT.   7          1
IV.
THE THIRD COMMANDMENT.
Honor to the Name of God.
THOu BEHAiLT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN VAIN: FOM
THE LORD WILL NOT HOLD HIM GUILTLESS THAT TAKETH HIS NAME IN
VAIN.-Exodus xx, T.
THE first commandment and the second require
the worship of God alone; the third commandment also guards the character of God.
To " take the name of God" is to employ it
in any way, by utterance, writing, or symbol.
The Hebrew word rendered " in vain " means
originally "for evil;" and the commandment
means, "Thou  shalt not use the name of
Jehovah, thy God, for any evil purpose, for the
Lord will not regard as pure any person who
uses his name for an evil purpose." The Septuagint translates the word by an expression
which means in Greek " in vain," and this meaning seems to have been carelessly and almost
universally  consented  to in  modern  times,
though it falls far short of the full meaning
of the commandment.
Undoubtedly the chief thing forbidden in this
commandment is a false oath, or swearing to a
lie; but it also forbids the use of the name of




72          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
God to accomplish any evil end; and, lastly,
more by implication than by direct statement,
it forbids useless or light and thoughtless
swearing.
It is remarkable that eight of the Ten Commandments are negative. Each of them forbids
a certain course of action, implying that all
action which is not forbidden, of the kind embraced in the commandment, is right, and ought
to be practiced. For instance, "Thou shalt
not worship any other gods," implies that we
must regard God as the Divine One. " Thou
shalt not make any graven image," implies
again that we should worship God without an
image.
So this commandment, the third, forbidding
the use of the name of God for an evil purpose,
implies that we may and ought to use it for a
good purpose. God is willing to be worshiped,
is willing to be thought about, and to be the
object of conversation and investigation, and
especially that his regard for right should be
employed to benefit man.
There is no possible greater insult to the
Creator of the heavens and earth than to employ the influence of his name for an evil end.
He is holy, which means, he is absolutely free
from any and all wrong. His throne is righteousness. He hates all sin. He will surely
reward the righteous; he will surely punish the




THIRD COMMANDMENT.'3
sinner. The influence, therefore, of his name
should be always for good, never for evil.
Whoever uses the name of God to accomplish
a wrong end, or so as to tend to the production
of evil, violates this commandment, and will
not by the great Judge be deemed guiltless.
The most obvious and palpable violation of
this commandment is by taking a false oath, or
byappealing to God for the truth of a falsehood. A man thus makes use of what credit he
has as a religious man to sustain a lie.
An oath is the deliberate affirmation that a
statement is true, or that a certain promise will
be performed, with an understanding that the
Divine One is invoked to punish the person if
the statement is not true, or if the promise is
not performed. Swearing to a known falsehood, or the intentional failure to keep a promise sworn to, is called perjury. This is, in some
instances, regarded by the state as a crime, and
is punished according to the legal enactments.
Some have maintained that all oaths are
wrong, and are positively prohibited by Christianity. Others have maintained that all oaths
are useless, and that they should, therefore,
never be required, and never taken. To accommodate these classes it is allowed to them,
both in Great Britain and the United States, to
substitute a solemn affirmation for an oath, in
all cases where an oath is required by law, with




'74         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
an nnderstanding that the civil penalties for the
violation of a judicial affirmation shall be the
same as for the violation of an oath. The
breaking of such a solemn affirmation, or proof
of the known falsity of the thing affirmed, is
perjury in the law.
Oaths were common among the Israelites, and
were even required, under certain circumstances,
by the divine law. A few instances of oaths
related in the Bible will illustrate the practice.
First, there are instances of what may be
called private or voluntary oaths, made from
choice, deliberately, when not prescribed by
any law. Thus Abraham, when he undertook
to rescue Lot from his enemies, swore that he
would not take any of the property of the
parties that had seized upon Lot; and when,
after he had succeeded, the king of Sodom
wished that he should be repaid, "Abraham
said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted up
my hand unto the Lord, the most high God,
that I will not take anything that is thine, lest
thou shouldest say, I have made Abraham
rich." Gen. xiv, 22, 23. Here Abraham voluntarily bound himself by an oath, and kept it.
So Abimelech requested Abraham to swear by
God that he would not deal falsely with him, nor
with his son, " and Abraham said, I will swear."
"They sware, both of them." Gen. xxi, 22-24.
Abraham  also required his eldest servant to




THIRD COMMANDMENT.           75
swear unto him  with reference to selecting a
wife for Isaac, and he took the oath, and kept it.
(Genesis xxiv, 2-9.) So Abimelech and Isaac,
Jacob and Laban, bound each other by oaths.
Jacob, on his death-bed, required his son Joseph
to swear that he should be buried in his own
tomb, away from Egypt; and Joseph swore,
and kept his oath. So David sware to Saul
that he would not destroy his family, and kept
his oath. (1 Samuel xxiv, 21, 22.)
There are many more instances of these
private oaths mentioned in the Old Testament,
and they are never pronounced to be wrong.
In every instance when an oath was taken, the
person was considered as bound to fulfill its
requirements.
The second class of oaths are civil oaths,
or those taken according to the prescribed
forms in judicial transactions. Thus witnesses
under the Israelitish law were often put under
oath, and if their testimony was false could be
punished for perjury.
There can be no doubt that swearing became
so common, so careless, among the Jews, as to
excite the deepest indignation of the prophets.
Therefore Jeremiah and Hosea both say,' Because of swearing the land mourneth."
There is, however, in the Old Testament
nothing like a prohibition of an oath, whenever
a person thought best to bring himself delib



76          PILLARS OF TRUTIH.
erately under its obligations. He might do it
privately or publicly; but he was required to
do it, if at all, deliberately and solemnly, and to
hold himself bound by his oath. Indeed, both
Isaiah and Jeremiah say,'He that sweareth
in the earth shall swear by the God of truth."
Isaiah lxv, 16; Jeremiah xii, 16.
It is evident that in the time of Christ the
taking of oaths had become so common, and
was resorted to on such trivial occasions, that
the sacredness of the practice was overlooked.
It was also common to pretend to avoid the
sacredness of a genuine oath by using a senseless form of words, substituting for the name of
God in the oath " the heavens," or " the life,"
or " the temple," or " the head," or some other
precious object. This was a foolish practice, as
common now as it was then. Jesus rebuked it
as both useless and wrong. He said in his
great sermon on the Mount;' Ye have heard
that it hath been said by them  of old time,
Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: but I say unto
you, Swear not at all."  Now did Jesus mean
that a man should never swear by the right
object, that is, in the name of God himself?
The context seems to determine the question.
He does not disapprove of what the Old Testament requires, but only adds to it. It was as
much as to say, " The old law requires that you




THIRD COMMANDMENT.            77
should not swear falsely; that is all right, and
as much as men could bear and understand then,
but I have something more to add: " SWEAR
NOT AT ALL.")  And in order that this might
not be misunderstood, he explains what he
means thus: " Neither by heaven"-observe
that lie does not say, " Swear not, even by God,"
for that had been allowed and commanded —
but "neither by heaven, for it is God's throne;"
that is, heaven is entirely out of your control,
and it is simply foolish for you to swear by it;
" nor by the earth, for it is his footstool," you
cannot control the earth; "neither by Jerusalen, for it is the city of the great King;" it is
not your city, and you cannot control it:
"neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because
thou canst not make one hair white or black.
But let your communication be, Yea, yea: nay,
nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh
of evil."
This is a most pointed prohibition of common
conversational swearing by indiscriminate and
miscellaneous objects. It seems to imply that
if any oath is allowed it should be, according to
the old law, deliberate, and confined to a reference to the will of the great God, with whom
alone we are connected, to confirm our truthfulness hereafter by his rewards and punishments.
The Apostle James afterward, when exhorting Christians not to be impatient under their




78           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
sufferings, says * "Above all things, my brethren,
swear not, neither by heaven, neither by earth,
neither by any other oath; but let your yea be
yea, and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation."  The swearing here forbidden is
that to which men when maltreated would feel
inclined. It was not judicial or deliberate oaths.
In the New Testament oaths are alluded to
as justifiable and proper. In the Epistle to the
Hebrews we read: " For when God made
promise to Abraham, because he could swear
by no greater, he sware by himself." " Wherein
God, willing more abundantly to show unto the
heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel,
confirmed it with an oath."  Jesus Christ himself also, just before his crucifixion, seems to me
to have taken a solemn judicial oath, swearing to
his own Messiahship. He was on trial, and to all
their questions made no answer till the high
priest put him under oath with these words: " I
adjure thee by the living God "-that is, I put
thee under a solemn oath by the living God" that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ,
the Son of God."  Then, and not till then,
we have his answer; nor did he object to the
oath.
It is easy to fall into the extreme of superstition, and that seems to be a superstitious feeling which pronounces it wrong to do what not
only the patriarchs and prophets, but also the




THIRD COMMAND MENT.            79
disciples of Christ, and the great Teacher himself,
did. As the apostle well says, " For men verily
swear by a greater, and an oath for confirmation
is an end of all strife." So, if men are truthful
and religious, it will always be. An oath therefore is right if it is taken deliberately and conscientiously, and strictly adhered to.
Some who acknowledge the rightf&lness of
oaths, maintain that among good men they are
unnecessary, and are even apt to become pernicious.  They are unnecessary, it is urged,
because a good man's word should be as true
and binding as an oath. They are pernicious,
it is said, because the use of them tends to
depreciate a mere statement without an oath.
Men reason thus: If an oath is necessary to
make a promise binding, of course without an
oath it is excusable to lie. Again, the frequent
taking of oaths tends to  lower respect for
them, and there is undoubtedly, therefore, in all
civilized countries much false swearing, and
much demoralization of the public conscience.
All these objections have some force, but
apply more to an abuse than to a right use of
oaths. But, without a protracted discussion of
these questions, I will present simply what
appears to me the right conclusion. Oaths are
required too frequently. Whenever administered
it should be solemnly, and with a full understanding of their import.  The practice of hurry



80           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
ing and slurring them  over, muttering them in
a tone of voice scarcely articulate, as is too
common in  our court-rooms and  legislative
halls, is very reprehensible.
False, swearing is religiously a great crime,
in heinousness and depth of impiety yielding
only to deliberate blasphemy, which the Saviour
seemed in particular instances to pronounce
unpardonable.  A  perjurer, unrepenting  and
unreformed, should be deemed unworthy of any
confidence or any intimacy. Society, for its own
protection, should severely punish such a crime.
A man who would deliberately swear to support the Constitution of the United States, as
all our public officers do, and then plot for its
overthrow, deserves universal execration; and
deserves, if any one does, confinement in a
state prison. There is little hope for a people
that can honor, or even tolerate, such men.
That people which will tolerate false swearing
are not far from ruin.
This commandment is also violated by light
and thoughtless, and by hasty and passionate
profanity.  The common profanity of many
persons is a great moral wrong. It is often
reproved from the sacred desk; it is regarded by
all religious denominations as an open violation
of Christian covenant; it is by many Protestant
denominations treated as a sufficient cause for
exclusion from  Chuirch-felllowship; it is pro



THIRD COMMANDMENT.            81
nounced to be ungentlemanlike, and a violatioh
of the requirements of good society; it would be
regarded by all, even by those who practice it,
as indicative of deep depravity and degradation
in a woman, and yet in spite of all this it is
heard  often  in the street, in public conveyances, and  where  men  miscellaneously
congregate.
How can we account for this? Some preachers, more earnest than philosophical, have attributed it entirely to depravity. This is a very
summary way of disposing of the matter, but
not very thorough.  It betrays a want of acquaintance with men. A disease is half cured
if you certainly know the cause. It is simply
foolish to attribute what is commonly called
swearing-though much of it is not swearing,
not being in the form of an oath-to depravity
alone. Many of these men whose conversation
is interlarded with appellations of the Divine
Being, and with words pertaining to the eternal
condition of men, do not deliberately intend to
sin, nor do they choose these words simply because they are wrong, and offensive to good
men, and are by many regarded as indecent
and ungentlemanly, but from some other reason.
And it is likely if the intelligent among themfor a small minority among them are intelligent
-should clearly perceive the cause, they would
be able to apply the remedy.
6




82          PILLARS OF TRUTIH.
The cause of common swearing is this. Under the influence of strong emotion it is natural
for every person to use the most forcible expressions that he can command. It is not
thought that he intends to express so much as
feeling. Interjections, unmeaning exclamations,
like the bleating of sheep and the barking of
dogs, are natural. The most forcible words ever
employed are those pertaining to death and
eternity, to God and the devil. Therefore unthinking men in passion resort to tfiese words.
Every man of observation knows that, as a
general truth, the most ignorant and uncultivated of wicked men are the most addicted to
profanity. They use it in strong passion, and
it soon becomes a fixed habit with them to use
it on all occasions. Occasionally among unthinking men some may be found, especially
where they are entirely excluded from  good
female society, who either swear, or use some
strong expression connected with heaven or hell,
in every sentence. It seems almost a pity to
deprive such men of this privilege, as really they
are incapable of constructing a simple sentence
without such an expression. If they find themselves in society where even they deem it disgraceful to swear, they generally have nothing
to say. It is pure stupidity, and the consequent
paucity of words, that leads them to profanity.
A man who really has a variety of thought, and




THIRD COMMANDMENT.           83
a good vocabulary of conversational terms, has
never the necessity, and seldom a strong temptation, to this kind of speech. A good education
is perhaps the best remedy for this habit. It is
most common among men who either cannot or
do not read or write.
Common light profanity is a great sin and a
great disgrace. It hardens the heart and benumbs the conscience. It destroys even a correct taste. This applies to very much that is
not directly included in the third commandment. To use the name of the devil or to speak
of damnation is no dishonor to God; but all
such expressions, employed either flippantly or
in passion, betray a coarseness of feeling and a
tendency to trifle with solemn things, and also
prepare the way for actual false or vain
swearing.
Perhaps some preachers of the Gospel themselves have contributed not a little to this tendency, by the unnecessary introduction of appellations of the Divine One in their sermons;
and many pray in public as though they were
talking about God rather than to him, and most
ungrammatically as well as unnecessarily repeat
his names, seemingly because they love to hear
the sound. Why should educated ministers
violate one of the fundamental rules of syntax
and address God in the third person?
It is the characteristic of a highly cultivated




84          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
and devout man to cherish a profound reverence
for God. It is said of an eminent scholar and
divine, that he never mentioned the name of
God without lifting his hat from  his head.
If this might lie deemed eccentric, and certainly
if it was done in an ostentatious way, it would
be Pharisaical; yet how much more becoming
does it seem than that reckless abuse of the
name of God which characterizes the coarse
and thoughtless, who seem to be utterly destitute of those highest and most honorable emotions of the human soul. We live in a country
where forms are too little regarded for our own
highest enjoyment and development.
But this commandment is most glaringly
violated by appealing to the authority of God,
or to the sanctions of religion, for the sustentation or success of a bad cause. How forcible
the exclamation of Madame Roland when led
off to the guillotine, " O liberty, what crimes
have been perpetrated in thy name! " Well may
we also reverently exclaim, O religion, what
crimes have been perpetrated in thy name 
It was to promote the cause of God that the
millions of Europe poured down in successive
avalanches upon Asia in the crusades, mercilessly overwhelming the unoffending populations,
until by the true will of God they were wasted
and scattered and destroyed! Every tyrant
and despot claims to reign and to execute all




THIID COMMANDMENT.           85
his cruel and lustful purposes " by the grace of
God!"  The French Revolution, in its awful
unreined revelry of carnage, into which it degenerated when its leaders became infuriated
and lost their reason, was, nevertheless, honest
enough not to pretend to act according to the
direction of God. It stands almost alone in this
regard among all the stupendous organized cruelties of man. Persecution, undertaken with
the professed purpose of defending God and his
cause, has slain actually in Europe alone many
millions of men and women and children,
and inflicted a reproach upon the honor of
Christianity, which not without centuries of
patient purity can be washed away. These
acts of nations have been crimes of some individual men. Nations have no responsibility
but through their men.
iNow all this is a direct violation of this third
commandment of the Decalogue. It is using the
name and authority of God for an evil purpose.
"' Woe unto them that call evil good and good
evil; that put darkness for light and light for
darkness; that put bitter for sweet and sweet
for bitter." - These men who attribute to God
the works of evil, or assume to invoke his blessing upon what they know, or ought to know,
to be sin, violate this commandment far more
grossly than their far less guilty and profane
friends who utter profanity in every breath.




86          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
Thus, by adhering closely to the literal truth
of this brief commandment, there is opened up
to us an avenue of thought that seems interminable, both backward through the past and
forward far down in the future. The more we
study this Decalogue, the more will it seem
worthy to have been engraved on stone by the
finger of God. The first commandment. forbids
man to recognize any power, fancied or real,
as worthy of his homage, but the great God of
the universe. How much of evil this, if obeyed,
would sweep away; how much of good, if
obeyed, would it accomplish!
The second commandment forbids all idolatry, which once enslaved the whole world, and
has destroyed whole races of men by the vice it
has engendered, and still holds half the world in
slavish chains.
The third commandment forbids all irreverence for the name, and for whatever is connected with the name, of Jehovah. Whoever
obeys it is thereby made a man! Reverence
for God becomes a pole-star to guide him ever
into higher life. Men imitate whom  they
revere.
Properly carried out it would lead to a high
respect to whatever is historically, or by man's
actions, peculiarly associated with the presence
or power or goodness of God.




FOURTH COMMANDMENT.                     87
V.
THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT.
The Holy Sabbath.
REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY, TO KEEP IT HOLY. SIX DAYS SHALT THOU
LABOR, AND DO ALL'THY WORE: BUT THE SEVENTH DAY IS THE SABBATH OF THE LORD THY GOD: IN IT THOU SHALT NOT DO ANY WORK,
THOU, NOR THY SON, NOR THY DAUGHTER, THY MANSERVANT, NOR THY
MAIDSERVANT, NOR THY CATTLE, NOR THY STRANGER THAT IS WITHIN
THY GATES. FoR IN SIX DAYS THE LORD MADE HEAVEN AND EARTH,
THE SEA, AND ALL THAT IN THEM IS, AND RESTED THE SEVENTH DAY:
WHEREFORE THE LORD BLESSED THE SABBATH DAY, AND HALLOWED IT.
Exodus xx, 8-11.
IT  is a  phenomenon  that must strike  every
observer as worthy of his careful attention,
that many millions of the human race, embracing all complexions and several races, and spread
over a large portion of the habitable globe, are
accustomed to make every seventh day an exception to all the other days of the year, and devote
themselves on that day to rest from labor, and
recreation, or religious worship. Any other
habit so general would be attributed to some
physiological peculiarity, to some law of the
body  or the mind, or to some agency in the
atmosphere or earth exerting a power on the
conduct of men.
But we seek in vain for any natural cause of
this appearance.  It can be attributed only to




88          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
this fountain head, the commandment received
from Sinai by the Israelites more than four
thousand years ago. Is there any other practical fact that so astonishingly exhibits the
power of the Bible upon the character and
conduct of men?
The commandment on the Sabbath is the
most specific and the most minute in its directions of all the ten. It is not contented
with the general requisition that the Sabbath
day should be " holy." It also requires that all
labor should be confined to the other six days
of the week, and that no member of the family
should be allowed to labor, and that no beast of
burden or of service should be compelled to
work for man, on the Sabbath.
A reason for the commandment is also given:
to wit, "For in six days the Lord made heaven
and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and
rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord
blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.'
Now  our belief is that the whole of the
Decalogue is binding upon all men, and that, in
the words of Christ, "The Sabbath was made
for MAN;" not for the Hebrews, but for all men.
WHAT IS THE SABBATH? Simply one day in
seven, taken in regular order as it recurs, and
devoted to religious culture.
Iad the Sabbath been regularly observed




FOURTH COMMANDMENT.            89
from the creation of man to the present time,
it would now recur, of course, on a day from
which, counting backward by sevens, we should
arrive at the first rest-day of God after the
creation of man.
The Jews claim that their Sabbath, our Saturday, is that day. This claim is generally acknowledged by Christians, though there are some who
maintain that it can be chronologically demonstrated that, on account of some confusion, in
time of disaster and revolution and ignorance,
the Jews are themselves mistaken, and that the
genuine Sabbath is our Sunday, wrongly called
" the first day of the week."
There is no good reason, however, for denying that the Jewish Sabbath is the true seventh
day, reckoning from the creation of man, and
that the Christian Sunday is the first day of the
IHebrew week, or of the genuine week.
A change so great as transferring the Sabbath
from the seventh to the first day of the week
could not be made but by divine authority. If
a society of men, a Church, or a denomination,
could change the Sabbath from the last day of
the week to the first, then another society,
Church, or denomination could change it to the
second day, or to any other day, and the result
would be a number of Sabbaths, conflicting withl
each other, and thus destroying one of its grand
objects, order and harmony.




90          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
Jf the Sabbath, therefore, was ever changed,
it must have been done by Christ or his
apostles.
Such was the fact.
The change does not seem  to have been
brought about by a sudden edict, but by a quiet,
persistent urging of a new custom. The apostles
and early Christians seem to have been in the
habit of meeting together for religious services
on Sunday, or the first day of the week, and
soon they began to claim that to observe the
seventh day, or the Sabbath-day as it was called,
in addition to the first day, was not binding
upon them.  Thus we read in the history of
the Apostles, "And upon the first day of the
week, when the disciples came together to
break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready
to depart on the morrow." Acts xx, 7. Again:
" Upon the first day of the week, let every one
of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him." 1 Cor. xvi, 2. But with regard to
the last day of the week we read: " Let no man,
therefore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in
respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or
of the Sabbath days." Col. ii, 16. All these
things Christians were to discard, or from the
strict laws about them they were absolved.
It follows, then, that either Christ and his
apostles assumed to nullify one of the Ten Commandments, or they substituted the first day of




FOURTH COMMANDMENT.           91,he week as the Sabbath for the last day of the
week, previously observed.
Now that Christ and his apostles assumed to
nullify a commandment in the Decalogue no
man of sound judgment could believe. Repeatedly Christ acknowledged  and asserted the
divine authority of the Decalogue. To repeal
it would have been to set himself in direct contradiction to what he pronounced the law of
God. Such a repeal, if conceivable, must have
been open, direct, and formal, or it would not
be believed.
The facts seem to be, that the Sabbath is an
institution founded upon man's nature and
God's will, and therefore absolutely irrepealable.
The decision of the date of the Sabbath, whether
on the first day or the seventh day of the week,
must be made by divine authority. Either, so
far as man can see, would be.proper; neither is
preferable to the other. The seventh day was
the one first chosen, but if it was made known
to all mankind, all had lost it except the Jews;
and when the Gospel by Christ was to be
preached, it was found more practicable to secure an observance of the first day of the week
as a truly holy day, than to emancipate the
seventh day of the week from its false associations. Moreover, the first day of the week was
the day on which Christ arose from the dead,
demonstrating man's immortality. Therefore




92           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
Christians were taught to regard the first day
as their Sabbath; and inasmuch as Christians
are destined to cover the earth and control it,
the first day of the week is to become the
universal Sabbath.
But this change of time does not affect the
true character of the Sabbath. It does make it
easier to discard all the false restrictions and
associations begotten by the traditions of the
Jewish teachers, and carries the Sabbath back
to the purity of the Decalogue, which coincides
with the pure light of Christ and his apostles.
HOW, THEN, IS THE SABBATH TO BE OBSERVED?
There is to be a cessation of all labor put forth
to secure our own gratification or reward.
Labor necessary to execute other commands
of God, and impulses of a holy nature, is allowed-such as to feed the hungry, to protect
and comfort and heal the sick, even to rescue
animals from suffering, to save property from
unexpected destruction by fire or water.
"The Sabbath was made for man, and not
man for the Sabbath."  The Sabbath should be
accepted as a blessing, not submitted to as a
burden. It is not designed to deprive a man
of any real good, but to favor him with rest, and
time for religious worship.
To suppose that it is wrong on the Sabbath
to do any work needful for the relief of suffer



FOURTH COMMANDMENT.           93
ing is superstitious. To suppose that God intended to make the Sabbath an evil, by depriving men on that day of what would really
promote their physical, mental, and moral good,
is completely to misunderstand the purpose of
God, and, like the Pharisees of old, to convert a
blessing.into a curse.
To understand how  properly to keep the
Sabbath, one must reflect upon its object.
Whatever course of conduct tends to secure its
object is right; all other conduct is wrong.
Its object is man's rest; that he may be benefitted bodily, mentally, spiritually, and that
God may be thus honored.
MVan is to rest from labor for his own good.
A periodical cessation from labor, it has been
found, is conducive to man's highest development and soundest health.
Is he a farmer? He should on the Sabbath
rest from all labor of body or mind connected
with the management of his farm. He should
do nothing directly for profit. What is needful
to secure his property from destruction, or to
save man or beast from suffering, he should do.
The Sabbath was not designed directly or indirectly to produce suffering, or the waste of
property. It is a blessing, not a curse.
Is the man a student  Is it his business to
read or write or investigate science or truth?
On the Sabbath he should rest from that toil.




94           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
The farmer may study on the Sabbath, and thereby, perhaps, rest; but the student by so doing
is directly violating the spirit of the Sabbath.
The Sabbath should be devoted primarily to
spiritual culture. It has been so employed from
time immemorial. It is the day of holy convocation; for the public hearing of the Bible
and authorized explanations of it, and the public
worship of God.
No element of civilization is more patent
than this. Without this Christianity fails and
the human race perishes. The grand hope of
humanity is centered in the Sabbath.
Let it not be asserted that were there no
Sabbath men would be just as devout, and
religious gatherings would be just as frequent,
and the principles of morality and religion just
as faithfully taught. Facts do not justify such
an assertion. Reason does not sanction it. The
wisdom of God is exhibited by the successful
results that always flow from a proper observance
of the Sabbath.
Many questions of interest arise connected
with this subject.
Politically, it may be asked, Should the observance of the Sabbath be required by civil
law 
This opens up for investigation the general
subject, the proper object of civil law. The
profoundest Christian statesmen and moralists




FOURTH COMMANDMENT.            95
are coming clearly to see that in moral teaching
the Church should lead and the state follow.
The object of the state is, not to require religion
or morality by force, but to protect life, liberty,
and property. If the state enacts a law for the
observance of the Sabbath, it is to secure the
political good of the people. This law is not
designed to reach a religious result, but a benefit that shall be enjoyed by all, whether religious
or not.
Such a law is proper and should be enforced.
But no man keeps the Sabbath in a manner
acceptable to God, who is deterred from its
open violation only by the fear of the law.
Should work that cannot well cease at the
close of six days be entered upon by Christians?
We answer, It is the will of God that all
should be Christians, and if such work is proper
for any, it is for them. Can any doubt that long
sea voyages are proper, even though the ship
must be attended to on the Sabbath? The reducing of metals from the ore, the evaporation
of water from  salt, and many other kinds of
labor, often require several weeks of steady
work, without any regular intermission on the
seventh day.
In such cases intelligent, cultivated Christians
will observe the spirit, while compelled to violate
the letter, of the law. They will sacredly devote
one seventh of the time to rest and religious




96           PILLARS OF TRUTH.
culture.  They will make this time as far as
possible correspond with  the true Sabbath.
An honest effort to do so will remove nearly
all of the practical difficulty. If a portion or all
of the Sabbath must be devoted to labor, an
equal. amount of time will be properly consecrated to  rest and  religion  at the first
opportunity.
The rest from  labor provided for by the
Sabbath is absolutely necessary to  prevent
disease, insanity, and premature  death. A
proper  observance  of the  Sabbath  would
probably diminish the instances of disease, and
particularly of insanity, more than half.
THE BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH cannot be
overstated.
Whether the heart, head, or lungs are most
essential to the life, who can decide? Whether
the Bible, the Church, or the Sabbath is the most
essential to Christianity, it is idle to inquire.
Christianity rests upon the Sabbath. The enemies of Christianity instinctively attack the
Sabbath.
The Sabbath was appointed by God. Its
origin cannot otherwise be accounted for. There
is no clear foundation in nature for the division
of time into weeks of seven days; but we are
told that after six days, or periods of labor,
God rested on the seventh day.




FOURTH COMMANDMENT.           97
Let this not be lightly passed over as the
fancy of an undeveloped mind. God himself
may have his times of exertion and of rest.
The days of creation were " days of the Lord,"
not days of man, and " with the Lord one day
is as a thousand years, and a thouand years as
one day." The first Sabbath of Jehovah since
the creation of the world may not yet have
passed. What shall be developed when God's
days of labor recommence, who shall imagine?
We are to imitate God in labor and in rest,
and this fact, revealed to us in the Decalogue, is
a sufficient reason for this commandment.
Facts prove it to be beneficial.
The Sabbath screens those who observe it
from  idleness on the one hand and from
excessive labor on the other. " Six days shalt
thou work" is one part of the commandment;
"Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy"
is the other. Idleness is ruin. Excessive labor
destroys life. The hebdomadal division of time
is found by experience to be right.
Six hundred and forty-one physicians signed
a petition to the British Parliament against
opening the Crystal Palace on Sundays, in
which they said: " Your petitioners, from their
acquaintance with the laboring classes, and with
the laws that regulate the human economy,
are convinced that a seventh day of rest, instituted by God, and coeval with the existence
7




98          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
of man, is essential to the bodily health of man
in every station of life."
The experiment of observing and of breaking the Sabbath has been tried frequently by
large bodies -of men, always proving the
practical advantages of observing a seventh
day of rest.
The Sabbath is a great safeguard against
barbarism. Its effect upon the cleanliness, the
good appearance, and the culture of a people
who observe, it cannot be over-estimated.
Can a better view  of a perfect world be
imagined than a Sabbath-keeping world? Behold the picture as it shall yet be seen by angels
and men.
The shades of night slowly roll away before
the dawn of day. As the darkness thus retires
before the sun, the people in the country, in
the village, and in the city, rising from their
night's repose, all worship God. As the day
advances the ringing bells announce the time
of public worship, and without exception all
assemble in their churches for the public worship of God. Can crime, disorder, poverty,
exist among such a people? Would not the
earth be an ante-chamber of heaven, did all the
world observe the Sabbath?
That glorious sight shall yet be seen. To
bring it about we must rely principally upon
moral power. The nature, sanctions, privileges,




FOURTH COMMANDMENT.            99
and beauties of the Sabbath must be made
known: its boon to the poor man, its benefit
to the rich, its barrier against oppression and
degradation, its promotion of order and general
prosperity. It is an ordinance of God; observed with the right motives, it will secure
prosperity to an individual, a family, a nation:
broken, it is the sure precursor of ruin.




100          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
VI.
THE FIFTH  COMMANDMENT.
Duty toward Parents.
HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER: THAT THY DAYS MAY BE LONG
UPON THE LAND WHIOH THE LORD THY GOD GIVETH THEE.-ExodUS
xx, 12.
THIS is the first positive commandment in the
Decalogue.  The preceding four forbid, and
by implication require; this requires, and by
implication forbids.
There is no commandment in the Decalogue
requiring parents to protect and love their children, though this requires children to honor
their parents. The reason of this distinction is,
probably, that God has implanted in the parent,
and particularly in the mother, an instinct which
prompts them to love their children, an instinct
strong so soon as it is able to act, and which
tends to ripen into a reasonable affection. This
instinct is not peculiar to human beings.
Instinct is indeed a wonderful power. Without knowledge, it commands all resources necessary to success; without reason, it has all the
wisdom requisite to attain its ends. The young
birds that have never been trained by parental




FIFTH COMMANDMENT.            101
care, hatched from the eggs by artificial heat,
and kept carefully separated from all birds of
their own species or others, will, when the
parental instinct prompts them to it, construct
a nest for their eggs of just the material used,
and just according to the plan pursued, from the
beginning, by birds of their kind.  The beaver
fells trees, and builds his dam across the stream
according to the highest skill of engineering
science. The solitary wasp bores a hole in the
ground, deposits the eggs at the bottom, and
then seeks some grubs, and fills the hole with
just enough to supply her offspring with food
till able to take care of themselves.
Instinct is that power which impels animals,
including man, to secure the welfare of themselves as individuals, and of their species, and
also to subserve other wise purposes, without evidence of an understanding, on their part, of the
wisdom of the course which they pursue. They
do not reach a knowledge of the excellence of
their course by study by an examination of
different plans, by  experiment accompanied
with frequent failures; but at once, and spontaneously.  This power of instinct is undoubtedly a direct exhibition of the wisdom of God
through them, acting without individual consciousness and reason. And yet this instinct,
even in brutes, is capable of being slightly modified by their own reason.  It can also be changed




102          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
by cultivation. Its chief characteristic is, that it
is evidently intended for the present good of the
individual and his kind.
Man, being endowed with the higher powers of
reason, has less instinct than any other animal;
indeed he has only so much as is absolutely
necessary for the preservation of the species,
which could not be secured by reason alone.
Among these few instincts is the spontaneous,
unreasoning love of the mother for the child.
This attachment soon ripens into strong, probably the strongest of all love; a love which often
defies all obstacles, physical and moral, and is
not shut off by the grave. What is so tender,
so all-embracing and eternal, as a mother's
love? The father, too, where God's own institution of the family is properly observed, shares
in this attachment to their child, so that, by the
common sentiment of all cultivated men, the
parents who do not protect and exhibit affection
for their children are regarded as monsters,
deserving the severe disapprobation of all. It
was for this reason that it was deemed unnecessary to incorporate into the Decalogue a commandment for parents to love and protect their
children.
But children are not instinctively taught to
love and honor their parents. These feelings
on the part of the child are of slow growth.
They are responsive to the affection of the




FIFTH COMMANDMENT.            103
mother and the attention of the father. They
reward the parents for their solicitude and
labor. They may be cultivated or repressed.
But it is not primarily or principally to
children that this commandment is directed.
Children naturally, if not instinctively, do honor
their parents. If not, it is almost invariably
the fault of the parents themselves, who, either
by improvidence, or heartlessness, or caprice, or
cruelty, have repelled the affections of their
children. This commandment is addressed to
older persons; to youth, and to men and women.
Long as parents live they should be honored;
and the more, if possible, the older they become.
So far as the attachment of parents to their
children is only instinctive it soon disappears.
Instinct, which is a substitute for reason, is
much stronger in brutes than in men; and its
peculiar character is seen particularly in this
instance, inasmuch as it unites parents and
offspring among animals only so long as the
union is necessary for the preservation of life.
The mother animal repels her young so soon as
they can take care of themselves, and in turn is
treated as a stranger by the offspring. The
attachment is made to vary, by the Author of
the instinct, with the demand.
In some animals it lasts, perhaps, a year; in
others but a few hours; while the ostrich, laying
her eggs on the hot sand of the desert, never




104          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
seeks her young, which are hatched by the sun,
and grow up and learn to run and fly without
parental watchcare or instruction.
Man, though an animal, is also an immortal
and responsible being. His instincts, the possession of which shows his animal nature, are
scanty and short-lived; reason, which evinces
his immortal nature, enters to sit upon the
throne of the soul. Therefore, when instinct
ceases to act, reason requires that the mother
and father should contiuue to protect and instruct their child; and when even the child
reaches manhood, they should still have a peculiar regard and affection for him.  This, though
not required in the Decalogue, is elsewhere
taught in the Bible.
Precisely so, that attachment to the mother
and father which the child feels, is at first nothing but an unreasoning, selfish gratitude for
favors received, encouraged, perhaps, by the
feeling that more favors of the same kind can
be obtained at pleasure. The child exhibits a
feebler love for the parent's strong love. While
the dependence exists, what is there praiseworthy in that?  Its absence would, indeed,
mark the child as a monster; its presence, however, is so natural, and may be conjoined with
such unworthiness in other respects, that it is
never alone regarded as worthy of particular
credit.




FIFTH COMMANDMENT.           105
But the honor to father and mother that continues after the parents can do nothing more to
bless their child, the regard shown to them
when the son and daughter have reached such
a stage of development that they justly feel that
they must now  rely on their own judgment,
this it is not unfrequently difficult to render;
this it is that forms the burden of the fifth commandment.
N ow it is presumable that there must be
some profound reasons in the nature of things
for the incorporation of this precept into the
comprehensive Decalogue. A careful and candid examination will show the truth of this
presumption. This commandment is worthy
of its place because it particularly recognizes
and renders sacred the family relation. It assumes that the father and mother, who are to be
honored by their children as long as they live,
are united together for life by the indissoluble
compact of marriage. Otherwise they could
not be jointly and equally honored.
Perhaps the most painful and touching testimony upon the enormous iniquity of slavery
was given indirectly by a Northern clergyman,
who visited the South and wrote a strong and
labored defense of slavery, in the course of
which he confesses that he felt an inexpressible
sympathy for a company of slave-children that
he undertook to address in a religious meeting,




106         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
from  the conviction that he could not make
them fully comprehend the meaning of the first
words in the Lord's Prayer: "OUR FATHER
which art in heaven! "  What idea could these
slave-children have of a human father? HEow
could they honor him? Many knew not who
their fathers were. If their fathers were slaves
they had no control over them, did not provide
for them, and did not seem worthy of their
honor or love. Even their mothers had no
power to instruct and govern them; still less
their fathers! How, then, could the poor slavechildren honor their human father and mother?
Hlow could they comprehend, then, the touching appellation of the Divine Being, "OUR
FATHER," founded on the experience of the
regard and love of a human father?  Similar
must be the condition of all who cannot honor
their father and mother. They cannot understand the very beginning of the Lord's Prayer.
This commandment presupposes not only the
sacredness of the marriage relation, binding father
and mother together for life, but also that high
development of industry, economy, providence,
mutual forbearance, and affection which unite
the members of a family together.
Now the family relation is the source of all
order, of all government, of all industry, of all
peace, of all the thorough and permanent and
harmonious development among men. What



FIFTH COMMANDMENT.           107
ever strikes a blow at this relation strikes at the
very heart of humanity. It matters not with
what intent it'is aimed, what high-sounding
sophistry may defend it, what delusive dreams
may tempt to it, or what passion may demand
it; the result must be to degrade and bestialize
and destroy. The family circle is the monad
out of which the whole fabric of true society
grows. It is the prime cellule in which the
organic life commences. The patriarchal government is the oldest of governments, and all
others truly valuable are developed out of that.
As a simple air like " Auld Lang Syne " can by
a skillful musician be presented in many variations, some in harmony rich and complicated,
yet all preserving the original melody, and
good in proportion to the preservation of the
fundamental tune, so out of a good family government may be developed pure democracy, aristocracy, monarchy, representative republicanism;
but none can accomplish their purpose unless
the original family government is maintained.
A state made up of well-regulated families,
though its constitution were the most faulty
imaginable, would be well managed; but if the
families were not on the average orderly, though
the theory of its political government were
perfect, it would be little better than an anarchy.
This is the philosophy of that wonderful
promise attached to this commandment. Honor




108         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
thy father and thy mother, that thy days may
be long in the land which the Lord thy God
giveth thee. This is not the promise of a long
life individually to the child that honors his
parents. Many children honor their parents
and die young. I do not deny that honoring
father and mother has a tendency to lengthen
the life of an individual child, both naturally
and by the blessing of God. All virtue tends
toward long life. But the chief burden of the
promise is, long life to a nation in which the
children generally honor their parents. This is
evident from the peculiar phraseology, " in the
land which the Lord thy God giveth thee."
God gave the Israelites primarily a land. So
long; as they were a nation they should keep
that land. The length of their days in that
land, that is, the length of time in which they
should be a thriving nation, unconquered and
independent, should depend upon their obedience to this commandment, "Honor thy
father and thy mother."
God works by general principles. Other
nations have their lands assigned them. " God
hath made of one blood all nations of men for
to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath
appointed unto them  their habitations."  Iie
has given to the mingled Goths and Celts and
Africans this land in North America, and the
length of time we and our descendants shall




FIFTH COMMANDMENT.          109
abide here a flourishing people, will depend
largely upon our obedience to this commandnent, " Honor thy father and thy mother."
I believe that a careful study of the institutions of man, and especially of nations, will
prove beyond the possibility of denial, that no
people who have been in the habit of honoring
father and mother have ever degenerated or
been subdued so as to be lost; and that no
nation which has loosened the holy restraints of
the family circle-which is more effectually
done by disobedience to this command than in
any other way-have ever been for a long time
vigorous and growing.
The oldest nation on the face of the earth,
and embracing nearly a fourth of all the population in the world, are more remarkable for
this trait than for any other: children honor
their parents there till they die, and even perpetuate a grateful religious remembrance of
them  after death. On this subject I cannot
express my convictions better than by quoting
from  a work lately published, entitled "Life
among the Chinese," by a missionary who had
spent thirteen years in one of the largest cities
of that nation:
"It is a noteworthy fact, that of all those ancient empires founded immediately subsequent
to the deluge, China alone remains. The Assyrians, Egyptians, and, in later times, the Grecians,




110          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
have severally attained to a comparatively high
degree of intelligence and refinement; but their
star soon culminated and sank into utter darkness. China, however, has never been wrecked,
her civilization has never retrograded; paradoxical though it seems, her star has remained
in its zenith for at least three thousand years.
Through all this long lapse of centuries the
Chinese have kept up fairly and steadily to
their original civilization; and to-day they
present all the essential elements of those social,
literary, and political traits which characterized
them in those early epochs when the Assyrians
built their magnificent cities, the Egyptians
developed the subtle theory of the metempsychosis, or the Greeks were thundering at the
gates of Troy. It must certainly be interesting
to inquire how such a result has been reached,
and to ascertain, if we can, at least some of the
causes which have contributed to it. In solving this interesting problem we observe that
the civilization of the Chinese is distinguished
from  all other heathen  civilizations by the
fact that its primitive elements were derived
from the Bible, and that the necessary tendency of these elements is to conserve and perpetuate the system.  A  prominent characteristic of Chinese civilization is the total absence
of those revolting and cruel rites which form the
leading treats of other heathen systems of civil



FIFTH COMMANDMENT.            111
ization.  As illustrative of this remark, we may
refer to the deification of vice and the offering
of human victims in sacrifices, practices which,
though characteristic of nearly every other
heathen nation, constitute no feature of Chinese
civilization.  The connection  between  these
abominations and the destruction of the nations
guilty of them is shown in Leviticus xviii, 24, 25:'Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things;
for in all these the nations are defiled which I
cast out before you; and the land is defiled:
therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it,
and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.'
As a further contribution to the solution of this
question we refer to the length of days promised
by the Almighty to those who observed the
command,'Honor thy father and thy mother.'
No heathen nation has ever approximated the
Chinese in their respect for parents; and notwithstanding the wide divergence of the Chinese,
both in theory and practice, from the true import of the fifth commandment, we conceive it is
neither fanciful nor far-fetched to suppose that
even their imperfect observance of it has had
much to do with the permanence of their institutions and the perpetuity of their national
existence." *
* Life among the Chinese: with Characteristic Sketches and
Incidents of Missionary Operations and Prospects in China.
*By Rev. R. S. Maclay, M.A. New York: Carlton & Porter.




112         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
This view is undoubtedly correct. Indeed, on
this account I deem it proper that all our public
schools, supported by the state, should be required particularly to inculcate this virtue, which
supports the foundation of the state-a proper
regard to the authority and character of father
and. mother. Government is sapped at its very
foundations if parental authority is defied.
Happy is that nation whose parents generally
deserve honor from their children and obtain it.
Few are disorderly and criminal abroad who
are taught to honor as well as love their parents
at home.
Let us observe, then, the,comprehensiveness of this commandment, descending to particulars.
1. It is comparatively easy to honor father
and mother when they exhibit in all respects
such a character as commands the honor of
other men. If they are well-educated, and perhaps wealthy, and occupy respectable positions
in society, it is natural that their children should
be proud of them. But is this a fulfillment of
the commandment  It is easy to appear to be
virtuous when there is no temptation to vice;
but is this virtue   Why should a rich man
steal? Does he deserve credit because he does
not rob a poor man of his only dollar?
This commandment is not fully obeyed in
spirit unless it will bear the test of strong




FIFTH COMMANDMENT.           113
trial. A mother's love will cling to a prodigal
son or daughter even when the world casts them
off, and proudly go down into the purlieus of
degradation to win the lost one back. Ought
not the child's love to be like that?  The father
may be poor and ignorant; misfortune may have
bowed him  down and broken his spirits; ill
health may have prostrated him, yes, even intemperance or crime may have overcome him.
He himself in former years, (before he was so
degraded,) or circumstances, or the affection of a
mother, or a kind Providence, working you
know not how, may have made you much superior to your father in moral stamina, in self.
control, in dignity, in position, in the world's
esteem: still honor him. Honor him  as a
father; for often it is given to a son to repay a
father with a large compound interest for the
small favors of protection and love in childhood. In many an instance virtue and piety
on the part of son or daughter has won a
parent's heart away from vice to integrity and
religion.
Indeed, there is probably no feeling stronger
in the heart of father and mother than a desire
to be worthy of the love and honor of their
children. Many a man, victim himself to some
degrading habit, will plead earnestly with his
children to abstain from the same practice, and
will be nerved to extraordinary efforts to con8




114          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
quer himself for the sake of his children. In
this way our Sabbath schools have had almost
as much effect upon parents as upon children.
Many a man has emancipated himself from the
degrading habits of drunkenness, to secure the
respect and the welfare of his children; and even
should he not succeed, it would be the duty of
the children to honor their father, even while
they manfully withstood the evil influence of
his example. In many instances the pleading
of a prattling child has caused the drunken to
reform.
If this is true in cases of real degradation,
how impious is it for son or daughter to fail in
respect for parents on account of their ignoraJce
or poverty. Language has no terms too strong
to express the indignation of a virtuous heart at
such conduct. A man in the prime of life, in
the presence of his little son, inflicted a great
wrong upon his aged father, when he was
astonished to hear from his little child, "That
is the way, father, I will do to you when I am a
man."  The rebuke cut him to the heart, and
led to immediate repentance.
Dramatists and novelists have resorted to the
portrayal both of filial love and filial ingratitude
to display their strongest power. Who has not
heard of IEneas, the fabulous founder of the
Roman people, who, permitted to carry away
from the ruins of Troy as much treasure as his




FIFTH COMMANDMENT.             115
strength could bear, lifted upon his shoulders
his aged and infirm father, Anchises, and won
the admiration of both friends and foes?  The
great dramatist, Shakspeare, in  one of his
strongest tragedies, King Lear, has shown."How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child."
Who that has read it has not had his soul
moved to the deepest execration of the selfish
wickedness of Goneril and Regan, and admiration
of the devoted Cordelia?  The dramatist knew
how  to touch the heart.  Undoubtedly both
classes of daughters are found in actual life.
When Dickens was publishing in serial numbers several years ago his work, then entitled
"The Old Curiosity Shop," in which he depicts
with inimitable power that wonderful character,
" Little Nellie," so remarkable for filial affection
for her old wandering insane father, so intense
was the interest awakened in that beautiful
child, the creature of his fancy, that it is said he
received letters from different parts of England
and America, even from west of the Mississippi,
begging him  not to kill little Nell.  But the
demands of the story were inexorable, and little
Nell died.  And how touching is the elegy pronounced over the faithful child's grave!  So,
under the direction of the great Author of life's
real dramas, how many faithful children meet




116         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
no open reward for their fidelity in this life:
no reward of applause; no reward in many or
in length of years. But virtue always bears its
own intrinsic fruit, the consciousness of rectitude and the blessings of eternal life. It seems
unnatural for a child to honor a parent who has
failed in duty toward him; yet as the child grows
older, if won to virtue by the grace of God, he
should bestow on his parents even unmerited
love.
2. Again, it is comparatively easy for a child
to honor his parents while he is a child, but it
often becomes more and more difficult as the
years advance.  There comes a time in life when
parental anxiety and the parental will begin
to  appear irksome  and  burdensome.  The
daughter wishes to declare her independence;
the son regards the fears of the mother as indicative of a want of that confidence which he
thinks is due to him, and the restraints of a,
father are felt to be something much like tyranny.  Sometimes these feelings are not wholly
without just cause, for unfortunately human
fathers and mothers are not perfect; and some
are overbearing and unsympathetic, and some
are incapable of appreciating the passions and
ambitions of their children, if unlike what they
passed through, or if, as is often the case, they
are destitute of a thorough recollection of what
they themselves once were.




FIFTH COMMANDMENT.           117
Then come some of the severest temptations
of young people. They must to a certain extent
decide for themselves. Every person has an
independent will. A father's virtue will not
save son or daughter. A mother's devotion, or
want of it, will not fix the destiny of her child.
The youth must write his own name on the
debtor or creditor side of society. It must be
entered by his own act among the good or evil.
But even if he finds it necessary to assert his
own manhood, to think his own thoughts, to
shape his own principles, to take his own positions, can he not do it so as to honor father and
mother? Can he not show that there is always
a deep, abiding undercurrent of filial affection
in his soul  That he always would, if possible,
please father and mother  That to dissent from
their wishes, even if duty calls him to it, is so
far one of the most disagreeable actions of his
life? If such be the character of a youth and a
man, he will be prized and still more and more
beloved by his parents, even though the particular anticipations which they have cherished
be disappointed.
Wist parents never unnecessarily interfere
with the choice of their children on matters
which most concern them, and must affect chiefly their condition, further than to indicate the
preference of the parents as one motive to be
considered in the decision. And in no case is




118          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
it necessary or proper to withhold that feeling
which is required by the commandment, " Honor
thy father and thy mother."
3. But of all kinds of disobedience to this commandment, clearly the most inexcusable and
the worst are the instances in which the children
of discreet, indulgent, and Christian parents forget their early instructions and abandon themselves to immorality and vice. Such instances,
alas! too common, are alike mysterious to the
philosopher, appalling to the moralist and the
Christian, and the deepest of all possible afflictions to their parents. Mysterious and seemingly anomalous, because they appear to set at
defiance the first principles of education, which
impel philanthropic men to bring proper influences to bear upon young minds with an expectation of reward; but what encouragement can
they have if the children of wise parents choose
folly, and if those of religious parents plunge into
sin? Appalling to Christians, for they seem
directly to disprove and nullify a clear doctrine
of the Bible, that if a child is properly trained
he will not desert the right way. Indeed, so
unnatural are such degenerate scions of a noble
stock, that some theorists have assumed the position that all such persons necessarily prove
that the parents, however wise and pious they
my seem, must have been secretly faulty and
vicious, or such unseemly results of their educa



FIFTH COMMANDMENT.           119
tion would not appear.  The sentence is too
sweeping, too uncharitable. Vice and virtue
are closely akin. The strongest sweets make
the strongest acids. " Great wit's to madness
near allied."  Every soul must choose for itself.
Cain and Abel were sons of the same father
and mother. No training, no counsel, no good
example, no entreaty is omnipotent. Ofttimes
the sweetest spices, the most beautiful flowers,
grow from  the rankest soil; while the plant
carefully trained from the seed by the horticulturist bears an inferior flower or bitter fruit.
If the chemistry of plants is uncontrollable, still
more so are the mysterious laws of character
and soul. Even the secrets of man's nature
escape research. Its origin is the unseen mystery,
the great insoluble enigma. It can finally be
influenced only by moral motives, and by divine
grace, and to be virtuous it must itself act.
But it must never be forgotten, cannot be forgotten, that the worst of all men are those who,
having had virtuous parents, choose vice. These
are they who sin against the greatest light; they
deliberately choose darkness because their deeds
are evil. How often, when the child of pious
parents is plunging into sin, must the thoughts
of a father's disappointment and a mother's
prayers smite the soul with desolation! What
motive can reach a soul unmoved by that?
And yet were the children of all pious parents




120          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
pious, soon the world would be obedient to
Christ.
4. The personal rewards of granting due honor
to parents are great. One of the surest rewards
of an earthly character is the reception of like
honor from  the generation that shall follow.
There is no channel of influence in which the
consequences of wrong and right action are
more likely to show themselves.  In an old and
well-established society three generations are
generally together. So, no doubt, under ordinary circumstances, it ought to be. If fathers
and mothers do not honor their fathers and
mothers, their children in like manner, when
the time comes, will dishonor them. With
some extraordinary exceptions, the rule of Christ
will apply pre-eminently here: " In what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again."
Honor begets honor; neglect, neglect.  The
strongest talisman to throw around a son's or
daughter's neck, to bind them to truth and to
God, is the love of a virtuous home. This can
be evinced in no other way so effectually as
by cultivating the home virtues of respect for
parents, love for children, and mutual fraternal
regard.
Again; this alone furnishes a sufficiently high
and noble object of life for the most of men and
women. Few can govern states; few can sway
multitudes with voice or pen; few can be great




FIFTH COMMANDMENT.               121
inventors or discoverers; few  can  control immense enterprises; and the most of those so
favored find their scepter barren and life cheerless; but all can bless. the family circle to
which they belong.  The first step toward it is
to honor our parents; and this can be rightly
done only by a true Christian life.  When done,
so comprehensive is its power, almost infallibly
all other needed virtues follow in its train.
" The sea of ambition is tempest tossed,
And thy hopes may vanish like foam;
But when sails are shivered and rudder lost,
Then look for the light of horre:
And there, like a star through the midnight cloud,
Thou shalt see the beacon bright;
For never, till shining upon thy shroud,
Can be quenched its holy light."
We conclude, then, with a deepened conviction
that this commandment is worthy of a place in
the Decalogue.  Had those who first received
it obeyed it, they would not now be a scattered
people; but in the times of Christ they had
specially  made  this  commandment void  by
their vain traditions. Therefore they lost their
territory and national life.
Here is a lesson for us.  We are sadly degenerating in this respect.  We are not equal
to  our Puritan  fathers  in  our  regard  for
parents and in  our care  over our children.
The  old  Thanksgiving  Festival, when  two,




122             PILLARS OF TRUTH.
three, or four generations used to gather together around the festal board, with the patriarch at the head, and the grandmother smilingly dispensing her benefits, looked up to with
almost reverence by  children  and  children's
children, is not, I fear, so much prized now.
Let us restore it in this new land, and especially
observe the spirit of it during all the year.  Happy are we if with the memories of home are
connected the associations of home religion and
family prayer.  Happy if we can recall many
such a scene as this:
"Then kneeling down, to heaven's eternal King
The saint, the father, and the husband prays;
Hope springs exultant on triumphant wing,
That thus they all shall meet in future days;
There ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society, yet still more dear;
While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere."




SIXTH COMMANDMENT.           123
VII.
THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT.
The Sacredness of Human Life.
THOU SHALT NOT KILL.-ExoduS XX, 18.
Two great and opposite mistakes may be made
in the understanding of God's commandments.
We may crowd into the language thought which
it was not designed to express, and we may fail
to draw out of the language all that it was really
designed to express. Either, if intentional, is a
criminal perversion of the Sacred Word.
Thus it would be reprehensible to maintain
that the brief commandment, - Thou  shalt
not kill," is designed to forbid the killing of
weeds, or trees, or insects, or animals of any
kind. The occasion upon which the commandment was given, and the general tenor of the
Scriptures, show such an interpretation would
be unwarrantable and  foolish. So, too, to
maintain that this commandment absolutely
forbids taking the life of a human being, under any possible circumstances, is inconsistent
with the other teachings of God found in this
same Bible, and also with  certain  primary
instincts of our nature.




124          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
The other error, of emasculating the Bible,
divesting it of its genuine meaning, and toning
it down so as to correspond with our previously
formed notions, is equally blamable, and far
more common. There is a richness in biblical
information and precept that cannot be appreciated without much study. How careful, therefore, ought the preacher to be, to find as nearly
as possible the exact mind of the Spirit, the real
intention of God in the language employed!
This has led me to study this comprehensive
commandment, and I desire to aid you to come
to a full and exact perception of the divine
prohibition,'! Thou shalt not kill."
1. It is evident that its scope must be confined to man. Over all other life, except
human life, on this planet, man has supreme
control. In this world God designed that man
should be the tyrant, and all other living things
his slaves. The patent-right to this nobility we
find in the first charter of human authority,
given to man by his Creator on the first day of
man's existence, before as yet there had been a
single Sabbath.  " And God said, Let us make
man in our own image, after our likeness; and
let them," that is, let men, "have dominion
over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of
the air, and over the cattle, and over all the
earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth
on the earth."




SIXTH COMMANDMENT.            125
It is not, therefore, cruel to pursue the whale
even to the polar ocean, and plunge into his
huge carcass the well-aimed harpoon; to draw
from the water the finny tribes by the baited
hook or the fatal net; to raise cattle for slaughter; to bring down birds by powder and shot;
to destroy pernicious insects by the myriad, or
to rob them of their silk or of their honey, or to
crush them for their gorgeous colors to beautify
our garments, or in any way to convert their
properties to our gratification. They are our
slaves, and we are their masters; and it is lawful for us to do what we will with our own.  The
patient ox may toil in our furrow and yield his
flesh for our food; the cow and the goat may
furnish us with milk and with meat, the sheep
may clothe us with its abundant fleece, the
camel may bear us over the tropical desert, and
the reindeer over the polar snow, the intelligent
dog may guard our property and be our companion, and everything that hath breath may
justly be compelled to yield its treasures of
muscle and mind for our convenience and pleasure, for we are their masters and they are our
slaves.
It is probable, as an ingenious and wellinformed writer has lately attempted to show,
that man  by an unwise and indiscriminate
interference with vegetable and animal life has
actually much injured the earth; but that does




126          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
not disprove his right to do it wisely. Nor does
this right justify cruelty to animals. The man
who abuses his po wer, and inflicts needless pain on
sentient creatures, who beats an inferior animal
in passion, or for the devilish sport of seeing the
signs of torture, who trains beasts to fight in
his presence, or mercilessly slaughters brutessuch a man is a brute himself of the lowest
order. He is like a terrier dog, or a hyena. He
perverts his higher intelligence to abuse what
God created for good. He deserves punishment,
for the sake of suppressing evil example. The
laws to prevent cruelty to animals are wise, and
ought to be enforced.
Folly, too, in taking the life of the inferior
animals ought to be rebuked. The practice of
killing inoffensive birds and other animals,
merely for the pleasure of seeing them die, or
of cultivating skill in robbing them of life, is a
hound-like gratification, not to be commended
in a man except within narrow limits. And
whenever it tends to destroy a proper balance
of animal and vegetable life, or when it tends to
allow the too great production of insects and
vermin that these animals would consume, it
ought to be condemned; and, if need be, the
state may justly protect inoffensive and useful
animals against the hunting propensity of men.
But this protection, it should be observed, is
founded on policy, not on right. It is never




SIXTH COMMANDMENT.            127
wicked to kill a bird, or a rabbit, or any other
animal; it may be poor policy to do so. And
if the life of an animal is protected by law, it
should be only for the sake of some convenience
or temporal advantage to man, and not because
there is anything sacred in an animal's life. I
do not deny, too, that the sportsman's pleasure
is legitimate and proper. I believe it is a part
of human nature that we may justly indulge to
a certain extent. It is to those who cultivate it
healthful and invigorating, provided that it be
tempered with discretion. The life of animals
is justly in the power of man.
But when we reach human life we pass over
to entirely another sphere of God's works. The
difference between an ape and a man is greater
than between earth and heaven.  There is no
gradually ascending scale by which you can
mount from  an oyster upward, through fishes,
eels, serpents, quadrupeds, birds, quadrumana,
or apes, to man.  M3an belongs to another
kingdom, another department of God's works,
more distinct from the highest brute than the
highest brute is from  a stone. Because it is
always right, if politic, to kill a brute, it does
not follow that it is ever right, under any conceivable circumstances, to take the life of a man.
The two thoughts and acts are radically apart.
If it be ever right to kill a man, it must be
from entirely different motives from those which




128          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
make it always right, if convenient, to kill a
brute.
And just here, at this separating point, we
reach the most fundamental thought connected
with this commandment, " Thou shalt not kill."
We may state it, perhaps, most successfully by
instituting the inquiry, Why is it wrong to
kill  On what principle, on what fact, or collection of facts, does the Almighty base this
stern prohibition, " THOU SHALT NOT KILL?"
This question may be primarily answered in a
single statement, and then several secondary
answers may be added.
It is primarily wrong to kill a man because he
has an immortal soul, and because the destiny
of this immortal soul is decided by his mortal
life.
Now the fact that man has an immortal soul
I shall not now argue, but shall assert. I believe it. You believe it. I believe that the
Bible teaches it. You believe that the Bible
teaches it.
This one fact makes a greater distinction between a brute and a man, than between a
transient spark of fire and a star. " Who
knoweth,' says the book of Ecclesiastes, " the
spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit
of the beast that goeth downward to the earth' "
The beast has a spirit. And it is a very Inysterious thin g,  VWho knoweth it?  But it is a




SIXTH COMMANDMENT.           129
mere dull flash.  It'goeth downward to the
earth."  It ebbs out with the blood. Knock
the brute on the head and the spirit is gone. It
is gone, perhaps never to reappear. The brute
has no resurrection, more than the girdled tree
or the uprooted plant. Whether it is absorbed
into a great ocean of brute spirit, to crop out
again in some other animal life, or not, it is
impossible to determine. "Who knoweth  " It
is not necessary for us to know, and as yet we
have not learned. I do not know but that
animals will always exist, even in heaven. I
know  just absolutely nothing about it. No
man can prove that it will not be so. But I
have no reason to believe that there will ever
be any resurrection, any " standing again " of
the individual spirit of a dead beast. There are
no intimations of it in the Bible. There are no
indications of it in present facts. They seem to
have only an earthly life. There is no looking
forward in their nature; no provisions for the
future; no instinctive anticipations of it, no
demand for it. They arise and fall, serve their
purpose, all that they seem to be made for, and
then pass away.
It is not so with man. Man has power to
anticipate and desire an everlasting life. Ever
and anon the glimmerings of eternity flash out
from  him. You take a caterpillar, or any
other worm, and carefully dissect it in a certain
9




130         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
stage of its growth, and you will find wrapped
up in its texture the nascent form of another
animal, the fly; and from that alone you might
wisely anticipate that it was destined in due
season to evolve from its substance in this other
prefigured type of animal life. You watch it,
and you will find that by and by, in its progress,
it will wrap itself up in a covering, and in the
form of a chrysalis lie down in sleep, and then
will evolve from it in another stage of life, a fly.
Now the anticipation of the butterfly is in the
caterpillar; and God having created the anticipation, is bound by his wisdom, in due time, to
evolve the thing promised. There the progress
ends. God has not wrapped up in the butterfly any further anticipation, and consequently
we expect no further development. The butterfly dies, and there is the end of it. There is
no promised immortality in the spirit of a
beast.
But God has wrapped up in man's soul an
evident provision for and looking forward to another stage of life. And he is bound, therefore,
in wisdom  to give it. These intimations of
immortality are universal. They form a part
of all the false religions as well as of the true
religion. They are seen in the fearfulness of
remorse on the death-bed; in the patient endurance of suffering, hoping for future reward;
and in the tombstones that mark the resting



SIXTH COMMANDMENT.           131
place of the dead. The very question, "If a
man die shall he live again 2" indicates that he
will live. For if not, if God has not made him
for it, why does he ask the question? Why are
we capable  of conceiving the thought and
cherishing the desire? And the instinctive answer to the inquiry is, " YES." And the ancient
divine answer was, "All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come."
MVark you, a CHANGE; not a cessation of being,
but a CHANGE. Christ answers: "Marvel not,
for verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is
coming when they that are in their graves shall
hear htis voice and come forth: they that have
done good to everlasting life, and they that have
done evil to everlasting damnation."
How fearful, then, it is abruptly to terminate
the mortal life of an immortal being! He
who interferes with the life of a man without
just cause, usurps the prerogative of the Almighty. It is the highest possible robbery; it
is the concentration and extreme of all injustice
and wrong. All other acts of oppression and
cruelty may be remedied, or compensated, or
atoned for, at least partially; but for this there
is no remedy, no atonement. A man's property
may be restored, or he may subsist and achieve
life's purpose as fully without it; a man's liberty
lost may be given him again; a man's reputation, stabbed by the slanderer, may be regained,




132          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
and he may shine the brighter for the temporary
tarnish; but his life once gone is hopelessly,
forever sacrificed. It is like " water spilled on
the ground, that cannot be gathered again."
No bittter remorse of the murderer can reanimate the lifeless body, or call back the soul.
One thing only is more valuable than life, and
that is, virtue, piety, God's stamp on the soul,
a title to heaven; but that it is not in the power
of one man either to give to or take from
another. The very highest treasure, infinitely
higher than all others, that one human being
can possibly steal from another, and destroy, is
LIFE. Satan was nearly right, as usual, when
he said, " Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath,
will he give for his life."  All but virtue may a
man justly surrender for life.
And what terrible consequences may. follow
the premature loss of a life, in another world,
it is impossible for us even to conjecture, because we know so little of the nature of the
connection of the present life with the eternity
to follow. By robbing a human being of life
you may rob him of heaven, and commit an act
for which the regret and remorse may be felt
long after your present life shall end. The
greatest criminal may reform; and you, by suddenly sending him to his account, with all his
unforgiven sins upon his head, and without
opportunity for repentance, may cut off his




SIXTH COMMANDMENT.            133
opportunity for mercy, and consign him to ruin
and unending dismay.
The minor and secondary reasons why murder is forbidden are so inferior to this one
grand reason, that it seems unnecessary even to
mention them. I will, however, adduce a few.
In proportion to the lowness of the estimation
which a community entertain of the value of
life does human life become uncertain.  This
engenders suspicion, timidity, jealousy, deception, cruelty, and a long catalogue of vices.
See this evinced in some barbarian tribes. The
Fijis, for instance, before their late Christianization, were strangely addicted to the crime of
murder. All strangers were mercilessly killed,
and on the slightest provocation life even among
themselves was sacrificed.  The consequence
was that they all went, as all the heathen Fijis
still go, constantly armed with murderous clubs.
A man was always put on his self-defense. The
women, being weaker, are treacherous and enslaved: A restless looking about characterizes
the men whenever together.  The  slightest
noise or alarm leads to the grasping and brandishing of the club, and often on the smallest
provocation the feeble or the unguarded fall.
Their insular seclusion from the rest of mankind has alone saved them  from  extirpation.
Virtue is of course impossible in such a society,
and were all human beings Fijis, man could




134         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
never become civilized and noble, and ere long
the earth would be denuded of its human population. What we see ripened among them  is
the inevitable effect of a low estimation of the
value of human life.
Again, insecurity of human life, implies all
minor insecurities. It necessitates anarchy and
misrule. The greater includes the less. Where
on a slight provocation life may be destroyed,
property is not secure, character is not safe,
rewards for integrity and virtue are not certain,
and life is stripped of its genuine nobility.
It will thus be found, finally, that a strict
obedience, from right motives, to the command,
THOU SHALT NOT KILL, involves with it, almost as a necessity, an obedience to all the
other commandments of God; while an undervaluation of human life brings with it, inevitably, sensuality, deception, fraud, idleness, vice
of every kind, and ruin.
It may be deemed by some unnecessary, before
a Christian congregation, to present this subject,
but it is the duty of the minister to declare the
whole counsel of God. And, my friends, it is
fearful for us to consider that murder is by no
means an uncommon crime in our country.
This lowest depth of human guilt is not unfrequently reached. Seldom, indeed, does one
who has read and listened to the word of God,
who has joined in singing the praises of Christ




SIXTH COMMANDMENT.          135
in the sanctuary, or united with the congregation habitually in, public prayer, reach this
enormity of guilt; but even such cases are not
unknown. And among the Sabbath-breaking
and profane and intemperate part of the community, not unfrequently one and another is
found who either passionately or treacherously,
or sometimes maliciously, robs a fellow human
being of his greatest treasure, life. And how
shocking is the thought that many are deterred
from it simply by a fear of detection, or by the
absence of a malevolent disposition, and not
from any belief in the preciousness of human
life, not from any high and holy regard to the
will of God. It is my duty as a minister of the
Gospel to inculcate the right sentiment on this
subject, and preach the infinite sacredness of
human life.
And is it-not worthy of thought that few find
themselves suddenly betrayed into the greatest
crimes? Vice is stealthy in its progress, beginning in the imagination, sometimes lurking and
rioting there a long time before it ripens into
action. God sees more murders than all mankind see. There are sometimes murders where
there are no deaths. Hear the disciple whom
Jesus loved, 1 John iii, 15: " Whosoever hateth
his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no
murderer hath eternal life abiding in him."
Real, malignant hatred, that needs only oppor



136          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
tunity to act, that would slay were it not for
the danger of punishment; that is murder, for
God looks at the heart. And every degree of
this feeling is wrong, and tends to create still
more. Hatred is a cancer; once fastened on the
soul, it spreads till it eats out all eternal life.
When Elisha the prophet met Hazael, the future
wicked king, the prophet wept. lazael inquired, "Why weepeth my lord?"  And the
prophet said it was because he saw the crimes
that Hazael would hereafter commit. And
when he described the murders which by vision
he saw, Hazael indignantly exclaimed, "Is thy
servant a dog that he should do this great
thing?" And yet Hazael afterward did it.
Let it not, then, be thought superfluous that
I explain the doctrine of God on the sacredness
of human life. Remember, it is a commandment of God to all mankind, applying only to
human beings, however young or however old,
THOU SHALT NOT KILL.
The punishment inflicted upon this dreadful
crime, even in the present life, is generally
terrible. Few are so hardened as to be able to
suppress the fires of hell that burn in the soul
after the commission of murder. It has passed
into a proverb that " murder will out."  As
Daniel Webster has well said, " Such a secret
can be safe nowhere. "   The whole creation of
God has neither nook nor corner where the




SIXTI  COMMANDMENT.           137
guilty can bestow it and say it is safe. Not
to speak of that eye which glances through all
disguises, and beholds everything as in the
splendor of noon, such secrets of guilt are
never safe:' Murder will out.' True it is that
Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern
all things, that those who break the great law of
Heaven, by shedding man's blood, seldom  succeed in avoiding discovery;" "the secret which
the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him;
and like the evil spirits of which we read, it
overcomes him, and leads him  whithersoever
it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising
to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He
thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads
it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in
the very silence of his thoughts.  It has become
his master; it betrays his discretion, it breaks
down his courage, it conquers his prudence."
"It must be confessed, it will be confessed;
there is no refuge from confession but in suicide,
and suicide is confession."
Some have argued from this commandment,
that it is not right for the government to take
the life of a human being as a criminal or in
war.  They assert that the state has no right
to execute a murderer, because God has said,
" Thou shalt not kill."  This is a hasty and unwarrantable conclusion. It should be observed
that the state must have power that cannot be




138         PILLARS OF TRUTIL
given to an individual, and therefore many acts
are right for a state that are not right for an
individual. It is said, TnHou SHALT NOT STEAL;
but that does not forbid the state from  imposing a fine upon a man as a punishment for
crime, and if need be collecting it by force. A
man has a right to personal liberty, but the
state may justly take it away if the man is
criminal and dangerous in society. So if a man
has taken the life of another he has forfeited
his right to liberty; and if he has forfeited his
right to life it does not oppose the doctrine of
this commandment. This commandment was
made for men, and not for states. And even as
a commandment for man it is subject, as all
general precepts are, to modification in extraordinary circumstances. To protect life, either
one's own or that of a friend, against murder, it
is right in the sight of man and of God to sacrifice the life of the intended murderer.  This
has always been approved by the common instincts of humanity, and the judgment of the
wise and good. Bible teaching and Bible example justify it.
To take human life, except when it is justly
forfeited, is wrong, because we are to live forever. Our beloved friends that have gone before
yet live. We shall meet them again. If the
murderer shall meet his victim there, so, too,
will those who have inflicted minor injuries




SIXTH COMMANDMENT.           139
meet their wronged ones there. The abused,
the neglected, the oppressed will meet their
insulters and oppressors there. O what terrible
meetings  Ought we not to think of it? Life's
reponsibilities cannot be thrown off even with
our bodies. We cannot carry our money with
us, but we can carry the wrongs and crimes and
wickedness which that money has engendered.
We must take our souls with us. We shall not
need to carry our account-books, for our actions
will be recorded in  God's judgment-book.
What lines are already written there! What
lines are writing now!
It is wrong to shorten the life of a human
being, because the present probationary existence is unutterably valuable to him. Even so,
then, this life is unutterably valuable to us.
Are we making it so? Are we using il as
though it was valuable? Are we preparing our
spirits for an upward flight  Are we the disciples of Christ?  IHe says, " If any man is
ashamed to confess me before men, of him will
I be ashamed before my Father and the holy
angels."  Are any of us ashamed to confess
him? Is it possible that any of us can consider
this subject, the sacredness of human life, without applying it to ourselves thus: It is wrong
to take the life of a human being. God has said,
" Thou shalt not kill.'  It is not only wrong,
therefore, for me to take the life of a human




140        -PILLARS OF TRUTH.
being, but it would be a terrible crime for any
one short of God Almighty to take my life.
But why? Why is my life of any value   Am
I doing any good with it  Am I serving its
great end? Am I so shaping it as to prepare
for the bliss of heaven?  Or am  I tending
downward 
God help you to decide that wisely and
truly. If you are Christ's, rejoice? If not,
seek salvation to-day, by giving yourselves to
Christ.




SIXTH COMMANDMENT.           141
VIII.
THE SIXTH  COMMANDMENT.
X The Crime of Suicide.
TIOU SHALT NOT KILL.-ExoduS XX, 13.
THIS commandment directly forbids suicide, a
crime more common than murder. This crime
is generally caused by despair.
The weeping prophet Jeremiah, when all his
earthly hopes were blasted, exclaimed, " It is good
that a man should both hope, and quietly wait
for the salvation of the Lord." There are many
kinds of salvation, such as from poverty, sickness, disgrace, and death, as well as from eternal
ruin. The salvation hoped for by Jeremiah was
from earthly ruin. The author of Lamentations
was what some would call a broken-hearted
man. His prospects of success were all ruined
and gone. Nothing was left to hope for; nothing
but to die. He had belonged to a nation that
was animated by a peculiar hope-the oldest
and proudest nation of the world. Now it was
conquered  and destroyed.  Its capital was
broken down; its temple despoiled of its furniture; its king was a captive; its leading men
and women slaves; its very language was a re



142         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
proach, and its prophets, embracing himself, a
by-word and a scoffing among the nations of the
earth. What was there left for him  to do 
He could not become a Babylonian; he could
not forget his mother tongue; he could not
worship the idols of Assyria; his own God had
not answered his prayers, and seemed to show
no regard for him. What was there left for
him but to die?
Had the weeping prophet put an end to his
life, he would have done only what Hannibal
and Cato and Brutus and many other heathens,
in like circumstances, have done. But no.
He wept, but his were not the tears of despair;
he wrote his country's epitaph, but it was
enlivened by the hope of a resurrection; he
uttered the bitterest lamentations, but they
were enlightened with the flashes of such faith
as this: " It is good that a man should both
hope, and quietly wait for the salvation of the
Lord!"  Such is the example of one who had
a sound mind, and was cheered with faith in
God.
I. I purpose in this discourse to show the
wrongfulness of despondency, or the views that
we should entertain of despair.
It might seem to some persons inappropriate
to address an audience of young men on a
wrongful habit of mind to which persons of




SIXTH COMMANDMENT.            143
their age are not inclined, but further observation would show. them that despair is not confined
to any age. Indeed it is, probably, quite as
prevalent among the young as among the more
advanced in years.
By despondency I mean that state of mind
directly opposite to hope. It is an absence of
exhilarating buoyancy of feeling. It is an expectation of disaster and defeat. It is a tendency to look on the dark side of things. It
clothes the heavens and the earth in an unnatural blue.  It makes its victims peevish and
fretful. It fills the imagination with dismal
forebodings.  It gives a man the nightmare
when awake and under self-control. The despondent man if engaged in business expects to
fail. The price of the stock that he owns will
certainly fall; his creditors will never pay; his
debts will wreck him.  Is he a farmer?  The
winter will certainly kill his wheat and his
sheep; an early frost will destroy his corn; insects
are much more destructive now than ever before;
farming is the worst of all business, and never
so bad as now. Is he a student?  There is no
prospect in this country for a well-educated man,
quacks and charlatans take all the prizes; the
people  never see and acknowledge genuine
merit; the ranks of the professions are all full;
knowledge is becoming so universal now that it
is no distinction, and its possession is of no




144          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
value. Is lie a minister? The world was never
so wicked before. Good men are despised now;
the proud and the hypocritical are exalted.
Men prefer tinsel to gold; a little show is worth
far more than solid merit. Aged ministers are
like poor old horses turned out to die. Such
will be my fate.
These are no fancy sketches. They are but
surface skimmings of a deep, dark, blue sea of
despondency, that rolls coldly over many a
soul.
In looking at these cases many striking facts
are to be observed.
1. As I have already intimated, there is no
peculiar zone of age to which these dark clouds
are confined. It is seldom that boys and girls,
perhaps, exhibit or feel for any appreciable
length of time this painful condition, except in
a very few instances of unnatural precocity,
produced by the modern hot-bed style of civilization. But after childhood is passed, early and
later youth has its full proportion of despondent victims. As the years roll on many of
them either die as a consequence of their low
spirits, or learn better, and therefore the new
cases occurring do not make the number any
greater.  Indeed I think that the proportion
of hopeful, cheerful persons is decidedly greater
among old people than among young people;
for, perhaps, cheerful persons have the best pros



SIXTH COMMANDMENT.            145
pect of long life. Yet instances of despondency
are not wanting in any age.
2. Again, observe that this habit of feeling is
not affected perceptibly by condition, or rank, or
prospects. The rich are, if there is any difference, more liable to it than the poor; the very
rich than the very poor. The very strong and
athletic do not escape; the feeble and pining
sometimes do. Sometimes a poor man, toiling
hard for his daily bread, is cheerful, while the
inheritor of wealth groans and sighs amid all the
luxuries that money can purchase.  Genius is
peculiarly exposed to despondency; education
seems often to induce it.
3. Another remarkable characteristic of this
evil is that it is intermittent.  It is not exactly,
like mysterious agues and fevers, a periodical
visitant, coming at intervals of twenty-four or
forty-eight hours, or other well-defined terms,
but remittent, irregular, capricious.  People
subject to despondency have generally their seasons of great exhilaration.  They keep up the
equilibrium by fits of exultation. Perhaps this
fact gave origin to the proverb,
"Great wit's to madness near allied."
Indeed it is a psychological fact of some interest,
that many persons remarkable for wit, productive
of great laughter in others, have been subject
to almost uLcontrollable despondency.  Such
10




146         PILLARS OF TRUTII.
was the case with Dean Swift, and Lamb, and
Hood, and Hook; but such was not the case
with Sydney Smith.
This disposition has sometimes been called
the poetical temperament, because those who
indulge the imagination are more than others
inclined to excesses of joy and sorrow, to ecstacies
of delight or despair. Instances of this are seen
in Cowper and Byron and Goethe, and not unlikely in Alexander Smith and Tennyson. But
this is far from being universal. Such men as
Milton and Shakspeare and Gray and Wordsworth and Bryant and Longfellow and Whittier, are too wise and well rounded out in
their mental nature to go, by turns, moping
and complaining and leaping through  life.
If this be the poetical temperament it is
the poetry of disease, not of health; it is
the music of the dying swan, not of th6 living
nightingale.
Akin to despondency, but deeper and darker
in its hue, is despair. Despondency, I have said,
is the exact opposite of hope; despair is the
exact opposite of faith. The Bible says, " Hope
is an anchor to the soul, sure and steadfast."
In like manner desponding is a dead weight to
the soul, like a water-logged vessel, constantly
dragging its freight beneath the waves. The
Bible says, "Faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."




SIXTH COMMANDMENT.             147
The Bible here means good things.  Faith is
the very substance or foundation of all good
thing8 hereafter to be enjoyed. In like manner
despair is the substance of evil things expected,
the evidence of evil things not seen.  Thus to
us these are absolutely opposite passions: Hope
and  despondency, faith  and despair. Hope
is a great blessing, faith a greater blessing; yes,
faith, in the Christian sense, is the greatest of
all blessings.. Despondency is a great evil,
despair greater; nay, despair is the greatest
curse on earth or in hell.
No tongue can describe the horrors of despair.
No artist can -depict human lineaments sad
enough to suggest one half of its woe. It is
the absence of all good, the apprehension of all
evil; and, inasmuch as expectation is often
worse than fact, despair is worse than any agony
of bocfy or pain of soul, through positive evil,
that could possibly be endured.  Often it has
paralyzed the brain and chilled the very heart.
The best gift of God is faith; the very crisis
and completion of evil is despair.
What a sad thought it is that despondency,
at least in its incipient advances, has so many
victims.  Could we see them  together what a
collection of wretches should we behold! What
a dead sea of human souls! iHow upon looking at them should we be inclined, with Voltaire,
to exclaim, " The world contains carcasses rather




148          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
than men, and I wish that I had never been
born!" or better, with Jeremiah, " O that my
head were waters," etc.
II. Having observed the nature of these terrible kindred evils, despondency and despair,
which differ from  each other in intensity
only, as the storm  differs from  the tornado,
let us inquire into their origin. What causes
despondency   What causes despair 
When we speak of causes, various ideas may
be suggested. We may inquire into the final
cause, thus: Why did God make the human
soul capable of despair?  This is a mysterious
question, and only one of a general class. Why
did God make man capable of pain? What is
the use of pain   What motive in God caused
him to create the capability of pain in man?
Why may that which produces the most exquiite pleasure produces the most excruciating pain?
The eye in delirium tremens, the ear, the whole
brain? I do not know, except that the possibility of pain seems to us to be necessary to
make the posibility of pleasure. There can be
no day without the possibility of night; no
peace without the possibility of disturbance;
no order without the possibility of anarchy;
no hope without the possibility of despondency; no faith without the possibility of despair.




SIXTH COMMANDMENT.                 149
As Wordsworth well says:
O life I without thy checkered scene
Of right and wrong, of weal and woe,
Success and failure, could a ground
For magnanimity be found?
For faith'mid ruined hopes serene?
Or whence could virtue flow?
Pain entered through a ghastly breachNor while sin lasts must efforts cease;
Heaven upon earth's an empty boast;
But, for the bowers of Eden lost,
Mercy has placed within our reach
A portion of God's peace.
But what are the efficient causes of despondency or despair?  What are its invariable antecedents, which, knowing, we may guard against
them?
First, they may be bodily.
Some of these bodily causes are organic, or
originate with the constitution. The ancient
physiologists divided  all human  beings  into
four classes, according to the temperament,
which they called the sanguine, the melancholic,
the choleric, and the phlegmatic. Modern physiologists add another class, the nervous, making
five.  Persons of the melancholic temperament
have either a sluggish circulation of the blood,
or an excess of bile, or some abnormal action
of the brain, which brings them  constantly into
a physical condition similar to that diseased
state which produces in sleep painful dreams,




150          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
and in wakefulness moroseness, unsociableness,
and a tendency to despair.
Those who have been of this temperament
have in their happiest moments eloquently
eulogized its advantages. Dr. Martyn Paine
says:' The melancholic is the man of men. I
had almost said, in moral constitution, he is
perpetuated, unchanged, from the model of his
race. Here is witnessed the highest intellectual
renown at the very dawn of manhood; and
here it is that we often meet with genius struggling with those adversities which arrest the
ambition of other temperaments."  "This imagination, therefore, is of the highest order, being disciplined by the sterner faculties. It is
such an imagination as is always an element of
genius; such as contemplates the realities of life
and the truths of revelation. He is thoughtful,
grave, or sad, but may tune'his mind to great
elevation, and great sublimity and enthusiasm,
and often soars on poetic wings through the regions of heaven."  Elsewhere he says: " Hence
it is that hypochondriacism and insanity are apt
to supervene on the melancholic temperament."
Sometimes the bodily condition tending to
despondency, instead of being a temperament,
or an organic abnormal condition, is a temporary disease, having its beginning, its tendency
to a crisis, and a cure; sometimes it becomes
chronic and habitual.




SIXTH COMMANDMENT.           151
Sometimes its victims not only become accustomed to it, but even learn to take a sort of
pleasure in it. Men may be so habituated to
pain as to feel unnatural and unhappy if they
are relieved from it, just as the human body
may become so inured to poison as to seem to
require it. Some men would be still more unhappy than they are, seemingly, if they could
not fret and complain and render others unhappy. Such is the power of habit; such also
is often the wonderful influence which the body
exerts over the soul.
Of course, so far as despondency is caused by
bodily condition, it can be remedied primarily
by medicine and proper regimen and diet, which
is one of the most valuable departments of physiological science. In its incipient stages the unhappy sufferer can, if he understands his own
difficulty, seek the aid of a physician, and often
obtain relief. Precisely where self-control and
responsibility cease, and what may properly be
called insanity begins, is a very delicate question, and one which I do not propose now to
investigate.
2. Despondency is often caused by irregular
habits and intemperance. Every stimulus is
followed by reaction. The miserable opiumeaters, though occasionally one lives to a good
old age, are generally wrecked into idiocy, impotency, and an early death. Habitual drink



152          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
ers of alcohol, in proportion to the strength and
frequency of their potations, are the victims of
fancied sorrows and indescribable wretchedness
in: the intervals of their intoxication. Disorder
of every kind induces despondency.
3. Another prolific source of this trouble is
idleness. Labor is not a curse; it is a blessing.
The curse pronounced upon Adam  was not
labor, )but the sterility of the earth and its production of weeds. Even mental toil is rewarded
more by the health and joy it engenders than
by its result. This is true also of bodily toil.
God works.  Incessant benevolent activity is
his nature. So man should work. An idle
person is either imbecile, an undeveloped human
being, or the victim of wretchedness.
4. I need not dwell upon the consequences of
sudden disappointments, severe bereavements,
great afflictions.  There  are  many  persons
who are not able to bear sudden and violent
shocks of sorrow. The loss of property, the
loss of friends, the loss of reputation, have
sometimes -prostrated their victims at a blow,
and hurled them into incurable despair. When,
through the connection of the soul with the
body, the shock is followed by a physiological
change, sometimes the difficulty is incurable;
but if confined to the soul, such is the wonderful
elasticity of human nature, the crushed spirit
revives, and soon again puts forth the tender




SIXTH COMMANDMENT.           153
shoots of hope, ere long to blossom into joy and
ripen into peace. No man is thoroughly disciplined, and the subject of the largest Christian
faith, who is not able to rally from any earthly
shock. Job said in his calamity, "'Though he
slay me, yet will I trust in him;" and Jeremiah
well said, "It is good that a man should both
hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the
Lord."
5. I am constrained to believe that the greatest source of low spirits, especially among educated and refined persons, is the want of the
true Christian religion.
Infidelity is essentially and necessarily productive of dissatisfaction. This is true theoretically, and true practically. It can be demonstrated to the reason; it can be illustrated
by history; it can be confirmed by almost every
person, to some extent, by his own experience.
Infidelity is a'want of faith in what ought to
be regarded as the stable pillars of the universe.
How can a man be happy in a building that
may fall into ruins and destroy him  in an
instant?  Is there any pleasure in being deprived of faith in God? In supposing one's self
to be a mere outgrowth of matter, like a fungus?
What is there desirable in reason, if it shall expire to-morrow? What in imagination, if it
must be tied to a hundred and fifty pounds of
earth and water, to be melted into vulgar dirt,




154         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
and disappear forever in a few days? What is
there pleasant in supposing that all the best of
men have been deceived, and are now nothing,
and soon we shall be like them, only not
deceived a
But I need not reason on the matter. Facts
prove it. Irreligious men are generally discontented. Especially does this apply to men
who are determinately hostile to Christianity.
There is a secret as well as an open history to
such men. There are hours of sorrow and repining and dissatisfaction never described. Solitude is wretchedness to the man who has no hope
in God; meditation is madness, sober thought
is pain. The autobiographies and letters and
conversations of rejecters of divine revelation
demonstrate this assertion.
III. Allow me, then, to show you what is
the proper and only efficient remedy for despondency in its full fruit of despair.
I have already said that so far as it is the
result of physical organization or disease, it
must be reached and overcome largely through
medical means, though the wisest of physicians
now appreciate the fact that the body can often
be benefited most through the mind. It is also
evident that ail intemperance and irregularities
of living must be avoided if we would escape
this sorrow.




SIXTH COMMANDMENT.            155
But the most effectual and only sovereign
remedy is Christian faith, Christian experience,
and Christian character.  This-for the three
elements constitute but one possession-is offered
to all, and is attainable by all; and, so far as it
is attained, directly nullifies and annihilates
despondency.
Carlyle once said," Christianity is the religion of sorrow." Carlyle never wrote a greater
falsehood; and he has written as great if not as
many falsehoods as any other writer of the
present generation in our language. His views
of human nature in general, of government and
society, and of men, are false. Born of Christian
parents, he inherited much of the genuine Scotch
integrity and manliness which only a Christian
education could give, and which gave him some
attractiveness in his early life; but having rejected the actual Christian experience and life
of his fathers, he has been a giant floundering
in the mud of metaphysics, uttering strange
doctrines and mystifying what is simple, perverting the truth, and battling with fancied
foes in the dark, all his life; and his career
threatens to end in pernicious fault-finding and
despair. Christianity is not a religion of sorrow.
Christ, indeed, was a man of sorrows; but he
changed his sorrows into triumphs, his pain
into joy.  And, moreover, his sorrow and his
pain were designed to bless the whole world.




156          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
And this is the great power of Christianity,
that it takes real sorrow and makes it sooner
or later productive of real joy.  Sorrow and
affliction, if they come to a Christian, are by the
mysterious chemistry of the Gospel converted
into character, into excellence, into eternal good.
The religion of Christ makes no new sorrow.
It discloses some evil that before was unknown,
but it immediately provides a remedy. Its very
center and substance is love. Is there any pain
in love?  " The fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness,
patience, temperance." Is there any sorrow in
them?
The true Christian cannot despair. He ought
never to despond.
But I hear the practical objection, that many
professed Christians are seemingly unhappy,
discontented, and even despondent.  "Why is
this, if Christianity is peaceful, and even joyous? "
It is because professed Christians are not
informed as to their duty. Preachers dwell too
much upon doctrine, too little upon life. They
forget that their function is to be preachers of
the GOSPEL. Gospel is another word that needs
to be demagnetized before it can be understood.
Gospel is a good spell, a good story or announcement, or good news. Good news has no
tendency to make men despondent, unless they
are determined to reject it. The Gospel is an




SIXTH COMMANDMENT.            1IT
announcement of immortality, of the essential
and everlasting integrity of virtue and love of
God. Whoever receives the Gospel is comforted, enlightened, elevated, cheered.
It is a positive sin for a Christian to cultivate
or indulge morbid despondency.  He thereby
dishonors the Saviour and robs God. When
men come to see it. as a sin they will not boast
of it, but rather contend against it, and use
means for its removal, and pray to be delivered
from it.
A good practical remedy for despondency is
to make efforts to live a Christian life, even
though destitute of hope and faith. It is related
of a wealthy man of Paris, that being desolate
and alone, having exhausted all the gratifications
of society, and being unstrung in soul and body,
and weary of life, he finally resolved, on one dark
and dreary night of winter, to put an end to
his life. He accordingly made all the preparations, left his house and walked toward the
river Seine, with a full purpose of casting himself into the water.  On approaching the bank
he observed a poor miserably clad woman with
two children stealthily creeping down toward
the bank, evidently trying to elude the vigilance
of the police. His curiosity was excited, and he
inquired of her what she was doing. He learned
that she, too, was weary of life. She was one
of the victims of a stern iron civilization, which




158         PILLARS. OF TRUTH.
Rousseau justly thought is worse than the savage
state. Her two children were starving for want
of food, and she had eaten nothing for several
days. No virtuous way of obtaining a livelihood was opened to her, and she was now about
to end her own life and her children's. The
rich hypochondriac's heart was touched. Here,
said he, is real misery, greater than mine. I
-am about to die by my own act, but this woman
and her children need not die. I have money
enough, and will supply their wants. The result was that he commenced a course of benevolent life from that time, and many years afterward died in an honorable old age, after a long
career of benevolent usefulness, followed to the
grave by many who had been comforted and
blessed by his Christian benevolence.
The practical part of Christianity is to many
much easier than the theoretical. I am liberal
enough to suppose that Christ recognizes as his
followers many whom  some Churchmen call
infidels. What Christ desires is a right spirit;
not merely a right belief.  "Master," said tile
disciples once, " we saw one casting out devils in
thy name, but he follows not with us, and we
rebuked him."  Hear the reply of the Master:
"Forbid him not: for there is no man which
shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly
speak evil of me. For he that is not against us
is on our part."




SIXTH COMMANDMENT.           159
When I see a man striving honestly to live a
correct life, reverent toward God, approving the
good, shrinking from and contending against
evil, though  from  some peculiar education
he may differ widely from me in opinion, and
in the expression of opinion, I cannot believe
that Christ does not approve and will not reward
that honesty of purpose and fidelity of character.
This door to a Christian character is open
wide to all.
I cannot close this discourse without adding
a word cognate to the subject which has engaged our attention, upon the question whether,
under any circumstances, it is allowable for a
Christian to put an end to his own life.
You will notice the form of the question:
Whether it is right for a Christian to commit
suicide? Those who have not received Christian
information and education are to be judged according to the light which they have. This is
in harmony with the tenor of Scripture. The
heathen were compelled to consider this subject
by the light of nature, and are not to be held
responsible to our standard.
In considering this question, observe, first,
that the Bible describes no instance of suicide
by a thoroughly good man, and no instance in
which it seems to be commended or justified.
Samson consented to slay himself with his
enemies. The miserable Saul, first king of




160          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
Israel, when hopelessly defeated, and overcome by
remorse and despair, prayed another man to take
his life, but dared not himself commit the act.
David in all his troubles seemed never to dream
of it. Job, in his superhuman sorrows, is not
represented as even tempted of Satan to end
his life. In the New Testament, of all who
ever professed love to Christ, Judas alone was
led to perish by his own hands.
Suicide is directly opposed to the fundamental
principles of Christianity, which are, that this
life is designed to furnish opportunity to prepare for another, and that, therefore, this life
is inexpressibly valuable, and is never to be
terminated except by the appointment of God.
Sorrow must be borne heroically, and with
patience, because it is the material of endless
joy. "Ireckon thatthe snfferings of this present
time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory that shall be revealed in us."  "For these
light afflictions, which are but for a moment,
work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the
things which are seen, but at the things which
are not seen; for tle things which are seen are
temporal, but the things which are not seen are
eternal."
The man who believes this cannot be permanently unhappy.  The disease is conquered;
the temptation is crushed out.




SIXTH  COMMANDMENT.                 161
Christianity teaches us that the great object
of human life is usefulness, and the opportunity
for usefulness never ends.
Milton well expresses his thought in that sublime sonnet which he wrote on his own blindness:
"When I consider how my life is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul were bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
Doth God exact day labor, light denied?
I fondly ask; but patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."
How  nobly did Milton more than verify this
truth  in  his own  experience.  Look  at that
noble scholar so terribly afflicted in the very
prime  of his  career.  Remember his  course
of life.  He was bred  as a Christian scholar
from  his childhood; early taught to pray and
praise God.  At the age of sixteen he entered
college; and  at the  age of twenty-three  he
graduated master of arts, and left the university,
and then spent five years more in rigid orderly
reading and study, occasionally for recreation
writing some short productions in poetry and
prose. This brought him to the age of thirty,
11




162         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
when he spent nearly two years in travel. All
this time he cherished an ambition of writing a
poem of a moral and Christian character, that
should for all time to come honor God and
bless man. It was a wonderful ambition. For
this he read, meditated, observed, and studied.
At the age of thirty-two the great political
troubles of the English revolution broke out, comparable to the American civil war, and Milton,
though a retired scholar, was forced to enter
the lists. He was a Republican and a Puritan,
and brought his vast mental stores and thorough
mental discipline to bear in the production of
some of the noblest essays and treatises extant
in human language. The great doctrine of
universal toleration of conscience he first announced, which alone should make his name immortal. For fifteen long years he toiled, the most
conspicuous man in England, except perhaps
Cromwell; probably, so far as we can estimate,
the most useful man in the world. But then
came the terrible blow. His eyesight at fortyfive was wholly gone. And shortly, as if to
prove that evils never come singly, but in battalions, a counter-revolution was effected; he
was outlawed, and compelled to live in seclusion
and in domestic trouble. Pain, disease, obloquy,
blindness, overwhelmed him. What would you
expect of him but despair? Had he sunk down
into premature old age, a broken-hearted man,




SIXTH COMMANDMENT.          163
the world would not have wondered; had he
ended his own life, he would have died as nobly
as Cato, Brutus, or even Demosthenes! But still
he would have been a coward. But no; he knew
too well the Christian doctrine: " They serve God
who fly o'er sea and land; they also serve who
stand and wait!  IHIe was content, if God asked
it, to stand and wait; and soon he found that,
standing and waiting, he could be useful still;
and the blind man, excluded from the world of
colors and outward sights, saw within, heaven,
paradise, earth, hell, and heaven again, and
gave to the world, from his own soul, a panorama of vision and thought that has ennobled
his mother tongue, and clothed the sublime story
of man's Paradise Lost and Regained with the
undying glory of poetic speech.
If there be one truth which every man should
know, it is this: Christianity protests that to
the Christian there is, there can be no such
thing as evil. What men call evil is to the
Christian always converted into good. Therefore the Christian should never despair. Least
of all should he interfere with the regular current of his own life, which it is the prerogative
of God alone to guide.
If, then, we are determined to be Christians,
let us adopt these maxims in their fullest extent:
Nil desperandum est, We must never despair;
lDu  spiro, spero, While I breathe, I hope.




164             PILLARS OF TRUTH.
" I cannot always trace the way,
Where thou, Almighty One, dost move;
But I can always, always say
That God is love.
"When mystery clouds my darkened path,
I'll check my dread, my doubts reprove;
In this my soul sweet comfort hath,
That God is love.
"Yes, God is love I a thought like this
Can every gloomy thought remove,
And turn all tears, all woes to bliss;
For God is love."




SEVENTH COMMANDMENT.          165
IX.
THE  SEVENTH  COMMANDMENT.
Marriage and its Duties.
THou SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY.-Exodus XX, 14.
THERE is no doubt about the meaning and
nature of marriage with those who accept the
teachings of the Bible. It is true that the practice of good men in the earliest days, which seems
even to have been sanctioned by the Lord, was
in violation of some of the highest requirements
of marriage; and this fact is just mysterious
enough not only to puzzle the devout Christian,
and furnish to the caviler a good field to revel
in, but also to compel all true Christians to discriminate for themselves, by a positive act of
the will, between good and evil. The Bible
does not remove all mysteries. We must still
walk by faith, and not by sight.
Marriage is a divine institution. It is the
design of God, our Maker, that human beings
should live in families, the head of each of
which should be a man and woman, united for
life in an intimate union, existing between
them alone, and excluding others, indissoluble
but by death, or by such crime on the part of




164        PILLARS OF TRUTH.
one as renders the union useless or injurious.
This is taught in the Bible.
Adam and Eve were the first to illustrate the
divine idea of matrimony. In the scriptural
account of its origin it is briefly described as
a union existing only between two, and to be
perpetual.  Adam  is represented as saying,
" Therefore shall a man leave his father and his
mother, land shall cleave unto his wife; and they
shall be one flesh." Gen. ii, 4.  Jesus Christ
quotes these words as coming from the Creator,
and interprets them as sanctioning only a lifelong union between one husband and one wife.
This is the uniform  teaching of the New
Testament. This is God's type of marriage.
Whatever God approves is invariably found
productive of good, and what he disapproves, of
evil.
Moreover, the results of a strict adherence to
the laws of matrimony are found to be beneficial
to the individual, to the family, and to society;
while disobedience to them degrades the individual, breaks up or disgraces families, and
weakens a nation. Thus by rewards and retributions God confirms his word.
I. Let us consider first the benefits of marriage.
1. In approaching this subject let me again
remind you of the supreme importance of the
individual man, according to the Christian mode




SEVENTH COMMANDMENT.           167
of thinking.  Human philosophy almost invariably sinks the individual and exalts the mass.
It looks upon man arithmetically, and, because
a million counts more than one, infers that one
is of but little value, and that to effect anything we must aim to reach the million rather
than the one.. Christ, on the other hand, viewed
each man as an infinite quantity; and when we
reach infinite quantities arithmetic is no longer
available. What Christ sought was to bless individuals, knowing that if they were perfected,
institutions-which grow out of them-would
necessarily be good.
Niow matrimony, considered as a custom or
practice of human beings, is the greatest possible blessing to the individuals affected by it,
and through its benefit on individuals it blesses
societies and the state.
It benefits the individual, first, by communicating to the individual a permanency of disposition and a stability of character such as no
other institution can create.
The child is bound to the parents by dependence and affection until capable of sustaining
himself; but even this relation would be uncertain and often broken but for the stable matrimony of the parents; and when the child
reaches the age of youth he is isolated and
solitary, having only the temporary connections
of friendship and of business,.which are soon




168          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
found to be of little permanent influence.
Matrimony stamps a life-long character upon the
individual.
It is a glorious epoch in the life of a human
being when he acquires a character that shall
abide. Death itself cannot in all respects nullify
the relations into which he enters by marriage.
The volatile becomes fixed, ambitions are centered, hopes are steadied; from the dependent
child, or the uncertain aspirant, he is exalted
into one of the pillars of society, one of the
independent component parts for whose good
the whole fabric is regulated and sustained.
This is all condensed into the Scripture expression, "For this cause shall a man leave his
father and mother, and cleave unto his wife."
Here, as usual, the masculine noun is intended
to include both sexes. It is not only true that
the man leaves father and mother, but also the
woman shall leave father and mother and cleave
to her husband; both become one.. The old
parental relation abides, it is true, in its memories, in its affection, but not in its mutual support and dependence. The relation of son and
daughter is now overbalanced by the new and
stronger one of husband and wife. This is to
abide till death. Marriage is the first, if not the
only relation of one human being to another,
that without change is to abide.
2. In additioh to the stability of character




SEVENTH COMMANDMENT.          169
communicated by matrimony, the parties thus
united find in it a relation best constituted-for
God is its author-to develop in them the highest individual excellence, and to fit them for the
highest usefulness to others. " It is not good;"
or it is not the perfect condition for either man
or woman, " to be alone."
The obvious effects upon body and mind,
upon the affections and whole character, I must
simply pronounce beneficial, without taking
the time to explain and prove the assertion.
But its social and national influences, may with
propriety be illustrated. The male and female,
in their affections, instincts, and influences, reciprocally sustain and perfect each other. How
elevating is the influence of strict, scriptural,
permanent matrimony upon the children of the
family thus constituted. The mother teaches
the children to honor the father whom  she
honors as husband, and the father teaches them
to love the mother whom  he loves as wife.
Nothing but death should sunder this relation.
3. It is also natural, as the spontaneous outgrowth of the soul,. that the parents of families
should be interested in the common character of
others around them, with whom their children
will associate. This is the origin of public
spirit, of public enterprise, of patriotism. The
household is the mother of the state. A state
is strong, and less exposed to revolutions, in




170          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
proportion to the perfection of the family relation maintained by the people. The country
most noted in all the world for revolutions is
also most noted for setting at defiance the
seventh commandment.
The Church, too, is the natural out-growth of
the family.  But for the marriage relation,
strictly obeyed, there would be no Church, no
Sabbath-school, no Sabbath; no family prayer,
no social prayer, no public prayer; no home
subordination arising from mutual love, and
therefore no voluntary, cheerful subordination
to public authority; no  order, no culture.
Marriage is the contract which creates the
world. But for it society would be resolved
into chaos.
I speak of perfect marriage among perfect
men and women. Of course it is seldom seen in
anything like a perfect form. But we must
look at the genuine type as it ought to be, and
we should aim to make it what it ought to be.
II. The benefits of matrimony may be more
distinctly seen. by noticing the consequences of
its neglect or violation.
Now, if it be true that God is the author of
matrimony, by creating human beings for it,
and adapted to it, and by commanding it in his
word, then we may suppose that all deviations
from its scriptural type will be seen to be injurious.




SEVENTH COMMANDMENT.          171
1. The first deviation from  it is voluntary
celibacy. This, so far from being forbidden, is
recognized, and under some circumstances commanded in the Bible. Though the Church, in
the dark ages, pressed this doctrine into extravagant and pernicious results, yet it cannot
honestly be denied that the Bible commends
those who, under certain circumstances, deny
themselves the advantages of matrimonial relations, that they may devote themselves without
incumbrance to some high mission for the good
of their fellow-men. And it cannot be denied
that by the blessed principle of compensation,
which runs through the entire economy of the
universe, those who are unmarried may, if
they preserve a pure character, accomplish
peculiar good and enjoy a peculiar reward.
But the  conditions must  be maintained,
otherwise they sin against God and their own
souls.
Involuntary celibacy, or celibacy assumed as
a badge of a class, binding its members against
matrimony, has proved productive of great
evils. This is a great error of that sect calling
itself the Roman Catholic Church. History
abundantly proves that it has corrupted the
priesthood and the inmates of nunneries, diseasing the mind and engendering unholy ambitions, and unfitting them for those natural
and correct sympathies which are needful in a




172         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
religious teacher. God's laws cannotbe broken
with impunity.
Except in rare instances, such as those mentioned by the Saviour in Matthew xix, 10-12,
celibacy should not be chosen. And where it is
chosen, or seems to be providentially appointed,
it should be sacredly employed to promote the
higher interests of the Church for the good of
our fellow-men.
2. Another deviation from matrimony is seen
in polygamy. This was not, for a time, in the
history of the world, expressly forbidden, in so
much of the Bible as man then enjoyed.  It
was tolerated for a season among the {Hebrews,
because from  their low  mental and moral
culture, and especially from'the want of the
general education of woman, it seemed to be
the least of necessary evils. Good men, or
those in the main approved by God, were allowed to have a plurality of wives. Christ
abolished this law, which was temporary, and
not intrinsically good.  He expressly stated
that " in the beginning it was not so." It was
allowed on account of " the hardness of their
hearts."  Even among them  it produced its
inevitable results-degrading women, alienating
the affections of children, and as the people
advanced in mental and moral culture, exciting
the disapprobation of the wise and pure.
It should be remembered that the light was




SEVENTH COMMANDMENT.          173
then dim. All the world was idolatrous but a
very few. The Israelites were governed more
by law than by knowledge..  By an ignorant
people a perfect law will not be obeyed; and it
may be better to regulate disobedience than to
have it promiscuous and disorderly. This at
least was done by divine authority, before the
light of Christianity had shone. But now,
since we have the history of Christ, the doctrines of Christ, and the accomplished fact of
redemption, and of the establishment of the
Church, that principle is obsolete, at least so
far as matrimony is concerned.
Polygamy, though temporarily tolerated in
those dark times, when all the world were
idolaters except a people living in a country
smaller in size than several of our single states,
is nevertheless wrong. It is always productive
of evil. It is justly forbidden by every Christian
state. It ought to be forbidden by law in our
whole country; and when the rebellion engendered by slavery is fully suppressed, it will be
the duty of the nation to see that the fundamental laws of marriage are observed in Utah,
as a condition of receiving the protection of the
general. government, or any place or share in
the councils of the nation.
3. Matrimony is also violated by perverting
the union into a temporary contract terminable
at pleasure. This is indirectly brought about




174          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
by too. great facilities of divorce, and has been
commended by opposers of the Bible, in later
times, under the name, already disgraceful, of
" free love."
This' is no new theory. It is as old as sin,
and its author is Satan. It has had its advocates ever since infidelity began, and it has been
tested in large nations, and long enough to
destroy whole communities and races. Free
love! Why it is nothing but another name for
the promiscuous destruction of families and
degradation of individuals, that has been practiced by the vilest and meanest of human beings
from  time immemorial, but never found any
body to commend it till there sprung up the
infidels of modern times!
I can but pronounce the carrying out of this
theory a direct violation of the seventh commandment. To degrade marriage into a mere
civil contract, or bargain, to be observed so long
as both parties might choose, and to be annulled
by mutual consent, would effectually destroy
the Bible idea of matrimony. It would destroy
that permanency of which I spoke as the chief
excellence of the institution. It would inevitably substitute caprice for law, and open the
way for confusion, immorality, and licentiousness.
The arguments adduced for this irreligious
practice are, that marriages often prove unhappy




SEVENTH COMMANDMENT.          175
from incompatibility of disposition, that its restraints are burdensome and injurious, and that
other unions would be more agreeable and
profitable. Those who advocate this free and
easy practice have much to say of "love" and
" affinity," and " the marriage of the soul," and' legalized crime," and other high-sounding
epithets, with which they attempt to sugarcoat
vice and dishonor virtue.
In reply to them I do not hesitate to acknowledge that many married people are unhappy,
and perhaps are rendered more so by their
union. This, however, does not often arise
from the marriage, but from the wickedness of
the individuals themselves, by which they pervert
that union, as other good things, into evil.
Marriage will not necessarily make a miser
generous, or a selfish man amiable, or a proud
man courteous, or a vain man agreeable, or a
profane man devout. Vice must produce its
fruit. Nor would a divorce from the contract
change the character of either party, or lessen
the aggregate of evil in the community. If in
some cases it would promise to relieve the good
and generous from a life-long contact with the
evil and selfish, it should be remembered that it
is not often the good and virtuous that seek
thus to be relieved. They are aware that virtue
shines the brighter when the more fiercely
tried. They know something of the compen



176          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
sations of virtue. They know that there is an
internal as well as an external history. And
though there may be an external conflict, there
shall, if faithful, be an internal reward. The
instruction of the Apostle Paul to husbands
and wives converted from  heathenism, while
the other parties remained idolators, illustrates
the principles of matrimony. " If any brother
hath a wife that believeth not, and she be
pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her
away. And the woman which hath a husband
that believeth not, and if he be pleased to
dwell with her, let her not leave him." 1 Cor. vii,
12, 13. And this, too, was written to a people
living in a heathen land, where divorce was
easy and common, and where of course the
people were immoral and weak. If the idolatrous parties availed themselves of this practice,
and left their husbands or wives, the apostle
had nothing to say to them, though, even
in such a case, he did not give the Christian
parties thus left any permission to marry again;
and in no case did he permit a Christian to
abandon wife or husband on account of the
idolatry of the other party. Rather he exhorted
them  so to live as, if possible, to save the
unbelieving husband or wife.
This oldest human institution, first established after the creation of man, provided for
in the very nature of body a.nd soul, existing in




SEVENTH COMMANDMENT.          177
man's innocency, and only survivor of man's
fall, is akin to those very laws of nature which
are but expressions of the will of God, particularly in this-its permanency and indissolubility,
while the parties to be affected by it still live.
God's laws derive their greatest power from
their inflexibility. The necessity for food and
raiment, for shelter and warmth, for labor and
sleep, for fresh air and cleanliness, for exercise
and mutual regard, often subject us all to great
inconvenience and positive suffering.  They
often accomplish much evil. Not a summer
passes without sun-strokes, not a winter without freezing some persons to death, not a spring
without breeding consumptions, not an autumn
without dysenteries, not a seed-time or harvest
without excessive labor and disappointment.
Generals and armies have lost battles because
they could not fight longer without sleep; ships
have gone down, with Christian missionaries on
board, because they were not strong enough to
resist the winds or waves; and churches, if
struck by lightning, burn as quick as grogshops and gambling saloons. And yet it is
better that all these things should happen than
that God's permanent laws of nature should be
broken. This unchangeableness of God's laws,
with all the undeniable long catalogue of evils
that it produces, is yet an infinite blessing.
Were God's laws capricious, the catalogue of
12




178          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
evils would be a million-fold, yes, infinitely,
greater. Men are made active, watchful, alert,
vigorous, and steady by them. Now marriage
is designed to accomplish the same end. Its
benefits are designed to counterbalance its evils
a thousand-fold, and the greater part of its
benefits cannot be secured except on the understanding that it is like a natural relation, permanent and inflexible, except on the few conditions according to which it may be rightly
annulled.
No man can estimate the disciplinary power
it has thus exerted. How, by communicating
steadiness to those united by its silken bonds,
relieving them from all further interest in the
thoughts preliminary to its adoption, and giving
to them an object for steady industry in promoting each other's welfare and the good of
children, attaching them to society, awakening
a desire for property and the comforts of a permanent home, and begetting an interest in
country and in the Church, and in forming
permanent, domestic habits, it has shed the
sunlight of paradise over this sinful world,
no tongue can describe, no mind can comprehend.  Now all these blessings are weakened
precisely in proportion as the marriage tie is
loosened. Those, therefore, if any such there
be, who have reason to believe that in their
special instances it is not what they hoped, or




SEVENTH COMMANDMENT.          179
what in other circumstances it might be, have
this assurance, that by faithfulness to the compact they bless society and bless the world; and
such is God's great goodness and wisdom, that
whatever tribute any man or woman renders
heartily to virtue and right will never fail, in
the end, of a full and glorious reward.
4. In  enumerating  the violations of this
compact, and the methods of breaking this
seventh commandment, I must mention another
subject, exceedingly disagreeable to allude to
out of the family circle, and especially before a
Christian audience. And yet you will bear
with me, for you expect faithfulness; and you
are well aware that those who really love
purity can look at vice for a warning and without contamination. I allude to that social vice
which has produced, and is fostered by, the most
degraded class of human beings that live on the
face of the earth, found, alas! in all large cities,
and not absent, perhaps, from a single city in
this or any other land. How pitiable it is that
so many human beings, created for immortality,
with all those noble instincts and passions fitting
them either for high usefulness in single life, if
that should be their calling, or for the holy
offices of wives and mothers, should be prostituted to shame and vice, to loss of self-respect,
to intemperance, and bodily pain, and mental
agony, crowded generally into a short and




180         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
hopeless life, and both punitively and mercifully shortened by an early death. True it is
the most of history is unwritten. Who shall
describe the tears and wailings, interspersed
with drunken and insane hilarity, of those who,
cut off from virtuous society, betake themselves
to vice for a livelihood, and thenceforward live
only to keep the passage-way to hell open, and
exact toll from  those who plunge into its
depths!
Much sickly sentimentality is displayed by
pseudo-philanthropists of modern times, who
declaim against the injustice of Christian society,
and especially of virtuous women, in severely
refusing to open their doors and their hearts to
intimacy with the fallen and vicious of their own
sex. I have no apology to plead for those who
will not put forth kind and strenuous efforts,
like Christ, to save the fallen and win them
to repentance and life; but I believe that a true
penitent will not desire at once to be treated
as though she had never broken the covenant
of pure society; and I believe also that the
instincts of virtuous woman, higher and nobler
than the lower reason, in which perhaps man
excels, teaches her that it is not proper to pass
lightly over that guilt which stabs society in its
most vulnerable and vital part, and tends to destroy all that exalts woman above the condition
of a slave or a brute. Therefore it is that vir



SEVENTH COMMANDMENT.          181
tuous woman shrinks from tolerating vice in one
of her own sex, to whom God has in a special
sense committed the trust to maintain domestic
purity and honor.
And since we must look at this painful subject, allow me to urge that Christianity has
produced and is producing its exalting influence
on the domestic purity of man. The ancient
heathen nations, as is proved by the scanty
descriptions of them extant, were full of licentiousness. This in many instances proved their
final and utter ruin. Our own nation is to a
large extent unchristian and infidel. A large
portion of our population are seldom seen in
churches, and are foes to the religion of Christ.
They supply the avenues to moral and spiritual
death. They throng our places of vicious amusement. They go from  the drinking-holes to
haunts of vice and down to ruin. There are
millions who are better taught, and never disregard the teachings of pious mothers and
fathers, and of the house of God. These are the
hope of our country. They are our hope physically. They will not become poisoned with the
deadly virus which God, in mingled justice and
mercy, has caused to spring up from licentious
vice. They will not transmit to their children
feebleness and decay, dooming the innocent
ones to premature death, that their families
may become mercifully extinct. Depend upon




182          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
it God is the defender of righteousness, and
mightily will show it. His judgments are fearfully denounced against those who break his
laws, and they will be inflicted.
Chastity is precious in man and woman. It
preserves both mind and heart in purity, capable
of appreciating in the highest degree the impulses of a virtuous ambition. It secures a
healthy self-respect and a preparation for the
domestic piety.
III. Marriage is chosen in the Bible as an
illustration of the holiest union conceivable,
even that between  Christ and the Church.
There is a depth of meaning in this figure, and
in the scriptural passages describing it, that none
but a mature Christian and a pure mind can
appreciate. Adultery is also the figure chosen
by the old prophets to describe the apostacy of
the people, once enlightened and his worshipers,
but now apostatized and rebellious. It is a
fearful figure.
The Scriptures plainly inform  us that this
vice leads inevitably to all other sin. It ruins
the whole man. It saps the very heart of
virtue. It generates atheism, falsehood, blasphemy, shamelessness. It obliterates the conscience, leaving only its remorse. The law of
right is gone. Delight in purity is gone. A
correct taste is gone. Manhood is gone. Noth



SEVENTH COMMANDMENT,           183
ing but a radical repentance and reform and
true regeneration will save, and the scars of the
wounds will not disappear in the present life.
Our view of this subject would be very incomplete if we forgot the instruction of Christ
on this subject. He places the commission of
the crime in the heart; as we should now say, in
the intention. Not merely in thought, involuntary and uncherished; not merely in passion,
uncontrollable in its inception; but in intention,
though it be restrained only by fear or inability.
Heed, then, the instruction of the Bible: " Keep
thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the
issues of life."   As a man thinketh so is he."
The reading, the conversation, the thoughts of a
man, indicate what he is. A pure heart is the
perfection of humanity. "It should be the lifework to cultivate it. It cannot be secured by
personal effort alone. Determination, discipline, will, all combined, make only the philosopher, who is far short of the Christian. Prayer
is the source of spiritual power. There can be
no genuine purity without it.  God must be
the acknowledged author of it. With all our
passion and depravity and weakness, if we only
do not delight in them, but wish to be delivered
from them, we should go before God in earnest
prayer. We should expect to achieve and
maintain purity through Christ, and through
him alone.




184         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
Undoubtedly, as Christ views our hearts, we
are all guilty of having broken many, perhaps
all of the commandments. Who can forgive
past sin? Who can nip sinful passion in the
bud? Who can preserve us from sinking in
the cold flood of atheism, gloom, and despair?
None but Christ. Without Christ it will certainly come to that at last. With his aid we
may stand, stand securely, stand forever. " But
let him that standeth take heed lest he fall."
Heed even the exhortation of earthly wisdom,
Obstaprincips —Avoid the beginnings of evil.
Watch the door of the soul. Let the very
heart be an altar consecrated to God.




EIGHTH COMMANDMENT.           185
X.
THE EIGHTH  COMMANDMENT.
The Crime of Theft.
THOU SHALT NOT STEAL.-EXOdUS XX, 15.
Is not this commandment to us entirely superfluous? What child of Christian parents, what
man or woman accustomed to enter a Christian
house of worship, does not know that it is wrong
to steal? Is it not almost an insult to exhort a
man not to steal?  The apostle, writing fo a
Church that had lately been converted from
heathenism, might with propriety say, "'Let
him that stole steal no more;" but would it not
indicate weakness of judgment and indelicacy
of taste, for a preacher now to give such an
exhortation to a respectable congregation a
Perhaps so; and yet I shall assume that all
honest people would like to have their integrity
fortified, and be ready at all times, to render a
reason for their strict adherence to the law of
meum  and tuum.  Perhaps some of us are
honest simply because we have not been sorely
tried. It is not positively certain but that
if we could put our hands into the public
treasury, or some other large treasury, without




186         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
danger of detection, the temptation might
make our honesty waver! Others, seemingly
as strong and as scrupulous as we, have sinned.
It cannot harm us to inquire into the reasons
for any commandment of God.
Private property must be recognized or industry will be paralyzed, all its wondrous products will vanish; the larger portion of the
world's inhabitants will perish from inanition;
weeds, forest-trees, and wild beasts will again
overspread the earth's surface, and the few
human beings that remain will, in the warmer
regions of the earth, in nakedness and ignorance, fight for existence with the brutes, and
feed miserably on the spontaneous productions
of the soil. None but a fanatic can desire that
private property should not be recognized and
maintained.
Nor would it affect the principle if human
beings were organized into phalansteries instead
of families. Each phalanstery would then be
an individual, to hold its vast or meager estates,
for some of them would be poor and starving,
others reveling in wealth. There is no way to
escape the conclusion: Property must be recognized, or man must be an ignorant animal,
scarcely king above brutes.
But it is not wholly, perhaps, nor chiefly, on
this account, that the claims to personal property
are asserted by the Almighty, and enforced in




EIGHTH COMMANDMENT.          187
his commandments. A moral development of
man is secured by the recognition of property.
Industry, prudence, foresight, study, self-denial,
regard for the claims of others, benevolence,
are all either originated or largely stimulated
and developed by the recognition of property.
As well endeavor to grasp the ocean with all
it contains in one view of the eye, as to comprehend all the multifarious benefits of recognizing property in one mental conception.
The providence of the father, the economy of
the mother, the skill of the artisan, the comprehensive power of the master workman, the
grasp of the engineer, the skillful calculations
of the merchant and the banker, are all due to
the recognition of property. Its effect upon the
mind is far more valuable than upon the body.
Again, the acknowledgment of the claims
of others, forbearing to trespass upon them,
even under violent temptation, makes selfcontrol strong, the will prompt and commanding, and the man worthy to be regarded as
possessing a soul suggestive of immortality.
If all this is true, theft must be forbidden and
prevented.
Even those who tolerate it must be few and
exceptional, and in their own organizations
must disavow it. Thieves in the same band are
not allowed to steal from each other. Hence
the proverb, there is honor among thieves.




188          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
The cancer has a kind of life and growth of its
own, stealing its nourishment from the surrounding flesh. It is rather a beautiful thing in itself,
and only hateful because it does not earn its
own living, and tends to destroy the larger and
better organism on which it feeds. So bands
of robbers and pirates have a government of
their own, generally despotic and very rigid,
systematic and beautiful often, if only they
would earn their own right to live, and not consume the more rightfully claimed substance of
the surrounding society.
But may not a valid apology for theft be
pleaded from the unequal distribution of property?  What marvelous and seemingly unjust
distinctions exist among men! One lives in a
palace, a model of beautiful architecture, with a
cellar well stored, a full library, and abundant
works of art, and with all the comforts and
luxuries that epicurean taste can suggest. He
opens the door and looks out upon his vast
hereditary acres; he enters his elegant carriage,
and is drawn by beautiful horses for hours
through his own lands.  Is he ill? the most
skillful physicians attend him; servants are
ready to anticipate every want and gratify
every desire; flatterers and parasites hover
around him; his poor thoughts are pronounced
amazing wisdom, and his silliest commonplace
expressions are received as exquisite wit. He




EIGHTH COMMANDMENT.          189
lives a Sybarite, dies in luxury, and is buried in
gold, attended by a long train of flatterers, who
treat him as though a being of a higher grade
than themselves, and a lying epitaph is inscribed on the splendid monument that covers'
his worthless dust.
By his side, or on the outskirts of his vast
and useless estate, there lives a man of a strong
intellect and a pure heart, but penury oppressed
him from his birth. Doomed to exhtaust his
energies in excessive physical labor, with mind
and body stinted for want of food, confined to
the locality that gave him birth, despised by
those inferior to him in talent and morals, and
superior only in wealth, with wife and children
famishing from the small compensation received
for his excessive labor, is it wrong for such a
man, if he can do it with safety to himself, to
purloin some of the property of his plethoric
neighbor?
Let it not be thought that arguments may
not be pleaded for theft. Very many who have
engaged in it have succeeded in convincing
themselves that it is right.  "I rob the rich
and give alms to the poor," has been the motto
of more than one highwayman. Even pirates,
when putting their victims to death, have been
known to make the sign of the cross, and have
resented all opposition to their peculiar religious
tenets.




190         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
All this shows the weakness or the limitations
of the human reason. The correctness of conelusions depends not only upon the accuracy of
the logical process, but also upon the correctness
of the premises assumed. Once allow that it is
ever right knavishly or secretly to steal, and it
is practically impossible to draw a line anywhere
to protect society from disorganization and man
from barbarism.
Yet on this, as on all other fundamentals of
right, circumstances are conceivable, and may
be rarely actual, when one principle of duty
seems to come into collision with another, and
the man may properly judge for himself which
he is to obey. Thus it would be right to take the
property of another in order to save life, to save
one's self or family from starvation; and though
in such a case undiscriminating human law
might condemn, the charity of man and the
law of God would exonerate from  guilt. In
such a case a man's right to live would override
the claim of his neighbor to property.
That temptations to theft are mightily enhanced by the unjust and perpetuated inequalities in society, especially in the older nations,
and under despotic governments, cannot be
denied. It is not pleasant to see the palace and
hovel side by side, or to hear the hilarious
shouts of revelry and the moans of the famishing borne on the same breeze. But these evils




EIGHTH COMMANDMENT.          191
are not to be overcome by theft. That, allowed,
would indeed destroy the palace and silence
the hilarity, but it would not expand the hovel
or hush the cry of starvation.
The evils of unjust poverty, growing out of a
vicious organization of society, must be attacked by improving the social basis, by repealing
unjust laws, annulling old abuses, suppressing
monopolies, and by making it possible for men
to obtain a just reward for labor and economy.
In the mean time laws that exist must be
obeyed, while the ax is applied to the roots of
old abuses, and more benign and just institutions
are cultivated in their place.
Christianity is doing this work constantly,
and with irresistible power. The spirit of the
Gospel has nearly abolished feudalism, unjust
imprisonment, cruel and vengeful punishments
for crime or for debt, persecution for opinions;
and yet will remove the entailing of estates by
primogeniture, and' will offer the Sabbath for
rest, and the advantages of intelligence and
education to all men.
It is noticeable that the old national government of the Israelites, divinely instituted through
Moses, had it been thoroughly executed, would
have rendered slavery and ignorance and severe
poverty nearly impossible. There was never seen
among men a constitution, of human origin, so
liberal, impartial, and benign as the old Israel



192          PILLARI   OF TRUTH.
itish theocracy. By it all the landed estate of
the vast nation was fairly distributed among the
families.  Every seven years all debts were
canceled, all serfdom abolished, and every fifty
years the original equality restored. It is true
that we have reason to doubt whether this constitution was ever faithfully obeyed; but this
failure, like their idolatry, was the fault of the
people, and not the design of God. As the
sun is brighter than the stars, so the Israelitish
constitution, in humanity, liberality, and the
recognition of individual rights, surpassed all
other governments of antiquity.  It shows most
clearly the handiwork of God. Whence had
Moses that wisdom, that regard for the claims
of every man? Had he learned theism  from
idolatrous Egypt? Had he learned to provide
against degradation and poverty from a land
whose slaves built the pyramids   Whence did
the prophets learn so fiercely to declaim against
the oppression of the poor, and to denounce the
severest of divine vengeance upon the covetous
and proud?
Temptations to theft were never so strong
among the Israelites as in modern times; and
there can be no doubt that one effectual way to
lessen crime is to abolish all artificial and wrong
temptations to it.
This crime is one to which poverty and degradation impel their victims. Who can entertain




EIGHTH COMMANDMENT.          193
so keen a sense of condemnation toward the
slave on the plantation or in the house-who is
never legally entitled to any property, and who
is forced to toil for his owner from birth till
death, according to a compact which he has
never consented to-if he embraces every opportunity to plunder his owner's property   Is
it wrong for a slave to steal  I will not pronounce it right. I will not say that it would be
wholly destitute of wrong. But this I will say,
that a slave who should strictly abstain from
theft on principle, would exhibit a sublimer
virtue than a freman ever could by obedience
to this commandment. His obedience would
be purely virtuous. lie would honor a commandment that could never be directly of any
great benefit to him. He has no property that
his master may not lawfully steal.
The unjust laws by which the claims of a few
landholders are secured in England, in opposition to the deserved demands of the many,
directly foster theft. There are more professed
thieves in London, alone, than there are landholders in Great Britain; and, unfortunately,
the number of landholders is becoming less, and
the number of thieves is becoming greater. The
law by which landed estates descend to the oldest
son, while the younger sons and all the daughters
receive only what the parents are able to provide, which is sometimes much and sometimes
13




194          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
nothing, has no foundation in right reason or
the nature of things. It leads to terrible abuses.
God is not the author of the poverty and degradation among meno  The Irish famine, which
swept away thousands, was not an executor of
divine vengeance, except to indicate the consequence of misgovernment and whisky drinking.
The doctrine of Malthlus, that the world is, always was, and always must be overcrowded with
population, so that want and suffering are inevitable, is a libel upon the Creator, and not
sustained by facts.
Now, under the influence of Christianity, the
constant tendency of institutions is toward iinprovement. All writers and speakers who can
reach the hearts of the people and command
their attention are in favor of improvement.
Every new law is better than the one which it
displaced. Happy is that nation that can thus
revolutionize abuses and wrongs gradually and
without bloodshed. But if the abuse assumes
to govern and to spread, and will not go down
except by violence, then Christianity itself will
nerve the heart and arm the warrior who fights
for justice and humanity.
The time for the toleration of organic and
perpetual violations of the law of right is passing
away; and wherever the New Testament with
the Old is read, warm discussion and earnest
declamation against wrong will exist, and ere




EIGHTH COMMANDMENT.          195
long unjust institutions will, peacefully or
violently, fall to the ground.
Theft is, probably, a greater sin in the United
States of America than in any other part of the
world, simply because the temptations to it
are so slight. The land teems with abundance.
Hlunger is a disagreeable feeling which not one
in ten thousand of its people ever really felt.
Another. nation could be fed with what its
people waste. The blessings of education and
culture are placed within the reach of all. The
distinctions in society are the least perhaps compatible with that energy and ambition requisite
to impel a people to profitable industry.
And yet I doubt whether we can claim to
be a peculiarly honest people. Crimes against
property are alarmingly numerous. Our state
prisons, houses of correction, and other punitive  institutions  are numerous, and never
empty. A steady army march into them, and
when released for the most part return, and
seldom rise to respectable, honorable life. And
though the greater part of these unhappy offenders come from  the miserable population that
hang around our grog-shops and saloons in the
large cities, the children of degraded people
that the nations of Europe vomit upon our
shores, yet there are not wanting some from
our own well-educated families who find their
way through the same avenues to the same end.




196         PILLARS OF TRUTH;
And not a few others, who, tempted by the
cheap luxuries offered in our land of plenty,
seek to obtain them by gambling, or forgery, or
counterfeiting money, or other forms of theft.
The number of such persons in a single neighborhood may not be large, but in the aggregate
it would astonish all who reflect upon it.
But these are not the most common forms
of theft. There are forms of it common even
among us.
The first and most common form is perhaps
idleness. What is an habitually idle man but a
thief?  The apostle's requirement is, "If a man
will not work neither let him eat." Every man
owes to the world and to God the results of a
vigorous, active, honorable life. Withholding
that, he does not pay his debts. Idleness, itself
a crime, for which a well-instructed conscience
will promptly condemn a man, is also the prolific
source of other crimes. Seldom  does anl idle
man become a Christian; and never without at
once throwing off his habits of idleness.
Every kind of fraud in business is a violation
of the eighth commandment.
Well may this' kind of demon say, "Our
name is legion, for we are many." Who shall
describe the tricks of manufacture and of trade,
by which unsound articles are represented as
good, and every imaginable object that passes
through the hands of one man to another is




EIGHTH COMMANDMENT.          197
made the means of unjust gain   Even our food
and medicines are adulterated; poison is sold
for food; and the sick man is cheated at once
out of his money and his life by the knavish
dealer.
It is lamentable that so low a tone of public
opinion on this subject prevails almost universally. Traders defend each other because it is
common, and the people consent to be wronged, or
rely more upon their own shrewdness than upon
the honesty of others. Too often when detected, the very art of the thief is pleaded as a kind
of extenuation for the crime.
Far be it from me to charge all men of business with a violation of this commandment.
On the other hand, their regard for its sacredness in many respects is sublime. The confidence of business men in each other, the regularity and ease with which the vast transactions
of domestic and foreign commerce are accomplished, depending more upon the faith of man
in man than upon the power of the law, is
sublime; still, it cannot be denied that, through
fierce emulation and a feverish anxiety to become
rich, the standard of duty adopted by many
traders does not correspond with the strict
standard of right, and so far it is a violation of
the commandment, Thou shalt not steal.
Too many regard it as lawful prey to cheat
the poor. The dependent sewing girl is doomed




.198        PILLARS OF TRUTH.
to devote all her waking hours, in many of our
large cities, to assiduous wasting toil, wearing
out her life for a scanty subsistence, and
the very garments the people wear are the
price of blood. There is no need of such sacri.
fice. The world is no richer nor better for it.
There are no more garments to wear, and the
rich even enjoy no more luxuries. It is only
the fierce competition of the manufacturer, who
wishes to outdo his neighbor in profit. He
should deal justly, and if he cannot support
himself by justice leave the business, and expose
its wickedness to others. Better die than live
by crime.
There is, too, no standard of right, in our
treatment of a nation, different from that by
which we are governed toward individuals. It
is as wrong to defraud the post-office as to defraud our neighbor. It is a crime to lie to the
revenue-collector as certainly as it would be to
lie to a brother or sister. Church members
may sell shoddy cloth for the genuine to the
government, but, though their names are on the
Church record, they will be on the wrong side
of the great account book kept in heaven.
God will hold all amenable to the commandment, Thou shalt not steal.
They that make haste to be rich shall not be
innocent. No people need to reflect upon this
divine truth more than Americans. It is, per



EIGHTH COMMANDMENT,           199
haps, our sorest temptation, and, next to intemperance in the use of intoxicating drinks,
our most prolific source of crime. Riches is too
much the badge of honor among us, and stimulates many to an unholy ambition.  It becomes
all good men to exert their influence in behalf
of a higher and holier standard of morality.
Strict morality, intellectual ability, unaffected
piety, and a contented disposition, with a devotion to the public welfare, should be regarded
as the essentials of the highest honor. Mere
wealth should be regarded as an adventitious
distinction, not conveying an honor unless it
has been rightly attained and is properly employed. Whoever exerts his influence in favor
of this standard is doing what he can to lessen
the temptations toward theft.
Still other forms of violating this commandment might be mentioned, prominent among
which are contracting debts without a moral
certainty of being able to pay, and obtaining
the property of others by gambling.
Both of these practices seem to be somewhat
relieved from  a direct intention of obtaining
the property of others by fraud, since in the
case of-debt the creditor consents to the obligation, and in the case of gambling the loser
consents to the risk. Both practices are wrong.
A debt is an appeal to the creditor's trust in
your honesty, and to violate the trust so far




200          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
tends to lower the standard of character among
men, besides wronging the creditor. It is to
throw one's influence on the side of depravity.
It is an injury to the community as well as to
the party wronged. Hence debts of honor are
considered doubly binding by all men of high
moral sense; and all debts should be regarded
as debts of honor, except those for which ample
security is given when the obligation is assumed.
Gambling is a practice which the native unsophisticated conscience does not pronounce to
be wrong. In its beginnings it may not be
regarded essentially an evil. But long experience has proved that it appeals to a passion
liable to be developed into a mania, and therefore when indulged it invariably produces great
evils. Therefore, applying Christ's rule, "By
their fruits shall ye know  them," a sound
morality must condemn it. The easiest way to
avoid excess, and to prevent fostering an evil
passion in others, is to abstain entirely from the
practice. Therefore Christian moralists forbid
it. Many a man has been robbed of all his
property by games of chance. It is almost invariably connected with fraud. Drunkenness
and profanity are almost invariably associated
with it. It was never a benefit to any one; it
has ruined thousands.
It is no compliment to the Christianity of
our country and times, that even religious




EIGHTH COMMANDMENT.          201
societies have resorted to it to some extent in
their "fairs' and other benevolent meetings,
to wring money out of the unwilling, excusing themselves by the poor apology that the
proceeds are to be devoted to a good purpose.
It is never right to do evil that good may come.
If the Church inaugurates and encourages
gambling for the cause of God, her ministers
and members must not be surprised if others
gamble for their own gratification. lNor when
the first steps are taken can any logical limit to
the practice be laid down. Therefore it is safe
to reject it altogether, as forbidden by the eighth
commandment.
Our conclusion, then, is, that a strict obedience to this commandment requires that none
should assert a claim to property except it be
the product of his own skill or labor, or belongs to him by inheritance, gift, or discovery;
and that the rightful claims of others should
always be acknowledged. This is but the
foundation of society; but the responsibilities
of property are many and far-reaching, and are
more clearly and fully explained in the Gospel.




202          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
XI.
THE NINTH  COMMANDMENT.
The Value of Truth,
THOu SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAINST THY NEIGHBOB.
Exodus xx, 16.
IF there is any faith in which wise men agree,
it is that all men should love, promote, and
obey truth, and should hate, repel, and destroy
falsehood.  This great principle is divinely
announced in the ninth commandment of the
Decalogue.
In elucidating this proposition let us inquire:
t. What is truth, and what is falsehood?
II. Why should we love the one and hate the
other.
Mll. How can these objects be best secured?
I Truth, in the sense in which we employ
the term, implies enunciation, or some form of
representation.  This implies existences, material or mental, to be announced, declared, or
represented.
The essence of truth is, that the representation
should exactly correspond with the thing, pre



NINTH COMMANDMENT.              203
senting it to the mind of a person as the thing
actually is.
Truths are infinite in number, infinite in
variety, infinite in extent; and therefore the
realm of truth is boundless, and no single finite
mind can comprehend it all.- What he cannot
comprehend is either altogether unknown or dimly seen, and he either has no opinion about it,
or he is not certain whether his notions of it are
true or false; and if he has any firm belief in it,
it is either unreasonable, and likely to be wrong,
or it is based on -the information of some other
being, whom he thinks it best to trust.
The realm of absolutely known truth to any
man is, when compared with the infinite ocean
of existence around him, small, though the truths
known by some men are much more numerous
and extensive than those known by others.
The thing, material or mental, must, of couse,
exist before it is announced, and often the word
truth is used to denote the idea of any existence
without reference to any representation of it.
Thus we say the philosopher investigates truth.
The theologian wishes to enforce truth.
" Truth crushed to earth will rise again;
The eternal years of God are hers;
But error, wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies amid her worshipers.
Truth, then, strictly speaking, has two meanings, to wit: the correct understanding of a




204          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
thing, and the correct representation of it to
another.
Falsehood, the opposite of truth, may mean
either an incorrect, a totally wrong understanding of a thing, or the wrong representation of a
thing to another.
The whole universe is a combination of facts.
There are certain facts of geography, for instance. The earth on which we stand occupies
a certain amount of space, has a certain form
and weight and texture; so much of it is covered with water, so much with forests, so much
with deserts, so much with snow. Was there
ever a man who understood all the facts about
the entire surface of the earth, so that if a blank
globe was given to him of the same size, and he
had the requisite power, he could reproduce exactly everything that is now found on this earth 
Not one! Even a Humboldt or a Ritter would
only make a few scratches, or draw some outline
maps on the globe. Probably not all living men
together could complete the picture. And yet
some men know much, the most of men a little,
of geography. But extend your vision to other
worlds, and how little we know. We can count
the planets of this solar system-perhaps not all
of them. Combined astronomical science might
succeed in placing every one in its proper orbit,
and set it whirling and advancing at the proper
rates, and tell its weight and size, and something




NINTH COMMANDMENT.          205
about its material, learned lately from the spectroscope; and that is about all. But are they
clothed with vegetation? None can reply.
Are they inhabited   Possibly; some of them
probably; perhaps none. Who knows? We
could ask questions by the hour, but no one
can satisfactorily answer. This is but one pathway in material things from the little circle
which we do understand into the infinite around
us. There are innumerable pathways of the
kind, just as you can conceive of innumerable
radii from a center toward the circumference.
Turn now to mental things. What is thought?
What is soul? What is a thinking being?
Does a thinking being always carry with it
some of those phenomena that we call material?
In other words, Is there ever a soul without a
body   Who knows?
We know that there are minds. We know
that we are minds. We can reason. We can
count, measure, combine numbers, and compare
qualities, and study angles and curves, until we
are lost, and can possibly see no further, and yet
are. conscious that what we see is no more all
than what we know of astronomy is all. We
have a dim picture of the past, written in a
few.books, representing the partial, prejudiced,
and fragmentary glimpses of several centuries,
giving us not nearly so correct and full a
view as a man would get of a landscape from




206         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
an old blurred photograph taken in a dark day;
for much of what we do see is false. And then
when we turn our gaze forward in time, and
toward that great ocean of eternity which is to
come, how little we know of it!
All this shows the very limited amount of
truth that man can possibly learn. Indeed, the
tendency just now  is to discard everything
except what may be called ascertained facts.
" The Positive Philosophy " is now most ably
advocatedo The imagination is not to be indulged; faith is not to be recognized; a man is
not only to believe only just what he knows
from  actual sight, but to discard all other
thoughts as puerile, or belonging to that age of
each man and that age of the world which
every wise man and the world ought to outgrow! The senses are to be credited, the
intuitions to be denied, forsooth!
This is a silly theory, but it is not my business
now to expose its folly. It has often been manifested by obstinate, ignorant persons before it was
reduced to the form ofphilosophy, falsely so called.
A truly wise man ought to remember that a
human soul never outgrows any of its faculties.
Polywogs shed their tails and become frogs, but
human beings should never shed their imagination nor their faith. They may develop
them, chasten them, and bring them under the
proper dominion of reason; but drop them,




NINTH. COMMANDMENT,           207
nevere.    Positive science  never did fill the
whole orb of a man's soul, and never will. Childlike fancy may be developed into a philosophic
preconception, which always precedes a scientific
discovery, and after the last discovery it still
exists. It may also develop into Christian faith
that precedes an experience that prepares the
soul for heaven.
But if the vision of man at best is so limited,
hdw important is it that what he does know, or
what he thinks he knowsg should be correct?
For who is not aware that many of the beliefs
of men are false 
Even many geographic beliefs are false. The
most of human beings that have lived have
believed that the sun moved around the earth.
The most of men now believe it, if they ever
think anything about it. Millions think the
sun and moon are being swallowed by a huge
serpent when eclipsed. Many believe now in
lucky and unlucky days, and that what they
call changes in the moon change the weather
on earth, though, probably, the moon never
changed any more in any one minute than in
any other minute since it was made! What
strange notions the ancients entertained about
the ocean, the air, fire, and earth, the precious
metals, the philosopher's stone, and the influence
of the stars? How many baseless notions are
now entertained 9




208          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
What groundless prejudices exist among the
people of different nations toward each other!
Not many years ago it was a part of the education of the Englishman and the Frenchman to
hate each other. How many cruelties have been
justified by a misinterpretation of the biblical
expression'6Cursed be Canaan, a servant of
servants shall he be!"
II. But why is truth preferable to falsehood?
Is it universally conceded to be so? Is not a
pleasing delusion better than a disagreeable
fact  I have heard this doctrine maintained.
It has even been said by divines, in their defense of the Christian religion, that were it not
true, so pleasing is the doctrine of the love of
Christ, so elevating to man is a belief in the
immortality of the soul, so productive of the
best interests of society are the practical teachings of the Gospel, they would still defend it.
I do not sympathize with that position. I would
say, Let me have the truth, though it be bitter,
rather than error, though it be sweet. I do not
envy the lunatic his visions, though they make
him  laugh. If the temple I am  building is
only a cob-house or a palace of straw, let me
know  it, though  all my hopes are dashed
to the ground.  I would rather die at once
with truth than live any length of time with
error.




NINTH COMMANDMENT.           209
In this thought, too, I am but expressing a
common passion of healthy thinking souls.
Truth, then, is to be coveted, loved, uttered,
and maintained, because God has made man to
love it. It is enough that truth is intuitively
desirable, falsehood intuitively disagreeable.
Now this love of truth is not depravity. It
is the healthy, right exercise of our intellect.
It is the one right stimulant of the mind. Love
of error is a perversion. That is depravity.
God loves truth. He has so declared. A little
thought will convince any one that it must be
so. The very idea of God supposes a being who
cannot be deceived. It is impossible for God to
imagine a falsehood without knowing it to be
a falsehood. He sees things as they are. If
there be in things the relations of time-past,
present, and future, God knows things properly
-the past as past, the present as present, and
the future as future. If the future in any of its
parts actually now exists as undetermined and
contingent, then God knows it as such, and to
know it in any other condition would be to know
a falsehood, of which he is incapable. If things
exist in relation to space, as material things seem
to us to exist, and as immaterial souls may or may
not exist, (we cannot ascertain,) God sees them
as they are, and cannot be deceived; and when
we come to see as we are seen and know as we
are known, we shall not be deceived.
14




210          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
Therefore, for a man to say that he would
prefer falsehood to truth because the falsehood
may be pleasing, is deliberately to choose to be
unlike God; it is, consequently., the cardinal sin,
and such a choice betrays already a radical
depravity.
It is the prime characteristic of a healthy
mind, that it longs to know the truth; it longs,
too, that all its knowings shall be true. It detests false cognitions, spurious faiths, delusive
opinions. It has no objection to imaginations,
if they are only perceived to be imaginations;
it likes the dreams of a poet in the place of
dreams, but not as facts.
Another reason for the love of truth is a
profound conviction that in the end truth is the
only safe guide.  Though falsehoods may delude and please for a season, all who believe in
such a God as the Bible describes, himself truthful and just and holy, must see that the end of all
false beliefs is evil, just in proportion to the degree
of their falsity; and all true faiths are valuable
in proportion to the degree of their trueness.
It takes ideas a long time to produce their
legitimate fruits; but if God has written any
lesson indelibly upon all his works, in every possible character it is that truth begets perfection and
error begets deformity; truth begets joy, error
begets pain; truthleads to life, error leads to death.
This may be predicated, so far as its influence




NINTH COMMANDMENT.           211
extends, of every individual truth and of every
individual error.  Every lie on any subject,
however abstruse, or impractical, or trivial, if
believed, is dangerous. Every truth, however
trivial, may prove to have a value. We can
conceive of instances in which lies may seem
temporarily to benefit men, just as we can conceive of instances in which poisons may be of
benefit to the body, or wounds or bruises may
help a man; but they are exceptional, and do
not affect the rule: all error is pernicious; all
truth is profitable.
Truth, on any one subject, obeyed, will bear
its legitimate fruit, though the same mind that
entertains it is a victim of error on other subjects. The temperate sinner will be healthy, as
the fruit of his temperance; the intemperate
saint will be sickly, as the fruit of his intemperance. But the temperate sinner will suffer
in his soul as the result of his sins, while the
intemperate saint will be profited spiritually by
his mental rectitude. But generally error begets error of other kinds, and truth encourages
truth of every other kind. All errors, though
mutually contradictory and hostile, agree in a
combined hostility to truth; while any one
truth correctly ascertained predisposes the mind
for other truths.  Therefore science must aid
religion, and religion must aid science. Any
science, so called, that is hostile to true religion,




212         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
is sophistical and false; and any religion that is
hostile to true science is superstitious and wrong.
A truly religious man is always ready to acknowledge and investigate any fact. He does
not shrink from facts of history, however they
may seem to bear upon the Bible, or from facts
of science, however they may seem to conflict
with theology. He is ready at any time to adjust his notions to facts, without sacrificing
what he regards as central actual virtues. The
man who is not wiser to-day than he was yesterday is not a model man. The theology of today is not the same in form as that of a century
ago. The past cannot be restored without its
ignorance, and who would desire that?
Some men have no faith in truth, as able to
defend itself. They make a cage and put truth
in it, and bandage its eyes, and clip its wings,
and then say to all around, Come and see how
much we love truth! Do you love it? then
break down the bars, tear off the bandages, and
let the captive fly. If it be a creature of God
he will take care of it.
Some have maintained that all fiction is to be
discarded by carrying out the principle of this
commandment.
This is a narrow view and false. God has
given us imagination to be indulged. We need.
it, to picture before us by anticipation the results
of wrong action, to repel us from it; and of right




NINTH COMMANDMENT.           213
action, to attract us to it. Hypotheses always
precede scientific deductions and intelligent inventions. The wildest of fancies may be useful.
They may even illustrate the highest truth. It
is only needful that they should be known as
fictions, and not regarded as true.
The deliberate falsifier is perhaps the greatest
of sinners. He perverts the intellect, which is
the fountain of action, to falsify and corrupt the
very nature of those over whom he exerts an
influence. The devil is called in the Scripture
"the father of lies," and is pronounced " a liar
from the beginning."  It must have been a lie,
deliberately chosen and defended, that caused
the fallen angels to swerve from the integrity
in which God first created them. Falsehood
has been and is the source of all sin.
" But there are instances of lies recorded in
the Bible, and attributed even to men and
women that were commended, if not for their
falsehoods, certainly for their general character."
Certainly there are. Such as Jacob, who deceived Isaac by the help of his good mother;
and Rahab, who concealed the spies and lied to
her own countrymen, on the principle that all
is right in war, and was afterward commended
as a woman of faith; and David, who feigned
madness to save his life. What shall we say of
them? Simply this. The Bible described facts
as they occurred, and not the fancies of its




214         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
writers. Also these people, so far as they sinned, could not have been approved by a just
God, and it would have been better had they
not borne false witness, though it was not against
their neighbor, except in the case of Jacob, who
was undoubtedly punished for his sin, and was
in no way benefited by the birthright which he
stole.
In the clearer revelations of the Old Testament
we are told to adhere to the truth. Liars as
well as their lies are to be destroyed.
It seems now like descending to small particulars, to insist that a man should never bear
false witness against his neighbor. Whoever
does this commits two sins, a sin against truth
and a sin against his neighbor. Living as we
do in Christian light, and with our modern culture, we may follow the example of Jesus, and
even strengthen the commandment, and say,
Thou shalt not bear false witness either against
or for thy neighbor. "Lie not at all."  Bear
no false witness; not even to do good. " There
be some who say of us that we do evil that good
may come." And what did the apostle say to
those who thus slandered him and his brethren?
"Whose damnation is just."  The apostle would
not have lied to convert the whole Roman empire to Christianity. If he would have done it,
I should reject him as a teacher inspired by the
Spirit of God. Were there one single instance




NINTH COMMANDMENT.          215
of a falsehood recorded against Jesus, I should
reject him as the Son of God, or the prophet
whom we ought to believe.
To enumerate all the methods of bearing
false witness against our neighbor is impossible,
but perhaps some of the most common classes
of this witness may be mentioned.
Whenever selfishness leads a man to magnify
his own claims and unjustly to depreciate those
of his neighbor, he breaks this commandment.
Whenever envy leads us to withhold deserved
approbation from the good traits of another,
we break this commandment. That trait of
character which delights in evil-speaking, in
merciless criticism, in slander, and exults over
the disgrace of another, springs from a love of
falsehood. Falsehood is the precise opposite of
that charity which "thinketh no evil," and' covers " or conceals "a multitude of sins; " not
from a love of the sins, but from a conviction
that an exposure of them is not demanded, and
would d'no good.
How many histories, so called, are tissues of
lies! How  many political essays, and even
religious writings, so called, are permeated with
falsehood! How disgraceful to Christianity is
the word, how much more disgraceful the thing
expressed by the word, "pious frauds!"  Is
there any reproach to our fallen human nature
so deep as the fact that the very word derived




216          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
from  the name of Jesus, the Son of God,
jesuitism, signifies chicanery and lies   Is not
this indeed "stealing the livery of heaven to
serve the devil in? "
The very air we breathe in this world seems to
be filled with the poison of falsehood. As a
destructive gas in some miasmatic atmosphere
is inhaled in every breath, so it seems impossible to escape this universal contagion. Nor
does it die out, but seems to grow with what it
feeds upon. In compliments, insincerity; in
politeness, flattery; in reproof, envy; in love
and hatred, prejudice; even in religious investigation, party spirit and an unjust fear of the
pure truth, compel us all always to stand on
guard, lest we be misled and deceived by the
omnipresent pressure of falsehood.
It is said that children always believe all that
is told them. That may be so at first, but they
soon learn by bitter experience to be suspicious
and faithless; and the first sin that most children
commit is to tell a lie.
III. Without attempting to specify the innumerable methods of breaking this commandment, let us briefly notice how the evil may be
most successfully attacked. Some of the most
efficient remedies are the following:
1. Consider first the prime characteristic of
God-truth.




NINTH COMMANIDMENT.         217
There is not a thing in nature primarily
designed to deceive. We speak fancifully of
the deceitful ocean, the deceitful mirage of the
desert, of poisonous fruits and flowers attracting
us by their beauty only to injure and destroy.
But all these things exist according to law,
inflexible, unchanging. They do not change
their natures and their shapes. The instincts
of the unreasoning animals are always a sure
guide, and if man will use his reason he may
learn the facts and laws of nature, which abide.
" The Father of Lights" has "no changeableness or shadow of turning."  What is this but
to say that he is true?  The laws of nature,
never varying, are the sublimest expression of
truth.
2. Reflect, secondly, upon Christ. Read his
life over and over again, and see how absolutely
free from the least tinge of falsehood it is. We
have no intimations that he was suspected even
of this sin. Paul was charged with the fault.
Peter actually did dissemble, and was rebuked
by Paul for the wrong v but the Saviour not only
always uttered the truth, and nothing but the
truth, but was never suspected of the opposite.
His words were sometimes perverted, even when
he knew it and did not correct the wrong impressions; but he was never responsible for an
incorrect idea. He was " the Way, THE TRUTH,
the Life.'




218         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
3. Observe, thirdly, that a deliberate untruth
always annihilates that peculiar peace which is
the greatest reward of a Christian life. It is an
essential element of Christian doctrine that
every true spiritual disciple of Christ who has
repented, believed, and become a child of God
by adoption, has a peace that no other possession will give, and that nothing but in can
permanently take away. This peace abides till
death.  It flows as a river. It destroys the
fear of death.  It illumines the grave. It
ushers the departing soul into heaven. Now
there is no more deadly foe to this Christian
peace than a conscious falsehood. It is an
unfailing poison, a deadly enemy.
It was this that prevented the early Christians,
when threatened with martyrdom, from saving
their lives by an insincere compliance with
the ceremonies of paganism. Many a Christian
was told that if he would but offer a sacrifice to
an idol, if he would but toss a piece of incense
upon the altar, if he would but disown Christ
by a word, though he might still cherish him in
his heart, he should be unmolested. Why did
he not yield so little? Was it not obstinacy?
So it seemed to many. But their reply was in
substance: "I cannot do this small thing without sanctioning what I believe to be a lie.
Truth is to me a precious thing. If I pervert
it my peace of mind is gone. My conscious




NINTH COMMANDMENT.           219
hold upon my unseen Redeemer broken. I am
cast off, a waif, an orphan, helpless, dead. I
live only by preserving my integrity. I can
bear martyrdom, which can last but a few
moments. I cannot bear desolation which may
be eternal;" and therefore the Christian died.
But so sublime was the example, that appealing
to the natural admiration of sincerity in every
heart, for one that fell two arose to take his
place, and "the blood of the martyrs was the
seed of the Church."
Emulate this example, and preserve your
Christian peace by adhering to the truth.
4. If it be proper to add a feebler motive
after the strongest ones, notice, fourthly, that a
reputation for truthfulness is one of the most
solid and substantial sources of strength and
success that a man can have. " There is a man
whose word is as good as his bond," is a testimony that money cannot estimate for a business
man. " There is a speaker or writer who weighs
well what he says, and never speaks hastily or
extravagantly," leads you involuntarily to offer
him a tribute of admiration. The fact is, men
do naturally feel some sort of reverence for
God; and the man of truth is so far like
God.
But, remember that a reputation cannot, as
a general thing, be obtained, and certainly not
long maintained, unless it has a solid foundation




220          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
to rest upon. To have this solid strength of
reputation we must have the character on which
the superstructure is built.
There are national characteristics and characteristics of certain  ages. Whole peoples,
whether justly or otherwise, have had the reputation of deceivers. The classic reader is familiar with the term " Punic faith;" and, in modern
times, the reputation of the Chinese in business
matters, and of some leading European nations
in social matters, is not enviable. Much more
honorable was the reputation of the Romans for
integrity. If the old stories of Regulus and
Cincinnatus were fabulous, still a people that
could delight in such fables revered truth.
But especially where Christianity is preached
in its purity, where the people read for themselveb the Bible, we have a right to expect that
strong virtue whose central support is truth.
Finally, let no one suppose that it is an easy
thing to abstain from  falsehood and always
to abide by the truth. It is the very summit of
manhood. It is emancipation from sin; it is
union with God.
It has, therefore, its counterfeits.
The true man is not necessarily disagreeable.
He is not necessarily uttering his opinions obtrusively, and out of time and place, where
they cannot be understood or effective of good.
He is not required to be dogmatic, or to sup



NINTH OOMMANDMENT.           221
pose that his opinions, though he believes them,
are necessarily correct, or that others who differ
from him are necessarily insincere. There is a
unity of intention and purpose more valuable
than a unity of opinion. The man of genuine
faith and sincerity will respect those qualities in
others though they differ from him. Education
and circumstances must and will affect belief.
The man of truth is not required always to be
sober and sedate, or to abstain even from giving
utterance to hypotheses, and fancies, and fables,
and even falsehoods, if he does not intend that
they shall be believed, but is simply exercising,
in a legitimate way, the imagination or the wit
with which his Maker endowed him. No one
blames John Bunyan for writing his Pilgrim"s
Progress so artistically that many a child while
reading it has believed it to be literally true.
Few censure Defoe for writing Robinson Crusoe
with such a verisimilitude that almost every
one has once believed it; or his account of the
London Plague so skillfully, that but for the
positive knowledge that it is a lie all would believe it. Divines are even divided in opinion
about some of the narratives in the New Testament, as to whether they are parables or literally
true, and neither hypothesis interferes with the
substantial moral truth which they are designed
to illustrate.  HIow does it affect the religious
instruction to be conveyed by the book of Job,




222        PILLARS OF TRUTH.
or the book of Jonah, whether we consider the
one as a poem and the other as an allegory?
And yet this caution is to be observed: that
men who are gifted with a fertile inventive
fancy should not palm off as history the creations
of their own brains.
The most pernicious example of this is, perhaps, the silly novel written fifty years ago by
one Solomon Spalding, a minister of the Gospel,
in a kind of scriptural style, which was afterward appropriated by the notorious Joe Smith
as a sacred book that he pretended to have
received from an angel, and has been made the
foundation of the faith of that ignorant and corrupt people called the Mormons. History does
not describe another so glaring an instance of
the pernicious consequences of believing a lie,
which was never intended by its author to be
received as anything but the product of his
fancy. And yet it is doubtful whether the
author of the novel can be held responsible for
the stupidity and fanaticism of the people who
seized upon the creation of his fancy and made
it a god.
We should also be encouraged by the belief
that, in the end, truth alone will triumph. Error is essentially changeable and mortal. It is
protean in its shapes, and can survive only by
constantly assuming new forms. Every refuge
of lies shall be destroyed. Truth alone is eter



NINTH COMMANDMENT.            223
nal. Institutions based on partial truth may
rise rapidly and have a wonderful growth, and
promise to be universal, but their defect soon
proves fatal. But the central principles of
religion abide. All forms of idolatry, being
radically wrong, must pass away. Slavery,
ignorance, fanaticism, despotism, contradicting
essential principles of truth, must disappear. A
belief in God, in immortality, in the intrinsic
value of virtue and hatefulness of vice, in the
revelation of God in Jesus Christ and in his
Church, in the efficacy of repentance and faith
and spiritual communion with God through
prayer and obedience, are essentially true and
must abide.  Therefore Christianity, being as
old as creation and as permanent as God, has
nothing to fear. Its defenders should never
fear. It is founded on a rock, and all its
children are sustained by an unchanging Father;
and though the heavens and earth be destroyed
God shall abide, and his children shall never
perish.




224            PILLARS OF TRUTH.
XII.
THE TENTH COMMANDMENT.
Coveting theC oods of Other Men.
THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR'S IOUrSE, THOU SHALT NOT COVET
THY NEIGIBOR'S WIFE, NOR HIS MAN-SERVANT, NOR HIS MAID-SERVANT,
NOR HIS OX, NOR HIS ASS, NOR ANY THING THAT IS THY NEIGHBOR'S.Exodus xx, 17.
THE drapery in  which  this commandment is
clothed is suited to the capacity and habits of
thinking of the people who first heard it; the
commandment itself is sublime, universally binding, and every way worthy of its claim to divine
origin.  Had the commandment been addressed
to us primarily, it might have been expressed
in some such way as this: "Thou  shalt not
covet thy neighbor's property, nor reputation,
nor domestic prosperity, nor bodily strength,
nor genius, nor popularity, nor high station, nor
anything that is thy neighbor's." The principle
of the -two phraseologies is the same.
It is true of all the Bible, that it has a style
of language, illustration, and to some extent
even of argument, growing out of the mental
constitution and education and habits of the
persons selected to write it, and also of those
who were first to hear it.  On  this  account




TENTH COMMANDMENT.          225
errors in rhetoric science, or even logic, if any
such there are, do not invalidate its authority.
What we are to look at is the sptrit, the obvious
intent, of the communication made. When
God chose human language as an instrument of
conveying thought and feeling, he chose an imperfect instrument. Its results cannot be complete. Honest minds, even, do not and cannot
receive the same thoughts from it. What language expresses depends as much upon the capacity and character of the receiver as upon
those of the speaker. Sometimes the hearer
understands more and sometimes less than, and
often something very different from, what the
speaker intended. But God has not only used
this imperfect medium, language, but also habits, natural phenomena, modes of thinking and
feeling and acting of certain ages, which are
constantly changing, some of which are obsolete,
and cannot be thoroughly understood. Hence
there is a Bible in the Bible, which it should
be the object of preachers to investigate and
publish.
From this we may see the importance of
a cultivated, honest, and pious ministry; for
without culture, honesty, and piety, no one is
competent to explain the Bible. From  this
also we should learn the lesson of charity toward those who differ from us in the explanation of parts of sacred writ, and not be cen15




226          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
sorious toward any who manifest a regard for
God's honor and man's welfare, though their
views of the Holy Writings may be different
from those which we are taught to entertain.
The principal of the last commandment of the
ten is, that no man should covet what properly
belongs to another.
There is a kind of coveting which is not
wrong. Paul instructed the people to "covet
earnestly the best gifts." And again he says,
"Covet to prophesy."  Coveting in this case
means simply to desire strongly.
But coveting, or, as it is generally termed,
covetousness, is severely  denounced  in  the
Bible. It seems generally to mean something
like avarice: an insatiable desire to get and
hold and hoard, irrespective of the convenience
and comfort of others, and not with a generous
purpose to use property to bless man, and
honor its author, God. It is pronounced a cardinal sin, and one of " the fruits of the flesh,"
in opposition to spiritual excellence, and as
directly hostile to eternal life.
It is worthy of notice that all sin- is either a
deficiency or an excess of something which in its
proper degree is good. Thus, eating is proper,
gluttony is a sin; anger is proper sometimes,
malice is always a sin; rest is often proper,
idleness a sin; care is proper, a restless, fretting
anxiety is a sin. So equally the want of indig



TENTH COMMANDMENT.             227
nation at wrong, the want of proper rest, the
want of a proper industry, is a sin. Virtue or
right occupies the medium place; on either side
is sin.
Our text does not forbid the desiring of a
house, or of a wife or husband, or of a manservant or maid-servant; or, to  use terms
more consonant with our modes of thinking,
it does not forbid us to desire health, wealth,
honor, influence, success, or prosperity. It does
not forbid us to desire scholarship, or talent, or
skill, or eloquence, or any other good thing.
What would life be without desire a A juiceless thing, an empty shell. Desire nerves the
soul, stimulates the intellect, moves the man.
Desire makes the scholar. As the wise man
saith,  Through desire, a man having separated
himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all
wisdom."  Desire creates wealth and spends it.
Desire impels the missionary to preach, and the
messenger of mercy to carry aid to the dying.
Our Saviour was intensely moved by desire
when he said, "I must work."  Desire to accomplish his purpose was his only necessity.
But there is a kind of desiring which is
wrong. If we desire to obtain what belongs to
another without paying for it, and making it
properly our own, we violate the command,
Thou shalt not covet."
This coveting is wrong, for the only object of




228          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
desire is to lead to action, and the desire takes
its moral character from  the kind of action
which it tends to produce; but this desire tends
to produce only wrong action.
Coveting what belongs to  another, if it
ripens into action, produces theft. Coveting
what belongs to our neighbor is also wrong,
even if it does not ripen into action, from its
pernicious influence on the soul that indulges in
it. It is an unhappy, fretting, gnawing passion.
It tends to develop into envy, which differs from
coveting our neighbor's possessions only in the
natural addition of hatred toward our neighbor,
simply because he possesses what we have not.
This is, perhaps, the meanest passion of a depraved heart. It is one often felt, seldom
acknowledged. It is exhibited in the countenance, in action, but is never confessed.
It is seen in the detraction of others eminent
for any excellence.  A man who indulges in this
passion is ready to undervalue and decry others
who belong to the same class with himself. Is
he a merchant, his neighbor in the trade is
fraudulent, sells for enormous profits, has inferior
goods, prospers by arts best known to himself,
such as honest dealers would scorn to employ 
Is he a physician, his rival is ignorant, rash,
unsafe, a charlatan! Is he a lawyer, his brother
in the profession, though somewhat successful, is
really an inferior man, and succeeds more by




TENTH COMMANDMENT.             229
show than by merit, and will soon fall down to
his level I Is he a minister-for even ministers
are liable to like passions with other men-his
brethren who seem  to surpass him  in some
kind of success, owe it altogether to a showy
or superficial talent, and only illustrate the
stupidity of the people rather than any merit
of their own! And thus we might pass through
the whole catalogue of occupations and positions in society. Coveting what is our neighbor's, and envying the prosperity of our neighbor, are a poison striving to force itself into
every depraved heart, and showing itself in a
thousand protean shapes.  It breeds discontentment, murmuring at Providence, sourness
of disposition, fretfulness, ingratitude, and
spiritual death.
The wise man in his book of Proverbs very
emphatically and beautifully expresses a fact,
when he says, "Envy slayeth the silly one."
No passion is so universally pernicious to one
who indulges it. It paralyzes ambition; it unfits a man to enjoy even the good he possesses.
It turns his own sweet to sour, his own prosperity to defeat.  The man who envies those
whom he regards as more prosperous than himself, distrusts those whom  he regards as less
prosperous, because he is conscious that he
deserves or probably receives their hatred. It
is, therefore, a hellish passion, diametrically




230          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
opposed to the reigning passion of heaven,
which is love.
No man will defend this passion; no man
desires to cherish it; all men are tempted to
indulge it. We shall therefore find it practically profitable to examine its causes and its
remedy.
The most fruitful occasion of envy is the
strange difference which exists in the bodily and
mental condition of men, and apparently in the
rewards and penalties of society. This fact has
troubled careful thinkers, and especially moralists, of all ages and countries. Some are born
with vigorous bodily constitutions, and in spite
of recklessness and intemperance live to old age
with little pain; others begin to breathe with
physical discomfort, subsist with difficulty, and
pass through  indescribable  physical agony.
Some have a flow  of animal spirits tending
always to boisterous merriment and unmeaning
laughter; others seem  to have been stamped
with melancholy from their birth. Some seem
to be clothed mentally and morally with the
hide of a rhinoceros, and are incapable of taking or intentionally giving an offense; others
are as sensitive as an aeolian harp, singing with
joy, or wailing in pain, as the fitful breezes
happen to blow.
Now when men become painfully self-conscious
of what they regard as a peculiarity, or an in



TENTH COMMANDMENT.           231
firmity, it makes them unhappy, and they inquire, Why are others more highly favored than
I  Then, if the mind is not rightly directed, it
is easy to step into coveting what belongs to the
neighbor, and to envy.
This tendency is heightened by the unjust
distinctions of society. The world seems fully
as partial as the great Author of our being in
the bestowment of benefits. Some men toil
with the muscle, some men toil with the brain,
from  ten to twenty hours a day, simply to
procure subsistence; others rust away in selfindulgence and ease; others still choose just the
amount and variety of labor which they think
best. Moreover, each one is inclined to undervalue his own comforts and honors, and overestimate his neighbor's. This fact is very beautifully described by the Roman satirist, who
represents the merchant as envying the soldier,
and the maimed soldier as envying the merchant;
the lawyer as coveting the quiet plenty of the
farmer, and the weary farmer as envying the
ease and honor of the lawyer.*  This fact is
palpable to ordinary observation.
I have said above that God is the author of
some of these distinctions. I do not wish thereby to throw upon the Almighty a charge which
he does not acknowledge, nor in this hasty
generalization to omit an examination of special
* Horace, Satire I.




232          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
and secondary causes; and least of all to excuse
any injustice of society in enslaving or oppressing the poor. I doubt not many wrongs can be
righted, many abuses abolished, and many inequalities removed., But while they do exist
God permits them, and they are distributed
without reference to moral character. Some of
them are the results of the sins of others, and
befall the innocent.  Thus God allows, and, as
things are, approves of these inequalities.
Different kinds, and different degrees in the
same kind of excellence, are needful to stimulate ambition and industry.  The man who feels
his deficiency should not envy his more fortunate neighbor, but endeavor to overtake him in
the road to merit or enjoyment, and if he
cannot surpass him in one pursuit, to excel him
in another.
But the condition of those who are absolutely
miserable is more mysterious.  What shall we
say of those who are doomed to pain, imbecility,
deformity?  Exposed to suffering, unmerited
ridicule, and disgrace, is it not excusable that
they should envy their more favored neighbors?
Such distinctions are undoubtedly an occasion of coveting the possessions of others. Envy,
however, is forbidden, and its wrongfulness can
therefore be seen.
1. It is a useless passion. It does not tend to
right action. Indeed it does not stimulate to




TENTH COMMANDMENT.           233
any action. It rusts and corrupts the soul
that indulges in it. It adds to the pain of his
deprivation an indescribable misery because
another is happy.
2. It perverts the judgment. Under its influence an innocent person is hated simply because
he is happy or prosperous. Unjust views of life
are entertained. The good one really does enjoy is not properly prized. Few pause to reflect
that such is the power of self-love that no person
would be willing to exchange natures with another: why, then, should he envy another 
And yet under the influence of envy he becomes
sour, uncharitable, misanthropic. Were he cheerful and grateful he would find that he, too, had
certain elements of character and certain sources
of gratification that others do not enjoy. The
rich man rolling along in his carriage looks out
from the carefully closed window  and sighs,
" 0 that I had the health and strength and real
enjoyment of yonder laborer;" the poor man
sighs for the ease of the rich. Neither would
exchange natures with the other, and if they
should exchange, it is impossible for us to
decide which would gain or lose. The least
covetous would lose the most. True enjoyment is entirely independent of outward circumstances. It depends upon the proper and
harmonious development and  action  of the
mind, and upon a conscious harmony with the




234         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
will of God; and those who perhaps seek enjoyment least have it most abundantly. "A
contented mind is a perpetual feast."
There is a peculiarity about this commandment that challenges attention. It differs from
all statutes, ancient and modern, of a political
character. It is not designed to regulate outward action but inward feeling. No penalty
can be affixed to the breaking this commandment, to be enforced by human authority, for
it can never be ascertained by man whether it
is broken or not. Coveting is a process wholly
internal, and yet it is forbidden.
This is one of those peculiarities of the Bible
in which the handwriting of the All-wise One
is conspicuously seen. Whence had lMoses this
philosophic, superhuman shrewdness  He had
before him a nation of freed slaves; a horde of
lately emancipated bondmen, so ignorant and
so debased in their tastes and habits, that during
an absence of a few days from them they forced
Aaron to make them a golden image of a calf,
and fell down before it with superstitious worship, and howled around it in miserable dances
and songs. Their whole course proved them to
be destitute of culture and thought. And yet
Moses publishes to them this sublime Decalogue,
beginning with the revelation of the proper object of worship, the One Great God, condensing
into a few precepts the whole duty of man, and




TENTH COMMANDMENT.          235
concluding with a precept directed to the heart,
which cannot be positively obeyed without a
heart full of love and resignation to the divine
will. Whence had Moses this wisdom?
The Decalogue which we have thus briefly
examined is condensed still further, by Him who
spake as never man spake, into two precepts:
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart, with all thy mind, and all thy strength;
and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
We have the authority of Christ for the statement that this is the substance of all that is
taught by the law and the prophets. The Old
and New Testaments together aim only to induce men to do thus. The doctrine of atonement, of regeneration and prayer, the various
usages of the Church, and the practices of
religious life, are all valuable only as they conduce to this, and if they seem to interfere with
it are perverted, and wrested into implements of
destruction rather than of life.
This Decalogue can never become obsolete.
It was designed for all men; and, obeyed, would
render alk men noble and worthy of immortal
blessedness. It is a kind of concentration of
the moral teachings of the Bible.
Who can gaze upon this Bible and upon its
effects without astonishment and praise to God
for his gift to man? A revelation was necessary
to man. Human history, outside of the con



236          PILLARS OF TRUTH.
servative influences of God's revelation, has invariably exhibited a sad tendency to degenerate.
Popular instincts have always a substratum of
truth, and the universal popular instincts in
non-christian nations have recognized a tendency
to degenerate.  The gradual subsidence from
the golden, down through the silver, into the
brazen and iron ages, was a common thought in
Greece and Rome. They might have added,
prophetically, an age of mud and filth, for this
only can describe the rottenness of society when
Jesus came. The instincts of all heathen literature are the same. The facts in all human
history show  the same tendency. Primitive
simplicity, temperance, frugality, longevity,
virtue; subsequent ambition, despotism, substitution of outward police for inward principle,
superstition, feebleness, disorganization, and depopulation, savagism. Such is the story of
Egypt; such is the story of ancient cities and
empires in Asia; such is the story, so far as it
goes, of Southern Europe; such is the story of
ancient Mexico; and such the dim  traditions,
confirmed by mysterious mounds and sepulchral
remains, of the Indian of our own forests. It
had passed into an historical axiom that nations
have their growth and decay; and almost into
another, that no nation  once fallen is ever
redeemed. What, then, was before the world
but Malthusian desolation and death?




TENTH COMMANDMENT.          237
Now we look upon these theories as truth, as
granite, inexorable truth. The deductions of
heathen philosophers were right, so far as
their vision extended, and they had no hope.
Heathen philosophy did not try to stem the
current of desolation with its baby hand. It
yielded and wailed and satirized, and plunged
into the same wickedness and woe, and went
down laughing and cursing into the same
abyss. It could do nothing else.
God has tried two grand experiments on the
earth. The one was before the deluge, when
men were intrusted with the pure religion, a
virgin earth, long and vigorous life, and bidden
to show their nature.
The result of the experiment was the catastrophe which justly washed the offensive mass
away, and once more sweetened the earth and
heavens. The second experiment was after the
deluge, when the elements, more mixed and
shorter-lived, seemed hastening to a similar
result. But the universal destruction once more
threatened was arrested by a sovereign remedy.
Multitudes of smaller deluges had begun to
destroy guilty man. Sodoms, Gomorrahs, Canaans, Babylons, and Ninevehs had fallen.
But God had promised preservation. The
world having exhibited, fully enough to convince the most skeptical, the incompetency of
human nature to sustain itself, a new element




238         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
was introduced. In the chemistry of the Omniscient a new ingredient was required. It is the
Bible. It is the counter power of man's degeneracy. It is the bulwark of society. It is to
restore the world to sweetness, man to reason,
life to harmony.
Behold now the wisdom of God in the shape
of the remedy he has provided. It is a Book.
The nucleus of it all is the Decalogue-the first
writing, the oldest of books-the autograph of
God! Around this have clustered other writings, constituting a Book of books!
This Bible proves its own divinity by its
comprehensiveness and its power. It is proved
that the blood circulates through the whole
body by the fact that you cannot anywhere
make a slight puncture without drawing a drop,
and in like manner the nervous energy must be
everywhere, for everywhere is sensation; so the
Bible permeates all history. Its facts constitute history, some of the weightiest parts, and
absolutely indispensable parts. Therefore, whoever would know the past is compelled to face
its facts and study them.
Who is not familiar with this impudent objection of infidelity-the Bible may have been
a revelation to those who first received it, but
to us it has no foundation but fallible, human
testimony?  The miracles may have been authoritative once, but they now encumber the




TENTH COMMANDMENT.          239
record, and need to be proved themselves!
Have not some sincere Christians feared that
this Gospel, which is peace and joy to them,
may to their children's children lack the outward evidence which their reason will demand?
Give such fears to the winds. God will take
care of his TRUTH. It is the truth only that we
want.  The expanded universe without and
the spiritual teachings of the Bible within will
mutually sustain each other. God furnishes to
each age its own food for faith, and support of
the truth. When miracles were needed men
had them; when a higher and more spiritual
evidence can be appreciated, that will not be
wanting.  History, too, will utter her thousand voices to confirm the truth, and prophecy
piles up the record as it is translated into
fact.
But the Bible alone will not save the world.
There are three external agencies to accomplish
this end. Just as there are three chords in
music, three  colors in  the  sun-ray, three
agencies in light, three graces-Faith, Hope,
Charity-so are three great external powers to
sanctify and regulate humanity: the BIBLE,
the MINISTRY, the CHURCH. Neither can long
be vital without the other two; all together are
Omnipotence and Love.
Be it ours, then, to obey the law, and enjoy
the comforts of the Gospel; and having our



240         PILLARS OF TRUTH.
selves imbibed the spirit of the Bible, labor
to bring about the time when every human
being shall understand the Scriptures, every
hamlet and company of men have a preacher
of the Gospel, and the whole world embrace the
Church of Christ,
THE END.