University of California, (JTF'T OF ^- ENDEAVORS, AFTEB THB CHRISTIA .D By j^ijscourjsejs BY JAMES MARTINEAU. " Je sais que Dieu a voulu que les v^rit^s divines entrent du cceur dans I'esprit et non pas de I'esprit dans le coeur. Et de \k vient qu'au lieu qu'en parlant des choses humaines, on dit qu'il faut les connaitre avant que de les aimer ; les SaintS} au contraire, disent, en parlant des ch9jiea.diiuaeat,au'il faut les aimer pour les con- naitre, et qu'on n'entre dans ^^H^^I^i^^W^ l^^i^^E^S^^PASCAL : Pensigs* BSPBEETTED FBO: BDITXOS* BOSTON: AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION. 1881. University Press: John Wilson & Son, Cambridge. TO REV. JOHN HAMILTON THOM, THIS VOLUME, THE EXPRESSION OF A HEART ENLARGED BY HIS FRIEND- SHIP AND OFTEN AIDED BY HIS WISDOM, IS DEDICATED, IN MEMORY OF MANY LABORS LIGHTENED BY PARTNERSHIP, PURPOSES INVIGORATED BY SYMPATHY, AND THE VICISSITUDES OF YEARS BALANCED BY CONSTANCY OF AFFECTION. Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2007 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/endeavorsaftercliOOmartricli PREFACE TO THE FIRST SERIES. In a little work* published seven years ago, the Author of the following Discourses intimated a de- sire to work out for himself and present to his readers, a distinct answer to the question, "What is Chris- tianity?" and the work then put forth was designed as a mere preliminary to another, in which this great inquiry should be prosecuted. The purpose then announced still remains, and the materials for its ex- ecution are for the most part prepared. The present volume, however, is not offered as any part of its fulfilment ; but rather in temporary apology for its non-fulfilment. Of his reasons for withholding for ~a time that prom- ised volume, this is not the proper place to speak at any length. A change in some of his views, and the consciousness of immaturity in others, have certainly * The Rationale of Religious Enquiry; or the Question stated of Reason, the Bible, and the Church. VI PREFACE. had a share of influence in producing the postpone- ment. But it has been occasioned chiefly by his desire to lay aside for a while the polemical character, which necessity, not choice, has impressed upon his former writings ; and which, until relieved by some task of higher spirit, misrepresents the order of his convictions, — engaging him upon the outward form of Christian belief, while silent of the inner heart of human life and faith. Of his reasons for presenting this unpromised vol- ume, the Author has but few words to say. As its contents were written, so are they now published, because he takes them to be true, and good to be recognized as true by the consciousness of all men: and not having been produced as taskwork, but out of an earnest heart, they may possibly find a reader here and there, to whom they speak a fitting and faithful word. Should the book avail for this, it will sufficiently justify its appearance : should it not, it will speedily disappear, and at least no harm be done. No formal connection will be found among the sev- eral discourses in this volume. Prepared at different times, and in different moods of meditation, they are related to each other only by their common direction towards the great ends of responsible existence. The title, indeed, expresses the spirit, more than the matter PRBrACB. Vll of the book ; — which " endeavors " to produce, rather than describe, the essential temper of the " Christian life." The Author would have introduced a larger number of discourses having direct reference, in word as well as in spirit, to the divine ministry of Christ, did he not hope to follow up the present volume by another devoted especially to this subject, and a third on the Christianity of Paul. In the meanwhile, he trusts that those who, in devout reading of books and men, look for that rather which is Christian, than which talks of Christianity, will find in this little volume no faint impression of the religion by which he, no less than they, desires to live and die. LiYEBFOOL, June 20, 1843. PREFACE TO THE SECOND SERIES. A GLANCE at the contents of this volume will show that it does not fulfil the intentions avowed in the preface to the former volume. It does not refer specially to the ministry of Christ, or to the Pauline gospel: much less does it pretend to investigate the proper definition of Christianity. The hope of treat- ing these subjects, in a manner at all suitable to my estimate of them, still recedes into the distance. The materials indeed are not wholly unprovided; or I should not have ventured on the pledge which still waits to be redeemed : but a growing sense of their inadequacy makes me wonder that I could ever think them worthy of my readers' acceptance ; and induces me to with- hold them, till the deficiencies can be in some measure supplied. Should the needful leisure never arrive, or should I finally esteem myself not qualified for the task to which, perhaps with presumptuous earnestness, I once aspired, I shall indeed regret my inconsiderate X PEEFACE. promise, but be clear of reproacb for less considerate performance. Though however the present volume, like its prede- cessor, is altogether practical and unsystematic, there is a sense in which it may be regarded as a step towards the completion of the original design. The prevalent differences of belief on questions of theology have their secret foundation in different philosophies of religion: and these philosophies are the product of moral ex- perience and self-scrutiny, so as always to reflect the conception of human nature most familiar to the dis- ciple's mind. Hence, controversies apparently histor- ical cannot be settled by appeal to history alone : nor metaphysical disputes, by metaphysics only ; but wiU ultimately resort for their answer to the sentiments and affections wakened into predominant activity by the literature, the teachings, and the social conditions of the age. No one can observe the changes of faith and the causes which determine them, without discovering, that the order of fact reverses the order of theory ; that the feelings of men must be changed in detail, their perceptions be awakened in fresh directions, their tastes be drawn by new admirations, before any reasoning can avail to establish an altered system of religious thought. Who can suppose that the different estimates made of the authority of Scripture are really the result of his- torical research, and are simply so many varieties of PEEFACE. XI critical judgment? Is it not obvious that the sacred writings are, in every case, allowed to retain precisely the residue of authority which, according to the be- liever's view of our nature and our life, is unsupplied from any other source ? If this be so, the psychology of religion must have precedence — I do not say in dignity, but in time — of its documentary criticism : and every word faithfully spoken from the conscious- ness of a living man contributes a preliminary to the inquiry as to the inspiration of ancient books. I am not ashamed to confess, that extensive and, in the end, systematic changes in the opinions I derived from sect and education, have had no higher origin than self- examination and reflection, — a more careful interroga- tion of that internal experience, of which the superficial interpretation is so seductive to indolence and so pro- lific in, error. And possibly, a volume like the present, should it at all awaken in others the sentiments from which it proceeds in myself, may indirectly lead to the recognition, on their proper evidence of conscious- ness, of those very truths, which, in a more systematic work, I could only aim to protect from the objec- tions of philosophy, and reconcile with the results of criticism. I have preserved what I have to say in its original form of discourses prepared for the pulpit. I have always felt indignant with those preachers who, when XU PREFACE. they resort to the press, seem ashamed of their voca- tion, and disguise, under new shapes and names, the materials originally embodied in sermons. I should as soon think of turning a sonnet into anx epistle, a ballad into a review, or a dirge into an obituary. It must be a bad sermon that can be made into a good treatise or even a good " Oration.'* In virtue of the close affinity, perhaps ultimate identity, of religion and poetry, preaching is essentially a lyric expression of the soul, an utterance of meditation in sorrow, hope, love, and joy, from a representative of the human heart in its divine relations. In proportion as we quit this view, and prominently introduce the idea of a preceptive and monitory function, we retreat from the true prophetic interpretation of the office back into the old sacerdotal : — or (what is not perhaps so different a distinction as it may appear) from the prop- erly religious to the simply moral, A ministry of mere instruction and persuasion, which addresses itself pri- marily to the understanding and the will, which deals mainly with facts and reasonings, with hopes and fears, may furnish us with the expositions of the lecture- room, the commandments of the altar, the casuistry of the confessional : but it falls short of that true " testi- mony of God," that personal eff'usion of conscience and affection, which distinguishes the reformed preaching from the catholic homily. Were this distinction duly PREFACE. XUl apprehended, there would be a less eager demand for extemporaneous preaching ; which may be the vehicle of admirable disquisitions, convincing arguments, im- pressive speeches ; but is as little likely to produce a genuine sermon, as the practice of improvising to produce a great poem. The thoughts and aspirations which look direct to God, and the kindling of which among a fraternity of men constitutes social worship, are natives of solitude : the spectacle of an assembly is a hindrance to their occurrence ; and though, where they have been devoutly set down beforehand, they may be re-assumed under such obstacle, they would not spontaneously rise, till the presence of a multitude was forgotten, and by a rare effort of abstraction the loneliness of the spirit was restored. The faculty of fluent speech is no doubt worthy of cultivation for various civic and moral ends: but if it were once adopted as the instrument of preaching, I am per- suaded that the pulpit would exercise a far lower, though perhaps a wider, influence ; would be a power- ful agent of theological discussion, of social criticism, of moral and political censorship, but would lose its noblest element of religion. The devout genius of England would have occasion deeply to lament a change, which would reduce to the same class with the newspaper article a form of composition, enabling us to rank the names of Taylor, Barrow, Leighton, Butler, XIV PREFACE. with the poets and philosophers of our country. At all events, he who finds room under the conditions of the sermon, to interest and engage his whole soul, would be guilty of affectation, were he to disown the occasion which wakes up his worthiest spirit, and which, however narrow when measured by the capac- ities of other men, is adequate to receive Ms best thoughts and aspirations. I am therefore well content to mingle with the crowd of sermonizers. It would be ungrateful, were I not to acknowledge, as one of the results of the former volume of this work, the delightful and unsought-for intercourse it has opened to me with persons, whom it is an honor to know, of various religious denominations. In the divided state of English society, a work which touches any springs of religious affection common to several classes, performs at least a seasonable, though very simple and natural, office. It is happily an office which every day renders easier to earnest men. For there is undoubtedly an increasing body of persons in this country, who are rapidly escaping from the re- straints of sects ; who are not unaware of the new con- ditions under which the Christianity of the present day exists ; and who are ready to join hand and heart in order to give free scope to the essential truths and influences of our religion, in combination with the manly exercise of thought, and just concessions to mod- PREFACE. xy ern knowledge. To find one's-self in sympathy with such men is a heartfelt privilege, superior to all per- sonal distinction ; it is to share in an escape from the worst prejudices of the present, and in the best auguries of the coming age. Liverpool, September 2, 1847. PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. Both Series of the " Endeavors after the Christian Life " being out of print at the same time, I have availed myself of the opportunity, in reproducing and revising them, to throw them together into a single volume : and I am glad to seek entrance for them to a' new class of readers by a reduction of price which their more assured place now renders pos- sible. It was not without uneasiness that I began to cor- rect the proofs of this new edition. The twenty years which had elapsed since the sheets passed under my eye had been marked by momentous changes in theological feeling and belief, to which, in common with my contemporaries, I could not pretend to have been insensible. And it was natural to fear that a book produced at the other end of that interval, must now be out of date. I was relieved and surprised to find how little it had been thrown out of tune by b XVm PREFACE. the altered pitch of thought and sentiment ; how much less indeed it has to apprehend to-day from any jar against the prevailing tone of religion, than at the hour of its first appearance. It would have been far otherwise, had it treated of subjects whose interest is critical or speculative, and which take new aspects with the shifting light. But appealing mainly to the simplest trusts and aspirations of the human heart, it is compensated for having nothing new upon its page, by having so much the less that is liable to grow old ; and, while not pretending to trace any line of progress in religion, gains a little shelter from its permanence. To heal the broken unity of Christen- dom, the scholar may rely on the ultimate establish- ment of his critical results; the ecclesiast may plan treaties of peace and fusions of doctrine between Church and Church ; but, meanwhile, those who find it more congenial to pass behind the whole field of theological divergency, and linger near the common springs of all human piety and hope, may perhaps be preparing some first lines of a true Mrenikon. London, November 22, 1806. CONTENTS. DISOOUBSB PAQK I. The Spirit of Life in Jesus Christ 1 n. The Besetting God 12 m. Great Principles and Small Duties 21 rV. Eden and Gethsemane 30 V. Sorrow no Sin 39 VI. Christian Peace 48 Vn. Religion on False Pretences 58 Yiii. Mammon-Worship • . 68 IX. The Kingdom of God within us, Part I. . . . 78 X. The Kingdom of God within us, Part 11. . . . 88 XI. The Contentment of Sorrow 98 XII. Immortality 107 Xin. The Communion of Saints 119 XIV. Christ's Treatment of Guilt 129 XV. The Strength of the Lonely 139 XVI. Hand and Heart 148 XVII. Silence and Meditation 158 XVni. Winter Worship 168 XIX. The Great Year of Providence 178 XX. Christ and the Little Child 191 XXI. The Christianity of Old Age 201 XXn. Nothing Human ever dies 211 XXin. Where is thy God ? 221 XXIV. The Sorrow with Downward Look 234 XXV. The Shadow of Death 244 XXVI. Great Hopes for Great Souls 254 XXVIL Lo! God is here 265 XXVIII. Christian Self -Consciousness 276 XX CONTENTS. DISCOUBSB PAOB XXIX. The Unclouded Heart 289 XXX. Help Thou mine Unbelief 303 XXXI. Having, Doing, and Being 312 XXXn. The Free-Man of Christ 323 XXXm. The Good Soldier of Jesus Christ 333 XXXIV. The Reahn of Order 344 XXXV. Christian Doctrine of Merit 354 XXXVt. The Child's Thought 365 XXXVn. Looking up, and Lifting up 377 XXXVin. The Christian Time-View 388 XXXIX. The Family in Heaven and Earth 399 XL. The Single and the Evil Eye 409 XLI. The Seven Sleepers 419 XLU. The Sphere of Silence. — 1. Man»s .... 430 XLni. The Sphere of Silence.— -2. God's .... 440 // V '^''' ■f'H''^ I. THE SPIRIT OF LIFE IN JESTJS CHRIST. UNIVBRSIT Romans vui. 2. the law of the spirit of life in jesus christ. " A MAi^"," says the Apostle Paul, " is the image and glory of God." And truly, it is from our own human nature, from its deep experiences and earnest affections, that we form our conceptions of Deity, and become qualified to interpret the solemn intimations which creation and Script- ure afford to us respecting him. Without the stirring of divine qualities within us, without some consciousness of that which we ascribe to the All-perfect, the names and descriptions by which he is made known to us would be empty words, as idly sent to us as treatises of sound to the deaf, or some " high discourse of reason " to* the fool. All that we believe without us, we first feel within us ; and it is the one sufficient proof of the grandeur and awfulness of our nature, that we have faith in God ; for no merely finite being can possibly believe the infinite. The universe of which each man conceives, exists primarily in his own mind ; there dwell the angel he enthrones in the height, and the demon he covers with the deep ; and vainly would he talk of shunning hell, who never felt its fires in his bosom; or he converse of heaven, whose soul was never pure and green as Paradise. In virtue of this resemblance between the human and 1 Y, THE SPIKIT OF LIFE the divine mind, Christ is the representative and revealer of both. God, by the very immensity of his nature, is a 'sta- tionary being, — perfect, and therefore unchangeable: and so far as Jesus Christ was " the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever ; " so far as one uniform mind and power possessed him, as one sacred purpose was impressed upon his life, — so far is he the emblem of Deity ; affording us, in speech, in feeling, in will, in act, an idea of God, which nothing bor- rowed from the material creation or mortal life can at all approach. His unity of soul, the unalterable spirit pervad- ing all his altering moods of thought, — in short, his identity with himself, is altogether divine. In so far, on the other hand, as he underwent vicissitudes of emotion ; in so far as he spake, thought, acted differently in different periods of his career, and a changed hue of soul came over him, and threw across the world before him a brighter or a sadder shade, — so far is he the ideal and picture of the mind of man. His self-variations are altogether human. The casual vicissitudes of feeling in Christ, his alternations of anxiety and hope, of rejoicing and of tears, have often been appealed to, as traces of his having had a like nature with our own. The appeal is just ; and shows us that he was impressed, as we are, by those outward incidents which may make the morning happy and the evening sad. But besides these accidental agitations, which follow the com- plexion of our external lot, there is a far more important set of changes, which the affections and character undergo from internal causes ; which occur in regular succession, marking and characterizing the different periods of mental, if not of physical life ; and constitute the stages of moral development through which the noblest minds visibly pass to their perfection. The incidental fluctuations of emotion, raised by the good or evil tidings of the hour, are but as the separate waves which the passing wind may soothe to a ripple or press into a storm : but the seasonal changes of character, of which I now speak, are rather the great tidal IN JESUS CHRIST. 3 movements of the deep within us, depending on less capri- cious forces than the transient gale, and bearing on their surface the mere film of tempest or of calm. The succes- sion is distinctly traceable in the mind of Christ, making his life a model of moral progression the most impressive and sublime. He thus becomes in a new sense the repre- sentative of our duty, our visible and outward conscience : revealing to us not only the end to which we must attain, but the successive steps by which our nature reaches it ; the process as well as the result; the natural history of the affections which belong to the true perfection of the will. He is the type of the pure religious life ; all its develop- ments being crowded, by the rapid ripening of his soul, into his brief experience: and we read in the gospel a divine allegory of humanity, symbolical of those profound and silent changes, of passion and speculation, of faith and love, through which a holy mind rises to its most godlike power. I propose to follow Jesus through the several periods, so far as they appear, of his outward and inward history ; and to show the correspondence between their order and the successive stages of growth in a religious and holy soul. The only incident recorded of the childhood of Jesus strikingly commences the analogy between his nature and ours, and happily introduces him to us as the representative of the great ideas of duty and God within the soul. The annual pilgrimage from his village to the holy city, which had hitherto been the child's holiday, full only of the wonder and delight of travel, seized hold, on one occasion, of deeper feelings, which absorbed him with their new intensity. The visit which had become conventional with others appeared at once with its full meaning to him : and with the surprise of a fresh reverence he turned from the gay streets, and the sunny excursion, and the social entertainment, to the quiet courts of the temple, where the ancient story of miracle was told, and the mystery of prophecy explained. Eager to pro- long this new and solemn interest, he missed, you will re- 4 THE SPIRIT OF LIFE member, the opportunity of travelling back with the caravan of Nazareth : and when told by his parents, on their return in quest of him, " Thy father and mother have sought thee sorrowing," he replied, with a tone not altogether filial, " Know ye not that I must be about my Father's business ? " The answer is wonderfully expressive of the spirit of young piety, taking its first dignity as an independent prin- ciple of action in the mind. The lessons of devotion are, for a long time, adopted passively, with listening faith ; the great ideas dwindling, as they fall from the teacher's lips, to the dimensions of the infant mind receiving them. When the mother calls her children to her knees to speak to them of God, she is herself the greatest object in their affections. It is by her power over them that God becomes Venerable ; by the purity of her eye that he becomes Holy ; by the silence of the hour that he becomes Awful ; by the tender- ness of her tones that he becomes Dear. That the parents bend, with lowly look and serene result, before some invisible Presence, is the first and sufficient hint to the heart's latent faith ; which therefore blends awhile with the domestic sym- pathies, simply mingling with them an element of mystery, and imparting to tliem a deeper and less earthy coloring. But the thoughts which constitute religion are too vast and solemn to remain subordinate. They are germs of a growth, which, with true nurture, must burst into independent life, and overshadow the whole soul. When the mind, begin- ning to be busy for itself, ponders the ideas of the infinite and eternal, it detects, as if by sudden inspiration, the immensity of the relations which it sustains to God and immortality : the old formulas of religious instruction break their husk, and give forth the seeds of wonder and of love ; every thing that before seemed great and worthy is dwarfed ; and human affinities and duties sink into nothingness com- pared with the heavenly world which has been discovered. There is a period when earnest spirits become thus pos- sessed; disposed to contrast the grandeur of their new IN JESUS CHRIST. 5 ideal with the littleness of all that is actual ; and to look with a sublimated feeling, which in harsher natures passes into contempt, on pursuits and relations once sufficient for the heart's reverence. At such a crisis it was that Jesus gave the answer to his parents ; when his piety first broke into original and self-luminous power, and not only took the centre of his system, but threatened to put out those minor and dependent lights which, when their place is truly under- stood, appear no less heavenly. He spake in the entranced and exclusive spirit of young devotion. Well then may we bear with the rebukes which this earnest temper is some- times impelled to administer : for, by a mental necessity, all strong feeling must be exclusive, till wisdom and experience have trained it; till the worth of many things has been ascertained ; till God is seen, not sitting aloof from his creation to show how contemptible it is, but pervading it to give it sanctity; till it is found how much that is human is also divine. None learned this so soon or so profoundly as Jesus. And even now, the very sight of home restored his household sympathies again : for when he went to Nazareth with his parents, " he was obedient unto them ; and increased in favor " with " man," as well as "God." Nearly twenty years elapsed. Boyhood passed without events. The slight flush of the youthful soul had fled. Vainly did Mary notice how a light, as from within, came upon his features as he bent over his daily toil, or forced him to pause, as if in some secret and ineffable colloquy. Though the life of God within him was strong enough to win the world, and give direction to its reverence for ever, he was a villager still, serving the same necessities, and pacing the same track of custom as others. It was inevita- ble that the spiritual force within him should make insurrec- tion against the narrow and cramping conditions by which it was confined ; that it should strive to burst its fetters, and find or create a career worthy of itself : in short, that 6 THE SPIRIT OF LIFE we should find Jesus no longer at Nazareth, but in the wil- derness; led thither, in spite of himself, of interest and comfort, of habit and home, by the beckoning of the divine image in liis heart. That solitude he was impelled to seek, that he might grapple face to face with the evil and earthly spirits that beset our path, disengage himself from the encumbrances of usage and of doubt, and struggle into a life befitting one who stands in immensity and dwells with God. To the eye of the outward observer he may appear altogether quiet, sitting on the bleak rock in the collapse of feebleness and rest. Nevertheless, in that still form is the most terrible of conflicts ; an exchange of awful defiances between heaven and hell ; a heaving and wrestling of immortal powers, doing battle for the mind of Jesus, and suspending on that moment the souls of millions and the destinies of the world. His holy spirit won the victory ; the angels of peace and power led him forth ; and the transition was made from the obscurity of ordinary toil to the glory of his everlasting ministry. Now in the development of all earnest and noble minds there is a passage corresponding with this scene. There is a time when their image of duty grows too large for the accidental lot in which it is encased, and seeks to burst it ; when human life changes its aspect before the eye ; and custom can no longer show it to us as a flat dull field, where we may plough and build and find shelter and sleep ; but it swells into verdant slopes around the base of everlasting hills, whose summit no man can discern, passing away as a dim shape into the blue infinite above the lingering clouds. There is a crisis when every faithful son of God is agitated by a fierce controversy between the earthly and the divine elements of his nature. Self and the flesh seductively whisper, " Thou hast a life of many necessities ; eani thy bread and eat it ; and pay thyself for all thy trouble with a warm hearth and a soft bed." •The voice of God thunders in reply, " Thy life is short, thy work is great, thy God is IN JESUS CHRIST. 7 near, thy heaven is far ; do I not send thee forth, armed with thought and speech, and a strong right hand, to con- tend with the evil and avenge the good ? Indulge no more, or I shall leave thee : do thy best, and faint not : take up thy free-will, and come with me." By some such conflict does every great mind quit its ease to serve its responsibili- ties ; part, if need be, with the sympathy of friends and the security of neighborhood, in fidelity to duty ; and suffer wasting and loneliness, as in the bleakest desert, till tempta- tion be vanquished, and hesitancy flung aside. The course of Jesus was now taken. The peasant had assumed the prophet's mantle and Messiah's power. How calm and free his mind had thus become, how unembar- rassed it dwelt in the pure atmosphere of its own convic- tions, is evident from this, that to his own village he went and announced the change. In the very synagogue where parents and neighbors worshipped, and aged knees to which he had clung in infant sport were bent in prayer ; where his ear had first heard the music, and his soul felt the sublimity of ancient prophecy, — there " He opened the book, and found the place where it was written, ' The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach glad tid- ings to the poor : he hath sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind ; to let the op- pressed go free, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.'" No wonder that as he spake in comment worthy of such a text, his hearers "were astonished at the gracious words that proceeded from his lips." The moment introduced, and fitly represents, the first era of his ministry ; during the whole of which a joyous inspiration was on him. No sad forebodings visited him : no doubts restrained his freedom : no tears gushed forth to check his voice of mercy and delay his word of power. It was a hopeful and vigorous career ; crowded with blessed deeds, and flushed with countless benedictions that only kindled him to an alacrity more god- like. Nay, it seemed impossible for him to bear his own 8 THE SPIRIT OF LIFE messages of love fast enough : and first the Twelve, and then the Seventy, were sent successively forth on a sys- tematic mission, to multiply his power, and make ready the paths of peace. The report of the Seventy, on their return, declares the triumph of his name and spirit, not only in the conquest of disease, but in the attachment of the poor and the oppressed ; and with the glow of glad devotion that marks this period Jesus exclaimed, " I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven." The Twelve brought far differ- ent tidings, which changed again the colors of his life. Who does not discern, in the history of every faithful mind, a period like this ? — a period immediately following the solemn league and covenant which we make with duty. Through sore and dark temptations the Christian first emerges into the free-will, by which he stands up and lives in the likeness of God ; and then, in the joy of his freedom and sincerity, he springs, with self-precipitation, into the mission Heaven assigns. That which he speaks — is it not true ? that which he feels is holy ; that which he desires is great and good. He loves the souls he would convert, and knows them of the same family with his own. He has con- quered in himself the weakness and the ills with which he wars in others ; and shall he not have faith ? God is vaster than the most gigantic wrongs ; and His righteousness, which is as the great mountains, will speedily suppress them in the abyss. In the power of this glorious faith, the true servant and prophet of the Lord goes forth ; makes a gen- erous and confident rush upon evil ; and — since it is the immortal against the perishable — he trusts to sweep it off and triumph in its flight. But, alas ! the time is short, the conflict long; and, faint and bleeding, he discovers that he must fall, before the cry of victory. And yet was that faith of his most true. Its computation of forces was most un- erring, for always shall evil be overcome by good, — with mistake, you will say, in its dates ; but that is only the prophet's mistake, that sees the future as the present, and IN JESUS CHRIST. 9 considers the certainties of God superior to time. This right-souled man has uplifted his arm, and done a faithful work : and the efforts of the wise and holy are not mere momentary strokes dissipated and lost ; but an everlasting pressure upon ill, with tension increasing without end, till it drives the monstrous mass across the brink of annihilation. Sad, however, is the hour when generous hope receives its first check; and with mournful attention Jesus hears, on the return of the Twelve, tidings of hostility and danger, forcing on him the conviction that he must die ; tidings especially of the vigilance of Herod, recent murderer of John the Baptist. The shock was somewhat sudden. He retreated into solitude among the hills, that he might feel awhile without obstruction the refuge of his disciples' friendship and his Father's power. And soon in the Trans- figuration, where his mind conversed with prophets of an elder age, the impression of his decease as the penalty of his faithfulness becomes finally fixed. Thenceforth, as it seems to me, not only did his views and expectations undergo a great change and receive a large accession of truth, but the spirit and moral tone of his ministry was different. Stead- fast as before, even to " set his face to go to Jerusalem," he is less joyous and more serene ; more earnest and lofty, as if his great aims had become sublimer for the distance to which they had receded, and dearer for the price at which they must be gained ; more prone to tears, when asked for by the griefs of others, more driven to prayer in wrestling with his own. If his deeds of power — which by their nature must be self-repetitions — are less frequent, he gives himself more to speech, varying ever those words of eternal life from which all ages learn divinest wisdom. And so he passes on to his crucifixion : numbering the days only by the duties that remain ; devoting himself to the crowds^ of Jerusalem by day, and to the family of Bethany at even ; in the morning teaching in the temple, and predicting its fall at night ; blessing the widow's charity, laying bare the 10 THE SPIRIT OF LIFE priest's hypocrisy; found by his conspirators at midnight prayer ; in the trial, concerned for Peter ; in the hall, con- vulsing the conscience of Pilate ; on the fatal road, turning with pity to the daughters of Jerusalem ; and not exclaim- ing, '^ It is finished," till from the cross he looked on a mother for whom he found a home, and a disciple whom he made blessed by his trust. And even this last change in Christ appears to be not a mere external modification, but an internal ripening of his perfect character, the last unfolding of its progressive beauty : to which also there is a corresponding stage, wherever the true religious life fulfils its course. When the first sanguine enterprises of conscience seem to fail (though fail they cannot, except to live as fast as our impa- tient fancies) ; when a cloud, like that which fell upon Christ's future, descends upon the prospects of the good ; when the evils against which he has taken up his vow, with- stand the siege of his enthusiasm, and years ebb away, and strength departs, with no visible impression made ; and friends become treacherous, and foes alert, and God's good providence seems tedious and cruel, — then weak spirits may succumb, able to keep faith alive no more ; and even the man mighty of heart may find the controversy great, whether to go on and bear up against such sorrow of the soul. But if he be wise, he clings more firmly to his fidelity, and thinks more truly of his mission, wherein he is appointed not to do much, but to do well. He too takes counsel of the prophets of old, — the sainted spirits of the good, who rebuke his impatience, and tell him that they followed each other at intervals of centuries, and, as they found, so after true service still left, the mighty work of good undone j that the fruits of heaven will not ripen in some sunny hour, but every noble mind must lend its transitory ray : and then, when the full year of Pi-ovidence has gone its round, per- chance the collective sunshine of humanity may have matured the produce of the tree of life. Such communion IN JESUS CHRIST. 11 does indeed speak to him of his " decease which he must accomplish ; " asks him to join the glorious succession of the good ; sends him with transfigured spirit back into the field of duty ; gives him a sadder but more enduring wis- dom, by which, with or without hope, in or out of peril, he lives and labors on ; renouncing power and success, yet winning their divinest forms ; and through self-crucifixion gifted with immortality. II. THE BESETTING GOD. Psalm cxxxix. 6. thou habt beset mb behind and befobe, and laid thine hani) UPON ME. Perhaps it is impossible for us to represent God to our minds under any greater physical image than that of his diffused presence through every region of space. Certainly, to feel that He lives, as the percipient and determining agent throughout the universe, conscious of all things actual or possible from the vivid centre to the desert margin of its sphere, excluded from neither air, nor earth, nor sea, nor souls, but clad with them as a vestment, and gathering up their laws within his being, is a sublimer and therefore a truer mode of thought, than the conception of a remote and retired mechanician, inspecting from without the engine of creation to see how it performs. Indeed, this mechanical metaphor, so skilfully elaborated by Paley, appears to be, of all representations of the divine nature, the least relig- ious; its very clearness proclaiming its insufficiency for those affections which seek not the finite, but the infinite ; its coldness repelling all emotions, and reducing them to physiological admiration ; and its scientific procedure pre- senting the Creator to us in a relation quite too mean, as one of the causes in creation, to whom a chapter might be devoted in any treatise on dynamics, and on evidence quite below the real, as a highly probable God. The true natural language of devotion speaks out rather in the poetry of the THE BESETTING GOD. 13 Psalmist and the prayers of Christ ; declares the living contact of the Divine Spirit with the human, the mystic implication of his nature with ours, and ours with his ; his serenity amid our griefs, his sanctity amid our guilt, his wakefulness in our sleep, his life through our death, liis silence amid our stormy force; and refers to him as the absolute basis of all relative existence ; all else being in comparison but phantasm and shadow, and He alone the real and essential Life. Were we to insist on philosophical correctness of speech in matters transcending all our modes of definition, we should reject, as irrational and in truth unmeaning, the question respecting any spiritual being, '•^ where is he?" Local position, physical presence, is a relation of material things, and cannot be affirmed of mind without confounding it with body. Thought, will, love, which have no size and take up no space, can be in no spot, and move to none ; and to the souls of which these are attributes we can ascribe neither habitation nor locomotion. It is only the bodily effects and outward manifestations of mental force, — the gestures of the visible frame and the actions of the solid limbs, — to which place can be assigned : and when we say that we are here and not there, it is to this organic system connected with our spiritual nature, and to this alone that we refer. "Were we to press the notion further, and en- deavor to settle the question where our minds are, the intrinsic impropriety of the question would leave us alto- gether at a loss. There would be no more reason to attrib- ute to the soul a residence within the body, than in the remotest station of the universe ; for God could as well establish a constant relation between the mind and the organism on which it was to act, at a distance thus vast, as in the nearest proximity : and there would be no more wonder in the movement of my arm on earth complying with my will at the confines of the solar system, than in the constant rush of our world on its career, in obedience to a 14 THE BESETTING GOD. sun separated by distance so immense. It may be, after all, but figuratively that we speak of any migration of the soul in death. When the body appropriated to it as its instru- ment and expression falls, we cannot say that the mind is here ; we dream of what we know not, if we fancy it to require removal in order to present itself manifestly in a higher region. One order of physical relations being dropped here, another may on the instant be assumed else- where, revealing the spirit to a new society, and giving it the apparition of fresh worlds. If we are unable to speak, otherwise than in figures, of the place of our own minds, it is not surprising that God's pres- ence is quite ineffable, and that we bow with reverent assent to the poet's admission, " such knowledge is too wonderful for me." But the confession of our ignorance once made, we may proceed to use such poor thought and language as we find least unsuitable to so high a matter ; for it is the essence and beginning of religion to feel that all our belief and speech respecting God is untrue, yet infinitely truer than any non-belief and silence. In whatever sense, then, and on whatever grounds, we affirm the tenancy of our own frame by the soul that governs it, must we fill the universe with the everlasting Spirit of whose thought it is the develop- ment. His agency is all-comprehending, and declares itself alike before us, from whichever side of the world's orbit, from whichever phase of life we survey the spectacle of the heavens or the phenomena of human history ; nor can we help regarding the physical laws of creation (the same in all worlds) as his personal habits ; the moral order of Provi- dence as the unfolding of his character, the forms and flush of the universal beauty as the effusion of his art ; the griefs and joys, the temptations, lapses, and triumphs, and all the glorious strife of responsible natures, as the energy of his moral sentiments, and his profuse donation of a divine free- will. It is true we do not everywhere alike discern him ; but this is our blindness and not his darkness. In the nar- THE BESETTING GOD. 16 row ways of common life, amid the din of labor and traffic, he seems to pass away ; though it were well that his sanc- tity should be nigh, to cool the heats and guard the purity of our toiling and tempted hours. But we acknowledge space and silence to be his attributes ; and when the even- ing dew has laid the noon-day dust of care, and the vision strained by microscopic anxieties takes the wide sweep of meditation, and earth sleeps as a desert beneath the starry infinite, the unspeakable Presence wraps us close again, and startles us in the wild night-wind, and gazes straight into our eyes from those ancient lights of heaven. And to the same Omnipresence which the individual thinker thus consciously realizes, the collective race of men is perpetually bearing an unconscious testimony. As if in acknowledgment of the mystery of God, as if with an in- stinctive feeling that his being is the meeting-place of light and shade, and that in approaching him we must stand on the confines between the seen and the unseen ; all nations and all faiths of cultivated men have chosen the twilight hour, morning and evening, for their devotion ; and so it has happened, that all round the earth on the border- ing circle between the darkness and the day, a zone of worshippers has been ever spread, looking forth for the Almighty Tenant of space, one-half towards the east, brill- iant with the dawn, the other into the hemisphere of night, descending on the west. The veil of shadow, as it shifts, has glanced upon adoring souls, and by its touch cast down a fresh multitude to kneel ; and as they have gazed into opposite regions for their God, they have virtually owned his presence " besetting them behind and before." Our planet, thus instinct with devout life, girded with intent and perceptive souls, covered over, as with a divine retina, by the purer conscience of humanity, is like a living eye, watching on every side the immensity of Deity in which it floats, and grateful for the rays that relieve its native gloom. We sometimes complain of the conditions of our being as 16 THE BESETTING GO^D. unfavorable to the discernment and the love of God ; we speak of him as veiled from us by our senses, and of the world as the outer region of exile from which he is pecu- liarly hid. In imagining what is holy and divine, we take flight to other worlds, and conceive that there the film must fall away, and all adorable realities burst upon the sight. Alas ! what reason have we to think any other station in the universe more sanctifying than our own ? There is none, so far as we can tell, under the more immediate touch of God; none whence sublimer deeps are open to adora- tion ; none murmuring with the whisper of more thrilling affections, or ennobled as the theatre of more glorious duties. The dimness we deplore,no travelling would cure ; the most perfect of observatories will not serve the blind ; we carry our darkness with us ; and instead of wandering to fresh scenes, and blaming our planetary atmosphere, and flying over creation for a purer air, it behooves us in simple faith to sit by our own wayside and cry, " Lord, that we may receive our sight." The Psalmist found no fault with this world as setting God beyond his reach ; but having the full eye of his affections opened in perpetual vigil, he rather was haunted by the Omniscient more awfully than he could well bear, and would fain have found some shade, though it were in darkness or the grave, from a presence so piercing and a light so clear. Those to whom the earth is not conse- crated will find their heaven profane. God " besets us behind and before " in another sense. He pervades the successions of time as well as the fields of space, and occupies eternity no less than immensity. The imagination faints beneath the weight of ages which crowd upon it in the simplest meditation on his being, and in the utterance of the most familiar of our prayers. "We call him the " God of our fathers ;'*'' and we feel that there is some stability at centre, while we can tell our cares to One listen- ing at our right hand, by whom theirs are remembered and were removed ; who yesterday took pity on their quaint THE BESETTING GOD. 17 perplexities, and smiles to-day on ours, not wiser yet, but just as bitter and as real ; and who accepts their strains of happy and emancipated love, while putting into our hearts the song of exile and the plaint of aspiration. We invoke him as the " God of Jesus ; " and so doing we have contact with a Mind yet conscious of every scene in the tragedy of Palestine, wherein the shadows of the lake-storm are unef- faced, and the cry of the Crucifixion is ringing still. We speak to him as the " Ancient of days ; " and so converse with One who feels not the gradations of intensity that make difference to us between the present and past, with a consciousness that has no perspective ; and we rest on the surface of an unfathomable nature, comprising without con- fusion the undulation of all events, be it the tidal sweep of centuries, or the surges of a nation's rage, or the small and vivid ripplings of private grief. Nay, we pray to him as having abode " in heaven / " and we cannot lift our eye to that pure vault without thinking how old are those stars amid which our imagination enspheres him ; how they watched over patriarchs in the plain of Mamre, and paced the night in the same order and with like speed as yester- day ; how they were ready there to meet the first human sight that was turned aloft to gaze ; and witnessed those primeval revolutions that, having prepared the earth for man, left their grotesque and gigantic vestiges as hiero- glyphic hints to carry him back into the waste places of eternity, and measure for him God's most recent step out of the everlasting. How do the most vehement forms of his- tory, the tempestuous minds that from any other point of view would terrify us by their might, — the savage hordes that have swept as a whirlwind over the patient structure of civilization, — how do they all, in this contemplation, dwindle into momentary shapes, angel or demon spectres, vividly visible and suddenly submerged! By the granite pillars of God's eternity, deep-rooted in the abyss, we all in turn climb to the surface for a moment, to slip again into 18 THE BESETTING GOD. the night. But during the moment we are there, if we use that moment well, we all see the same presence ; turning this way and that, we perceive only that he "besets us behind and before." The Psalmist came up at a very dif- ferent point of eternity from ourselves ; and as he looked fore and aft he could see only God. We, who are pre- sented at a station where the Hebrew poet himself is quite invisible, discern on every side the same immensity which he adored. Well may we fall down and worship with every creature, " Great and marvellous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty ! who art, and wast, and art to come." There is yet another sense in which we must confess that God " besets us behind and before." His physical agency in all places is a great and solemn certainty ; his ceaseless energy through all time presents us with sublimer thoughts ; but there is a moral presence of his Spirit to our minds, which places us in relations to him more intimate and sacred. Surely there occur to every uncorrupted heart some stirrings of a diviner life ; some consciousness, obscure and transient it may be, but deep and authoritative, of a nobler calling than we have yet obeyed ; a rooted dissatisfaction with self, a suspicion of some poison in the will, a helpless veneration for somewhat that is gazed at with a sigh as out of reach. It is the touch of God upon us ; his heavy hand laid upon our conscience, and felt by all who are not numb with the paralytic twist of sin. Even the languid mind of self-indul- gence, drowsy with too much sense, complacent with too much self, scarcely escapes the sacred warning. For though it is quite possible that such a one may have no compunctions in the retrospect which he takes from the observatory not of conscience but of comfort ; though he may even have lapsed from all knowledge of remorse, so that God has ceased to " beset him from hehind^'' — yet the future is not securely shut against contingencies ; and a moment of alarm, a shock of death, a night of misery, may burst the guilty slumber, THE BESETTING GOD. 19 and wake the poor mortal, as on a morning breaking in tempest, with the flash of conviction. Behold ! 'tis God ! To most, I believe, there comes at least the casual misgiv- ing that there is a destiny in reserve for them to which no justice of the heart has yet been done ; and to each, there is the anticipated crumbling away of all his solid ground in death ; which even to the sternest unbelief is a lapsing into the dark grasp of an annihilating God. So that the Almighty Spirit besets even these most lonely of his children "/rom 'before^'' And as for minds that are awake and at all in quest of him, he haunts them every way. Oh that we could but know how false it is that " the good man is satisfied from himself " ! When was there ever one of us who did not feel his recollections full of shame and grief, and find in the past the cup that overflowed with tears? When, one that did not look into the future with resolves made timid and anx- ious by the failures of experience, and distrust that breaks the high young courage of the heart, and prayers that in utterance half expect refusal ? Which of us can stand this day at the solemn meeting-point of past and future, with- out abasement for the one, and trembling for the other? — without being beset by the Divine Spirit in penitent regrets from behind, and in passionate aspirations from before ? And herein we should discover only this ; that he has laid his hand upon us, — has resolved to claim us. to the utter- most, and will haunt us with his rebukes, though they wither us with sorrow, till we surrender without terms. It is not apparently the design of Heaven that we should be permitted to seek rest and to desire ease in this aspiring life ; and it is the vain attempt to make compromise between duty and indulgence, that creates the corrosions of conscience, and the perpetual disquietudes of spirit, and disappoints our own ideal from day to day and from year to year. There is no way to the peace of God but by absolute self-abandon- ment to his will that whispers within us, without reservation of happiness or self. Then, the relinquishment once made, 20 THE BESETTING GOD. ^our whole nature given up to any high faith within the heart, — the sorrows of mortality, its reproaches, its fears, will soon vanish, and even death be robbed of its terrors ; for, to quote the noble words of Lord Bacon, " He that dies in an earnest pursuit is like one that is wounded in hot blood, who for the time scarce feels the hurt ; and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good, doth best avert the dolors of death." III. GREAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. John xiii. 14. if i then, tour lord and master, have washed your feet, te ought also to wash one another's feet. Every fiction that has ever laid strong hold on human belief is the mistaken image of some great truth ; to which reason will direct its search, while half- reason is content with laughing at the superstition, and unreason with believing it. Thus, the doctrine of the Incarnation faithfully represents the impression produced by the ministry and character of Christ. It is the dark shadow thrown across the ages of Christendom by his mortal life, as it inevitably sinks into the distance. It is but the too literal description of the real elements of his history ; a mistake of the morally for the physically divine ; a reference to celestial descent of that majesty of soul which, even in the eclipse of grief, seemed too great for any meaner origin. Indeed, how better could we speak of the life of Jesus than in the lan- guage of this doctrine, as the submission of a most heavenly spirit to the severest burden of the flesh, — the voluntary immersion within the shades of deep suffering of a godlike mind, visibly radiant with light unknown to others, and betraying its relation to eternity, while making the weary pilgrimage of time ? It was the peculiarity of his greatness that it — stooped, I will not say, but — penetrated without stooping, to the humblest wants ; not simply stepped casu- ally aside to look at the most ignominious sorrows, but went 22 GREAr PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. directly to them, and lived wholly in them ; scattered glori- ous miracles and sacred truths along the hidden by-paths and in the mean recesses of existence; serving the mendi- cant and the widow, blessing the child, healing the leprosy of body and of soul, and kneeling to wash even the traitor's feet. In himself was the serene and unapproachable dignity of a higher nature, a mind at one with the universe and its Author ; in his acts^ a frugal respect for the most neglected elements of human life, declaring that he came not to be ministered unto but to minister. What wonder that, when he had been ensphered in the immortal world, he appeared to the affectionate memories of men as a divine being who had disrobed himself of rightful glory to take pity on their sorrows, and had put on for the gladness of praise the garment of heaviness ? The conception is at least in close kindred with a noble truth, — that a soul occupied with great ideas best performs small duties; that the divinest views of life penetrate most clearly into the meanest emer- gencies; that so far from petty principles being best pro- portioned to petty trials, a heavenly spirit taking up its abode with us can alone sustain well the daily toils, and tranquilly pass the humiliations of our condition ; and that, to keep the house of the soul in order due and pure, a god must come down and dwell within, as servant of all its work. Even in intellectual culture this principle receives illus- tration ; and it will be found that the ripest knowledge is best qualified to instruct the most complete ignorance. It is a common mistake to suppose that those who know little suffice to inform those who know less : that the master who is but a stage before the pupil can, as well as another, show him the way ; nay, that there may even be an advantage in this near approach between the minds of teacher and of taught ; since the recollection of recent difficulties, and the vividness of fresh acquisition, give to the one a more living interest in the progress of the other. Of all educational GKEAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. 23 errors, this is one of the gravest. The approximation required between the mind of teacher and of taught is not that of a common ignorance, but of mutual sympathy ; not a partner- ship in narrowness of understanding, but that thorough insight of the one into the other, that orderly analysis of the tangled skein of thought, that patient and masterly skill in developing conception after conception, with a constant view to a remote result, which can only belong to compre- hensive knowledge and prompt affections. With whatever accuracy the recently initiated may give out his new stores, he will rigidly follow the precise method by which he made them his own ; and will want that variety and fertility of resource, that command of the several paths of access to a truth, which are given by a thorough survey of the whole field on which he stands. The instructor needs to have a full perception, not merely of the internal contents, but also of the external relations, of that which he unfolds; as the astronomer knows but little if, ignorant of the place and laws of moon and sun, he has examined only their mountains and their spots. The sense of proportion between the dif- ferent parts and stages of a subject, the appreciation of every step at its true value, the foresight of the section that remains in its real magnitude and direction, are qualities so essential to the teacher, that without them all instruction is but an insult to the learner's understanding. And in virtue of these it is, that the most cultivated minds are usually the most patieat, most clear, most rationally progressive ; most studious of accuracy in details, because not impatiently shut up within them as absolutely limiting the view, but quietly contemplating them from without in their relation to the whole. Neglect and depreciation of intellectual minutiaB are characteristics of the ill-informed : and where the gran- ular parts of study are thrown away or loosely held, there will be found no compact mass of knowledge solid and clear as crystal, but a sandy accumulation, bound together by no cohesion and transmitting no light. And above and beyond 24 GREAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. all the advantages which, a higher culture gives in the mere system of communicating knowledge, must be placed that indefinable and mysterious power which a superior mind always puts forth upon an inferior; that living and life- giving action, by which the mental forces are strengthened and developed, and a spirit of intelligence is produced, far transcending in excellence the acquisition of any special ideas. In the task of instruction, so lightly assumed, so unworthily esteemed, no amount of wisdom would be superfluous and lost ; and even the child's elementary teaching would be best conducted, were it possible, by Omniscience itself. The more comprehensive the range of intellectual view, and the more minute the perception of its parts, the greater will be the simplicity of conception, the aptitude for exposition, and the directness of access to the open and expectant mind. This adaptation to the humblest wants is the peculiar triumph of the highest spirit of knowledge. In the same way it is observable that the trivial services of social life are best performed, and the lesser particles of domestic happiness are most . skilfully organized, by the deepest and the fairest heart. It is an error to suppose that homely minds are the best administrators of small duties. Who does not know how wretched a contradiction such a rule receives in the moral economy of many a home? — how often the daily troubles, the swarm of blessed cares, the innumerable minutiae of arrangement in a family, prove quite too much for the generalship of feeble minds, and even the clever selfishness of strong ones ? — ho w a petty and scrupulous anxiety, in defending with infinite perseverance some small and almost invisible point of frugality and comfort, sur- renders the greater unobserved, and while saving money ruins minds? — how, on the other hand, a rough and unmel- lowed sagacity rules indeed and without defeat, but, while maintaining in action the mechanism of government, creates a constant and intolerable friction, a grating together of reluctant wills, a groaning under the consciousness of force, GREAT PKINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. 25 that make the movements of life fret and chafe incessantly ? But where, in the presiding genius of a home, taste and sympathy unite (and in their genuine forms they cannot be separated), — the intelligent feeling for moral beauty and the deep heart of domestic love, — with what ease, what mastery, what graceful disposition, do the seeming triviali- ties of existence fall into order, and drop a blessing as they take their place ! how do the hours steal away, unnoticed but by the precious fruits they leave! and by the self-re- nunciations of affection, there comes a spontaneous adjust- ment of various wills ; and not an innocent pleasure is lost, nor a pure taste offended, nor a peculiar temper unconsid- ered ; and every day has its silent achievements of wisdom, and every night its retrospect of piety and love ; and the tranquil thoughts that, in the evening meditation, come down with the starlight, seem like the serenade of angels, bringing in melody the peace of God! Wherever this picture is realized, it is not by microscopic solicitude of spirit, but by comprehension of mind and enlargement of heart; by that breadth and nicety of moral view which discerns every thing in due proportion, and, in avoiding an intense elaboration of trifles, has energy to spare for what is great; in short, by a perception akin to that of God, whose providing frugality is on an infinite scale, vigilant alike in heaven and on earth ; whose art colors a universe with beauty, and touches with its pencil the petals of a flower. A soul thus pure and large disowns the paltry rules of dignity, the silly notions of great and mean, by which fashion distorts God's real proportions ; is utterly delivered from the spirit of contempt ; and, in consulting for the benign administration of life, will learn many a task, and discharge many an office, from which lesser beings, esteeming them- selves greater, would shrink as ignoble. But, in truth, nothing is degrading which a high and graceful purpose ennobles; and ofl[ices the most menial cease to be menial, the moment they are wrought in love. What thousand 26 GREAT PRINCIELES AND SMALL DUTIES. services are rendered, ay and by delicate hands, around the bed of sickness, which, else considered mean, become at once holy and quite inalienable rights ! To smooth the pillow, to proffer the draught, to soothe or to obey the fancies of the delirious will, to sit for hours as a mere senti- nel of the feverish sleep, — these things are suddenly erected, by their relation to hope and life, into sacred privileges. And experience is perpetually bringing occasions, similar in kind though of less persuasive poignancy, when a true eye and a lovely heart will quickly see the relations of things thrown into a new position, and calling for a sacrifice of conventional order to the higher laws of the affections ; and, alike without condescension and without ostentation, will noiselessly take the post of gentle service and do the kindly deed. Thus is it that the lesser graces display themselves most richly, like the leaves and flowers of life, where there is the deepest and the widest root of love ; not like the staring and artificial blossoms of dry custom that, winter or summer, cannot change ; but living petals woven in Nature's workshop and folded by her tender skill, opening and shut- ting morning and night, glancing and trembling in the sun- shine and the breeze. This easy capacity of great affections for small duties is the peculiar triumph of the highest spirit of love. The same application of the loftiest principles to the most minute details is still more perceptible when we rise a step higher, and, from the operations of knowledge and of love, turn to notice the agency of high religious faith. In the management and conquest of the daily disappointments and small vexations which befall every life, — the life of the idle and luxurious no less than of the busy and struggling, — only a devout mind attains to any real success, and evinces a triumphant power. Who has not observed how wonder- fully the mere insect-cares, that are ever on the wing in the noon-day heat of life, have power to sting and to annoy even the giant minds around which they sport, and to provoke GREAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. 27 them into the most unseemly war? The finest sense, the profoundest knowledge, the most unquestionable taste, often prove an unequal match for insignificant irritations ; and a man whose philosophy subdues nature, and whose force of thought and purpose gives him ascendency over men, may keep, in his own temper, an unvanquished enemy at home. Nor is this found only in cases of great self-ignorance, or impaired vigor in the moral sense. Even where the evil is self-confessed and felt as a perpetual shame, where the conscience sets up against it an honest and firm resistance, it is quite possible that very little progress may be made, and very little quietness attained. This is one of the many forms of duty in which mere moral conviction, however clear and strong, will continually fail. You may be per- suaded that it is wrong to be provoked ; you may repeat to yourself that it is useless ; you may command your lips to silence, and breathe no angry word : and yet withal the per- turbation is not gone, but only dumb ; the conquest is not made, but the defeat concealed. There is nothing in the efforts of volition that has power to change the point of mental view ; these self-strivings do not lift you out of the level of your trial ; you remain imprisoned in the midst of it, wrestle with its miseries as you may ; wanting the uplift- ing faith, by which you escape from it, and look down upon it. It may be very absurd, nay very immoral, to be teased by trifles; but alas! while you remain in the dust, reason as you may, it will annoy you ; and there is no help for it, but to retire into a higher and grassier region, where the sultry road is visible from afar. We must go in contempla- tion out of life, ere we can see how its troubles subside and are lost, like evanescent waves, in the deeps of eternity and the immensity of God. A mind that can make this migra- tion from the scene by which it is surrounded, is removed from all vain strife of will, and gains its tranquillity without an efibrt ; feels no difliculty in being gentle and serene, but rather wonders that it could ever be tempted from its pure 28 GREAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. repose. How welcome would it often be to many a child of anxiety and toil, to be suddenly transferred from the heat and din of the city, the restlessness and worry of the mart, to the midnight garden or the mountain top ! And like refreshment does a high faith, with its infinite prospects ever open to the heart, afford to the worn and weary : no labori- ous travels are needed for the devout mind ; for it carries within it Alpine heights and starlit skies, which it may reach with a moment's thought, and feel at once the loneli- ness of nature, and the magnificence of God. Nor is it only in the government of ourselves that high faith is found the most efficient aid for the less dignified duties. In the services which benevolence must render to others, the same truth is exemplified ; and the humblest and homeliest form of benevolence — attention to the grievances and sufferings of the body — receives its most powerful motive from the sublimest of all truths, the doctrine of human immortality. A different result might perhaps have been anticipated. It might have been thought that for the truest sympathy with the pains of disease and the priva- tions of infirmity, we must look to the disciples of material- ism and annihilation ; that they who take the body to be our all, would most vehemently deplore its fragility, and most affectionately tend its decline ; that no love would be so faithful as that which believed, at the death-bed of a friend, that the real last look, the absolute farewell, was drawing nigh. On the theory of extinction, oh, with what close embrace would it seem natural to cling to each sink- ing life, — like kindred in shipwreck that cannot part ! The vivid expectation of futurity, which has so often led the believer to ascetic contempt for his own physical wants, would appear only consistent, if it passed by in equal scorn the bodily miseries of others. But it has not been so. In this, as in all the other instances, it appears that the sublim- est instruments of the mind are the best fitted to the most homely offices of duty ; and that truths the most divine are GREAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES. 29 the gentlest servitors of wants the most humiliating. In the eye of one who looks on his fellow-man as a compound being, the immortal element imparts, not meanness, but a species of sanctity, to the mortal ; just as the worshipper feels that of the temple whose space has been set apart for God the very stones are sacred, and the pavement claims a venerating tread. It is this constant penetration to the mind within, this recognition of something that is not seen, that overcomes the physical repulsiveness of corporeal want and pain, and gives a tranquil patience to the Christian who watches the ravages of disease and the approach of death. ISTay, when he sees the soul, which is the heir of heaven, prostrated and tortured by a wretched frame, he thinks it almost an indignity that so kingly a habitant should pine in so poor a cell, and a native of the light itself cry thus aloud in dark captivity; and with touched and generous heart he flies to the sufferer, with such help and succor as he may. Let us,- then, cherish and revere the great sentiments which we assemble here to pour forth in worship, not as the occasional solace or the weekly dignities of our exist- ence ; but as truths that naturally penetrate to the very heart of life's activity, and best administer even the small frugalities of conscience. Nothing less than the majesty of God and the powers of the world to come can maintain the peace and sanctity of our homes, the order and serenity of our minds, the spirit of patience and tender mercy in our hearts. Then only shall we wisely economize moments when we anticipate for ourselves an eternity and lose no grain of wisdom, when we discern the glorious and immor- tal structure which its successive accumulations shall raise. Then will even the merest drudgery of duty cease to hum- ble us, when we transfigure it by the glory of our own spirit. Seek ye then the things that aje ^QXfi>_where yotir life is hid with Christ in God. y^^^^-i-^^^ ~-->v